LINGUIST List 10.1214

Wed Aug 18 1999

Books: Semantics, Discourse, & Pragmatics

Editor for this issue: Scott Fults <scottlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Joyce Reid, Semantics, Discourse, & Pragmatics

Principles of Japanese Discourse
A Handbook
Senko K. Maynard, Rutgers University

This is the first book on Japanese rhetorical style and strategy ever
made available for English readers. Professor Maynard presents, in
thirty entries, clear explication of Japanese discourse organization
and detailed analysis of the rhetorical strategies used. Also included
are practice readings selected from contemporary Japanese discourse,
including essays, newspaper columns, a short story, a comic and an
advertisement, with translations and wordlists. A helpful self-study
guide, it is also an excellent reference source for students and
instructors of Japanese.

Contents:
Preface; About the book; To the instructors; PART I.PRELIMINARIES:
1.Beyond the sentence: discourse and bunshoo; 2.Rhetoric and culture;
3. Written, spoken and in-between; 4. Style distinction: da, desu/masu
and dearu; PART II.PRINCIPLES: 1. Rhetorical organization;
2. Rhetorical strategies; PART III. SELECTED READINGS; Appendix;
References; Index.

1998/317 pp.
0-521-59095-7/Hb/List: $64.95 Disc.: $51.96
0-521-59909-1/Pb/List: $25.95 Disc.: $20.76



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Conditionals and Predictions
Time, Knowledge and Causation in Conditional Constructions
Barbara Dancygier, University of California, Berkeley


This book offers a new and in-depth analysis of English conditional
sentences. Dancygier classifies conditional constructions according to
time-reference and modality. She shows how the basic meaning
parameters of conditionality correlate to formal parameters of the
linguistic constructions that are used to express them. Focused on
English, the study also provides a framework that can be extended to a
broad range of grammatical phenomena in many other languages.

Contents:
Acknowledgements; 1. Conditionals as a category; 2. Prediction and
distance: time and modality in conditional clauses; 3. Relations
between the clauses in conditional constructions; 4. Knowledge and
conditional protases; 5. Conditionalclauses: form and order; 6. If and
other conditional conjunctions; 7. Conclusion: prototypical
conditionality and related constructions; Bibliography; Index of
names; Subject index.

Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 87
1999/224 pp.
0-521-59151-1/Hb/List: $59.95 Disc.: $47.96



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The Dynamics of Focus Structure
Nomi Erteschik-Shir, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

All modes of perception (vision, hearing, etc.) are organized into
foreground or focus and background constituents. Natural language
sentences are no different. This book explores the role of focusing in
natural language sentences and the role of this basic cognitive
mechanism in explaining sentence stress, meaning and structure. The
result is an innovative view of our linguistic competence.

Contents:

Introduction; 1. The Interpretation of f-structure; 2. Reference and
coreference; 3. Negation, questions and contrast; 4. The phonological
interpretation f-structure; 5. Scope and r-dependencies;
6. I-dependencies in das-structure; Conclusion; References; Index of
names; Index of subjects.

Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 84
1998/294 pp.
0-521-59217-8/Hb/ List: $64.95 Disc.: $51.96



********************************************************************

Definiteness
Christopher Lyons, University of Cambridge

Definiteness is the concept expressed by definite articles such as
"the", and also by other expressions such as demonstratives ("this",
"that") and personal pronouns. This textbook surveys such expressions
in the many languages of the world, and also examines the theoretical
literature on this aspect of grammar, to establish what definiteness
is and how languages can express it.

Contents:

Preface; 1. Basic observations; 2. Simple definites and indefinites;
3. Complex definites and indefinites; 4. Some semantic and pragmatic
distinctions; 5. Interaction with other grammatical phenomena;
6. Definiteness effects; 7. Defining definiteness; 8. Definiteness and
noun phrase structure; 9. Diachronic aspects; References.

Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics
1999/400 pp./7 line diagrams
0-521-36835-9/Pb/List: $27.95 Disc.: $22.36


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