Download or read book Presupposition and the Delimitation of Semantics written by Ruth M. Kempson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1975-07-17 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, first published in 1975, Dr Kempson argues that previous work on presupposition - whether in philosophy or linguistics - has been mistakenly based on a conflation of two different disciplines: semantics, the study of the meanings assigned to the formal system which constitutes a language, and pragmatics, the study of the use of that system in communication. The first part of the book deals generally with the nature of semantics in linguistic theory and its formal representation within a transformational grammar; Dr Kempson argues against incorporating the relation of presupposition within such a grammar. The second part provides a pragmatic account of the foundations of a theory of communication and its detailed application to the problems raised by presupposition. The book is intended for those studying both philosophy and linguistics and also for those sociolinguists and psychologists with a more general interest in the theory of communication.
Download or read book Presupposition and the Delimitations of Semantics written by Ruth M. Kempson and published by . This book was released on 1975 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Presupposition and the Delimitation of Semantics written by Ruth M. Kempson and published by . This book was released on 1973 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The thesis is divided into three sections. In the first, I present the general theoretical framework within which the arguments of the thesis are considered. This framework contains an interpretive semantic component (in the sense of Katz 1966a, 1972, Bierwisch 1969, 1971) and the formalism assumed is that of Bierwisch. I argue however that this formalism in effect constitutes a statement of the necessary and sufficient truth conditions on the sentences of a language and that this is the correct basis for natural-language semantics. This hypothesis appears to be threatened by the concept of presupposition. In the second section, I therefore discuss two separate concepts of presupposition and consider the issues both raise for natural-language semantics. In brief, I argue (chapter 4) that to incorporate a concept of presupposition defined in terms of speakers' belief has consequences which necessitate its exclusion by fiat from a formal linguistic theory. Furthermore I argue (chapters 4-5) that a logically defined concept of presupposition refers to an empty set of sentences, since every postulated presupposition is in fact an example of an entailment relation. So I conclude that neither definition of presupposition should be part of natural-language semantics. Accordingly the semantic framework set up in the first part remains at present unfalsified. However in addition to such a semantics, in the final section I set up a theory of pragmatics (along lines suggested by Grice, 1957, 1961, 1968, 1969) to explain those aspects of sentences which are not captured by a truth-conditional (but non-presuppositional) semantics. In over-all terms, my aim is two-fold: (i) to justify in some detail the formal properties of an interpretive semantic component (based on a non-presuppositional logic); and (ii) to suggest a tentative specification of a pragmatic theory as part of some more general theory of performance.
Download or read book The Limits to Debate written by Noel Burton-Roberts and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exponents and critics of semantic presupposition have almost invariably based their discussion on the ('Standard') definition of presupposition implied by Frege and Strawson. In this study Noel Burton-Roberts argues convincingly against this definition, that leads it to a three-valued semantics. He presents a very simple semantic definition which is weaker, more general and leads to a semantics more easily interpreted as two-valued with gaps. The author shows that a wide range of intuitive facts that eluded the Standard definition follow directly from this ('Revised') definition itself: facts about the presuppositions of compound sentences and modal sentences, about presuppositional conflict and about differences in the logical status of simple sentences suffering from presupposition failure. The book includes a detailed argument that an ambiguity of natural language negation, generally assumed to be necessary to the defence of semantic presupposition, is neither possible nor necessary in a presuppositional semantics. Noel Burton-Roberts has made an authoritative contribution to a debate which has involved philosophers and linguists for many years. His command of the issues, his clarity of exposition and his theoretical insight may well serve to change the boundaries of that debate.
Download or read book Presupposition and Implicature in Compositional Semantics written by U. Sauerland and published by Springer. This book was released on 2007-05-10 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All humans can interpret sentences of their native language quickly and without effort. Working from the perspective of generative grammar, the contributors to this volume investigate three mental mechanisms, widely assumed to underlie this ability: compositional semantics, implicature computation and presupposition computation.
Download or read book Presuppositions and Discourse written by Rainer Bäuerle and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Undoubtedly, presupposition theory is a major chapter in the success story of dynamic semantics. This book features papers on this topic based on a conference on "Presupposition" convened in Stuttgart in October 2000.
Download or read book Context and Presupposition written by Rob A. van der Sandt and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, which has been written for linguists and philosophers working in the field of semantics, deals with presupposition and its dependence on context.
Download or read book Semantic Theory written by Ruth M. Kempson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1977-09-15 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introduction to the central topics of linguistic semantics and the philosophy of language, assuming no special knowledge of philosophy or logic.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Negation written by Viviane Déprez and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 889 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this volume, international experts in negation provide a comprehensive overview of cross-linguistic and philosophical research in the field, as well as accounts of more recent results from experimental linguistics, psycholinguistics, and neuroscience. The volume adopts an interdisciplinary approach to a range of fundamental questions ranging from why negation displays so many distinct linguistic forms to how prosody and gesture participate in the interpretation of negative utterances. Following an introduction from the editors, the chapters are arranged in eight parts that explore, respectively, the fundamentals of negation; issues in syntax; the syntax-semantics interface; semantics and pragmatics; negative dependencies; synchronic and diachronic variation; the emergence and acquisition of negation; and experimental investigations of negation. The volume will be an essential reference for students and researchers across a wide range of disciplines, and will facilitate further interdisciplinary work in the field.
