The 11 essays are intended to further the convergence between literary and linguistic approaches to classical texts that has been in swing for the past two decades. Classicists mostly from the Netherl
This volume, meant for both specialists and non-specialists, will appeal to both the growing number of scholars working in, and students needing to investigate, the field of literary linguistics, or s
This book explores new ways of analysing interactions between different linguistic, cultural, and religious communities across the Roman Empire from the reign of Nerva to the Severans (96–235 CE). Bringing together leading scholars in classics with experts in the history of Judaism, Christianity and the Near East, it looks beyond the Greco-Roman binary that has dominated many studies of the period, and moves beyond traditional approaches to intertextuality in its study of the circulation of knowledge across languages and cultures. Its sixteen chapters explore shared ideas about aspects of imperial experience - law, patronage, architecture, the army - as well as the movement of ideas about history, exempla, documents and marvels. As the second volume in the Literary Interactions series, it offers a new and expansive vision of cross-cultural interaction in the Roman world, shedding light on connections that have gone previously unnoticed among the subcultures of a vast and evolving Empir
The power of Shakespeare's complex language - his linguistic playfulness, poetic diction and dramatic dialogue - inspires and challenges students, teachers, actors and theatre-goers across the globe. It has iconic status and enormous resonance, even as language change and the distance of time render it more opaque and difficult. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare's Language provides important contexts for understanding Shakespeare's experiments with language and offers accessible approaches to engaging with it directly and pleasurably. Incorporating both practical analysis and exemplary readings of Shakespearean passages, it covers elements of style, metre, speech action and dialogue; examines the shaping contexts of rhetorical education and social language; test-drives newly available digital methodologies and technologies; and considers Shakespeare's language in relation to performance, translation and popular culture. The Companion explains the present state of understanding whi
The power of Shakespeare's complex language - his linguistic playfulness, poetic diction and dramatic dialogue - inspires and challenges students, teachers, actors and theatre-goers across the globe. It has iconic status and enormous resonance, even as language change and the distance of time render it more opaque and difficult. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare's Language provides important contexts for understanding Shakespeare's experiments with language and offers accessible approaches to engaging with it directly and pleasurably. Incorporating both practical analysis and exemplary readings of Shakespearean passages, it covers elements of style, metre, speech action and dialogue; examines the shaping contexts of rhetorical education and social language; test-drives newly available digital methodologies and technologies; and considers Shakespeare's language in relation to performance, translation and popular culture. The Companion explains the present state of understanding whi
A Companion to the History of the English Language addresses the linguistic, cultural, social, and literary approaches to language study. The first text to offer a complete survey of the field, this v
Quantification forms a significant aspect of cross-linguistic research into both sentence structure and meaning. This book surveys research in quantification starting with the foundational work in the 1970s. It paints a vivid picture of generalized quantifiers and Boolean semantics. It explains how the discovery of diverse scope behaviour in the 1990s transformed the view of quantification, and how the study of the internal composition of quantifiers has become central in recent years. It presents different approaches to the same problems, and links modern logic and formal semantics to advances in generative syntax. A unique feature of the book is that it systematically brings cross-linguistic data to bear on the theoretical issues, covering French, German, Dutch, Hungarian, Russian, Japanese, Telugu (Dravidian), and Shupamem (Grassfield Bantu) and points to formal semantic literature involving quantification in around thirty languages.
Quantification forms a significant aspect of cross-linguistic research into both sentence structure and meaning. This book surveys research in quantification starting with the foundational work in the 1970s. It paints a vivid picture of generalized quantifiers and Boolean semantics. It explains how the discovery of diverse scope behaviour in the 1990s transformed the view of quantification, and how the study of the internal composition of quantifiers has become central in recent years. It presents different approaches to the same problems, and links modern logic and formal semantics to advances in generative syntax. A unique feature of the book is that it systematically brings cross-linguistic data to bear on the theoretical issues, covering French, German, Dutch, Hungarian, Russian, Japanese, Telugu (Dravidian), and Shupamem (Grassfield Bantu) and points to formal semantic literature involving quantification in around thirty languages.
