Publications

Displaying 201 - 226 of 226
  • Seuren, P. A. M. (2008). Apollonius Dyscolus en de semantische syntaxis. In J. van Driel, & T. Janssen (Eds.), Ontheven aan de tijd: Linguistisch-historische studies voor Jan Noordegraaf bij zijn zestigste verjaardag (pp. 15-24). Amsterdam: Stichting Neerlandistiek VU Amsterdam.

    Abstract

    This article places the debate between Chomskyan autonomous syntax and Generative Semantics in the context of the first beginnings of syntactic theory set out in Perì suntáxeõs ('On syntax') by Apollonius Dyscolus (second century CE). It shows that, theoretically speaking, the Apollonian concept of syntax implied an algorithmically organized system of composition rules with lexico-semantic, not a sound-based, input, unlike Apollonius's strictly sound-based postulated rule systems for the composition of phonemes into syllables and of syllables into words. This meaning-based notion of syntax persisted essentially unchanged (though refined by Sanctius during the sixteenth century) until the 1930s, when structuralism began to take the notion of algorithmically organized rule systems for the generation of sentences seriously. This meant a break with the Apollonian meaning-based approach to syntax. The Generative Semantics movement, which arose during the 1960s but was nipped in the bud, implied a return to the tradition, though with much improved formal underpinnings.
  • Seuren, P. A. M. (2004). How the cognitive revolution passed linguistics by. In F. Brisard (Ed.), Language and revolution: Language and time. (pp. 63-77). Antwerpen: Universiteit van Antwerpen.
  • Seuren, P. A. M. (2000). Pseudocomplementen. In H. Den Besten, E. Elffers, & J. Luif (Eds.), Samengevoegde woorden. Voor Wim Klooster bij zijn afscheid als hoogleraar (pp. 231-237). Amsterdam: Leerstoelgroep Nederlandse Taalkunde, Universiteit van Amsterdam.
  • Seuren, P. A. M. (1973). The comparative. In F. Kiefer, & N. Ruwet (Eds.), Generative grammar in Europe (pp. 528-564). Reidel: Dordrecht.

    Abstract

    No idea is older in the history of linguistics than the thought that there is, somehow hidden underneath the surface of sentences, a form or a structure which provides a semantic analysis and lays bare their logical structure. In Plato’s Cratylus the theory was proposed, deriving from Heraclitus’ theory of explanatory underlying structure in physical nature, that words contain within themselves bits of syntactic structure giving their meanings. The Stoics held the same view and maintained moreover that every sentence has an underlying logical structure, which for them was the Aristotelian subject- predicate form. They even proposed transformational processes to derive the surface from the deep structure. The idea of a semantically analytic logical form underlying the sentences of every language kept reappearing in various guises at various times. Quite recently it re-emerged under the name of generative semantics.
  • Seuren, P. A. M. (1973). The new approach to the study of language. In B. Douglas (Ed.), Linguistics and the mind (pp. 11-20). Sydney: Sydney University Extension Board.
  • Seuren, P. A. M. (1998). Towards a discourse-semantic account of donkey anaphora. In S. Botley, & T. McEnery (Eds.), New Approaches to Discourse Anaphora: Proceedings of the Second Colloquium on Discourse Anaphora and Anaphor Resolution (DAARC2) (pp. 212-220). Lancaster: Universiy Centre for Computer Corpus Research on Language, Lancaster University.
  • Skiba, R. (2004). Revitalisierung bedrohter Sprachen - Ein Ernstfall für die Sprachdidaktik. In H. W. Hess (Ed.), Didaktische Reflexionen "Berliner Didaktik" und Deutsch als Fremdsprache heute (pp. 251-262). Berlin: Staufenburg.
  • Skiba, R. (2008). Korpora in de Zweitspracherwerbsforschung: Internetzugang zu Daten des ungesteuerten Zweitspracherwerbs. In B. Ahrenholz, U. Bredel, W. Klein, M. Rost-Roth, & R. Skiba (Eds.), Empirische Forschung und Theoriebildung: Beiträge aus Soziolinguistik, Gesprochene-Sprache- und Zweitspracherwerbsforschung: Festschrift für Norbert Dittmar (pp. 21-30). Frankfurt am Main: Lang.
  • Skiba, R., Dittmar, N., & Bressem, J. (2008). Planning, collecting, exploring and archiving longitudinal L2 data: Experiences from the P-MoLL project. In L. Ortega, & H. Byrnes (Eds.), The longitudinal study of advanced L2 capacities (pp. 73-88). New York/London: Routledge.
  • Stivers, T. (2004). Question sequences in interaction. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field Manual Volume 9 (pp. 45-47). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.506967.

