Browse Books

This volume presents the state of the art of recent research on the acquisition of semantics. Covering topics ranging from infants' initial acquisition of word meaning to the more sophisticated mapping between structure and meaning in the syntax-semantics interface and the relation between logical content and inferences on language meaning (semantics and pragmatics) the papers in this volume introduce the reader to the variety of ways in which children come to realize that semantic content is encoded in word meaning (for example in the event semantics of the verbal domain or the scope of logical operators) and at the level of the sentence which requires the composition of semantic meaning. The authors represent some of the most established and promising researchers in this domain demonstrating collective expertise in a range of methodologies and topics relevant to the acquisition of semantics. This volume will serve as a valuable resource for students and faculty and junior and seasoned researchers alike.

In constructionist theory a constructicon is an inventory of constructions making up the full set of linguistic units in a language. In applied practice it is a set of construction descriptions – a “dictionary of constructions”. The development of constructicons in the latter sense typically means combining principles of both construction grammar and lexicography and is probably best characterized as a blend between the two traditions. We call this blend constructicography.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>The present volume is a comprehensive introduction to the emerging field of constructicography. After a general introduction follow six chapters presenting constructicon projects for English German Japanese Brazilian Portuguese Russian and Swedish respectively often in relation to a framenet of the language. In addition there is a chapter addressing the interplay between linguistics and language technology in constructicon development and a final chapter exploring the prospects for interlingual constructicography.<br/>This is the first major publication devoted to constructicon development and it should be particularly relevant for those interested in construction grammar frame semantics lexicography the relation between grammar and lexicon or linguistically informed language technology.

This book is a collection of eleven research articles which altogether serve as a contribution to the study of verb complementation and other constructions an area of investigation which bridges observations on the spectrum of lexico-grammar syntax and semantics. In terms of methodological approaches and the types of linguistic patterns examined the chapters cast light on the subject from a variety of perspectives and the volume is structured in a way that groups the various perspectives under three main themes according to their main focus and/or methodological approaches namely: the semantic and functional descriptions of constructions; the investigation into the distribution of complementation patterns; and the study of innovative patterns in ESL contexts and languages other than English. All chapters in this volume employ data from large electronic corpora where possible – the BNC COCA COHA GloWbE NOW and newly compiled corpora representing regional varieties of English.

Egophoricity refers to the grammaticalised encoding of personal knowledge or involvement of a conscious self in a represented event or situation. Most typically a marker that is egophoric is found with first person subjects in declarative sentences and with second person subjects in interrogative sentences. This person sensitivity reflects the fact that speakers generally know most about their own affairs while in questions this epistemic authority typically shifts to the addressee. First described for Tibeto-Burman languages egophoric-like patterns have now been documented in a number of other regions around the world including languages of Western China the Andean region of South America the Caucasus Papua New Guinea and elsewhere. This book is a first attempt to place detailed descriptions of this understudied grammatical category side by side and to add to the cross-linguistic picture of how ideas of self and other are encoded and projected in language. The diverse but conceptually related egophoric phenomena described in its chapters provide fascinating case studies for how structural patterns in morphosyntax are forged under intersubjective interactional pressures as we link elements of our speech to our speech situation. <br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>

How does the concept of time elusive and inconceivable as it may be lend itself to verbal creativity? Is it possible to trace something like a “poetics of time”? This book embarks on this endeavor initiated by the assumption that verbal creativity can shed some new light on our understanding of time challenging everyday linguistic patterns and manipulating mental representations in unforeseen ways. Drawing on empirical evidence from Modern Greek poetry the book offers a unified account of time conceptualization along a continuum of various degrees of non-conventionality. It also shows unlike what has been traditionally assumed in the literature that creativity in the expression of time is not limited to metaphor but extends to other figurative tropes that are perhaps specific to poetry. Poetry thus transpires as an ideal testing frame for exploring temporal cognition and meaning construction alike.

