Volume 17, Issue 2

In this paper I argue that previous analyses of a class of inverted sentences in Modern Hebrew capture frequent correlations, but not hard constraints. Those analyses, which I refer to as lexically-based , focus on the properties of the lexical items which make up the sentence. The alternative approach proposed here views the constructions in their entirety and considers them from a discourse-functional perspective. It is proposed that V1 is employed by Modern Hebrew as an information packaging device which encodes thetic judgments in distinction from unmarked categorical judgments. The association of V1 with thetic judgments explains the frequent correlations between V1 and the properties which are identified by the lexically-based approach as definitional. Thus, by incorporating information packaging notions such as thetic and categorical judgments into the grammar, one can achieve a deeper understanding of linguistic phenomena.

Most research on metaphors that construe time as motion (motion metaphors of time) has focused on the question of whether it is the times or the person experiencing them (ego) that moves. This paper focuses on the equally important distinction between metaphors that locate times relative to ego (the ego-based metaphors Moving Ego and Moving Time) and a metaphor that locates times relative to other times ( sequence is relative position on a path ). Rather than a single abstract target domain TIME, these two kinds of temporal metaphor metaphorize different kinds of temporal concept—perspective-specific vs. perspective-neutral temporal concepts. Recognition of this distinction enhances the explanatory potential of conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff and Johnson 1980). An example involves the interaction of deixis and the temporal reference crosslinguistically of vocabulary with the spatial meanings in-front and behind . More generally, this approach refines our ability to describe the temporal concepts involved in motion metaphors of time. Such temporal concepts are present not only in the target domains, but also in the source domains of motion metaphors of time, where we find space-to-time metonymy, which may play a role in motivating the metaphors. In order to distinguish such metonymy from metaphor, we need to characterize metaphor as a mapping across frames rather than domains.

This paper examines the intersection of language, interaction and cognition. Specifically, a communicative type of fictivity is discussed, which I call fictive verbal interaction or simply fictive interaction (Pascual 2002). This constitutes a self-sufficient discourse unit conceptualized within a non-factive communicative occurrence, which functions syntactically and semantically as a grammatical constituent. Attested examples at different syntactic levels are dealt with. These levels are: (i) the clause (e.g., The attitude that , yes, I can do it); (ii) the phrase (e.g., The attitude of yes, I can do it.); and (iii) the lexical item (e.g., The ‘yes, I can do it’ attitude ).