Talmy Givon – författare

Syntax and Semantics, Volume 12: Discourse and Syntax provides information pertinent to the fundamental aspects of the study of the syntax of isolated sentences. This book discusses the relationship between the discourse notion topic and the syntactic notion subject. Organized into five parts encompassing 20 chapters, this volume begins with an overview of the discourse-function definition of so-called movement transformations. This text then presents the argument against the existence of an independent structural level called syntax as far as it can go, suggesting that all syntactic behavior within a given range of data can be predicted from functional considerations. Other chapters consider syntax as a mode of the automatic processing of speech. This book discusses as well the integration of the speaker''s goals with communicative strategies in the structure and flow of personal narratives. The final chapter deals with discourse-pragmatic governance of so-called syntactic phenomena. This book is a valuable resource for linguists.

On Understanding Grammar covers the interdependencies among the various aspects of linguistics and the human language. This eight-chapter text considers some pertinent topics in linguistics, such as discourse-pragmatics, diachronic syntax, topology, creology, method, and ontology. Chapter 1 describes the notions of fact, theory, and explanation, particularly about how these notions manifest themselves in actual practice. Chapter 2 redefines syntax in terms of communicative function and discourse-pragmatics, and about the relation between the function of grammatical devices and their formal properties. Chapter 3 deals with discourse-pragmatics and how it transcends the narrow bounds of deductive logic, as well as the function and ontology of negation in language, and how those relate to the fundamental information-theoretic principle of figure versus ground. Chapter 4 explores the two major aspects of case systems, namely, the semantic role and pragmatic function, and how the two interact in determining the typological characteristics of grammars. Chapter 5 examines the relation between discourse and syntax based on diachronic, ontogenetic, phylogenetic viewpoints. Chapter 6 tackles the relation between synchronic grammar and diachronic change, while Chapter 7 describes the relationship between human language and its phylogenetic evolution. Chapter 8 is about language and ontology, as well as the relation between cognition and the universe. This book will prove useful to linguistics and language researchers.