Shifting the Focus / Daniel Wedgwood.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wedgwood, Daniel, author.

Series:

Current Research in the Semantics / Pragmatics Interface ; 14.

Current Research in the Semantics / Pragmatics Interface ; 14

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Focus (Linguistics).

Pragmatics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (329 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Leiden; Boston : BRILL, 2005.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

How direct is the mapping between linguistic constructions and their interpretations? Much less direct than we commonly assume, according to Daniel Wedgwood. Extending current ideas from frameworks like Relevance Theory and Dynamic Syntax, Wedgwood upholds a radical position on modelling linguistic competence: the idea of interfacing static syntactic and semantic representations must be abandoned in favour of models of the incremental construction of meaning during parsing - which may involve significant pragmatic enrichment. In illustration, Wedgwood presents a detailed study of a key meeting point of grammar and pragmatics: focus, in particular its syntactic expression in Hungarian. The result is a strikingly simple explanation of a complex set of syntactico-semantic phenomena, touching on information structure, negation, quantification and complex predication. For its clear and bold theoretical argumentation and its novel analysis of some notorious data, this book will be of interest to all linguists, philosophers and computational linguists concerned with the relationships between syntax, semantics, pragmatics and information structure. This book features a broad theoretical perspective. It offers a coherent overall picture of syntax, semantics and pragmatics - and how they inter-relate. It combines a bold new approach with the insights of existing theory - thorough, novel analysis of linguistic phenomena that historically occupy an important place in the literature, as illustration of a carefully laid out theoretical position. It extends and integrates research from a variety of linguistic domains and frameworks. It also includes a comprehensive informal discussion as well as a formalised analysis.

Contents:

Language and Meaning

Relevance Theory and Implications for Linguistic Structure

The Hungarian Data

Focus and Grammar

Focus and Quantifier Distribution

Dynamic Structured Meanings: Predication and Information Structure

Verbal Modifiers and Main Predication

'Aspectual Constructions' and Negation

Summary and Conclusions

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786610632909

9781280632907

1280632909

9780080457314

0080457312

OCLC:

475998211

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9780080457314 DOI