Objects and Information Structure
Author: Mary Dalrymple
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2011-06-02
Total Pages: 262
ISBN-13: 0521199859
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →A cross-linguistic study of how objects are affected by information structure.
Lanterna Rally
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Degrees of Explicitness
Author: John Leafgren
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Published: 2002-01-01
Total Pages: 270
ISBN-13: 9789027253422
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This book explores factors relevant in the choices speakers and writers make in regard to explicitness of reference to the subjects and objects in their utterances. Bulgarian is a particularly felicitous target language for this type of study, since it possesses a rich inventory of available packaging techniques, ranging from zero reference, to various stressed and unstressed single forms, to actual doubled (reduplicated) constructions. The study systematically addresses the need to avoid referential and grammatical ambiguity, and the crucial influence of emphasis. Another, and perhaps most interesting central factor is the status of what the communication is about, which is assessed on two different levels. The book makes use of data from both published Bulgarian fiction and naturally occurring oral conversations. The fundamental similarities between these modes of communication with respect to noun phrase selection is demonstrated, but explanations are also proposed for the observable differences.
Reference to Abstract Objects in Discourse
Author: Nicholas Asher
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Published: 2012-12-06
Total Pages: 468
ISBN-13: 9401117152
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Reference to Abstract Objects in Discourse presents a novel framework and analysis of the ways we refer to abstract objects in natural language discourse. The book begins with a typology of abstract objects and related entities like eventualities. After an introduction to `bottom up, compositional' discourse representation theory (DRT) and to previous work on abstract objects in DRT (notably work on the semantics of the attitudes), the book turns to a semantic analysis of eventuality and abstract object denoting nominals in English. The book then substantially revises and extends the dynamic semantic framework of DRT to develop an analysis of anaphoric reference to abstract objects and eventualities that exploits discourse structure and the discourse relations that obtain between elements of the structure. A dynamic, semantically based theory of discourse structure (SDRT) is proposed, along with many illustrative examples. Two further chapters then provide the analysis of anaphoric reference to propositions VP ellipsis. The abstract entity anaphoric antecedents are elements of the discourse structures that SDRT develops. The final chapter discusses some logical and philosophical difficulties for a semantic analysis of reference to abstract objects. For semanticists, philosophers of language, computer scientists interested in natural language applications and discourse, philosophical logicians, graduate students in linguistics, philosophy, cognitive science and artificial intelligence.
The Cambridge Handbook of Generative Syntax
Author: Marcel den Dikken
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2013-07-25
Total Pages: 1412
ISBN-13: 1107354587
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →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.
Events as Grammatical Objects
Author: Carol Tenny
Publisher: Center for the Study of Language and Information Publications
Published: 2000-01
Total Pages: 400
ISBN-13: 9781575862064
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Research in lexical semantics, logical semantics, and syntax has demonstrated a growing recognition that the grammars of natural languages structure and refer to events in particular ways. This convergence on events as grammatical objects cross these disciplines is the motivation for this volume, which brings together researchers from the areas of lexical semantics, logical semantics, and syntax specifically to address the topic of event structure. Lexical semantics and logical semantics are two enterprises that use different tools and address different questions. This volume specifically focuses on topics relating to events in grammar, where the work of lexical semanticists, logical semanticists, and syntacticians intersect.
