Thinking Syntactically: A Guide to Argumentation and Analysis is a textbook designed to teach introductory students the skills of relating data to theory and theory to data. Helps students develop their thinking and argumentation skills rather than merely introducing them to one particular version of syntactic theory. Structured around a wide range of exercises that use clear and compelling logic to build arguments and lead up to theoretical proposals. Data drawn from current media sources, including newspapers, books, and television programs, to help students formulate and test hypotheses. Generative in spirit, but does not focus on specific theoretical approaches but enables students to understand and evaluate different approaches more easily. Written by an established author with an international reputation.
This book provides a complete and detailed overview of modern English syntax, and offers a thorough grounding in the essentials of sentence structure and syntactic argumentation. Clear, accessible and comprehensive, it contains a wealth of material to support readers in consolidating their learning and knowledge at every step, from basic concepts to more advanced topics. Now in its sixth edition, this textbook includes: - fully updated chapters - refreshed learning materials - a fully revised glossary, list of reference works, and bibliography Equipped with lists of key concept, exercises and further reading suggestions in each chapter, as well as a detailed answer key at the end of the book, this highly accessible, engaging and supportive text covers all the topics needed for a confident understanding of English syntax.
El propòsit d’aquest llibre és introduir els alumnes a conceptes fonamentals per l’anàlisi de l’oració anglesa. El llibre comença amb una introducció al marc teòric que s’utilitza, i segueix amb una descripció de l’estructura argumental, les relacions sintàctiques entre constituents, les categories gramaticals (lèxiques i funcionals), l’estructura sintàctica interna dels constituents, les projeccions sintàctiques funcionals, les funcions gramaticals i el cas. El llibre està escrit en un to pedagògic i utilitza arguments concrets per donar evidència a favor de les estructures que es proposen. Es tracta d’una eina essencial per a les assignatures de sintaxi bàsica de la titulació de Filologia Anglesa i pot servir també com a manual introductori a qualsevol assignatura de gramàtica generativa. Tots els autors han impartit classes o han participat en les assignatures de sintaxi anglesa del Departament de Filologia Anglesa i de Germanística de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona durant els últims deu anys. La formació acadèmica de cadascun d’ells inclou períodes de formació de postgrau en algunes de les universitats més destacades de la Gran Bretanya, d’Holanda i dels Estats Units. Mireia Llinàs (MA University College London, PhD Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), coordinadora d’aquest volum, es dedica juntament amb Montserrat Capdevila (MA University College London, PhD Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) a l’adquisició de primeres i segones llengües. Joaquín Domínguez (MA Georgetwon University, PhD Universidad Complutense de Madrid) s’interessa per la comparació de la sintaxi de l’anglès amb el català i el castellà, Melissa Moyer (MA Stanford University, PhD Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) és especialista en bilingüisme i multlingüisme des d’un enfocament sintàctic i d’alternança de llengües. Elisabet Pladevall (MA University College London, PhD Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) va presentar la seva tesi doctoral l’any 2007 amb al títol Child and Adult Non-native Subject Development: A Bi-directional study of English and Spanish as L2s i Susagna Tubau (MA University College London, PhD Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Universitat d’Amsterdam) és doctora des del juny de 2008 amb la tesi Negative Concord in English and Romance: Syntax-Morphology Interface Conditions on the Expression of Negation.
This book uses corpus-based methodologies to investigate the wide variety of factors behind verb number agreement with complex collective noun phrases in English. The literature on collective nouns and their agreement patterns spans an array of disciplines and approaches. However, little of the research conducted to date has focused on the influence of of-dependents on verb number with relational collective nouns, as in examples such as a bunch of or a group of. Drawing on data from two case studies – one based on the Corpus of Historical American English (COHA), and the other on the British National Corpus (BNC) and the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) – Fernández-Pena uses statistical modelling to unpack the different morphological, syntactic, semantic and lexical dimensions of the variables affecting verb number agreement with complex collective noun phrases in English. This multidimensional analysis of the significance of of-dependents in the patterning and contemporary usage of collective nouns offers new insight into and understanding of both synchronic variation and diachronic change. This book is an essential read for scholars of English language variation and change, historical linguistics, corpus linguistics, and usage-based approaches to the study of language.
Τhis book offers a new approach to the theory of change in argument structure and voice morphology. It investigates the diachrony of transitivity, and especially the changes in causative verbs and transitivity alternations, based on data mainly from the Greek and English diachrony (all historical data are transcribed and accompanied by glosses and translations into Modern English). Data from earlier periods provide new information on burning questions in both Historical and Theoretical Linguistics. The study shows that (a) causativisations are the result of reanalysis of intransitive verbs as transitive on the basis of the linguistic cue of Case; (b) the changes in voice morphology do not depend on the derivation and direction of new transitivity alternations. Finally, the study demonstrates that the generalisation that guides the changes in voice demands morphological differentiation of the anticausative from the passive types.
Syntax is the system of rules that we subconsciously follow when we build sentences. Whereas the grammar of English (or other languages) might look like a rather chaotic set of arbitrary patterns, linguistic science has revealed that these patterns can actually be understood as the result of a small number of grammatical principles. This lively introductory textbook is designed for undergraduate students in linguistics, English and modern languages with relatively little background in the subject, offering the necessary tools for the analysis of phrases and sentences while at the same time introducing state-of-the-art syntactic theory in an accessible and engaging way. Guiding students through a variety of intriguing puzzles, striking facts and novel ideas, Introducing Syntax presents contemporary insights into syntactic theory in one clear and coherent narrative, avoiding unnecessary detail and enabling readers to understand the rationale behind technicalities. Aids to learning include highlighted key terms, suggestions for further reading and numerous exercises, placing syntax in a broader grammatical perspective.
This volume contains original research and innovative analyses that deepen our understanding of figurative thought and language. The selected papers focus on the multi-faceted aspect of figuration, its function in thought, and its impact on areas of grammar and communication. Key topics explored include metaphor, metonymy and their relationship to each other, as well as the less studied figure of hyperbole and its relation to the fundamental figures of metaphor and metonymy. Collectively, the papers examine the pragmatic reasoning processes triggered by figurative thought, the lexicogrammatical motivations and/or constraints on figurative language, the impact of deeply entrenched figurative thought on the lexicon of natural languages, the cultural origins of figurative thought, and the psycholinguistic motivations for figuration. The comprehensive treatment of these issues is fundamental for future research on figurative thought and language, particularly on questions of universality vs. specificity of figuration, the impact of figuration on constructions, cross-linguistic comparisons of figurative language, and cognitive-pragmatic approaches to figurative meaning.
This book discusses the morphological properties of intonation, building on past research to support the long-recognized relationship between the functions and meanings of discourse particles and the functions and meanings of intonation. The morphological status of intonation has been debated for decades, and this book provides evidence from the literature combined with new and compelling empirical evidence to show that specific intonational forms correspond to specific segmental discourse particles. Based on the conclusion that intonation is in the lexicon, it proposes syntactic positions for intonational meanings using a cartographic approach. It also describes how intonation is represented in speakers' minds, which has important implications for first and second language acquisition as well as for theories and approaches to artificial speech recognition and production. This book is of interest to theoretical and applied linguists, as well as to anyone whose research and interests relate in any way to intonation.
