Instruments and Related Concepts at the Syntax-Semantics Interface

Koen Van Hooste

book: Instruments and Related Concepts at the Syntax-Semantics Interface

Open Access Published by düsseldorf university press 2018

Instruments and Related Concepts at the Syntax-Semantics Interface

Koen Van Hooste

In the series Dissertations in Language and Cognition

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110720365

Overview
Contents

About this book

Instruments constitute a classic member of the thematic role inventory, yet they are usually analyzed only peripherally, taking a back seat to the more studied members such as Agent and Patient. This dissertation investigates the semantic reality behind the label instrument from the functionalist perspective of Role & Reference Grammar. Starting from a theoretical investigation of what instrumentality truly means when contrasted with related concepts like comitatives, this book explores the morphosyntactic realization of instruments across a wide range of typologically diverse languages. Apart from the standard occurrences of instruments that come to mind from languages such as Latin, German or English, this book delves into several less common constructions that feature the instrument relation. Such constructions include, amongst others, passives with instruments and particularly the Instrument-Subject Alternation, a construction where the instrument seemingly appears as the subject of the sentence. This construction displays variation along three dimensions: 1) The instrument can vary from a very simple tool to a complicated machine, 2) the predicate can vary substantially and 3) languages differ widely with respect to the construction’s acceptability. This makes for a complex playing field where the animacy of the instrument but also the aktionsart class of the predicate play a major role. The last section of this book deals with linking the semantics of instruments and related concepts to their morphosyntactic realizations, including the various encoding strategies that are available in any given language. This book also features a concise introduction to Role & Reference Grammar. Dissertations in Language and Cognition: This series explores issues of mental representation, linguistic structure and representation, and their interplay. The research presented in this series is grounded in the idea explored in the Collaborative Research Center ‘The structure of representations in language, cognition and science’ (SFB 991) that there is a universal format for the representation of linguistic and cognitive concepts.

Topics

Frontmatter Open Access Download PDF	i
Acknowledgments Open Access Download PDF	vii
Contents Open Access Download PDF	ix
List of Figures Open Access Download PDF	xv
List of Tables Open Access Download PDF	xix
List of Abbreviations Open Access Download PDF	xxi
1 Introduction Open Access Download PDF	1
2 Role and Reference Grammar Open Access Download PDF	11
3 Instruments at the syntaxsemantics interface Open Access Download PDF	51
4 Semantic range of instruments, agents & forces Open Access Download PDF	137
5 Instruments and causation: A Force Dynamic view Open Access Download PDF	191
6 The Instrument-Subject Alternation and subtypes of instruments Open Access Download PDF	239
7 Delimiting instruments from instrument-like participants Open Access Download PDF	269
8 Linking semantics to syntax Open Access Download PDF	313
9 Conclusion: A semantic-syntactic landscape for instruments and related concepts Open Access Download PDF	357
Appendix: Figures Open Access Download PDF	367
References Open Access Download PDF	371

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