Diachronic Studies on Information Structure
Author: Gisella Ferraresi
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Published: 2010-08-31
Total Pages: 231
ISBN-13: 3110227479
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →In the last few years a lively discussion on information packaging has arisen, where traditional dichotomies Theme/Rheme, Topic/Comment and Focus/Background have been taken up again and partly reinterpreted. The discussion is mainly being held in syntax, but also in the fields of semantics and pragmatics. Some remarkable progress has been made especially in Focus phonology. Even if the role of information conveying and information packaging in the Indoeuropean languages was hinted at as early as in the classical studies of the Neogrammarians, this field has remained neglected in today's historical linguistics. This volume tries to partly cover this lack with a sample of papers which offer a various range of new empirical data analyzed from the point of view of information structure. The novelty of the papers consists in the modern theoretical perspective from which the data are analyzed and in the various phenomena considered, which range from the rise of clitic elements to word order change and verb movement. Editorial board Dr. habil. Kai Alter (Newcastle University Medical School) Prof. Dr. Ulrike Demske (Universität des Saarlandes) Prof. Dr. Ewald Lang (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) Prof. Dr. Rosemarie Lühr (Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena) Prof. Dr. Thomas Pechmann (Universität Leipzig) Prof. em. Dr. Anita Steube (Universität Leipzig)
The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure
Author: Caroline Féry
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2016
Total Pages: 993
ISBN-13: 0199642672
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This book provides linguists with a clear, critical, and comprehensive overview of theoretical and experimental work on information structure. Leading researchers survey the main theories of information structure in syntax, phonology, and semantics as well as perspectives from psycholinguistics and other relevant fields. Following the editors' introduction the book is divided into four parts. The first, on theories of and theoretical perspectives on information structure, includes chapters on topic, prosody, and implicature. Part 2 covers a range of current issues in the field, including focus, quantification, and sign languages, while Part 3 is concerned with experimental approaches to information structure, including processes involved in its acquisition and comprehension. The final part contains a series of linguistic case studies drawn from a wide variety of the world's language families. This volume will be the standard guide to current work in information structure and a major point of departure for future research.
Information Structure and Syntactic Change in the History of English
Author: Anneli Meurman-Solin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2012-08-02
Total Pages: 352
ISBN-13: 0199860211
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The unifying topic of this volume is the role of information structure, broadly conceived, as it interacts with the other levels of linguistic description, syntax, morphology, prosody, semantics and pragmatics.
Serialization and Persistent Objects
Author: Jiri Soukup
Publisher: Springer Science & Business
Published: 2014-04-23
Total Pages: 276
ISBN-13: 3642393233
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Recently, the pressure for fast processing and efficient storage of large data with complex relations increased beyond the capability of traditional databases. Typical examples include iPhone applications, computer aided design – both electrical and mechanical, biochemistry applications, and incremental compilers. Serialization, which is sometimes used in such situations is notoriously tedious and error prone. In this book, Jiri Soukup and Petr Macháček show in detail how to write programs which store their internal data automatically and transparently to disk. Together with special data structure libraries which treat relations among objects as first-class entities, and with a UML class-diagram generator, the core application code is much simplified. The benchmark chapter shows a typical example where persistent data is faster by the order of magnitude than with a traditional database, in both traversing and accessing the data. The authors explore and exploit advanced features of object-oriented languages in a depth hardly seen in print before. Yet, you as a reader need only a basic knowledge of C++, Java, C#, or Objective C. These languages are quite similar with respect to persistency, and the authors explain their differences where necessary. The book targets professional programmers working on any industry applications, it teaches you how to design your own persistent data or how to use the existing packages efficiently. Researchers in areas like language design, compiler construction, performance evaluation, and no-SQL applications will find a wealth of novel ideas and valuable implementation tips. Under http://www.codefarms.com/book, you will find a blog and other information, including a downloadable zip file with the sources of all the listings that are longer than just a few lines – ready to compile and run.
Incomplete Information: Structure, Inference, Complexity
Author: Stephane P. Demri
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Published: 2013-04-18
Total Pages: 415
ISBN-13: 366204997X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This monograph presents a systematic, exhaustive and up-to-date overview of formal methods and theories for data analysis and inference inspired by the concept of rough set. Throughout, Demri studies structures with incomplete information from the logical, algebraic and computational perspective. The formalisms developed are non-invasive in that only the actual information that is needed in the process of analysis without external sources of information being required. The book is self-contained to a large degree, providing detailed derivations of most of the technical results, and is intended for researchers, lecturers and graduate students.
