Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T04:15:48.619Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On the interpretation of VP inversion in American English1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Betty J. Birner  and
Gregory L. Ward
Betty J. Birner
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, Northwestern University2016 Sheridan Road, Evanston, Illinois 60208-4090, USA
Gregory L. Ward
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, Northwestern University2016 Sheridan Road, Evanston, Illinois 60208-4090, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Previous functional analyses of American English inversion constructions (for example, Hartvigson & Jakobsen, 1974; Gary, 1976; Green, 1980, 1982) have recognized – either implicitly or explicitly – that inverted sentences and their canonical-word-order counterparts are semantically equivalent. None the less, in Ward & Birner (to appear), we describe a non-truth-conditional asymmetry between the interpretation of certain VP inversions and that of their canonical-word-order counterparts.2 Consider (1a) and (2b) in the following context: (1) Free elections were held yesterday in Czechoslovakia for the first time since the war. (a) The main opposition party was losing the election. (b) Losing the election was the main opposition party. (c) The main opposition party lost the election.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , March 1992 , pp. 1 - 12
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Akmajian, A., Steele, S. & Wasow, T. (1979). The category AUX in universal grammar. LIn 10. 1–64.Google Scholar
Babby, L. H. (1980). Existential sentences and negation in Russian. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Karoma.Google Scholar
Bennett, M. & Partee, B. (1972). Toward the logic of tense and aspect in English. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club.Google Scholar
Birner, B. (in preparation). The discourse functions of English inversion. Ph.D. dissertation, Northwestern University.Google Scholar
Birner, B. & Ward, G. (1989). A semantico-pragmatic taxonomy of English inversion. Paper presented at the LSA Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Bresnan, J. & Kanerva, J. (1989). Locative inversion in Chichewa. LIn 20. 1–50.Google Scholar
Coopmans, P. (1989). Where stylistic and syntactic processes meet: locative inversion in English. Lg 65. 728–751.Google Scholar
Culicover, P. & Rochemont, M. (1990). English focus constructions and the theory of grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dowty, D. (1979). Word meaning and Montague grammar. Dordrecht: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Firbas, J. (1964). On defining the theme in functional sentence analysis. Travaux linguistiques de Prague 1. 267–280.Google Scholar
Firbas, J. (1965). Non-thematic subjects in contemporary English. Travaux linguistiques de Prague 2. 39–56.Google Scholar
Gary, N. (1976). Discourse functions of some root transformations. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club.Google Scholar
Gazdar, G. (1979). Pragmatics: implicature, presupposition, and logical form. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Green, G. (1980). Some wherefores of English inversions. Lg 56. 582–601.Google Scholar
Green, G. (1982). Colloquial and literary uses of inversions. In Tannen, D. (ed.) Spoken and written language: exploring orality and literacy. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex. 119–153.Google Scholar
Green, G. (1985). The description of inversions in Generalised Phrase Structure Grammar. In Niepokuj, M., Van Clay, M., Nikiforidou, V. & Feder, D. (eds) Proceedings of the 11th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. Berkeley: University of California Press. 117–146.Google Scholar
Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In Cole, P. and Morgan, J. (eds) Syntax and semantics, vol. 3: Speech acts. New York: Academic Press. 41–58.Google Scholar
Grice, H. P. (1978). Further notes on logic and conversation. In Cole, P. (ed.) Syntax and semantics, vol. 9: Pragmatics. New York: Academic Press. 113–128.Google Scholar
Hartvigson, H. & Jakobsen, L. (1974). Inversion in present-day English. Odense: Odense University Press.Google Scholar
Hirschberg, J. (1985). A theory of scalar implicature. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Hjortsberg, W. (1969). Alp. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Horn, L. (1972). On the semantic properties of logical operators in English. Ph.D. dissertation, UCLA. Published Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club, 1976.Google Scholar
Horn, L. (1984). Toward a new taxonomy for pragmatic inference: Q-based and R-based implicature. In Schiffrin, D. (ed.) Meaning, form and use in context: linguistic applications. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. 11–42.Google Scholar
Horn, L. (1986). Presupposition, theme and variations. In Farley, A., Farley, P. & McCullough, K.-E. (eds) Papers from the parasession on pragmatics and grammatical theory. Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago. 168–192.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, R. (1972). Semantic interpretation in generative grammar. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Karttunen, L. & Peters, S. (1979). Conventional implicature. In Oh, C.-K. and Dinneen, D. (eds) Syntax and semantics, vol. 11: Presupposition. New York: Academic Press, 1–56.Google Scholar
Levin, L. (1985). Operations on lexical forms: unaccusative rules in Germanic languages. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Levine, R. (1989). On focus inversion constructions and the role of a SUBCAT stack in phrase structure grammar. Unpublished ms, Columbus, Ohio.Google Scholar
McCawley, J. (1978). Conversational implicature and the lexicon. In Cole, P. (ed.) Syntax and semantics, vol. 9: Pragmatics. New York: Academic Press. 245–259.Google Scholar
Prince, E. (1981a). Topicalization, Focus-Movement, and Yiddish-Movement: a pragmatic differentiation. In Alford, D., Hunold, K., McCaulay, M. & Walter, J. (eds) Proceedings of the 7th annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. Berkeley: University of California Press. 249–264.Google Scholar
Prince, E. (1981b). Toward a taxonomy of given/new information. In Cole, P. (ed.) Radical pragmatics. New York: Academic Press. 223–254.Google Scholar
Prince, E. (1986). On the syntactic marking of presupposed open propositions. In Farley, A., Farley, P. & McCullough, K.-E. (eds) Papers from the parasession on pragmatics and grammatical theory. Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago. 208–222.Google Scholar
Reinhart, T. (1976). The syntactic domain of anaphora. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Stump, G. (1985). The semantic variability of absolute constructions. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Terkel, S. (1974). Working. New York: Avon.Google Scholar
Ward, G. (1988). The semantics and pragmatics of preposing. New York & London: Garland.Google Scholar
Ward, G. & Birner, B. (to appear). VP inversion and aspect in written texts. In Stein, D. (ed.) The pragmatics and comprehension of written texts. The Hague: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Wilson, D. & Sperber, D. (1979). Ordered entailments: an alternative to presuppositional theories. In Oh, C.-K. & Dinneen, D. (eds) Syntax and semantics, vol. 11: Presupposition. New York: Academic Press. 299–323.Google Scholar