Structuring Sense Volume I: In Name Only

by Borer, Hagit

• ISBN13: 9780199263905
• ISBN10: 0199263906
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-03-24
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• More Book Details

Summary

Structuring Sense explores the difference between words however defined and structures however constructed. It sets out to demonstrate over three volumes, of which this is the first, that the explanation of linguistic competence should be shifted from lexical entry to syntactic structure, frommemory of words to manipulation of rules. Its reformulation of how grammar and lexicon interact has profound implications for linguistic, philosophical, and psychological theories about human mind and language. Hagit Borer departs from both language specific constructional approaches and lexicalist approaches to argue that universal hierarchical structures determine interpretation, and that language variation emerges from the morphological and phonological properties of inflectional material. In Name Only applies this radical approach to nominal structure. Integrating research in syntax, semantics, and morphology, the author argues that nominal structure is based on the syntactic realization of semantic notions such as classifier, quantity, and reference. In the process she seeks to doaway with lexical ambiguity and type-shifting. Among the topics she considers are the interpretation of proper names, the mass-count distinction, the weak-strong interpretation of quantifiers, partitive and measure phrases, and the structural representation of the definite article. In the processshe explores inter-language variation through the properties of the morpho-phonological system. The languages discussed include English, Chinese, Italian, and Hebrew.

Author Biography

Hagit Borer received her Ph.D. in Linguistics at MIT in 1981. She has held positions at the University of California at Irvine and at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and is currently the chair of the linguistics department at the University of Southern California. Her research interests include syntax, morphosyntax, the syntax-semantics interface, and the acquisition of syntax.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vii
Contents to Volume II	xii
Abbreviations	xv
A Note on Transcription	xvi
Part I Exo-Skeletal Explanations
Structuring Sense: Introductory Comments	3	(27)
How Grammatical are Words?	3	(11)
Some Preliminary Notes on Functional Structure	14	(16)
A note on the syntax--semantics interface	14	(3)
Projecting functional structure	17	(5)
Specifiers, complements	22	(8)
Nuts and Bolts	30	(33)
The Architecture of the Grammar	30	(21)
Licensing functional structure: abstract head features and f-morphs	30	(4)
Functional heads as open values: adverbs of quantification	34	(4)
Range assignment through specifier--head agreement and definiteness marking	38	(4)
A brief summary	42	(1)
What's in a Head?	43	(5)
Ordering within the L-D	48	(3)
A Note on Inflection	51	(7)
An Overview	58	(5)
Part II Determining Structures
The Proper Way	63	(23)
The Distribution of Determiners	63	(7)
Proper Names	70	(16)
Proper or common?	70	(12)
Some more on proper names with determiners	82	(4)
Some Stuff: On the Mass--Count Distinction	86	(50)
Plurals as Classifiers	86	(15)
Classifying Chinese	86	(11)
A little more on the mass--count distinction in Chinese	97	(4)
On the Flexibility of the Mass--Count Distinction	101	(8)
A Classifier Phrase for English	109	(11)
Creating Individuals	120	(12)
Noun Stems in Compounds, or How Seriously Lexicalists Take the Lexicon	132	(4)
Things that Count: Null D	136	(24)
The Works	136	(8)
The Interpretation of Indefinites	144	(16)
Things that Count: Null # and Others	160	(33)
Null # and the Interpretation of Definite Articles	160	(9)
Heads vs. Specifiers	169	(5)
Proper Names, Supplemental	174	(4)
Chinese Individuals---Some Final Thoughts	178	(10)
Concluding Part II	188	(5)
Part III Another Language, Another System
One is the Loneliest Number	193	(45)
Introduction	193	(18)
On some differences between `one' and other quantifiers	193	(8)
(Ac)counting (for) Hebrew singulars	201	(10)
The Hebrew Definite Article Revisited	211	(14)
Construct state and the licensing of cardinals in definite descriptions	211	(10)
Quantifiers in specifiers	221	(2)
The structure of Hebrew singulars---final touches	223	(2)
A bit More on Quantifiers as Specifiers in Hebrew, and a Speculative Note	225	(13)
Cheese and Olives, Bottles and Cups: Notes on Measure Phrases and Container Phrases	238	(23)
An Overview of the Hebrew Determiner System	238	(4)
Hebrew `Massifiers'	242	(19)
Grocerese nominals	242	(5)
Structure for Grocerese nominals	247	(4)
Container phrases	251	(10)
Some Concluding Notes on Language Variation	261	(6)
References	267	(18)
Index	285