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Studies in Text Grammar PDF

360 Pages·1973·11.117 MB·Foundations of Language 19
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STUDIES IN TEXT GRAMMAR FOUNDATIONS OF LANGUAGE SUPPLEMENTARY SERIES Editors: MORRIS HALLE, MIT P. HARTMANN, Konstanz K. KUNJUNNI RAJA, Madras BENSON MATES, Univ. of California J. F. STAAL, Univ. of California PIETER A. VERBURG, Groningen JOHN W. M. VERHAAR (Secretary), Jakarta VOLUME 19 STUDIES IN TEXT GRAMMAR Edited by J. S. PETOFI and H. RIESER D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY DORDRECHT-HOLLAND / BOSTON-U.S.A. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 73-75766 ISBN-13: 978-94-010-2638-3 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-010-2636-9 DOl: 10.1007/978-94-010-2636-9 Published by D. Reidel Publishing Company, P.O. Box 17, Dordrecht, Holland Sold and distributed in the U.S.A., Canada, and Mexico by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Inc. 306 Dartmouth Street, Boston, Mass. 02116, U.S.A. All Rights Reserved Copyright © 1973 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1st edition 1973 No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher TABLE OF CONTENTS PETER HAR TMANN / Foreword IX JANOS S. PETOFI and HANNES RIESER / Overview 1 TEUN A. VAN DIJK / Text Grammar and Text Logic 17 1. Introduction 17 2. The Hypothetic Form of Text Grammar 19 3. Formal Logic and Natural Logic 21 4. Text Logic 28 4.1. Introduction 28 4.2. Proofs, Systems and Texts 31 4.3. The Basic Apparatus 33 4.4. Quantification and Identification 35 4.5. Identity 42 4.6. Partial Identity, Inclusion and Elements of Sets 50 4.7. Intensional Coherence 51 4.8. Intensional Identity, Predicates 53 4.9. Propositions, Presuppositions, Consequences, Connectives 56 4.10. A Provisional List of Derivational Principles of Text Logic 64 4.11. Example of Natural Derivation 66 5. Summary 73 Bibliography 74 IRENA BELLERT / On Various Solutions of the Problem of Presup- positions 79 WERNER KUMMER / Pragmatic Implication 96 1. Elements of a Pragmatic Language 96 2. Truth Conditions for Formulas with Series of Epistemic Operators with Alternating Subscripts 99 3. Pragmatic Implication 101 4. Other Types of Pragmatic Implications 107 5. Summary 112 WOLFRAMK. KOCK / Time and Text: Towards an Adequate Heuristics 113 1. Preliminaries 113 2. Note on the 'Meta-Theoretical Paradigm' 125 VI TABLE OF CONTENTS 3. Brief Sketch of a Model of Language Functioning 133 3.1. The Anthropo-Cybernetic Model of the System 'Man-World' 133 3.2. Language 146 3.3. Text 160 3.4. Time 170 4. TimeandText 176 5. Concluding Remarks 200 Bibliography 201 JANOS S. PETOFI / Towards an Empirically Motivated Grammatical Theory of Verbal Texts 205 I. SENTENCE GRAMMARS AND TEXT GRAMMARS 205 O. Introduction 205 1. State of the Grammatical Theory of Verbal Texts 205 2. Some General Questions Concerning the Set-Up of Sentence Grammars 207 3. Some General Questions Concerning the Set-Up of Text Grammars 216 II. A 'NOT FIXED LINEARITY TEXT GRAMMAR'. THE PRESENT ST AGE OF ITS DEVELOPMENT 222 O. Introduction 222 1. The Formation Rule System 226 2. The Transformation Rule System 237 3. On the Structure of the Lexicon 243 4. The Algorithm for the Analysis of Texts 255 5. The Algorithm for the Synthesis of Texts 256 6. The Algorithm for the Comparison of Texts 268 7. Concluding Remarks 269 Bibliography 273 HANNES RIESER / Sentence Grammar, Text Grammar, and the Eval uation Problem. Some Remarks Concerning the Theoretical Foun- dation and the Possible Application of Text Grammars 276 1. Some Remarks on the M eta-Theoretical Postulates and Conventions to Be Used 278 2. Some Informal Remarks on the Structure of Gd1, i.e. the Phrase Structure Grammar (PSG) to Be Used 279 3. Specification of the Categories Used 281 3.1. Main Categories of VNT 281 3.2. Sub-Categories 281 3.3. Numerical and Other Indices 281 3.4. Semantic Relations 282 T ABLE OF CONTENTS VII 4. A Sentence Grammar G Generating a Set of Sentences (a Lan- dt guage L~ of which the Sentence SAT[IMP](1)~ is an element 282 4.1. Syntactic Rules 282 4.2. Semantic Rules 283 4.3. Lexical Entries with Specified Readings 284 4.4. An Applicability Condition for Rule (*14) 285 5. Some Arguments for the Delimitation ofa Sub-Grammar jG Based dt on Syntax and Semantics, i.e. a Grammar Enumerating only Sen tences (Norms, Directives) Belonging to the German Language of Jurisdiction 285 6. On the Derivation of Synonymous and Hyperonymous Sentences