Tense, Aspect and Action
Tense, Aspect and Action

Author: Carl Bache

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2011-12-01

Total Pages: 437

ISBN-13: 3110883074

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Research on language universals and research on linguistic typology are not antagonistic, but rather complementary approaches to the same fundamental problem: the relationship between the amazing diversity of languages and the profound unity of language. Only if the true extent of typological divergence is recognized can universal laws be formulated. In recent years it has become more and more evident that a broad range of languages of radically different types must be carefully analyzed before general theories are possible. Typological comparison of this kind is now at the centre of linguistic research. The series empirical approaches to language typology presents a platform for contributions of all kinds to this rapidly developing field. The distinctive feature of the series is its markedly empirical orientation. All conclusions to be reached are the result of a deepened study of empirical data. General problems are focused on from the perspective of individual languages, language families, language groups, or language samples. Special emphasis is given to the analysis of phenomena from little known languages, which shed new light on long-standing problems in general linguistics. The series is open to contributions from different theoretical persuasions. It thus reflects the methodological pluralism that characterizes the present situation. Care is taken that all volumes be accessible to every linguist and, moreover, to every reader specializing in some domain related to human language. A deeper understanding of human language in general, based on a detailed analysis of typological diversity among individual languages, is fundamental for many sciences, not only for linguists. Therefore, this series has proven to be indispensable in every research library, be it public or private, which has a specialization in language and the language sciences. To discuss your book idea or submit a proposal, please contact Birgit Sievert.

The Oxford Handbook of Tense and Aspect
The Oxford Handbook of Tense and Aspect

Author: Robert I. Binnick

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012-06-14

Total Pages: 1128

ISBN-13: 0195381971

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This Handbook is a comprehensive, authoritative, and accessible guide to the topics and theories that current form the front line of research into tense, aspect, and related areas.

English Tense and Aspect in Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar
English Tense and Aspect in Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar

Author: Carl Bache

Publisher: Equinox Publishing

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13:

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This book is aimed at fellow practitioners and researchers in functional linguistics. It offers a friendly but critical appraisal of a major component of the 'standard' version of SFL, i.e. the account given by Halliday and Matthiessen of tense and aspect in English. Supporting his criticisms with evidence from a project in corpus linguistics, Bache suggests that this account fails in several ways to satisfy accepted functionalist criteria, and hence needs revising and extending. After surveying alternative functionalist approaches to modelling time and tense in English (including Fawcett's Cardiff school approach and Harder's instructional-semantic approach), and after presenting a number of principles of category description, Bache goes on to offer an alternative SFL account of this area of grammar. In Bache's model, the focus is on the speaker's communicative motivation for choosing particular verb forms. The relevant choice relations are seen to draw on metafunctionally diverse resources, such as tense, action, aspect and other domains. The basically univariate, serial structure of the verbal group is accordingly enriched with certain characteristics associated with multivariate structures, and the idea of recursion is abandoned. Finally, Bache examines the descriptive potential of his model in connection with projection, conditions, and narration.

The Cambridge Handbook of Generative Syntax
The Cambridge Handbook of Generative Syntax

Author: Marcel den Dikken

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013-07-25

Total Pages: 1412

ISBN-13: 1107354587

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Syntax – the study of sentence structure – has been at the centre of generative linguistics from its inception and has developed rapidly and in various directions. The Cambridge Handbook of Generative Syntax provides a historical context for what is happening in the field of generative syntax today, a survey of the various generative approaches to syntactic structure available in the literature and an overview of the state of the art in the principal modules of the theory and the interfaces with semantics, phonology, information structure and sentence processing, as well as linguistic variation and language acquisition. This indispensable resource for advanced students, professional linguists (generative and non-generative alike) and scholars in related fields of inquiry presents a comprehensive survey of the field of generative syntactic research in all its variety, written by leading experts and providing a proper sense of the range of syntactic theories calling themselves generative.

The Evolution of Grammar
The Evolution of Grammar

Author: Joan Bybee

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 1994-11-15

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 0226086658

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Joan Bybee and her colleagues present a new theory of the evolution of grammar that links structure and meaning in a way that directly challenges most contemporary versions of generative grammar. This study focuses on the use and meaning of grammatical markers of tense, aspect, and modality and identifies a universal set of grammatical categories. The authors demonstrate that the semantic content of these categories evolves gradually and that this process of evolution is strikingly similar across unrelated languages. Through a survey of seventy-six languages in twenty-five different phyla, the authors show that the same paths of change occur universally and that movement along these paths is in one direction only. This analysis reveals that lexical substance evolves into grammatical substance through various mechanisms of change, such as metaphorical extension and the conventionalization of implicature. Grammaticization is always accompanied by an increase in frequency of the grammatical marker, providing clear evidence that language use is a major factor in the evolution of synchronic language states. The Evolution of Grammar has important implications for the development of language and for the study of cognitive processes in general.

The Cambridge Handbook of Formal Semantics
The Cambridge Handbook of Formal Semantics

Author: Maria Aloni

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2016-07-07

Total Pages: 1239

ISBN-13: 131655273X

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Formal semantics - the scientific study of meaning in natural language - is one of the most fundamental and long-established areas of linguistics. This Handbook offers a comprehensive, yet compact guide to the field, bringing together research from a wide range of world-leading experts. Chapters include coverage of the historical context and foundation of contemporary formal semantics, a survey of the variety of formal/logical approaches to linguistic meaning and an overview of the major areas of research within current semantic theory, broadly conceived. The Handbook also explores the interfaces between semantics and neighbouring disciplines, including research in cognition and computation. This work will be essential reading for students and researchers working in linguistics, philosophy, psychology and computer science.

A Grammar of Aspect
A Grammar of Aspect

Author: J. Forsyth

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1970-07

Total Pages: 406

ISBN-13: 0521075149

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This book examines the aspect - the relationship between imperfective and perfective verbs - found in the Russian language.

Aspectuality
Aspectuality

Author: Sarah Dessì Schmid

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2019-12-16

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 3110564106

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This synchronic study presents a new onomasiological, frame-theoretical model for the description, classification and theoretical analysis of the cross-linguistic content category aspectuality. It deals specifically with those pieces of information, which, in their interplay, constitute the aspectual value of states of affairs. The focus is on Romance Languages, although the model can be applied just as well to other languages, in that it is underpinned by a principle grounded in a fundamental cognitive ability: the delimitation principle. Unlike traditional approaches, which generally have a semasiological orientation and strictly adhere to a semantic differentiation between grammatical aspect and lexical aspect (Aktionsart), this study makes no such differentiation and understands these as merely different formal realisations of one and the same content category: aspectuality.

The Study of Aspect, Tense, and Action
The Study of Aspect, Tense, and Action

Author: Carl Bache

Publisher: Peter Lang Gmbh, Internationaler Verlag Der Wissenschaften

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 358

ISBN-13:

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This book addresses some methodological problems in the study of tense, aspect and action: How should linguists go about describing these categories and with what terminology? How does our work in this area relate to descriptions of language(s) in general? What research strategies should be explored? Bache discusses the interaction between language-specific grammars and universal grammar, including the problems of analytic directionality, semantic minimalism, and the general metalanguage of universal grammar. The book has several sources of inspiration: generative linguistics, structuralist phonology, glossematics, functional grammar, cognitive semantics and prototype theory. Bache argues strongly for the inclusion of a paradigmatic dimension in the study of the semantics of morphosyntactic categories. Rather than adhering to one particular linguistic school, Bache provides a general description of tense, aspect and action in the form of generalizations that should be accommodated in any theory.