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A text usually provides more information than a random sequence of clauses: It combines sentence-level information to larger units which are glued together by coherence relations that may induce a hierarchical discourse structure. Since linguists have begun to investigate texts as more complex units of linguistic communication, it has been controversially discussed what the appropriate level of analysis of discourse structure ought to be and what the criteria to identify (minimal) discourse units are. Linguistic structure–and more precisely, the extraction and integration of syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic information–is shown to be at the center of text processing and discourse comprehension. However, its role in the establishment of basic building blocks for a coherent discourse is still a subject of debate. This collection addresses these issues using various methodological approaches. It presents current results in theoretical, diachronic, experimental as well as computational research on structuring information in discourse.
This volume results from the workshop "Discourse obligates – How and why discourse limits the way we express what we express" at the 44th Annual Meeting of the German Linguistic Society in Tübingen, Germany. The workshop brought - and this book brings - together information-structural and information-theoretic perspectives on optional variation between linguistic encodings. Previously, linguistic phenomena like linearization, the choice between syntactic constructions or the distribution of ellipsis have been investigated from an information-structural or information-theoretic perspective, but the relationship between these approaches remains underexplored. The goal of this book is to look more in detail into how information structure and information theory contribute to explaining linguistic variation, to what extent they explain different encoding choices and whether they interact in doing so. Using experimental and corpus-based methods, the contributions investigate this on different languages, historical stages and levels of linguistic analysis.
Conceptual engineering is a newly flourishing branch of philosophy which investigates problems with our concepts and considers how they might be ameliorated: 'truth', for instance, is susceptible to paradox, and it's not clear what 'race' stands for. This is the first collective exploration of possibilities and problems of conceptual engineering.
Traditionally, anaphor resolution focused on structural cues of the antecedent. Recently, the interaction between discourse factors and information structure affecting antecedent salience has been more thoroughly explored. This volume depicts selected peer-reviewed research papers that tackle issues in anaphor resolution from theoretical, empirical and experimental perspectives. These collected articles present a wide spectrum of cross-linguistic data (Dutch, German, Spanish, Turkish, Yurakaré) and also offer new results from L1 and L2 acquisition studies. Data interpretation span from typological to psycholinguistic viewpoints and are related to recent developments in linguistic theory. On...
Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Mind presents cutting-edge work in the philosophy of mind, combining invited articles and articles selected from submissions. Each volume will highlight two themes to bring focus to debates. The series will reflect the diversity of methods adopted in contemporary philosophy of mind and provide a venue for rigorous and innovative work by both established and up-and-coming voices in the field. The themes covered in the second volume are doxastic states, the metaphysics of mind, and Spinoza's role in the history of philosophy of mind.
Atypical demonstratives have not received adequate attention in the literature so far, or have even been completely neglected. By providing fresh insights and discussing new facets, this volume contributes to the better understanding of this group of words, starting from specific empirical phenomena, and advances our knowledge of the various properties of demonstratives, their syntactic multi-functionality, semantic feature specifications and pragmatic functions. In addition, some of the papers discuss different grammaticalization processes involving demonstratives, in particular how and from which lexical and morphosyntactic categories they originate cross-linguistically, and which semantic or pragmatic mechanisms play which role in their emergence. As such, the different contributions guide the readers on an adventurous journey into the realm of different exotic species of demonstratives, whose peculiar properties offer new exiting insights into the complex nature of demonstrative expressions themselves.
Discourse Syntax is the study of syntax that requires an understanding of the surrounding text and the overall discourse situation, including considerations of genre and modality. Using corpus data and insights from current research, this book is a comprehensive guide to this fast-developing field. It takes the reader 'beyond the sentence' to study grammatical phenomena, like word order variation, connectives, ellipsis, and complexity. It introduces core concepts of Discourse Syntax, integrating insights from corpus-based research and inviting the reader to reflect on research design decisions. Each chapter begins with a definition of learning outcomes, provides results from empirical articles, and enables readers to critically assess data visualization. Complete with helpful further reading recommendations as well as a range of exercises, it is geared towards intermediate to advanced students of English linguistics and it is also essential reading for anyone interested in this exciting, fast-moving discipline.
Language, Volume 68, the latest release in the Psychology of Learning and Motivation, features empirical and theoretical contributions in cognitive and experimental psychology, ranging from classical and instrumental conditioning, to complex learning and problem-solving. Each chapter thoughtfully integrates the writings of leading contributors, with this volume presenting the latest on Perceptual Learning for Native and Non-Native Speech, Common representations of serial order in language and memory, Neurocomputational Emergentism as a framework for language development, Syntactic adaptation, Neural indices of structured sentence representation: state-of-the-art, A review of familial sinistrality and language, Monitoring and control in language production, and more. - Presents the latest information in the highly regarded Psychology of Learning and Motivation series - Provides an essential reference for researchers and academics in cognitive science - Contains information relevant to both applied concerns and basic research
Algebraic Structures in Natural Language addresses a central problem in cognitive science concerning the learning procedures through which humans acquire and represent natural language. Until recently algebraic systems have dominated the study of natural language in formal and computational linguistics, AI, and the psychology of language, with linguistic knowledge seen as encoded in formal grammars, model theories, proof theories and other rule-driven devices. Recent work on deep learning has produced an increasingly powerful set of general learning mechanisms which do not apply rule-based algebraic models of representation. The success of deep learning in NLP has led some researchers to que...
This book examines the endangered languages of Africa from both documentary and theoretical perspectives, highlighting the threats of extinction many of them face and the challenges and implications each bring to bear on linguistic theory. It focuses on the symbiosis between documentary and theoretical methodologies, and its consequences for the preservation of endangered languages, both in the African context and more broadly.