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Indeterminate Pronoun
An indeterminate pronoun is a pronoun which can show a variety of readings depending on the type of sentence it occurs in. The term "indeterminate pronoun" originates in Kuroda's (1965) thesis and is typically used in reference to ''wh-''indeterminates, which are pronouns which function as an interrogative pronoun in questions, yet come to have additional meanings with other Operator (linguistics), grammatical operators. For example, in Japanese language, Japanese, ''dare'' means 'who' in a constituent question like (1) formed with the question-forming operator ''no'': However, in a statement (2), in combination with the Grammatical particle, particle ''ka'', ''dare'' 'who' acquires an Existential quantification, existential 'someone' meaning: With yet another particle ''-mo'', ''dare'' 'who' expresses a Universal quantification, universal meaning as in (3): Languages with ''wh''-indeterminates are typologically very common, and this is a characteristic of many language fami ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interrogative Pronoun
An interrogative word or question word is a function word used to ask a question, such as ''what, which'', ''when'', ''where'', ''who, whom, whose'', ''why'', ''whether'' and ''how''. They are sometimes called wh-words, because in English most of them start with '' wh-'' (compare Five Ws). They may be used in both direct questions (''Where is he going?'') and in indirect questions (''I wonder where he is going''). In English and various other languages the same forms are also used as relative pronouns in certain relative clauses (''The country where he was born'') and certain adverb clauses (''I go where he goes''). It can also be used as a modal, since question words are more likely to appear in modal sentences, like (''Why was he walking?'') A particular type of interrogative word is the interrogative particle, which serves to convert a statement into a yes–no question, without having any other meaning. Examples include ''est-ce que'' in French, ли ''li'' in Russian, ''cz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semantics (linguistics)
Semantics (from grc, wikt:σημαντικός, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, Meaning (philosophy), meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and computer science. History In English, the study of meaning in language has been known by many names that involve the Ancient Greek word (''sema'', "sign, mark, token"). In 1690, a Greek rendering of the term ''semiotics'', the interpretation of signs and symbols, finds an early allusion in John Locke's ''An Essay Concerning Human Understanding'': The third Branch may be called [''simeiotikí'', "semiotics"], or the Doctrine of Signs, the most usual whereof being words, it is aptly enough termed also , Logick. In 1831, the term is suggested for the third branch of division of knowledge akin to Locke; the "signs of our knowledge". In 1857, the term ''semasiology'' (borrowed from German langua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Generative Syntax
Generative grammar, or generativism , is a linguistic theory that regards linguistics as the study of a hypothesised innate grammatical structure. It is a biological or biologistic modification of earlier structuralist theories of linguistics, deriving ultimately from glossematics. Generative grammar considers grammar as a system of rules that generates exactly those combinations of words that form grammatical sentences in a given language. It is a system of explicit rules that may apply repeatedly to generate an indefinite number of sentences which can be as long as one wants them to be. The difference from structural and functional models is that the object is base-generated within the verb phrase in generative grammar. This purportedly cognitive structure is thought of as being a part of a universal grammar, a syntactic structure which is caused by a genetic mutation in humans. Generativists have created numerous theories to make the NP VP (NP) analysis work in natural la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interrogative Words And Phrases
An interrogative clause is a clause whose form is typically associated with question-like meanings. For instance, the English sentence (linguistics), sentence "Is Hannah sick?" has interrogative syntax which distinguishes it from its Declarative sentence, declarative counterpart "Hannah is sick". Also, the additional question mark closing the statement assures that the reader is informed of the interrogative mood. Interrogative clauses may sometimes be embedded within a phrase, for example: "Paul knows who is sick", where the interrogative clause "who is sick" serves as complement (linguistics), complement of the embedding verb "know". Languages vary in how they form interrogatives. When a language has a dedicated interrogative inflectional form, it is often referred to as interrogative grammatical mood. Interrogative mood or other interrogative forms may be denoted by the list of glossing abbreviations, glossing abbreviation . Question types Interrogative sentences are generally ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pronouns
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the part of speech, parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not consider them to form a single class, in view of the variety of functions they perform cross-linguistically. An example of a pronoun is "you", which can be either singular or plural. Subtypes include personal pronoun, personal and possessive pronouns, reflexive pronoun, reflexive and reciprocal pronoun, reciprocal pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, relative pronoun, relative and interrogative pronouns, and indefinite pronouns. The use of pronouns often involves anaphora (linguistics), anaphora, where the meaning of the pronoun is dependent on an antecedent (grammar), antecedent. For example, in the sentence ''That poor man looks as if he needs a new coat'', the meaning of the pronoun ''he'' is d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wh-movement
