Results by title

75 books match the query 'Syntax' and 25 start with t

cover of Tense Times: Rhetoric, Syntax, and Politics in US Crisis Culture

Tense Times

Rhetoric, Syntax, and Politics in US Crisis Culture

Lee M. Pierce

University of Alabama Press, 2023

How the syntax used in US political discourse creates the very crises it describes

American public culture is obsessed with crisis. Political polarization, economic collapse, moral decline—the worst seems always yet to come and already here. Tense Times argues that the ways we discuss these crises, especially through verb tenses, not only contribute to our perception and description of such crises but create them.

Past. Present. Future. These are the three principal verb tenses—the category of syntax that allows us to discuss time—that account for much of what is written about our crisis culture. Lee M. Pierce invites readers to expand their syntactic inventory beyond tense to include aspect (duration) and mood (attitude). Doing so opens new possibilities for understanding crisis discourse, as Pierce demonstrates with close readings of three syntaxes: the historical present, the past imperfective, and the retroactive subjunctive. Each mode produces a different experience of crisis and can help us understand our current political reality.

The book investigates a dozen widely circulated discourses from the past decade of US political culture, from Beyoncé’s controversial hit single “Formation” to the presidential campaign slogans of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, from the dueling rallies of Glenn Beck and Jon Stewart at the National Mall to the Ground Zero Mosque controversy and the 2007–2008 bailout. Taking a comparative approach that integrates theories of syntax from rhetorical, literary, affect, and cultural studies as well as linguistics, computer science, and Black studies, Tense Times suggests that the public’s conjuring of crisis is not inherently problematic. Rather, it is the openness of that crisis to contingency—the possibility that things could have been otherwise—that ought to concern anyone interested in language, politics, American culture, current events, or the direction this country is headed.
 
[more]
cover of The Core and the Periphery: Data-Driven Perspectives on Syntax Inspired by Ivan A. Sag

The Core and the Periphery

Data-Driven Perspectives on Syntax Inspired by Ivan A. Sag

Edited by Philip Hofmeister and Elisabeth Norcliffe

CSLI, 2013

The Core and the Periphery is a collection of papers inspired by the linguistics career of Ivan A. Sag (1949-2013), written to commemorate his many contributions to the field. Sag was professor of linguistics at Stanford University from 1979 to 2013; served as the director of the Symbolic Systems Program from 2005 to 2009; authored, co-authored, or edited fifteen volumes on linguistics; and was at the forefront of non-transformational approaches to syntax. Reflecting the breadth of Sag’s theoretical interests and approaches to linguistic problems, the papers collected here tackle a range of grammar-related issues using corpora, intuitions, and laboratory experiments. They are united by their use of and commitment to rich datasets and share the perspective that the best theories of grammar attempt to account for the full diversity and complexity of language data.
[more]
cover of The Dynamics of Lexical Interfaces

The Dynamics of Lexical Interfaces

Ruth Kempson, Eleni Gregoromichelaki, Christine Howes

CSLI, 2011

Dynamic Syntax is a formal model of utterance description that attempts to articulate and substantiate the claim that human linguistic knowledge is essentially the ability to process language in context. The model provides an explicit demonstration of how interpretation is built up incrementally from the information provided by the words as they are encountered. Drawing from a range of analyses of natural language data, the authors use formal definitions, step-by-step derivations, and detailed lexical definitions to illustrate this new form of syntactic analysis and to show how the model can be applied to a broad range of constructions and languages.

[more]
cover of The Generic Book: The Semantics of Generics

The Generic Book

The Semantics of Generics

Edited by Gregory N. Carlson and Francis Jeffry Pelletier

University of Chicago Press, 1995

In an attempt to address the theoretical gap between linguistics and philosophy, a group of semanticists, calling itself the Generic Group, has worked to develop a common view of genericity. Their research has resulted in this book, which consists of a substantive introduction and eleven original articles on important aspects of the interpretation of generic expressions. The introduction provides a clear overview of the issues and synthesizes the major analytical approaches to them. Taken together, the papers that follow reflect the current state of the art in the semantics of generics, and afford insight into various generic phenomena.
[more]
cover of The Phonology-Syntax Connection

The Phonology-Syntax Connection

Edited by Sharon Inkelas and Draga Zec

University of Chicago Press, 1990

[more]
cover of The Projection of Arguments: Lexical and Compositional Factors

The Projection of Arguments

Lexical and Compositional Factors

Edited by Miriam Butt and Wilhelm Geuder

CSLI, 1998

It is becoming increasingly clear that the standard approach to argument linking in terms of "thematic roles", which are determined by the lexical meaning of verbs, has some serious shortcomings. This volume sets out to explore alternatives to a rigid model of lexical projection. It brings together a set of papers from different backgrounds that converge on the general hypothesis that the many semantic factors which influence the projection of arguments should be attributed to compositional processes rather than to the fixed contents of lexical entries. Proposals for a reassessment of the lexicon-syntax interface include flexible models of lexical meaning with productive derivation of alternants, as well as models where the structural context supplants much of the putative role of lexical entries. The topics addressed include questions of argument hierarchies and adicity of predicates, and the syntax and semantics of argument alternations in a set of very diverse languages, which include English, Dutch, Scottish Gaelic, Finnish, Hebrew, Kannada, Malay, Inuit, and Yaqui.
[more]
cover of The Semantic Basis of Argument Structure

The Semantic Basis of Argument Structure

Stephen Wechsler

CSLI, 1995

Stephen Wechsler Subject: Linguistics; Semantics; Grammar--Syntax
[more]
cover of The Semantics of Syntax: A Minimalist Approach to Grammar

The Semantics of Syntax

A Minimalist Approach to Grammar

Denis Bouchard

University of Chicago Press, 1995

During the last thirty years, most linguists and philosophers have assumed that meaning can be represented symbolically and that the mental processing of language involves the manipulation of symbols. Scholars have assembled strong evidence that there must be linguistic representations at several abstract levels—phonological, syntactic, and semantic—and that those representations are related by a describable system of rules. Because meaning is so complex, linguists often posit an equally complex relationship between semantic and other levels of grammar.

The Semantics of Syntax is an elegant and powerful analysis of the relationship between syntax and semantics. Noting that meaning is underdetermined by form even in simple cases, Denis Bouchard argues that it is impossible to build knowledge of the world into grammar and still have a describable grammar. He thus proposes simple semantic representations and simple rules to relate linguistic levels. Focusing on a class of French verbs, Bouchard shows how multiple senses can be accounted for by the assumption of a single abstract core meaning along with background information about how objects behave in the world. He demonstrates that this move simplifies the syntax at no cost to the descriptive power of the semantics. In two important final chapters, he examines the consequences of his approach for standard syntactic theories.
[more]
cover of The Structure of Complex Predicates in Urdu

The Structure of Complex Predicates in Urdu

Miriam Butt

CSLI, 1995

Complex predicates in a number of diverse languages present an interesting problem for formal linguistics as their overall semantics cannot be placed into a simple one-to-one correspondence with the syntactic or morphological pieces which form the complex predicate.  A central issue in the investigation of complex predicates thus is the interaction between syntax and semantics.

This book takes a detailed look at two differing complex predicates in the South Asian language Urdu.  The Urdu permissive in particular brings into focus the problem of the syntax-semantics mismatch.  An examination of the syntactic properties of this complex predicate shows that it is formed by the combination of two semantic heads, but that this combination is not mirrored in the syntax in terms of any kind of syntactic or lexical incorporation.
[more]
cover of The Structure of English: Studies in Form and Function for Language Teaching

The Structure of English

Studies in Form and Function for Language Teaching

Jeanette S. DeCarrico

University of Michigan Press, 2000

Covering the spectrum of grammatical structures, The Structure of English teaches why grammatical structures are important and how to use them through literary illustrations and clear explanations of grammar's effective use and communicative function. It is directed at future English teachers, as well as the new ESL/EFL teacher.

With an emphasis on discourse function throughout, students are never expected to rely on lists of unrelated, constructed example sentences. Rather, when major points of grammar are presented, the structures are illustrated with rich, "real world" contexts excerpted from literature (mostly American), including novels, short stories, poems, essays, and drama. Exercises in the companion workbook are likewise based on naturally occurring stretches of discourse.
Though informed by modern linguistic theory, explanations are framed in more traditional terminology and are designed to help build students' confidence in using English grammar by deepening their understanding of its forms and functions..
For advanced ESL students and graduate TESOL and certificate programs.
[more]
cover of The Syntactic Phenomena of English

The Syntactic Phenomena of English

James D. McCawley

University of Chicago Press, 1998

This second edition of James D. McCawley's classic textbook offers in one volume a complete course in the syntactic structure of English. New to this edition are sections on appositive constructions, parasitic gaps, contrastive negation, and comparative conditional sentences, as well as expanded coverage of cleft sentences and free relatives. The presentation is coherent, comprehensive, and systematically organized, beginning with an overview of McCawley's approach to syntactic analysis and progressing through the major constructions and processes of English grammar. No prior special knowledge of syntax is presupposed, and the number and variety of exercises after each chapter have been increased.

