The Semantics of Grammar

Wierzbicka, Anna

doi:10.1075/slcs.18

Cited by 772 publications

(298 citation statements)

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“…These results are therefore consistent with linguistic theories that allow structural configurations to be deployed based on relational meaning (e.g. Culicover, 1999;Fillmore, Kay, & O'Connor, 1988;Jackendoff, 2002;Lakoff, 1987;Lambrecht, 1994;Langacker, 1987;Michaelis & Lambrecht, 1996;Sag, 1997;Van Valin & LaPolla, 1997;Wierzbicka, 1988).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Can thematic roles leave traces of their places?

2003

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An important question in the study of language production is the nature of the semantic information that speakers use to create syntactic structures. A common answer to this question assumes that thematic roles help to mediate the mapping from messages to syntax. However, research using structural priming has suggested that the construction of syntactic frames may be insensitive to variations in thematic roles within messages (Cognition 35 (1990) 1; Psychological Review 99 (1992) 150). Because these studies involved structural alternations whose syntax covaries with the order of thematic roles, it is difficult to assess any independent contribution that role information may make to the positioning of phrases. In this study, we primed the order of the roles without changing the syntactic structure of the sentences produced, and found that the order of the roles was influenced by the priming manipulation. This implies that thematic roles or the features that differentiate them are active within the mapping between messages and sentence structures. q

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Can thematic roles leave traces of their places?

2003

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“…treated as a fact (Huddleston & Pullum 2002: 996). 5 For diachronic accounts of verbal complementation, see Warner (1982), Rohdenburg (1995), Fanego (1996Fanego ( , 2004, Rudanko (1998), Los (2005, and De Smet (2008); for synchronic accounts, see Wierzbicka (1988), Mair (1991), Rohdenburg (1999), andNoël (2003); and for typological accounts, see Givón (1980) and Noonan (2007). 6 For diachronic accounts, see Van der Gaaf (1928), Van der Wurff (1990), Fischer (1991), Miller (2002; for synchronic accounts, see Lees (1960), Bolinger (1961), Mair (1987); for typological accounts, see Comrie & Matthews (1990).…”

Section: Existing Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

The clausal complementation of deontic-evaluative adjectives in extraposition constructions: a synchronic-diachronic approach

linden

Davidse

2009

Flin

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This article develops a functional synchronic-diachronic description of the clausal complementation of deontic-evaluative adjectives in extraposition constructions (ECs). It does so on the basis of qualitative and quantitative corpus-based analyses of the importance adjectives important, essential, crucial and the appropriateness adjectives appropriate, proper, and fitting. All six adjectives can currently take either mandative complements expressing desired action (coded by to-infinitives or that-clauses) or propositional complements describing arguable claims (typically coded by that-clauses). In reference grammars these have tended to receive incomplete coverage without elucidation of the constructional polysemies involved. We argue that a better understanding of the present system can be arrived at by investigating the diachronic developments by which it was fashioned. The ECs with these adjectives started off as mandative constructions and this continues to be their current unmarked use. They also developed patterns with propositional complements, but in this area the importance and appropriateness adjectives followed different diachronic paths, leading to distinct pragmatico-semantic readings of the pattern with single proposition in Present-day English.

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“…Wierzbicka (1988Wierzbicka ( , 1991b, on the other hand, claims that "semantic rules know no exceptions". In her view, all grammatical differences between nouns such as rice, pea, oats, wheat, beans, noodles, scissors, spaghetti etc.…”

Section: The (Conceptual-)semantic Viewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accounts of the Count-Mass Distinction: A Critical Survey

Joosten

2004

NLY

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The issue of what is usually, but also misleadingly called the count-mass distinction, i.e. the distinction between nouns that can be counted (e.g. a car, two cars, many cars) and nouns that cannot (e.g. *a sand, *two sands, *many sands, sand, much sand), has been addressed and accounted for in different ways. This paper gives a critical survey of four main theoretical views on the distinction and points out that each of them is problematic in some way. It is argued that that the count-mass distinction should not be reduced to an exclusively grammatical, ontological, semantic, or contextual issue. A proper characterisation of the distinction can only be given if its multidimensional character is fully acknowledged and if parameters such as basic count- or masshood, degree of lexicalisation, conceptualisation, and (non)arbitrariness are taken into account.

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The Semantics of Grammar

Cited by 772 publications

References 0 publications

Can thematic roles leave traces of their places?

Can thematic roles leave traces of their places?

The clausal complementation of deontic-evaluative adjectives in extraposition constructions: a synchronic-diachronic approach

Accounts of the Count-Mass Distinction: A Critical Survey

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