The Semantics of Incorporation: From Argument Structure to Discourse Transparency

Distinguishing between discourse referents and thematic arguments, the analysis of incorporation proposed by Donka Farkas and Henriette de Swart accounts for the relationship between morphological and semantic number, the contrasts between incorporated singulars and incorporated plurals, and various ‘shades’ of discourse transparency. The framework of Discourse Representation Theory used is a theory well-suited for connecting sentence level and discourse level semantics. The analysis presented in the Semantics of Incorporation has important consequences for a cross-linguistic theory of anaphora. Linguists and logicians interested in discourse structure, cross-linguistic semantics, and the relationship between morpho-syntax and meaning will find this an engaging and innovative work.

Donka F. Farkas is a professor of linguistics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Henriëtte de Swart is a professor of French linguistics at Utrecht University.

Introduction
1 Incorporation: the semantic challenge
2 Discourse referents, thematic argumetns and plurality
3 Incorporation as Unification of thematic arguments
4 Incorporation in Hungarian: the case of bare singulars
5 Bare plurals
6 Shades of discourse
7 Comparisons with previous approaches
References
Subject Index
Name Index

3/15/2003

ISBN (Paperback — OUT OF PRINT): 1575864207 (9781575864204)
ISBN (Cloth — OUT OF PRINT): 1575864193 (9781575864198)
ISBN (Electronic): 1575869349 (9781575869346)

The Semantics of Incorporation

Contents