Synopses & Reviews
Non-finite clause-like structures such as converb and partic pial constructions, depictive adjectivals, absolute and comitative small clauses are important means of enriching the description of the event or situation conjured up by the main verb; but they have not been studied in depth from that perspective. The present book takes up that challenge. It throws new light on the interface between syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, and presents new empirical findings based on parallel corpora involving English, German, Norwegian, French, Russian, Latin, and Ancient Greek.
Synopsis
Die Sprachkenntnis ist ein uberaus okonomisches Wissenssystem, das zur Interpretation der Auerungen in der Regel nur beizusteuern braucht, was nicht durch die ubrigen konzeptuellen Systeme geliefert wird. Daher sind grammatische Unterspezifikation und Kontextabhangigkeit nach Sprachtyp und Einzelsprache verschieden ausgepragt, substantielle sprachliche Eigenschaften.
Die Reihe Language, Context and Cognition untersucht diese Eigenschaften naturlicher Sprachen in deren Lexikon, in der Interaktion ihrer grammatischen Subsysteme und in den Textbildungsverfahren in der Gegenwart wie auch in historischen Wandelprozessen.
Kontextabhangigkeit setzt Kooperation von Sprachwissenschaftlern mit den Kognitions- und Neurowissenschaften, mit der Phonetik, der mathematischen Logik sowie den pragmatischen und experimentell orientierten Disziplinen voraus, aber ebenso Zusammenarbeit mit Wissenschaftlern, die andere konzeptuelle Systeme erforschen oder Modellierungsmoglichkeiten fur Ergebnisse aus unterschiedlichen Wissensbestanden erkunden.
Editorial board (ab Bd. 10): Dr. habil. Kai Alter (Newcastle University Medical School), Prof. Dr. Ulrike Demske (Universitat des Saarlandes), Prof. Dr. Rosemarie Luhr (Friedrich-Schiller-Universitat Jena), Prof. Dr. Thomas Pechmann (Universitat Leipzig), Prof. Dr. Richard Wiese (Universitat Marburg)
Synopsis
This book investigates specific syntactic means of event elaboration
across seven Indo-European languages (English, German, Norwegian,
French, Russian, Latin and Ancient Greek): bare and comitative small
clauses ("absolutes"), participle constructions and related clause-like but
non-finite adjuncts that increase descriptive granularity with respect to
constitutive parts of the matrix event (elaboration in the narrowest
sense), or describe eventualities that are co-located and connected
with but not part of the matrix event. The book falls in two
parts. Part I addresses central theoretical issues: How is the co-eventive
interpretation of such adjuncts achieved? What is the internal syntax of
participial and converb constructions? How do these constructions
function at the discourse level, as compared to various finite structures
that are available for co-eventive elaboration? Part II takes an empirical
cross-linguistic perspective. It consists of five self-contained chapters that
are based on parallel corpora and study either the use of a specific
construction across at least two of the seven object languages, or how a
specific construction is rendered in other languages.