LINGUIST List 9.940

Wed Jun 24 1998

Books: Semantics

Editor for this issue: Anita Huang <anitalinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Vivien Eng, Semantics

THE DYNAMICS OF FOCUS STRUCTURE

Nomi Erteschik-Shir (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev); The Dynamics
of Focus Structure; ISBN: 0-521-59217-8; Hardback, 6 x 9, 294 pp.;
PUBLISHER:Cambridge University Press; $64.95; 

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 da s-structure; Conclusion; References; Index of
names; Index of subjects.

Order Info: http://www.cup.org/order.html


FOCUS AND NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING: LINGUISTIC, COGNITIVE, AND 
 COMPUTATIONAL PERSPECTIVES

Focus and Natural Language Processing: Linguistic, Cognitive, and
Computational Perspectives; ISBN: 0-521-58305-5; Hardback, 6 X 9,
c. 300 pp.; P. Bosch, ed. (Institute for Logic and Linguistics, IBM,
Germany); PUBLISHER:Cambridge University Press; $59.95; 

This books presents a collection of papers on the issue of focus in
its broadest sense. While commonly considered as being related to
phenomena such as presupposition and anaphora, focusing is much more
widely spread, and it is this pervasiveness that the current
collection addresses. The work loosely originates from a conference
held in 1994 in Schloss Wolfsbrunnen in Germany, although only a small
subpart of the proceedings papers presented are included here. The
contributed papers have been reworked for the current volume to
present a coherent study of the subject.; Contents: Introduction; PART
1; INTONATION AND SYNTAX; 1; Contrastive stress, contrariety and
focus; 2; The processing of information structure in Synphonics;
 3; Focus and sentence accents in English; 4; Informational autonomy;
5; Focus and operator scope in German; 6; Subject-prodrop in Yiddish;
7; Remarks on intonation and "focus"; PART 2; SEMANTICS; 8; What is
the alternative?; 9; Topic; 10; Focus with nominal quantifiers; 11;
Dependencies in focus-structure; 12; Topic, focus and negation; 13;
Topic, focus and weak quantifiers; 14; Focus, quantification, and
semantics-pragmatic issues; 15; Association with focus or association
with presupposition?; 16; Time adverbials in sentence and discourse;
PART 3; DISCOURSE; 17; Focusing particles and ellipsis resolution; 18;
Discourse and the focus/background distinction; 19; On different kinds
of focus; 20; Stressed and unstressed pronouns: complementary
preferences; 21; Frame shifts: indefinite reference to familiar
referents; 22; Discourse linking and discourse subordination; 23;
Domain restriction; 24; Updates, files and focus-ground; 

Order Info: http://www.cup.org/order.html


 

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