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Structuring Sense
Volume 1: In Name Only
Hagit Borer
328 pages
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234x156mm
978-0-19-926389-9
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Hardback
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20 January 2005
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This item is printed to order. Items which are printed to order are normally despatched and charged within 5-10 days.
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- A profoundly important work from one of the world's leading linguists
- Reformulates the relation between syntax and semantics
- Of importance for philosophical semantics and the psychology of language acquisition and behaviour
Structuring Sense explores the difference between words however defined and structures however constructed. It sets out to demonstrate over three volumes, of which this is the first, that the explanation of linguistic competence should be shifted from lexical entry to syntactic structure, from memory of words to manipulation of rules. Its reformulation of how grammar and lexicon interact has profound implications for linguistic, philosophical, and psychological theories about human mind and language.
Hagit Borer departs from both language specific constructional approaches and lexicalist
approaches to argue that universal hierarchical structures determine interpretation, and that language variation emerges from the morphological and phonological properties of inflectional material.
In Name Only applies this radical approach to nominal structure. Integrating research in syntax, semantics, and morphology, the author argues that nominal structure is based on the syntactic realization of semantic notions such as classifier, quantity, and reference. In the process she seeks to do away with lexical ambiguity and type-shifting. Among the topics she considers are the interpretation of proper names, the mass-count distinction, the weak-strong interpretation of quantifiers, partitive and measure phrases, and the structural representation of the definite
article. In the process she explores inter-language variation through the properties of the morpho-phonological system. The languages discussed include English, Chinese, Italian, and Hebrew.
Readership: Graduate students in linguistics, psychology and philosophy; scholars in linguistics, psychology and philosophy.
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Hagit Borer, University of Southern California
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"Syntacticians like Borer define the big research questions for the rest of us. Two provocative and inspiring books." - Angelika Kratzer "Hagit Borer's two volumes are a truly impressive achievement. She develops an original and careful theoretical framework, with far-reaching implications, as she describes. And she applies it in what have traditionally, and plausibly, been the two major domains of language: nominals and predication (event structure). The application is deeply informed and scrupulously executed, as well as remarkably comprehensive, covering a wide range of typologically different languages, and with much new material. No less valuable is her careful critical review of the rich literature on these topics, drawing
from it where appropriate, identifying problems and developing alternatives within the general framework she has developed. These are sure to become basic sources for further inquiry into the fundamental issues she explores with such insight and understanding." - Noam Chomsky
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1. Exo-Skeletal Explanations
1: Structuring Sense: Introductory Comments
2: Nuts and Bolts
2. Determining Structures
3: The Proper Way: Some Introductory Comments in the Context of Proper Names
4: Some Stuff on the Mass-Count Distinction
5: Things that Count: Null D
6: Things that Count: Null # and Others
3. Another Language, Another System
7: One is the Loneliest Number
8: Cheese and Olives, Bottles, and Cups
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The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
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