LINGUIST List 13.38

Wed Jan 9 2002

Books: Syntax/Semantics/Pragmatics

Editor for this issue: Richard John Harvey <richardlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Julia Ulrich, Syntax/Semantics/Pragmatics: Declerck / Reed: Conditionals (2001)

New Publication from Mouton de Gruyter!!!!!

>From the Series:
Topics in English Linguistics
Series Editors: Elizabeth Closs Traugott and Bernd Kortmann


Renaat Declerck and Susan Reed

CONDITIONALS
A COMPREHENSIVE EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS

2001. 23 x 15,5 cm. xviii, 534 pages. Cloth.
Euro 98.00 / sFr 157,- / approx. US$ 98.00
ISBN 3-11-017144-9
(TOPICS IN ENGLISH LINGUISTICS 37)

This book is a very detailed and comprehensive examination of
conditional sentences in English. Unlike previous literature on the
subject, it does not confine itself to one or two aspects of
conditionals, but attempts to give an all-round linguistic view of the
topic. The more traditional areas of tense and mood possibilities in
conditionals and the types of possible world to which a conditional
may refer are closely examined, with new evidence showing that the
usual bi- or tripartite schema in this area needs both clarification
and elaboration. The authors provide a fine-grained classification of
conditionals and a rich analysis of their function(s) in discourse,
which will be of interest both in its own right and as part of the
complete picture of conditionals given here. Separate chapters on the
question of 'necessary and/or sufficient conditions' and the syntax of
conditionals retain an emphasis on the relation of semantics and
syntax to discourse, providing original analyses of these topics. A
range of corpora is exploited to provide a wealth of empirical data
which both illustrate and shape theoretical discussion. The authors do
not espouse any particular linguistic framework, but provide analyses
which blend pragmatics, descriptive syntax and semantics. An extensive
glossary gives details both of the specific meanings attributed here
to traditional linguistic terms and new terms which are introduced by
the authors in their analysis of the many features of conditional
sentences which are here described for the first time.

FROM THE CONTENTS

1 Introduction

2 Conditional connecting devices

3 Some preliminary terminology

4 The possible-world typology of conditionals

5 The use of tenses in possible-world conditionals

6 Modalized case-specifying conditionals

7 The three canonical tense patterns

8 The relation between the theoretical world and the actual world

9 A typology of case-specifying P-clauses

10 Rhetorical conditionals

11 Syntactically marked conditional structures

12 Sufficient and/or necessary conditions

13 Uses and interpretations of unless

14 The meanings and uses of even if

Glossary

References

Author Index

Subject Index


For more information please contact the publisher:

Mouton de Gruyter
Genthiner Str. 13
10785 Berlin, Germany
Fax: +49 30 26005 222
e-mail: ordersdegruyter.de

Please visit our website for other publications by Mouton de Gruyter
http://www.degruyter.com