The lexicon in Functional Discourse Grammar: Theory, typology, description

Linguistics ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Inge Genee ◽  
Evelien Keizer ◽  
Daniel García Velasco
Keyword(s):  
Word Formation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Lexical Meaning ◽  
Grammatical Morphemes ◽  
Discourse Grammar ◽  
Language User ◽  
The One ◽  
And Function

AbstractThis paper discusses the treatment of the lexicon in Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG) and serves to provide a general introduction to the theoretical framework and its formalizations, in particular for readers who may not be intimately familiar with it. After outlining the general architecture of the model, we discuss the position, content and function of the FDG lexicon in more detail. The FDG lexicon is often called the Fund, as it contains more than just a collection of lexemes. The Fund is conceived of as a storehouse containing all unpredictable linguistic knowledge in the form of various types of primitives. In addition to a lexicon proper this includes structural and grammatical primitives that feed the grammar, such as: pragmatic and semantic frames, functions and operators; morphosyntactic and phonological templates and operators; and suppletive forms. The “lexicon proper” contains grammatical morphemes and suppletive forms in addition to lexemes; the collection of frames and templates is sometimes called the “structicon”; and operators and functions constitute what may be called the “grammaticon”. The division of labor between the Fund and the Grammar is illustrated by showing how FDG treats lexeme, word and frame formation: lexeme formation is located in the Fund, word formation is located in the Grammar, and frame formation may be located in either, depending on the particular frame or the approach of the analyst. We then discuss the form and content of lexical entries. This has been a topic of some discussion recently, and several of the contributions to this special issue contain proposals in this area. The central question here is how best to capture the existence of common or even default associations between primitives at different levels of representation while still allowing for the occurrence of mismatches. Mismatches allow us to account for phenomena like coercion and other creative uses of the linguistic apparatus available to the language user. Next we address the construction of lexical meaning, showing where FDG draws the line between semantics on the one hand and pragmatics, contextual factors, and conceptualization on the other hand. Here again, different points of view coexist and several contributions contain proposals for how to represent lexical meaning. Our final section briefly introduces the other contributions to this special issue.

Prédicats et verbes supports d’occurrence météorologiques dans une perspective contrastive franco-polonaise

2011 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-203
Author(s):  
Agnieszka K. Kaliska
Keyword(s):  
Special Kind ◽  
The Other ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Grammatical Subject ◽  
Linguistic Rules ◽  
Language User ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One ◽  
Linguistic Reality

The common co-occurrence of words in a given context reflects both the extra-linguistic knowledge of a language user, and the specific intra-linguistic rules. We can say that lexicon and grammar are interpreters of the extra-linguistic reality. The purpose of our research is to consider, in French-Polish constrastive perspective, the relation between the pronoun and the meteorological verb (such as il and venter in Il vente) on the one hand and, on the other, the relation between the meteorological noun and the special kind of support verb named verbe d’occurrence on the Lexicon-Grammar ground (such as vent and mugir in Le vent mugit). We then raise the question of the particular status of meteorological nouns in the grammatical subject position and explain the non-predicative character of verbs in constructions such as Le vent mugit. In the end, we present a list of Polish and French examples containing meteorological support verbs or their stylistic and aspectual variants.

Editorial Introduction | Oil and Media, Oil as Media: Mediating Petrocultures Then and Now

MediaTropes ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. i-xvi
Author(s):  
Jordan Kinder ◽  
Lucie Stepanik
Keyword(s):  
Media Studies ◽  
The Other ◽  
Editorial Introduction ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Material Turn ◽  
Ecological Relations ◽  
The One

In this introduction to the special issue of MediaTropes on “Oil and Media, Oil as Media,” Jordan B. Kinder and Lucie Stepanik provide an account of the stakes and consequences of approaching oil as media as they situate it within the “material turn” of media studies and the broader project energy humanities. They argue that by critically approaching oil and its infrastructures as media, the contributions that comprise this issue puts forward one way to develop an account of oil that further refines the larger tasks and stakes implicit in the energy humanities. Together, these address the myriad ways in which oil mediates social, cultural, and ecological relations, on the one hand, and the ways in which it is mediated, on the other, while thinking through how such mediations might offer glimpses of a future beyond oil.

