Semantics - Sentence and Information Structure

Semantics - Sentence and Information Structure PDF

Author: Paul Portner

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2019-02-19

Total Pages: 554

ISBN-13: 3110589869

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Read this book to get a deeper understanding of a wide range of semantics research on complex sentences and meaning in discourse. These in-depth articles from leading names in their fields cover the core concepts of sentential semantics such as tense, modality, conditionality, propositional attitudes, scope, negation, and coordination. The highly cited material, covers questions, imperatives, copular clauses, and existential sentences. It also includes essential research on sentence types, and explains central concepts in the theory of information structure and discourse structure, such as topics, cohesion and coherence, accessibility and discourse particles.

Information Structure and Sentence Form

Information Structure and Sentence Form PDF

Author: Knud Lambrecht

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1996-11-13

Total Pages: 406

ISBN-13: 1316582418

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Why do speakers of all languages use different grammatical structures under different communicative circumstances to express the same idea? Professor Lambrecht explores the relationship between the structure of the sentence and the linguistic and extra-linguistic context in which it is used. His analysis is based on the observation that the structure of a sentence reflects a speaker's assumption about the hearer's state of knowledge and consciousness at the time of the utterance. This relationship between speaker assumptions and formal sentence structure is governed by rules and conventions of grammar, in a component called 'information structure'. Four independent but interrelated categories are analysed: presupposition and assertion, identifiability and activation, topic, and focus.

Information Structure and Syntactic Change in the History of English

Information Structure and Syntactic Change in the History of English PDF

Author: Anneli Meurman-Solin

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012-06-12

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 0199938482

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Information Structure and Syntactic Change in the History of English is the first book to apply information structure as it relates to language change to a corpus-based analysis of a wide range of features in the evolution of English syntax and grammars of prose in long diachrony.

Sentence and Discourse

Sentence and Discourse PDF

Author: Jacqueline Guéron

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2015-10-29

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 019105982X

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This book looks at the relationship between the structure of the sentence and the organization of discourse. While a sentence obeys specific grammatical rules, the coherence of a discourse is instead dependent on the relations between the sentences it contains. In this volume, leading syntacticians, semanticists, and philosophers examine the nature of these relations, where they come from, and how they apply. Chapters in Part I address points of sentence grammar in different languages, including mood and tense in Spanish, definite determiners in French and Bulgarian, and the influence of aktionsart on the acquisition of tense by English, French, and Chinese children. Part II looks at modes of discourse, showing for example how discourse relations create implicatures and how Indirect Discourse differs from Free Indirect Discourse. The studies conclude that the relations between sentences that make a discourse coherent are already encoded in sentence grammar and that, once established, these relations influence the meaning of individual sentences.

Information Structure and Reference Tracking in Complex Sentences

Information Structure and Reference Tracking in Complex Sentences PDF

Author: Rik van Gijn

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2014-03-15

Total Pages: 417

ISBN-13: 9027270759

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This volume is dedicated to exploring the crossroads where complex sentences and information management – more specifically information structure and reference tracking – come together. Complex sentences are a highly relevant but understudied domain for studying notions of IS and RT. On the one hand, a complex sentence can be studied as a mini-unit of discourse consisting of two or more elements describing events, situations, or processes, with its own internal information-structural and referential organization. On the other hand, complex sentences can be studied as parts of larger discourse structures, such as narratives or conversations, in terms of how their information-structural characteristics relate to this wider context. The book offers new perspectives for the study of the interaction between complex sentences and information management, and moreover adds typological breadth by focusing on lesser studied languages from several parts of the world.

The Expression of Information Structure

The Expression of Information Structure PDF

Author: Manfred Krifka

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2012-08-31

Total Pages: 476

ISBN-13: 311026160X

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Information structure deals with the linguistic forms and techniques that support the integration of what is said into the current informational and attentional state of the addressee. This shows in categories like topic-comment structuring, focus to highlight expressions, marking of givenness and of presupposed information, and ways to indicate that the information provided is restricted. The book relates infor-mation structure to theoretical models of grammar, to computation and modelling and brings together what is known about the expression of information structure in human language with regard to its empirical investigation, its psycholinguistic aspects and the acquisition of information structure. Since the need to integrate what is said into the informational and attentional state of the addressee is central to all human communication, it is not surprising that all natural languages have developed devices to express information structural cate-gories. To illustrate this, the book also provides concrete and theory independent descriptions of the information structural encoding strategies of individual languages of different types . The book can be used as a textbook appropriate for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses; it also provides information for linguists that are not specialists in the field.

Contrastiveness in Information Structure, Alternatives and Scalar Implicatures

Contrastiveness in Information Structure, Alternatives and Scalar Implicatures PDF

Author: Chungmin Lee

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-01-11

Total Pages: 415

ISBN-13: 3319101064

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A group of authors containing both leading authorities and young researchers addresses a number of issues of contrastiveness, polarity items and exhaustivity, quantificational expressions and the implicatures they generate, and the interaction between semantic operators and speech acts. The 19 contributions provide insights on the interplay between semantics and pragmatics. The volume’s reach is cross-linguistic and takes an unorthodox multi-paradigm approach. Languages studied range from European languages including Hungarian and Russian to East Asian languages such as Japanese and Korean, with rich data on focus and discourse particles. This volume contributes to a major area of research in linguistics of the last decade, and provides novel, state-of-the-art views on some of the central topics in linguistic research, and will appeal to an audience of graduate and advanced undergraduate researchers in linguistics, philosophy of language and computational linguistics.

Syntactic Structures

Syntactic Structures PDF

Author: Noam Chomsky

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2020-05-18

Total Pages: 120

ISBN-13: 3112316002

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No detailed description available for "Syntactic Structures".

Semantics - Foundations, History and Methods

Semantics - Foundations, History and Methods PDF

Author: Klaus Heusinger

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2019-02-19

Total Pages: 533

ISBN-13: 3110393344

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Get to grips with the fundamentals of semantics research. Written by a team of world-class experts, this book introduces the subject for a broad audience of linguists, cognitive scientists, philosophers, and computer scientists. It explores the core concepts of sentential semantics and includes sections on questions, imperatives, copular clauses, and existential sentences. It also features essential research on sentence types, and explains central concepts in the theory of information structure and discourse structure. Now in paperback for the first time since its original publication, the material in this modern classic is an ideal resource for anyone involved in semantics research.

The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure

The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure PDF

Author: Caroline Féry

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 993

ISBN-13: 0199642672

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"Researchers survey the main theories of information structure in syntax, phonology, and semantics as well as perspectives from psycholinguistics and other relevant fields"--Del editor.