    Abstract

    When people request information, they have a variety of means for eliciting the information. In English two of the primary resources for eliciting information include asking questions, making statements about their interlocutor (thereby generating confirmation or revision). But within these types there are a variety of ways that these information elicitors can be designed. The goal of this task is to examine how different languages seek and provide information, the extent to which syntax vs prosodic resources are used (e.g., in questions), and the extent to which the design of information seeking actions and their responses display a structural preference to promote social solidarity.
  • Stolker, C. J. J. M., & Poletiek, F. H. (1998). Smartengeld - Wat zijn we eigenlijk aan het doen? Naar een juridische en psychologische evaluatie. In F. Stadermann (Ed.), Bewijs en letselschade (pp. 71-86). Lelystad, The Netherlands: Koninklijke Vermande.
  • Suppes, P., Böttner, M., & Liang, L. (1998). Machine Learning of Physics Word Problems: A Preliminary Report. In A. Aliseda, R. van Glabbeek, & D. Westerståhl (Eds.), Computing Natural Language (pp. 141-154). Stanford, CA, USA: CSLI Publications.
  • Terrill, A. (2004). Coordination in Lavukaleve. In M. Haspelmath (Ed.), Coordinating Constructions. (pp. 427-443). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
  • Van Wijk, C., & Kempen, G. (1985). From sentence structure to intonation contour: An algorithm for computing pitch contours on the basis of sentence accents and syntactic structure. In B. Müller (Ed.), Sprachsynthese: Zur Synthese von natürlich gesprochener Sprache aus Texten und Konzepten (pp. 157-182). Hildesheim: Georg Olms.
  • Van Geenhoven, V. (1998). On the Argument Structure of some Noun Incorporating Verbs in West Greenlandic. In M. Butt, & W. Geuder (Eds.), The Projection of Arguments - Lexical and Compositional Factors (pp. 225-263). Stanford, CA, USA: CSLI Publications.
  • Van Valin Jr., R. D. (1998). The acquisition of WH-questions and the mechanisms of language acquisition. In M. Tomasello (Ed.), The new psychology of language: Cognitive and functional approaches to language structure (pp. 221-249). Mahwah, New Jersey: Erlbaum.
  • Van Berkum, J. J. A. (2004). Sentence comprehension in a wider discourse: Can we use ERPs to keep track of things? In M. Carreiras, Jr., & C. Clifton (Eds.), The on-line study of sentence comprehension: eyetracking, ERPs and beyond (pp. 229-270). New York: Psychology Press.
  • Van Valin Jr., R. D. (2008). Some remarks on universal grammar. In J. Guo, E. Lieven, N. Budwig, S. Ervin-Tripp, K. Nakamura, & S. Ozcaliskan (Eds.), Crosslinguistic approaches to the psychology of language: Research in the tradition of Dan Isaac Slobin (pp. 311-320). New York: Psychology Press.
  • Van Valin Jr., R. D. (2008). RPs and the nature of lexical and syntactic categories in role and reference grammar. In R. D. Van Valin Jr. (Ed.), Investigations of the syntax-semantics-pragmatics interface (pp. 161-178). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  • Verkerk, A., & Lestrade, S. (2008). The encoding of adjectives. In M. Van Koppen, & B. Botma (Eds.), Linguistics in the Netherlands 2008 (pp. 157-168). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    In this paper, we will give a unified account of the cross-linguistic variation in the encoding of adjectives in predicative and attributive constructions. Languages may differ in the encoding strategy of adjectives in the predicative domain (Stassen 1997), and sometimes change this strategy in the attributive domain (Verkerk 2007). We will show that the interaction of two principles, that of faithfulness to the semantic class of a lexical root and that of faithfulness to discourse functions, can account for all attested variation in the encoding of adjectives.
