Contrasting English and German Grammar

Name: Contrasting English and German Grammar | An Introduction to Syntax and Semantics
Brand: De Gruyter Mouton
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An Introduction to Syntax and Semantics

Sigrid Beck Remus Gergel(Author)

De Gruyter Mouton (Publisher)

1st Edition

Published on 23. June 2014

XII, 315 pages

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978-3-11-034619-0 (ISBN)

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Intro
Preface
Contents
Part I - Structure and Meaning: An Introduction to Syntax and Semantics
Chapter I-1 Introduction to the field: Syntax and semantics
1. The scientific study of language
2. Goals and models in syntax and semantics
2.1. Syntax
2.2. Semantics
3. About this book
4. The structure of Part I
5. Selected references
Chapter I-2 Categories, phrases and phrase structure rules
1. Grammar makes reference to syntactic categories
1.1. Categories
1.2. Major lexical categories in English
1.3. Crosslinguistic variation in the properties of categories
2. Phrases
2.1. Noun phrases
2.2. First steps towards a formal model: phrase structure rules
2.3. Other phrases
3. Phrase Structure Grammar and phrase structures
3.1. Phrase Structure Grammar
3.2. Phrase structure trees and constituency
3.3. Structural ambiguities
4. Selected references
Chapter I-3 A systematic way of constructing phrases
1. NPs revisited: more internal structure
1.1. Intermediate levels: N'
1.2. Complements vs. adjuncts
1.3. The new set of phrase structure rules
2. Evidence for intermediate projections within verb phrases
2.1. First evidence for V'
2.2. Complements and adjuncts again
3. Generalizing from nouns and verbs: the X' schema
3.1. Adjectives and prepositions
3.2. The four players: heads, complements, adjuncts, and specifiers
4. A loose end: subcategorization
5. Universal and variable aspects of syntactic structure
6. Selected references
Chapter I-4 Clause structure and movement
1. Clausal structure
1.1. Finding the head of the clause
1.2. Excursus: Mood selection in Romance and Balkan languages
2. Head movement
2.1. V-to-I movement and affix hopping
2.2. I-to-C movement
2.3. Differences in head movement: The case of French
2.4. An intermediate summary and a note on the model of grammar
3. Wh-movement
3.1. Basic wh-questions
3.2. Wh-phrases
3.3. Embedded wh-questions
3.4. Complex wh-questions: an analysis and corroborating evidence from German
4. Selected references
Chapter I-5 Goals and methods in semantics
1. What we have to account for
1.1. Elements of reasoning: contradiction and consequence
1.2. Several meanings: ambiguity
1.3. Method: compositionality
1.4. Semantic and pragmatic meaning
2. Tutorial on sets
2.1. Sets and elements
2.2. Relations between sets
2.3. Operations on sets
3. Selected references
Chapter I-6 Composing sentence meanings - first steps
1. Sentence meanings - some distinctions and a first composition rule
2. Meanings of parts of sentences: first steps
2.1. Referential NPs
2.2. Predicates
3. Selected references
Chapter I-7 Extending the theory
1. Step by step composition - some trivial steps
2. Modifiers
2.1. Intersective modifiers
2.2. Adjuncts with non-intersective meanings
3. Relations
3.1. Transitive verbs
3.2. Transfer to prepositions
3.3. Three-place relations
3.4. Interpretability
4. Selected references
Chapter I-8 NP Semantics
1. Definites: referential NPs with presuppositions
2. Quantifiers
2.1. Quantifiers: non-referential NPs
2.2. No simpler meaning is possible for quantified NPs
3. Scope ambiguity ambiguity
3.1. Interpreting negation
3.2. Negation and quantifiers
4. Selected references
Appendix. Syntactic and semantic rules from Part I
1. Syntax
1.1. PS rules
1.2. The generalized X' schema
1.3. Transformations
2. Rules of composition
Part II - Extending the Theory and Applying it to Crosslinguistic Differences
Chapter II-1 Introduction and roadmap to the second part
1. Aims and background
2. The topics ahead
2.1. Clause structure - English vs. German
2.2. Quantifiers and scope
2.3. Negation and polarity
2.4. Focus
2.5. Ellipsis
2.6. Tense and aspect
Chapter II-2 Clause structure - English and German
1. Review of English clause structure
2. German clause structure
3. Selected references
Chapter II-3 Quantifiers and scope
1. Interpreting referential vs. quantified noun phrases
1.1. Referential NPs
1.2. Quantifiers: non-referential NPs
1.3. Paraphrases
2. Ambiguities
2.1. Ambiguities between quantified subject NPs and elements in the Idomain
2.2. Digression: Pronouns, variables
2.3. Ambiguities between quantified objects and elements in the I-domain
2.4. Subject-object ambiguities
2.5. Inverse linking
3. Comparison with the German scope facts
3.1. The middle field
3.1.1. Negation
3.1.2 Two quantifiers
3.2. The prefield
3.2.1. Negation
3.2.2. Two quantifiers
3.2.3. Inverse linking
4. Selected references
Chapter II-4 Negation and polarity
1. Negative and positive polarity items
1.1. Negative polarity items
1.2. Downward entailing contexts
1.3. Positive polarity items
2. Scope in the distribution of some vs. any
3. Selected references
Chapter II-5 Focus
1. What is focus?
1.1. Focus can make a difference in discourse appropriateness
1.1.1. Questions and answers
1.1.2. Contrast
1.2. Focus can make a truth conditional difference
1.2.1. Focus sensitive adverbs
1.2.2. Focus can disambiguate ellipsis
2. Focus introduces alternatives
2.1. Alternatives: The idea
2.2. Deriving focus alternatives
2.3. Applying focus alternatives
2.3.1. Only revisited
2.3.2. Contrast
2.3.3. Question/answer congruence
2.3.4. Implicatures
3. Some remarks on focus across languages
3.1. Topicalization vs. prefield
3.2. Focus in the middle field
4. Further readings
Chapter II-6 Ellipsis
1. What is ellipsis?
2. Structural identity at LF
2.1. Why LF?
2.2. A note on other kinds of ellipsis and crosslinguistic variation
3. Focus in ellipsis
3.1. The contrast condition
3.2. Pseudogapping
4. Antecedent Contained Deletion (ACD)
4.1. The phenomenon
4.2. The analysis and some consequences
5. Selected References
Chapter II-7 Tense and Aspect
1. What are tense and aspect?
1.1. Tense
1.2. Aspect
2. Compositional semantics for tense and aspect
2.1. Tenses are time pronouns
2.2. The LF-structure for tense and aspect
2.3. Composition rules for tense and aspect
2.4. Temporal intensions and extensions
3. The perfect
4. Some tense and aspect contrasts crosslinguistically
4.1. On German tense and aspect
4.2. The bigger picture
5. Selected references
Chapter II-8 Conclusions
1. What we have done
2. Where to go from here
2.1. For the linguist
2.2. Related fields
References
Index

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Contrasting English and German Grammar

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