The Theta Parameter: Syntax under a radical UTAH.
Item
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Title
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The Theta Parameter: Syntax under a radical UTAH.
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Identifier
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AAI3303796
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identifier
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3303796
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Creator
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Stenshoel, Eric Jon.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Marcel den Dikken
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Date
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2007
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Language, Linguistics
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Abstract
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This dissertation investigates the possibility of building a generative model of human language directly upon a universal conceptual structure without recourse to an independent representation of syntactic structures. The proposed conceptual structure is a hierarchically fixed but otherwise unordered abstract representation of spatial and temporal relations that functions as a virtual map of event structure and is iterated in the representation of lexical structure. Traditional thematic roles as well as lexical features such as count/non-count and proper/common are represented as unique groupings of nodes on the conceptual structure, called thememes. The structure is expressed by a process of recursive consolidation that preserves the thematic assignments and is governed by two universal Gricean principles called Novelty (non-redundancy) and Least Effort. Syntactic variation both within and between languages is attributed to a single parametric mechanism, called the Theta Parameter, that applies on a language-particular basis to specific binary combinations of thememes. The parameter is sensitive to the thematic relationship between the thememes to which it applies and controls the order in which the thememes are consolidated, indirectly affecting the ultimate syntactic ordering.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy Restricted.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.