Academia.eduAcademia.edu

Outline

Title
Abstract
Introduction: Aims and Methods
Aims and Overview
Data and Methodology
References
All Topics
Computer Science
Computational Linguistics

Constructing lists to construct categories

Profile image of Alessandra BarottoAlessandra Barotto

2018, The Italian Journal of Linguistics

https://doi.org/10.26346/1120-2726-117
visibility

…

description

40 pages

link

1 file

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze list constructions as linguistic tools to build categories in discourse, identifying the inferential processes leading from list constructions to categorization and examining the semantic and morphosyntactic elements that activate abstractive reasoning within lists. Based on real occurrences of lists in written and spoken Italian, we will first of all propose a crucial distinction between exhaustive and non-exhaustive lists, arguing that (non-)exhaustivity determines the layer at which the construction of a category occurs, namely the layer of presupposition or the 'what-is-said' part of the utterance. We will then focus on non-exhaustive lists, arguing that they directly communicate a bottom-up, exemplar-driven abstraction, characterized by the presence of an inherently indexical reference (i.e. reference to further Xs characterized by some underlying Property P), which will lead us to call it 'indexical categorization'. The linguistic analysis of how indexical categorization is expressed in discourse will show a major distinction between (i) elements characterized by an indexical semantics, which trigger the abstraction process, and (ii) elements providing semantic clues towards the correct construction of the indexical category. We will conclude by taking a broader perspective and by explaining the patterns observed for indexical categorization in the light of the wider process of online reference construction. *

Related papers

Liste, listine e listarelle. Polynomial Evaluative Constructions as a Device for Ad Hoc Categorization in Italian
Alfonsina Buoniconto

A Crosslinguistic Perspective on Clear and Approximate Categorization, 2022

View PDFchevron_right
List constructions: Towards a unified account
Francesca Masini

Italian Journal of Linguistics, 2018

This paper identifies an abstract linguistic pattern named ‘list’ and discusses its theoretical status and manifestations. The object ‘list’ is defined as a syntagmatic concatenation of two or more units of the same type (i.e. potentially paradigmatically connected) that are on a par with each other, thus filling one and the same slot within the larger construction they are part of. This highly abstract pattern is claimed to be responsible for a number of linguistic phenomena (endowed with different degrees of complexity, cohesion and conventionalization) that are normally ascribed to different levels of analysis, from morphology to syntax and discourse. We put forward a macro-distinction between denotation lists and formulation lists, pertaining to the conceptual and the metalinguistic level, respectively. More importantly, we show that certain formal features of denotation lists are conventionally associated with certain types of (non-compositional) meanings. We analyze the denotation lists characterized by this form-function match as ‘constructions’ in the Construction Grammar sense and we claim that these are instantiations of a maximally abstract List Construction. Finally, we discuss the status of formulation lists and the advantages of a constructional approach to do justice to both the diversity and the unity of lists.

View PDFchevron_right
List Constructions: A specialised means of text progression
Miriam Voghera

Italian Journal of Linguistics, 2018

This article presents a study of List Constructions in a corpus of spoken Italian, in particular those that end with a general extender, a functional class of expressions. They widen the scope and the meaning of what has been previously said: for example, or something / and everything / and things / and stuff (like that), etcetera. The main aim is to show that List Constructions exhibit some basic features that are particularly suited to the online process of spoken communication, although they also constitute a specialised means of text progression to give order to objects and concepts, which resembles the use of written catalogues. *

View PDFchevron_right
Lists: Description, delimitation, definition. A forward
Francesca Masini

Italian Journal of Linguistics, 2018

According to Umberto Eco, lists respond to two primitive needs of human beings: liberating themselves from the limits of finitude so as to both embrace infinity conceptually, and express it semiotically. One might infer that, given their fundamental cognitive and semiotic function, lists play a major role in language, which is indeed the case. Unfortunately, such a primordial role of lists in language is not sufficiently mirrored by an adequate description and theorization of lists in linguistics. The papers gathered in this Special Issue of the "Italian Journal of Linguistics" (30.1, 2018) show that lists allow to fill gaps: in categorization, in lexical fields, in lexical knowledge, in lexical acquisition, in lexical production. As such, lists can be regarded as a device operating at the intersection between system and discourse, which allows for embedding the infinity of cognitive and semiotic potential in the finitude of linguistic production. This crucial cognitive and semiotic role is mirrored by a relatively stable – albeit flexible – formal structure that allows a list to be recognized as such, independently of its manifestation at the morphological, syntactic or discourse level.