And now available from the author! Answers to Selected Exercises.

Instructors using James D. McCawley's The Syntactic Phenomena of English, Second Edition may request a complimentary copy of Answers to Selected Exercises in The Syntactic Phenomena of English by writing on their department's letterhead to the author, James D. McCawley, Department of Linguistics, 1010 E. 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637. [Note: This material is available only from the author and is not available from the University of Chicago Press.]

[more]
cover of The Syntactic Phenomena of English, Volume 1

The Syntactic Phenomena of English, Volume 1

James D. McCawley

University of Chicago Press, 1988

This second edition of James D. McCawley's classic textbook offers in one volume a complete course in the syntactic structure of English. New to this edition are sections on appositive constructions, parasitic gaps, contrastive negation, and comparative conditional sentences, as well as expanded coverage of cleft sentences and free relatives. The presentation is coherent, comprehensive, and systematically organized, beginning with an overview of McCawley's approach to syntactic analysis and progressing through the major constructions and processes of English grammar. No prior special knowledge of syntax is presupposed, and the number and variety of exercises after each chapter have been increased.

And now available from the author! Answers to Selected Exercises.

Instructors using James D. McCawley's The Syntactic Phenomena of English, Second Edition may request a complimentary copy of Answers to Selected Exercises in The Syntactic Phenomena of English by writing on their department's letterhead to the author, James D. McCawley, Department of Linguistics, 1010 E. 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637. [Note: This material is available only from the author and is not available from the University of Chicago Press.]
[more]
cover of The Syntactic Phenomena of English, Volume 2

The Syntactic Phenomena of English, Volume 2

James D. McCawley

University of Chicago Press, 1988

This second edition of James D. McCawley's classic textbook offers in one volume a complete course in the syntactic structure of English. New to this edition are sections on appositive constructions, parasitic gaps, contrastive negation, and comparative conditional sentences, as well as expanded coverage of cleft sentences and free relatives. The presentation is coherent, comprehensive, and systematically organized, beginning with an overview of McCawley's approach to syntactic analysis and progressing through the major constructions and processes of English grammar. No prior special knowledge of syntax is presupposed, and the number and variety of exercises after each chapter have been increased.

And now available from the author! Answers to Selected Exercises.

Instructors using James D. McCawley's The Syntactic Phenomena of English, Second Edition may request a complimentary copy of Answers to Selected Exercises in The Syntactic Phenomena of English by writing on their department's letterhead to the author, James D. McCawley, Department of Linguistics, 1010 E. 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637. [Note: This material is available only from the author and is not available from the University of Chicago Press.]
[more]
cover of The Syntax and Semantics of the Verb in Classical Greek: An Introduction: Third Edition

The Syntax and Semantics of the Verb in Classical Greek

An Introduction: Third Edition

Albert Rijksbaron

University of Chicago Press, 2007

The verb is, in any language, the motor of all communication: no verb, no action. In Greek, verb forms change not only with person, number, tense, and voice, but in four possible moods as well. Available now in a special reprint for the North American market, The Syntax and Semantics of the Verb in Classical Greek is an incomparable resource to students and scholars charged with the considerable task of untangling the Greek language’s many complexities. With clear, concise instruction, Albert Rijksbaron shows how the various verb forms contribute to the richness of the Greek literature as we know it, in this essential guide for both novices and experienced practitioners.

“[This study] belongs in the library of any Hellenist and any linguist interested in ancient Greek.”—Classics Newsletter (Anzeiger für die Altertumswissenschaft)

“Every use is described with concision and clarity.”—Kratylos

“The book offers an example of how the empirical thoroughness of traditional Classical scholarship can be brought into contact with general linguistic theory.”—Language

 

[more]
cover of The Syntax of Spoken Brazilian Portuguese

The Syntax of Spoken Brazilian Portuguese

Earl W. Thomas

Vanderbilt University Press, 1969

Increased personal contact among people of all parts of the world has underscored the inadequacy of traditional language study to meet contemporary communications needs. Linguistic science, in recent years, has responded to this breakdown of communications by emphasizing spoken, versus literary, language in the teaching of foreign languages.

Very real differences do exist between what is spoken and what is written in virtually every language. In Brazilian Portuguese, especially, the gulf between the two is wide: In many cases, the most cultured Brazilian is unable to comprehend with ease Brazilian literature written only fifty years ago.

