Subject collection: Linguistics (2,773 titles, 1967–2015)

The study of grammaticalization raises a number of fundamental theoretical issues pertaining to the relation of langue and parole, creativity and automatic coding, synchrony and diachrony, categoriality and continua, typological characteristics and language-specific forms, etc., and therefore challenges some of the basic tenets of twentieth century linguistics.This two-volume work presents a number of diverse theoretical viewpoints on grammaticalization and gives insights into the genesis, development, and organization of grammatical categories in a number of language world-wide, with particular attention to morphosyntactic and semantic-pragmatic issues.

The papers in Volume I are divided into two sections, the first concerned with general method, and the second with issues of directionality. Those in Volume II are divided into five sections: verbal structure, argument structure, subordination, modality, and multiple paths of grammaticalization.

This book is about a theory of language that combines two observations (1) that language is based on an extensive cognitive infrastructure (cognitivism) and (2) that it is functional for its user (functionalism). These observations are regarded as two dimensions of one phenomenon that both need to be accounted for, simultaneously and coherently, in accounting for language. Chapter 1 presents the cognitivist and functionalist points of view and their interrelation and discusses the integration of language research under a cognitive umbrella; the issue of defining 'functions of language', and the formalism-functionalism debate. Chapter 2 criticizes the Chomskyan formalist conception of language and cognition from the perspective of cognitive-pragmatic theory. The focus is on different aspects of the competence-performance dichotomy, and in particular on the nature of linguistic knowledge. The ontogenesis and phylogenesis of language are also discussed. Chapter 3 deals with the potential contribution of a functional-linguistic grammar to an integrated conception of the cognitive systems of language, viz. Dik's Functional Grammar, and introduces the concept of a Functional Procedural Grammar as a more integrative model for language production. Special attention is also paid to the nature of conceptual knowledge and the relationship between language production and interpretation. The debate is illustrated by an analysis of negative-raising.

This major reference work fills a need long recognized in neurolinguistics: a source for analyzable speech transcripts from agrammatic aphasic patients that provides detailed grammatical descriptions and distributional analyses. This 3-volume set is unique in that it presents narrative speech from carefully selected clinically comparable patients, speakers of 14 languages, and parallel narratives by normal speakers. For each of the 14 languages there is a case presentation chapter analyzing and discussing the language of agrammatic patients, followed by primary data, which are organized as follows: running text of speech by two patients; interlinear morphemic translations of those texts; running text of speech elicited from two normal control subjects (plus interlinear translations); tables and figures analyzing distributional properties of the patients' speech; results of comprehension tests of the patients; transcriptions of patients' oral reading and writing samples. Neurological information is included with the case presentations, and a short grammatical sketch of each language is added to make the work on all languages accessible even to those who only read English. Language findings are presented for English, Dutch, German, Icelandic, Swedish, French, Italian, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, Hindi, Finnish, Hebrew, Chinese and Japanese.The book is an indispensable reference work for all linguists, psycholinguists and neurolinguists who wish to test their theories against a massive body of data.

A collection of innovative essays representing the most recent developments in poetry as discourse, the discourse of power, and discourse of psychiatry and psychosis. The essays in this volume deal with questions of interpretation of poetry, psychoanalysis, and political theory. All are presented here as appropriate objects of discourse studies which go beyond conventional analysis.

This volume presents papers on issues in African linguistics, covering a variety of African languages and ranging from phonology to lexicology.

Dynamic phonology is the natural consequence of the combination of the latest developments in physiological and acoustic phonetics and the traditional structural/functional theories of linguistics. In phonetics, the segmental approach has long since given way to dynamic phonetics, leaving linguists in the position of either ignoring the dynamic evidence and continuing with segmental and semi-segmental phonology or of adopting the dynamic evidence within their overall theories of language structure and function. The author of this book has chosen the latter and here present a model for such a dynamic phonology.

This volume is an enhanced version of the English translation from the French original edition 'Principes d'analyse syntaxique' (Québec, 1973). It provides a survey of theoretical approaches to syntax, including traditional grammars, structuralism, functionalism, and formal approaches.

The book sketches a systematics of non-verbal communication. It contains the following separate chapters: movement potential and expression repertoire; clinical literature on the eye’s movement potential; eye movement viewed from the perspective of communicative action; eye communication as part of non-verbal communication; detailed analysis of deliberate avoiding the addressee’s eye focus.

Apollonius Dyscolus was the first formal syntactician in Graeco-Roman linguistics. He considered the nature of language to be logical and rule-governed, and assumed an underlying structure for all levels of language. It might be said that from the work of his predecessors, he extracted syntax. This volume contains an English translation of — mainly — Uhlig’s 1910 edition of De Constructione Libri Quattor (Peri Suntaxeōs), with commentary, an introduction, and an article on Apollonius Dyscolus and the Origins of Deep Structure.