The Semantics Of Nouns

Download or read book The Semantics of Nouns written by Zhengdao Ye and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together the latest research on the semantics of nouns in a variety of familiar and less well-documented languages. It offers detailed analyses of individual nouns across a range of conceptual domains, including 'people', 'places', and 'living things', with each analysis fully grounded in a unified methodological framework.

Download or read book Semantics - Noun Phrases and Verb Phrases written by Paul Portner and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-02-19 with total page 628 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gain a deeper understanding of essential research on the semantics of noun phrases and verb phrases. Clear explanations of significant recent research bring complex issues to life, with expert guidance on topics of debate within the field. The book gives readers valuable insights into topics such as definiteness, specificity, genericity aspect, aktionsart and mood. It also discusses directions for future research. Written by a world-class team of authors, these highly cited articles are here in paperback for the first time since their original publication. An essential reference for researchers in the area.

Download or read book Iceberg Semantics for Mass Nouns and Count Nouns written by Fred Landman and published by Springer. This book was released on 2021-08-01 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Iceberg semantics is a new framework of Boolean semantics for mass nouns and count nouns in which the interpretation of a noun phrase rises up from a generating base and floats with its base on its Boolean part set, like an iceberg. The framework is shown to preserve the attractive features of classical Boolean semantics for count nouns; the book argues that Iceberg semantics forms a much better framework for studying mass nouns than the classical theory does. Iceberg semantics uses its notion of base to develop a semantic theory of the differences between mass nouns and count nouns and between different types of mass nouns, in particular between prototypical mass nouns (here called mess mass nouns) like water and mud versus object mass nouns (here called neat mass nouns) like poultry and pottery. The book shows in detail how and why neat mass nouns pattern semantically both with mess mass nouns and with count nouns. Iceberg semantics is a compositional theory and in Iceberg semantics the semantic distinctions defined apply to noun phrases of any complexity. The book studies in depth the semantics of classifier noun phrases (like three glasses of wine) and measure noun phrases (like three liters of wine). The classical wisdom is that classifier interpretations are count. Recent literature has argued compellingly that measure interpretations are mass. The book shows that both connections follow from the basic architecture of Iceberg semantics. Audience: Scholars and students in linguistics - in particular semantics, pragmatics, computational linguistics and syntax – and neighbouring disciplines like logic, philosophy of language, and cognitive science.

Download or read book Semantic Plurality written by Laure Gardelle and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2019-11-07 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This monograph proposes a comparative approach to all the ways of denoting ‘more than one’ entity, from collective and aggregate nouns (with the first-ever typology), to count plurals, partly substantivised adjectives and conjoined NPs. This semantic feature approach to plurality, which cuts across number, the count/non-count distinction, and lexical/NP levels, reveals a very consistent Scale of Unit Integration, which establishes clear-cut boundaries for collective nouns, and accommodates cases such as three elephant, cattle or a chain of islands. The study also offers a refined understanding of aggregate nouns (a category nearly as large as that of collective nouns) and quantification in pseudo-partitives, develops Guillaume’s notion of ‘internal plurality’, and proposes the innovative concept of ‘hyperonyms of plural classes’ (e.g. furniture). The Animacy Hierarchy is also found to be influential, beyond hybrid agreement. The book aims to be accessible to scholars of any theoretical background interested in these topics.

Download or read book The Syntax and Semantics of Noun Modifiers and the Theory of Universal Grammar written by Min-Joo Kim and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-03-20 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book takes Korean as a basis to provide a detailed universal Determiner Phrase (DP) structure. Adnominal adjectival expressions are apparently optional noun dependents but their syntax and semantics have been shown to provide an important window on the internal structure of DP. By carefully examining data from Korean, an understudied language, as well as from other unrelated languages, the book provides a broad perspective on the phenomenon of noun modification and its cross-linguistic variations. Furthermore, it offers not only a thorough syntactic analysis but also a formal semantic analysis of noun modifiers that extends beyond a single language. This book will be of great interest to researchers interested in theoretical syntax, its interfaces with semantics, pragmatics, linguistic typology, and language variation. ​

Download or read book The Semantics of Grammar written by Anna Wierzbicka and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 1988-01-01 with total page 629 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The semantics of grammar” presents a radically semantic approach to syntax and morphology. It offers a methodology which makes it possible to demonstrate, on an empirical basis, that syntax is neither “autonomous” nor “arbitrary”, but that it follows from “semantics”. It is shown that every grammatical construction encodes a certain semantic structure, which can be revealed and rigorously stated, so that the meanings encoded in grammar can be compared in a precise and illuminating way, within one language and across language boundaries. The author develops a semantic metalanguage based on lexical universals or near-universals (and, ultimately, on a system of universal semantic primitives), and shows that the same semantic metalanguage can be used for explicating lexical, grammatical and pragmatic aspects of language and thus offers a method for an integrated linguistic description based on semantic foundations. Analyzing data from a number of different languages (including English, Russian and Japanese) the author explores the notion of ethnosyntax and, via semantics, links syntax and morphology with culture. She attemps to demonstrate that the use of a semantic metalanguage based on lexical universals makes it possible to rephrase the Humboldt-Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in such a way that it can be tested and treated as a program for empirical research.

Download or read book Understanding Semantics written by Sebastian Loebner and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-04-23 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This series provides approachable, yet authoritative, introductions to all the major topics in linguistics. Ideal for students with little or no prior knowledge of linguistics, each book carefully explains the basics, emphasising understanding of the essential notions rather than arguing for a particular theoretical position. Understanding Semantics offers a complete introduction to linguistic semantics. The book takes a step-by-step approach, starting with the basic concepts and moving through the central questions to examine the methods and results of the science of linguistic meaning. Understanding Semantics unites the treatment of a broad scale of phenomena using data from different languages with a thorough investigation of major theoretical perspectives. It leads the reader from their intuitive knowledge of meaning to a deeper understanding of the use of scientific reasoning in the study of language as a communicative tool, of the nature of linguistic meaning, and of the scope and limitations of linguistic semantics. Ideal as a first textbook in semantics for undergraduate students of linguistics, this book is also recommended for students of literature, philosophy, psychology and cognitive science.