THE SYNTAX OF SPOKEN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE is the first thorough analysis of the spoken language of contemporary Brazil, in English, for students and teachers of the language. Useful as a text in advanced language courses, the work is intended primarily for reference and as a research aid to future authors of Portuguese language textbooks.
[more]
cover of The Syntax of Sports, Class 1: The Words Under the Words

The Syntax of Sports, Class 1

The Words Under the Words

Patrick Barry

Michigan Publishing Services, 2019

The Syntax of Sports is that course you wish you took in college—even if you aren’t a sports fan. It’s interesting. It’s practical. It’s inspiring. And best of all, it teaches you a skill that is at once highly marketable and potentially transforming: how to become a better thinker and writer.

The beginning of a multi-volume series, this initial book recreates the first day of class as it was taught to undergraduates at the University of Michigan. The examples are compelling. The dialogue is fast moving. The stories are ones you’ll want to return to and retell over and over again. There is a reason the actual students who took The Syntax of Sports said the following things about it:

“Every class I learned something new that I know I’ll actually use in my writing for years to come. Couldn’t be happier that I took a chance on Syntax of Sports.”

“Prof. Barry has structured the course so that it’s almost impossible not to learn something valuable to take with you to future classes and future career possibilities.”

“I have learned a ton of techniques for being a better writer in this class. I have also learned many life lessons that will undoubtedly guide how I act in the future.”

“I absolutely loved this course because the teacher was so awesome. I enjoyed sitting through class listening to Professor Barry and falling in love with his brain.”
[more]
cover of The Syntax of Sports, Class 2: The Power of the Particular

The Syntax of Sports, Class 2

The Power of the Particular

Patrick Barry

Michigan Publishing Services, 2020

What can we learn from baseball great Ted Williams about how to improve our writing? What can we learn we from the iconic ESPN show SportsCenter  about how to manage information? And are you sure you really know what the word “peruse” means? 

Explore these and other questions in the second volume of The Syntax of Sports, a series designed to recreate a popular course at the University of Michigan. Here are a few things students have said about the experience of taking it.

  •  “Patrick Barry is the best teacher I have ever had. I have never learned so much in a class. I hated English my whole life until I took this course.”

  • “I feel like this is and always will be the most valuable class I've ever taken here.”

  • “I genuinely wanted to show up to this class due to the amount I knew I would learn.” 

  •  “I'm going to severely SEVERELY miss this course.”

  • “Every student should try to take one of Prof. Barry’s classes if he or she wants to become a better writer.”

  •  “My writing is now 113x better.”

[more]
cover of The Syntax of Sports, Class 3: The Rule of Three

The Syntax of Sports, Class 3

The Rule of Three

Patrick Barry

Michigan Publishing Services, 2021

It’s not an accident that hall of fame coaches, Pulitzer Prize-winning writers, and the marketing teams at the most innovative companies in the world often rely on a certain three-part structure when trying to communicate their ideas. This third volume of The Syntax of Sports series explores the mechanics of that structure and shows how it can add a compelling mix of clarity and sophistication to your writing.

Like in the previous volumes, the materials come from a popular course at the University of Michigan. Here are comments from students who have taken it:

“The quality of this course was fantastic!”

“Professor Barry really knows how to keep students engaged.”

“Professor Barry is very passionate about teaching, and his enthusiasm made me want to write and learn.”

“This course not only helps you become a better writer but also sheds light on how you might become a better person.”

[more]
cover of The Syntax of Sports, Class 4: Parallel Structure

The Syntax of Sports, Class 4

Parallel Structure

Patrick Barry

Michigan Publishing Services, 2022

“Once you find the right structure, perhaps it will be easier to find the right content.” That’s one of the key insights from this fourth book in the series The Syntax of Sports. Others include:

  • The importance of being “radically inclusive”
  • The power of defining something by what it is not
  • The creative elegance of the word “as”

So join Professor Patrick Barry as he continues to share lessons from the popular writing course at the University of Michigan on which The Syntax of Sports is based. You’ll learn about language. You’ll learn about advocacy. And you’ll get to explore some illuminating connections between everything from the speeches of Winston Churchill, to the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci, to—perhaps most surprisingly—the face of NFL legend (and former University of Michigan quarterback) Tom Brady. 

