The grammar of polarity : pragmatics, sensitivity, and the logic of scales / / Michael Israel [[electronic resource]]

• Autore: Israel Michael <1965->
• Pubblicazione: Cambridge : , : Cambridge University Press, , 2011
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (xvii, 292 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)
• Disciplina: 415
• Soggetto topico: Polarity (Linguistics); Grammar, Comparative and general - Negatives; Grammar, Comparative and general - Syntax; Semantics
• Note generali: Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
• Nota di contenuto: Cover; THE GRAMMAR OF POLARITY; CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN LINGUISTICS; Title; Copyright; The more that I philosophize The more and more I realize That little things which I despise, Like peanut shells and grains of sand, Are very hard, hard to understand.; Contents; Figures; Tables; Acknowledgments; Abbreviations; 1 Trivium pursuits; 1.1 As above, so below; 1.2 A quirk of grammar or a trick of thought?; 1.3 The hypothesis: sensitivity as lexical pragmatics; 1.4 Putting pragmatics in its place; 1.5 Pragmatics in a usage-based grammar; 2 Ex nihilo: the grammar of polarity ; 2.1 The simplicity of negation2.2 The complexity of polarity; 2.3 The phenomenon of polarity sensitivity; 2.3.1 Polarity items; 2.3.2 Polarity contexts; 2.4 Basic mysteries: three problems of polarity sensitivity; 2.5 Varieties of polarity sensitivity; 2.5.1 Semi-polarity items, sometime polarity items; 2.5.2 Polarity sensitive morphology; 2.5.3 Inherently negative idioms; 2.5.4 Negative concord and the Jespersen cycle; 2.6 The Scalar Model of polarity sensitivity; 3 Licensing and the logic of scalar models; 3.1 What is a polarity context?; 3.2 Fauconnier's insight ; 3.3 The natural logic of scalar models3.3.1 Scalar reasoning and scalar implicature; 3.3.2 Cognitive foundations: conceptual scales; 3.3.3 Inferential mechanisms: scalar models; 3.4 Affectivity as a mode of scalar construal; 3.5 Syntactic constraints on scalar construals; 3.5.1 The precedence condition; 3.5.2 Intervention effects; 3.5.3 The paradox of double negation; 3.6 Polarity contexts are mental spaces; 4 Sensitivity as inherent scalar semantics; 4.1 Scalar operators; 4.2 Two scalar properties; 4.3 Four sorts of polarity items; 4.4 Sensitivity and the square of opposition ; 4.5 The conspiracy theory of polarity licensing4.6 The anomaly of inverted polarity items; 5 The elements of sensitivity; 5.1 The Informativity Hypothesis; 5.2 Quantitative semantics; 5.3 The pragmatics of informativity; 5.4 Assessing informativity; 5.4.1 Diagnostics of emphasis; 5.4.2 Diagnostics of attenuation; 5.5 Rhetorical coherence in polarity contexts; 5.6 Compositional sensitivities; 6 The scalar lexicon; 6.1 Paradigmatic predictions of the Scalar Model; 6.2 Modal polarity items; 6.3 Connective polarity items; 6.4 Aspectual polarity items; 6.5 The limits of diversity ; 7 The family of English indefinite polarity items7.1 The many splendors of any; 7.2 Indefinite family resemblances; 7.3 Emphatic construals of indefinite any; 7.4 The effects of phantom reference; 7.5 Some uses of some; 7.6 The limits of free choice; 7.7 Indefinite conclusions; 8 Polarity and the architecture of grammar; 8.1 High stakes Grammar; 8.2 Terms of the debate; 8.3 The syntactic approach; 8.3.1 Progovac: polarity and binding; 8.3.2 Linebarger: syntax and pragmatics; 8.4 Semantic approaches; 8.4.1 The Monotonicity Thesis; 8.4.2 A hierarchy of negative contexts ; 8.4.3 Veridicality and nonveridicality
• Sommario/riassunto: Many languages include constructions which are sensitive to the expression of polarity: that is, negative polarity items, which cannot occur in affirmative clauses, and positive polarity items, which cannot occur in negatives. The phenomenon of polarity sensitivity has been an important source of evidence for theories about the mental architecture of grammar over the last fifty years, and to many the oddly dysfunctional sensitivities of polarity items have seemed to support a view of grammar as an encapsulated mental module fundamentally unrelated to other aspects of human cognition or communicative behavior. This book draws on insights from cognitive/functional linguistics and formal semantics to argue that, on the contrary, the grammar of sensitivity is grounded in a very general human cognitive ability to form categories and draw inferences based on scalar alternatives, and in the ways this ability is deployed for rhetorical effects in ordinary interpersonal communication.
• Titolo autorizzato: The grammar of polarity
• ISBN: 1-107-21809-8; 1-139-15241-6; 1-283-34215-4; 1-139-15979-8; 9786613342157; 1-139-16079-6; 1-139-15874-0; 1-139-15523-7; 1-139-15698-5; 0-511-97528-7
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Record Nr.: 9910819396403321
• Lo trovi qui: Univ. Federico II
• Serie: Cambridge studies in linguistics ; ; 127.