Linguistic and Literary Studies in Eastern Europe and Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics (vols. 1–70, 1979–2015)

The differences among functionalist, cognitivist and/or constructionist models are generally taken to be not absolute, but rather a matter of emphasis and degree, with an increasing permeability between paradigms arising from cross-fertilizing influences. This book further explores this burgeoning area of research through the notion of functional-cognitive space, namely, the topography of the space occupied by functional, cognitivist and/or constructionist models against the background of formalist approaches in general and of Chomsky’s Minimalism in particular. Specifically, the twelve contributions in the present volume update the reader on recent developments in functionalism (Systemic Functional Grammar, Functional Discourse Grammar and Role and Reference Grammar) and cognitivism (Word Grammar, (Cognitive) Construction Grammar and the Lexical Contructional Model). Plotting cognitive-space proves particularly adequate for situating the six models represented in this volume, not only in relation to each other, but also potentially with respect to a wide spectrum of functionalist, cognitivist and/or constructionist models.

Sharing certain assumptions but differing in theory and practice, both Columbia School linguistics (CS) and Cognitive Grammar (CG) have increasingly supported their analyses with quantitative evidence. Citation of individual sentences, in isolation or in context, has been supplemented with counts of linguistic forms in texts, informant questionnaires, and perception tests. The present volume, continuing a dialogue between CS and CG, offers six such qualitative-quantitative studies, one on Afrikaans and five on Dutch. Topics include (a) demonstratives, (b) pragmatic particles and imperatives, (c) a puzzling “dismissive” idiom, (d) progressive aspect, and (e) indirect objects. While CS is better suited for analyzing relatively closed systems (e.g. tense, pronouns), CG provides more insight into the vagaries of the amorphous lexicon. The author also offers personal remarks on “linguistics as a path” and discusses how in one case a wrong prediction reflects his dual role as both linguist and student of Dutch as a foreign language.

This monograph presents a view on grammaticalisation radically different from standard views centering around the cline of grammaticality. Grammar is seen as a complex sign system, and, as a consequence, grammatical change always comprises semantic change. What unites morphology, topology (word order), constructional syntax and other grammatical subsystems is their paradigmatic organisation. The traditional concept of an inflexional paradigm is generalised as the structuring principle of grammar. Grammatical change involves paradigmatic restructuring, and in the process of grammatical change morphological, topological and constructional paradigms often connect to form complex paradigms. The book introduces the concept of connecting grammaticalisation to describe the formation, restructuring and dismantling of such complex paradigms. Drawing primarily on data from Germanic, Romance and Slavic languages, the book offers both a broad general discussion of theoretical issues (part one) and three case studies (part two).

As of March 2017, this e-book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. It is licensed under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND license. 

The Arabic verbal system is, for most grammarians, the keystone of the language. Notable for the regularity of its patterns, it presents the linguist with an unparalleled opportunity to explore the Saussurean notion of the indivisible sign: form and meaning. Whilst Arabic forms are well-documented, the elucidation of the corresponding meanings has proved more challenging. Beginning with an examination of the verbal morphology of Modern Standard Arabic, including an evaluation of the significance of the consonantal root, this volume then concentrates on establishing the function of the vowel-lengthening verbal patterns (III and VI). It explores issues of mutuality and reciprocity, valency and transitivity, ultimately focusing on atelic lexical aspect as the unified meaning of these patterns. This study is rich in data and relies extensively upon contemporary examples (with transliteration and translation) to illustrate its arguments, adopting an empirical structuralist approach which is aimed both at general linguists and at specialist Arabists.

This detailed study challenges the claim that syntax is arbitrary and autonomous, as well as the assumption that Spanish clitic clusters constitute grammaticalized units. Diverse--apparently unrelated--restrictions on clitic clustering in both simplex VP's and Accusative cum Infinitive structures are shown to be cognitively motivated, given the meaning of the individual clitics, and the compositional/interpretative routines those meanings motivate. The analysis accounts, in coherent and principled fashion, for the absolute non-occurrence of some clusters, and the interpretation-dependent acceptability of all remaining clitic combinations: cluster acceptability depends on the ease with which the given clitic combination can be processed to yield a congruent message; there is no point in combining clitics whose meanings preclude speedy processing of the cluster. The monograph goes beyond previous work on Spanish clitics in its wealth of data, the range of syntactic phenomena discussed, and its analytic scope.

The coining of novel lexical items and the creative manipulation of existing words and expressions is heavily dependent on contextual factors, including the semantic, stylistic, textual and social environments in which they occur. The twelve specialists contributing to this collection aim to illuminate creativity in word formation with respect to functional discourse roles, but also examine ‘critical creativity’ determined by language policy, as well as diachronic phonetic variation in creatively-coined words.