by Grammars of the Type jG 291 dt 7. Some Remarks on the Evaluation of jG 295 dt Bibliography 298 JENS IHWE / On the Validation of Text-Grammars in the 'Study of Literature' 300 Abstract 300 O. Preface 300 1. The Validation ofT ext-Grammars in the Study ofL iterature 301 2. The Empirical Content of the Study of Literature 310 3. Reconstruction of the Text Concept 332 Bibliography 347 FOREWORD If we consider how theoretical operations belonging to the methodological inventory of linguistics are carried out (i.e. the way linguistic theories are set up), three main criteria suggest themselves for classifying them: (1) Both, nature and type of the aims of the scientific knowledge applied which allow to specify the epistemological interests as well as the theoretical impact constituting the purpose of linguistic operations; (2) the nature of the intellectual procedures in connection with which a set of intersubjectively acceptable operations should guarantee that current postulates of the theory of science be maintained; (3) the set of data serving as an empirical basis for the theories to be estab lished on the one hand and as a correlate for the further development, the testing and the evaluation of theories on the other hand. It is to be considered a basic concept (as well as a motive) of current text linguistic research that due to the linguistic analysis of discourses a further development of linguistics has set in or is still to be achieved as regards the three criteria mentioned above. Therefore, if we want to estimate text-linguistic approaches (or concepts), works (methods), or knowledge (results) we should take the view allowing for the general valuation of the linguistic discipline or one of its sub-disciplines. This should be done with respect to the contributions gathered in this volume as well. Considering that the different steps and research-programs should be judged above all according to their global perspective, such a suggestion does not seem to be out of place. The following passages try to make this perspec tive clearer and to specify it by way of investigating the criteria mentioned more closely, namely the aims, the set of theoretical operations, and the problems of the empirical basis. It has been mentioned already that the linguistic analysis of texts changes the aims of linguistics as regards their nature and their type. Granted that this assumption can be accepted, this implies the following: the type of epistemological interest changes because the linguist now deals with objects (i.e. discourses) which have to be considered embedding structures (frames) for linguistic phenomena constituting the domain of the various sentence grammatical approaches. The fact that discourses themselves may be de scribed by means of theoretically determined complex embedding operations x FOREWORD is, of course, no valid objection against the textlinguistic approach. It is quite clear, however, that the epistemological interest is now concentrated on objects and relations between objects of a much more inclusive kind. There fore the categories of the structural descriptions used, the rules of grammar, and the corresponding diagrams try to mirror the structural properties of these objects and the relations between them. From this it follows that the type of epistemological interest changes as well: objects (i.e. sets of discourses) have to be treated, the description of which requires more dimensions than sentence-grammatical descriptions. This is due to the fact that the linguistic construct 'text' denotes the structure and the manifestation of linguistic objects observed in verbal communica tion. Only those objects which are not reduced by the various abstracting or idealizing methods of scientific analysis show all the various functions tied up with language in its ordinary use. Precisely these functions may then be considered as the legitimate objects of linguistic investigation and theoretical reconstruction. This 'multi-level-dimensionality' of the text-analytic tools to be developed corresponds closely to the plurality of disciplines involved, if pragmatic and other functions of discourses should receive an adequate theoretical treat ment. Some characteristics of this development may be inferred from the fact that logico-semantic languages are used for the description of the semantics of discourses, that the semantic analysis of discourses is - at least some times - linked up closely with the theory of literature and, that the interest