Betty J Birner
Biographic Data
| ID | 731593 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Betty J Birner |
| GIVEN NAMES | Betty J |
| FAMILY NAME | Birner |
| SIGNATURE | BIRNER B J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Northern Illinois University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 88 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1992 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Possessives vs. indefinites: Pragmatic inference and determiner choice in English
Preview this article: Possessives vs. indefinites, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/iprapip.2.1-2.06bir-1.gif
On constructions as a pragmatic category
When a language provides multiple syntactic options for conveying the same semantic content, these options generally serve distinct discourse functions. In some cases, however, they serve the same discourse function while being in complementary distribution syntactically. This article argues that in these instances, the syntactic variants constitute Alloforms of a single, more abstract construction. Pairs of such alloforms include inversion and l…
Ellen F. Prince
Ellen F. Prince Gregory Ward, Betty J. Birner, Laurence R. Horn, Barbara Abbott, Pauline Jacobson, and Jerrold M. Sadock Ellen F. Prince, president of the Linguistic Society of America in 2008 and a major figure in the fields of discourse, pragmatics, and information structure, died peacefully in her home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on October 24, 2010, of lung cancer. She was sixty-six. At the time of her death, Ellen was Professor Emeritus (…
Information Structure and Syntactic Structure
This article explores the interface between syntactic structure and information structure - in particular, the broad generalizations that can be made between certain noncanonical word orders and information-structural constraints on their use. Various ways of implementing the distinction between 'given' and 'new' information are described, and several classes of word orders (such as preposings, postposings, argument reversals, and clefts) are dis…
Functional Compositionality and the Interaction of Discourse Constraints
We argue for the existence of functionally complex constructions whose elements compositionally impose discourse-functional constraints on the use of the whole. In particular, we examine th-clefts (as in That's John who wrote the book), equatives with epistemic would and demonstrative subjects (as in That would be John), and simple equatives with demonstrative subjects (as in That's John). We show that, contra previous approaches, the latter two …
Discourse functions at the periphery: Noncanonical word order in English
Speakers have a wide range of noncanonical syntactic options that allow them to mark the information status of the various elements within a proposition. The correlation between a construction and constraints on information status, however, is not arbitrary; there are broad, consistent, and predictive generalizations that can be made about the information-packaging functions served by preposing, postposing, and argument-reversing constructions. S…
Information Status and Noncanonical Word Order in English
Information Status and Noncanonical Word Order in English
This work provides a comprehensive discourse-functional account of three classes of noncanonical constituent placement in English – preposing, postposing, and argument reversal – and shows how their interaction is accounted for in a principled and predictive way. In doing so, it details the variety of ways in which information can be 'given' or 'new' and shows how an understanding of this variety allows us to account for the distribution of these…
Response to Abbott
Abbott raises two major objections to our analysis of definites in there-sentences (Ward & Birner 1995): first, that it uses the term HEARER-NEW in a way that differs significantly from the original definition given in Prince 1992, and second, that it fails to account for the data. We will address these issues in turn. It is true that we extend the use of the terms hearer-old and hearer-new (and, correspondingly, discourse-old and discourse-new) …
The linguistic realization of inferrable information
A Crosslinguistic Study of Postposing in Discourse
In this paper we examine constraints on the use of seven sentence-types permitting the non-canonical appearance of the logical subject in post-verbal position: inversion in English and in Farsi, presentational and existential there-sentences in English, presentational ci-sentences and subject inversion in Italian, and es+subject postposing in Yiddish. We show that these sentence-types share a common discourse constraint: each requires the NP in n…
Functional constraints on inversion in English and Farsi
In this paper we demonstrate that discourse-functional constraints on inversion in Farsi correspond to those on inversion in English despite differences in word order. Farsi canonically exhibits SXV word order, but permits a marked ordering of XSV. Although this word order is like that of English topicalization, it does not share the discourse function of topicalization in English; instead, Farsi XSV word order corresponds functionally to English…
Pragmatic constraints on the verb in English inversion
Many researchers have argued that the verbs appearing in English inversion can be characterized as belonging to a particular syntactic or semantic class. For example, it has been claimed that such verbs are exclusively unaccusative (Levin, 1983; Coopmans, 1989; Hoekstra and Mulder, 1990; Watanabe, 1994, inter alia), exclusively presentational (e.g., Bresnan, 1994), or exclusively verbs of existence or appearance (e.g., Penhallurick, 1984). A stud…
Definiteness and the English Existential
Numerous attempts have been made to place restrictions on the occurrence of formally definite NPs in English existential there- sentences. The wide range of definite NPs found in this construction, however, precludes any (noncircular) characterization of such a definiteness effect based on linguistic form alone. Nonetheless, previous functional analyses of definites in there -sentences have also failed to account for all of the problematic data i…
