Finiteness And Nominalization PDF Download
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Author | : Claudine Chamoreau |
Publisher | : John Benjamins Publishing Company |
Total Pages | : 380 |
Release | : 2016-06-23 |
Genre | : Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | : 9027267022 |
Download Finiteness and Nominalization Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
This volume addresses the relation between finiteness and nominalization, which is far more complex than the simple opposition finite-nonfinite. The contributions analyze finiteness cross-linguistically from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives, focusing on a number of topics that has not been thoroughly explored in the literature. First, the correlation between finiteness and nominalization is also affected by a third factor, information structure. Second, there is a correlation between the continuum of finiteness and the scale from main/independent clauses to dependent clauses. Given that of nominalized constructions occur not only in dependent clauses, but also in independent clauses, it is possible to grade according to degree of nominalization, which can then be related to the scale of finiteness. Finally, each of these scales can also be seen as a product the diachronic process of re-finitization and of finitization.
Author | : Talmy Givón |
Publisher | : John Benjamins Publishing |
Total Pages | : 420 |
Release | : 2001 |
Genre | : Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | : 9781588110688 |
Download Syntax Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
This new edition of Syntax: A functional-typological introduction is at many points radically revised. In the previous edition (1984) the author deliberately chose to de-emphasize the more formal aspects of syntactic structure, in favor of a more comprehensive treatment of the semantic and pragmatic correlates of syntactic structure. With hindsight the author now finds the de-emphasis of the formal properties a somewhat regrettable choice, since it creates the false impression that one could somehow be a functionalist without being at the same time a structuralist. To redress the balance, explicit treatment is given to the core formal properties of syntactic constructions, such as constituency and hierarchy (phrase structure), grammatical relations and relational control, clause union, finiteness and governed constructions. At the same time, the cognitive and communicative underpinning of grammatical universals are further elucidated and underscored, and the interplay between grammar, cognition and neurology is outlined. Also the relevant typological database is expanded, now exploring in greater precision the bounds of syntactic diversity. Lastly, Syntax treats synchronic-typological diversity more explicitly as the dynamic by-product of diachronic development or grammaticalization. In so doing a parallel is drawn between linguistic diversity and diachrony on the one hand and biological diversity and evolution on the other. It is then suggested that as in biology synchronic universals of grammar are exercised and instantiated primarily as constraints on development, and are thus merely the apparent by-products of universal constraints on grammaticalization.
Author | : Talmy Givón |
Publisher | : John Benjamins Publishing |
Total Pages | : 384 |
Release | : 2009 |
Genre | : Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | : 9027232539 |
Download The Genesis of Syntactic Complexity Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Complex hierarchic syntax is a hallmark of human language. The highest level of syntactic complexity, recursive-embedded clauses, has been singled out by some for a special status as the evolutionary apex of the uniquely - human language faculty - evolutionary yet mysteriously immune to Darwinian adaptive selection. Prof. Givón's book treats syntactic complexity as an integral part of the evolutionary rise of human communication. The book first describes grammar as an adaptive instrument of communication, assembled upon the pre-existing platform of pre-linguistic object- and-event cognition and mental representation. It then surveys the two grand developmental trends of human language: diachrony, the communal enterprise directly responsible for fashioning synchronic morpho-syntax and cross-language diversity; and ontogeny, the individual endeavor directly responsible for acquiring the competent use of grammar. The genesis of syntactic complexity along these two developmental trends is compared with second language acquisition, pre-grammatical pidgin and pre-human communication. The evolutionary relevance of language diachrony, language ontogeny and pidginization is argued for on general bio-evolutionary grounds: It is the organism's adaptive on-line behavior- invention, learning and skill acquisition - that is the common thread running through all three developmental trends. The neuro-cognitive circuits that underlie language, and their evolutionary underpinnings, are described and assessed. Recursive embedding turns out to be not an adaptive target on its own, but the by-product of two distinct adaptive moves: (i) the recruitment of conjoined clauses as modal operators on, or referential specifiers of, other clauses; and (ii) the subsequent condensation of paratactic into syntactic structures.
