Browse Books

From the author’s preface: "I once facetiously stated: 'Syntax is to semantics as the hole of the doughnut is to the whole of the doughnut.' Semantics without syntax thus is like a doughnut without a hole. This was in the heyday of generative semantics and having heard that my major interest was syntax someone was able perhaps also facetiously to respond: 'Does it exist?' Most of the papers collected here originated in those days and previously appeared in various linguistic journals and anthologies. The reader may note that the topics dealt with in these papers all have their roots in syntax but in most cases relate to its boundary areas. The boundary areas are not restricted to semantics but the above analogy of the doughnut might still apply to what syntax is to those boundary areas. Hence the title of the book."

This two-volume collection of papers was brought together in honor of Oswald Szemerényi on the occasion of his 65th birthday. The volumes contain 70 papers most of which deal with Indo-European (historical) linguistics.

This guide provides brief descriptions and evaluations of the best reference grammars and comprehensive works on the syntax of contemporary French Italian Portuguese Spanish Catalan and Rumanian.

Over the past few years interest and research in experimental linguistics has shifted more toward centre stage perhaps because of the growing recognition that purely theoretical formulations and speculations about language must necessarily be tested against the empirical facts of language knowledge use and acquisition. To highlight some aspects of empirical linguistics a conference was organized in 1978 at University of Alberta at which six prominent scholars were invited to present substantial contributions. These papers are included in this volume together with an epilogue summing up and discussing the recurrent themes of the conference and a general bibliography.

The volume attempts to deal with equational sentences in Egyptian Colloquial Arabic and their remote structure. In this unique monograph Mohamed Sami Anwar oes to show that equational sentences in Egyptian Colloquial Arabic are derived from underlying sentences that have transitive or intransitive verbs and that the verb be in its overt form is only a tense marker. The chapter following the introduction deals with the equational sentences functioning as conveyers of stative ideas. The third chapter deals with the verb be in Egyptian Colloquial Arabic and how it functions only as a tense marker. The fourth chapter is an analysis of determination as regards the subject and why in some cases the predicate at the surface structure has to occur before the subject. The final chapter deals with the predicate slot and its types of fillers and analyzes also the remote structure of the equational sentences to interpret the phenomenon of the presence and absence of agreement in number and gender between the subject and the predicate.

The term ‘word order studies’ designates an area of syntax which has become an increasingly central theme in linguistic research. Since in at least a narrow sense syntax is the study of how meaningful elements are put together to form sentences a preoccupation with word order would seem inherent in any syntactic study. However the focus implied by ‘word order studies’ is anything but trivial going as it does to the heart of two vital areas of linguistic theory: language universals and the form of linguistic models. The present collection of papers offers the reader an opportunity to examine some of the more recent ideas in this broad area concentrating on some of the more controversial issues within the generative-transformational model.

The essays in this two-volume anthology provide the reader with an overview of current Czech Polish and Hungarian research in language literature and meaning as well as some new perspectives on the major theoretical contributions of Roman Ingarden Georg Lukács and Jan Mukařovský. For the most part the emphasis is on Poetics and Literary Theory; however in some of the essays the focus shifts to such related disciplines as Aesthetics Linguistics and Semiotics. The heterogeneity of this collection reflects the broad spectrum of interests and approaches to problems of theory being pursued at present in Poland Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Much of the work being done in these countries remains relatively unknown outside of Eastern Europe. This anthology is an attempt to rectify this situation and make better known the nature and extent of research which promises new insights into a whole range of phenomena in language literature and culture.

The purpose of this study is to apply experimentally the principles of recent grammatical theories to the facts of the Basque language. This study aims to test out those principles and endeavours to discover the best form for a grammar of Basque.

This volume contains 18 papers derived from presentations by Dutch linguists at the Eighth International Congress of Slavists.

