An investigation into the beliefs speakers have about language—their de lingua beliefs—that examines the genesis of these beliefs and the central explanatory role they play in the use and understanding of language. Speakers, in their everyday conversations, use language to talk about language. They may wonder about what words mean, to whom a name refers, whether a sentence is true. They may worry whether they have been clear, or correctly expressed what they meant to say. That speakers can make such inquiries implies a degree of access to the complex array of knowledge and skills underlying our ability to speak, and though this access is incomplete, we nevertheless can form on this basis beliefs about linguistic matters of considerable subtlety, about ourselves and others. It is beliefs of this sort—de lingua beliefs—that Robert Fiengo and Robert May explore in this book. Fiengo and May focus on the beliefs speakers have about the semantic values of linguistic expressions, exploring the genesis of these beliefs and the explanatory roles they play in how speakers use and understand language. Fiengo and May examine the resources available to speakers for generating linguistic beliefs, considering how linguistic theory characterizes the formal, syntactic identity of the expressions linguistic beliefs are about and how this affects speakers' beliefs about coreference. Their key insight is that the content of beliefs about semantic values can be taken as part of what we say by our utterances. This has direct consequences, examined in detail by Fiengo and May, for explaining the informativeness of identity statements and the possibilities for substitution in attributions of propositional attitudes, cases in which speakers' beliefs about coreference play a central role.
Under what conditions are expressions of a language the same; when are they different? Indices and Identity focuses on this question in the context of the theory of anaphora and on the role of indices in characterizing syntactic and semantic identity of expressions. Fiengo and May develop two main themes within the theory of anaphora. The first pertains to the meaning of coindexing and non-coindexing--the correspondence between indexical relations among expressions and the valuation relation that holds among them--while the second is the development of Dependency Theory, the theory of the relations of occurrences of indices. The novelty of Fiengo and May's approach lies with their characterization of indexical dependencies and the conditions under which structures manifest the same or different dependency. In particular, Indices and Identity emphasizes issues raised by strict and sloppy identity in ellipsis, exploring what Fiengo and May call the eliminative puzzles of ellipsis. The significance of these puzzles is that they show the shortcomings of current theories of anaphora in ellipsis, while illustrating an application of Dependency Theory to complex cases of strict and sloppy identity. Elliptical contexts in turn lead to consideration of the embedding of the formal syntactic notions of identity arising from indices and dependencies within more general notions of structural identity. This relates to a consideration of the foundations of reconstruction, which, the authors argue, is syntactic identity up to indexical identity and vehicle change--variation in the syntactic form of expression of arguments.The book concludes with a discussion of the relation of reconstruction, logical representation in grammar, and the application of grammatical constraints. The discussion focuses on antecedent contained deletion, and stands independently as a comprehensive study of this construction. Linguistic Inquiry Monograph No. 24
Asking Questions examines a central phenomenon of language - the use of sentences to ask questions. Although there is a sizable literature on the syntax and semantics of interrogatives, the logic of "questions", and the speech act of questioning, no one has tried to put the syntax and semantics together with the speech acts over the full range of phenomena we pretheoretically think of as asking questions. Robert Fiengo not only does this, but also takes up some more foundational issues in the theory of language. By positioning the findings of contemporary grammatical theorizing within the larger domain of language use, Fiengo challenges the use theorist to acknowledge the importance of grammatical form and the grammarian to acknowledge the importance of use. In addition to developing an Austinian distinction between four questioning speech-acts, and a proposal concerning the philosophy of language, Asking Questions contains a useful discussion of the type-token distinction and how use of language compares with use of other things. Fiengo also considers the nature of multiple questions, revealing what one must know to ask them, and what speech acts one may perform when asking them. Asking Questions advances our understanding of a wide range of issues in a number of important respects. Scholars and students of linguistics and philosophy will find plenty to interest them in this pioneering work.