  • Von Stutterheim, C., & Klein, W. (2004). Die Gesetze des Geistes sind metrisch: Hölderlin und die Sprachproduktion. In H. Schwarz (Ed.), Fenster zur Welt: Deutsch als Fremdsprachenphilologie (pp. 439-460). München: Iudicium.
  • Weber, A. (2008). What eye movements can tell us about spoken-language processing: A psycholinguistic survey. In C. M. Riehl (Ed.), Was ist linguistische Evidenz: Kolloquium des Zentrums Sprachenvielfalt und Mehrsprachigkeit, November 2006 (pp. 57-68). Aachen: Shaker.
  • Widlok, T., Rapold, C. J., & Hoymann, G. (2008). Multimedia analysis in documentation projects: Kinship, interrogatives and reciprocals in ǂAkhoe Haiǁom. In K. D. Harrison, D. S. Rood, & A. Dwyer (Eds.), Lessons from documented endangered languages (pp. 355-370). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    This contribution emphasizes the role of multimedia data not only for archiving languages but also for creating opportunities for innovative analyses. In the case at hand, video material was collected as part of the documentation of Akhoe Haiom, a Khoisan language spoken in northern Namibia. The multimedia documentation project brought together linguistic and anthropological work to highlight connections between specialized domains, namely kinship terminology, interrogatives and reciprocals. These connections would have gone unnoticed or undocumented in more conventional modes of language description. It is suggested that such an approach may be particularly appropriate for the documentation of endangered languages since it directs the focus of attention away from isolated traits of languages towards more complex practices of communication that are also frequently threatened with extinction.
  • Widlok, T. (2008). The dilemmas of walking: A comparative view. In T. Ingold, & J. L. Vergunst (Eds.), Ways of walking: Ethnography and practice on foot (pp. 51-66). Aldershot: Ashgate.
  • Zavala, R. (2000). Multiple classifier systems in Akatek (Mayan). In G. Senft (Ed.), Systems of nominal classification (pp. 114-146). Cambridge University Press.
  • Zwitserlood, I. (2008). Morphology below the level of the sign - frozen forms and classifier predicates. In J. Quer (Ed.), Proceedings of the 8th Conference on Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research (TISLR) (pp. 251-272). Hamburg: Signum Verlag.

    Abstract

    The lexicons of many sign languages hold large proportions of “frozen” forms, viz. signs that are generally considered to have been formed productively (as classifier predicates), but that have diachronically undergone processes of lexicalisation. Nederlandse Gebarentaal (Sign Language of the Netherlands; henceforth: NGT) also has many of these signs (Van der Kooij 2002, Zwitserlood 2003). In contrast to the general view on “frozen” forms, a few researchers claim that these signs may be formed according to productive sign formation rules, notably Brennan (1990) for BSL, and Meir (2001, 2002) for ISL. Following these claims, I suggest an analysis of “frozen” NGT signs as morphologically complex, using the framework of Distributed Morphology. The signs in question are derived in a similar way as classifier predicates; hence their similar form (but diverging characteristics). I will indicate how and why the structure and use of classifier predicates and “frozen” forms differ. Although my analysis focuses on NGT, it may also be applicable to other sign languages.

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