The aim of the paper is to emphasise the relevance, in giving an adequate description of syntactic phenomena, of an appropriate semantic characterisation, verified in a variety of pragmatic contexts. One example is offered by a contrastive analysis, in Romance and Germanic languages, of a series of semifactive assertive families of predicates indicating mental states, (such as Italian "sapere", English "know") forms of communication like (Italian: "dire", English. "say") or forms of perception (Italian "vedere, " English "see"). A common feature of these languages is the identity of morphological realisation between indirect x-interrogative and independent relative pronouns (both derived from the Indo-European indefinite/ interrogative pronoun *kw ). Linguistic literature lacks consistency in the evaluation of these kw subordinates depending on these semifactive assertive predicates interpreted either as interrogatives or independent relatives according to the topic being dealt with. Although the two homophone constructions, interrogatives or independent relatives, are acknowledged as syntactically and semantically different, the same subordinate in the declarative positive form of (1) or (2), depending on a semifactive predicate like sapere in Italian or know in English does not seem to give rise to uniform and consistent intuitions: (1) So che cosa hai detto. "I know what you said." (2) I know what you said. (1) and (2) have at varying times in the literature been interpreted as interrogative (Rizzi 1982:61 and also 1986; Karttunen 1978:183; Grimshaw 1979:282) or as independent relative (Hirschbuler & Rivero 1983:505ff; Groos & Van Riemsdjik 1981:173). This discordance in the interpretation of the same clause, oscillating between interrogative and independent relative, constitutes, in itself, grounds for analysis: it has consequences not only on the level of descriptive adequacy, but it also seems to have some bearing on the explanatory principles of linguistic theory.
Livelli di analisi nella valutazione del dato linguistico.
FAVA, Elisabetta
1989
Abstract
The aim of the paper is to emphasise the relevance, in giving an adequate description of syntactic phenomena, of an appropriate semantic characterisation, verified in a variety of pragmatic contexts. One example is offered by a contrastive analysis, in Romance and Germanic languages, of a series of semifactive assertive families of predicates indicating mental states, (such as Italian "sapere", English "know") forms of communication like (Italian: "dire", English. "say") or forms of perception (Italian "vedere, " English "see"). A common feature of these languages is the identity of morphological realisation between indirect x-interrogative and independent relative pronouns (both derived from the Indo-European indefinite/ interrogative pronoun *kw ). Linguistic literature lacks consistency in the evaluation of these kw subordinates depending on these semifactive assertive predicates interpreted either as interrogatives or independent relatives according to the topic being dealt with. Although the two homophone constructions, interrogatives or independent relatives, are acknowledged as syntactically and semantically different, the same subordinate in the declarative positive form of (1) or (2), depending on a semifactive predicate like sapere in Italian or know in English does not seem to give rise to uniform and consistent intuitions: (1) So che cosa hai detto. "I know what you said." (2) I know what you said. (1) and (2) have at varying times in the literature been interpreted as interrogative (Rizzi 1982:61 and also 1986; Karttunen 1978:183; Grimshaw 1979:282) or as independent relative (Hirschbuler & Rivero 1983:505ff; Groos & Van Riemsdjik 1981:173). This discordance in the interpretation of the same clause, oscillating between interrogative and independent relative, constitutes, in itself, grounds for analysis: it has consequences not only on the level of descriptive adequacy, but it also seems to have some bearing on the explanatory principles of linguistic theory.I documenti in SFERA sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
