This article investigates the acquisition of different types of clefts and of "be"-fragments in European Portuguese. We first present the main syntactic and discourse properties of different cleft structures and of "be"-fragments in European Portuguese, and we discuss how data from first language acquisition may contribute to…

Research on reported speech is old, but scholars working in this field are inclined to see its roots in Davidson's (1968) paratactic account of indirect reports. Although Davidson aimed at a "truth-conditional" theory of indirect reports which could challenge ideational, use, and psychological theories, his paratactic view--of which the…

The aim of this paper is to compare the treatment of syntactic functions, and more particularly those traditionally labelled as Subject and Object, in Functional Discourse Grammar and Role and Reference Grammar. Relevant aspects of the overall structure of the two theories are briefly described. The concept of alignment between levels of the…

The present study investigates the phonological effect triggered by the different types of phonetic pause used in Quran on morphology, syntax, and semantics. It argues that Quranic pause provides interesting evidence about the close relation between phonology and semantics, from one side, and semantics, morphology, and syntax, from the other…

Traces the development of discourse analysis in modern linguistics, and presents a semantic analysis, based on a comparative word frequency count, of two political speeches made by the socialist Jean Jaures. (AM)

This study examines the basic question about the position of dicursivity with respect to language, arising from the axiomatic statements concerning linguistic sign, form and meaning as definition components of the structural conception of language. The book is divided into two sections: I. Axiomatics of Structural Linguistics, and II. Linguistics…

Examines "it"-clefts and "wh"-clefts in English and their Chinese equivalents in a universal, functional perspective that consists of assigning "participant roles" in processing a clause. The analysis shows that a functionally-oriented and semantically-motivated approach to the focusing constructions provides greater insight into the discourse…

Presents accounts of theories locating the sources of the signifying capacities of words in their imbrication with nondiscursive structures and practices. Points out that a tradition of philosophical, linguistic, and semiotic theorizing has attempted to clarify what it is for words to have the meanings they do in terms of the relation of…

Constituent structure is considered to be the very foundation of linguistic competence and often considered to be innate, yet we show here that it is derivable from the domain-general processes of chunking and categorization. Using modern and diachronic corpus data, we show that the facts support a view of constituent structure as gradient (as…

Evidence from a sample of informal written language (personal correspondence) shows that the most important constraints on pronoun usage in subject position are discourse-based. The quantitative analysis supports the hypothesis that pronoun usage is "functional" since semantically relevant information is preserved in surface structure.…

The objective of this investigation was to analyze rhetorical strategies of Alice Walker in four narratives, namely, "The Color Purple, In Search of Our Mother's Gardens, Possessing the Secret of Joy, and Now Is the Time To Open Your Heart". As such, this study helps to expand the body of investigation relating linguistics to literature and medium…

Offers an examination of the distributional range of causative verbs. Contrary to research claiming these verbs have highly circumscribed distributions, demonstrates that they readily appear in a wide variety of argument structure frames. The appearance of accusative verbs with omitted patient arguments is analyzed in detail and an account is…