Concession on Different Levels of Linguistic Connection: Typology of Negated Causal Links (original) (raw)
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Bolly,C. & Degand, L. (eds.) /Text-Structuring. Across the Line of Speech and Writing Variation/ (/Cor//pora and Language in Use/ series n°2), 2013
Presenting two contents as cause-effect, though a basic discourse operation, is neither simple nor straightforward. Previous research has identified different types of causals. The classifications and analyzes generally focus on certain connectives, are mainly based on written texts and often stem from a sentential perspective. But focusing on speech and taking a discourse perspective, other causal constructions can be identified. In this paper, causal constructions are analyzed in three types of oral texts in Catalan: conversation, oral texts obtained through a semi-structured interview protocol and a political debate. The analysis shows that causal constructions exhibit some specific properties in speech and that causality is not only expressed by means of prototypical causal constructions (i.e., including a causal conjunction). There are other constructions that activate the causal relation at discourse level, involve presuppositions and are subjective or intersubjective as for modal charge. The most frequent in Catalan are constructions including a modal marker either added to a basic connective (perquè clar S 'because of course S') or preceding a discourse segment (és que S, '(it) is (just) that S').
Causal and concessive clauses. Formal and semantic relations. 2000. Mouton de Gruyter
Topics in English Linguistics, 2000
It is an intuition of long-standing that concessive constructions are somehow the negative or contradictory counterpart of causal constructions. This intuition is expressed by terms like "incausal", "anticause" or "inoperant cause" that are frequently used instead of "concessive". It is shown that this intuition, which is supported by a wide variety of facts across languages, can be explicated by analysing the meaning of causal and concessive constructions in such a way that the external negation of the former is equivalent to the internal negation of the latter. A semantic analysis for concessive constructions is proposed which meets this criterion of adequacy. Furthermore, it is shown that this opposition between concession and causality can also be observed in "interactive patterns of conceding". What is negated in such interactive schemas of concession is the assumption of an interlocutor that some fact is a reason for a specific conclusion.
On the Interaction of Linguistic Typology and Functional Grammar (2002)
Functions of Language 9-2 (2002), 209–237., 2002
Research conducted within the wider theoretical framework of Dik’s Functional Grammar has resulted in important contributions to linguistic typology, and, vice versa, empirical facts from a wide variety of languages have significantly improved the theory of Functional Grammar, especially regarding its typological adequacy. This article discusses the following contributions to Linguistic Typology: the development of a sound sampling methodology, classification of noun categories (Seinsarten), an account of (so-called) number discord, the introduction of the new grammatical category of ‘nominal aspect’, a new typology of classifiers, and a universal concerning the occurrence of adjectives as a distinct word class. Conversely it will be shown that facts from many different languages have played an important role in the development of a layered model of the noun phrase in Functional Grammar and how currently these facts are used to test hypotheses concerning parallels between NPs and clauses.
English Language and Linguistics, 2013
Reviewed by Bernd Kortmann, University of Freiburg "Adverbials may be regarded as a ragbag category in the linguistics system." It is hard to think of anyone who might want to take issue with the opening statement of the monograph under review. In fact, it is hard to think of any domain of grammar (not only English grammar) which is messier than the one of adverbials. For this reason alone anyone who volunteers to tackle the Herculean task of writing a(nother) comprehensive book on the by far largest subgroup of adverbials, namely adjuncts, must be admired for their courage and stamina. It must be someone who has explored the territory for a long time and acquired intimate knowledge, which is indeed the case for Hilda Hasselgård, who in 1996 published a first monograph on the two largest semantic classes of adverbials, more exactly on Where and When: Positional and Functional Conventions for Sequences of Time and Space Adverbials in Present-Day English (see references). Hasselgård's new book stands in the tradition of Greenbaum's seminal Studies in English Adverbial Usage (1969) and its successor publications (in Quirk et al. 1972 and 1985, with the relevant chapters in both pillars of English reference grammars having been authored by Sidney Greenbaum, and in Biber et al. 1999) and truly complements Greenbaum's 1969 classic by focussing on adjuncts. While