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Wright, Elizabeth M. "PRAGMATIC FUNCTIONALITY OF PUNCTUATION ON TWITTER." UKnowledge, 2018. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/ltt_etds/29.
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This work presents an analysis of punctuation use in computer-mediated communication (CMC); in particular, the present study aims to describe the pragmatic functions of nonstandard punctuation on Twitter, providing a corpus-driven overview of the distribution and frequency of nonstandard punctuation use, and an analysis of sampled tweets at the individual tweet level to estimate noise levels in the overall corpus. A survey was also conducted which aimed to identify user understanding of the affective content of nonstandard punctuation strings and to identify any possible effects of character repetition. Survey results indicate that linguistic content was the strongest indicator of affective understanding, type of punctuation (i.e., ?, !, and combinations thereof) was a weaker indicator of some affective content, and repetition was not found to be significant. The study argues that certain string types, possibly defined by punctuation type and not count, have large indexical fields of pragmatic meaning available to them, which are bounded by context. In light of these observations, the study also proposes distinctions/categories of punctuation strings and their associated pragmatic meanings.
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Chor, Oi-wan Winnie, and 左靄雲. "A semantic and pragmatic analysis of verbal particles in Cantonese." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2004. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B2914744X.
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Winder, Deidre. "Pragmatic conversational skills of children identified as emotionally disturbed." PDXScholar, 1990. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/4283.
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Communication refers to the conveyance of intended messages so that the listeners' attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors are changed. Communication through a language system may be thought of as the integration of the three components of content (semantics), form (syntax), and use (language in context or pragmatics). The corning together of content, form, and use in signs, words, phrases, and discourse is the essence of language development. The synergism of content/form/use makes up language competence, or knowledge. When children speak and understand a message, they have a plan that is knowledge of language and they use that plan for the behavior involved in speaking or understanding messages, (Bates, 1976; Bloom and Lahey, 1978).
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Kolkmann, Julia. "The pragmatics of possession : issues in the interpretation of pre-nominal possessives in English." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2016. https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/the-pragmatics-of-possession-issues-in-the-interpretation-of-prenominal-possessives-in-english(a8dc1f64-8c63-4105-b30d-6f174e01f6db).html.
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In everyday conversation, we frequently express relationships between two entities by using attributive possessive NPs. Structurally, these consist of a possessor referent, a possessum nominal and a possessive marker which explicates said relationship. For example, if I want to enquire about a house owned by your friend Mary which you are currently decorating, I might feasibly say "How are you getting on with Mary’s house?". My utterance of the pre-nominal possessive NP Mary’s house allows you to represent a specific referent, ensuring that we mentally converge on the same house and are able to talk about it. This study investigates English pre-nominal possessive NPs from a pragmatic point of view. It does so with the aim of providing a cognitively plausible description of their interpretationwhich simultaneously serves to understand how they function as referring expressions in communication. In particular, I discuss some of the intricacies they pose to interlocutors when itcomes to their referential interpretation. One of these concerns the fact that pre-nominal possessives are semantically compatible with numerous different interpretations, yet reference aparticular possessive relation in concrete communicative situations. Thus, given that the Englishlanguage, quite in contrast to the majority of the world’s languages, does not render thepossessive relation that holds between two entities morphosyntactically explicit, the interpretation of pre-nominal possessive NPs falls entirely within the remit of a pragmatic theory. This should explain how Mary’s house, which is compatible with interpretations such asthe house that Mary is letting, the house that Mary wishes to buy, as well as various others,comes to denote the house that Mary owns in a communicative situation like the above. Fullyinterpreting this NP, as Peters & Westerståhl (2013) suggest, involves knowing what possibleinterpretations it gives rise to, selecting the most salient one to the detriment of any others, and, finally, representing a determinate referent denoted by the NP as a whole. While the first aspect has received much attention (e.g. Barker, 1995; Vikner & Jensen, 2002), the other two have been considered by only few researchers. This study represents the first holistic account of possessive interpretations which combinesall three questions to explain the various facets of their pragmatics. On the theoretical level, itsuggests that the currently dominant stance (advocated by Vikner & Jensen, 2002), accordingto which it is the lexical semantic content of the possessum nominal which largely exhausts theinterpretation process, is in need of rethinking. Contrary to existing insights, I attribute a greaterrole to context and pragmatic reasoning both at the level of possible and at the level of salientinterpretations. On the methodological level, the study is multimethodological in its approach,complementing theoretical argument by means of a psycholinguistic production study and alarge-scale corpus study. In this respect, the present study paves the way for a description of pragmatic aspects of theEnglish grammar which have hitherto been explained in terms of more descriptive possessivetaxonomies, including ones delineating alienable vs. inalienable (e.g. Nikolaeva & Spencer,2013), prototypical vs. non-prototypical (e.g. Langacker, 1995; Rosenbach, 2002) and lexicalvs. pragmatic interpretations (Vikner & Jensen, 2002). Ultimately, I suggest that construing referential interpretation as an addressee-dependent search for relevance (e.g. Sperber & Wilson, 1986/1995) largely obviates the need for taxonomies of this kind at the descriptive level.
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Ressue, Lauren. "Reciprocity in Russian: An investigation of the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic interfaces." The Ohio State University, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1429699754.
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Hoff, Mark Randall. "Settledness and Mood Alternation: A Semantic-Pragmatic Analysis of Spanish Future-Framed Adverbials." The Ohio State University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1555349686252856.
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Johnson, Cynthia Amy. "Deconstructing and Reconstructing Semantic Agreement: A Case Study of Multiple Antecedent Agreement in Indo-European." The Ohio State University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1417714779.
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Ghio, Marta Virginia. "A cognitive and pragmatic approach to meaning : behavioral and neural correlates of concept processing." Doctoral thesis, Scuola Normale Superiore, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/11384/86017.
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De, Brabanter Philippe. "Making Sense of Mention, Quotation, and Autonymy. A Semantic and Pragmatic Survey of Metalinguistic Discourse." Phd thesis, Université Paris-Sorbonne - Paris IV, 2003. http://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/ijn_00000420.
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This thesis sets out to do mainly two things. On the one hand, I wish to provide an overview of scholarship on natural metalanguage. On the other, I want to tackle some of the most interesting problems that emerge from the recent literature on the subject. As far as my first goal is concerned, I discuss the origin of the term and the notion of 'metalanguage' in logic (Ch 1); I review and criticise the various theories of mention or quotation (Ch 2, 4, 5) because these are the main theoretical upshot, in the area of the study of natural languages, of the logicians' discussions of metalanguage. As for the second goal, I discuss the problems linked to the reference of quotational sequences (Ch 4); I devise a typology of metalinguistic utterances (Ch 6), based on a conception of semantics and pragmatics that is set out in Ch 3; I examine where a natural metalanguage "fits" with respect to the rest of the language and review a number of concerns regarding, notably, the infiniteness of the lexicon (Ch 7); I explore some of the issues raised by complex cases of alleged simultaneous use and mention (Ch 8).
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Chen, Rui. "A corpus-based comparison between semantic and pragmatic features of English aspect marker-ING and Chinese aspect markers ZHE and ZAI." HKBU Institutional Repository, 2010. http://repository.hkbu.edu.hk/etd_ra/1204.
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Husain, Razia A. "Urdu Resultive Constructions (A Comparative Analysis of Syntacto-Semantic and Pragmatic Properties of the Compound Verbs in Hindi-Urdu)." UKnowledge, 2015. http://uknowledge.uky.edu/ltt_etds/10.
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Among Urdu’s many verb+verb constructions, this thesis focuses on those constructions, which combine the stem of a main content verb with another inflected verb which is used in a semantically bleached sense. Prior work on these constructions has been focused on their structural make-up and syntactic behavior in various environments. While there is consensus among scholars (Butt 1995, Hook 1977, Carnikova 1989, Porizka 2000 et al.) that these stem+verb constructions encode aspectual information, to date no clear theory has been put forward to explain the nature of their aspectual contribution. In short, we do not have a clear idea why these constructions are used instead of simple verbs. This work is an attempt to understand the precise function of these constructions. I propose that simple verbs (henceforth SV) in Urdu deal only with the action of the verb whereas (regardless of the semantic information contributed by the second inflected verb,1) the stem+verb constructions essentially deal with the action of the verb as well as the state of affairs resulting from this action. The event represented by these constructions is essentially a telic event as defined by Comrie (1976), whose resultant state is highlighted from the use of these constructions. The attention of the listener is then shifted to the result of this telic event, whose salience in the discourse is responsible for various interpretations of the event; hence my term ‘resultive construction’ (henceforth RC). When these constructions are made using the four special verbs (rah ‘stay’, sak ‘can’, paa ‘manage’ and cuk ‘finish’), the product is not resultive. Each of these verbs behaves differently and is somewhere between a resultive and an auxiliary verb construction.
This work can be extended to other verb-verb construction in Urdu and other related and non-related languages as well. The analysis of the precise function of the RCs can also help in developing a model for them in various functional grammars. The proposed properties of RCs can be utilized in the semantic analysis of the Urdu quantifiers. This work should aid in identification and explanation of constructions in other languages, particularly those that are non-negatable under normal contexts.
[1] All second inflected verbs with the exception of four special verbs rah ‘stay’, sak ‘can’, paa ‘manage’ and cuk ‘finish’. These four special verbs are either auxiliaries or modals as identified in prior literature.
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Verspoor, Cornelia M. "Contextually-dependent lexical semantics." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/515.
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This thesis is an investigation of phenomena at the interface between syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, with the aim of arguing for a view of semantic interpretation as lexically driven yet contextually dependent. I examine regular, generative processes which operate over the lexicon to induce verbal sense shifts, and discuss the interaction of these processes with the linguistic or discourse context. I concentrate on phenomena where only an interaction between all three linguistic knowledge sources can explain the constraints on verb use: conventionalised lexical semantic knowledge constrains productive syntactic processes, while pragmatic reasoning is both constrained by and constrains the potential interpretations given to certain verbs. The phenomena which are closely examined are the behaviour of PP sentential modifiers (specifically dative and directional PPs) with respect to the lexical semantic representation of the verb phrases they modify, resultative constructions, and logical metonymy. The analysis is couched in terms of a lexical semantic representation drawing on Davis (1995), Jackendoff (1983, 1990), and Pustejovsky (1991, 1995) which aims to capture “linguistically relevant” components of meaning. The representation is shown to have utility for modeling of the interaction between the syntactic form of an utterance and its meaning. I introduce a formalisation of the representation within the framework of Head Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (Pollard and Sag 1994), and rely on the model of discourse coherence proposed by Lascarides and Asher (1992), Discourse in Commonsense Entailment. I furthermore discuss the implications of the contextual dependency of semantic interpretation for lexicon design and computational processing in Natural Language Understanding systems.
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Cregan, Anne Computer Science & Engineering Faculty of Engineering UNSW. "Weaving the semantic web: Contributions and insights." Publisher:University of New South Wales. Computer Science & Engineering, 2008. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/42605.
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The semantic web aims to make the meaning of data on the web explicit and machine processable. Harking back to Leibniz in its vision, it imagines a world of interlinked information that computers `understand' and `know' how to process based on its meaning. Spearheaded by the World Wide Web Consortium, ontology languages OWL and RDF form the core of the current technical offerings. RDF has successfully enabled the construction of virtually unlimited webs of data, whilst OWL gives the ability to express complex relationships between RDF data triples. However, the formal semantics of these languages limit themselves to that aspect of meaning that can be captured by mechanical inference rules, leaving many open questions as to other aspects of meaning and how they might be made machine processable. The Semantic Web has faced a number of problems that are addressed by the included publications. Its germination within academia, and logical semantics has seen it struggle to become familiar, accessible and implementable for the general IT population, so an overview of semantic technologies is provided. Faced with competing `semantic' languages, such as the ISO's Topic Map standards, a method for building ISO-compliant Topic Maps in the OWL DL language has been provided, enabling them to take advantage of the more mature OWL language and tools. Supplementation with rules is needed to deal with many real-world scenarios and this is explored as a practical exercise. The available syntaxes for OWL have hindered domain experts in ontology building, so a natural language syntax for OWL designed for use by non-logicians is offered and compared with similar offerings. In recent years, proliferation of ontologies has resulted in far more than are needed in any given domain space, so a mechanism is proposed to facilitate the reuse of existing ontologies by giving contextual information and leveraging social factors to encourage wider adoption of common ontologies and achieve interoperability. Lastly, the question of meaning is addressed in relation to the need to define one's terms and to ground one's symbols by anchoring them effectively, ultimately providing the foundation for evolving a `Pragmatic Web' of action.
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Mwihaki, Alice. "Meaning and use: a functional view of semantics and pragmatics." Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig, 2012. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:15-qucosa-91021.
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This article addresses the notion of linguistic meaning with reference to Kiswahili. It focuses particular attention on meaning typology, with the assumption that a discussion of meaning types can enhance the understanding and appreciation of linguistic meaning. The discussion takes its general conceptual orientation from the approach that considers meaning as use, whereby the unit of analysis is the speech
act. This is a functional view of linguistic meaning, the tenets of which are contained in functional grammar. From a broader perspective, this article distinguishes conceptual and associative meaning then proceeds to deal with the individual types. Ultimately, five types of linguistic meaning are discussed: conceptual, connotative, social, affective and collocative. From the discussion, conclusionsabout the value of the typology for defining the concept and the scope of semantics are drawn.
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Hopp, Christelle. "La place de l’adjectif épithète dans deux romans du XIXe siècle : El Señor de Bembibre d’Enrique Gil y Carrasco et Los Pazos de Ulloa d’Emilia Pardo Bazán." Thesis, Université de Lorraine, 2017. http://www.theses.fr/2017LORR0136/document.
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Ce travail de recherche consiste à démontrer que la place de l’adjectif dépend de contraintes syntaxiques, mais également de contraintes sémantiques et pragmatiques.L’analyse comparative entre un roman romantique et un roman naturaliste vise à montrer l’importance de la place de l’adjectif épithète au sein du texte, car ce phénomène permet à chaque écrivain de produire certains effets sur les lecteurs qui dépendent des intentions recherchées et par conséquent de l’œuvre étudiée.L'objectif de notre thèse consiste avant tout à montrer que l’adjectif, selon la place qu’il occupe, va permettre non seulement d’apporter différents types de précisions sur le référent désigné par le substantif, mais aussi de transmettre le point de vue du locuteur et de persuader le récepteur.Si bien que ce phénomène permet de montrer que chaque discours littéraire est unique et d’en expliquer le pourquoi<br>This research project consisted of showing that the place of the adjective depends not only on syntax but also on semantic and pragmatic constraints.A comparative analysis between a romance novel and a naturalist novel aims to show the importance of the place of the attributive adjective within a text, as this phenomenon allows each writer to produce certain effects on their readers which depend on the intention sought and, consequently, on the work studied.The objective of this thesis consists above all in showing that the adjective, depending on the place that it has, will not only allow for different types of precisions to be brought to the referent as designated by the substantive, but moreover to fulfil a macro-speech-act which constitutes a discourse act and also to transmit the speaker’s point of view and to convince the receiver. This phenomenon allows us to show that each literary discourse is unique and to explain the reasons for this
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Losada, Alfonso. "Disagreements. Semantics, Pragmatics and Existence." Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú - Departamento de Humanidades, 2015. http://repositorio.pucp.edu.pe/index/handle/123456789/113033.
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In this article, we defend the existence of disagreements in areas of discourse that involve anagent’s perspective, as the semantic theory known as Radical Relativism” putsit. In the face of the idea that such disagreements exist and can only be explainedby a radical relativist semantics, contextualist theorists have offered arguments to deny their existence or to provide an explanation of them which does not imply departing from the standard semantic theory. These arguments will be our targetof criticism. We raise the debate in terms of the distinction between semantic andpragmatic aspects of disagreement, and we defend a simple vision of disagreement, which we believe the relativist must have in mind if he wants to argue that disagreements belonging to areas that involve an agent’s perspective can count as evidence in his favor.<br>En este trabajo ofrecemos una defensa de la existencia de desacuerdos en ámbitos del discurso que involucran la perspectiva de un agente, tal como los contempla la teoría semántica conocida como relativismo radical. Ante la idea deque tales desacuerdos existen y que solo pueden ser explicados a partir de una semántica relativista radical, los teóricos del marco contextualista han ofrecido argumentos, o bien para negar la existencia de los mismos, o bien para proveer una explicación de ellos sin necesidad de postular un alejamiento de la teoría semántica estándar. Estos argumentos serán nuestro blanco de crítica. Planteamos el debate en términos de la distinción entre aspectos semánticos y aspectos pragmáticos del desacuerdo, y defendemos una visión simple del desacuerdo, la cual creemos que el relativista debe tener en mente si quiere sostener que los desacuerdos que pertenecen a ámbitos que involucran la perspectiva de un agente pueden contar como evidencia a su favor.
