Semantics of Spanish Verbal Categories

ISBN-13: 9783906762654 / Angielski / Miękka / 1999 / 202 str.

Opis

This book provides a detailed analysis of how the Spanish verbal paradigms - preterite, imperfect, subjunctive, etc. - contribute to the meaning of sentences. The study integrates several years of practical language teaching with theoretical results from linguistics and the philosophy of language. The exposition is lucid and scholarly, although a formal treatment is generally avoided. Elusive distinctions are teased out, such as the contrast between dispositional and habitual sentences or between the notional and relational senses of a psychological verb, but always with a light touch. "Semantics of Spanish Verbal Categories" will be of interest to students of Spanish and to linguists in general.

Recenzje

"Mackenzie's book is an interesting and worthwhile addition to studies on the semantics of the Spanish verb, in many cases throwing a new and thought-provoking light on familiar verbal distinctions. [...] anyone interested in the relationship between form and meaning in the verb should find tackling the book a rewarding experience." (Ray Harris-Northall, Romanische Forschungen)

Spis treści

Contents: Aspectual class - agentivity - interval semantics - count - mass distinction - relational versus notional constructions - conditional sentences - referential and attributive descriptions - quantification and quantificational contexts - temporal descriptions - complement clauses - relative clauses.

O autorze

The Author: Ian Mackenzie is currently a lecturer in the School of Modern Languages of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. He was educated at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and his doctoral dissertation - on which this book is partly based - was supervised by John Lyons. His research interests are diverse, ranging from Spanish and Latin American linguistics to the philosophy of language. He published his first book in 1997, entitled Introduction to Linguistic Philosophy.