LINGUIST List 13.325

Wed Feb 6 2002

Books: Syntax / Discourse

Editor for this issue: Dina Kapetangianni <dinalinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Paul Peranteau, Syntax/Discourse: Syntactic units in Finnish conversation

A new book from John Benjamins Publishing:

Syntax in the Making The emergence of syntactic units in Finnish
conversation Marja-Liisa HELASVUO (University of Helsinki)

Studies in Discourse and Grammar 9
2001. xiv, 176 pp. Hardcover
US & Canada: 1 55619 394 7 / USD 73.00
Rest of world: 90 272 2619 9 / EUR 80.00

Research on the interplay between language structure and language use
has shown that grammar is shaped, maintained, and modified by language
use. In this view, then, grammar is not seen as existing apart from
language use, but rather as a set of recurrent, grammaticized patterns
of discourse.

This book focuses on syntactic structuring in Finnish from the
viewpoint of language use. The author sets out to study syntactic
structures in their local contexts in order to discover the more
global patterns and constraints on the use of these structures. The
coding strategies point to the clause core as the locus of syntactic
structuring: this is where syntactic relations emerge most clearly. It
is shown that the key to understanding the coding of the core
syntactic relations is the category of person. The clause core also
shows strong intonational unity as it is most often presented in one
intonation unit. Furthermore, analysis of spoken discourse shows the
robustness of the category of noun phrase, both as a clausal
constituent and as a free syntactic unit, the free NP.


John Benjamins Publishing Co.
Offices:	Philadelphia:			Amsterdam:
Websites: http://www.benjamins.com	http://www.benjamins.nl
E-mail: servicebenjamins.com		customer.servicesbenjamins.nl
Phone: +215 836-1200 +31 20 6304747
Fax: +215 836-1204 +31 20 6739773