Kategoria BISAC: Foreign Language Study >> Slavic Languages (Other)

The monograph explains how the lack of a 'nominal article' category in some Slavic languages influences nominal reference and textual coherence. The book demonstrates that the missing category cannot be represented by the absence of the functional category D⁰, but that a phonologically empty category with the meaning of the semantic default determiner must be assumed. Otherwise, syntactically and semantically well-formed sentences could not be generated. The semantic default determiner is only specified contextually when the DP with a fixed function in a sentence combines the...

Given that we lack sensory-motor experience for abstract concepts, how do we find out what they mean? How far can we get by tracking frequency distributions in input? The volume tackles the question of what language has to offer the language learner in his/her quest for meaning, and explicitly addresses how semantic knowledge may be distributed along the continuum from "grammar" to "lexicon." Focus is on the synonymy of constructions and lexemes, a meaning relation that has been largely ignored in Western linguistics.

Frequency in all its guises plays a major part in this book....

Readers of poetry make aesthetic judgements about verse. It is quite common to hear intuitive statements about poets' rhythms. It is said, for example, that Joseph Brodsky, the Russian poet and 1987 Nobel Prize laureate, "sounds English" when he writes in Russian.

Yet, it is far from clear what this statement means from a linguistic point of view. What is English about Brodsky's Russian poetry? And in what way are his "English" rhythms different from the verse of his Russian predecessors?

The book provides an analysis of Brodsky's experiment bringing evidence from an...

This white paper is part of a series that promotes knowledge about language technology and its potential. It addresses educators, journalists, politicians, language communities and others. The availability and use of language technology in Europe varies between languages. Consequently, the actions that are required to further support research and development of language technologies also differ for each language. The required actions depend on many factors, such as the complexity of a given language and the size of its community. META-NET, a Network of Excellence funded by the European...