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Camus, Zoé. "Pour une description sémantique des assemblées citoyennes politiques : étude de Marinaleda, du NPA et de Nuit debout." Thesis, Paris, EHESS, 2020. http://www.theses.fr/2020EHES0146.
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L'objectif de cette thèse est de caractériser les aspects sémantiques d’assemblées du village andalous Marinaleda, du Nouveau parti anticapitaliste et de Nuit debout, en considérant que ces interactions appartiennent à un seul et même type, que nous appelons assemblée citoyenne politique.Notre approche, située dans le paradigme de la sémantique argumentative, reprend et prolonge la Théorie des Blocs Sémantiques (Carel, 2011), selon laquelle les entités sémantiques ne sont que des possibilités discursives, et la Sémantique des conflits sociaux (Lescano, 2017), qui postule que ces possibilités discursives existent dans des espaces sémantiques sur lesquels agissent des discours différents, convergents comme antagonistes, formant ainsi la structure sémantique des conflits. Nous ferons l'hypothèse que les énoncés surgissent dans les assemblées citoyennes politiques non pas avec l'objectif d'agir sur les convictions des individus mais qu'ils sont l'instrument d'une lutte pour la stabilisation de certains éléments et la déstabilisation d'autres éléments dans un espace sémantique. Dès lors, décrire les propriétés sémantiques de ce type d'interactions revient à étudier les actions que les énoncés peuvent effectuer sur l'espace sémantique d’une assemblée, les entités sémantiques qu'ils peuvent y installer et les relations qui se produisent entre ces entités. À partir de l’observation des différentes assemblées étudiées, nous montrons des phénomènes qui caractérisent leur fonctionnement sémantique : le vote apparaît non pas comme un mode d'arrêt de la décision, mais comme un dispositif de (dé)stabilisation des puissances de dire ; les interventions qui peuvent sembler plus centrales que d'autres sont le résultat de la construction de réseaux de relations sémantiques asymétriques ; les mécanismes de décrédibilisation de la parole adverse sont rendus possibles par des dépendances créées entre unités sémantiques antagoniques. Notre étude montre enfin que l'objectif de ce type d'assemblée n'est pas de persuader ni d'arriver à un consensus, non pas parce que ces objectifs seraient impossibles, mais parce que les discours qui participent de ces interactions sont structurellement orientés vers la (dé)stabilisation de puissances discursives contradictoires<br>The aim of this dissertation is to characterize the semantic aspects of three assemblies, of an Andalusian village, Marinaleda, of the Nouveau parti anticapitaliste (New anticapitalist party) and, of Nuit debout, by considering the different interactions as the same type, a type that we name political civic assemblies. Any interaction taking place within this type of assembly constitutes a common work of preparation, behind the scenes, of what will be officially shown in the name of the collective, in the public discourse.The approach is situated within the paradigm of argumentative semantics. We adopt and extend the Semantic Block Theory (Carel, 2011) according to which semantic entities are discursive possibilities, as well as the Semantics of social conflicts (Lescano, 2017) which states that discursive possibilities exist in semantic spaces where different discourses - both convergent and antagonistic - act and thereby form the semantic structure of conflicts.The main hypothesis states that any utterance appearing in a political civic assembly is not an action on the convictions of individuals, but rather an instrument of a struggle for the stabilization of certain elements and the destabilization of others in a semantic space. According to this hypothesis, any description of semantic properties of this type of interaction amounts to the study of different actions that utterances perform on the semantic space of an assembly, that is, the installation of particular semantic entities and the production of relations between these entities.By analyze the three assemblies, we observe a series of characteristic phenomena for their semantic functioning: the act of voting which we consider not as a mode of obstructing the decision-making process, but as the means to (de)stabilize the power of speaking; interventions that might seem more central than others, which we consider as results of a construction of networks of asymmetrical semantic relations; mechanisms whereby opposing discourse is discredited, which we consider as a product of dependencies between antagonistic semantic units.Our study shows that the objective of this type of assembly is not to persuade nor to reach a consensus. This could have been a possible objective. Yet, this dissertation affirms that in this particular type of interaction, the participating discourses are structurally oriented towards the (de)stabilization of discursive forces<br>Esta tesis trata de caracterizar los aspectos semánticos de asambleas de la aldea andaluza de Marinaleda, del partido político francés "Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste" (NPA) y del movimiento social francés Nuit debout, postulando que las interacciones orales que tienen lugar en estas asambleas pertenecen a un tipo único que llamamos asambleas ciudadanas políticas. En estas asambleas se efectúa un trabajo de preparación previa de los discursos que serán desplegados oficialmente en nombre del colectivo. Nuestro acercamiento, situado en el paradigma de la semántica argumentativa, reafirma y prolonga los principios de la Teoría de los Bloques Semánticos (Carel, 2011) según los cuales las entidades semánticas son únicamente posibilidades discursivas, así como la semántica de los conflictos sociales (Lescano, 2017), que postula que estas posibilidades discursivas existen en espacios semánticos sobres los cuales actúan diferentes discursos, tanto convergentes como antagonistas. Haremos la hipótesis que los enunciados surgen en las asambleas ciudadanas políticas como herramientas de una lucha por la estabilización de algunos elementos y la desestabilización de otros en un espacio semántico - lo cual se opone a la idea que los discursos surgen para actuar sobre las convicciones de los individuos. Desde entonces, describir las propiedades semánticas de este tipo de interacciones es estudiar los tipos de acciones que los enunciados pueden efectuar sobre el espacio semántico de una asamblea, las entidades semánticas que los discursos pueden instalar y las relaciones que se producen entre estas entidades. A partir de la observación de diferentes asambleas, mostraremos fenómenos que caracterizan su funcionamiento semántico : el voto aparece como un dispositivo de (des)estabilización de potencias de habla, y no como un modo de cierre de la decisión; las intervenciones que pueden parecer más centrales que otras son el resultado de la construcción de redes de relaciones semánticas asimétricas; los mecanismos de descrédito del discurso ajeno son determinados por la creación de dependencias entre unidades semánticas antagónicas. Finalmente, nuestro estudio sugiere que el objetivo de este tipo de asambleas no es persuadir ni llegar a un consenso, no porque estos objetivos no sean alcanzables, sino porque los discursos que participan en estas interacciones están estructuralmente orientados hacia la (des)estabilización de potencias discursivas
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Mendes, José Vicente Santos. "The semantics-pragmatics of route directions." [S.l. : s.n.], 2005. http://deposit.ddb.de/cgi-bin/dokserv?idn=974329509.
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Buckland, Warren Stephen. "Filmic meaning : the semantics-pragmatics interface." Thesis, University of East Anglia, 1992. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.333505.
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Papafragou, Anna. "Modality and the semantics-pragmatics interface." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 1998. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1317914/.
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This thesis explores certain aspects of the structure of lexical semantics and its interaction with pragmatic processes of utterance comprehension, using as a case-study a sample of the English modal verbs. Contrary to previous polysemy-based accounts, I propose and defend a unitary semantic account of the English modals, and I give a relevance-theoretic explanation of the construction of their admissible (mainly, root and epistemic) contextual interpretations. Departing from previous accounts of modality, I propose a link between epistemic modality and metarepresentation, and treat the emergence of epistemic modal markers as a result of the development of the human theory of mind. In support of my central contention that the English modals are semantically univocal, I reanalyse a range of arguments employed by previous polysemy-based approaches. These arguments involve the distributional properties of the modals, their relationship to truth-conditional content, the status of so-called speech-act modality, and the historical development of epistemic meanings: it turns out that none of these domains can offer reasons to abandon the univocal semantic analysis of the English modals. Furthermore, I argue that the priority of root over epistemic meanings in language acquisition is predicted by the link between epistemic modality and metarepresentation. Finally, data from a cognitive disorder (autism) are considered in the light of the metarepresentation hypothesis about epistemic modality. The discussion of modality has a number of implications for the concept of polysemy. I suggest that, despite its widespread use in current lexical semantics, polysemy is not a natural class, and use the example of the Cognitive Linguistics to illustrate that polysemy presupposes some questionable assumptions about the structure of lexical concepts. I propose a division of labour between ambiguity, semantic underdeterminacy, and a narrowed version of polysemy, and present its ramifications for the psychology of word meaning. In the final chapter, I extend the proposed framework for modality to the analysis of generic sentences, thereby capturing certain similarities between genericity and modality.
