Pragmatic constraints on the verb in English inversion

Dados Bibliográficos

ID4092764
AutoresBetty J Birner (autor correspondente), Betty Birner
Ano1995
Volume97
Fascículo4
Páginas233-256
Data de publicação1995-12-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoLingua (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0024-3841 • E-ISSN: 1872-6135
EditoraElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/0024-3841(95)00026-7
OpenAlexW1983769879
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas8
Referências citadas18

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 study of a large corpus of natural language data, however, indicates that these restrictions do not account for the full range of verbs found in inversions. Instead, inversion is subject to a pragmatic constraint to the effect that the verb must not represent new information in the discourse. In the case of be, the verb is inherently informationally light; the data in this study indicate that other verbs appearing in felicitous inversions are likewise informationally light in that they represent evoked or inferrable information in context and therefore contribute no new information to the discourse. Thus, all verbs appearing in central position in inversion can be characterized by a single discourse-based principle

Inversion (geology · Linguistics · Modal verb · Verb · Computer Science · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Natural Language Processing Techniques · Philosophy · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation