Language Change at the Syntax-Semantics Interface
Language Change at the Syntax-Semantics Interface

Author: Chiara Gianollo

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2014-12-12

Total Pages: 327

ISBN-13: 3110394928

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Bringing together diachronic research from a variety of perspectives, notably typology, formal syntax and semantics, this volume focuses on the interplay of syntactic and semantic factors in language change - an issue so far largely neglected both in (mostly lexical) historical semantics as well as historical syntax, but recently brought into focus by grammaticalization theory as well as Minimalist diachronic syntax. The contributions draw on data from numerous Indo-European languages including Vedic Sanskrit, Middle Indic, Greek as well as English and German, and discuss a range of phenomena such as change in negation markers, indefinite articles, quantifiers, modal verbs, argument structure among others. The papers analyze diachronic evidence in the light of contemporary syntactic and semantic theory, addressing the crucial question of how syntactic and semantic change are linked, and whether both are governed by similar constraints, principles and systematic mechanisms. The volume will appeal to scholars in historical linguistics and formal theories of syntax and semantics.

Aspectual Roles and the Syntax-Semantics Interface
Aspectual Roles and the Syntax-Semantics Interface

Author: Carol Tenny

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 9401111502

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All work is work in progress. The ideas developed in this work could be (and probably will be) developed further, revised, and expanded. But it was time to write them down and send them out. Some of these ideas about linking had their origins in my 1987 dissertation. However, this work has grown beyond the dissertation in a number of important ways. The most important of these advances lie in, first, articulating aspectual roles as linguistic objects over which lexical semantic phenomena can be stated, and over which linking generalizations are stated; second, recognizing that syntactic phenomena may be classified as to whether or not they are sensitive to the core event of event structure; and third, recognizing the modularity of aspectual and thematic/conceptual structure, and associating that modularity with a difference between language-specific and universal language generalizations. The three chapters of the book are organized around these ideas. I have tried to state these ideas as strong theses. Where they make strong predictions I have meant them to do so, as a probe for future research. I hope that other researchers will take up the challenge to investigate, test and develop these ideas across a wider realm of languages than I --as one person --can do.

Epithets at the Syntax-Semantics Interface
Epithets at the Syntax-Semantics Interface

Author: Pritty Patel-Grosz

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2015-10-05

Total Pages: 162

ISBN-13: 1443883883

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This book is one of the first extensive cross-linguistic theoretical investigations on epithets. Epithets (such as “the bastard”) are anaphoric expressions which take the shape of a definite description, contain an evaluative component, and are typically unstressed. This monograph shows that, in order to understand the perplexing nature of epithets, one must consider what kinds of behavior they exhibit in different components of the language faculty. In this vein, the text adopts a broad approach, analysing epithets from the perspective of the syntax-semantics-pragmatics interface. The empirical focus of this monograph is on epithets in embedded clauses. It unearths new empirical findings and shows that the acceptability of epithets is affected by a variety of influences, including syntactic factors, such as whether the epithet is in the subject position of an embedded clause, or its object position. Semantic-pragmatic restrictions further navigate the nature of epithets, such as whether they are intended to refer to an attitude holder whose beliefs or other attitudes embed the clause that contains them. Based on these findings, the book argues that epithets are a type of pronoun, subject to interface restrictions concerning the semantics and pragmatics of attitude reports. The insights in this monograph raise new questions concerning the division of labour of the language faculty with respect to the processes and mechanisms involved in Binding Theory.

Language Change at the Syntax-Semantics Interface
Language Change at the Syntax-Semantics Interface

Author: Chiara Gianollo

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2014-12-12

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 3110352303

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Bringing together diachronic research from a variety of perspectives, notably typology, formal syntax and semantics, this volume focuses on the interplay of syntactic and semantic factors in language change - an issue so far largely neglected both in (mostly lexical) historical semantics as well as historical syntax, but recently brought into focus by grammaticalization theory as well as Minimalist diachronic syntax. The contributions draw on data from numerous Indo-European languages including Vedic Sanskrit, Middle Indic, Greek as well as English and German, and discuss a range of phenomena such as change in negation markers, indefinite articles, quantifiers, modal verbs, argument structure among others. The papers analyze diachronic evidence in the light of contemporary syntactic and semantic theory, addressing the crucial question of how syntactic and semantic change are linked, and whether both are governed by similar constraints, principles and systematic mechanisms. The volume will appeal to scholars in historical linguistics and formal theories of syntax and semantics.

The Acquisition of Verbs at the Syntax-Semantics Interface
The Acquisition of Verbs at the Syntax-Semantics Interface

Author: Paolo Lorusso

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2018-06-11

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 1527512207

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This book presents theoretical and experimental analyses of the nature of early verbs. At around the age of two years old, children start to combine words and produce their first verbs. Verbal items appear later than nouns in a child’s speech and refer to the relational concepts in the world that are represented in syntax through the argument structure. The central set of data investigated here is based on the analysis of the features of first verbal productions in Italian. Since the appearance of verbs implies the mastery of a mapping procedure between syntactic positions and semantic roles, the syntactic regularities found for each lexical verb class suggest that the relation at the syntax-semantics interface is well-established early on. The non-adult-like sentences are those which involve the mastery of the scope-discourse semantic interface or higher functional syntactic categories. The analysis of the delay in the production and comprehension of some constructions here uncovers some general characteristics of language acquisition devices.