Asking Questions examines a central phenomenon of language - the use of sentences to ask questions. Although there is a sizable literature on the syntax and semantics of interrogatives, the logic of "questions", and the speech act of questioning, no one has tried to put the syntax and semantics together with the speech acts over the full range of phenomena we pretheoretically think of as asking questions. Robert Fiengo not only does this, but also takes up some more foundational issues in the theory of language. By positioning the findings of contemporary grammatical theorizing within the larger domain of language use, Fiengo challenges the use theorist to acknowledge the importance of grammatical form and the grammarian to acknowledge the importance of use. In addition to developing an Austinian distinction between four questioning speech-acts, and a proposal concerning the philosophy of language, Asking Questions contains a useful discussion of the type-token distinction and how use of language compares with use of other things. Fiengo also considers the nature of multiple questions, revealing what one must know to ask them, and what speech acts one may perform when asking them. Asking Questions advances our understanding of a wide range of issues in a number of important respects. Scholars and students of linguistics and philosophy will find plenty to interest them in this pioneering work.
Under what conditions are expressions of a language the same; when are they different? Indices and Identity focuses on this question in the context of the theory of anaphora and on the role of indices in characterizing syntactic and semantic identity of expressions. Fiengo and May develop two main themes within the theory of anaphora. The first pertains to the meaning of coindexing and non-coindexing--the correspondence between indexical relations among expressions and the valuation relation that holds among them--while the second is the development of Dependency Theory, the theory of the relations of occurrences of indices. The novelty of Fiengo and May's approach lies with their characterization of indexical dependencies and the conditions under which structures manifest the same or different dependency. In particular, Indices and Identity emphasizes issues raised by strict and sloppy identity in ellipsis, exploring what Fiengo and May call the eliminative puzzles of ellipsis. The significance of these puzzles is that they show the shortcomings of current theories of anaphora in ellipsis, while illustrating an application of Dependency Theory to complex cases of strict and sloppy identity. Elliptical contexts in turn lead to consideration of the embedding of the formal syntactic notions of identity arising from indices and dependencies within more general notions of structural identity. This relates to a consideration of the foundations of reconstruction, which, the authors argue, is syntactic identity up to indexical identity and vehicle change--variation in the syntactic form of expression of arguments.The book concludes with a discussion of the relation of reconstruction, logical representation in grammar, and the application of grammatical constraints. The discussion focuses on antecedent contained deletion, and stands independently as a comprehensive study of this construction. Linguistic Inquiry Monograph No. 24
An investigation into the beliefs speakers have about language—their de lingua beliefs—that examines the genesis of these beliefs and the central explanatory role they play in the use and understanding of language. Speakers, in their everyday conversations, use language to talk about language. They may wonder about what words mean, to whom a name refers, whether a sentence is true. They may worry whether they have been clear, or correctly expressed what they meant to say. That speakers can make such inquiries implies a degree of access to the complex array of knowledge and skills underlying our ability to speak, and though this access is incomplete, we nevertheless can form on this basis beliefs about linguistic matters of considerable subtlety, about ourselves and others. It is beliefs of this sort—de lingua beliefs—that Robert Fiengo and Robert May explore in this book. Fiengo and May focus on the beliefs speakers have about the semantic values of linguistic expressions, exploring the genesis of these beliefs and the explanatory roles they play in how speakers use and understand language. Fiengo and May examine the resources available to speakers for generating linguistic beliefs, considering how linguistic theory characterizes the formal, syntactic identity of the expressions linguistic beliefs are about and how this affects speakers' beliefs about coreference. Their key insight is that the content of beliefs about semantic values can be taken as part of what we say by our utterances. This has direct consequences, examined in detail by Fiengo and May, for explaining the informativeness of identity statements and the possibilities for substitution in attributions of propositional attitudes, cases in which speakers' beliefs about coreference play a central role.
Generative Grammar presents a substantial contribution to the field of linguistics in drawing together for the first time the author's most significant work on the theory of generative grammar. The essays collected here display Freidin's role in moving the theory forward in terms of new proposals, and analyse the efforts to understand the evolution and history of the theory by careful investigation of how and why it has changed over the years.
