Nominal speech act structure: Evidence from the structural deficiency of impersonal pronouns

2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 709-729
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Ritter ◽  
Martina Wiltschko
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Natural Class ◽  
Discourse Referent ◽  
Impersonal Pronouns

AbstractIn this paper, we propose that there is a speech-act structure in the nominal spine, just as there is in the clausal spine. Its function is to encode what we do when we utter a nominal: that is, we name, describe, or track individuals. Thus, speech-act structure establishes a link between the discourse referent and the speech-act situation. The evidence we discuss comes from nominals that lack this speech-act structure, namely impersonal pronouns. We argue that impersonal pronouns have in common that they lack nominal speech-act structure but are not otherwise a natural class: they vary in syntactic structure. Thus, we propose a novel formal typology of impersonal pronouns.

REQUESTING SPEECH ACT OF UTTERANCES IN OCEAN’S ELEVEN BY STEVEN SODERBERGH: A PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 410
Author(s):  
Nurul Hasanah ◽  
Japen Sarage
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Structural Characteristics ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
The Real ◽  
Syntactic Form ◽  
Pragmatic Analysis ◽  
Actual Use

The term sentence and utterance are made different in terms that the former refers to syntactic structure, while the latter points out the actual function of such a structure in real communication. The same things apply to the terms request and requesting. The first term suggests the structural characteristics of sentence asking people to do something while the second term indicates the real sentence causing people to do something. The first deals with formal grammar while the second deals with pragmatics the actual use of language in communication.This article attempts to see requesting in its possible different syntactic forms as parts of speech acts in Ocean’sEleven by Steven Soderbergh. A pragmatic approach is applied since it uses context as a part of linguistic analysis involving the speaker, addressee, time, location, and genre in the conversation. A syntactic form of a sentence only cannot represent the real meaning of intention.The analysis of speech act of the conversation in the film brings us to an understanding that pragmatics encourage us to comprehend different kinds of setting to achieve requesting as a part of language use. Pragmatics as a branch of linguistics reveals mutual understanding between the speaker and the hearer.

scholarly journals Idioms and the syntax/semantics interface of descriptive content vs. reference

Linguistics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 769-814
Author(s):  
Berit Gehrke ◽  
Louise McNally
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Semantic Role ◽  
Semantic Type ◽  
Descriptive Content ◽  
Discourse Referent ◽  
Semantic Modelling

AbstractThe syntactic literature on idioms contains some proposals that are surprising from a compositional perspective. For example, there are proposals that, in the case of verb-object idioms, the verb combines directly with the noun inside its DP complement, and the determiner is introduced higher up in the syntactic structure, or is late-adjoined. This seems to violate compositionality insofar as it is generally assumed that the semantic role of the determiner is to convert a noun to the appropriate semantic type to serve as the argument to the function denoted by the verb. In this paper, we establish a connection between this line of analysis and lines of work in semantics that have developed outside of the domain of idioms, particularly work on incorporation and work that combines formal and distributional semantic modelling. This semantic work separates the composition of descriptive content from that of discourse referent introducing material; our proposal shows that this separation offers a particularly promising way to handle the compositional difficulties posed by idioms, including certain patterns of variation in intervening determiners and modifiers.

Together They Stand: Interpreting Not-At-Issue Content

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lyn Frazier ◽  
Brian Dillon ◽  
Charles Clifton
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Experimental Confirmation ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Natural Class ◽  
Discourse Coherence ◽  
Coherence Relation ◽  
Semantic Properties ◽  
Issue Content

Potts unified the account of appositives, parentheticals, expressives, and honorifics as 'Not- At-Issue’ (NAI) content, treating them as a natural class semantically in behaving like root (unembedded) structures, typically expressing speaker commitments, and being interpreted independently of At-Issue content. We propose that NAI content expresses a complete speech act distinct from the speech act of the containing utterance. The speech act hypothesis leads us to expect the semantic properties Potts established. We present experimental confirmation of two intuitive observations made by Potts: first that speech act adverbs should be acceptable as NAI content, supporting the speech act hypothesis; and second, that when two speech acts are expressed as successive sentences, the comprehender assumes they are related by some discourse coherence relation, whereas an NAI speech act need not bear a restrictive discourse coherence relation to its containing utterance, though overall sentences containing relevant content are rated more acceptable than those that do not. The speech act hypothesis accounts for these effects, and further accounts for why judgments of syntactic complexity or evaluations of whether or not a statement is true interact with the at-issue status of the material being judged or evaluated.

scholarly journals Features of the Use of Addressed Statements in Russian Orthodox Sermon

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (10) ◽  
pp. 9-25
Author(s):  
V. A. Burtsev
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Main Method ◽  
Illocutionary Act ◽  
New Type ◽  
The Subject