Creole studies embrace a wide range is disciplines: history ethnography geography sociology etc. The phenomenon of creolization has come to be recognized as widespread; creolization presupposes contact and that is a human universal. The present anthology discusses social historical and theoretical aspects of over twenty pidgins and creoles. Part one deals with general theoretical issues especially those relating to pidgin language formation and expansion. Part two deals with those pidgins and creoles lexically related to indigenous African languages and with incipient features of creolization in African languages themselves; part three with those related to Romance languages and part four with those related to English. Throughout the volume several current debates are taken up including the still unsettled issues of creole language origins and classification.

This is a reprint of the third edition of Tytler’s Principles of Translation originally published in 1791 and this edition was published in 1813. The ideas of Tytler can give inspiration to modern TS scholars particularly his open-mindedness on quality assessment and his ideas on linguistic and cultural aspects in translations which are illustrated with many examples.

In the Introduction Jeffrey Huntsman sets Alexander Fraser Tytler Lord Woodhouselee and his ideas in a historical context.

As the original preface states: “It will serve to demonstrate that the Art of Translation is of more dignity and importance than has generally been imagined.” (p. ix)

Der von Kürenberg was one of the first named poets to write in Middle High German language. This study presents a modified diplomatic edition of the fifteen strophes text by Der von Kürenberg. It offers a commentary on the original text and discusses the literary and interpretative problems connected with the poet’s work.

The selection of entries in this bibliography reflects the following definition of pragmatics: The study (i) of the use and extra-linguistic function(s) of language and (ii) of the relation between such uses or functions and the structure of language i.e. the contextual appropriateness conditions on the use of language. This bibliography does not only cover purely theoretical works but also includes applications of pragmatic theory in language teaching language acquisition discourse analysis literary studies etc. To augment the usefulness of the bibliography which is arranged alphabetically a subject and a language index have been added.

Fac simile edition with a Foreword by E. F. K. Koerner and an Introduction by David J. Murray. The appendix contains Erwin A. Esper’s A Contribution to the Experimental Study of Analogy (1918).

The papers in this volume have been grouped in three thematic parts: Valence which plays a key concept in the syntactic classification of verbs and adjectives provides a necessary link for decoding and encoding grammatical relations and is an important requisite for the evaluation of formal languages for the purpose of describing and explaining phenomena of natural language. The second group of papers concerns the notion of (deep) case and the implications of tracing a grammatical theory on semantic case. The final series of papers is distinguished by the degree of accent it puts on the link between linguistic surface phenomena including semantic case and grammatical relations in the sense that it has been postulated by Universal Grammar.

Adolf Glassbrenner (1810–1876) was a German humorist and satirist. The aim of this study is to show that Glassbrenner’s writings were rooted within the abstract idealism of the Young Germans. Special focus lies on the period between 1840 and 1849 Glassbrenner’s most active writing period and representing most closely the elements of Humor and Tendenz. This study is of interest to everyone who wants to know more about the ideas behind the writings of Adolf Glassbrenner but also to those who want to make a first acquaintance with this famous German writer.

The papers brought together in the present volume represent the essence of the author’s reflections on issues concerning linguistic historiography and of particular investigations in 19th and 20th century linguistic thought. The papers are clustered in three sections: I. Towards a Historiography of Linguistics II. Appraisals of Individual Scholars and III. Trends and Traditions in Linguistics.

This volume is a collection of essays on black short stories written between 1998 and 1976. It aims to say something about the black short story as a genre and the development of the racial situation in America as well. The primary aim is to introduce the reader to this long neglected genre of black fiction. In contrast to the black novel the short story has hardly been given extensive criticism let alone serious attention. The individual essays of this collection aim at presenting new points of critical orientation in the hope of reviving and fostering further discussions. They provide a variety of approaches and a great diversity of critical points of view.

The essays reproduced in this volume represent the major and characteristic documents in that flood of literature that was produced during the neogrammarian controversy. At that time the entire community of linguists came face to face with the most profound problems of its theory and practice; it was a true crisis of empirical interpretation. Therefore these essays are of much more than ‘mere’ historical interest: each one of them plunges directly into the central issues of the science of historical linguistics.