The computer model. Computation and language acquisition. The acquisition model. Learning phrase structure. Learning transformations. A theory of acquisition. Acquisition complexity. Learning theory: applications. Locality principles and acquisition.
This study focuses on the relation of syntactic and semantic structure. It investigates the notion that within generative grammar there is a level of linguistic representation Logical Form. Its main assumption is that this is a level of phrase structure representation, derived by transformational operations from S-structure, and over which formal semantic interpretations are defined.The book explores Logical Form by focusing primarily on quantificational phenomena and on how their explicit syntactic representation interacts with various syntactic and semantic properties. Among the topics discussed are the interactions of wh and quantified phrases, bound variable anaphora, branching quantifiers, extraposition and multiple interrogation.Logical Form contains several technical innovations: the notion that LF-movement closely approximates "Move α," a new approach to characterizing quantifier scope, which makes central use of the notion of "government," a novel interpretation of the relation of syntactic nodes and categorical projections, and an application of path theory to the syntactic structure of Logical Form.Robert May is Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Barnard College, Columbia University. Logical Form is Linguistic Inquiry Monograph 12.
The Measure of Mind provides a sustained critique of a widely held representationalist view of propositional attitudes and their role in the production of thought and behaviour. On this view, having a propositional attitude is a matter of having an explicit representation that plays a particular causal/computational role in the production of thought and behaviour. Robert J. Matthews argues that this view does not enjoy the theoretical or the empirical support that proponents claim for it; moreover, the view misconstrues the role of propositional attitude attributions in cognitive scientific theorizing. The Measure of Mind goes on to develop an alternative measurement-theoretic account of propositional attitudes and the sentences by which we attribute them. On this account, the sentences by which we attribute propositional attitudes function semantically like the sentences by which we attribute a quantity of some physical magnitude (e.g., having a mass of 80 kilos). That is, in much the same way that we specify a quantity of some physical magnitude by means of its numerical representative on a measurement scale, we specify propositional attitude of a given type by means of its representative in a linguistically-defined measurement space. Propositional attitudes turn out to be causally efficacious aptitudes for thought and behaviour, not semantically evaluable mental particulars of some sort. Matthews' measurement-theoretic account provides a more plausible view of the explanatorily relevant properties of propositional attitudes, the semantics of propositional attitude attributions, and the role of such attributions in computational cognitive scientific theorizing.
Contemporary Latin America presents the epochal political, economic, social, and cultural changes in Latin America over the last 40 years and comprehensively examines their impact on life in the region, and beyond. Provides a fresh approach and a new interpretation of the seismic changes of the last 40 years in Latin America Introduces major themes from a humanistic and universal perspective, putting each subject in a context that readers can understand and relate to Focuses on ‘Ibero-America'--Brazil and the eighteen countries that were formerly Spanish possessions- while offering valuable comparative views of the non-Iberian areas of the Caribbean Emphasizes the global, regional and national dimensions of the region's recent past
The latest edition of a popular introductory linguistics text, now including a section on computational linguistics, new non-English examples, quizzes for each chapter, and additional special topics. This popular introductory linguistics text is unique for its integration of themes. Rather than treat morphology, phonetics, phonology, syntax, and semantics as completely separate fields, the book shows how they interact. The authors provide a sound introduction to linguistic methodology, focusing on a set of linguistic concepts that are among the most fundamental within the field. By studying the topics in detail, students can get a feeling for how work in different areas of linguistics is done. As in the last edition, part I covers the structural and interpretive parts of language—morphology, phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, variation, and change. Part II covers use and context of language and includes chapters on pragmatics, psychology of language, language acquisition, and language and the brain. This seventh edition has been extensively revised and updated; new material includes a chapter on computational linguistics (available in digital form and updated regularly to reflect the latest research in a rapidly developing field), more non-English examples, and a wide range of exercises, quizzes, and special topics. The seventh