Author | : Irina Nikolaeva |
Publisher | : OUP Oxford |
Total Pages | : 552 |
Release | : 2007-04-06 |
Genre | : Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | : 019152672X |
Download Finiteness Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
This book explores the nature of finiteness, one of most commonly used notions in descriptive and theoretical linguistics but possibly one of the least understood. Scholars representing a variety of theoretical positions seek to clarify what it is and to establish its usefulness and limitations. In doing so they reveal cross-linguistically valid correlations between subject licensing, subject agreement, tense, syntactic opacity, and independent clausehood; show how these properties are associated with finiteness; and discuss what this means for the content of the category. The issues explored include how different grammatical theories represent finiteness; whether the finite/nonfinite distinction is universal; whether there are degrees of finiteness; whether the syntactic notion of finiteness has a semantic corollary; whether and how finiteness is subject to change; and how finiteness features in language acquisition. Irina Nikolaeva opens the book by describing the history of finiteness and its place in current thinking and research. She then introduces the chapters of the book, comparing the authors' perspectives and showing what they have in common. The book is then divided into four parts. Part I considers the role finiteness plays in formal syntactic theories and Part II its deployment in functional theories and as the subject of research in typology. Parts III and IV look respectively at the finite/nonfinite opposition in individual languages and at the role finiteness plays in linguistic change and linguistic development. The book is written and structured to appeal to scholars and students of syntax and general linguistics at graduate level and above.
Author | : Bingjun Yang |
Publisher | : Cambridge University Press |
Total Pages | : 251 |
Release | : 2022-04-28 |
Genre | : Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | : 1316513416 |
Download Non-Finiteness Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
As a gateway to central questions in linguistics, non-finiteness is unavoidable in both typological studies and aspects of natural language processing, such as text segmentation and annotation. This study presents a 'process relation framework' to explain the more complex, previously unaccounted for, instances of non-finiteness in clause structure.
Author | : T. Givón |
Publisher | : John Benjamins Publishing |
Total Pages | : 561 |
Release | : 2009-04-22 |
Genre | : Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | : 9027290148 |
Download Syntactic Complexity Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Complex hierarchic syntax is considered one of the hallmarks of human language. The highest level of syntactic complexity, recursive-embedded clauses, has been singled out by some for a special status as the apex of the uniquely-human language faculty – evolutionary but somehow immune to adaptive selection. This volume, coming out of a symposium held at Rice University in March 2008, tackles syntactic complexity from multiple developmental perspectives. We take it for granted that grammar is an adaptive instrument of communication, assembled upon the pre-existing platform of pre-linguistic cognition. Most of the papers in the volume deal with the two grand developmental trends of human language: diachrony, the communal enterprise directly responsible for fashioning synchronic morpho-syntax; and ontogeny, the individual endeavor directly responsible for the acquisition of competent grammatical performance. The genesis of syntactic complexity along these two developmental trends is considered alongside with the cognition and neurology of grammar and of syntactic complexity, and the evolutionary relevance of diachrony, ontogeny and pidginization is argued on general bio-evolutionary grounds. Lastly, several of the contributions to the volume suggest that recursive embedding is not in itself an adaptive target, but rather the by-product of two distinct adaptive gambits: the recruitment of conjoined clauses as modal operators on other clauses and the subsequent condensation of paratactic into syntactic structures.
Author | : Albert Álvarez González |
Publisher | : John Benjamins Publishing Company |
Total Pages | : 265 |
Release | : 2019-07-15 |
Genre | : Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | : 9027262306 |
Download Diverse Scenarios of Syntactic Complexity Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
This volume surveys the phenomenon of syntactic complexity in a diversity of languages and from a diversity of theoretical perspectives. The topics include clause combining strategies such as relative, complement, and adverbial clauses, serialization, clausal nominalizations, but also the switch reference systems involved in clause chains, the role of insubordination and the influence of language contact in the development of syntactic complexity as well as the acquisition of complex clauses in child language and the grammaticalization processes leading to syntactic complexity. These studies illustrate the varied aspects involved in clause combining and help to understand how syntactic complexity works and evolves in the world’s languages, how it varies across languages, how it is influenced by language contact, how it is acquired. As such, this book gives the opportunity for readers to expand both their typological and their theoretical knowledge about syntactic complexity in a variety of languages.