Non-literal language is ubiquitous in everyday life, and while hyperbole is a major part of this, it has so far remained relatively unexplored. This volume provides the first investigation of hyperbole in English, drawing on data from genres such as spoken conversation, TV, newspapers, and literary works from Chaucer to Monty Python. Combining quantitative and qualitative analyses, it uses approaches from semantics, pragmatics, discourse analysis and classical rhetoric to investigate in detail both speaker-centered and emotive aspects of hyperbole, and also addressee-related aspects, such as interpretation and interactional uptake. Illustrated with a range of diachronic case studies, hyperbole is also shown to be a main means of linguistic creativity, and an important contributor to language change. The book concludes with an exploration of the role of hyperbole in political speaking, humour, and literature. Original and in-depth, it will be invaluable to all those working on meaning,
The phenomenon of case has long been a central topic of study in linguistics. While the majority of the literature so far has been on the syntax of case, semantics also has a crucial role to play in how case operates. This book investigates the relationship between semantics and case-marking in the languages of the world, exploring a range of phenomena in which case-assignment is affected by (or affects) meaning. By bringing together data from a wide range of languages, representing different language families, a cross-linguistic picture emerges of the correlation between case and meaning. Different approaches to the phenomena are considered, including both syntactic and semantic analyses, and the question is raised as to whether case can be treated as meaningful, ultimately helping us shed light on the broader connections between grammar and meaning and, moreover, grammar and the human cognition.
This volume considers linguistic, cultural, and literary trends that fed into the creation of Roman satire in second-century BC Rome. Combining approaches drawn from linguistics, Roman history, and Latin literature, the chapters share a common purpose of attempting to assess how Lucilius' satires functioned in the social environment in which they were created and originally read. Particular areas of focus include audiences for satire, the mixing of varieties of Latin in the satires, and relationships with other second-century genres, including comedy, epic, and oratory. Lucilius' satires emerged at a time when Rome's new status as an imperial power and its absorption of influences from the Greek world were shaping Roman identity. With this in mind the book provides new perspectives on the foundational identification of satire with what it means to be Roman and satire's unique status as 'wholly ours' tota nostra among Latin literary genres.
Non-literal language is ubiquitous in everyday life, and while hyperbole is a major part of this, it has so far remained relatively unexplored. This volume provides the first investigation of hyperbole in English, drawing on data from genres such as spoken conversation, TV, newspapers, and literary works from Chaucer to Monty Python. Combining quantitative and qualitative analyses, it uses approaches from semantics, pragmatics, discourse analysis and classical rhetoric to investigate in detail both speaker-centered and emotive aspects of hyperbole, and also addressee-related aspects, such as interpretation and interactional uptake. Illustrated with a range of diachronic case studies, hyperbole is also shown to be a main means of linguistic creativity, and an important contributor to language change. The book concludes with an exploration of the role of hyperbole in political speaking, humour, and literature. Original and in-depth, it will be invaluable to all those working on meaning,
There is at present no overall history of English and British political thought and literature in the early modern period, although new approaches to the writing of its history have taken shape in the past forty to fifty years; and during that time British political history has itself been subjected to intensive revision. This volume, written by directors of seminars at the Folger Institute Center for the History of British Political Thought in Washington DC, attempts to review the period from the English Reformation to the French Revolution, to suggest new ways of studying the articulation of political consciousness and the conduct of political argument, and to point out the extraordinary intellectual and linguistic richness of the ongoing English and British political debate.
The phenomenon of case has long been a central topic of study in linguistics. While the majority of the literature so far has been on the syntax of case, semantics also has a crucial role to play in how case operates. This book investigates the relationship between semantics and case-marking in the languages of the world, exploring a range of phenomena in which case-assignment is affected by (or affects) meaning. By bringing together data from a wide range of languages, representing different language families, a cross-linguistic picture emerges of the correlation between case and meaning. Different approaches to the phenomena are considered, including both syntactic and semantic analyses, and the question is raised as to whether case can be treated as meaningful, ultimately helping us shed light on the broader connections between grammar and meaning and, moreover, grammar and the human cognition.
Syntax – the study of sentence structure – has been at the centre of generative linguistics from its inception and has developed rapidly and in various directions. The Cambridge Handbook of Generative Syntax provides a historical context for what is happening in the field of generative syntax today, a survey of the various generative approaches to syntactic structure available in the literature and an overview of the state of the art in the principal modules of the theory and the interfaces with semantics, phonology, information structure and sentence processing, as well as linguistic variation and language acquisition. This indispensable resource for advanced students, professional linguists (generative and non-generative alike) and scholars in related fields of inquiry presents a comprehensive survey of the field of generative syntactic research in all its variety, written by leading experts and providing a proper sense of the range of syntactic theories calling themselves generative
