Nonsentential Constituents: A theory of grammatical structure and pragmatic interpretation
Ellen Barton
Jan 1990 · Pragmatics & Beyond New Series Book 2 · John Benjamins Publishing
Ebook
247
Pages
reportRatings and reviews aren’t verified Learn More
About this ebook
Linguists traditionally have assumed that full sentence sources truncated by ellipsis rules account for the grammatical structure as well as the semantic interpretation of fragments like B below: A: What happened in 1974? B: A scandal in the White House. A sentential structure dominated by the initial node of S is reduced to a fragment by the operation of ellipsis, and it is the full sentential source that provides the semantic interpretation for the remaining fragment.Barton argues against both of these assumptions. She claims that independent major lexical categories like the example above are generated within a grammar as syntactic structures dominated by the initial node of NP, VP, and so on, rather than S. Her second claim is that the major part of the interpretation of these independent constituent utterances takes place within a pragmatic context, rather than in the semantic component of a grammar. A theory of nonsentential constituents is presented consisting of two interacting models: an autonomous competence model of the grammar of nonsentential constituent structures, and a modular pragmatic model of the interpretation of independent constituent utterances in context.
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