in rhetoric, psychology etc. is still growing. It should be taken into considera tion, however, that the participation of the various disciplines mentioned rests upon the delimitation of disciplines established and accepted thus far, i.e. disciplines like linguistics, logics, psychology, theory of literature etc. Especially two characteristics are closely linked up with this development in linguistics as outlined above: In the first place it is more and more rec ognized that elaborate linguistic operations play a basic role as regards the semantic analysis of discourses, therefore the interest in developing adequate heuristic procedures is still going on. Discourses are regarded as objects the complex treatment of which has to be developed before the process of theoretical idealization (reduction, formalization) can be carried out successfully. In other words: Sound hypotheses about the complex prop erties of the set of objects/phenomena in question have to be established first, then it will be possible and reasonable to select subsets constituting the main (although preliminary) domain of scientific investigation. In the second place a growing interest for the different domains ofa pplication of text-gram matical research can be observed. The reason for this is the fact mentioned above that language is normally used in communication, discourses are there- FOREWORD XI fore to be considered as the primarily observable empirical data. Consequent ly, their investigation will be of immediate relevance for solving the basic theoretical questions of an empirically founded pragmatics. The changes within the domain of operations used in linguistic methodolo gy closely correspond to the current trends of the development of the lin guistic intentions as it has been briefly outlined above. Roughly, intellectual procedures of scientific importance may be classified into procedures belong ing to the proper treatment of the objects in question and into procedures leading to the controllable acquiring of empirically founded results, in other words, into analytic (mainly inductive) procedures and (mainly deductive) procedures, allowing for the set-up of hypotheses to be tested and evaluated such that some decision as to the empirical validity, the equivalence of theories etc. can be achieved. The first group is intended to serve the aims of structural analysis, it contains operations such as segmentation and identification, the com parison of objects, classification, the set-up of classes of relational properties etc. The second group permits the description and systematization of the outcome of the structural analysis by means of some well-defined descrip tional or theoretical language, it contains operations such as symbolizing, the proper set up of hypotheses, of definitions, the classification of hypotheses according to the theoretical status of the descriptional language they are formulated in, the rules of inference and deduction to be used etc. From the methodological point of view the theoretical status of the operations enu merated clearly remains the same, it should be noticed, however, that the domain is changed: text-linguistic research requires classificatory procedures and operations different from those applied in sentence-grammatical re search. Above all, classes of elements and semantic functions of a different kind have to be discovered and to be formulated, e.g. the semantic relations between sentences, sequences of sentences and discourses. In addition to this, operations originally belonging to the methodological inventory of other disciplines are used, e.g. operations adopted from logics, psychology, sociol ogy, communication theory, cybernetics etc. In this connection such ques tions have to be solved as whether a specifically set up text grammar is necessary, and if so, how it should be established, how textual coherence should be described and explained, which classes (e.g. syntactic, semantic referential, ontological) it is determined by etc. The reason for the changes mentioned, which partly even necessitate methodological revaluations and improvements, may be seen in the fact that due to the linguistic analysis of discourses the empirical basis of linguistics has been changed, more precisely, expanded. Therefore not only theoretical statements, i.e. statements in some theoretical language based upon the ex panded set of objects under investigation, have to be developed and evaluat-

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