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Mwihaki, Alice. "Meaning and use: a functional view of semantics and pragmatics." Swahili Forum 11 (2004) S. 127-139, 2004. https://ul.qucosa.de/id/qucosa%3A11492.
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This article addresses the notion of linguistic meaning with reference to Kiswahili. It focuses particular attention on meaning typology, with the assumption that a discussion of meaning types can enhance the understanding and appreciation of linguistic meaning. The discussion takes its general conceptual orientation from the approach that considers meaning as use, whereby the unit of analysis is the speech
act. This is a functional view of linguistic meaning, the tenets of which are contained in functional grammar. From a broader perspective, this article distinguishes conceptual and associative meaning then proceeds to deal with the individual types. Ultimately, five types of linguistic meaning are discussed: conceptual, connotative, social, affective and collocative. From the discussion, conclusionsabout the value of the typology for defining the concept and the scope of semantics are drawn.
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Pankhurst, Anne Fisher. "Metonymy : semantic, pragmatic, cognitive and stylistic perspectives." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/22540.
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The present research is concerned to define metonymy and discuss its functions in discourse. The theoretical background to the research is pluralist, including semantic, pragmatic, cognitive and stylistic approaches. Different theories are shown to account for conventional and creative realisations of metonymy in everyday discourse, as well as its functions in literary texts. Metonymy is traditionally described in rhetoric and poetics as a figure of speech but the scope of the term has been extended. It is used to describe a means of structuring narrative discourse (Jakobson 1956), and a generalised cognitive mechanism (Lakoff 1987). Recent claims that metonymy is itself a universally valid explanatory principle, based on the evidence of psycholinguistic experiments (Gibbs 1994), lead to consideration of how metonymy affects semantic and syntactic features of language. The thesis considers typological descriptions and explanations of metonymy in terms of general semantic relationships such as part for whole and cause for effect. Metonymy, traditionally a property of noun phrases, is shown to be present in different word categories and at different levels of discourse. Contiguity, a general principle on which metonymic relationships are based, is revised to include contiguity between physical entities and in their perception and interpretation. Metonymy as a naming and referring mechanism is shown to be a shortening device with cohesive functions, related to ellipsis. Contextualisation is reviewed and theories of domain presented. Referentiality is reconsidered with respect to the effects of metonymy. The thesis investigates whether principled distinctions may be made between metonymy and metaphor, and discusses the functions of metonymy in symbolic language. Arguments for its metafunctions in narrative structure are presented taking into account the presence of metonymy at word, phrase and sentence levels. A new way of analysing narrative through metonymy is proposed, and illustrated from literary works.
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Wong, King-on John. "Semantics and pragmatics of tautology in Cantonese." Click to view the E-thesis via HKUTO, 2006. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record/B36902640.
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Wong, King-on John, and 黃敬安. "Semantics and pragmatics of tautology in Cantonese." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2006. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B36902640.
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Nivre, Joakim. "Situations, meaning, and communication a situation theoretic approach to meaning in language and communication /." Göteborg, Sweden : Dept. of Linguistics, University of Göteborg, 1992. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/31171651.html.
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Prieto, Victor Moisés. "Spanish evaluative morphology pragmatic, sociolinguistic, and semantic issues /." [Gainesville, Fla.] : University of Florida, 2005. http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/UFE0010940.
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Greenhall, Owen F. R. "The semantics/pragmatics distinction : a defence of Grice." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2006. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:00db9bdd-143d-4900-b564-3af9d002f1ea.
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The historical development of Morris’ tripartite distinction between syntax, semantics and pragmatics does not follow a smooth path. Examining definitions of the terms ‘semantic’ and ‘pragmatic’ and the phenomena they have been used to describe, provides insight into alternative approaches to the semantics/pragmatics distinction. Paul Grice’s work receives particular attention and taxonomy of philosophical positions, roughly divisible into content minimalist and maximalist groups, is set up. Grice’s often neglected theory of conventional implicature is defended from objections, various tests for the presence of conventional implicature are assessed and the linguistic properties of conventional implicature defined. Once rehabilitated, the theoretical utility of conventional implicature is demonstrated via a case study of the semantic import of the gender and number of pronouns in English. The better-known theory of conversational implicature is also examined and refined. New linguistic tests for such implicatures are devised and the refined theory is applied to scalar terms. A pragmatic approach to scalar implicatures is proposed and shown to fare better than alternatives presented by Uli Sauerland, Stephen Levinson and Gennaro Chierchia. With the details of the theory conversational implicature established, the use made of Grice’s tool in the work of several philosophers is critically evaluated. Kent Bach’s minimalist approach to quantifier domain restriction is examined and criticised. Also, the linguistic evidence for semantic minimalism provided by Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore is found wanting. Finally, a content maximalist approach to quantifier domain restriction is proposed. The approach differs from other context maximalist theories, such as Jason Stanley’s, in relying on semantically unarticulated constituents. Stanley’s arguments against such theories are examined. Further applications of the approach are briefly surveyed.
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Mazzocconi, Chiara. "Laughter in interaction : semantics, pragmatics, and child development." Thesis, Université de Paris (2019-....), 2019. https://theses.md.univ-paris-diderot.fr/MAZZOCCONI_Chiara_va2.pdf.
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Le rire est une vocalisation universelle à travers les cultures et les langues. Il est omniprésent dans nos dialogues et utilisé pour un large éventail de fonctions. Le rire a été étudié sous plusieurs angles, mais les classifications proposées sont difficiles à intégrer dans un même système. Malgré le fait qu’il soit crucial dans nos interactions quotidiennes, le rire en conversation a reçu peu d’attention et les études sur la pragmatique du rire en interaction, ses corrélats neuronaux perceptuels et son développement chez l’enfant sont rares. Dans cette thèse, est proposé un nouveau cadre pour l'analyse du rire, fondé sur l'hypothèse cruciale que le rire a un contenu propositionnel, plaidant pour la nécessité de distinguer différentes couches d'analyse, tout comme dans l'étude de la parole: forme, positionnement, sémantique et pragmatique. Une représentation formelle de la signification du rire est proposée et une étude de corpus multilingue (français, chinois et anglais) est menée afin d’approfondir notre compréhension de l’utilisation du rire dans les conversations entre adultes. Des études préliminaires sont menées sur la viabilité d'un mappage forme-fonction du rire basée sur ses caractéristiques acoustiques, ainsi que sur les corrélats neuronaux impliqués dans la perception du rire qui servent différentes fonctions dans un dialogue naturel. Nos résultats donnent lieu à de nouvelles généralisations sur le placement, l’alignement, la sémantique et les fonctions du rire, soulignant le haute niveau des compétences pragmatiques impliquées dans sa production et sa perception. Le développement de l'utilisation sémantique et pragmatique du rire est observé dans une étude de corpus longitudinale de 4 dyades mère-enfant de l’age de 12 à 36 mois, locuteurs d’anglais américain. Les résultats montrent que l'utilisation du rire subit un développement important à chaque niveau analysé et que le rire peut être un indicateur précoce du développement cognitif, communicatif et social<br>Laughter is a social vocalization universal across cultures and languages. It is ubiquitous in our dialogues and able to serve a wide range of functions. Laughter has been studied from several perspectives, but the classifications proposed are hard to integrate. Despite being crucial in our daily interaction, relatively little attention has been devoted to the study of laughter in conversation, attempting to model its sophisticated pragmatic use, neuro-correlates in perception and development in children. In the current thesis a new comprehensive framework for laughter analysis is proposed, crucially grounded in the assumption that laughter has propositional content, arguing for the need to distinguish different layers of analysis, similarly to the study of speech: form, positioning, semantics and pragmatics. A formal representation of laughter meaning is proposed and a multilingual corpus study (French, Chinese and English) is conducted in order to test the proposed framework and to deepen our understanding of laughter use in adult conversation. Preliminary investigations are conducted on the viability of a laughter form-function mapping based on acoustic features and on the neuro-correlates involved in the perception of laughter serving different functions in natural dialogue. Our results give rise to novel generalizations about the placement, alignment, semantics and function of laughter, stressing the high pragmatic skills involved in its production and perception. The development of the semantic and pragmatic use of laughter is observed in a longitudinal corpus study of 4 American-English child-mother pairs from 12 to 36 months of age. Results show that laughter use undergoes important development at each level analysed, which complies with what could be hypothesised on the base of phylogenetic data, and that laughter can be an effective means to track cognitive/communicative development, and potential difficulties or delays at a very early stage
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Basso, Renato Miguel. "A semantica das relações anaforicas entre eventos." [s.n.], 2009. http://repositorio.unicamp.br/jspui/handle/REPOSIP/270558.
