Semiotic Grammar (Hardcover)

The label `semiotic grammar' captures a fundamental property of the grammars of human languages: not only is language a semiotic system in the familiar Saussurean sense, but its organizing system, its grammar, is also a semiotic system. This proposition, explicated in detail by William McGregor in this book, constitutes a new theory of grammar. Semiotic Grammar is `functional' rather than `formal' in its intellectual origins, approaches, and methods. It demonstrates, however, that neither a purely functional nor a purely formal account of language is adequate, given the centrality of the sign as the fundamental unit of grammatical analysis. The author distinguishes four types of grammatical signs: experiential, logical, interpersonal, and textural. The signifiers of these signs are syntagmatic relationships of the following types, respectively: constituency, dependency, conjugational (scopal) and linking (indexical, connective). McGregor illustrates and exemplifies the theory with data from a variety of languages including English, Acehnese, Polish, Finnish, Japanese, Chinese, and Mohawk; and from his pioneering research on Gooniyandi and Nyulnyul, two languages of the Kimberleys region of Western Australia.

General

Imprint:	Clarendon Press
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Release date:	September 1997
Authors:	William B. McGregor (Australian Research Council Fellow, Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics)
Dimensions:	242 x 165 x 30mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	448
ISBN-13:	978-0-19-823688-7
Categories:	Books > Language & Literature > Language & linguistics > Semantics (meaning) > General Books > Language & Literature > Language & linguistics > Grammar, syntax, linguistic structure > General
LSN:	0-19-823688-3
Barcode:	9780198236887

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