Cognitive linguists and psychologists have often argued that language is best understood as an association network; however while the network view of language has had a significant impact on the study of morphology and lexical semantics, it is only recently that researchers have taken an explicit network approach to the study of syntax. This innovative study presents a dynamic network model of grammar in which all aspects of linguistic structure, including core concepts of syntax (e.g. phrase structure, word classes, grammatical relations), are analyzed in terms of associative connections between different types of linguistic elements. These associations are shaped by domain-general learning processes that are operative in language use and sensitive to frequency of occurrence. Drawing on research from usage-based linguistics and cognitive psychology, the book provides an overview of frequency effects in grammar and analyzes these effects within the framework of a dynamic network model.
Models of theoretical linguistics now emphasize the meeting points, or interfaces, between different aspects of our language capacity. Syntactic operations include structure-building, checking long-distance relationships between units, and connecting alternative word orders. This volume presents a collection of original studies that explore the mapping between these operations and other language-related areas such as word meanings, discourse contexts, the construction of meaning for larger units, and the alternative expressions of word order. It differs from previous traditional research on interfaces by bringing together studies and analyses from a range of languages, using monolingual varieties that include second language phenomena. Case studies of different types of interfaces, as well as studies based on lesser known sets of linguistic data, provide important examples that propose a new view of the connections between syntactic processes and other areas of grammar.
Most syntacticians, no matter their theoretical persuasion, agree that features (types or categories) are the most important units of analysis. Within Chomskyan generative grammar, the importance of features has grown steadily and within minimalism, it can be said that everything depends on features. They are obstacles in any interdisciplinary investigation concerning the nature of language and it is hard to imagine a syntactic description that does not explore them. For the first time, this book turns grammar upside down and proposes a new model of syntax that is better suited for interdisciplinary interactions, and shows how syntax can proceed free of lexical influence. The empirical domain examined is vast, and all the fundamental units and properties of syntax (categories, parameters, Last Resort, labelling, and hierarchies) are rethought. Opening up new avenues of investigation, this book will be invaluable to researchers and students in syntactic theory, and linguistics more broa
Syntactic theory has been dominated in the last decades by theories that disregard semantics in their approach to syntax. Presenting a truly semantic approach to syntax, this book takes as its primary starting point the idea that syntax deals with the relations between meanings expressed by form-meaning elements and that the same types of relations can be found cross-linguistically. The theory provides a way to formalize the syntactic relations between meanings so that each fragment of grammar can be analyzed in a clear-cut way. A comprehensive introduction into the theoretical concepts of the theory is provided, with analyzes of numerous examples in English and various other languages, European and non-European, to illustrate the concepts. The theory discussed will enable linguists to look for similarities between languages, while at the same time acknowledging important language specific features.
This book challenges the current consensus on the analysis of wh-questions and reflexives from the perspective of the syntax-semantics interface. An integrated approach incorporating analyses of the i
This volume provides a detailed and comprehensive description of the morphological system of Dutch. Following an introduction to the basic assumptions of morphological theory, separate chapters are de
This volume is the first to provide a comprehensive cross-linguistic overview of an understudied typological phenomenon, the clause-level argument-like behavior of internal possessors. In some languag
This book explores the syntactic structures of Mainland Scandinavian, a term that covers the Northern Germanic languages spoken in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and parts of Finland. The continuum of mutua
This handbook deals with research into the nature of events, and how we use language to describe events. The study of event structure over the past 60 years has been one of the most successful areas o
This book presents the first serious attempt to set out a functional-semantic definition of diachronic transcategorial shift between the major classes noun/nominal and verb/clause. In English, speaker
There are far more syntactically distinct languages than we might have thought; yet there are far fewer than there might have been. Questions of Syntax collects sixteen papers authored by Richard S. K
There are far more syntactically distinct languages than we might have thought; yet there are far fewer than there might have been. Questions of Syntax collects sixteen papers authored by Richard S. K