edition of Linguistics includes access to a new, web-based eCourse and enhanced eTextbook. The content from the former print supplement A Linguistics Workbook is now available in this online eCourse as interactive exercises. The eCourse is available via the Rent eTextbook link at http://mitpress.mit.edu/linguistics7, and may be used on its own for self-study or integrated with instructor-led learning management systems. The eCourse is a comprehensive, web-based eLearning solution. There is nothing to download or install; it is accessible through any modern web browser and most mobile devices. It features a singular new tool for building syntax trees, an IPA keyboard, a combination of auto-graded and essay questions, and classroom management tools. The enhanced eTextbook includes videos and flashcards and allows bookmarking, note-taking, highlighting, and annotation sharing. Access to the eCourse is free with the purchase of a new textbook or e-book. New print copies of this book include a card affixed to the inside back cover with a unique access code for the eTextbook. If you purchased an e-book, you may obtain a unique access code by emailing digitalproducts-cs@mit.edu or calling 617-253-2889 or 800-207-8354 (toll-free in the U.S. and Canada). If you have a used copy of this book, you may purchase a digitally delivered access code separately via the Rent eTextbook link at http://mitpress.mit.edu/linguistics7.
In a very understandable, practical, and accessible manner, this book applies recent groundbreaking findings from behavioral neuroscience to the most complex and vexing challenges in organizations today. In particular, it addresses managing large-scale organizational changes, such as mergers and acquisitions, providing lessons and tactics that can be usefully applied to in many different settings. In addition to discussing successful practices, it also identifies the reasons that most past comprehensive, long-term change projects have failed and unmasks the counterproductive effects of the typical evolutionary or emotion-based attempts to change group and individual behavior, using neuroscience as its principal tool.
This survey explores interactions between syntax and discourse, through a case study of patterns of extraction from coordinate structures. The theoretical breadth of the volume makes it the most complete account of extraction from coordinate structures to date: at first glance, it appears to be a syntactic matter, but the survey raises theoretical and empirical questions not just for syntax, but also across semantics, pragmatics, and discourse structure. Rather than promoting a single analysis, Daniel Altshuler and Robert Truswell outline reasonable hypotheses that allow theoretical conclusions to be deducted from empirical facts. The theoretical conclusions show that coordinate structures have the potential to discriminate between current syntactic theories, and to inform work on the interfaces between syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and discourse. In many cases, however, the necessary empirical work has not yet been carried out, and too much of the literature revolves around the same handful of primarily English examples. The volume offers a starting point for further research on extraction from coordinate structures, particularly in understudied languages, and provides a guide to how to tease out the theoretical implications of empirical findings.
Syntactic theory is central to the study of language. This innovative book introduces the ideas which underlie most approaches to syntax and shows how they have been developed within two broad frameworks: principles and parameters theory and phrase structure grammar. While other texts either concentrate on one theory or treat them as totally separate, here both approaches are introduced together, highlighting the similarities as well as the differences. Thoroughly updated in the light of major recent developments, this second edition includes expanded explanations of the main characteristics of the two theories, summaries of the main features, exercises reinforcing key points and suggestions for further investigation.
It is a near truism of philosophy of language that sentences are prior to words---that they are the only things that fundamentally have meaning. Robert's Stainton's study interrogates this idea, drawing on a wide body of evidence to argue that speakers can and do use mere words, not sentences, to communicate complex thoughts.
Over the past few decades, the book series Linguistische Arbeiten [Linguistic Studies], comprising over 500 volumes, has made a significant contribution to the development of linguistic theory both in Germany and internationally. The series will continue to deliver new impulses for research and maintain the central insight of linguistics that progress can only be made in acquiring new knowledge about human languages both synchronically and diachronically by closely combining empirical and theoretical analyses. To this end, we invite submission of high-quality linguistic studies from all the central areas of general linguistics and the linguistics of individual languages which address topical questions, discuss new data and advance the development of linguistic theory.
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