Curtius’ Zur Kritik der neuesten Sprachforschung (January 1885) was the initial polemic. Delbrück’s reply Die neueste Sprachforschung Betrachtungen über George Curtius’Schrift ‘Zur Kritik der neuesten Sprachforschung’ and Brugmann’s retort Zum heutigen Stand der Sprachwissenschaft appeared soon thereafter. Later that year appeared Schuchardt’s attack Über die Lautgesetze: Gegen die Junggrammatiker. Collitz’article Die neueste Sprachforschung und die Erklärung des indogermanischen Ablautes did not appear until 1886 followed soon by Osthoff’s reply Die neueste Sprachforschung und die Erklärung des indogermanischen Ablautes: Antwort auf die gleichnamige Schrift von Dr. Hermann Collitz. Jespersen’s criticism of the neogrammarians appeared in German translation as Zur Lautgesetzfrage in1887.

The volume provides an Introduction and Select Bibliography.

Paulinus a S. Bartholomaeo’s Dissertatio historico-critica in linguam Samscrdamicam (1790) serves as an introduction to his Sidharubam the first Sanskrit grammar published in Europe. The Dissertatio is also important for another reason: it is concerned with speculations about the nature and origin of Sanskrit and the other Indian Languages. It raises questions about their relation to each other and to languages outside India. It bears witness to the fact that Paulinus was on of those few who heralded the era of comparative philology long before its official consecration. In addition it offers an opportunity to study the range of working instruments available to Indic scholarship at the end of the 18th century.

This volume contains a fac simile edition of the Latin original an English translation an introductory article and an index of sources.

There are indications that interest in the study of adverbs has been growing steadily in recent years largely due to the so-called Chomskyan revolution in linguistics which put much emphasis on the study of syntax but probably also because of the position these adverbs and other particles take within a syntactic string has proved to be much more difficult to determine than had previously been thought. Still another reason for the increase of interest in this topic may be found in the recent trend in linguistics which focusses on communicative competence and actual language use in daily discourse. Although this bibliography has no claim to exhaustiveness it should nonetheless be useful to researchers working on adverbs and comparatives. The titles selected relate in one way or another to the problems the linguist faces with respect to the adverb.

The writings of Siger of Courtrai were first edited by Gaston Wallerand in 1913. This new edition on the basis of Wallerand's editio prima with additions critical notes and an introduction by Jan Pinborg reprints the two works from that edition that have an immediate relevance for the study of medieval grammar i.e. the Summa modorum significandi and the Sophismata. To this have been added some critical notes correcting the text of Wallerand where his readings were faulty and supplying references of the sources. Finally three more Sophismata which have recently been recovered are here edited for the first time.

The Summa is a compendium which closely follows Priscian’s Institutiones but puts the doctrinal elements from Priscian into the frame of reference characteristic of Modistic literature. The importance of Siger’s Sophismata in the context of this volume is that they offer a more thorough discussion of the fundamental logico-epistemological tenets presupposed in his linguistic theory.

This basic bibliography of analogy aims to be a useful tool for linguistic research. The compilers have emphasized the years from 1868 onwards starting with Scherer’s statement but a few important premonitory works have been included as well.

This volume investigates Heinrich Wittenwiler’s famous poem Ring. Main focus is the relation of the narrative to the traditional topoi of marriage folly and play.

This volume reprints — with additions and corrections — seven papers originally published 1962–1973 on the indigenous grammars of Tibet and their linguistic tradition. Two ancient treatises commonly attributed to “Thon-mi Sambhoṭa” are studied extensively as well as extracts from many other Tibetan texts with translations commentaries and detailed bibliographical data covering a wide range of linguistic doctrines from the early 11th to the beginning of the 20th century. The final article incorporates a complete grammatical sketch of Classical Tibetan; this together with the comprehensive indexes of Tibetan and Indic grammatical and technical terms proper names titles etc. will facilitate the use of the volume as a basic reference-source for all future work on the Tibetan grammarians.