| Description |
1 online resource |
| Contents |
Cover -- Titlepage -- Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- List of abbreviations -- 1 Introduction -- 1.1 The goal of the study -- 1.2 The importance of the reference systems -- 1.3 Typology of reference systems -- 1.4 Methodology -- 1.5 The coding means within the system of reference -- 1.6 State of the art -- 1.7 The choice of languages -- 1.8 The terms used -- 1.9 Main findings and implications -- 1.10 Organization of the volume -- 2 The reference system of Mupun -- 2.1 Introduction -- 2.2 State of the art -- 2.3 Formal means of coding for the system of reference |
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2.4 Functions within the system of reference -- 2.5 No instructions to identify the referent -- 2.6 Previous mention -- 2.7 The status of relative clauses -- 2.8 Coding of the reference and typology of syntactic units -- 2.9 Anaphora at the clausal level -- 2.10 Reference to possessor -- 2.11 Locative anaphora -- 2.12 Reference at the level of complex sentence: Logophoricity -- 2.13 Reference to the environment of speech -- 2.14 Unspecified human subject -- 2.15 Non-human anaphora, time, and syntactic constraints |
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2.16 Reference to the environment of speech and anaphora belong to different domains -- 2.17 A member of a set -- 2.18 Conclusions and implications -- 3 The reference system of modern Mandarin Chinese -- 3.1 The aim of the study -- 3.2 State of the art with respect to the reference system in Mandarin -- 3.3 Some typological characteristics of Mandarin -- 3.4 The data -- 3.5 Coding means in the Mandarin reference system -- 3.6 Same referent -- 3.7 Contrastive focus within the ongoing discourse -- 3.8 Deducing the referent from the current content -- 3.9 Deducing the referent from remote context |
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3.10 No instructions to identify the referent -- 3.11 Individuated member of a class -- 3.12 Conclusions and implications -- 4 The reference system of Polish -- 4.1 Aim of the chapter -- 4.2 State of the art -- 4.3 The data -- 4.4 The formal means for the coding of reference in Polish -- 4.5 Reference of clausal relations and of the noun phrase -- 4.6 Referent of the subject -- 4.7 Referential functions of other grammatical relations -- 4.8 Referential functions of noun phrases -- 4.9 Selection of an entity from a group of potential entities |
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4.10 Referent other than the one in the common sphere -- 4.11 De dicto domain only -- 4.12 Conclusions on Polish -- 5 The reference system in non-literary varieties of Russian -- 5.1 The aim of this chapter -- 5.2 State of the art -- 5.3 The data -- 5.4 The coding means in the reference system -- 5.5 Reference in the flow of discourse -- 5.6 The unknown plural agent -- 5.7 Referential functions of objects -- 5.8 The referents of the noun phrase -- 5.9 Topicalization -- 5.10 The deduced referent other than the default -- 5.11 Any member of a set -- 5.12 Conclusions and implications |
| Summary |
The term 'reference system' designates all functions within the grammatical system of a given language that indicate whether the addressee(s) should identify the referents of participants in the proposition and, if so, how they should identify the referents. Reference systems are a part of the semantic structure encoded in the grammatical system, and the study of reference systems contributes to the description of the semantic structure of individual languages. The present book offers a non-aprioristic typology of reference systems of typologically or genetically distinct languages including English, Mandarin, non-literate Russian, Polish, six Chadic languages spoken in Cameroon, Nigeria, and Chad, and a dozen Sino-Russian idiolect spoken in the far east of Russia for which no genetic relationship can be established. The analyses identify major functional domains, subdomains, and individual functions which enable the identification of participants in a proposition in individual languages. The book identifies the most frequent and least frequent functions that instruct the speakers whether to identify the participants and if so how to identify the participants in the propositions. The book demonstrates that bare nouns, pronouns, demonstratives, and determiners, coding on the verb ('agreement'), have different functions in different languages. The book offers explanations for these differences. The book draws some implications of the reference systems for the theory and methodology of semantic analysis, for linguistic typology, and for syntactic theories |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on February 09, 2023) |
| Subject |
Typology (Linguistics)
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Grammar, Comparative and general -- Syntax.
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Grammar, Comparative and general -- Syntax.
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Typology (Linguistics)
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Linguistics.
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Language.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
9780191918872 |
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0191918873 |
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9780192650290 |
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0192650297 |
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