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Theta Role
In generative grammar, a theta role or θ-role is the formal device for representing syntactic argument structure—the number and type of noun phrases—required syntactically by a particular verb. For example, the verb ''put'' requires three arguments (i.e., it is trivalent). The formal mechanism for implementing a verb's argument structure is codified as theta roles. The verb ''put'' is said to "assign" three theta roles. This is coded in a theta grid associated with the lexical entry for the verb. The correspondence between the theta grid and the actual sentence is accomplished by means of a bijective filter on the grammar known as the theta criterion. Early conceptions of theta roles include (Fillmore called theta roles "cases") and . Theta roles are prominent in government and binding theory and the standard theory of transformational grammar. Thematic relations The term "theta role" is often used interchangeably with the term thematic relations (particularly in mai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Generative Grammar
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] |
Role And Reference Grammar
Role and reference grammar (RRG) is a model of grammar developed by William A. Foley and Robert Van Valin, Jr. in the 1980s, which incorporates many of the points of view of current functional grammar theories. In RRG, the description of a sentence in a particular language is formulated in terms of (a) its logical (semantic) structure and communicative functions, and (b) the grammatical procedures that are available in the language for the expression of these meanings. Among the main features of RRG are the use of lexical decomposition, based upon the predicate semantics of David Dowty (1979), an analysis of clause structure, and the use of a set of thematic roles organized into a hierarchy in which the highest-ranking roles are 'Actor' (for the most active participant) and 'Undergoer'. RRG's practical approach to language is demonstrated in the multilingual Natural Language Understanding (NLU) system of cognitive scientist John Ball. In 2012, Ball integrated hiPatom Theoryw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holt, Rinehart And Winston
Holt McDougal is an American publishing company, a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, that specializes in textbooks for use in high schools. The Holt name is derived from that of U.S. publisher Henry Holt (1840–1926), co-founder of the earliest ancestor business, but Holt McDougal is distinct from contemporary Henry Holt and Company, which claims the history from 1866. The companies publish different kinds of books. History Holt, Rinehart and Winston (HRW) was created in March 1960 by the merger of Henry Holt and Company of New York City (established 1866 as Leypoldt and Holt); Rinehart & Company of New York, descendant of Farrar & Rinehart (est. 1929); and the John C. Winston Company of Philadelphia (est. 1884). ''The Wall Street Journal'' reported on March 1, 1960, that Holt stockholders had approved the merger, last of the three approvals. "Henry Holt is the surviving concern, but will be known as Holt, Rinehart, Winston, Inc.""Henry Holt Merger". ''The Wall Stree ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dowty, David
David Roach Dowty (born 1945) is a linguist known primarily for his work in semantic and syntactic theory, and especially in Montague grammar and Categorial grammar. Dowty is a professor emeritus of linguistics at the Ohio State University, and his research interests mainly lie in Semantic and Syntactic Theory, Lexical semantics and Thematic roles, Categorial grammar, and Semantics of Tense and Aspect. Life David Dowty received his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin, with a thesis supervised by Robert Wall and Emmon Bach on the temporal semantics of verbs. Dowty was editor-in-chief of the journal ''Linguistics and Philosophy'' from 1988 to 1992, and associate editor of ''Language''. For several years he was chairman of the Department of Linguistics at the Ohio State University. A one-day symposium was held at the University of Groningen in honour of his sixtieth birthday, subsequently published as ''Theory and Evidence in Semantics''. Major Publications * ''Word Meanin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ray Jackendoff
Ray Jackendoff (born January 23, 1945) is an American linguist. He is professor of philosophy, Seth Merrin Chair in the Humanities and, with Daniel Dennett, co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. He has always straddled the boundary between generative linguistics and cognitive linguistics, committed to both the existence of an innate universal grammar (an important thesis of generative linguistics) and to giving an account of language that is consistent with the current understanding of the human mind and cognition (the main purpose of cognitive linguistics). Jackendoff's research deals with the semantics of natural language, its bearing on the formal structure of cognition, and its lexical and syntactic expression. He has conducted extensive research on the relationship between conscious awareness and the computational theory of mind, on syntactic theory, and, with Fred Lerdahl, on musical cognition, culminating in their generative theory of ton ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Culicover, Peter
