Syntax And Semantics Volume 1

Preliminary Material /John P. Kimball --Possible and Must /Lauri Karttunen --The Modality of Conditionals-A Discussion of “Possible and Must” /John P. Kimball --Forward Implications, Backward Presuppositions, and the Time Axis of Verbs /Talmy Givón --Temporally Restrictive Adjectives /David Dowty --Cyclic and Linear Grammars /John P. Kimball --On the Cycle in Syntax /John Grinder --Discussion /George Lakoff --Action and Result: Two Aspects of Predication in English /Michael B. Kac --Three Reasons for Not Deriving 'Kill' from 'Cause to Die' in Japanese /Masayoshi Shibatani --Kac and Shibatani on the Grammar of Killing /James D. Mc Cawley --Reply to McCawley /Michael B. Kac --Doubl-ing /John Robert Ross --Where Do Relative Clauses Come From? /Judith Aissen --On the Nonexistence of Mirror Image Rules in Syntax /Jorge Hankamer --The VP-Constituent of SVO Languages /Arthur Schwartz --Lahu Nominalization, Relativization, and Genitivization /James A. Matisoff --Navaho Object Markers and the Great Chain of Being /Nancy Frishberg --The Crossover Constraint and Ozark English /Suzette Haden Elgin --Author Index /John P. Kimball --Subject Index /John P. Kimball.

First published in 1981. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A long-standing, near-universal, and erroneous practice of teaching syntax in a void exists, as if the communicative function of language had nothing to do with syntax. And semantics has customarily been taught in sequence after syntax, or else not at all. Based upon graduate courses taught at Stanford University, this work seeks to redress this situation by building up syntactic and semantic aspects of grammatical theory in an integrated way from the start, under the assumption that neither is of linguistic interest divorced from the other. The particular theory presented, head-driven phrase structure grammar (HPSG) - so-called because of its central notion of the grammatical head - is an information-based (or 'unification-based' theory that has its roots in a number of different research programs within linguistics and neighboring disciplines such as philosophy and computer science. Thus HPSG draws upon and attempts to synthesize insights and perspectives from several families of contemporary syntactic theories, such as categorial grammar, lexical-functional grammar, generalized phrase structure grammar, and government-binding theory; but many of its key ideas arise from semantic theories like situation semantics and discourse representation theory, and from computational work in such areas as knowledge representation, data type theory, and formalisms based upon the unification of partial information.

Asymmetry in Grammar: Syntax and Semantics brings to fore the centrality of asymmetry in DP, VP and CP. A finer grained articulation of the DP is proposed, and further functional projections for restrictive relatives, as well as a refined analyses of case identification and presumptive pronouns. The papers on VP discuss further asymmetries among arguments, and between arguments and adjuncts. Double-object constructions, specificational copula sentences, secondary predicates, and the scope properties of adjuncts are discussed in this perspective. The papers on CP propose a further articulation of the phrasal projection, justifications for Remnant IP movement, and an analysis of variation in clause structure asymmetries. The papers in semantics support the hypothesis that interpretation is a function of configurational asymmetry. The type/token information difference is further argued to correspond to the partition between the upper and lower level of the phrase. It is also proposed that Point of View Roles are not primitives of the pragmatic component, but are head-dependent categories. Configurationality is further argued to be required to distinguish contrastive from non-contrastive Topic. Compositionality is proposed to explain cross-linguistic variations in the selectional behavior of typologically different languages. The papers in syntax include contributions from Antonia Androutsopoulou and Manuel Español-Echevarría, Dana Isac, Edit Jakab, Cedric Boeckx, Julie Anne Legate, Maria Cristina Cuervo, Jacqueline Guéron, Niina Zhang, Thomas Ernst, Manuela Ambar, Jean-Yves Pollock, Anna Maria Di Sciullo, Ilena Paul and Stanca Somesfalean.The papers on semantics include contributions of Greg Carlson,Peggy Speas and Carol Tenny, Chungmin Lee, and James Pustejovsky.

This new edition of Syntax: A functional-typological introduction is at many points radically revised. In the previous edition (1984) the author deliberately chose to de-emphasize the more formal aspects of syntactic structure, in favor of a more comprehensive treatment of the semantic and pragmatic correlates of syntactic structure. With hindsight the author now finds the de-emphasis of the formal properties a somewhat regrettable choice, since it creates the false impression that one could somehow be a functionalist without being at the same time a structuralist. To redress the balance, explicit treatment is given to the core formal properties of syntactic constructions, such as constituency and hierarchy (phrase structure), grammatical relations and relational control, clause union, finiteness and governed constructions. At the same time, the cognitive and communicative underpinning of grammatical universals are further elucidated and underscored, and the interplay between grammar, cognition and neurology is outlined. Also the relevant typological database is expanded, now exploring in greater precision the bounds of syntactic diversity. Lastly, Syntax treats synchronic-typological diversity more explicitly as the dynamic by-product of diachronic development or grammaticalization. In so doing a parallel is drawn between linguistic diversity and diachrony on the one hand and biological diversity and evolution on the other. It is then suggested that — as in biology — synchronic universals of grammar are exercised and instantiated primarily as constraints on development, and are thus merely the apparent by-products of universal constraints on grammaticalization.

This volume brings together a number of researchers working on generative syntax and semantics, language acquisition and phonology to explore various theoretical frameworks, ranging from generative grammar and formal semantics to more descriptive approaches. The contributions gathered here investigate various aspects in the syntax, semantics, phonology and acquisition of Romanian in comparison with other (mainly Romance) languages. The book will be of interest to linguists who are keen on keeping up with the latest advances in the field of Romance studies, as well as those whose research bears on languages such as Hungarian, German, and Maltese, among others.