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The goal of this volume is to explore and make sense of the overall scope implications and consequences of shifting discourses of war peace and neutrality across time and space in relation to conflict-ridden geopolitical environments characterized by power struggles political polarizations divergent goal settings and ideological confrontations (from the Russo-Japanese war 1904–1905 to Russia’s war against Ukraine 2022-present). Through a broad range of cutting-edge case studies (Finland Germany India Japan Poland Romania Russia/Soviet Union/Russian Federation Slovakia Sweden The Netherlands Ukraine USA) the authors go beyond mainstream studies on war and peace by challenging existing paradigms and undergoing in-depth scrutiny of discourse argumentation strategies historical metanarratives reflective storytelling and visual mediatization. Readers are called upon to reflect on evaluate and discuss issues raised by questions like the following: To what extent are dogmatic and power-based discourse practices consequential in the evolution of political language and the language of international diplomacy regarding processes of war peace and neutrality? In what ways have the mainstream and alternative news media changed the war reporting style the audience-oriented verbal and visual communication strategies and the emotion-triggering narratives?Reaching beyond the boundaries of pragmatics and discourse analysis this book should be a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners of rhetoric argumentation media studies history social and political sciences.

This book offers the first systematic investigation of the instrumental role across syntax semantics and language acquisition. Focusing primarily on Italian within a comparative perspective the book addresses a long-standing puzzle: why Instruments can be syntactically omitted even when they remain semantically present.Combining theoretical analysis with experimental evidence corpus data and innovative methodologies the study redefines the status of Instruments with respect to the argument-adjunct distinction and introduces a new principled account of their syntactic omission based on semantic recoverability. It proposes a refined typology of Instruments grounded in verb meaning and contextual factors and tests its predictions through behavioral experiments and large-scale corpus analyses.The book also breaks new ground in acquisition research presenting the first experimental investigation of how Italian-speaking children acquire Instruments. The results reveal a striking dissociation between early syntactic mastery and the slower development of Instrument semantic recoverability shedding new light on the acquisition of syntactically optional elements.By integrating syntax semantics and acquisition Silent Instruments provides a robust and empirically grounded framework that is readily applicable to cross-linguistic research and to other phenomena at the syntax-semantics interface. It will be of interest to linguists working on argument structure optionality language acquisition and experimental and corpus-based approaches to grammar.

Register and Discourse through the Lens of Corpus Linguistics offers a rigorous and engaging exploration of two of the field’s most dynamic areas. Drawing on key frameworks – including Construction Grammar Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies Speech Act Theory and Local Grammar – the volume showcases how qualitative and quantitative corpus-driven methods illuminate the interplay between linguistic form communicative function and contextual embedding. Across eleven chapters contributors examine a breadth of linguistic features from swearing syntactic fragments prenominal modification nonstandard forms and phraseology to interruption and humour expressive acts epistemic presupposition expertise and predictive stance. The studies span diverse settings – teen talk Reddit forums news media historical newspapers workplace interaction political debate and economic discourse – and incorporate synchronic and diachronic perspectives as well as cross-linguistic comparisons. Collectively the chapters demonstrate how register and discourse intersect as mutually informing dimensions of language use enriching established research traditions and offering practical models for future inquiry. Their insights extend beyond corpus linguistics resonating with scholarship in sociolinguistics pragmatics World Englishes and applied linguistics.

Root syntax with roots as primitive lexical units is an influential theme in building the lexicon in linguistic theory typically in Distributed Morphology and the generative model of minimal computation. Implementing important fragments of the Arabic lexicon the book presents a comprehensive view of word formation and argument structure providing robust evidence that favors root-based rather than stem-based derivations of words. Tested on Arabic a language wearing DM ‘on its sleeve’ the DM model gains substantial support and refinement. Significant templatic affixes turn out to be roots. Valency changing causatives anti-causatives reflexives or nominalizations implicate root complexity not category change. Psych perception and cognition eventuality classes are born as root subtypes not ‘verb’ classes. Category changing deverbalizations deadjectivations or denominalizations are supplemented by complex root derivations. Melodic templates operate ‘templatization’ (e.g. with adjectives) or act as functional templates for Voice and Aspect (e.g. with passives) or gradation (with synthetic comparatives) after category typing. The book is of interest to generative and comparative linguists cognitivists typologists lexicographers and students teachers and researchers of Arabic or Semitic

This book offers the first comprehensive analysis of the Dutch–French contact situation in the Early and Late Modern period when the Dutch language and culture supposedly underwent frenchification in various spheres of life. Bringing together empirical approaches based on a wide range of datasets this volume not only delves deeply into an intriguing case study in historical multilingualism and language contact but also offers detailed theoretical and methodological background information on how to analyse such an enduring contact situation from a historical-sociolinguistic perspective. The Dutch–French case is approached from three interrelated angles focusing on the Netherlands between 1500 and 1900: contact-induced change in historical Dutch language choice and language shift in the private and the public domain and language-ideological change.

