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From Utterances to Speech Acts

By Mikhail Kissine

"Kissine offers a new theory of speech acts which is philosophically sophisticated and builds on work in cognitive science, formal semantics, and linguistic typology. This highly readable, brilliant essay is a major contribution to the field."

--François Recanati, Institut Jean-Nicod


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Title: The Light Verb Construction in Japanese: The role of the verbal noun
Written By: Tadao Miyamoto
Description:

This study deals with the so-called Light Verb Construction in Japanese, which consists of the verb "suru" 'do' and an accusative ("o") marked verbal noun (VN). There have been unresolved debates on the role of "suru": whether "suru" in "VN-o suru" functions as a light or heavy verb. The previous studies attempt to disambiguate "VN-o suru" formations by relying solely on examining whether "suru" can be thematically light or not. This study argues that the ambiguity does not stem from the 'weight' of "suru" but from its accusative phrase: whether it is headed by a thematic (complex event) VN or non-thematic (simple event) VN. Using a principles and parameters approach and employing ideas from conceptual semantics and theories of aspect, this study demonstrates that the characterization of "VN-o suru" formations arises not from the dichotic behavior of "suru" but from the dichotic behavior of the accusative phrase.

Publication Year: 2000
Publisher: John Benjamins
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BibTex: View BibTex record
Linguistic Field(s): Semantics
Syntax
Subject Language(s): Japanese

Versions:
Format: Hardback
ISBN: 1556199139
ISBN-13: 9781556199134
Prices: U.S. $ 142
 
Format: Hardback
ISBN: 9027227500
ISBN-13: N/A
Prices: NLG 158.00