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Orientador: Edson Françozo<br>Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem<br>Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-14T10:07:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1
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Previous issue date: 2009<br>Resumo: Nesta tese, avaliamos a afirmação de Davidson (1967) de que a anáfora de eventos e a anáfora de objetos ordinários lançam mão dos mesmos recursos linguísticos. Davidson usa a evidência da anáfora não apenas para postular eventos na ontologia, mas também como um argumento a favor de considerá-los como objetos ordinários (como particulares). No entanto, ao investigarmos os mecanismos linguísticos mobilizados na anáfora de eventos, encontramos grandes diferenças em comparação com o que encontramos na anáfora de objetos (em geral, linguisticamente veiculados através de nomes ou de descrições), levando-nos a colocar a afirmação de Davidson sob suspeita. Na primeira parte da tese, apresentamos e defendemos uma versão da teoria de eventos postulada por Davidson que os trata como objetos ordinários (particulares). Analisamos também as teorias que tomam eventos como propriedades de momentos de tempo e teorias que tomam eventos como entidades proposicionais. Cada uma dessas teorias tem seus méritos e problemas, mas o intuito é nos mantermos o mais próximo à formulação de Davidson para avaliarmos suas afirmações quanto à anáfora de eventos. Ainda na primeira parte, investigamos as relações entre dêixis e anáfora, um tema que envolve quaisquer discussões sobre termos usados anaforicamente. Na segunda parte da tese, nosso olhar volta-se para a anáfora de eventos cujos antecedentes são expressões sentenciais (i.e., que não são DPs). Diante de tais antecedentes, os termos anafóricos preferenciais são demonstrativos, e investigamos o pronome demonstrativo 'isso' e descrições demonstrativas da forma 'esse/essa/aquele/aquela N'. Apresentamos o estado-da-arte dos estudos sobre demonstrativos, salientando que eles podem ser tratados como termos referenciais ou como termos quantificacionais. Dado que o debate é bastante complexo e ainda incipiente, apresentamos duas análises de retomadas de eventos com demonstrativos: uma que os toma como termos referenciais, e outra que os toma como termos quantificacionais. Contudo, apesar dessa diferença nas análises, o resultado a que chegamos é semelhante, e mostra que os mecanismos por trás da anáfora de eventos são mais próximos da anáfora de entidades proposicionais do que da anáfora de objetos ordinários, contrariando a tese davidsoniana. Na terceira parte, analisamos a retomada de eventos em que o antecedente é uma estrutura nominal (i.e., DPs) e cujos termos anafóricos preferenciais são descrições definidas e demonstrativas. Nesta parte, investigamos a semântica das nominalizações e sua relação com eventos veiculados por verbos de ação flexionados. Assumimos, como é comum na literatura sobre eventos, que uma sentença com verbo de ação flexionado e sua contraparte com nominalização têm a mesma forma lógica. Mostramos que tal assunção leva a resultados indesejados quando consideramos a anáfora de eventos, que se situam, também nessa configuração, mais próxima da anáfora de entidades proposicionais. Na conclusão, apontamos que adotar a noção de evento como um objeto a partir do fenômeno da anáfora não se sustenta, já que a anáfora de eventos se assemelha em muito à anáfora de entidades abstratas, como as proposições, e não à anáfora de objetos. Tal conclusão tem consequências para as teorias semânticas contemporâneas que ingenuamente equiparam eventos a objetos.<br>Abstract: In this thesis, we evaluated Davidson's (1967) statement according to which event anaphora and (ordinary) object anaphora use the same linguistic resources. Davidson uses the evidence of anaphora not only to postulate events in the ontology but also as an argument for considering them as ordinary objects (as individuals). However, as we investigate the linguistic mechanisms mobilized in event anaphora and the ones mobilized in (ordinary) object anaphora we found significant differences, a conclusion which compromises Davidson's assumptions about the metaphysics of events. In the first part of this thesis, we present and defend a version of the theory of events postulated by Davidson that treats them as individuals in the same way as other objects. We look briefly at other theories that take events as properties of moments of time and theories that take events as propositional entities. Each of these theories has their merits and problems, but our intention is to follow Davidson's formulation closely, in order to evaluate his claims about anaphora event. We investigate the differences between deixis and anaphora, a theme that involves any discussion of the terms used in anaphora. In the second part, our attention goes to event anaphora when the antecedents are sentential expressions (i.e., that are not DPs). With this kind of antecedent, the preferred anaphoric terms are demonstratives, and we investigate the demonstrative pronoun 'isso' and demonstrative descriptions ('esse / essa / aquele / aquela N'). We present the state-of-the art of the studies of demonstrative, noting that they can be treated as referring or as quantificational expressions. Since the debate is very complex and still in its beginning, we present two analysis of event anaphora with sentential antecedents: one that takes the anaphoric terms as referential, and one that takes them as quantificational. However, despite this difference in the analysis, the result we reached is similar, and it shows that the mechanisms behind the anaphora of events are closer to the anaphora of propositional entities than to the anaphora of ordinary objects, against the Davidsonian thesis. In the third part, we analyze the anaphora of events in which the antecedent is a nominal structure (i.e., DPs); with this kind of antecedent the preferred anaphoric terms are definite and demonstrative descriptions. We also investigate the semantics of nominalizations and their relationship to events conveyed by inflected action verbs. We assume, as is common practice in the literature on events, that sentences with an inflected action verb and their nominalized counterparts have the same logical form. We show that this assumption leads to undesired results when we consider event anaphora. In the conclusion, we point out that adopting the concept of event as an object can not be sustained from the point of view of anaphoric phenomenona, since event anaphora resembles the anaphora of abstract entities such as propositions, and not object anaphora. This conclusion has implications for contemporary semantic theories which naively equate events and objects.<br>Universidade Estadual de Campi<br>Linguistica<br>Doutor em Linguística
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Bentahar, Jamal. "A Pragmatic and Semantic Unified Framework for Agent Communication." Thesis, Université Laval, 2005. http://www.theses.ulaval.ca/2005/22724/22724.pdf.
Full textAbstract:
Dans cette thèse, nous proposons un cadre unifié pour la pragmatique et la sémantique de la communication entre agents logiciels. La pragmatique traite la façon dont les agents utilisent les actes communicatifs lorsqu’ils participent aux conversations. Elle est liée à la dynamique des interactions entre agents et à la manière avec laquelle les actes individuels sont reliés pour construire des conversations complètes. La sémantique, quant à elle, est intéressée par la signification de ces actes. Elle établit la base pour une signification concise et non ambiguë des messages échangés entre les agents. Ce cadre unifié vise à résoudre trois problèmes majeurs dans le domaine de communication entre agents :
1- L’absence d’un lien entre la pragmatique et la sémantique.
2- L’inflexibilité des protocoles actuels de communication entre agents.
3- La vérification des mécanismes de communication entre agents.
Les contributions principales de cette thèse sont :
1- Une approche pragmatique formelle basée sur les engagements sociaux et les arguments.
2- Un nouveau formalisme pour la communication entre agents appelé Réseau d’Engagements et d’Arguments.
3- Un modèle logique définissant la sémantique des éléments utilisés dans l’approche pragmatique.
4- Une technique de vérification de modèles basée sur une sémantique à tableaux pour vérifier une famille de protocoles flexibles de communication entre agents appelée protocoles à base de jeux de dialogue.
5- Un nouveau protocole de persuasion à base de jeux de dialogue.
