The Grammar of Polarity - Pragmatics, Sensitivity, and the Logic of Scales (Hardcover)

Many languages include constructions which are sensitive to the expression of polarity: that is, negative polarity items, which cannot occur in affirmative clauses, and positive polarity items, which cannot occur in negatives. The phenomenon of polarity sensitivity has been an important source of evidence for theories about the mental architecture of grammar over the last fifty years, and to many the oddly dysfunctional sensitivities of polarity items have seemed to support a view of grammar as an encapsulated mental module fundamentally unrelated to other aspects of human cognition or communicative behavior. This book draws on insights from cognitive/functional linguistics and formal semantics to argue that, on the contrary, the grammar of sensitivity is grounded in a very general human cognitive ability to form categories and draw inferences based on scalar alternatives, and in the ways this ability is deployed for rhetorical effects in ordinary interpersonal communication.

General

Imprint:	Cambridge UniversityPress
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Linguistics
Release date:	May 2011
First published:	2011
Authors:	Michael Israel
Dimensions:	235 x 155 x 20mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	314
ISBN-13:	978-0-521-79240-0
Categories:	Books > Language & Literature > Language & linguistics > Semantics (meaning) > Pragmatics Books > Language & Literature > Language & linguistics > Grammar, syntax, linguistic structure > General Promotions
LSN:	0-521-79240-1
Barcode:	9780521792400

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