View PDFchevron_right
The discursive construction of categories. Categorisation as a dynamic and co-operative process
Eugenio Goria

Language Sciences, 2019

In this paper, I provide an account of categorisation intended as an action that participants carry out in conversation. As opposed to cognitive theories, which are mainly interested in how language structure can be explained with reference to the human conceptual system, discourse-based theories are interested in studying how linguistic resources are used to create categories on a locally relevant basis. Based on recent contributions within the latter framework, I provide in this article a preliminary overview of a corpus study on spoken Italian (Goria and Mauri, 2018) and I illustrate different types of structurally unrelated constructions that are recruited by the participants to perform categorisation in spontaneously occurring interactions.

View PDFchevron_right
BUILDING AND INTERPRETING AD HOC CATEGORIES: A LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS
Caterina Mauri

In J. Blochowiak, C. Grisot, S. Durrleman-Tame and C. Laenzlinger (eds.) Formal models in the study of language, Berlin: Springer, 297-326. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-48832-5_16, 2017

The aim of this paper is to examine in a systematic way the linguistic expression of a particular type of categorization process, namely the construction of ad hoc categories. Based on a 60 language-sample and corpus data from English and Italian, it will be shown that the strategies used to refer to ad hoc categories are mobilized from a variety of different grammatical areas, ranging from connectives to special plural forms and derivational affixes. We will first provide a detailed semantic analysis of the constructions under exam, and then move to the examination of the morphosyntactic and functional patterns of variation attested in our data. Though highly differentiated, the pool of strategies employed to make reference to ad hoc categories shows systematic correlations between specific morphosyntactic features, different degrees of context dependency and different types of abstraction processes (e.g. leading to the construction of a set, a frame or a class). We will conclude with a preliminary analysis of how ad hoc categories are built and used in discourse. Corpus data will lead us to propose a shift of attention from ad hoc categories themselves to on line categorization, namely the process through which categories are abstracted from specific exemplars in context, regardless of their common or ad hoc nature.

View PDFchevron_right
Discourse and the Construction of Categories (BLS 1996)
Paul Hopper
View PDFchevron_right
The Internal Structure of Arguments: Evidence from Italian Nominalization-based Complex Predicates. Arbeitspapier N. 102
Vieri Samek-Lodovici

1999

View PDFchevron_right
The Internal Structure of Arguments: Evidence from Italian Nominalization-based Complex Predicates
Vieri Samek-Lodovici

1999

View PDFchevron_right
" Sopratavola soprammobile come dite voi " : Lists in L1 and L2
Diego Cortes Velasquez, Elisa Fiorenza

Italian Journal of Linguistics, 2018

Lists are a cognitive resource for speakers and have a wide range of semantic and pragmatic functions. One of the main objectives of this paper is to further clarify the links between lists and language proficiency. To do so, we focused on lists produced by native and non-native Italian speakers during a lexical search in the context of spontaneous spoken language. The study presented here is based on a corpus of oral productions elicited through a task. As the paper will show, some elements usually considered in the literature as completely disparate can be considered together within the framework of lists. Furthermore, it will show the gradual emergence as construction of a particular subset of lists of lexical searches. *

View PDFchevron_right

References (41)

