Bücher der Reihe Topics in English Linguistics [TiEL]

Despite its importance for language and cognition, the theoretical concept of »pattern« has received little attention in linguistics so far. The articles in this volume demonstrate the multifariousness of linguistic patterns in lexicology, corpus linguistics, sociolinguistics, text linguistics, pragmatics, construction grammar, phonology and language acquisition and develop new perspectives on »pattern« as a linguistic concept.

This book presents the first systematic quantitative study of null subjects not only in British English, but also in the contact varieties Indian, Hong Kong and Singapore English. Analysing informal spoken language, it addresses issues relevant for language contact and World Englishes, corpus linguistics and variationist sociolinguistics, linguistic typology and syntax.

The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.

The book presents an analysis of selected domains of morphosyntactic variation in a 250,000 word collection of the Middle English Paston Letters (1421-1503) from a historical sociolinguistic point of view. In the three case studies, two nominal and one verbal variable are described and discussed in detail: the replacement of Old English h-> pronouns by borrowed th-> pronouns, the introduction and spread of the wh-> relativizers, and the spread and routinization of light verb constructions (take, make, give, have, do plus deverbal noun). </P> While the study aims at a balanced integration of theories and methods from a number of different approaches in sociolinguistics, cognitive linguistics, typology, and language change, its main focus is social network theory and the role of the linguistic individual in the formation and change of language structures. Questions of individual language use and of deliberate versus unmonitored changes in the (individual) system take center stage and are discussed in the light of social network analysis. Traditional empirical social network analysis is carefully revised. Despite its many merits in present-day sociolinguistics, it often needs to be supplemented by hermeneutic-biographical analyses of the individual speakers' lives when applied to historical data. With this background, common theories and models of language change, such as grammaticalization, paradigmatic pressure, typological alignment, and generational shifts, are illustrated and evaluated from the point of view of single speakers and social groups, and their particular embedding in the speech community through various network structures.</P> The book is of interest to advanced students and researchers in English and general linguistics, Middle English, historical linguistics and language change, corpus linguistics, as well as sociolinguistics.</P> </body> </html>

The present book provides a detailed criticism of experientialist semantics, focusing both on philosophical issues connected with experientialism and on cognitive approaches to metaphor and metonymy. Particular emphasis is placed on the works of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, but other cognitivists are also taken into consideration. Verena Haser proposes a new approach to the distinction between metaphor and metonymy, which contrasts with familiar cognitivist models, but also builds on some insights gained in cognitivist research. She also offers an account of metaphorical transfer which dispenses with the notion of conceptual metaphors in the sense of Lakoff and Johnson. She argues that conceptual metaphors are not a useful construct for explaining metaphorical transfer, and that the clustering of metaphorical expressions is better accounted for in terms of family resemblances between metaphorical expressions. Another major goal of this work is a reassessment of the relationship between experientialism and traditional Western philosophy (often subsumed under the vague term "e;objectivism"e;). This book contrasts with most other critical approaches to experientialism by providing close readings of key passages from the works of Lakoff and Johnson, which enables the author to pinpoint theory-internal inconsistencies and other shortcomings not noted in previous publications. This book will be relevant to students and scholars interested in semantics and cognitive linguistics, and also in psychology and philosophy of language.

This study argues that the domain traditionally covered by 'coordination' and 'subordination' in English can be subdivided into four distinct construction types. The constructions are defined on the basis of differences in their 'interpersonal' structure, i.e. the grammatical encoding of speaker-attitude and speaker-interlocutor interaction. It is shown that the four types constitute syntactically, semantically and pragmatically coherent categories, with differences in interpersonal structure defining and motivating distinct syntactic behaviour, distinct pragmatic functions and distinct semantic classes of clause linkage. The validity of the analysis is demonstrated in three ways. First, it is shown that the analysis can make sense of the wide range of apparently conflicting criteria found in the literature on complex sentences, which can now be explained as reflections of four different construction types rather than as alternative perspectives on one single contrast between coordination and subordination. Second, it is shown how the analysis can deal with two specific problems in the more general area of clause combining, viz. the syntactic basis of the distinction between 'content', 'epistemic' and 'speech act' levels of clause linkage, and the distinct discursive functions associated with initial and final position of adverbial clauses. Finally, it is also shown that the proposed analysis is useful beyond the analysis of English, with parallels in a number of cross-linguistically recurrent phenomena of clause linkage. The book is mainly of interest to linguistics researchers in the areas of syntax, semantics and pragmatics as well as to graduate students with a focus on these fields.

Based on a 500,000 word corpus of early sources collected from ex-slave narratives, ex-slave recordings, and interviews with hoodoo priests, this book reconstructs the English spoken by African Americans between 1830 and 1920. By means of detailed quantitative analyses, three linguistic features (negation patterns, copula usage, and relative marker choice) are interpreted along the lines of temporal change, regional diversity, and variation across gender. Additionally, some 300 non-standard letters written by African Americans in the 19th century are compared to the main corpus in order to identify differences between speech and writing.

The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.

This book presents a novel treatment of the metre of Beowulf, an Old English epic poem of uncertain date and origin which is nonetheless considered one of the gems of Germanic Alliterative Verse. Building on recent advances in generative linguistics, the analysis presented in this book offers compelling explanations for a wide range of metrical phenomena that have been observed but only poorly understood for over a century.

The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.

This dictionary provides a valency description of English verbs, nouns and adjectives. Each entry contains a comprehensive list of the complementation patterns identified on the basis of the largest corpus of English available at the present time. All examples are taken directly from the COBUILD/Birmingham corpus. The valency description comprises statements about the quantitative valency of the lexical units established, an inventory of their obligatory, contextually optional and purely optional complements as well as systematic information on the semantic and collocational properties of the complements. An outline of the model of valency theory used in this dictionary is provided in the introduction.

The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.

The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.

The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.

The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.

The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.

This book is an extremely detailed and comprehensive examination of conditional sentences in English, using many examples from actual language-use. The syntax and semantics of conditionals (including tense and mood options) and the functions of conditionals in discourse are examined in depth, producing an all-round linguistic view of the subject which contains a wealth of original observations and analyses. Not only linguists specializing in grammar but also those interested in pragmatics and the philosophy of language will find this book a rewarding and illuminating source.

The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.

The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.

The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.

The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.

The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.

This work is essentially based on grammaticalization theory - a branch of linguistics which has gained prominence since the 1980s. It focuses on the interaction between diachrony and synchrony, langue and parole or, for that matter, competence and performance, I-language and I -language. It does not see these levels as distinct linguistic domains, as much structurally oriented work does. It is important for the present purposes that such an interactionist view entails that performance effects may over time cause new grammatical code relations. Hence the importance of statistical empirical research, which led the author to adopt a predominantly corpus-based approach.

The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.

The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.

Rather than presenting a reverse list of words in endless sequence and strictly alphabetical order, this Reverse English Dictionary considers the structure and formation of words, grouping them together in sections and subdivisions. This way of looking at words from behind and comparing similar word endings reveals new and unaccustomed aspects of the structure of words and their formation, illustrating the enormous variety of the English language.

The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.

The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.

The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.

The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.