Interrogative Phrases and the Syntax-Semantics Interface
Interrogative Phrases and the Syntax-Semantics Interface

Author: I. Comorovski

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-04-17

Total Pages: 203

ISBN-13: 9401586888

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Interrogative Phrases and the Syntax-Semantics Interface starts by analyzing the interpretation of interrogative phrases in single and multiple constituent questions, including their interpretation under adverbs of quantification. The results are then put to work in a novel approach to some of the constraints on dependencies between fronted interrogative phrases and the associated gaps: superiority, weak crossover, as well as the so-called `weak islands' (the WH-island, the negative island and the Factive Island). It is argued that the possibility of fronting an interrogative phrase out of these configurations is determined by a semantic/pragmatic condition on questions, which requires them to be answerable. The analysis is worked out principally on Romanian, a language which allows multiple wh-fronting. The results are then extended to English. Audience: Researchers and students in syntax, semantics and their interface, as well as linguists studying the relation between the acceptability of sentences and the larger discourse context.

Challenges at the Syntax-Semantics-Pragmatics Interface
Challenges at the Syntax-Semantics-Pragmatics Interface

Author: Robert D. Van Valin Jr.

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2021-05-18

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 1527569691

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This volume brings together recent scholarship addressing a number of significant issues in linguistic theory and description, including verb classification, case marking, comparative constructions, noun phrase structure, clause linkage and reference-tracking in discourse. These topics are discussed with respect to a wide range of languages, including Bamunka (Bantu), Biblical Hebrew, Japanese, Persian, Pitjantjatjara (Australia), Russian and Taiwan Sign Language. The theoretical perspective employed in these analyses is that of Role and Reference Grammar (RRG), a theory which strives to describe language structure and grammatical phenomena in terms of the interaction of syntax, semantics and discourse-pragmatics. RRG differs from other parallel-architecture, constructionally-oriented theories in important ways, particularly with respect to the ability to formulate cross-linguistic generalizations. The ability of RRG to facilitate the formulation of cross-linguistic generalizations is exemplified well in the contributions to this volume. As such, this text makes important theoretical and descriptive contributions to contemporary linguistic discussions.

Interfaces + Recursion = Language?
Interfaces + Recursion = Language?

Author: Uli Sauerland

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2008-09-25

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 3110207559

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Human language is a phenomenon of immense richness: It provides finely nuanced means of expression that underlie the formation of culture and society; it is subject to subtle, unexpected constraints like syntactic islands and cross-over phenomena; different mutually-unintelligeable individual languages are numerous; and the descriptions of individual languages occupy thousands of pages. Recent work in linguistics, however, has tried to argue that despite all appearances to the contrary, the human biological capacity for language may be reducible to a small inventory of core cognitive competencies. The most radical version of this view has emerged from the Minimalist Program: The claim that language consists of only the ability to generate recursive structures by a computational mechanism. On this view, all other properties of language must result from the interaction at the interfaces of that mechanism and other mental systems not exclusively devoted to language. Since language could then be described as the simplest recursive system satisfying the requirements of the interfaces, one can speak of the Minimalist Equation: Interfaces + Recursion = Language. The question whether all the richness of language can be reduced to that minimalist equation has already inspired several fruitful lines of research that led to important new results. While a full assessment of the minimalist equation will require evidence from many different areas of inquiry, this volume focuses especially on the perspective of syntax and semantics. Within the minimalist architecture, this places our concern with the core computational mechanism and the (LF-)interface where recursive structures are fed to interpretation. Specific questions that the papers address are: What kind of recursive structures can the core generator form? How can we determine what the simplest recursive system is? How can properties of language that used to be ascribed to the recursive generator be reduced to interface properties? What effects do syntactic operations have on semantic interpretation? To what extent do models of semantic interpretation support the LF-interface conditions postulated by minimalist syntax?

The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Interfaces
The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Interfaces

Author: Gillian Ramchand

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2007-02-22

Total Pages: 686

ISBN-13: 0199247455

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'The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Interfaces' explores how the core components of the language faculty interact. This book shows how these interactions are reflected in linguistic and cognitive theory, considers what they reveal, and looks at their reflections in expression and communication.

Compositional Semantics
Compositional Semantics

Author: Pauline I. Jacobson

Publisher: Oxford Textbooks in Linguistic

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 019967714X

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This book provides an introduction to compositional semantics and to the syntax/semantics interface. It is rooted within the tradition of model theoretic semantics, and develops an explicit fragment of both the syntax and semantics of a rich portion of English. Professor Jacobson adopts a Direct Compositionality approach, whereby the syntax builds the expressions while the semantics simultaneously assigns each a model-theoretic interpretation. Alongside this approach, the author also presents a competing view that makes use of an intermediate level, Logical Form. She develops parallel treatments of a variety of phenomena from both points of view with detailed comparisons. The book begins with simple and fundamental concepts and gradually builds a more complex fragment, including analyses of more advanced topics such as focus, negative polarity, and a variety of topics centering on pronouns and binding more generally. Exercises are provided throughout, alongside open-ended questions for students to consider. The exercises are interspersed with the text to promote self-discovery of the fundamentals and their applications. The book provides a rigorous foundation in formal analysis and model theoretic semantics and is suitable for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in linguistics, philosophy of language, and related fields.