Uniqueness, Familiarity, and the Definite Article in English
Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session Dedicated to the Contributions of Charles J. Fillmore (1994)
Information status and Word Order: An Analysis of English Inversion
This paper presents a discourse-functional account of English inversion, based on an examination of a large corpus of nalturally-occurring tokens. It is argued that inversion serves an intormation-palckaiging tfunction, and that felicitous inversion depends on the relative discourse-familiarity of the information represented by the preposed and postposed constituents. The data moreover indicate that evoked elements and inferrable elements are tre…
There-Sentences and Inversion as Distinct Constructions: A Functional Account
Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session and Parasession on Semantic Typology and Semantic Universals (1993)
The semantics and pragmatics of and everything
On the interpretation of VP inversion in American English
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…
Information status and Word Order: An Analysis of English Inversion
This paper presents a discourse-functional account of English inversion, based on an examination of a large corpus of nalturally-occurring tokens. It is argued that inversion serves an intormation-palckaiging tfunction, and that felicitous inversion depends on the relative discourse-familiarity of the information represented by the preposed and postposed constituents. The data moreover indicate that evoked elements and inferrable elements are tre…
Definiteness and the English Existential
Numerous attempts have been made to place restrictions on the occurrence of formally definite NPs in English existential there- sentences. The wide range of definite NPs found in this construction, however, precludes any (noncircular) characterization of such a definiteness effect based on linguistic form alone. Nonetheless, previous functional analyses of definites in there -sentences have also failed to account for all of the problematic data i…
The semantics and pragmatics of and everything
Information Structure and Syntactic Structure
This article explores the interface between syntactic structure and information structure - in particular, the broad generalizations that can be made between certain noncanonical word orders and information-structural constraints on their use. Various ways of implementing the distinction between 'given' and 'new' information are described, and several classes of word orders (such as preposings, postposings, argument reversals, and clefts) are dis…
Pragmatic constraints on the verb in English inversion
Many researchers have argued that the verbs appearing in English inversion can be characterized as belonging to a particular syntactic or semantic class. For example, it has been claimed that such verbs are exclusively unaccusative (Levin, 1983; Coopmans, 1989; Hoekstra and Mulder, 1990; Watanabe, 1994, inter alia), exclusively presentational (e.g., Bresnan, 1994), or exclusively verbs of existence or appearance (e.g., Penhallurick, 1984). A stud…
Functional constraints on inversion in English and Farsi
In this paper we demonstrate that discourse-functional constraints on inversion in Farsi correspond to those on inversion in English despite differences in word order. Farsi canonically exhibits SXV word order, but permits a marked ordering of XSV. Although this word order is like that of English topicalization, it does not share the discourse function of topicalization in English; instead, Farsi XSV word order corresponds functionally to English…
Functional Compositionality and the Interaction of Discourse Constraints
We argue for the existence of functionally complex constructions whose elements compositionally impose discourse-functional constraints on the use of the whole. In particular, we examine th-clefts (as in That's John who wrote the book), equatives with epistemic would and demonstrative subjects (as in That would be John), and simple equatives with demonstrative subjects (as in That's John). We show that, contra previous approaches, the latter two …
On the interpretation of VP inversion in American English
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…
The linguistic realization of inferrable information
A Crosslinguistic Study of Postposing in Discourse
In this paper we examine constraints on the use of seven sentence-types permitting the non-canonical appearance of the logical subject in post-verbal position: inversion in English and in Farsi, presentational and existential there-sentences in English, presentational ci-sentences and subject inversion in Italian, and es+subject postposing in Yiddish. We show that these sentence-types share a common discourse constraint: each requires the NP in n…
On the interpretation of VP inversion in American English
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…
There-Sentences and Inversion as Distinct Constructions: A Functional Account
Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session and Parasession on Semantic Typology and Semantic Universals (1993)
The semantics and pragmatics of and everything
Uniqueness, Familiarity, and the Definite Article in English
Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session Dedicated to the Contributions of Charles J. Fillmore (1994)
Information status and Word Order: An Analysis of English Inversion
This paper presents a discourse-functional account of English inversion, based on an examination of a large corpus of nalturally-occurring tokens. It is argued that inversion serves an intormation-palckaiging tfunction, and that felicitous inversion depends on the relative discourse-familiarity of the information represented by the preposed and postposed constituents. The data moreover indicate that evoked elements and inferrable elements are tre…
Pragmatic constraints on the verb in English inversion