Author | : T. Givón |
Publisher | : John Benjamins Publishing Company |
Total Pages | : 877 |
Release | : 2015-09-15 |
Genre | : Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | : 9027268886 |
Download The Diachrony of Grammar Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
The case-studies assembled in these two volumes span a lifetime of research into the diachrony of grammar. That is, into the rise and fall of syntactic constructions and their attendant grammatical morphology. While focused squarely on the data, the studies are nonetheless cast in an explicit theoretical perspective – adaptive, developmental, variationist. Taken as a whole, this work constitutes a frontal assault on Ferdinand de Saussure's corrosive legacy in linguistics. Over the years, reviewers slapped the author's wrist periodically for having dared to commit that most heinous of sins against de Saussure's hallowed legacy – panchronic grammar. In this work he pleads guilty, having never seen a piece of synchronic data that didn't reek, to high heaven, of the diachrony that gave it rise. Reek in two distinct ways: first with the frozen relics of the past that prompt us to reconstruct prior diachronic states; and second with the synchronic variation that hints at ongoing change. Conversely, the author confesses to having never seen a diachronic explanation that did not hinge on the synchronic principles – Carnap's general propositions – that govern language behavior. The synchrony and diachrony of grammar are twin faces of the same coin. To study one without the other is to gut both. By understanding how synchronic grammars come into being we also understand the cognitive, communicative, neurological and developmental universals that constrain diachronic change – and through it synchronic typology.
Author | : T. Givón |
Publisher | : John Benjamins Publishing Company |
Total Pages | : 432 |
Release | : 2017-01-19 |
Genre | : Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | : 9027266468 |
Download The Story of Zero Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
The zero coding of referents or other clausal constituents is one of the most natural, communicatively and cognitively-transparent grammatical devices in human language. Together with its functional equivalent, obligatory pronominal agreement, zero is both extremely widespread cross-linguistically and highly frequent in natural text. In the domain of reference, zero represents, somewhat paradoxically, either anaphorically-governed high continuity or cataphorically-governed low topicality. And whether in conjoined/chained or syntactically-subordinate clauses, zero is extremely well-governed, at a level approaching 100% in natural text. The naturalness, cross-language ubiquity and well-governedness of zero have been largely obscured by an approach that, for 30-odd years, has considered it a typological exotica, the so-called "pro-drop" associated with a dubious "non-configurational" language type. The main aim of this book is to reaffirm the naturalness, universality and well-governedness of zero by studying it from four closely related perspectives: (i) cognitive and communicative function; (ii) natural-text distribution; (iii) cross-language typological distribution; and (iv) the diachronic rise of referent coding devices. The latter is particularly central to our understanding the functional interplay between zero anaphora, pronominal agreement and related referent-coding devices.
Author | : Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm |
Publisher | : Psychology Press |
Total Pages | : 333 |
Release | : 1993 |
Genre | : Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | : 9780415060202 |
Download Nominalizations Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Based on extensive and diverse material from seventy languages, and covering a range of previously undiscussed problems, Nominalizationsprovides a thorough analysis of how nominalization types interact with other structural features. It focuses on action nominal constructions and, in particular, the comparison of their syntactic theories. Supported by rich empirical material and illustrated with examples from all the sample languages, the book provides a detailed basis for constructing a typology of derived constructions and for presenting cross-linguistic comparisons. The author's research findings show that no language has syntactic means which are exclusively used in action nominal constructions, giving support to the view that constructions which appear later in language acquisition and development are modelled, as far as possible, on already existing constructions. Nominalizationsalso contains a detailed discussion of related phenomena, such as subordination and finiteness across languages. Demonstrating the complexity of the relations between noun, verb and intermediate categories, the results of the book have important implications for the study of parts of speech. This book will be invaluable for typologists and for linguists working on morphology and syntax.