Exploring the Syntax-Semantics Interface

This book looks at how syntax, semantics and pragmatics interact in different ways across human languages.

Robert D. van Valin, Jr. (Author)

9780521010566, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 7 July 2005

334 pages, 29 tables
24.7 x 17.4 x 2.4 cm, 0.662 kg

'this book on RRG linguistic theory succeeds to provide a fresh and deep analytic view on the exploration of the syntax, semantics, and pragmatics interfaces … A special remark should emphasize the cross-linguistic value of the whole investigation within the book.' Zentralblatt MATH

Language is a system of communication in which grammatical structures function to express meaning in context. While all languages can achieve the same basic communicative ends, they each use different means to achieve them, particularly in the divergent ways that syntax, semantics and pragmatics interact across languages. This book looks in detail at how structure, meaning, and communicative function interact in human languages. Working within the framework of Role and Reference Grammar (RRG), Van Valin proposes a set of rules, called the 'linking algorithm', which relates syntactic and semantic representations to each other, with discourse-pragmatics playing a role in the linking. Using this model, he discusses the full range of grammatical phenomena, including the structures of simple and complex sentences, verb and argument structure, voice, reflexivization and extraction restrictions. Clearly written and comprehensive, this book will be welcomed by all those working on the interface between syntax, semantics and pragmatics.

1. Syntactic structure
2. Lexical representation and semantic roles
3. Information structure
4. Syntactic relations and case marking
5. Linking syntactic and semantic representations in simple sentences
6. The structure of complex sentences
7. Linking syntax and semantics in complex sentences.

Subject Areas: Grammar, syntax & morphology [CFK]