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This reference grammar provides, for the first time, a description
of the grammar of "Mandarin Chinese", the official spoken language
of China and Taiwan, in functional terms, focusing on the role and
meanings of word-level and sentence-level structures in actual
conversations.
Wappo is an indigenous language, generally regarded as a language
isolate, which was once spoken in the Russian River Valley, just
north of San Francisco, California. This reference grammar is based
on the speech of Laura Fish Somersal, its last fluent speaker, who
died in 1990, and represents the most extensive data and
grammatical research ever done on this language. The grammar
focuses on morphosyntax, particularly nominal, verbal, and clausal
structures and clause combining patterns, from a
functional/typological perspective.
Drawing on everyday telephone and video interactions, this book
surveys how English speakers use grammar to formulate responses in
ordinary conversation. The authors show that speakers build their
responses in a variety of ways: the responses can be longer or
shorter, repetitive or not, and can be uttered with different
intonational 'melodies'. Focusing on four sequence types: responses
to questions ('What time are we leaving?' - 'Seven'), responses to
informings ('The May Company are sure having a big sale' - 'Are
they?'), responses to assessments ('Track walking is so boring.
Even with headphones' - 'It is'), and responses to requests
('Please don't tell Adeline' - 'Oh no I won't say anything'), they
argue that an interactional approach holds the key to explaining
why some types of utterances in English conversation seem to have
something 'missing' and others seem overly wordy.
Many scholars of language have accepted a view of grammar as a
clearly delineated and internally coherent structure which is best
understood as a self-contained system. The contributors to this
volume propose a very different way of approaching and
understanding grammar, taking it as part of a broader range of
systems which underlie the organisation of social life and
emphasising its role in the use of language in everyday interaction
and cognition. Taking as their starting-point the position that the
very integrity of grammar is bound up with its place in the larger
schemes of the organisation of human conduct, particularly with
social interaction, their essays explore a rich variety of linkages
between interaction and grammar.
Many scholars of language have accepted a view of grammar as a clearly delineated and internally coherent structure that is best understood as a self-contained system. The contributors to this volume propose a very different way of approaching and understanding grammar: taking as their starting point the position that the very integrity of grammar is bound up with its place in the larger schemes of the organization of human conduct, particularly social interaction, their essays explore a rich variety of linkages between interaction and grammar.
This collection of previously unpublished, cutting-edge research discusses the conversation analysis (CA) approach to understanding language use. CA is the dominant theory for analysing the social use of language and is concerned with the description of how speakers engage in conversation and other forms of social interaction involving language. Its proponents are not only linguists but sociologists and anthropologists as well. The unifying theme of these chapters is the intersection of practice and form through the construction of turns and sequences.
In recent years there has been a resurgance of interest in
grammatical contructions - units of grammar representing
form-meaning correspondences. The movement, in which Construction
Grammar as developed by Charles Fillmore and Paul Kay has played a
significant role, has arisen in part as a response to the Chomskyan
modular approach, which treats grammatical contructions as
epiphenomenal, dismantling their component features and attributing
these to general principles of grammar. This volume is the first
collection to focus on grammatical constructions per se, and is
dedicated to Charles Fillmore in recognition of his leadership in
the field. The papers all reflect or elaborate on his work, which
shows how lexicon, syntax, semantics and pragmatics interact in
giving constructions their individual holistic characters as basic
units of grammar. Several approaches to constructions are
represented here, dealing with topics that range from idiomatized
constructions to traditional forms such as conditionals, relative
clauses, and benefactive constructions. A unifying thread is the
shared conviction that close examination of the nature of
grammatical constructions, functions, meanings, and uses in
ordinary speech and writing provides a rich foundation upon which
to build a theory of cognition, memory, and grammar.
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