Policy and Practice: An Overview

1990 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 233-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
David K. Cohen ◽  
Deborah Loewenberg Ball
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Classroom Practice ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Early Report ◽  
State Policies ◽  
The Other ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
School Practices ◽  
The One

Policymakers in the U. S. have been trying to change schools and school practices for years. Though studies of such policies raise doubts about their effects, the last decade has seen an unprecedented increase in state policies designed to change instructional practice. One of the boldest and most comprehensive of these has been undertaken in California, where state policymakers have launched an ambitious effort to improve teaching and learning in schools. We offer an early report on California's reforms, focusing on mathematics. State officials have been promoting substantial changes in instruction designed to deepen students' mathematical understanding, to enhance their appreciation of mathematics and to improve their capacity to reason mathematically. If successful, these reforms would be a sharp departure from existing classroom practice, which attends chiefly to computational skills. The research reported here focuses on teachers' early responses to the state's efforts to change mathematics instruction. The case studies of five teachers highlight a key dilemma in such ambitious reforms. On the one hand, teachers are seen as the root of the problem: their instruction is mechanical, often boring, and superficial. On the other hand, teachers are cast as the key agents of improvement because students will not learn the new mathematics that policymakers intend unless teachers learn that math and teach it. But how can teachers teach a mathematics that they never learned, in ways they never experienced? That is the question explored in this special issue.

scholarly journals The essentialness of diachrony

Diacronia ◽  
2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisc Gafton
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Natural Entities ◽  
The One ◽  
And Function

Natural entities—plants and animals, on the one hand, society, language, and culture, on the other—emerge through an assiduous diachronic effort, respond to diachronically developed needs, exist and function diachronically. However, through the instruments at his disposal, man can only perceive and grasp the “fragment”, seizing it for a prolonged instant, which explains his objective tendency to segment the spatiotemporal reality according to his own proportions and abilities. Reality itself, however, cannot be subjected to the unnatural segregation of one of its own products and elements, and cannot be fully comprehended in any other way than how it exists: as a whole. At the end of the synchronic road, what offers comprehension and understanding of the ontologically-becoming whole is the path of the diachronic method.

Space, Time and Mind-Dependence

2011 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sorin Baiasu
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
Space Time ◽  
The Other ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Critical Philosophy ◽  
The Third ◽  
The One

AbstractThe interpretation of Kant's Critical philosophy as a version of traditional idealism has a long history. In spite of Kant's and his commentators’ various attempts to distinguish between traditional and transcendental idealism, his philosophy continues to be construed as committed (whether explicitly or implicitly and whether consistently or inconsistently) to various features usually associated with the traditional idealist project. As a result, most often, the accusation is that his Critical philosophy makes too strong metaphysical and epistemological claims.In his The Revolutionary Kant, Graham Bird engages in a systematic and thorough evaluation of the traditionalist interpretation, as part of perhaps the most comprehensive and compelling defence of a revolutionary reading of Kant's thought. In the third part of this special issue, the exchanges between, on the one hand, Graham Bird and, on the other, Gary Banham, Gordon Brittan, Manfred Kuehn, Adrian Moore and Kenneth Westphal focus on specific aspects of Bird's interpretation of Kant's first Critique. More exactly, the emphasis is on specific aspects of Bird's interpretation of the Introduction, Analytic of Principles and Transcendental Dialectic of Kant's first Critique.The second part of the special issue is devoted to discussions of particular topics in Bird's construal of the remaining significant parts of the first Critique, namely, of the Transcendental Aesthetic and the Analytic of Concepts. Written by Sorin Baiasu and Michelle Grier, these articles examine specific issues in these two remaining parts of the Critique, from the perspective of the debate between the traditionalist and revolutionary interpretation. The special issue begins with an Introduction by the guest co-editors. This provides a summary of the exchanges between Bird and his critics, with a particular focus on the debates stemming from the differences between traditional and revolutionary interpretations of Kant.

‘How, or Why, do we Come to Think of a World of Things in Themselves?’

2011 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manfred Kuehn
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
The Other ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Critical Philosophy ◽  
The Third ◽  
The One

AbstractThe interpretation of Kant's Critical philosophy as a version of traditional idealism has a long history. In spite of Kant's and his commentators’ various attempts to distinguish between traditional and transcendental idealism, his philosophy continues to be construed as committed (whether explicitly or implicitly and whether consistently or inconsistently) to various features usually associated with the traditional idealist project. As a result, most often, the accusation is that his Critical philosophy makes too strong metaphysical and epistemological claims.In his The Revolutionary Kant, Graham Bird engages in a systematic and thorough evaluation of the traditionalist interpretation, as part of perhaps the most comprehensive and compelling defence of a revolutionary reading of Kant's thought. In the third part of this special issue, the exchanges between, on the one hand, Graham Bird and, on the other, Gary Banham, Gordon Brittan, Manfred Kuehn, Adrian Moore and Kenneth Westphal focus on specific aspects of Bird's interpretation of Kant's first Critique. More exactly, the emphasis is on specific aspects of Bird's interpretation of the Introduction, Analytic of Principles and Transcendental Dialectic of Kant's first Critique.The second part of the special issue is devoted to discussions of particular topics in Bird's construal of the remaining significant parts of the first Critique, namely, of the Transcendental Aesthetic and the Analytic of Concepts. Written by Sorin Baiasu and Michelle Grier, these articles examine specific issues in these two remaining parts of the Critique, from the perspective of the debate between the traditionalist and revolutionary interpretation. The special issue begins with an Introduction by the guest co-editors. This provides a summary of the exchanges between Bird and his critics, with a particular focus on the debates stemming from the differences between traditional and revolutionary interpretations of Kant.