Greenbaum was solely concerned with linking adverbs, i.e. conjuncts and disjuncts, Hasselgård restricts her study to adjuncts, including under this heading, following Biber et al. 1999, "all time and degree adverbials along with focus and viewpoint adverbials" (p. 23), i.e. adverbials classified as subjuncts in Quirk et al. (1985). The overall approach Hasselgård adopts is one that is descriptive, broadly functional and more (but not too) narrowly Hallidayan, which is reflected among other things by her usage-in-text/discourse perspective on adjuncts (notably their use on the textual and interpersonal levels of communication). This perspective is also prominently stated in the cover blurb, where, besides pointing to usage differences of adverbials across text types, the reader is informed as follows: "In using real texts, Hasselgård identifies a challenge for the classification of adjuncts, and also highlights the fact that some adjuncts have uses that extend into the textual and interpersonal domains, obscuring the traditional divisions between adjuncts, disjuncts and conjuncts." The volume comprises almost exactly 300 text pages and is organized into four parts with altogether 13 chapters. Part I (3-63) outlines the overall framework for Hasselgård's take on the field of adverbials, in general, and adjuncts, in particular. It offers the expectable background information concerning the major research questions, materials and methods, and organisation of the book (Chapter 1) and an overview of the classifications of adverbials as discussed in the literature (Chapter 2). In Chapter 3 the focus is on the syntactic positions of adverbials in clauses and sentences (essentially, initial, medial, end position) and the semantics, especially the semantic scope, of adverbials (in general and depending on their position). Part II (67-183) is concerned with the positions of adverbials. It consists of five chapters, the first three of which address adverbials in initial, medial and end position respectively (Chapters 4-6). Chapter 7 is exclusively concerned with (it-) cleft focus position of adjuncts and Chapter 8 with the combination of adjuncts and, especially, combination of their positions. The overarching topic of Part III (187-256) is semantics, more exactly subtypes, frequencies and usage of different semantic types of adjuncts (adjuncts of time and space in Chapter 9, of manner and contingency in Chapter 10, and of respect, focus, degree, etc. in Chapter 11). The synoptic Part IV (259-305) draws together the major findings from
Alfa–Revista de Lingüística 51.2. Special issue on Advances in Functional Discourse Grammar
2007
Any approach to language that merits the epithet 'functional'has to take into account not only the lexical, morphosyntactic and semantic resources afforded by the language system, but also the ways in which those resources may be deployed for the purposes of communication. An important fact about communication is that it always takes place in a context; and such contextuallysituated use of language constitutes the essential concern of pragmatics.
Scientific Journal of Polonia University
This article presents the results of quantitative-corpus parameterization of reference properties of English detached nonfinite constructions with an explicit subject, carried out from the perspective of the cognitive-quantitative approach to language study. Through the prism of cognitive-constructive grammar, the syntactic patterns under scrutiny are recognized as grammatical constructions, i.e. complex semiotic units, non-compositional cognitively motivated pairings of form and conceptual meaning/ function, stored as holistic, conceptually connected, and interacting structures. Corpus-quantitative parameterization of referential properties of the given constructions presupposes the analysis of the linguistic means of expressing coreference between five micro-constructions and a corresponding matrix clause, reflected by the factors “Coreference” (COREF) and “Absence of coreference” (ØCOREF) of the parameter “Reference relations” (REFREL). Quantitative verification of the data invol...
The title of this book clearly places it within the field of discourse-analytic studies. On the other hand, its subtitle orients towards a cognitive linguistic account, as the issue of subjectivity has of late (after metaphor) acquired a very prominent position in research in the field. As the focus within cognitive linguistics has been, however, on lexical semantics and analysis of single sentences rather than larger units of discourse, the reader is interposed between two purportedly irreconcilable approaches. But as Knot et al. (2001: 197) have noted, ''at the discourse level, the dividing line between cognitive linguistic approaches and traditional approaches seems less clear-cut than at the sentence level''; moreover, ''for research on discourse structure, there is considerable scope for the integration of work in cognitive linguistics with that from other traditions within linguistics'' (ibid: 198), as both Dutchphone and Anglophone research in relational coherence has shown.