Universal Semantic Syntax

A Semiotactic Approach

Egbert Fortuin, Hetty Geerdink-Verkoren

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781108476805
• eBook ISBN: 9781108757836
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Syntactic theory has been dominated in the last decades by theories that disregard semantics in their approach to syntax. Presenting a truly semantic approach to syntax, this book takes as its primary starting point the idea that syntax deals with the relations between meanings expressed by form-meaning elements and that the same types of relations can be found cross-linguistically. The theory provides a way to formalize the syntactic relations between meanings so that each fragment of grammar can be analyzed in a clear-cut way. A comprehensive introduction into the theoretical concepts of the theory is provided, with analyzes of numerous examples in English and various other languages, European and non-European, to illustrate the concepts. The theory discussed will enable linguists to look for similarities between languages, while at the same time acknowledging important language specific features.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Series information
• Title page
• Copyright information
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part I The Semiotactic Theory
• Part II Application of the Theory
• Conclusion: The Syntactic Theory from a Semantic Perspective
• Appendix A
• Appendix B
• References
• Index