Adverbial Subordination in English

A Functional Approach
Erscheinungsjahr 2002
ISBN: 978-90-420-1360-5
Verlag: Brill | Rodopi

Buch, Englisch, Band 41, 216 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 230 mm, Gewicht: 535 g

Reihe: Language and Computers

This book presents a detailed corpus-based study of adverbial subordinate clauses in English within the framework of the theory of Functional Grammar. On the basis of an in-depth data analysis, this study shows that there is a systematic correlation between the semantic types of adverbial clauses, on the one hand, and the verb forms by means of which these constructions are expressed in English, on the other.
In contrast to most traditional classifications, the criterion used for the semantic classification of adverbial clauses is not simply the basic meaning of the conjunction introducing the subordinate clause. Instead, the present classification is based on the systematic and consistent application of four semantic parameters: Entity Type, Time Dependency, Factuality and Presupposition. The relevance of the application of these parameters is not only that they allow to establish a complete and exhaustive typology of adverbial clauses, but also that they form the basis for four implicational hierarchies that determine the distribution of expression formats along the different semantic types of adverbial clauses.
This book also constitutes a contribution to the application of Functional Grammar to the corpus-based analysis of a specific language and, more specifically, to the validation of the hierarchical model of the structure of the clause postulated within this theoretical framework.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Pérez Quintero, María Jesús

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Semantik & Pragmatik
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Computerlinguistik, Korpuslinguistik
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Grammatik, Syntax, Morphologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Tables. List of Figures. 1. Preliminaries. 1.1 Aims and scope of this study. 1.2 The Functional Grammar framework. 1.3 Adverbial subordination in Functional Grammar. 1.4 Functional Grammar and Corpus Linguistics. 2. The formal classification of adverbial clauses. 2.1 Introduction. 2.2 Verbal expression formats in English. 2.3 Problems relating to the expression of adverbial clauses through dependent forms. 3. The semantic classification of adverbial clauses. 3.1 Introduction. 3.2 Parameters and hierarchies. 3.3 Classification. 3.4 Excluded constructions. 4. Adverbial clauses in English. 4.1 Description of expression formats. 4.2 Summary of the expression of adverbial clauses. 5. Semantic hierarchies. 5.1 Introduction. 5.2 The Entity Type Hierarchy. 5.3 The Time Dependency Hierarchy. 5.4 The Factuality Hierarchy. 5.5 The Presupposition Hierarchy. 5.6 Summary. 5.7 Interaction between the hierarchies. 6. Adverbial clauses in Functional Grammar. 6.1 Introduction. 6.2 Underlying representation of the internal structure of adverbial clauses. 6.3 Underlying representation of the external structure of adverbial clauses. 6.4 Representation of the different semantic types of adverbial clauses. 7. Summary. References. Appendix I. Appendix II. Index of subjects.

Über Autor(innen)

María Jesús Pérez Quintero is lecturer of English Linguistics at the Department of English and German Philology, Universidad de La Laguna, since 1991. Her research has mainly been devoted to the study of syntax and the lexicon from a functional perspective. She is the editor of Challenges and Developments in Functional Grammar (La Laguna 2001) and New Perspectives on Argument Structure (Berlin / New York 2002, with Ricardo Marial Usón).