In linguistics, wh-movement (also known as wh-fronting, wh-extraction, or wh-raising) is the formation of syntactic dependencies involving interrogative words. An example in English is the dependency formed between ''what'' and the object position of ''doing'' in "What are you doing?" Interrogative forms are sometimes known within English linguistics as '' wh-words'', such as ''what, when, where, who'', and ''why'', but also include other interrogative words, such as ''how''. This dependency has been used as a diagnostic tool in syntactic studies as it can be observed to interact with other grammatical constraints. In languages with wh- movement, sentences or clauses with a wh-word show a non-canonical word order that places the wh-word (or phrase containing the wh-word) at or near the front of the sentence or clause ("''Who'' are you thinking about?") instead of the canonical position later in the sentence ("I am thinking about ''you''"). Leaving the wh-word in its canonical positi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indefinite Pronoun
An indefinite pronoun is a pronoun which does not have a specific familiar referent. Indefinite pronouns are in contrast to definite pronouns. Indefinite pronouns can represent either count nouns or noncount nouns. They often have related forms across these categories: universal (such as ''everyone'', ''everything''), assertive existential (such as ''somebody'', ''something''), elective existential (such as ''anyone'', ''anything''), and negative (such as ''nobody'', ''nothing''). Many languages distinguish forms of indefinites used in affirmative contexts from those used in non-affirmative contexts. For instance, English "something" can be used only in affirmative contexts while "anything" is used otherwise. Indefinite pronouns are associated with indefinite determiners of a similar or identical form (such as ''every'', ''any'', ''all'', ''some''). A pronoun can be thought of as ''replacing'' a noun phrase, while a determiner ''introduces'' a noun phrase and precedes any a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Free Choice Inference
Free choice is a phenomenon in natural language where a linguistic disjunction appears to receive a logical conjunctive interpretation when it interacts with a modal operator. For example, the following English sentences can be interpreted to mean that the addressee can watch a movie ''AND'' that they can also play video games, depending on their preference: # You can watch a movie OR play video games. # You can watch a movie OR you can play video games. Free choice inferences are a major topic of research in formal semantics and philosophical logic because they are not valid in classical systems of modal logic. If they were valid, then the semantics of natural language would validate the ''Free Choice Principle''. # ''Free Choice Principle'': (\Diamond P \lor \Diamond Q) \rightarrow (\Diamond P \land \Diamond Q) This symbolic logic formula above is not valid in classical modal logic: Adding this principle as an axiom to standard modal logics would allow one to conclude \Di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alternative Semantics
Alternative semantics (or Hamblin semantics) is a framework in formal semantics and logic. In alternative semantics, expressions denote ''alternative sets'', understood as sets of objects of the same semantic type. For instance, while the word "Lena" might denote Lena herself in a classical semantics, it would denote the singleton set containing Lena in alternative semantics. The framework was introduced by Charles Leonard Hamblin in 1973 as a way of extending Montague grammar to provide an analysis for questions. In this framework, a question denotes the set of its possible answers. Thus, if P and Q are propositions, then \ is the denotation of the question whether P or Q is true. Since the 1970s, it has been extended and adapted to analyze phenomena including focus, scope, disjunction, NPIs, presupposition, and implicature In pragmatics, a subdiscipline of linguistics, an implicature is something the speaker suggests or implies with an utterance, even though it is not litera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syntax (linguistics)
In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituency), agreement, the nature of crosslinguistic variation, and the relationship between form and meaning (semantics). There are numerous approaches to syntax that differ in their central assumptions and goals. Etymology The word ''syntax'' comes from Ancient Greek roots: "coordination", which consists of ''syn'', "together", and ''táxis'', "ordering". Topics The field of syntax contains a number of various topics that a syntactic theory is often designed to handle. The relation between the topics is treated differently in different theories, and some of them may not be considered to be distinct but instead to be derived from one another (i.e. word order can be seen as the result of movement rules derived from grammatical relations). Seq ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operator (linguistics)
In generative grammar, the technical term operator denotes a type of expression that enters into an a-bar movement dependency.Chomsky, Noam. (1981) Lectures on Government and Binding, Foris, Dordrecht.Haegeman, Liliane (1994) Introduction to Government and Binding Theory. Blackwell.Koopman, H., & Sportiche, D. (1982). Variables and the Bijection Principle. ''The Linguistic Review, 2'', 139-60. One often says that the operator "binds a variable". Cinque, Guglielmo (1991) Types of A-Bar Dependencies. MIT Press. Operators are often determiners, such as interrogatives ('which', 'who', 'when', etc.), or quantifiers ('every', 'some', 'most', 'no'), but adverbs such as sentential negation ('not') have also been treated as operators.Zanuttini, R. (1997) Negation and Clausal Structure: A Comparative Study of Romance Languages, Oxford University Press. It is also common within generative grammar to hypothesise phonetically empty operators whenever a clause type or construction exhibits sympt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
