During the last thirty years, most linguists and philosophers have assumed that meaning can be represented symbolically and that the mental processing of language involves the manipulation of symbols. Scholars have assembled strong evidence that there must be linguistic representations at several abstract levels—phonological, syntactic, and semantic—and that those representations are related by a describable system of rules. Because meaning is so complex, linguists often posit an equally complex relationship between semantic and other levels of grammar. The Semantics of Syntax is an elegant and powerful analysis of the relationship between syntax and semantics. Noting that meaning is underdetermined by form even in simple cases, Denis Bouchard argues that it is impossible to build knowledge of the world into grammar and still have a describable grammar. He thus proposes simple semantic representations and simple rules to relate linguistic levels. Focusing on a class of French verbs, Bouchard shows how multiple senses can be accounted for by the assumption of a single abstract core meaning along with background information about how objects behave in the world. He demonstrates that this move simplifies the syntax at no cost to the descriptive power of the semantics. In two important final chapters, he examines the consequences of his approach for standard syntactic theories.

This book explores the nature of stative verbs, their eventuality structure, and the patterns of argument realization. The study shows that there is no single class of stative verbs. Rather, several distinct groups of verbs are found: Verbs that undergo a systematic stative/eventive ambiguity; verbs that allow for a stative reading only; and verbs that seem to have an intermediate status (verbs of position and verbs of internal causation). The study concludes that there is a discrete boundary between stative and eventive verbs, excluding any intermediate status. Stativity arises because the aspectual operators DO and BECOME are absent in the lexical-semantic structure. Eventivity arises if one of these is present. A minimalist view on argument realization and event structure completes the book: Theta features on the arguments are checked against the aspectual heads within the verb phrase.

The most general goal of this book is to propose and illustrate a program of research in word semantics that combines some of the methodology and results in linguistic semantics, primarily that of the generative semantics school, with the rigorously formalized syntactic and semantic framework for the analysis of natural languages developed by Richard Montague and his associates, a framework in which truth and denotation with respect to a model are taken as the fundamental semantic notions. I hope to show, both from the linguist's and the philosopher's point of view, not only why this synthesis can be undertaken but also why it will be useful to pursue it. On the one hand, the linguists' decompositions of word meanings into more primitive parts are by themselves inherently incomplete, in that they deal only in distinctions in meaning without providing an account of what mean ings really are. Not only can these analyses be made complete by a model theoretic semantics, but also such an account of these analyses renders them more exact and more readily testable than they could ever be otherwise.

Adjectives are comparatively less well studied than the lexical categories of nouns and verbs. The present volume brings together studies in the syntax and semantics of adjectives. Four of the contributions investigate the syntax of adjectives in a variety of languages (English, French, Mandarin Chinese, Modern Hebrew, Russian, Spanish, and Serbocroatian). The theoretical issues explored include: the syntax of attributive and predicative adjectives, the syntax of nominalized adjectives and the identification of adjectives as a distinct lexical category in Mandarin Chinese. A further four contributions examine different aspects in the semantics of adjectives in English, French, and Spanish, dealing with superlatives, comparatives, and aspect in adjectives. This volume will be of interest to researchers and students in syntax, formal semantics, and language typology.

Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2, University of Freiburg, course: The Syntax and Semantics of the English Verb Phrase, 38 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Blake states that Shakespeare is like food and that we take both very much for granted. It is only when we come across a passage of particular intensity in a play that we question how the language has been employed to achieve that result, just as it is only for exotic dishes that we enquire about the ingredients (1983:1). It is definitely astonishing how the English Language has been influenced by this incredible playwright and poet. However, it is noticeable that the English Language has changed significantly since the Renaissance. Baugh and Cable (1993:235) argue that "the English grammar in the 16th and early 17th century is marked more by the survival of certain forms, constructions and usages that have since [then] disappeared than by any fundamental developments". Therefore, I want to show that the syntax of the verb phrase has changed since Elizabethan times. To achieve this, I will compare verb phrases in this term paper which occur in some of Shakespeare's plays with Modern English verb phrases. First of all, I will define the term "verb phrase". After that we will focus on transitive and intransitive verbs. Transitivity and intransitivity will be examined - and we will analyze how its usage has changed since Shakespearian times. Thirdly, I will talk about impersonal verbs and afterwards we will study reflexive verbs and the mediopassive. Finally, the passive, inchoative and reflexive meaning of transitive verbs will be discussed. The focus will be on the change or the disappearance of these constructions which occurred between the 16th century and today. I will use some Shakespearian plays which will provide a basis in order to illustrate and to underline my arguments.