Download or read book Linguistics Meets Philosophy written by Daniel Altshuler and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-10-13 with total page 609 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Linguistics and philosophy, while being two closely-related fields, are often approached with very different methodologies and frameworks. Bringing together a team of interdisciplinary scholars, this pioneering book provides examples of how conversations between the two disciplines can lead to exciting developments in both fields, from both a historical and a current perspective. It identifies a number of key phenomena at the cutting edge of research within both fields, such as reporting and ascribing, describing and referring, narrating and structuring, locating in time and space, typologizing and ontologizing, determining and questioning, arguing and rejecting, and implying and (pre-)supposing. Each chapter takes on a phenomena and explores it through a set of questions which are posed and answered at the outset of each chapter. An accessible and engaging resource, it is essential reading for researchers and students in both disciplines, and will empower exciting and illuminating conversations for years to come.
Download or read book The Handbook of Contemporary Semantic Theory written by Shalom Lappin and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2019-02-12 with total page 771 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second edition of The Handbook of Contemporary Semantic Theory presents a comprehensive introduction to cutting-edge research in contemporary theoretical and computational semantics. Features completely new content from the first edition of The Handbook of Contemporary Semantic Theory Features contributions by leading semanticists, who introduce core areas of contemporary semantic research, while discussing current research Suitable for graduate students for courses in semantic theory and for advanced researchers as an introduction to current theoretical work
Download or read book Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Language written by Gillian Russell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-07 with total page 941 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophy of language is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature of meaning, the relationship of language to reality, and the ways in which we use, learn, and understand language. The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Language provides a comprehensive and up-to-date survey of the field, charting its key ideas and movements, and addressing contemporary research and enduring questions in the philosophy of language. Unique to this Companion is clear coverage of research from the related disciplines of formal logic and linguistics, and discussion of the applications in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and philosophy of mind. Organized thematically, the Companion is divided into seven sections: Core Topics; Foundations of Semantics; Parts of Speech; Methodology; Logic for Philosophers of Language; Philosophy of Language for the Rest of Philosophy; and Historical Perspectives. Comprised of 70 never-before-published essays from leading scholars--including Sally Haslanger, Jeffrey King, Sally McConnell-Ginet, Rae Langton, Kit Fine, John MacFarlane, Jeff Pelletier, Scott Soames, Jason Stanley, Stephen Stich and Zoltan Gendler Szabo--the Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Language promises to be the most comprehensive and authoritative resource for students and scholars alike.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Interfaces written by Gillian Ramchand and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-02-22 with total page 686 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Interfaces' explores how the core components of the language faculty interact. This book shows how these interactions are reflected in linguistic and cognitive theory, considers what they reveal, and looks at their reflections in expression and communication.
Download or read book Perspectives on Linguistic Pragmatics written by Alessandro Capone and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-11-26 with total page 554 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides insight into linguistic pragmatics from the perspective of linguists who have been influenced by philosophy. Theory of Mind and perspectives on point of view are presented along with other topics including: semantics vs. semiotics, clinical pragmatics, explicatures, cancellability of explicatures, interactive language use, reference, common ground, presupposition, definiteness, logophoricity and point of view in connection with pragmatic inference, pragmemes and language games, pragmatics and artificial languages, the mechanism of the form/content correlation from a pragmatic point of view, amongst other issues relating to language use. Relevance Theory is introduced as an important framework, allowing readers to familiarize themselves with technical details and linguistic terminology. This book follows on from the first volume: both contain the work of world renowned experts who discuss theories relevant to pragmatics. Here, the relationship between semantics and pragmatics is explored: conversational explicatures are a way to bridge the gap in semantics between underdetermined logical forms and full propositional content. These volumes are written in an accessible way and work well both as a stimulus to further research and as a guide to less experienced researchers and students who would like to know more about this vast, complex, and difficult field of inquiry.
Download or read book What Comes First in Dynamic Semantics written by David Beaver and published by Center for the Study of Language and Information Publications. This book was released on 2001-01 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Russell and Strawson sparked a well known debate on the subject of Linguistic Presupposition inspiring many linguists and philosophers to follow suit, including Frege, whose work initiated the modern study in this area. Beaver begins with the most comprehensive overview and critical discussion of this burgeoning field published to date. He then goes on to motivate and develop his own account based on a Dynamic Semantics. This account is a recent line of theoretical work in which the Tarskian emphasis on truth conditions is questioned. The central plank of the theory of meaning is a formal account of the change in information effected by use of language on hearers or readers. The proposal thus consolidates ideas of Stalnaker, Karttunen and Heim, all of whom had suggested that such an account was needed. At the same time it provides a new impulse and motivation to Dynamic Semantics itself.
Download or read book Pragmatics of Speech Actions written by Marina Sbisà and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-07-31 with total page 748 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides extensive critical information about current discussions in the study of speech actions. Its central reference point is classic speech act theory, but attention is also paid to nonstandard developments and other approaches that study speech as action. The first part of the volume deals with main concepts, methodological issues and phenomena common to different kinds of speech action. The second part deals with specific kinds of speech actions, including types of illocutionary acts and some discourse and conversational phenomena. Reduced series price (print) available! [email protected].
Download or read book Linguistic Meaning written by Keith Allan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-02-03 with total page 826 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dr Keith Allan presents a coherent, consistent and comprehensive account of linguistic meaning, centred around an informally presented theory of meaning. It is intended for graduate and undergraduate students of linguistics, or any linguist curious about what a theory of meaning should seek to accomplish and the way to achieve that aim. The work assumes that the primary task of a theory of linguistic meaning is to describe the meaning of speech acts. This in turn presupposes a theory of semantics and a theory of prosodic meaning, as well as a proper treatment of the co-operative principle, context and background information. These matters are dealt with in detail. The second task of a theory of linguistic meaning is to identify what meaning is, to explain the relationships between sense and denotation, and to explicate the nature of meaningful properties and meaning relations. These matters are fully covered, and the work concludes with a summary of the principle arguments presented.
