The Rise of the To-Infinitive

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1 University Press Scholarship Online You are looking at 1-10 of 665 items for: keywords : syntax The Rise of the To-Infinitive Bettelou Los Published in print: 2005 Published Online: ISBN: eisbn: acprof:oso/ This book describes the historical emergence and spread of the toinfinitive in English. It shows that to + infinitive emerged from a reanalysis of the preposition to plus a deverbal nominalization, which spread first to purpose clauses, then to other non-finite environments. The book challenges the traditional reasoning that infinitives must have been nouns in Old English because they inflected for dative case and can follow prepositions. In fact, as early as Old English, the to-infinitive was established in most of the environments in which it is found today, and its syntactic behaviour clearly shows that it is already a clause rather than a phrase at this early date. Its spread was largely due to competition with finite subjunctive that-clauses, which it gradually replaced. Later chapters consider Middle English developments. The book provides a measured evaluation of the evidence that the infinitive marker to undergoes a period of degrammaticalization. It concludes that the extent to which to gains syntactic freedom in Middle English is due to the fact that speakers began to equate it with the modal verbs, and therefore to treat it syntactically as a modal verb. The rise of to-infinitival Exceptional Case-Marking constructions is a Middle English innovation, triggered by changes in information structure that were in turn caused by the loss of verb-second. Meaning Change in Grammaticalization: An Enquiry into Semantic Reanalysis Regine Eckardt Published in print: 2006 Published Online: ISBN: eisbn: acprof:oso/ Page 1 of 6

2 This book investigates meaning change in grammaticalization in terms of truth conditional semantics and a well-explicated syntax-semantics interface. Following a survey of earlier theories of grammaticalization, particularly those that focus on the meaning side, four major case studies of meaning change in grammaticalization probe the hypothesis that this type of change is best viewed as a restructuring at the syntaxsemantics interface. The case studies cover the emergence of going to future in English, the negation particles in French, the emergence of the scalar particle selbst (even) in German as well as the quasi determiner lauter (many/only) in German. Each study starts with a presentation of data that illustrates the change in question, and lists open issues about these data that could not be answered (or even formulated) in earlier theoretical frameworks. A careful investigation of the neat interplay of syntax and semantics in the phase of change demonstrates that speakers ingenuously exploit the structures of language in order to adjust it to new needs, while at the same time keeping it a well-defined tool of communication. The Grammar of Words: An Introduction to Linguistic Morphology Geert Booij Published in print: 2007 Published Online: ISBN: eisbn: acprof:oso/ This book introduces the reader to the basic methods for the study of the internal structure of words, and to the theoretical issues raised by analyses of word structure concerning the organization of the grammars of natural languages. Data from more than sixty languages are used to illustrate these descriptive and theoretical issues. The book is structured into three main parts. In the first part the basic notions of morphology and morphological analysis are introduced, and attention is given to word formation (derivation and compounding), the basics of inflection, and inflectional systems. The second part, reflecting an important characteristic of this book, is the discussion of the interface between morphology and other modules of the grammar such as phonology, syntax, and semantics. It is shown that the formal structure of complex words is not necessarily isomorphic to their phonological or semantic structure. This book is comprehensive since it also deals, in its third part, with the relation between morphology and mind. Facts concerning the processing of complex words are used as a window on the human mind. Language change in the domain of word structure is also approached from that perspective. In a final summarizing chapter, it is shown how the book has taught a theoretically sophisticated notion word and Page 2 of 6

3 that there are different notions word that should be recognized in a proper linguistic analysis. An index and glossary of terms, exercises (with answers), a language index, and advice for further reading are also provided. The Morphosyntax of Complement-Head Sequences: Clause Structure and Word Order Patterns in Kwa Enoch Oladé Aboh Published in print: 2004 Published Online: ISBN: eisbn: acprof:oso/ This book examines the syntax of the Niger-Conger language family, which includes most of the languages of sub-saharan Africa. The book's author, who is a native speaker of Gungbe one of the languages discussed analyses different aspects of the syntax of the Kwa language group. The book discusses how grammatical pictures for these languages can shed some light on Universal Grammar in general. Conditions of a Key Employee Agreement: EMC Corporation v. Jeffrey E. Allen Roger W. Shuy in Fighting over Words: Language and Civil Law Cases Published in print: 2008 Published Online: May 2008 ISBN: eisbn: acprof:oso/ Key employee agreements, sometimes required of high-level employees, often restrict employees from establishing relationships with competing companies for specified periods of time after they leave the company. This is called a noncompetition agreement. In this case, the agreement specified what was meant by competition: ownership interest amounting to at least 1% in the competing enterprise, an officership, directorship, or other policy-making position in the competing enterprise. Semantics and syntax analysis, including grammatical scope, the semantic meaning of other, and intonation were used to help resolve the ambiguity found in this agreement. Page 3 of 6