Zero elements are used by several theories in morphology and syntax as analytical tool but the question of whether phonologically empty elements should be structurally present or not has been a controversial issue from the very beginning. In addition to analyses that work with zero there are also a whole series of works that explicitly reject a description with zero or allow them only under restricted circumstances. This volume aims at getting a more complete picture of zero elements as a theoretic construct its empirical necessity and its nature in different components of grammar by focusing on Romance languages. The volume presents multi-facetted viewpoints and methodologies such as formal theoretic and data-based ones addressing researchers advanced students and everyone interested in linguistics. Furthermore this volume deals with various Romance languages and varieties such as Catalan (Old and Modern) French Italian and Sicilian (Brazilian and European) Portuguese and Spanish.

Intralingual Translation: Beyond language and text offers an innovative wide-ranging exploration of translation within the same language bringing together leading international scholars from diverse linguistic and disciplinary backgrounds. Spanning theoretical reflections empirical studies and historical analyses the volume addresses the rich spectrum of intralingual practices from plain language and accessibility adaptations to diachronic rewritings of historical texts. The first section investigates various aspects of the “Intralingual Sphere” and its connections to other modes of translation. The second part explores the rapidly developing field of accessibility and simplification including Easy Language plain language and graded readers. The book concludes with in-depth studies of diachronic translation across different historical layers of the French Italian and Latin languages. Originating in an international workshop these contributions highlight intralingual translation as a multi-faceted and socially situated activity offering new insights into its theoretical boundaries practical challenges and cultural significance.

This volume presents recent research in colour studies with a particular focus on language offering both continuity and innovation within the field. All chapters are developed from papers first presented at the Progress in Colour Studies 2022 (PICS2022) conference held at Tallinn University Estonia. Building on the results of earlier PICS meetings and publications this book continues the series’ tradition of offering fresh perspectives on colour across languages and cultures.The contributions examine colour in linguistic contexts ranging from semantics and pragmatics to translation lexicography and discourse employing approaches such as corpus-based analysis and experimental methods. Some chapters formulate broad discussions on colour and its role in language and culture while others present in-depth studies of single colour terms such those denoting red green grey orange or beige. The volume’s international scope is reflected in the diversity of languages represented.The book opens with an editorial preface situating the contributions within the broader field. It also includes a comprehensive subject index and numerous illustrations. Taken together these studies make the volume an essential resource for scholars interested in the linguistic dimensions of colour and their broader cognitive and cultural implications.

After an original foreword from Andreas Musolff setting the stage of the book Crises We Live By offers a series of case studies that highlight different ways of conceptualizing and speaking about crisis above all metaphorically. Its title echoes Lakoff and Johnson’s famous Metaphors We Live By (1980) and speaks to the unprecedented awareness of the theme of crisis and its conceptualization that has emerged in contemporary media and discourse. The book makes an innovative contribution to crisis studies and to Cognitive Metaphor Theory (CMT) by extending its historical reach back to antiquity and by adopting a transdisciplinary approach that takes into account the specific cultural context and framing of each metaphor for crisis.

This volume explores the synergy between historical and cognitive linguistics demonstrating how the two can jointly shed light on patterns of language change. Focusing on figurative language particularly metaphor and metonymy it features a range of case studies that zoom in on the emergence and evolution of meaning across time with chapters addressing among other topics diachronic changes in the semantics of nouns (e.g. for emotions) and speech act verbs. Beyond lexical and grammatical change the volume engages with broader issues such as belief systems the conceptualization of the future intersubjectification etymology and prototype theory. The contributors employ a variety of theoretical and methodological frameworks including diachronic morphology cultural history and both exploratory and confirmatory statistics. Together these studies exemplify the potential of interdisciplinary approaches and invite further dialogue on the tools and theories suited to tracing the evolution of figurative thought and language over time.