Les unités linguistiques ayant pour fonction (paradoxale) de signifier une relation entre d’autres unités de discours suscitent depuis l’Antiquité un intérêt toujours renouvelé. Défi pour le grammairien dont ils subvertissent les « parties du discours » ces « mots-outils » que l’on peut prendre pour des « mots vides » obligent le linguiste à interroger les rapports entre syntaxe et sémantique logique et linguistique système et discours signe et implicite. <br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>Les onze études réunies dans ce livre s’attachent à décrire les processus de fonctionnement de morphèmes appartenant à des langues diverses (allemand français italien latin vietnamien) qui marquent une relation de liaison ou d’intégration. Ces études de cas détaillées menées selon différents cadres théoriques (typologie cognitivisme psycho-mécanique grammaire fractale linguistique de l’énonciation argumentation dans la langue linguistique textuelle) du point de vue synchronique ou diachronique mettent en valeur le caractère premier de la variation dans les systèmes linguistiques. <br/>Un chapitre introductif pose les repères terminologiques historiques et théoriques pour l’étude de catégories de signes linguistiques – prépositions conjonctions connecteurs – marqués par la transcatégorialité et la polyfonctionalité.

Negation is one of the most discussed phenomena within linguistics on all language levels though it never seems to be exhausted. This operator establishes complex sentence structures and constantly challenges – from a cognitive syntactical semantic and morphologic viewpoint – presuppositions on language internal relations as rational and logic. It therefore arouses interest through all fields within language sciences. From a pragmatic perspective where negation is conceived a marked structure using negation often produces meanings beyond the one of a reversed affirmation "it is not the case that X”. This book explores the various uses and pragmatic meanings of negation in authentic communication in different text types and in different languages predominately romance languages. The multilingual composition marries a macro-micro perspective where aspects of genre sociocultural context memory rhetoric and argumentation interplay with the negative morpheme’s nature and embedded instructions. This broad approach makes this book a unique contribution to negation studies and to pragmatics in general. The book is important and enriching reading for scholars in all linguistic domains but particularly for researchers in semantics pragmatics argumentation and discourse analysis.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>

The book tackles the sociobiological bases of Information Structure (IS) inquiring both its evidential and neurobiological underpinnings in human communication. Its purpose is to delve into the epistemic and neurocognitive rationales behind the realization of informational hierarchies in a sentence. The book zooms in on an interplay that between IS and evidentiality that has never been explored in IS studies and seeks to recast IS phenomena in an epistemological perspective. The neurocognitive approaches discussed propose neurophysiological investigations on IS processing both with ERP and ERS vs. ERD measurements. In its overall structure and general purposes the book is conceived for interested scholars working in the fields of linguistics neuropragmatics experimental psychology philosophy of language and cognitive sciences in general and it adds some further contribution to ongoing psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic experimental research on the processing of topic-focus and presupposition-assertion dichotomies.

This volume is the first book length study into the essive a relatively unknown case marker like English ‘as (a child)’. It focuses on the distribution of the essive in contemporary Uralic languages with special attention to the opposition between permanent and impermanent state. The volume presents large sets of new data and insights into the use of the essive in nineteen Uralic languages on the basis of a typological linguistic questionnaire. The typological variation is discussed within the linguistic domains of non-verbal main predication secondary predication complementation and manner temporal and circumstantial adverbial phrases. The descriptions and analyses are presented in such a way that they are accessible to linguists in general descriptive and theoretical linguists and specialists in Uralic and/or linguistic typology. The data and approach offer many starting points for further investigations within but also outside the Uralic language family.

This ground-breaking book marks a milestone in the history of the newly developed field of Cultural Linguistics a multidisciplinary area of research that explores the relationship between language and cultural conceptualisations. The most authoritative book in the field to date it outlines the theoretical and analytical framework of Cultural Linguistics elaborating on its key theoretical/analytical notions of cultural cognition cultural schema cultural category and cultural metaphor. In addition it brings to light a wide array of cultural conceptualisations drawn from many different languages and language varieties. The book reveals how the analytical tools of Cultural Linguistics can produce in-depth and insightful investigations into the cultural grounding of language in several domains and subdisciplines including embodiment emotion religion World Englishes pragmatics intercultural communication Teaching English as an International Language (TEIL) and political discourse analysis. By presenting a comprehensive survey of recent research in Cultural Linguistics this book demonstrates the relevance of the cultural conceptualisations encoded in language to all aspects of human life from the very conceptualisations of life and death to conceptualisations of emotion body humour religion gender kinship ageing marriage and politics. This book in short is a must-have reference work for scholars and students interested in Cultural Linguistics.