4 Competing Conveying System Advertisements: Dynamic Air v. Flexicon Corporation Roger W. Shuy in Fighting over Words: Language and Civil Law Cases Published in print: 2008 Published Online: May 2008 ISBN: eisbn: acprof:oso/ A manufacturer of a product that transports, processes, and packages bulk materials with a pneumatic process sued a competing manufacturer that uses a screw process using the latter company's advertising, which compared and evaluated the two methods, and charged that these advertisements constituted a deceptive trade practice. The plaintiff claimed that in these advertisements the defendant not only made false, misleading, and disparaging comments but also failed to reveal the industry data, studies, statistics, and other information that might substantiate its claims. Syntax analysis of these advertisements revealed that in these advertisements the verb tenses indicated that the defendant did not claim that comparisons with other types of conveyors were based on studies or tests. Semantic analysis of the word ratings conveys that this word indicates a subjective estimate or comparison, one not requiring research or tests. It also showed that the terms used in the comparisons (best, good, fair, poor, worst) are used regularly to indicate attitudes, beliefs, or dislikes, as opposed to the numerical, statistical measures of qualities that are used in reporting research findings. Case and Aspect in Slavic Kylie Richardson Published in print: 2007 Published Online: ISBN: eisbn: acprof:oso/ This book focuses on some of the most puzzling case marking patterns in the Slavic languages and ties this pattern to different types of aspectual phenomena. It demonstrates that the accusative versus lexical case marking contrast on an internal argument with two-place verbs is directly linked to whether the lexical/semantic aspect of a so-called base verb is compositional or not. It also shows that the instrumental versus case agreement dichotomy on a predicate in depictive, participle, and copular constructions in the East Slavic languages is linked to a Page 4 of 6

5 grammatical aspect contrast, namely to whether the eventuality denoted by a predicate is bounded or unbounded in time. Retaliatory Termination Discrimination: David E. Benekritis v. Renny Earl Johnson and the Darlington County School District Roger W. Shuy in Fighting over Words: Language and Civil Law Cases Published in print: 2008 Published Online: May 2008 ISBN: eisbn: acprof:oso/ A high school math teacher, recently hired by a school system, was assigned a mentor/supervisor, who invited the new teacher to a pickup basketball game. The teacher claimed that, during this game, his mentor made physical sexual advances to him. The police and the school subsequently dismissed all charges but they discovered what they thought was false information on the new teacher's application form to a school where he had taught in the past, and the school fired him. The teacher then sued the school system for retaliatory discrimination. The issue was over the virgule on the application form, which read: Have you ever been dismissed/non-renewed from any employment? Semantic and syntax analysis were used to show the different meanings of dismissed and non-renewed. The meaning of the virgule was addressed. Finally, the linguist revised the application form so that the apparent intended meanings of the question could be clarified. Latin Word Order: Structured Meaning and Information A. M. Devine and Laurence D. Stephens Published in print: 2006 Published Online: ISBN: eisbn: acprof:oso/ Reading a paragraph of Latin without attention to the word order entails losing access to a whole dimension of meaning, or at least using inferential procedures to guess at what is actually overtly encoded in the syntax. This book introduces the linguistic concepts, formalism, and analytical techniques necessary for the study of Latin word order. It then presents and analyzes a representative selection of data in sufficient detail to foster both an intuitive grasp of the often rather subtle principles controlling Latin word order and a theoretically grounded understanding of the system that underlies it. Combining the rich empirical documentation of traditional philological approaches with the Page 5 of 6

6 deeper theoretical insight of modern linguistics, this book aims to reduce the intricate surface patterns of Latin word order to a simple and general cross-categorical system of syntactic structure which translates more or less directly into constituents of pragmatic and semantic meaning. Syntactic Variation Ronald K. S. Macaulay in Talk that Counts: Age, Gender, and Social Class Differences in Discourse Published in print: 2005 Published Online: ISBN: eisbn: acprof:oso/ This chapter looks at the frequency of coordinate clauses, becauseclauses, passive voice, and dislocated syntax (e.g., clefting and left dislocation). There are some age and gender differences but few social class differences. The two social class differences that are statistically significant are passive voice, which the middle-class speakers use more frequently than the working-class speakers, and dislocated syntax, which the working-class speakers use much more frequently than the middleclass speakers. In contrast to the views of Basil Bernstein, there is no reason to believe that there are many social class differences in the use of syntax. Page 6 of 6