[more]
cover of The Syntax of Sports, Class 5: Rhetorical Repetition

The Syntax of Sports, Class 5

Rhetorical Repetition

Patrick Barry

Michigan Publishing Services, 2024

Here are some of the words that the people who have attended Patrick Barry's classes and workshops have used to describe his unique, multidisciplinary approach to teaching writing:
  • "Fantastic"
  • "Phenomenal"
  • "Very engaging and informative:
  • "Incredibly useful
  • "Full of practical lessons for both my career and life generally"
This fifth book in his Syntax of Sports series gives you a chance to experience his creative (and capacious) mind for yourself. Whether you've already read the previous four books in the series or are trying one out for the very first time, you're in for quite the educational treat.
[more]
cover of The Syntax of Sports, Class 6: Drafting and Editing

The Syntax of Sports, Class 6

Drafting and Editing

Patrick Barry

Michigan Publishing Services, 2024

How do you start a piece of writing? How do you edit one? And what can be done to combat those pesky—and paralyzing—feelings of perfectionism that often derail our most important sentences and paragraphs?

This sixth volume of the Syntax of Sports series creatively uses the language of baseball, football, tennis, and many other sports to explore these questions. Based on a popular course at the University of Michigan, it captures the energy, originality, and discipline - crossing insights that make its author, Professor Patrick Barry, such a sought-after teacher and presenter.

[more]
cover of The Syntax of Sports, Class 7: Information Flow

The Syntax of Sports, Class 7

Information Flow

Patrick Barry

Michigan Publishing Services, 2025

What can sports fans who start “the wave” at a big stadium teach us about getting people to speak up in class or at an important meeting? What can the poet Maya Angelou and the boxer Joe Louis teach us about streamlining sentences and paragraphs? And how exactly do we get our ideas to flow in powerfully persuasive ways? Explore these and other questions in the seventh volume of The Syntax of Sports, a series based on the innovative and highly interdisciplinary courses Professor Patrick Barry teaches at the University of Michigan.
[more]
cover of The Syntax of Subjects

The Syntax of Subjects

Koichi Tateishi

CSLI, 1994

Linguists who work on the Japanese language have disagreed about the notion of subject with resopect to Japanese; many linguists argue that there is no formal symtactic position for the subject in Japanese. Tateishi does deeper research on the surface syntax of the subject, and looks in particular at the syntax of the subject and phenomena which have been treated as S-adjunctions. These two have been identified with each other on many occasions in the history of Japanese linguistics and are of interest with respect to the debate over configurationality in the language, which has been revivedd in different forms following the emergence of the VP-Internal Subject Hypothesis, the merits of which Tateishi discusses at length. Tateishi's main claim is that despite all the non-configurational characteristics found in the language, Japanese is in a sense more configurational than the so-called configurational languages. Japanese allows more types of hierarchies to be involved in the subject-predicate relation than English allows, as Japanese does not have the same kind of restrictions on the phrase structure as the configurational languages have. Koichi Tateishi is a professor of linguistics at the Kyoto University of Foreign Studies.
[more]
cover of The Unity of Unbounded Dependency Constructions

The Unity of Unbounded Dependency Constructions

Robert D. Levine and Thomas E. Hukari

CSLI, 2006

How do languages transmit information about the properties of phrases over large structural distances? This is the difficult question raised by the phenomenon of extraction, and while extraction has driven the development of syntactic theory for decades, there is still no consensus on what form the connectivity mechanism should take. A number of recent theoretical approaches share the view that extraction is not a unitary phenomenon, but this monograph offers data that radically undercuts this view. The grammar of extraction connectivity, the authors conclude, is relatively simple, homogenous in construction type, and uniform in the position of the extractee.
[more]
cover of Truth and Veridicality in Grammar and Thought: Mood, Modality, and Propositional Attitudes

Truth and Veridicality in Grammar and Thought

Mood, Modality, and Propositional Attitudes

Anastasia Giannakidou and Alda Mari

University of Chicago Press, 2021

Can language directly access what is true, or is the truth judgment affected by the subjective, perhaps even solipsistic, constructs of reality built by the speakers of that language? The construction of such subjective representations is known as veridicality, and in this book Anastasia Giannakidou and Alda Mari deftly address the interaction between truth and veridicality in the grammatical phenomena of mood choice: the indicative and subjunctive choice in the complements of modal expressions and propositional attitude verbs.

Combining several strands of analysis—formal linguistic semantics, syntactic theory, modal logic, and philosophy of language—Giannakidou and Mari’s theory not only enriches the analysis of linguistic modality, but also offers a unified perspective of modals and propositional attitudes. Their synthesis covers mood, modality, and attitude verbs in Greek and Romance languages, while also offering broader applications for languages lacking systematic mood distinction, such as English. Truth and Veridicality in Grammar and Thought promises to shape longstanding conversations in formal semantics, pragmatics, and philosophy of language, among other areas of linguistics.

[more]