The relationship between verbs and their arguments is a widely debated topic in linguistics. This comprehensive survey provides an overview of this important research area, exploring theories of how a verb's semantics can determine the morphosyntactic realization of its arguments. Assuming a close connection between verb meaning and syntactic structure, the analysis constructs a bridge between lexical-semantic and syntactic research.It will be invaluable to research in syntax, semantics, and related fields.
This book introduces the most important problems of reference and considers the solutions that have been proposed to explain them. Reference is at the centre of debate among linguists and philosophers and, as Barbara Abbott shows, this has been the case for centuries. She begins by examining the basic issue of how far reference is a two place (words-world) or a three place (speakers-words-world) relation.
Metaphorical and metonymical compounds – novel and lexicalised ones alike – are remarkably abundant in language. Yet how can we be sure that when using an expression such as land fishing in order to speak about metal detecting, the referent will be immediately understood even if the hearer had not been previously familiar with the compound? Accordingly, this book sets out to explore whether the semantics of metaphorical and metonymical noun–noun combinations can be systematically analysed within a theoretical framework...
While all languages can achieve the same basic communicative ends, they each use different means to achieve them, particularly in the divergent ways that syntax, semantics and pragmatics interact across languages. Written within the framework of Role and Reference Grammar, which proposes a set of rules to link semantic and syntactic relations to each other, this book discusses in detail how structure, meaning, and communicative function interact in human languages It will be welcomed by all those working on the interface between syntax, semantics and pragmatics.
Investigations of the Syntax-Semantics-Pragmatics Interface
Investigations of the Syntax-Semantics-Pragmatics Interface presents on-going research in Role and Reference Grammar in a number of critical areas of linguistic theory: verb semantics and argument structure, the nature of syntactic categories and syntactic representation, prosody and syntax, information structure and syntax, and the syntax and semantics of complex sentences. In each of these areas there are important results which not only advance the development of the theory, but also contribute to the broader theoretical discussion.