  1. qualche raffinato piatto italiano che gli indigeni non avrebbero neppure lontanamente potuto concepire. [Tipo la pizza surgelata, o il caffè solubile] [...]
  2. '[...] some refined Italian dish that natives would not even have been able to conceive. [Like frozen pizza, or instant coffee] [...]' (ItTenTen Corpus)
  3. Barsalou, Lawrence W. 1983. Ad hoc categories. Memory and Cognition 11,3. 211-227.
  4. Barsalou, Lawrence W. 2010. Ad hoc categories. In Hogan, Patrick C. (ed.), The Cambridge encyclopedia of the language sciences. New York: Cambridge University Press. 87-88.
  5. Bazzanella, Carla & Cristofoli, Mirella 1998. Piuttosto che e le alterna- tive non preferenziali: un mutamento in atto? Cuadernos de Filología Italiana 5. 267-278.
  6. Brucale, Luisa 2012. L'uso non canonico di piuttosto che coordinativo in italiano contemporaneo. In Bianchi, Patricia; De Blasi, Nicola; De Caprio, Chiara & Montuori, Francesco (eds.), La variazione nell'italiano e nella sua storia. Varietà e varianti linguistiche e testuali. Firenze: Cesati. 483-493.
  7. Channell, Joanna 1994. Vague Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  8. Cheshire, Jenny 2007. Discourse variation, grammaticalisation and stuff like that. Journal of Sociolinguistics 11,2. 155-193.
  9. Chierchia, Gennaro 2004. Scalar implicatures, polarity phenomena, and the syntax/pragmatics interface. In Belletti, Adriana (ed.), Structures and beyond. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 39-103.
  10. Chierchia, Gennaro 2006. Broaden your views: Implicatures of domain widen- ing and the "logicality" of language. Linguistic inquiry 37. 535-590.
  11. Chierchia, Gennaro; Fox, Danny & Spector, Benjamin 2009. Hurford's Constraint and the Theory of Scalar Implicatures: Evidence for Embedded Implicatures. In Egré, Paul & Magri, Giorgio (eds.), Presuppositions and Implicatures, Proceedings of the MIT-Paris Workshop. Cambridge, MA: MIT Working Papers in Linguistics. 47-62.
  12. Chino, Naoko 2001. All about Particles: A Handbook of Japanese Function Words. Tokyo: Kodansha.
  13. Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth 1986. An Introduction to English Prosody. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
  14. Croft, William & Cruse, Alan D. 2004. Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  15. De Mauro, Tullio; Mancini, Federico; Vedovelli, Massimo & Voghera, Miriam 1993. Lessico di frequenza dell'italiano parlato. Milano: Etaslibri.
  16. Dines, Elizabeth R. 1980. Variation in Discourse -'and stuff like that'. Language in Society 1. 13-31.
  17. DuBois, Sylvie 1992. Extension particles, etc. Language Variation and Change 4. 179-203.
  18. Giannakidou, Anastasia 2016. The myth of exhaustivity for all NPIs. Paper presented at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, April 21-23, 2016.
  19. Goria, Eugenio & Mauri, Caterina. In press. Il corpus KIParla: una nuova risorsa per lo studio dell'italiano parlato. In F. Masini and F. Tamburini (eds.), CLUB Working Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 2. Bologna: CLUB - Circolo Linguistico dell'Università di Bologna.
  20. Grice, Paul H. 1989. Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
  21. Haspelmath, Martin 2007. Coordination. In Shopen, Timothy (ed.), Language typology and syntactic description, vol. II: Complex constructions. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1-51.
  22. Haspelmath, Martin & Buchholz, Oda 1998. Equative and similative con- structions in the languages of Europe. In van der Auwera, Johan (ed.), Adverbial constructions in the languages of Europe. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 277-334.
  23. Hyland, Ken 2007. Applying a gloss: Exemplifying and reformulating in aca- demia discourse. Applied Linguistics 28,2. 266-285.
  24. Jakubíček, Miloš; Kilgarriff, Adam; Kovář, Vojtěch; Rychlý, Pavel & Suchomel, Vít 2013. The TenTen Corpus Family. Paper presented at the 7th International Corpus Linguistics Conference CL 2013, Lancaster 2013. 125-127.
  25. Joosten, Frank 2010. Collective nouns, aggregate nouns, and superordinates: When 'part of ' and 'kind of ' meet. Lingvisticae Investigationes 33,1. 25-49.
  26. König, Ekkehard & Umbach, Carla forthcoming. Demonstratives of Manner, of Quality and of Degree: A Neglected Subclass. In Boef, Eefje; Coniglio, Marco; Schlachter, Eva & Veenstra, Tonjes (eds.), Demonstratives: syn- tax, semantics and typology. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton.
  27. Lakoff, George 1987. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
  28. Lakoff, Robin 1971. If 's, and's, and but's about Conjunction. In Fillmore, Charles & Langendoen, Terence D. (eds.), Studies in Linguistic Semantics. New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston. 115-150.
  29. Lang, Ewald 1984. The semantics of coordination. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
  30. Lin, Jing & Giannakidou, Anastasia 2015. No exhaustivity for the Mandarin NPI shenme. Retrieved from http://home.uchicago.edu/giannaki/pubs/ LinGianna.2015.23.05.pdf.
  31. Lo Baido, Cristina. 2018. Categorization via exemplification: evidence from Italian. Folia Linguistica Historica 52 s39,1. 69-95.
  32. Manzotti, Emilio 1998. L'esempio. Natura, definizioni, problemi. Cuadernos de Filología Italiana 5. 99-123.
  33. Mauri, Caterina 2008. Coordination Relations in the Languages of Europe and Beyond. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
  34. Mauri, Caterina 2017. Building and interpreting ad hoc categories: a lin- guistic analysis. In Blochowiak, Joanna; Grisot, Cristina; Durrleman, Stéphanie & Laenzlinger, Christopher (eds.), Formal models in the study of language. Berlin: Springer. 297-326.
  35. Mauri, Caterina & Giacalone Ramat, Anna 2015. Piuttosto che: dalla prefer- enza all'esemplificazione di alternative. Cuadernos de Filología Italiana 20. 49-72.
  36. Mauri, Caterina & Sansò, Andrea. 2018. Linguistic strategies for the con- struction of ad hoc categories: theoretical assessment and cross-linguis- tic variation. Folia Linguistica Historica 52 s39,1. 1-35.
  37. Overstreet, Maryann 1999. Whales, Candlelight, and Stuff Like That: General Extenders in English Discourse. New York: Oxford University Press.
  38. Recanati, François 2004. Literal Meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  39. Rodríguez Abruñeiras, Paula 2015. Exemplifying markers in English: Synchronic and Diachronic considerations. Ph.D. dissertation. University of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela.
  40. Selting, Margret 2007. Lists as embedded structures and the prosody of list construction as an interactional resource. Journal of Pragmatics 39. 483- 526. Vanhove, Martine 2017. Similative, equative, and comparative constructions in Beja (North-Cushitic). In Treis, Yvonne & Vanhove, Martine (eds.), Similative and Equative Constructions. A cross-linguistic perspective. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 189-212.
  41. Voghera, Miriam 2013. A case study on the relationship between gram- matical change and synchronic variation: The emergence of tipo[-N] in Italian. In Giacalone Ramat, Anna; Mauri, Caterina & Molinelli, Piera (eds.), Synchrony and Diachrony. A dynamic interface. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 283-312.

