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PHONOLOGY
Daniel Silverman; Phasing and Recoverability;
0-8153-2876-1, cloth; 256 pages, $56; Garland Publishing; Outstanding
Dissertations in Linguistics
This phonological study investigates the articulatory timing
("phasing") relationships that render acoustic cues optimally
recoverable by the listener, and the strong tendency for languages to
allow sub-optimal timing patterns only if they allow optimal ones. The
primary area of focus is the Otomanguean language group of Oaxaca,
Mexico and neighboring states, which possesses "laryngeally complex"
vowels, a typologically unusual pattern in which tone and non-modal
phonatory settings (breathiness, creakiness)cross-classify. The
laryngeally complex vowels of Jalapa Mazatec, Comaltepec, Chinantec,
and Copala Trique are studied in depth. Also explored are the phasing
relations between obstruents and laryngeals, and sonorants and
laryngeals, including phonological analyses from such diverse groups
as Mon-Khmer, Tibeto-Burman, and Nilotic, among others. Throughout the
investigation, findings from a number of relevant disciplines
aerodynamics, acoustics, audition are applied to the sound patterns in
an effort not only to describe them in phonetic detail, but also to
explain their phonological and typological behavior.
(Ph.D. dissertation, University of California-Los Angeles, 1995;
revised with new bibliography and index)
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garland.com>SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS Renate Musan; On the Temporal Interpretation of Noun Phrases; 0-8153-2886-9, cloth; 220 pages, $51; Garland Publishing; Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics The book investigates the temporal interpretation of noun phrases. In particular, it explores the following questions: (1) Is the temporal interpretation of a noun phrase determined by the temporal interpretation of the rest of its clause; and (2) What kind of further interactions take place between the interpretation of noun phrases and the temporal interpretation of the main predicate of a clause? The author argues, in contrast to previous research by En=E7, that the temporal location of situation times of nouns depends on the temporal interpretation of the rest of the clause. The book suggests an account of why noun phrases do sometimes show a remarkable freedom of temporal interpretation and sometimes do not. The notions of 'temporally dependent' and 'temporally independent' noun phrases are introduced. It is shown that the distribution of temporally dependent and temporally independent noun phrases involves the distinction between weak (or cardinal) and strong (or resuppositional) noun phrases as well as the distinction between existence-independent arguments and other arguments. This distribution is explained as a consequence of (1) determiner-quantification being analyzed as quantification over stages of individuals, (2) independently motivated mechanisms of implicit quantifier restriction, and (3) a particular account of weak and strong determiners. This account analyzes both types of determiners as restrictive quantifiers, and attributes differences between them to whether the noun is mapped at LF into the restrictive clause or into the nuclear scope of the determiner. The mechanisms introduced in this chapter are also applied to generic noun phrases, certain kind-denoting noun phrases, and to the distinction between object-related readings and event-related readings. The other main problem that is addressed is the question of whether, the temporal location of individuals - as for instance the location of John in "John was intelligent" is dependent on the tense of the clause. Apparent location effects of tenses on individuals are explained as an effect of life-time presuppositions that are introduced by the lexical semantics of stage-level predicates and individual-level predicates, but not by a third type of predicate, existence-independent predicates. Life-time effects associated with individual-level predicates are captured as a pragmatic phenomenon in terms of Grice's Maxim of Informativity and related implicatures. In temporally specific contexts, life-time effects are neutralized. This is related to certain effects that topic-focus structure has on temporal interpretation. Furthermore, the book investigates interactions of noun phrase interpretation with temporal noun modifiers and draws some tentative new connections between the temporal interpretation of noun phrases and their modal interpretation. (Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1995; revised with new preface, bibliography, and index) E-mail: infoMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue