Questo contributo esamina la frontiera discussa tra la frase e il testo ponendosi esplicitamente l’obiettivo di identificare criteri dirimenti. La frase semplice e il testo rientrano in due tipi ...diversi di strutture: il nucleo della frase è una struttura discendente formata da relazioni grammaticali, mentre il testo è una struttura concettuale ascendente. La differenziazione, dunque, è immediata. Le difficoltà nascono se confrontiamo il testo con la frase complessa, e in particolare con la forma coordinativa. La frase complessa che contiene una subordinata non argomentale, la frase complessa coordinativa e la giustapposizione, che è l’embrione del testo, condividono la funzione di collegare processi. Mentre la frase complessa subordinativa e la giustapposizione si distinguono immediatamente sul piano della struttura, la coordinazione e la giustapposizione sono entrambe strutture ascendenti; di conseguenza, la loro differenziazione rimanda alla differenza tra le congiunzioni coordinative, che collegano frasi sul piano grammaticale, e i connettivi testuali, che sono avverbi o avverbiali in grado di stabilire ponti concettuali tra processi appoggiandosi a relazioni anaforiche in assenza di connessione grammaticale.
Di fronte a questo compito, il contributo si pone due obiettivi. In primo luogo, si propone di mettere a punto, a partire dall’osservazione degli esempi più chiari di congiunzioni e di avverbiali anaforici, criteri affidabili in grado di affrontare la classificazione dei casi dubbi. In secondo luogo, si chiede se le pause deboli e le virgole, loro equivalenti funzionali nel testo scritto, possano essere considerate congiunzioni quando si collocano tra due enunciati. La risposta che sostengo è negativa. Le strutture della sintassi, quelle nucleari, come quelle impegnate nella messa in opera della prospettiva comunicativa, sono autonome dalle pause e dai segni di interpunzione, con i quali interagiscono con esiti che possono essere non marcati o marcati. Nel primo caso, le pause e i segni di punteggiatura assecondano le scansioni sintattiche; nel secondo, i due ordini di strutture entrano in conflitto, con effetti osservabili sulla prospettiva comunicativa.
Ma però... On the borderline between sentence and text
This contribution examines the discussed borderline between sentence and text with the explicit aim of identifying diriment criteria. The simple sentence and the text fall into two different types of structures: the sentence core is a descending structure formed by grammatical relations, while the text is an ascending conceptual structure. The differentiation, therefore, is immediate. Difficulties arise if we compare the text with the complex sentence, and in particular with the coordinative form. The complex sentence containing a non-argumental subordinate, the coordinative complex sentence and the juxtaposition, which is the embryo of the text, share the function of linking processes. While the subordinative complex sentence and the juxtaposition are immediately distinguishable on the level of structure, the co-ordinative sentence and the juxtaposition are both ascending structures; consequently, their differentiation depends on the difference between co-ordinative conjunctions, which connect sentences on the grammatical level, and textual connectives, which are adverbs or adverbials capable of establishing conceptual bridges between processes through anaphoric relations in the absence of grammatical connection. Faced with this task, the contribution has two objectives. Firstly, it proposes to develop reliable criteria capable of dealing with the classification of doubtful cases. Secondly, it asks whether weak pauses and commas, their functional equivalents in the written text, can be considered conjunctions when placed between two utterances. The answer I argue for is negative. The structures of syntax, both the nuclear ones and those that are functional to communicative perspective, are autonomous from pauses and punctuation marks, with which they interact with outcomes that may be either unmarked or marked. In the former case, the pauses and punctuation marks support the syntactic scansion; in the latter, the two orders of structure come into conflict, with observable effects on communicative perspective.
Interclausal relations are traditionally studied within the framework of the complex sentence of endocentric subordinative form. However, there is no essential correlation between interclausal ...linkage and complex sentence. Interclausal relations are not meanings of subordinate clauses but conceptual relations that bridge saturated processes of equal rank. According to this premise, complex sentence is only one option for the expression of interclausal relations, along with text. Moreover, if we compare the competing structures, it turns out that the unmarked form of expression is not complex sentence but text. While a complex sentence imposes a hierarchic syntactic structure on a symmetric conceptual structure, the structure of the text and the conceptual structure of interclausal relations are isomorphic. As a marked option, the choice of complex sentence requires a specific functional motivation, which does not involve the ideation of the link itself but the communicative perspective: its function is to impose a layered communicative perspective on the connexion, which is distributed between foreground and background information.
The combinatory restriction known in linguistics as selection restrictions are generally assumed to be a kind of linguistic structures, either syntactic or semantic, or at best cognitive structures. ...The idea discussed in this paper is that selection restrictions, although relevant for the description of complex meanings of linguistic expressions, do not belong to the structure of either language or cognition. Instead, they are criteria for conceptual consistency. They form a layer of shared presuppositions that lie at the grounds of consistent human behaviour and therefore of consistent thought and expression and belong to a natural ontology shared far beyond the boundaries of a given linguistic community.
Living metaphors are interpretations of inconsistent complex meanings, which are typically open to more than one interpretative option. The green woods laugh, which attributes a human behaviour to ...woods, opens up four options. Besides (1) a literal one, it depicts a fictive world; it allows for three figurative interpretations: two metaphors-namely, (2) some sounds in woods are seen as laughs, and (3) laughing woods are seen as human beings-and (4) a metonymy-people walking in the woods laugh. The hypothesis is that the manifold relation between conflictual meanings and figures is not a form of ambiguity but is justified by the inconsistency of the input meaning, whose specific inner conceptual structure justifies the access to one, two or three figures. The analysis also underlines the specificity of figurative interpretation as distinct from pragmatic interpretation.
The distinction between arguments and margins within a simple nuclear sentence is sharp at conceptual level in that it is grounded in explicit relevance criteria: arguments are saturated referential ...noun phrases that are essential for the integrity of the process; different layers of margins enrich different kinds of processes according to different consistency requirements. If one observes the syntactic structure of linguistic expressions, on the other hand, the same distinction seems to shade into a sort of continuum owing to two orders of factors. First, there is a cleavage between the model sentence, whose main function should be the expression of the process, and the utterances actually documented in texts and corpora, whose structure is shaped by the incommensurate function to adapt the structure of the process to the communicative dynamism of a text. Moreover, within the model sentence itself, the coding regime of arguments and the coding regime of margins shadow into one another: some margins are coded, like arguments, through formal grammatical relations, while some arguments are coded, like margins, directly as conceptual relations through a set of forms of expression motivated by their conceptual content. In spite of these obstacles, the conceptual distinction between arguments and margins and the hierarchy of margins can be identified at the level of model sentence thanks to adequate and differentiated criteria. These criteria are formal where the difference of coding regime draws a sharp formal distinction between arguments and margins, and conceptual and textual where the structure of the forms of expression neutralises the distinction. Conceptual and textual criteria also make the identification of a clear hierarchy of margins possible.
Il mio amico e collega Fabrizio Frasnedi mi ha aiutato a costruire un ponte tra la mia formazione filosofica e il mio impegno nella descrizione linguistica suggerendomi che la ricerca grammaticale ...aveva necessità urgente di un’esplorazione critica dei presupposti, che è un compito tipico della filosofia. Quando l’indagine è fondata su presupposti giusti, gli errori empirici possono sempre essere corretti, e la scoperta può progredire. Quando i presupposti sono sbagliati, viceversa, l’analisi empirica porta a contraddizioni e gli errori non possono essere corretti. Come gesto di gratitudine, vorrei dedicare al ricordo di Fabrizio alcune riflessioni maturate alla fine del mio percorso di ricerca. L’associazione fruttuosa tra l’analisi dei presupposti e la ricerca grammaticale mostra che la grammatica non è una monarchia assoluta ma una confederazione tra due territori retti da principi diversi: ogni frase contiene un nucleo formato da relazioni grammaticali autonome arricchito da strati di relazioni concettuali marginali affidate a forme di espressione strumentali e iconiche. Le relazioni grammaticali rispondono a regole rigide all’interno del confine di frase, mentre le forme di espressione delle relazioni concettuali autonome appartengono a repertori di opzioni aperte alla scelta a distribuite tra la struttura grammaticale della frase e la struttura dei testi coerenti. From philosophy to grammar: Fabrizio’s influence on my work My friend and colleague Fabrizio Frasnedi helped me to build a bridge between my former education as a philosopher and my engagement in linguistic description by persuading me that a critical exploration of presuppositions, which is a typical philosophical task, was badly needed in grammatical research. When research is grounded on the right presuppositions, empirical errors can be corrected and discovery may progress. When the presuppositions are wrong, empirical analysis falls into contradiction, and errors cannot be corrected. To show my gratitude to Fabrizio, I would like to dedicate some reflections at the conclusion of my research to his memory. The fruitful association between the analysis of presuppositions and empirical research shows that grammar is not as a monocratic kingdom but a confederation between two territories ruled by very different principles: each sentence contains a core formed by autonomous grammatical relationships enriched by different layers of marginal conceptual relationships entrusted to instrumental and iconic forms of expression. Grammatical relationships are governed by rules within the boundaries of sentence structure, while the forms of expression of autonomous conceptual relationships belong to sets of options open to choice and distributed between the grammatical structure of sentences and the structure of coherent texts.
The shaping of complex meanings depends on punctual and relational coding and inferencing. Coding is viewed as a vector which can run either from expression to content or from concepts to ...(linguistic) forms to mark independent conceptual relations. While coding relies on systematic resources internal to language, inferencing essentially depends on a layered system of autonomous shared conceptual structures, which include both cognitive models and consistency criteria grounded in a natural ontology. Inference guided by coding is not a residual pragmatic device but it is a direct way to long-term conceptual structures that guide the connection of meanings.The interaction of linguistic forms and concepts is particularly clear in conceptual conflict where conflictual complex meanings provide insights into the roots of significance and the linguistic structure of metaphors.Complementing a formal analysis of linguistic structures with a substantive analysis of conceptual structures, a philosophical grammar provides insights from both formal and functional approaches toward a more profound understanding of how language works in constructing and communicating complex meanings. This monograph is ideally addressed to linguists, philosophers and psychologists interested in language as symbolic form and as an instrument of human action rooted in a complex conceptual and cognitive landscape.
Existen diferentes tipos de metáforas, con diferentes propiedades gramaticales, conceptuales y semánticas. Cada una de ellas representa problemas específicos para el traductor. El propósito de este ...artículo es llamar la atención sobre estos diferentes tipos de metáforas y sobre sus propiedades, centrándonos en aquellos que podrían representar un desafío para el traductor.
Questo saggio intende fornire alcune basi concettuali utili per superare uno dei difetti più gravi degli approcci tradizionali alla grammatica, e in particolare alla sintassi, e quindi all’analisi ...logica: si tratta della mancanza di coerenza interna. Secondo l’autore, alla base di questo difetto c’è la mancata distinzione tra relazioni grammaticali indipendenti e forme di espressione motivate al servizio di relazioni concettuali. La sintassi affronta problemi di ordine concettuale – la connessione di concetti atomici in significati complessi di frasi, o processi – con mezzi formali. L’approccio valenziale alla grammatica ha il pregio di porre in termini corretti il problema concettuale – la struttura argomentale del verbo – ma condivide con gli approcci tradizionali la tendenza a non distinguere la struttura del problema concettuale dalla struttura delle soluzioni formali che ogni lingua offre; il presupposto è che le strutture sintattiche rispecchino le strutture concettuali. La struttura concettuale del processo e la struttura sintattica delle espressioni, viceversa, non sono isomorfe, e la loro interazione dà luogo a esiti variabili. Nel nucleo del processo, una struttura grammaticale formale autonoma impone ai concetti uno stampo rigido, in un regime di codifica che ho chiamato relazionale. Mano a mano che ci si allontana dal nucleo, la pressione dei concetti porta verso strutture sintattiche motivate, iconiche, in un regime di codifica che ho chiamato puntuale. Trasposta sul piano didattico, dell’analisi logica, questa premessa metodologica sarà in grado di fornire a una grammatica pedagogica criteri distinti per analizzare in modo appropriato sia le strutture formali, sia le forme di espressione di strutture concettuali. Oltre a rendere possibile un’analisi appropriata delle forme di espressione differenziate degli argomenti, la distinzione fra relazioni grammaticali e forme di espressione iconiche di relazioni concettuali apre la strada a un’analisi rigorosa degli strati di espressioni marginali opzionali che circondano il nucleo. Valency and grammar: the expression of subjects and the stratification of margins This essay aims to provide some useful conceptual bases to overcome one of the most serious flaws of traditional approaches to grammar, in particular to syntax, and therefore to logical analysis: the lack of internal coherence. According to the author, the basis of this defect is the lack of distinction between independent grammatical relationships and forms of expression motivated in the service of conceptual relations. The syntax addresses conceptual problems – the connection of atomic concepts in complex meanings of sentences or processes – by formal means. A valid approach to grammar has the merit of correctly expressing the conceptual problem – the valency scheme of the verb – but shares the tendency of the traditional approaches to not distinguish the structure of the conceptual problem from the structure of the formal solutions that each language offers; the assumption is that the syntactic structures reflect the conceptual structures. The conceptual structure of the process and the syntactic structure of expressions, on the other hand, are not isomorphic and their interaction gives rise to variable outcomes. At the heart of the process, an autonomous formal grammatical structure imposes a rigid mold on concepts, in a coding regime referred to as “relational”. As we move away from the nucleus, the pressure of concepts leads to motivated, iconic syntactic structures, in a coding regime referred to as “punctual”. Transposed on the didactic level of logical analysis, this methodological premise provides a pedagogical grammar with distinct criteria for analyzing both formal structures and the forms of expression of conceptual structures in an appropriate way. In addition to making an appropriate analysis of differentiated forms of expression of arguments possible, the distinction between grammatical relationships and the iconic forms of expression of conceptual relationships opens the way for a rigorous analysis of the layers of optional marginal expressions surrounding the core.
Si elle n’est pas confinée dans les limites traditionnelles de la phrase complexe subordinative contenant une proposition dite causale, l’analyse des relations entre procès, ou relations ...transphrastiques, s’ouvre à un riche éventail de moyens d’expression différents pour chaque relation, parmi lesquels on compte un certain nombre de noms et de verbes métaphoriques. Dans le domaine de la cause, les expressions métaphoriques puisent à quatre domaines sources : le déplacement dans l’espace physique, l’écoulement d’un cours d’eau, le développement d’un végétal et la génération d’êtres animés. En termes distributionnels, tant les verbes que les noms se trouvent en position de pivots prédicatifs dans une phrase simple qui prend la cause et l’effet comme arguments, le plus souvent en forme nominale. Les mêmes noms et verbes métaphoriques s’ouvrent aussi à l’expression, dans des conditions structurales spécifiques, du motif rétrospectif et du but. Si nous comparons l’expression de la cause et du but, par ailleurs, il est intéressant de remarquer l’absence, dans l’expression de la cause, tant de locutions prépositionnelles que d’adverbiaux anaphoriques encapsulant des noms métaphoriques, deux structures avec lesquelles l’expression du but est par contre très riche.
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