Different Kinds of Specificity Across Languages
Different Kinds of Specificity Across Languages

Author: Cornelia Ebert

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-11-08

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 9400753101

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This anthology of papers analyzes a range of specificity markers found in natural languages. It reflects the fact that despite intensive research into these markers, the vast differences between the markers across languages and even within single languages have been less acknowledged. Commonly regarded specific indefinites are by no means a homogenous class, and so this volume fills a gap in our understanding of the semantics and pragmatics of indefinites. The papers explore differences and similarities among these specificity markers, concentrating on the following issues: whether specificity is a purely semantic or also a pragmatic notion; whether the contribution of specificity markers is located on the level of the at-issue content; whether some kind of speaker-listener asymmetry concerning the identification of the referent is involved; and the behavioral scope of these indefinites in the context of other quantifiers, negation, attitude verbs, and intensional/modal operators.

Definiteness across languages
Definiteness across languages

Author: Ana Aguilar-Guevara

Publisher: Language Science Press

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 502

ISBN-13: 3961101922

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Definiteness has been a central topic in theoretical semantics since its modern foundation. However, despite its significance, there has been surprisingly scarce research on its cross-linguistic expression. With the purpose of contributing to filling this gap, the present volume gathers thirteen studies exploiting insights from formal semantics and syntax, typological and language specific studies, and, crucially, semantic fieldwork and cross-linguistic semantics, in order to address the expression and interpretation of definiteness in a diverse group of languages, most of them understudied. The papers presented in this volume aim to establish a dialogue between theory and data in order to answer the following questions: What formal strategies do natural languages employ to encode definiteness? What are the possible meanings associated to this notion across languages? Are there different types of definite reference? Which other functions (besides marking definite reference) are associated with definite descriptions? Each of the papers contained in this volume addresses at least one of these questions and, in doing so, they aim to enrich our understanding of definiteness.

Children with Specific Language Impairment
Children with Specific Language Impairment

Author: Laurence B. Leonard

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 358

ISBN-13: 9780262621366

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Children with Specific Language Impairment covers all aspects of SLI, including its history, possible genetic and neurobiological origins, and clinical and educational practice.

Syllable and Word Languages
Syllable and Word Languages

Author: Javier Caro Reina

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2014-10-24

Total Pages: 387

ISBN-13: 3110383950

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This is the first volume concerned with the phonological typology of syllable and word languages, based on the model of a complex, multi-layered and hierarchically structured phonological system. The main typological claim is that the phonetic and phonological make-up of a language depends on the relevance of the prosodic categories. In previous research, the syllable and the phonological word have already proved to be typologically important. The contributions in this volume discuss theoretical questions and address issues such as the variable structure of the phonological word, the interplay between phonetics and phonology as well as the effect of a language’s phonological make-up on its morphology or lexicon. The volume provides detailed synchronic and diachronic analyses of (Non-)Indo-European languages which will serve as a basis for further typological research.

Language-Specific Factors in First Language Acquisition
Language-Specific Factors in First Language Acquisition

Author: Anne-Katharina Harr

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 1614511748

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A growing number of studies have begun to examine the influence of language-specific factors on language acquisition. During language acquisition, German children from six years on use structures that are similar to those of adults in their language group and also encode all semantic components from an early age. In striking contrast, French children up to ten years have difficulties producing some of the complex structures that are necessary for the simultaneous expression of several semantic components. Nonetheless, in addition to these striking cross-linguistic differences, the results of this study also clearly show similar developmental progressions in other respects, suggesting the impact of general developmental determinants.

Direct Objects and Language Acquisition
Direct Objects and Language Acquisition

Author: Ana Teresa Pérez-Leroux

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-02-08

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 1108508634

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Direct object omission is a general occurrence, observed in varying degrees across the world's languages. The expression of verbal transitivity in small children begins with the regular use of verbs without their object, even where object omissions are illicit in the ambient language. Grounded in generative grammar and learnability theory, this book presents a comprehensive view of experimental approaches to object acquisition, and is the first to examine how children rely on the lexical, structural and pragmatic components to unravel the system. The results presented lead to the hypothesis that missing objects in child language should not be seen as a deficit but as a continuous process of knowledge integration. The book argues for a new model of how this aspect of grammar is innately represented from birth. Ideal reading for advanced students and researchers in language acquisition and syntactic theory, the book's opening and closing chapters are also suitable for non-specialist readers.

Multidisciplinary Approaches to Code Switching
Multidisciplinary Approaches to Code Switching

Author: Ludmila Isurin

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2009-07-10

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 902728928X

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The volume presents a selection of contributions by leading scholars in the field of code-switching. In the past the phenomenon of code-switching was studied within different subfields of linguistics and they all took their own perspectives on code-switching without taking into account findings from other subdisciplines. This book raises a question of a much broader multidisciplinary approach to studying the phenomenon of code-switching; calls for integration of disciplines; and illustrates how frameworks from one subfield can be applied to models in another. The volume includes survey chapters, empirical studies, contributions that use empirical data to test new hypotheses about code-switching, or suggest new approaches and models for the study of code-switching, and chapters that discuss principles and constraints of code-switching, and code-switching vs. transfer. The book is easily accessible to anyone who is interested in the phenomenon of code-switching in bilinguals.

Metaphors of ANGER across Languages: Universality and Variation
Metaphors of ANGER across Languages: Universality and Variation

Author: Zoltan Kövecses

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2024-11-04

Total Pages: 574

ISBN-13: 3111560287

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Anger is one of the basic emotions of human emotional experience, informing and guiding many of our choices and actions. Although it has received considerable scholarly attention in a number of disciplines, including linguistics, a basic question has still remained unresolved: why do variations in the folk model of anger exist across languages if it is indeed a basic emotion rooted in largely universal bodily experience? By drawing on a wide selection of comparable linguistic data from dozens of languages (including a number of less-researched languages), this volume provides the most comprehensive account of what is universal and what is variable in the folk model of anger – and why. It also investigates the role that metonymies might play in the emergence of anger-related metaphors and in what ways context influences or shapes anger metaphors and thereby the resulting folk model of anger. No such volume exists in the (cognitive) linguistic literature on anger – or on emotions for that matter. The book is thus an essential contribution to the study of anger and will serve as basic reading for any researcher interested in how the conceptualization of anger is constructed via the interplay of bodily experience, language and the larger cultural context.

Specific Language Impairment
Specific Language Impairment

Author: Stavroula Stavrakaki

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2015-08-15

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 9027268428

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This volume is dedicated to the field of Specific Language Impairment (SLI), addressing important research questions, including: the interrelation of genetic and cognitive profiles of individuals with SLI; the comorbidity issue and clinical boundaries between SLI and other developmental disorders; cross-linguistic manifestations of SLI; and theory-motivated therapy approaches to individuals with SLI. This volume brings together researchers with different scientific backgrounds and research disciplines, challenging current points of view and offering new perspectives on issues of SLI and developmental disorders.

Scales and Hierarchies
Scales and Hierarchies

Author: Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2014-12-12

Total Pages: 323

ISBN-13: 3110395002

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The volume advances our understanding of the role of scales and hierarchies across the linguistic sciences. Although scales and hierarchies are widely assumed to play a role in the modelling of linguistic phenomena, their status remains controversial, and it is these controversies that the present volume tackles head-on.