scholarly journals Language Policy and Planning: An Analysis of the Themes Present in Research in Brazil

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Socorro Cláudia Tavares de Sousa ◽  
Cynthia Israelly Barbalho Dionísio
Keyword(s):  
Language Policy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Language Policy And Planning ◽  
Language Policies ◽  
Academic Journals ◽  
Languages In Contact ◽  
International Trends ◽  
The One ◽  
Policy And Planning

ABSTRACT The aim of this work is to present an overview of the themes discussed in the field of Language Policy and Planning over the last twenty-one years (1990-2010) in Brazil, comparing the alignment of Brazilian research with the international scenario. To that end, expanded notions of language policy were adopted (COOPER, 1989; SHIFFMAN, 1996, 2006; SPOLSKY, 2004, 2009, 2012) and a survey was carried out in order to find the number of articles in the field in a sample of abstracts from Brazilian academic journals of Linguistics and Literature. The main themes identified in this study were: educational language policies, language planning, languages in contact, diffusion of the Portuguese language, and (meta)linguistic knowledge and language policies. On the one hand, these themes show a convergence between Brazilian and international trends; however, on the other, they show a specific thematic trend in the former, that is, the interest in the constitution of (meta)linguistic knowledge in relation to language policy.

What is a verb?

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-188
Author(s):  
Eva Smolka ◽  
Dorit Ravid
Keyword(s):  
Building Blocks ◽  
The Other ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Thematic Roles ◽  
Semitic Languages ◽  
General Terms ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
The One ◽  
Current Special Issue ◽  
Structure And Functions

Abstract Verbs constitute one of the basic building blocks of a clause, setting the structure of arguments and expressing the relationships among nouns in various thematic roles. In general terms, verbs are lexical items expressing verb-oriented notions such as activities, processes, and states. In morphology-rich languages, the syntactic and lexical roles of verbs are mediated by typologically-oriented morphological means. The current Special Issue contrasts the structure and functions of verbs in languages from two morphologically rich, yet typologically different families. The articles in the Special Issue present spoken and written aspects of verbs in usage and development in German (a Germanic language) on the one hand, in Hebrew, Neo-Aramaic, and Arabic (Semitic languages), on the other. From a theoretical linguistic perspective, we ask how the different typological features of these languages affect the function of verbs in sentences, and from a psycholinguistic perspective, we ask how typological differences affect the processing of verbs in the mature minds of adults and in the developing minds of children.

The alignment of form and function

2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 511-534 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dunstan Brown ◽  
Carole Tiberius ◽  
Greville G. Corbett
Keyword(s):  
High Frequency ◽  
The Other ◽  
Frequency Information ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
Frequent Form ◽  
Single Function ◽  
The One ◽  
Default Rules ◽  
And Function

This paper analyses constraints on inflectional syncretism and inflectional allomorphy using frequency information. Syncretism arises where one form is associated with more than one function, whereas inflectional allomorphy occurs where there is more than one inflectional class, and a single function is associated with two or more forms. If high frequency is associated with more differentiation on both sides, we expect, on the one hand, that a frequent function will have a high number of forms and, on the other, that a frequent form will have a high number of functions. Our study focuses on Russian nominals, in particular nouns, which exhibit both syncretism and inflectional allomorphy. We find that there is a relationship between frequency and differentiation, but that it is not exceptionless, and that the exceptions can be understood in terms of the use of referrals as default rules.

Argument Structure and Morphology

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Wood ◽  
Neil Myler
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Proper Treatment ◽  
Structure And Morphology ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
The One ◽  
Theoretical Issues

The topic “argument structure and morphology” refers to the interaction between the number and nature of the arguments taken by a given predicate on the one hand, and the morphological makeup of that predicate on the other. This domain turns out to be crucial to the study of a number of theoretical issues, including the nature of thematic representations, the proper treatment of irregularity (both morphophonological and morphosemantic), and the very place of morphology in the architecture of the grammar. A recurring question within all existing theoretical approaches is whether word formation should be conceived of as split across two “places” in the grammar, or as taking place in only one.

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