Related papers

Accumulation of words: lists in the Italian public discourse
Roberta Cicchirillo

Punctum.International journal of semiotics, 2022

View PDFchevron_right
Accumulations of words: Lists in the Italian public discourse
Roberta Cicchirillo

PUNCTUM - Volume 09 : Issue 01 : 2023 The Meaning of Collections between Media and Practices, 2023

View PDFchevron_right
Category-building lists between grammar and interaction: a constructionist view
Francesca Masini

Caterina Mauri, Ilaria Fiorentini & Eugenio Goria (eds), "Building Categories in Interaction: Linguistic resources at work", 2021

Lists are one of the most common devices that are used in interaction to refer to a category. Yet, there are only few studies that analyze the relationship between lists and categorization. Our paper aims at advancing our knowledge of this relationship, and of lists in general. From a theoretical point of view, we discuss the benefits of integrating the Construction Grammar approach to lists adopted in Masini et al. (2018) with some of the basic assumptions of Interactional Linguistics. From an empirical point of view, we offer a qualitative analysis of lists based on data from two corpora of spoken Italian: the LIP corpus (De Mauro et al., 1993) and the KIParla corpus (Mauri et al., 2019a). In particular, we discuss a case study on the use of the Italian discourse marker "insomma" within list constructions: while it serves as a reformulation marker in most of its uses, insomma also proves to be used (more marginally) as a category introducer within category-building lists. Our findings provide useful insight to ultimately bridge the gap between denotation lists as a reference-oriented phenomenon and other types of mechanisms that are relevant at the discourse level, including conversational repair.

View PDFchevron_right
Non-exhaustive lists in spoken language: a construction grammatical perspective
Caterina Mauri

Mauri, C. & E. Goria & I. Fiorentini (2019). Non-exhaustive lists in spoken language: a construction grammatical perspective. "Constructions and Frames" 11(2): 290-316., 2019

The aim of this paper is to analyze how speakers refer to non-exhaustive sets in spoken discourse, by means of open lists. We will propose an analysis of non-exhaustivity in terms of indexicality and we will therefore consider open lists as having an inherently pragmatic component. Based on corpus data of spoken Italian, we will identify three main types of non-exhaustive lists, showing different structural properties and non-compositional semantics. In order to account for the observed variation, we will take a construction grammatical perspective, arguing that what may appear as a heterogeneous set of strategies is instead an inheritance-based network of constructions sharing a schematic core (cf. Goldberg 1995). We will elaborate on the most recent approaches to list constructions, along the lines proposed by Masini, Mauri & Pietrandrea (2018), and will identify three types of non-exhaustive list constructions, which inherit the core properties from the upper-level list construction, but show more specific features and constraints.

View PDFchevron_right
List Constructions: a semantic network
Paola Pietrandrea

2009

Università degli Studi Roma Tre E metto in lista tutto quello che mi manca e mi sembra quasi una preghiera oppure folle amore (Baustelle, Piangi Roma, 2008) Niente omologa come una lista. (Giorgio Boatti, Preferirei di no, 2001)

View PDFchevron_right

Related topics

  • Computer Science
  • Cognitive Linguistics
  • Semantics (Computer Science)
  • Language and Linguistics
  • Linguistics and language
  • List Constructions
    • 580 California St., Suite 400
    San Francisco, CA, 94104
    © 2025 Academia. All rights reserved