Some Aspects Of Text Grammars

If we consider how theoretical operations belonging to the methodological inventory of linguistics are carried out (i. e. the way linguistic theories are set up), three main criteria suggest themselves for classifying them: (1) Both, nature and type of the aims of the scientific knowledge applied which allow to specify the epistemological interests as well as the theoretical impact constituting the purpose of linguistic operations; (2) the nature of the intellectual procedures in connection with which a set of intersubjectively acceptable operations should guarantee that current postulates of the theory of science be maintained; (3) the set of data serving as an empirical basis for the theories to be estab lished on the one hand and as a correlate for the further development, the testing and the evaluation of theories on the other hand. It is to be considered a basic concept (as well as a motive) of current text linguistic research that due to the linguistic analysis of discourses a further development of linguistics has set in or is still to be achieved as regards the three criteria mentioned above. Therefore, if we want to estimate text-linguistic approaches (or concepts), works (methods), or knowledge (results) we should take the view allowing for the general valuation of the linguistic discipline or one of its sub-disciplines. This should be done with respect to the contributions gathered in this volume as well.

To celebrate the 270th anniversary of the De Gruyter publishing house, the company is providing permanent open access to 270 selected treasures from the De Gruyter Book Archive. Titles will be made available to anyone, anywhere at any time that might be interested. The DGBA project seeks to digitize the entire backlist of titles published since 1749 to ensure that future generations have digital access to the high-quality primary sources that De Gruyter has published over the centuries.

The Fourth International Congress for Logic, Methodology, and Philos ophy of Science was held in Bucharest, Romania, on August 29-September 4, 1971. The Congress was organized, under the auspices of the Inter national Union for History and Philosophy of Science, Division of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, by the Academy of the Socialist Republic of Romania, the Academy of Social and Political Sciences of the Socialist Republic of Romania, and the Ministry of Education of Romania. With more than eight hundred participating scholars from thirty-four countries, the Congress was one of the major scientific events of the year 1971. The dedicated efforts of the organizers, the rich and carefully planned program, and the warm and friendly atmosphere contributed to making the Congress a successful and fruitful forum of exchange of scientific ideas. The work of the Congress consisted of invited one hour and half-hour addresses, symposia, and contributed papers. The proceedings were organized into twelve sections of Mathematical Logic, Foundations of Mathematical Theories, Automata and Programming Languages, Philos ophy of Logic and Mathematics, General Problems of Methodology and Philosophy of Science, Foundations of Probability and Induction, Methodology and Philosophy of Physical Sciences, Methodology and Philosophy of Biological Sciences, Methodology and Philosophy of Psychological Sciences, Methodology and Philosophy of Historical and Social Sciences, Methodology and Philosophy of Linguistics, and History of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science.

This volume, first published in 1988, represents in its papers the wide-ranging yet coherent linguistic interests of the late Barbara Strang (1925-1982). For her, the history of English and its current state were two sides of the same coin, and the principle theme of this collection is that neither one may be properly understood without invoking the other. It is a ‘real-data’ collection, in that its contributors share the view that the facts of language, patiently gathered, recorded and collated, must govern the theory within which they are described, and not vice versa. This philosophy may be seen to operate in all the contributions, and to result in a truly three-dimensional picture of English: data; distribution (temporal, geographical, situational and social); and description. This book will be of interest to students of English language and linguistics.

The book explores ways in which the formal methods of linguistics can cast light on the structure of verbal interaction, and in particular considers how successive utterances cohere together in continuous spoken discourse. Beginning with an earlier model of discourse analysis elaborated to deal with teacher-pupil interaction in the classroom, it then reviews attempts to extend this model to a variety of discourses such as committee talk, doctor-patient interviews, broadcast discussions and the monologue of lectures. The extension of the original model to other situations has prompted a number of innovations and additional insights which are expounded in a series of contributions linked by complimentary themes. There are contributions on the role of intonation and of kinetics in discourse analysis; explorations of the problems of the analytic category ‘sentence’ and of the problems raised by casual conversation; and there is extended discussion of the structural properties underlying exchanges of utterances. The book moves easily between data and theory, forming a unified whole. It sums up a continuing and lively debate within a common tradition of discourse analysis and may well serve as a programmatic statement for future work in the field.

First published in 1984, this book examines a number of questions on the boundary of competence and performance — whose solutions have implications for linguistic theory in general. In particular, the form of grammatical statements, the relationship between various rules of grammar, the interaction between sentence in a sequence, and the inferences to be drawn from linguistic behaviour to linguistic knowledge. The author argues that many grammatical processes, inadequately handled by conventional sentence-grammars, require a text grammar in which the basic constitutive processes of information and deixis can be specified. They ago further to investigate the novel hypothesis that emphatic structure provides a crucial condition for the application of transformational rules, paying particular attention to the ‘movement-rules’ using mostly data culled from actual usage.

Using a wide-ranging variety of texts the author reviews and evaluates a broad range of approaches to textual commentary, introducing the reader to the fundamental distinction between `actual' and `virtual' worlds in critical practice.