L'idée principale de notre approche pragmatique est que la communication entre agents est modélisée comme des actions que les agents accomplissent sur des engagements sociaux et des arguments. La dynamique de la conversation entre agents est représentée par cette notion d’actions et par l’évolution de ces engagements et arguments. Notre formalisme (Réseau d’Engagements et d’Arguments) basé sur cette approche fournit une représentation externe de la dynamique de communication entre agents. Ce formalisme peut être utilisé par les agents comme moyen pour participer à des conversations d’une manière flexible parce qu’ils peuvent raisonner sur leurs actes communicatifs en utilisant leurs systèmes d’argumentation et l’état actuel de la conversation.
Notre modèle logique est une sémantique, à base d’un modèle théorique, pour l’approche pragmatique. Il définit la signification des différents actes de communication que nous utilisons dans notre approche pragmatique. Il exprime également la signification de quelques actes de discours importants dans le contexte de communication multi-agents et il capture la sémantique des arguments annulables. Ce modèle logique permet d’établir le lien entre la sémantique et la pragmatique de communication entre agents.
Nous traitons le problème de vérification des protocoles à base de jeux de dialogue en utilisant une technique de vérification de modèles basée sur une sémantique à tableaux. Ces protocoles sont spécifiés sur la base de notre modèle logique. Nous montrons que notre algorithme de vérification offre une technique, non seulement pour vérifier si le protocole à base de jeux de dialogue (le modèle) satisfait une propriété donnée, mais également si ce protocole respecte la sémantique des actes communicatifs.
Notre protocole de persuasion à base de jeux de dialogue est spécifié dans le contexte de notre cadre unifié en utilisant un langage logique. Il est implémenté en utilisant une programmation logique et un paradigme orienté-agent. Dans ce protocole, le processus décisionnel des agents est basé sur les systèmes d’argumentation et sur la notion de crédibilité des agents.<br>In this thesis, we propose a unified framework for the pragmatics and the semantics of agent communication. Pragmatics deals with the way agents use communicative acts when conversing. It is related to the dynamics of agent interactions and to the way of connecting individual acts while building complete conversations. Semantics is interested in the meaning of these acts. It lays down the foundation for a concise and unambiguous meaning of agent messages. This framework aims at solving three main problems of agent communication:
1- The absence of a link between the pragmatics and the semantics.
2- The inflexibility of current agent communication protocols.
3- The verification of agent communication mechanisms.
The main contributions of this thesis are:
1- A formal pragmatic approach based on social commitments and arguments.
2- A new agent communication formalism called Commitment and Argument Network.
3- A logical model defining the semantics of the elements used in the pragmatic approach.
4- A tableau-based model checking technique for the verification of a kind of flexible protocols called dialogue game protocols.
5- A new persuasion dialogue game protocol.
The main idea of our pragmatic approach is that agent communication is considered as actions that agents perform on social commitments and arguments. The dynamics of agent conversation is represented by this notion of actions and by the evolution of these commitments and arguments. Our Commitment and Argument Network formalism based on this approach provides an external representation of agent communication dynamics. We argue that this formalism helps agents to participate in conversations in a flexible way because they can reason about their communicative acts using their argumentation systems and the current state of the conversation.
Our logical model is a model-theoretic semantics for the pragmatic approach. It defines the meaning of the different communicative acts that we use in our pragmatic approach. It also expresses the meaning of some important speech acts and it captures the semantics of defeasible arguments. This logical model allows us to establish the link between the semantics and the pragmatics of agent communication.
We address the problem of verifying dialogue game protocols using a tableau-based model checking technique. These protocols are specified in terms of our logical model. We argue that our model checking algorithm provides a technique, not only to verify if the dialogue game protocol satisfies a given property, but also if this protocol respects the underlying semantics of the communicative acts.
Our persuasion dialogue game protocol is specified in our framework using a logical language, and implemented using a logic programming and agent-oriented programming paradigm. In this protocol, the agents’ decision making process is based on the agents’ argumentation systems and the notion of agents’ trustworthiness.
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Flowerdew, John Leslie. "Semantic/pragmatic theory and second language teaching syllabus design." Thesis, University of Southampton, 1989. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.236348.
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Raccah, Pierre-Yves. "Vers une semantique representationnelle." Thesis, McGill University, 1985. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=74050.
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Puig, Waldmüller Estela Sophie. "Contracted Preposition-Determiner Forms in German: Semantics and Pragmatics." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/7589.
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En el trabajo la semántica y pragmática de formas contraídas y no-contraídas en Alemán serán discutidas. Formas contraídas son preposiciones con sufijos flexionales, obligatorias en contextos en las que el contenido descriptivo del sintagma nominal es cierto de un individual o evento (expresiones que excluyen alternativas, referentes deducibles, Situative Unika, infinitivos nominalizados, referentes no específicos). Muchos autores consideran que las formas tienen artículos definidos que fusionan con una preposición. En contrario, propongo un análisis en términos de incorporación semántica en que una preposición tiene rasgos de caso, número y género. Interpretaciones únicas provienen del número singular y del contexto. Interpretaciones no específicas provienen de la semántica y el hecho de que el argumento nominal tiene menos rango que el argumento eventivo.<br>The semantics and pragmatics of contracted and non-contracted forms found in German will be discussed. Contracted form are prepositions with inflectional endings, and obligatory in contexts in which the descriptive content of the noun fits only one individual or event ("alternative-excluding" expressions, inferable referents, Situative Unika, nominalized infinitives, non-specific referents). Most accounts assume that contracted forms have underlying definite articles which have amalgamated with a preposition. In contrast, I propose to analyse these forms as semantically incorporating prepositions, which are inflected for (singular) number, gender, and case, and combine with noun phrases. Uniqueness effects are derived from singular number and from contextual entailments. Non-specific readings can directly be accounted for since the semantics predicts narrow scope of the nominal argument with respect to the event argument.
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Mahnmoodan, Atena. "The Semantics and Pragmatics of Address forms in Persian." Thesis, Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet, Institutt for språk og litteratur, 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:no:ntnu:diva-24096.
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In Persian, there is a tendency to use plural pronouns instead of singular pronouns in order to show respect and politeness to either the addressee or some other individual referred to (2nd or 3rd person). The choice of such plural or singular forms (called T-V forms by Brown and Gilman 1966) in Persian is a challenging subject that has not been discussed enough so far. Although every native speaker of Persian unconsciously knows when such polite address forms can occur, it has turned out to be an amazingly complicated task to explicitly state the sufficient and necessary conditions for appropriate use of these forms in Persian. This thesis is an attempt to address this issue. The main objectives in this study are to: 1) Determine the contextual conditions when a plural form (i.e. pronoun, agreement marker or enclitic) is used to refer to a singular entity in contemporary Persian; 2) Investigate the relative influence of sociolinguistic features such as gender difference, age distance, power distance, solidarity, formality (relative distance), and mood shifting in the choice of pronominals in Persian and determine the factors that influence pronoun switching; and 3) Diagnose whether the choice of plural or polite referring forms in Persian is addressee oriented or referent oriented with respect to the T-V distinction. The present study mainly built on the sociolinguistic methodology of Ervin-Tripp (1976), Keshavarz’s study in forms of post-revolutionary Persian address forms (1988 and 2001) and Nanbakhsh (2011) dissertation on Persian address pronouns and politeness in interaction. The data analysis section is transcribed from a movie called ˈA separationˈ written and directed by Asghar Farhadi (2011). The film data analysis part consists of 8 episodes where each episode has special location, participant (interlocutors) and a topic (situation). I will investigate the choice of pronominal forms in this section with respect to the following six features: Age distance, gender difference, power distance, solidarity, mood and formality (relative distance). The secondary objectives of this research are based on a quantitative analysis of the film data. The distribution of the social features of the film data indicates that quantitatively, formality with 35% as a mean percentage is the most significant feature of the analysis with the reciprocal V form (plural honorific). The mood shifting with (26.5%) had the second place on converting the expected V to the T form (singular, non-honorific) or vice versa. The age difference feature with (12%) is the third most influential feature that has influence on the reciprocal T or V forms. The solidarity feature with (17%) has the fourth place in causing the reciprocal T form. The gender difference feature with (7%) has the fifth place on appearance of the reciprocal V form and the power distance feature with (2.5%) has the least influence on the non-reciprocal V form. Therefore I conclude that formality feature is more significant than power distance in the choice of Persian T-V forms. (There could be other hidden features (variables) that I have not considered in this analysis and they might cause errors in my study.) Regarding the T/V mismatching, I have found that the anger mood in order to show sarcasm is one of the reasons for it and the other cause of mismatching is to increase solidarity. Concerning the third objective of this research, the qualitative analysis indicates that the choice of plurality and politeness in the formal situation was mostly addressee oriented and it was mostly under the superior power of the judge. The first research objective is an overall question that will be clarified after consideration of the answers to the other two issues mentioned. This work will contribute to a broader understanding of how politeness governs Persian communication and how this interacts with pragmatics.
