Bøker i Europaeische Hochschulschriften / European University Studies / Publications Universitaires Europeennes-serien

This monograph investigates final vowel elision in spoken Italian. Specifically, the book sheds light on the functioning and the constraining factors of final vowel elision in sequences of vowel-final determiners followed by vowel-initial nouns and in sequences of vowel-final proclitics followed by vowel-initial lexical verbs. The analysis is based on real language, that is on corpus and elicited data as well as on their pooled results. The quantitative data are analyzed statistically in order to identify the factors which constrain final vowel elision (i.e. function word class, the morphological category of number realized by the final elidable vowel, and speech style). The representation of final vowel elision in determiners and proclitics proposed in this monograph relies on four theoretical constructs and on their interaction, i.e pre-compiled phrasal allomorphy, dominant allomorphs, lexically encoded selectional preferences among allomorphs, and prosodic rules.

Aims to understand the core of Calvin's Theodicy and to demonstrate that one of the important reasons that prompted Calvin to preach for almost 2 years 159 Sermons on the "Book of Job" was to vindicate God's justice by demonstrating the meaningfulness of God's activity in human life.

What are adverbial clauses in Chinese? Do they all have subjects as their counterparts do in English? How do the semantic domains of adverbial clauses interact with the distribution of subjects? How do Chinese corpora help us explore these intriguing questions? The aim of this study is to demonstrate the usefulness of corpus linguistics as a methodology in grammar studies. A problem-oriented tagging approach has been used to enable the exploration of adverbial clauses in the corpus and to identify eleven semantically based classes of adverbial clauses. While it is a well-known fact that Chinese adverbial clauses (CACs) are overtly marked by a subordinating conjunction, their subjects can be left unexpressed and recovered in the prior discourse. By analysing naturally occurring spoken and written samples from various corpora, the author examines this intriguing phenomenon of overt and non-overt subjects in adverbial clauses.

Grounded in the Lexical Constructional Model (LCM), a usage-based meaning construction model of language of recent design, this research argues that illocutionary meaning either results from filling in constructional variables such as X in the Can You XVP? construction or from affording access to abstract situational cognitive models through the metonymic activation of relevant elements of their structure. One such model is the Cost-Benefit Cognitive Model, which is incorporated into the description of pragmatic meaning and presented as lying at the core of the conventionalization process of illocutionary constructions. The inferential path based on the instantiation of the Cost-Benefit Cognitive Model determines the activation of speech act values that may become conventionalized within a linguistic community. The study determines the applicability of the analytical tools developed by the LCM for illocutionary description. The illocutionary acts selected are those proposed by the Cost-Benefit Cognitive Model as exploiting cultural principles of interaction.

This book focuses on the theme of foreignness and its representation in literature and cognate discourses. The volume brings together essays in English, Spanish and Catalan that consider from original and informed perspectives both the conceptualization of the foreign and foreignness in its human, geographical/spatial, historical and cultural guises, not only as contemplated but also as a lens in the act of contemplation. This multi- and inter-disciplinary collection of essays is the result of an inspired and timely collaboration between specialists in comparative literature from across the world. Dealing with fundamental questions relating to the trans- and intercultural, otherness, migration, cosmopolitanism and the global, it will be of interest to researchers and students in comparative literature, modern languages and area studies, travel writing, intercultural studies, sociolinguistics and social anthropology.

Magical realism was one of the most significant literary developments in the last century. It has become synonymous with the seductive fictions of writers such as Gabriel García Márquez, Salman Rushdie, Toni Morrison, Ben Okri, Jeanette Winterson and Peter Carey. However, the genre has also become known for its theoretical indeterminacy. In fact, exoticist speculation, inspired by the links between magical realist literature and the world¿s cultural or political margins, has thrown the category into critical disrepute. This book rescues magical realism from misreadings and misdemeanours, tracing the historical development of the literary genre and analysing an original spectrum of magical realist texts from Latin America, Africa, India, Canada, the US, the UK and Australia. It asks such questions as: How did magical realism come to take over the world? What is the nature of its allure? Also, how does the marginal status of its authors inform the genre? Does magical realism have a political agenda? This book uses postcolonial theory to investigate notions of cultural identity and post-structural theory to examine the narrative strategies of magical realism, presenting a comprehensive historical and theoretical overview of the genre and a politically urgent argument about its subversive potentialities.

In contrast to the other synoptic evangelists the author of Matthew proceeded differently in many respects. Why did he modify the text so much and arrange ten miracle narratives one after the other at one stretch with minor interruptions? Why did he place the so-called «miracle chapters» immediately after the Sermon on the Mount. Why did he enclose them between two summary statements on either side? These are only some of the unanswered questions about chapters 8 and 9 of Matthew¿s Gospel. Beginning with Aristotle¿s theory of the drama or tragedy, the author suggests that the way the evangelist has reworked and reorganized the miracle narratives is similar to the structure of the classic drama. By discovering the narrative strategies and the discourse aspect, we are able to demonstrate how each episode corresponds to the different moments of a plot such as the initial situation, inciting moment, complication, climax with suspense and finally resolution and denouement.

This book reconstructs the legacy of Korean minjung theology by reformulating its essential ideas in a dialogue with process thought. In a minimal sense, this study is a theological reinterpretation of the doctrine of the minjung messiah, an idea which historically suffered from a misunderstanding that minjung theology created a ¿messianic confusion¿ while replacing christology and soteriology by a radical anthropology. This erroneous conception occurred when the idea was placed within the philosophically dualistic framework of traditional doctrines in which the work of minjung is totally separated from the work of Christ. In order to avoid such a dualistic understanding, the author critically adopts process panentheism and makes minjung ideas more communicable and more comprehensive in current theological, religious, and philosophical debates. Beyond defending the idea of the minjung messiah, he also argues for an inclusive minjung hermeneutics that promotes the fundamental insight of minjung theology, in philosophical clarity. Through minjung hermeneutics, minjung theology expands its practical concern and overcomes the theoretical nihilism in postmodern studies.

Deals with the cultural and the biblical roots of these ecological crises; ex-rays the historical development of this impasse in Africa, and finally proffers recommendations.

British economic and industrial policy since 1979 is examined using a wide range of sources. Was this really «new», revival of earlier approaches or a rigorous extension of the IMF-imposed policies on the 1974-79 Labour Government? The question is asked: Was the creation of a large pool of unemployed labour necessary for reshaping the economy or was the aim to secure fundamental changes in the relations between capital and organised labour? Due to setbacks suffered by trade unions in the 1980s with factory closures and major job losses, the author questions Labour¿s motives in softening any meaningful opposition to the Conservatives, supporting ERM in 1990, reducing the role of trade unions in the Party itself and retaining key policies of the Thatcher era especially its trade union laws.