{"id":184,"date":"2016-11-19T08:39:40","date_gmt":"2016-11-19T07:39:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lilec.it\/list\/?page_id=184"},"modified":"2016-11-21T22:58:20","modified_gmt":"2016-11-21T21:58:20","slug":"structures-functions","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.lilec.it\/list\/project\/structures-functions\/","title":{"rendered":"List structures & functions"},"content":{"rendered":"

< BACK TO\u00a0Project overview<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Lists show a great degree of structural and functional variation. First of all, lists\u00a0have been used to represent not only coordination but also other types of strategies (cf. Blanche-Benveniste et al<\/i>. 1990), such as repetitions (1) and reformulations (2).\u00a0Moreover, lists are not only attested at the syntactic level, but also at the morphological (3) \/ lexical level (4) and at the discourse level (5), where we can see that lists are frequently co-constructed by different speakers:<\/p>\n

1) Erm although we we haven’t really<\/b> really<\/b> discussed this (BNC)<\/p>\n

2) Although Golding uses boys to illustrate the fact that man is evil, his point is about mankind<\/b>, or in <\/b>other<\/b> words<\/b> , human <\/b>beings<\/b> (BNC)<\/p>\n

3)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Chuvash s\u0115t-\u015bu<\/em><\/strong> (milk-butter) \u2018dairy products\u2019<\/p>\n

4)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 English kiss and goodbye<\/strong><\/em> (Airport sign)
\n<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"kiss-and-goodbye\"<\/p>\n

5) ROY: saving the whale<\/strong>,
\nor saving uh … the .. polar bea[r,<\/strong>
\nPETE: [Right… Pandas],<\/strong>
\nROY: or making sure there\u2019s enough] grizzly bears,<\/strong>
\nthat\u2019s fine. (SBC: 003)<\/p>\n

List constructions are characterized by the occurrence of list markers, such as connectives, general extenders (Masini, Mauri, Pietrandrea 2012), and more or less specific listing prosodic patterns (Du Bois 2016), which contribute to the semantic interpretation of lists.<\/p>\n

From a semantic-pragmatic perspective, speakers recur to lists for many different reasons: (1) is an instance of intensifying list, while in (2) we are faced with reference specification through reformulation; (3) exemplifies a co-compound of the “collective” type (W\u00e4lchli 2005), whereas (4) contains a “binomial” (Malkiel 1959) labelling a specific frame (cf. Masini & Thornton 2009); finally, (5) shows a list of examples aimed at building the ad hoc category ‘saving endangered animals’ (Ariel and Mauri, to appear). Lists can be further examined on the basis of a number of semantic parameters: exhaustivity vs. non-exhaustivity of the set, compositionality vs. non-compositionality of the meaning, existing relations between the linked items (conjunctive, disjunctive, etc.). Up to now, list constructions have been recognized as tools to:<\/p>\n