The data, based either on large corpora or smaller hand-collected samples, is drawn from advertising, the daily press, electronic communication, literature, spoken interaction, cartoons, lexical ontologies and style guides.

The coining of novel lexical items and the creative manipulation of existing words and expressions is heavily dependent on contextual factors, including the semantic, stylistic, textual and social environments in which they occur. The twelve specialists contributing to this collection aim to illuminate creativity in word formation with respect to functional discourse roles, but also examine ‘critical creativity’ determined by language policy, as well as diachronic phonetic variation in creatively-coined words. The data, based either on large corpora or smaller hand-collected samples, is drawn from advertising, the daily press, electronic communication, literature, spoken interaction, cartoons, lexical ontologies and style guides. Each study analyses novel formations in relation to their contexts of use and inevitably leads to the crucial question of creativity vs. productivity. By focussing on creative lexical formations at the level of parole, these studies provide insights into morphological theory at the level of langue, and ultimately seek to explain lexical creativity as a function of language use.

This collection carries the functionalist Columbia School of linguistics forward with contributions on linguistic theory, semiotics, phonology, grammar, lexicon, and anthropology. Columbia School linguistics views language as a symbolic tool whose structure is shaped both by its communicative function and by the characteristics of its users, and considers contextual, pragmatic, physical, and psychological factors in its analyses. This volume builds upon three previous Columbia School anthologies and further explores issues raised in them, including fundamental theoretical and analytical questions. And it raises new issues that take Columbia School “beyond its origins.” The contributions illustrate both consistency since the school’s inception over thirty years ago and innovation spurred by groundbreaking analysis. The volume will be of interest to all functional linguists and historians of linguistics. Languages analyzed include Byelorussian, English, Japanese, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish, and Swahili.

Language is a symbolic system of meanings evoked by linguistic forms. The choice of forms in communication is non-arbitrary. Rather, speakers pick those forms whose meanings best convey their discourse intention. The meaning of the Mandarin ba-construction, argues Jing-Schmidt, is discourse dramaticity, a concept that includes high conceptual salience and subjectivity. The ba-construction and its "syntactic variations" are never interchangeable because contrast in their meanings determines difference in their functions. Quantitative analyses based on authentic data validate the postulation of discourse dramaticity. By taking discourse pragmatics seriously, the dramaticity hypothesis enables a unitary explanation that transcends sentence grammar. The diachronic treatment reveals the syntactic change of the ba-construction as an adaptive process of pragmatization, which raises the issue of linguistic evolution as a result of socio-cultural development.

This book will be of particular value to readers interested in the interaction between grammar and pragmatics and to teachers confronting the controversy of the ba-construction in foreign language pedagogy.

This volume is the product of a Columbia School Linguistics Conference held at Rutgers University in October 1999, where the plenary speaker was Ronald W. Langacker, a founder of Cognitive Linguistics. The goal of the book is to promote two kinds of dialogue. First, dialogue between Cognitive Grammar and the particular sign-based approach to language known as the Columbia School. While they share certain basic assumptions, the “maximalist” CG and the “minimalist” CS differ both theoretically and methodologically. Given that philosophers from Mill to Kuhn to Feyerabend have stressed the importance to any discipline of dialogue between opposing views, the dialogue begun here cannot fail to bear fruit. The second kind of dialogue is that among several sign-based approaches themselves and also between them and two competitors: grammaticalization theory and generic functionalism. Topics range from phonology to discourse. Analytical problems are taken from a wide range of languages including English, German, Guarani, Hebrew, Hualapai, Japanese, Korean, Macedonian, Mandarin, Polish, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Urdu, and Yaqui.

Unlike most monographs on Spanish phonology and morphology that approach these topics from a structuralist or generativist framework, this volume is written from a less traditional point of view. More specifically, it emphasizes quantitative evidence from sources such as usage-based studies, psycholinguistic experiments, corpus data, and computer simulations. Arguments are presented to demonstrate that these kinds of evidence are crucial for establishing theories of language that relate to the psychological mechanisms involved in producing and comprehending speech, in contrast to theories about abstract linguistic structure. A range of topics is covered including morphological parsing, nominalization, stress, syllable structure, diphthongization, gender, morphophonemic alternations, and epenthesis. An appendix is included that serves as a primer on quantitative linguistic research. It discusses how some of the cited experiments were carried out, provides an introduction to statistical analysis, and discusses tools that are available for conducting quantitative research on the Spanish language.