Many researchers have argued that the verbs appearing in English inversion can be characterized as belonging to a particular syntactic or semantic class. For example, it has been claimed that such verbs are exclusively unaccusative (Levin, 1983; Coopmans, 1989; Hoekstra and Mulder, 1990; Watanabe, 1994, inter alia), exclusively presentational (e.g., Bresnan, 1994), or exclusively verbs of existence or appearance (e.g., Penhallurick, 1984). A stud…
Definiteness and the English Existential
Numerous attempts have been made to place restrictions on the occurrence of formally definite NPs in English existential there- sentences. The wide range of definite NPs found in this construction, however, precludes any (noncircular) characterization of such a definiteness effect based on linguistic form alone. Nonetheless, previous functional analyses of definites in there -sentences have also failed to account for all of the problematic data i…
A Crosslinguistic Study of Postposing in Discourse
In this paper we examine constraints on the use of seven sentence-types permitting the non-canonical appearance of the logical subject in post-verbal position: inversion in English and in Farsi, presentational and existential there-sentences in English, presentational ci-sentences and subject inversion in Italian, and es+subject postposing in Yiddish. We show that these sentence-types share a common discourse constraint: each requires the NP in n…
Functional constraints on inversion in English and Farsi
In this paper we demonstrate that discourse-functional constraints on inversion in Farsi correspond to those on inversion in English despite differences in word order. Farsi canonically exhibits SXV word order, but permits a marked ordering of XSV. Although this word order is like that of English topicalization, it does not share the discourse function of topicalization in English; instead, Farsi XSV word order corresponds functionally to English…
Response to Abbott
Abbott raises two major objections to our analysis of definites in there-sentences (Ward & Birner 1995): first, that it uses the term HEARER-NEW in a way that differs significantly from the original definition given in Prince 1992, and second, that it fails to account for the data. We will address these issues in turn. It is true that we extend the use of the terms hearer-old and hearer-new (and, correspondingly, discourse-old and discourse-new) …
The linguistic realization of inferrable information
Information Status and Noncanonical Word Order in English
This work provides a comprehensive discourse-functional account of three classes of noncanonical constituent placement in English – preposing, postposing, and argument reversal – and shows how their interaction is accounted for in a principled and predictive way. In doing so, it details the variety of ways in which information can be 'given' or 'new' and shows how an understanding of this variety allows us to account for the distribution of these…
Information Status and Noncanonical Word Order in English
Discourse functions at the periphery: Noncanonical word order in English
Speakers have a wide range of noncanonical syntactic options that allow them to mark the information status of the various elements within a proposition. The correlation between a construction and constraints on information status, however, is not arbitrary; there are broad, consistent, and predictive generalizations that can be made about the information-packaging functions served by preposing, postposing, and argument-reversing constructions. S…
Functional Compositionality and the Interaction of Discourse Constraints
We argue for the existence of functionally complex constructions whose elements compositionally impose discourse-functional constraints on the use of the whole. In particular, we examine th-clefts (as in That's John who wrote the book), equatives with epistemic would and demonstrative subjects (as in That would be John), and simple equatives with demonstrative subjects (as in That's John). We show that, contra previous approaches, the latter two …
Information Structure and Syntactic Structure
This article explores the interface between syntactic structure and information structure - in particular, the broad generalizations that can be made between certain noncanonical word orders and information-structural constraints on their use. Various ways of implementing the distinction between 'given' and 'new' information are described, and several classes of word orders (such as preposings, postposings, argument reversals, and clefts) are dis…
Ellen F. Prince
Ellen F. Prince Gregory Ward, Betty J. Birner, Laurence R. Horn, Barbara Abbott, Pauline Jacobson, and Jerrold M. Sadock Ellen F. Prince, president of the Linguistic Society of America in 2008 and a major figure in the fields of discourse, pragmatics, and information structure, died peacefully in her home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on October 24, 2010, of lung cancer. She was sixty-six. At the time of her death, Ellen was Professor Emeritus (…
On constructions as a pragmatic category
When a language provides multiple syntactic options for conveying the same semantic content, these options generally serve distinct discourse functions. In some cases, however, they serve the same discourse function while being in complementary distribution syntactically. This article argues that in these instances, the syntactic variants constitute Alloforms of a single, more abstract construction. Pairs of such alloforms include inversion and l…
Possessives vs. indefinites: Pragmatic inference and determiner choice in English
Preview this article: Possessives vs. indefinites, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/iprapip.2.1-2.06bir-1.gif
Linguistics (16 works) · Philosophy (16 works) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (16 works) · Computer Science (14 works) · Natural Language Processing Techniques (8 works) · Word order (7 works) · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies (6 works) · Linguistic Variation and Morphology (6 works) · Mathematics (5 works) · Artificial Intelligence (4 works)