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Mahmoodan, Atena. "The Semantics and Pragmatics of Address forms in Persian." Thesis, Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet, Institutt for språk og litteratur, 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:no:ntnu:diva-26739.
Full textAbstract:
In Persian, there is a tendency to use plural pronouns instead of singular pronouns in order to show respect and politeness to either the addressee or some other individual referred to (2nd or 3rd person). The choice of such plural or singular forms (called T-V forms by Brown and Gilman 1966) in Persian is a challenging subject that has not been discussed enough so far. Although every native speaker of Persian unconsciously knows when such polite address forms can occur, it has turned out to be an amazingly complicated task to explicitly state the sufficient and necessary conditions for appropriate use of these forms in Persian. This thesis is an attempt to address this issue. The main objectives in this study are to: 1) Determine the contextual conditions when a plural form (i.e. pronoun, agreement marker or enclitic) is used to refer to a singular entity in contemporary Persian; 2) Investigate the relative influence of sociolinguistic features such as gender difference, age distance, power distance, solidarity, formality (relative distance), and mood shifting in the choice of pronominals in Persian and determine the factors that influence pronoun switching; and 3) Diagnose whether the choice of plural or polite referring forms in Persian is addressee oriented or referent oriented with respect to the T-V distinction. The present study mainly built on the sociolinguistic methodology of Ervin-Tripp (1976), Keshavarz’s study in forms of post-revolutionary Persian address forms (1988 and 2001) and Nanbakhsh (2011) dissertation on Persian address pronouns and politeness in interaction. The data analysis section is transcribed from a movie called ˈA separationˈ written and directed by Asghar Farhadi (2011). The film data analysis part consists of 8 episodes where each episode has special location, participant (interlocutors) and a topic (situation). I will investigate the choice of pronominal forms in this section with respect to the following six features: Age distance, gender difference, power distance, solidarity, mood and formality (relative distance). The secondary objectives of this research are based on a quantitative analysis of the film data. The distribution of the social features of the film data indicates that quantitatively, formality with 35% as a mean percentage is the most significant feature of the analysis with the reciprocal V form (plural honorific). The mood shifting with (26.5%) had the second place on converting the expected V to the T form (singular, non-honorific) or vice versa. The age difference feature with (12%) is the third most influential feature that has influence on the reciprocal T or V forms. The solidarity feature with (17%) has the fourth place in causing the reciprocal T form. The gender difference feature with (7%) has the fifth place on appearance of the reciprocal V form and the power distance feature with (2.5%) has the least influence on the non-reciprocal V form. Therefore I conclude that formality feature is more significant than power distance in the choice of Persian T-V forms. (There could be other hidden features (variables) that I have not considered in this analysis and they might cause errors in my study.) Regarding the T/V mismatching, I have found that the anger mood in order to show sarcasm is one of the reasons for it and the other cause of mismatching is to increase solidarity. Concerning the third objective of this research, the qualitative analysis indicates that the choice of plurality and politeness in the formal situation was mostly addressee oriented and it was mostly under the superior power of the judge. The first research objective is an overall question that will be clarified after consideration of the answers to the other two issues mentioned. This work will contribute to a broader understanding of how politeness governs Persian communication and how this interacts with pragmatics.
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Itani, Reiko. "Semantics and pragmatics of hedges in English and Japanese." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 1995. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1318049/.
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Hedges are expressions used to communicate the speaker's weak commitment to information conveyed; i.e. by hedging, speakers may moderate the assertive force of their utterances. They include sentence adverbials such as probably and technically, adjectives such as regular and typical, particles such as ne and kedo in Japanese etc. Hedges crosscut parts of speech and therefore do not form a natural syntactic class. This thesis argues that existing analyses of hedging devices fall short of full adequacy and presents a Relevance-theoretic account. In Chapter 1, I argue that hedging is a pragmatic phenomenon as the effect may be derived via features of the ostensive stimulus other than encoded linguistic content; e.g. the speaker can communicate her weak commitment by using certain prosodic features, facial expressions, shoulder shrugging etc. Discussions of hedging often arise in sociolinguistic contexts. However, I argue that the moderation of social relations such as the consideration of politeness is not its intrinsic function. The inadequacy of existing analyses I point out in Chapter 1 is due to the lack of a sufficiently articulated pragmatic framework, and for this reason, I turn to Relevance theory. In Chapter 2, I outline Relevance theory which provides a cognitively based explanation of communication. The theory makes rigorous distinctions between encoded meaning and inferred meaning, between the explicit and implicit content of an utterance, between descriptive and interpretive representations, etc. which provide the concepts necessary to isolate the semantics of the hedging devices as I explain in Chapters 3 and 4. In Chapter 3 and 4, I propose Relevance-theoretic analyses of particular English and Japanese expressions, which appear regularly in the literature on hedging. I try to capture the intrinsic semantic content of these elements and show how the familiar hedging effects arise as a result of the interaction between this encoded content, the particularities of context and considerations of relevance.
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Cepollaro, Bianca. "The semantics and pragmatics of slurs and thick terms." Doctoral thesis, Scuola Normale Superiore, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/11384/86019.
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In this thesis I develop a uniform account of slurs and thick terms in terms of presuppositions. I argue that slurs and thick terms – that were mainly studied by different disciplines – belong to the same class of ‘hybrid evaluatives’. My work is a contribution in filling the gap between the research on thick terms on the one hand and the research on slurs on the other, by showing that the mechanism underlying slurs and thick terms is one and the same and that the phenomenal differences that one can observe depend on the peculiarities of their descriptive content. In Part I, I define what counts as ‘hybrid evaluative’ and present my presuppositional account. Part II is a critical review of some alternative theories that have been put forward to account for slurs and thick terms respectively. In Part III, I propose a uniform account of two particular uses of slurs and thick terms that have been treated as independent so far, namely Appropriation of Slurs and Variability of thick terms.
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Raineri, Sophie. "Analyse contrastive français-anglais du passif dans une perspective constructionnelle : Sens et fonction de BE Ven, ETRE Vé, GET Ven et SE FAIRE Ver." Phd thesis, Université de la Sorbonne nouvelle - Paris III, 2010. http://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00841659.
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Cette thèse présente une réflexion sur quatre formes passives anglaises et françaises : les passifs canoniques en BE Ven et ETRE Vé et leurs concurrents respectifs en GET Ven et SE FAIRE Ver. Dans une perspective constructionnelle, ce travail consiste en un nouvel examen de leurs propriétés sémantiques et fonctionnelles. A partir de l'étude d'un corpus de 1235 énoncés en BE Ven, ETRE Vé, GET Ven et SE FAIRE Ver extraits d'articles scientifiques, d'articles de presse et de sites Internet [blogs, forums, etc.], on a pu montrer que ces quatre formes possèdent un sens qui n'est pas entièrement prévisible à partir de leurs éléments [grammaticaux et lexicaux] constitutifs et sont conventionnellement attachées à des fonctions pragmatico-discursives spécifiques. Par conséquent, elles ne sont pas de simples agencements syntaxiques mais des " constructions ", au sens où les Grammaires de Construction l'entendent, c'est-à-dire des appariements conventionnels entre une forme, un sens et des fonctions. D'autre part, l'analyse a révélé que GET Ven et SE FAIRE Ver expriment un sens différent de celui de BE Ven et ETRE Vé, qui est lié à des fonctions différentes dans les domaines de l'organisation de l'information et de la relation interpersonnelle établie en discours et explique leur affinité avec des types de discours interactionnels et expressifs, par opposition aux discours factuels impersonnels associés aux passifs canoniques. Enfin, on a montré que les deux constructions passives françaises étaient soumises à des contraintes syntaxiques et sémantiques plus strictes que les constructions homologues anglaises.
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PASSERINI, GLAZEL LORENZO. "Tipo, tipicità, atipicità nella pragmatica dell'atto giuridico." Doctoral thesis, Università degli Studi di Milano, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/10281/1590.
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The classification of phenomena into different types is constitutive of every scientific inquiry. But what is a type? What is the peculiarity of the concept of “type” compared with other classificatory concepts (the concepts of “class”, of “universal”, of “concept”, for instance)? And what is the relationship between a type and its concrete occurrences?
