Grammatical Agency (original) (raw)

Resolving Agency and Telicity via Syntax and Word-formation. Secondary Verbs in English

Proceedings of the 12th Conference for Young Scholars of the FCML, 2015

Secondary verbs in English are a recent development whose motivation has not been accounted for in the literature. This paper argues that they start their life as functionally distinct counterparts of primary verbs, accommodating the conceptual categories of agency and telicity in a grammatical context that excludes the ergative element of Halliday and Matthiessen (2004). In our view, transitivity overrides this ergative element and its split in the syntax of primary verbs to result in the transitive-only analogically formed secondary verbs. Thus, agency and telicity are resolved via an interface of syntax and word-formation.

The long and winding road towards a theory of grammatical relations

Journal of Pragmatics, 1991

ed.. Objects-Tnwurds CI rheq qf grunmurical rdhms. London etc.: Academic Press, 1984. x + 302pp.. US $ 72.00 (hardcover). Some of the ideas discussed in this review article have been presented in Nedergaard Thomsen 1987 and in Haberland and Nedergaard Thomsen 1991. Haberland and Nedergaard Thomsen 1990 is (in part) a very much condensed version of the present article.

Grammaticalization in action and beyond

International Review of Pragmatics, 2021

As a result of the rapid development of en plan in contemporary Spanish a wide range of recent studies have paid attention to the grammaticalization process transforming this adverbial locution (meaning ‘in a certain way, with a certain purpose’) into a pragmatic marker. However, previous research fails to capture the complex semantic networks and synchronic multifunctionality of en plan. The present study takes on a polygrammaticalization mechanism and describes two main sets of clines. The first set of clines concerns the evolution of en plan into a mitigation device; the second set deals with its grammaticalization as an intensifier. Moreover, the recently defined discursive mechanism of cooptation is thoroughly applied for the first time to Spanish. The contribution deals with written and oral data from different geographical varieties and gives support to a “grammaticalization-cooptation-grammaticalization” hypothesis in the emergence of en plan as a brand-new pragmatic marker ...

The autonomy of grammar and semantic internalism

In his post-Tractatus work on natural language use, Wittgenstein defended the notion of what he dubbed the autonomy of grammar. According to this thought, grammar -or semantics, in a more recent idiom -is essentially autonomous from metaphysical considerations, and is not answerable to the nature of things. The argument has several related incarnations in Wittgenstein's post-Tractatus writings, and has given rise to a number of important insights, both critical and constructive. In this paper I will argue for a potential connection between Wittgenstein's autonomy argument and some more recent internalist arguments for the autonomy of semantics. My main motivation for establishing this connection comes from the fact that the later Wittgenstein's comments on grammar and meaning stand in opposition to some of the core assumptions of semantic externalism.

The typology and formal semantics of adnominal possession

2018

When I started university, I didn't know much about linguistics or research. Back then, I had no idea that I would end up writing a dissertation in linguistics. Many people have helped me on this journey in various ways, and I want to thank at least some of them. I was first introduced to linguistics at Russian State University for the Humanities. I thank Elena Muravenko and Leonid Iomdin for supervising my first study projects. During my studies, I was lucky to participate in linguistic fieldtrips to the Caucasus and Siberia. I thank Yakov Testelets, Nina Sumbatova and Olga Kazakevich for these unique experiences. Since I was learning German at the time, I received a scholarship to spend a semester at Humboldt University. There I did an internship at a project documenting Saami languages spoken in Russia. Michael Rießler, Kristina Kotcheva, and Joshua Wilbur made me feel welcome and introduced me to the lively Berlin linguistic community. I enjoyed my semester abroad and I decided to continue my study of linguistics in Germany. I chose the University of Potsdam, and again I was very lucky. Thanks to the large-scale collaborative research project between three universities in Potsdam and Berlin, I ended up in the most stimulating linguistic environment imaginable. I am very grateful to the wonderful group of Potsdam researchers for numerous discussions and friendly atmosphere: special thanks to

Grammar is not Autonomous: In Favor of Functionalism

There is too much controversy on the plausibility of autonomous nature of grammar. To some (e.g., Halliday, 1973; Hymes, 1972; Mckenzie, 2005) grammar is not respected autonomous; however to others (e.g., Chomsky, 1957; Fodor, 1983), it is. The present study is an attempt to justify the plausibility of Hallaydians " perspectives on the concept of grammar autonomy. However, even in Chomsky (2000) we see a kind of shift in paradigm. Up to the beginning of his Minimal Program, language, along with its grammatical structure, was autonomous and independent of performance forces, but in his Minimal Program " s fundamental hypothesis " language is an optimal solution to legibility conditions " (p. 96), which are imposed by the performance systems. The paper is not an attempt to condemn either of the two views, but has shifted his inclination towards Halliday " s systemic functional linguistics.

On the notion of grammaticality

2017

The monograph reviewed is concerned with methodological issues on the one hand, and raises fundamental theoretical and metatheoretical questions on the other, such as (1) what language is like, (2) how grammar unfolds in a child’s mind and (3) what counts as suitable and reliable data in linguistic theories. The authors aim at contributing to the resolution of several empirical problems and current linguistic debates. The present paper provides a chapter-by-chapter overview of the book and an evaluation of their main ideas, focusing on the issue of the applicability of several data types as well as the restrictions and limitations of applying various methods and data in linguistic research.

Introduction: conceptions of grammaticalization and their problems

Language Sciences, 2000

The primary purpose of this paper is to introduce the papers in this issue of Language Science, dedicated to taking stock of both grammaticalization and so-called`g rammaticalization theory'' (i.e. claims about grammaticalization). This introduction sets the stage for the other papers by surveying the large range of de®nitions of grammaticalization in the literature and placing them in context. It also mentions the major questions addressed by each paper and relates these to the overall themes of the volume, namely clarifying what grammaticalization is (and isn't), highlighting what's good and (in particular) what's bad about grammaticalization theory, and, in the process, contributing to greater understanding of these phenomena. 7