Paul Kay – författare

A thorough investigation into idioms and their grand meaning, including how best to analyze them.Any theory of idioms should be part and parcel of a general theory of grammar, adding as little machinery to one's overall grammatical approach as possible in describing both the syntactic and semantic idiosyncrasies and regularities of this large class of linguistic expressions.  This volume presents several lexicalist analyses of idioms within the framework of Sign-Based Construction Grammar, reflecting three guiding principles: many but not all idioms are syntactically and semantically compositional, dividing into distinct classes; idioms are analyzable in terms of a suitably rich lexicon and a set of constructions (lexical and syntactic rules) with corresponding meaning representations; and idiomaticity is a gradient phenomenon, exhibiting wide variation in degree of syntactic flexibility and meaning.

In null instantiation (NI) an optionally unexpressed argument receives either anaphoric or existential interpretation. One cannot accurately predict a predicator's NI potential based either on semantic factors (e.g., Aktionsart class of the verb) or pragmatic factors (e.g., relative discourse prominence of arguments), but NI potential, while highly constrained, is not simply lexical idiosyncrasy. It is instead the product of both lexical and constructional licensing. In the latter case, a construction can endow a verb with NI potential that it would not otherwise have. Using representational tools of sign based construction grammar, this Element offers a lexical treatment of English null instantiation that covers both distinct patterns of construal of null-instantiated arguments and the difference between listeme-based and contextually licensed, thus construction-based, null complementation.

In null instantiation (NI) an optionally unexpressed argument receives either anaphoric or existential interpretation. One cannot accurately predict a predicator's NI potential based either on semantic factors (e.g., Aktionsart class of the verb) or pragmatic factors (e.g., relative discourse prominence of arguments), but NI potential, while highly constrained, is not simply lexical idiosyncrasy. It is instead the product of both lexical and constructional licensing. In the latter case, a construction can endow a verb with NI potential that it would not otherwise have. Using representational tools of sign based construction grammar, this Element offers a lexical treatment of English null instantiation that covers both distinct patterns of construal of null-instantiated arguments and the difference between listeme-based and contextually licensed, thus construction-based, null complementation.

The death of three University students due to a stronger than normal batch of drugs, a local former M.P is found murdered in a flat above an art gallery the morning after opening night of an exhibition and three members of a family die in a house fire that was being used as part of an operation against a gang of people smugglers. Set against a back drop of rising tensions against the housing of refugees in local hotels, diminishing morale across the County's police force and a disciplinary hearing of a group of police officers. Life is never dull for the members of Dorset Major Crimes Team.

Three sexual assaults take place in Bournemouth and Christchurch Dorset, the victims appear to have only one thing in common as the investigation begins, the fact that they all travelled on a night bus on the night of being attacked. As the investigation progresses it emerges that all three victims were on a university degree course a few years earlier where one of their fellow students was attacked during a 'dig' and another student was sexually assaulted. SIO DS Diana 'Dee' Wallace and her team discover forensic evidence linking all the attacks, together with a code of silence protecting the guilty.Jermaine 'Jay' Lloyd is a rising star of English football, when his body is discovered early one Monday morning by his mother and sister, the football world and fans of football are shocked. Jay seemed to be universally liked and admired and there are apparently no clues to who killed him or why. DI Niamh Kelly leads the investigation which uncovers casual racism and threats of violence against the young footballer.DCI Mike Bishop returns to the team full-time after undergoing two years of treatment for two types of cancer. DS Wallace is suffering from depression following the death of the Scott family in 'Windows' – Bishop and Kelly Book 3. She undergoes a series of sessions with a counsellor before apparently disappearing on the way home from her boyfriend's house.