In the present book, two researches intersect: the epistemological research on the specificity of the concepts of “type” and “prototype” in the theory of categorization, and the research on the role of type and typicalness in the theory of legal acts.
The relationship between a type and its occurrences reveals, in legal phenomena, a peculiar normative force: on the one side, it is through the type of a legal act that the rules applying to every occurrence of that act are defined; on the other side, it is through the type of a legal act that the effects produced by every occurrence of that act are determined. In some contexts, a legal act has in its type its proper condition of possibility.
Through the analysis of the normative function of types, the author examines the role played by types in the structure of social behaviour, in an inquiry that transcends the limits of the theory of categorization and the theory of legal acts, to provide original contributions to the philosophy of institutional phenomena and to social ontology.
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Corso, Elia Dal. "Ainu Evidentiality - a Semantico-Pragmatic Analysis and a Morphosyntactic Account." Doctoral thesis, SOAS University of London, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/10278/3716752.
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Fung, Roxana Suk-Yee. "Final particles in standard Cantonese : semantic extension and pragmatic inference /." The Ohio State University, 2000. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1488195154360318.
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Wolter, Lynsey Kay. "That's that : the semantics and pragmatics of demonstrative noun phrases /." Diss., Digital Dissertations Database. Restricted to UC campuses, 2006. http://uclibs.org/PID/11984.
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Horn, Stephen Wright. "Syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of accusative-quotative constructions in Japanese." Columbus, Ohio : Ohio State University, 2008. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1204662234.
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Falkum, I. L. "The semantics and pragmatics of polysemy : a relevance-theoretic account." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2011. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1139079/.
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This thesis investigates the phenomenon of polysemy: a single lexical form with two or multiple related senses (e.g. catch the rabbit/order the rabbit; lose a wallet/lose a relative; a handsome man/a handsome gift). I develop a pragmatic account of polysemy within the framework of Sperber and Wilson’s relevance theory, where new senses for a word are constructed during on-line comprehension by means of a single process of ad hoc concept construction, which adjusts the meanings of individual words in different directions. While polysemy is largely unproblematic from the perspective of communication, it poses a range of theoretical and descriptive problems. This is sometimes termed the polysemy paradox. A widely held view in lexical semantics is that word meanings must consist of complex representations in order to capture the sense relations involved in polysemy. Contrary to this view, I argue that a conceptual atomist approach, which treats word meanings as unstructured atoms and thereby avoids the range of problems associated with decompositional theories of word meaning, may be at least as able to account for polysemy when paired with an adequate pragmatic theory. My proposed solution to the polysemy paradox is to treat polysemy as a fundamentally communicative phenomenon, which arises as a result of encoded lexical concepts being massively underdetermining of speaker-intended concepts, and is grounded in our pragmatic inferential ability. According to this approach, the role of the linguistic system in giving rise to polysemy is to provide a minimal input, or clue, which the pragmatic system uses as evidence to yield hypotheses about occasion-specific, speaker-intended meanings. I further show how this pragmatic approach can account for cases of ‘systematic polysemy’, usually seen as prime candidates for an analysis in terms of lexical rule application. Finally, I develop an account of metonymy within the overall framework of relevance-theory.
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Li, Chao. "Mandarin resultative verb compounds where syntax, semantics, and pragmatics meet." Muenchen LINCOM Europa, 2008. http://d-nb.info/990656497/04.
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Andueza, Patricia L. "Rhetorical Exclamative in Spanish." The Ohio State University, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1315414519.
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Seeliger, Heiko. "Swedish and German Rejecting Questions." Doctoral thesis, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.18452/19686.
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Diese Arbeit untersucht eine Klasse von tendenziösen Fragen, die mindestens im Schwedischen und Deutschen existieren: Rejecting Questions (RQs). RQs unterscheiden sich von anderen Fragen mit deklarativer Syntax u.a. darin, dass die kontextuelle Evidenz, die solche Fragen lizensiert, von umgekehrter Polarität (relativ zur Polarität der Frage selber) ist - positive RQs benötigen Evidenz für eine negierte Proposition, positive deklarative Fragen benötigen Evidenz für eine positive Proposition. In drei Experimenten wird gezeigt, dass i) schwedische negative RQs sich in ihren Lizensierungsbedingungen von negativen deklarativen Fragen unterscheiden, ii) schwedische negative RQs sich in ihrer Intonation von Zurückweisungen unterscheiden, iii) schwedische und deutsche RQs tendenziell unmarkierter zu sein scheinen, wenn sie Negation enthalten. Das dritte Experiment liefert außerdem einen Beitrag zur Analyse der Bedeutung der schwedischen Modalpartikel väl. Ich argumentiere, dass RQs sprecherindizierte Präferenzen für einen eingebetteten Sprechakt ausdrücken. Dieser eingebettete Sprechakt unterscheidet sich im unmarkierten Fall zwischen negativen RQs, welche i.d.R. hypothetische Zurückweisungen sind, und positiven RQs, welche immer hypothetische Assertionen sind. Mit dieser Asymmetrie erkläre ich die Auffälligkeiten in den Lizensierungsbedingungen von RQs, die sowohl im Schwedischen als auch im Deutschen nachgewiesen werden können.<br>This thesis investigates a class of biased questions that exists at least in Swedish and German: rejecting questions (RQs). RQs differ from other questions with declarative syntax i.a. in that the contextual evidence that licenses such questions is of the opposite polarity relative to the polarity of the question itself - positive RQs require evidence for a negated proposition; positive declarative questions require evidence for a positive proposition. The results of three experiments show that i) Swedish negative RQs differ in their licensing conditions from negative declarative questions, ii) Swedish negative RQs differ in their intonation from rejections, iii) Swedish and German RQs tend to be less marked if they contain negation. The third experiment also contributes to the analysis of the meaning of the Swedish modal particle väl. I argue that RQs express speaker-indexed preferences for embedded speech acts. In the unmarked case, this embedded speech act differs between negative RQs, which are usually hypothetical rejections, and positive RQs, which are always hypothetical assertions. By way of this asymmetry, I explain the peculiarities in the licensing conditions of RQs that can be shown to exist both in Swedish and German.
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Ho, Man-yee. "Trendy expressions in Hong Kong Cantonese morphological, semantic and pragmatic analyses /." Click to view the E-thesis via HKUTO, 2005. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record/B31601029.
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Ho, Man-yee, and 何敏兒. "Trendy expressions in Hong Kong Cantonese: morphological, semantic and pragmatic analyses." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2005. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31601029.
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Kerbel, Debra. "A study of idiom comprehension in children with semantic-pragmatic difficulties." Thesis, De Montfort University, 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/2086/4907.
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In the light of inconclusive evidence regarding the comprehension of idioms by children with semantic-pragmatic difficulties, this study aimed to investigate the extent to which difficulty with idiom comprehension was characteristic of a group of primary school children considered to have semantic-pragmatic difficulties. It further aimed to explore whether such difficulty constitutes a valid means of discriminating children diagnosed as having "semantic-pragmatic disorder", Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism, from children considered to have language disorders not primarily of a semantic and/or pragmatic type. It also compared these two groups with normallydeveloping children aged 6; 6 to 7; 6 or 10; 6 to 11; 6. In view of the limitations of available procedures for assessing idiom comprehension in children with semantic-pragmatic difficulties, a new play-based methodology was developed for this study. Supplementary information was obtained from an additional definition task and from a symptom checklist. The results indicate that the children with semantic-pragmatic difficulties did, as a group, demonstrate significantly fewer appropriate idiomatic interpretations and significantly more inappropriate interpretations than did any of the other three groups. However, the higher level of inappropriate scores reflected a larger number of "fuzzy" responses rather than significantly higher rates of literality. Despite relative weakness, the children with semantic-pragmatic difficulties displayed appropriate interpretations considerably more often than they evidenced inappropriate ones. Within-group analysis reveals that the children diagnosed with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism performed less well than did those diagnosed with "semantic-pragmatic disorder". Nevertheless, both of these subgroups encompassed a considerable range of comprehension ability. This variation appears to reflect essential differences in the critical semantic and pragmatic skills underpinning idiom comprehension. In combination with definition task data and broader knowledge of particular children, the play task may be used to identify the sites and sources of idiom comprehension breakdown in individual children.