The Semantics of Syntax

First published in 1979, this book develops a grammatically orientated semantics (as opposed to a semantically orientated grammar) of mood and condition in English. It seeks to establish correspondenc

During the last thirty years, most linguists and philosophers have assumed that meaning can be represented symbolically and that the mental processing of language involves the manipulation of symbols.

Korean has proven to be an invaluable language to theoretical linguists, providing abundant examples of, and counterexamples to, key theoretical issues at the forefront of modern linguistic theories. Exploring the Korean language from both a syntactic and semantic perspective, this book provides an up-to-date linguistic analysis of its structure, combining Minimalist Syntax with accompanying compositional formal semantics. EunHee Lee's detailed chapters cover the core architecture and phenomena of Korean, looking at the lexical layer, the functional layer, nominal structure, movements and complex clauses. A broad range of empirically and theoretically important phenomena are discussed, enabling students and professional linguists alike to understand the workings of the language in current theoretical frameworks. The book also includes discussion questions, exercises and a list of further reading to solidify the theoretical concepts, stimulate thinking and develop the ability to analyze

This new volume serves to focus and clarify the debate surrounding long-distance reflexives by examining the role of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics/discourse in the use of long-distance reflexives

Language is a system of communication in which grammatical structures function to express meaning in context. While all languages can achieve the same basic communicative ends, they each use different means to achieve them, particularly in the divergent ways that syntax, semantics and pragmatics interact across languages. This book looks in detail at how structure, meaning, and communicative function interact in human languages. Working within the framework of Role and Reference Grammar (RRG), Van Valin proposes a set of rules, called the 'linking algorithm', which relates syntactic and semantic representations to each other, with discourse-pragmatics playing a role in the linking. Using this model, he discusses the full range of grammatical phenomena, including the structures of simple and complex sentences, verb and argument structure, voice, reflexivization and extraction restrictions. Clearly written and comprehensive, this book will be welcomed by all those working on the interfac

This volume brings together recent research on the semantics and syntax of pseudo-incorporation, bringing into focus new empirical data from a wide array of languages, offering new formal analyses of

Korean has proven to be an invaluable language to theoretical linguists, providing abundant examples of, and counterexamples to, key theoretical issues at the forefront of modern linguistic theories. Exploring the Korean language from both a syntactic and semantic perspective, this book provides an up-to-date linguistic analysis of its structure, combining Minimalist Syntax with accompanying compositional formal semantics. EunHee Lee's detailed chapters cover the core architecture and phenomena of Korean, looking at the lexical layer, the functional layer, nominal structure, movements and complex clauses. A broad range of empirically and theoretically important phenomena are discussed, enabling students and professional linguists alike to understand the workings of the language in current theoretical frameworks. The book also includes discussion questions, exercises and a list of further reading to solidify the theoretical concepts, stimulate thinking and develop the ability to analyze

This collection is an important contribution to the semantic and syntactic analysis of the expression of existence. The focus is on the three main linguistic constructions expressing existence: copula

This indispensable volume contains articles that represent the best of Huang's work on the syntax-semantics interface over the last two decades. It includes three general topics: (a) questions, indefi

This indispensable volume contains articles that represent the best of Huang's work on the syntax-semantics interface over the last two decades. It includes three general topics: (a) questions, indefi

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 o

This book provides an introduction to compositional semantics and to the syntax/semantics interface, adopting a Direct Compositionality view while (where appropriate) also presenting a competing view

This comprehensive overview of Icelandic syntax contains new analyses of word order and long-distance reflexivization, detailed studies of case-marking, and the first systematic description of the -st

Argument structure - the pattern of underlying relations between a predicate and its dependents - is at the base of syntactic theory and the theory of the interface with semantics. This comprehensive guide explores the motives for thematic and event-structural decomposition, and its relation to structure in syntax. It also discusses broad patterns in the linking of syntactic to semantic relations, and includes insightful case studies on passive and resultative constructions. Semantically explicit and syntactically impartial, with a careful, interrogative approach, Williams clarifies notions of argument within both lexicalist and nonlexicalist approaches. Ideal for students and researchers in syntactic and semantic theory, this introduction includes: • A comprehensive overview of arguments in syntax and semantics • Discussion questions and suggestions for further reading • A glossary with helpful definitions of key terms.

These previously unpublished articles offer a cross-linguistic perspective on small clauses. They discuss subjects such as the different types of small clauses across languages and lexical items, the

Combinatorial Algebra: Syntax and Semantics provides comprehensive account of many areas of combinatorial algebra. It contains self-contained proofs of more than 20 fundamental results, both classical

Thia text presents a variety of perspectives from a diverse set of contributors on the syntactic and semantics factors in language change utilizing research that studies the evolution of language thro

The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks as well as studies that provide new insights by building bridges to neighbouring fields such as ne

An argument that complex cardinals are not extra-linguistic but built using standard syntax and standard principles of semantic composition.

The Interfaces of Chinese Syntax with Semantics and Pragmatics provides an in-depth exploration of a variety of interface phenomena in Chinese, a non-inflectional language, where to a large extent wor

The International Workshop on the Semantics/Syntax of Possessive Constructions was held at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst on May 6-8, 2002. This volume collects 22 of the papers presented at

This book focuses on the linguistic representation of temporality in the verbal domain and its interaction with the syntax and semantics of verbs, arguments, and modifiers. Leading scholars explore t

What do we mean when we say things like 'If only we knew what he was up to!' Clearly this is more than just a message, or a question to our addressee. We are expressing simultaneously that we don't know, and also that we wish to know. Several modes of encoding contribute to such modalities of expression: word order, subordinating subjunctions, sentences that are subordinated but nevertheless occur autonomously, and attitudinal discourse adverbs which, far beyond lexical adverbials of modality, allow the speaker and the listener to presuppose full agreement, partial agreement under presupposed conditions, or negotiation of common ground. This state of the art survey proposes a new model of modality, drawing on data from a variety of Germanic and Slavic languages to find out what is cross-linguistically universal about modality, and to argue that it is a constitutive part of human cognition.