Peter W. Culicover is Professor of Linguistics at Ohio State University. He works in the areas of syntactic theory (particularly on the syntax of English), language learnability and computational modelling of language acquisition and language change. Education Culicover attended the City College of New York and graduated with a BA in mathematics in 1966. He earned his PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he studied under Noam Chomsky. Career He worked at Ohio State for the duration of his career, serving as the Chair of the Department of Linguistics, Director of the Center for Cognitive Science, and Associate Provost. He is now the Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Linguistics. Awards Culicover is a winner of Humboldt Prize and the Distinguished Scholar Award of Ohio State University. Selected works *''English Focus Constructions and the Theory of Grammar'' (with Michael S. Rochemont; Cambridge University Press, 1990) *''Principles and Parame ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chomsky, Noam
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He is a Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona and an Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and is the author of more than 150 books on topics such as linguistics, war, politics, and mass media. Ideologically, he aligns with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism. Born to Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants in Philadelphia, Chomsky developed an early interest in anarchism from alternative bookstores in New York City. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania. During his postgraduate work in the Harvard Society of Fellows, Chomsky developed the theory of transformational ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carnie, Andrew
Andrew Carnie (born April 19, 1969) is a Canadian professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona. He is the author or coauthor of eight books and has papers published on formal syntactic theory and on linguistic aspects of Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic. He was born in Calgary, Alberta. He is also a teacher of Balkan and international folk dance. In 2009, he was named as one of the Linguist List's Linguist of the Day. Since 2010, he has worked as the faculty director of the University of Arizona's Graduate Interdisciplinary Programs. In August 2012, he was appointed interim Dean of the graduate college. Linguistics The bulk of Carnie's research has been in the field of syntax. Education * B.A. (Hons) in Linguistics and Celtic Studies: The University of St. Michael's College at the University of Toronto, 1991 * Ph.D. in Linguistics and Philosophy: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1995 Books * Proceedings of the 18th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bresnan, Joan
Joan Wanda Bresnan FBA (born August 22, 1945) is Sadie Dernham Patek Professor in Humanities Emerita at Stanford University. She is best known as one of the architects (with Ronald Kaplan) of the theoretical framework of lexical functional grammar. Career and research After graduating from Reed College in 1966 with a degree in philosophy, Bresnan earned her doctorate in linguistics in 1972 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she studied with Noam Chomsky. In the early and mid 1970s, her work focused on complementation and wh-movement constructions within transformational grammar, and she frequently took positions at odds with those espoused by Chomsky. Her dissatisfaction with transformational grammar led her to collaborate with Kaplan on a new theoretical framework, lexical-functional grammar, or LFG. A volume of papers written in the new framework and edited by Bresnan, entitled ''The Mental Representation of Grammatical Relations'', appeared in 1982. Since t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of Chicago Press
The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', numerous academic journals, and advanced monographs in the academic fields. One of its quasi-independent projects is the BiblioVault, a digital repository for scholarly books. The Press building is located just south of the Midway Plaisance on the University of Chicago campus. History The University of Chicago Press was founded in 1890, making it one of the oldest continuously operating university presses in the United States. Its first published book was Robert F. Harper's ''Assyrian and Babylonian Letters Belonging to the Kouyunjik Collections of the British Museum''. The book sold five copies during its first two years, but by 1900 the University of Chicago Press had published 127 books and pamphlets and 11 scholarly journals, includ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thematic Relations
In certain theories of linguistics, thematic relations, also known as semantic roles, are the various roles that a noun phrase may play with respect to the action or state described by a governing verb, commonly the sentence's main verb. For example, in the sentence "Susan ate an apple", ''Susan'' is the doer of the eating, so she is an agent; ''an apple'' is the item that is eaten, so it is a patient. Since their introduction in the mid 1960s by Jeffrey Gruber and Charles Fillmore, semantic roles have been a core linguistic concept and ground of debate between linguist approaches, because of their potential in explaining the relationship between syntax and semantics (also known as the syntax-semantics interface), that is how meaning affects the surface syntactic codification of language. The notion of semantic roles play a central role especially in functionalist and language-comparative ( typological) theories of language and grammar. While most modern linguistic theories ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
