Grammaticalization and Language Change : New Reflections.
This study focuses on "the many careers of negative polarity items", taking a diachronic perspective on NPIs in general and on scalar NPIs in particular. Its main thesis is that scalar NPIs are prototypical NPIs. The downward entailing contexts of NPIs can be explained and made cognitively...
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| Other Authors: | , , |
| Format: | Electronic eBook |
| Language: | English |
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Amsterdam/Philadelphia :
John Benjamins Publishing Company,
2012.
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| Series: | Studies in language companion series.
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | CONNECT |
| Summary: | This study focuses on "the many careers of negative polarity items", taking a diachronic perspective on NPIs in general and on scalar NPIs in particular. Its main thesis is that scalar NPIs are prototypical NPIs. The downward entailing contexts of NPIs can be explained and made cognitively accessible by the pragmatic mechanisms associated with scalar NPIs, viz. the capacity to evoke alternatives (ALT) and the scalar interpretation of these alternatives (SCALE). NPIs with standard contexts of distribution are, or are otherwise tied to, scalar expressions, while NPIs with an idiosyncratic range. |
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| Item Description: | EBSCO eBook Academic Comprehensive Collection North America |
| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (350 pages) |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and indexes. |
| ISBN: | 9789027273239 9027273235 9027205973 9789027205971 9781283895347 128389534X |
