Comprehensive Guide to Text Analysis and Linguistics
Text Analysis and Linguistics
What is Text?
Text is a complete unit of communication that conveys a communicative intention within a specific context. It possesses a coherent structure and fulfills a purpose.
Key Properties of Text
- Adequacy: How well the text fits the situation.
- Mutual Consistency: The elements of the text relate to each other to form a unified whole.
- Topic and Structure: Texts can have various topics and structures, such as titles, articles, or other works. The structure organizes the information within the text.
Lexicography
Lexicography is the linguistic science of developing dictionaries.
Classes of Dictionaries
- Regulatory Dictionaries: Establish criteria for word acceptance and usage.
- Ideological Dictionaries: Organize words based on their relationships and meanings.
Text Cohesion
Cohesion refers to how the units of a text are connected.
- Deixis: Refers to elements outside the text using indexicals like adverbs and pronouns to indicate time and space.
- Anaphora: The relationship between an antecedent and an element that replaces it.
- Cataphora: The relationship between an element and another that appears later in the text.
- Ellipsis: The omission of a known element that appears nearby in the text.
Connectors
Connectors link and organize discourse fragments. They include structuring markers, logical relationship markers, and conversational markers.
Text Typology
Different types of texts include conversation, description, narration, exposition, argumentation, instruction, prediction, and rhetorical texts.
Phrasing and Sentences
- Phrase: The smallest unit of communication with complete meaning, independent and with intonation.
- Sentence: Conveys a complete message with meaning, independence, and intonation.
Impersonal Sentences
- Eventual: Formed by transitive and intransitive verbs in the 3rd person plural.
- Unipersonal: Refer to natural phenomena.
- Grammaticalized: Built with verbs like “be,” “do,” and “have.”
- Reflexive: Formed with “SE” + active verb in the 3rd person singular.
Noun Phrases
Nouns
Nouns are words with variations in gender and number, forming the nucleus of a noun phrase.
Semantic Classification of Nouns
- Common/Proper
- Concrete/Abstract
- Individual/Collective
- Count/Non-count
- Animate/Inanimate
Determiners
Determiners introduce the noun and define its scope.
Classes of Determiners
- Articles: Definite (the) and indefinite (a, an, some).
- Demonstratives: Indicate position in space (this, that).
- Possessives: Indicate ownership (my, your, his, our).
- Indefinites: Indicate imprecise quantities (many, all).
- Quantifiers: Indicate quantity or order.
- Interrogative and Exclamatory Determiners
Adjectives
Adjectives modify nouns.
Degree of Adjectives
- Positive
- Comparative
- Superlative (absolute, relative)
Types of Adjectives
- Specific Adjectives: Differentiate a noun from others.
- Explanatory Adjectives: Highlight a familiar quality.
Verb Phrases
Tense
Indicates when the verb’s action takes place.
Mood
Expresses the speaker’s attitude towards the action (indicative, subjunctive, imperative).
Non-Personal Verb Forms
- Infinitive: to sing, to fear
- Gerund: singing, fearing
- Participle: sung, feared
Verb Regularity
- Regular Verbs: Do not change their root.
- Irregular Verbs: Show variations in their root or inflections.
Periphrasis
Auxiliary verb + infinitive, gerund, or participle (e.g., “have been studying”).
Types of Periphrasis
- Modal Periphrasis: Express obligation or doubt.
- Aspectual Periphrasis: Indicate the aspect of the action (inchoative, repetitive, durative, perfect).
Voice
Expresses the relationship between the verb and the subject (active, passive, reflexive).