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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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Query Details


Query Subject:   Finnish/Chinese Studies in Role and Reference Grammar
Author:   Jyrki .
Submitter Email:  click here to access email

Linguistic LingField(s):  Semantics
Syntax
Subject Language(s):  Chinese, Mandarin
Finnish


Query:   Hello,

I'm starting an MA in linguistics and (although I´m still looking for a
specific topic) intend to analyze a (contrastive) Chinese/Finnish corpus
using the RRG (Role and Reference Grammar) framework. Still, I´m new in
this field and have some difficulties to understand some (too basic?)
questions. Could anyone please help me with the following points?

1. I understand how to assign macroroles, but when it comes to imperative
clauses like "close the door", is there an actor macrorole or only an
undergoer? there are two semantic arguments, but only one syntactic
argument. Then?

2. Has anyone used RRG to analyze a contrastive Chinese/Finnish corpus in
terms of MRs (macroroles)? if so, could you refer me to some bibliography,
please?.

3. If I´m analyzing a specific type of verb ("boil", in this particular
case) and wish to know how many MRs it has, but the example I´m considering
is part of a subordinate clause (like, for example, "put the pasta in the
pan, boil for ten minutes..." or "...the pasta, consumed immediately after
boiling" or "... have two kilos of pasta boiling in that kitchen"), could
I still analyze the number of MRs of that verb by itself, without making
reference to those of the main verb? in other words, in the first example,
would "boil" have 1 or 2 MRs?

I apologize if these questions are too basic, but I´m not very
familiarized with the theory yet and need some help.

Thanks in advance,

Jyrki
LL Issue: 16.2310
Date posted: 02-Aug-2005



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