Thetics and Categoricals
Thetics and Categoricals do not belong to the categories of German grammar. Thetics were introduced in logic as impersonal and broad focus constructions. They left profound and extensive traces in the logic of the late 19th century. For the class of thetic propositions, the criterion of textual exclusion plays the major role, i.e. the absence of any common grounds and of any anaphorism and background. In the foreground are sentences with subject inversion, subject suppression and detopicalization. These and only these are suitable for text beginnings, jokes, stage advertisements and solipsistic exclamatives, thus speech acts without communicative goals – free expressives in the true sense of the word. The contributions in this volume not only guide the reader through the history of philosophical logic and distributions of impersonals in contrast to Kantian categorical sentences, but also the correspondences in Japanese and Chinese which, in contrast to German and English, sport specific morphological markers for thetics as opposed to categoricals.
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 262] 2020. vii, 390 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Published online on 6 July 2020
Published online on 6 July 2020
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
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Preface
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Introduction. Leading ideas and main concepts: What this volume is aboutWerner Abraham | pp. 1–10
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Part 1. Logic and philosophical background
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Categorical versus thetic sentences in the Universal Grammar of RealismElisabeth Leiss | pp. 13–30
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Part 2. Impersonal constructions
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Are theticity and sentence-focus encoded grammatical categories of Dutch?Thomas Belligh | pp. 33–68
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Presentational and related constructions in Norwegian with reference to GermanLars Hellan and Dorothee Beermann | pp. 69–104
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Copulas and information structure in Tanti DargwaNina Sumbatova | pp. 105–140
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Part 3. From logic content to linguistic form
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Infinitive constructions and theticity in GermanYukari Isaka | pp. 143–154
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Strong and weak nominal reference in thetic and categorical sentences: sampling German and ChineseMeng-Chen Lee | pp. 155–178
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Adjectives and mode of expression: Psych-adjectives in attributive and predicative usage and implications for the thetic/categorical discussionYoshiyuki Muroi | pp. 179–198
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Unaccusativity and theticityPatricia Irwin | pp. 199–222
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Part 4. The logic-linguistics across languages
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From philosophical logic to linguistics: The architecture of information autonomy: Categoricals vs. Thetics revisitedWerner Abraham | pp. 225–282
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Pseudocategorical or purely thetic? A contrastive case study of how thetic statements are expressed in Japanese, English, and GermanYasuhiro Fujinawa | pp. 283–310
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The thetic/categorical distinction as difference in common ground update: With application to Biblical HebrewDaniel J. Wilson | pp. 311–334
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Part 5. Lexical links to attitudinality
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B-grade subjects and theticityShin Tanaka | pp. 337–350
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Perception description, report and thetic statements: Roles of sentence-final particles in Japanese and modal particles in GermanJunji Okamoto | pp. 351–386
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Index | pp. 387–390
Cited by (5)
Cited by five other publications
Bartlett, Tom
2023. Chapter 3. Atopicality as the unmarked logical structure in Scottish Gaelic. In Reconnecting Form and Meaning [Studies in Language Companion Series, 230], ► pp. 71 ff. 
Belligh, Thomas, Ludovic De Cuypere & Claudia Crocco
2023. Alternating Italian thetic and sentence-focus constructions. Revue Romane. Langue et littérature. International Journal of Romance Languages and Literatures 58:2 ► pp. 246 ff.
Belligh, Thomas & Claudia Crocco
2022. Theticity and sentence-focus in Italian: grammatically encoded categories or categories of language use?. Linguistics 60:4 ► pp. 1241 ff.
Belligh, Thomas
2020. Dutch thetic and sentence-focus constructions on the semantics-pragmatics interface. Studies in Language 44:4 ► pp. 831 ff.
Lee, Meng-Chen
2020. Strong and weak nominal reference in thetic and categorical sentences. In Thetics and Categoricals [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 262], ► pp. 156 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.
Subjects
Main BIC Subject
CFK: Grammar, syntax
Main BISAC Subject
LAN009060: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Syntax