The features of the use of addressed utterances are considered from the point of view of the concept of asubjectivation, as opposed to the locuous activity of the subject of speech. Asubjectivation is defined as the presence in the semantics of the statement of the point of view of a non-assertive judgment subject, which is not perceived by the speaker’s sphere of consciousness and imposes restrictions on the meaning of the illocutionary act. The main method for identifying and describing asubjectivation in addressed utterances in a sermon is the identification of the scope and illocutionary force of the utterance. It has been proven that addressed utterances in a sermon, regardless of the speaker’s intentions, cover any communication participants, including those who turn out to be casual listeners. In addition, asubjectivation manifests itself as a requirement for the speaker to perform the illocutionary act “informative”, addressed to all participants in communication together, and at the same time — the speech act “message”, which regulates adequate interaction with the recipients of speech when using the language in the sermon. As a material, the authors considered statements built on the grammatical base of sentences with propositional (complex with additional clauses) and non-propositional meanings (impersonal with a due predicate). The relevance of the research is associated with the study of a new type of relationship in the semantic-syntactic structure of the sentence. The concept of asubjectivation allows us to formulate principles that regulate the features of referential relations in the structure of a sentence, taking into account the specifics of discourse.

A particular kind of ‘action-reaction’

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-222
Author(s):  
Domnita Dumitrescu
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Opposite Polarity ◽  
Discourse Function ◽  
Sequence Dependent ◽  
Initial Move ◽  
Dyadic Exchange

In this article, I discuss a particular (and little studied) action-reaction exchange in Spanish and Romanian, consisting of a dyadic exchange where an exploratory speech act (i.e., a question) is followed by a sequence-dependent reactive speech act, which repeats parts or all of the trigger’s structure in an interrogative form. Rather than being a canonical echo question, the reactive speech act under discussion represents what I call an Interrogative Echo Response (IER), by virtue of the fact that it provides an answer of opposite polarity to that of the initiative move put forward by the questioner (or Interrogative Echo Reply, when the response may or must be explicitly provided after the sequence-dependent interrogative utterance). In both languages, these IERs (and IERps) have a distinct syntactic structure, and the discourse function they fulfill is that of rhetorically challenging the validity of the initial move and providing (or implying) a response of opposite polarity with regard to the triggering question.

Towards the Use of a Tree Branching Logic in the Environment of a Hospital Information System

1980 ◽  
Vol 19 (04) ◽  
pp. 187-194
Author(s):  
J.-Ph. Berney ◽  
R. Baud ◽  
J.-R. Scherrer
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Large Data ◽  
Selection System ◽  
Frame Selection ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Medical Language ◽  
Selection Systems ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Man Machine Dialogue ◽  
Oriented System

It is well known that Frame Selection Systems (FFS) have proved both popular and effective in physician-machine and patient-machine dialogue. A formal algorithm for definition of a Frame Selection System for handling man-machine dialogue is presented here. Besides, it is shown how the natural medical language can be handled using the approach of a tree branching logic. This logic appears to be based upon ordered series of selections which enclose a syntactic structure. The external specifications are discussed with regard to convenience and efficiency. Knowing that all communication between the user and the application programmes is handled only by FSS software, FSS contributes to achieving modularity and, therefore, also maintainability in a transaction-oriented system with a large data base and concurrent accesses.

SEXUAL EUPHEMISM EXPRESSED IN POP AND HIP HOP LYRIC SONGS: A PRAGMATIC STUDY

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-122
Author(s):  
Cita Mustika Kusumah
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Activity ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Research Data ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Taboo Words ◽  
Directive Speech ◽  
Descriptive Method ◽  
Sexual Body

This research aims to describe and give an overview of the use of sexual euphemism in pop and hip hop lyric songs to avoid taboo words which are usually unfreely to mention in public. The researcher uses qualitative method and descriptive method to analyze the data. The researcher uses forty songs consist of twenty pop songs and twenty hip hop songs to be analysed. From forty songs, the researcher finds ninety seven data. Researcher believes the data are found to contain sexual euphemism in the utterance that included in pragmatic study.Researcher describes and analyzes every single of data that are included the theory of Allan and Buridge (1991). From the research data, the researcher found that there is a differential usage of sexual euphemism in pop and hip hop which is sexual euphemism in sexual activity appears more frequently in pop songs and sexual euphemism in sexual body parts appears more frequently in hip hop songs. Both pop and hip hop songs use representative speech act more frequently than directive speech act. Euphemism was used in the lyrics to avoid words that are considered taboo in some communities.Keywords: speech act, sexual euphemismINTRODUCTIONIn

Modeling The Speech Act Of Insult

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ankov Andrey Aleksandrovich
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act
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