Semantics: An Introduction to Meaning in Language
by Ronnie Cann , Ruth Kempson , Eleni GregoromichelakiFormat: Paperback
Pub. Date: 2009-05-29
Publisher(s): Cambridge University Press
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Summary
The study of meaning in language has developed dramatically over the last fifty years. Semantics is distinctive as it not only presents a general introduction to the topic, including the most recent developments, but it also provides a unique perspective for addressing current issues. It opens by introducing readers to the study of logic (natural deduction) as the background against which developments have taken place. This demonstrates the link between semantics and the study of reasoning and how this view can provide new solutions to the puzzles that have plagued the approaches presented in other textbooks. The major subject areas of semantics are discussed, including quantification, anaphora and discourse, tense and aspect, ellipsis and context, and word meaning. The book also presents state-of-the-art research in topics at the forefront of semantics.
Table of Contents
| List of figures | p. x |
| Preface | p. xi |
| Preliminaries for model building | p. 1 |
| Introduction | p. 1 |
| Explaining semantics: starting from words? | p. 4 |
| Constructing a semantic theory | p. 8 |
| Breaking out of the language circle | p. 9 |
| The language-of-thought hypothesis | p. 9 |
| Language and the world | p. 11 |
| Truth-conditional semantics | p. 12 |
| Logic, meaning and context | p. 17 |
| Further reading | p. 21 |
| The syntax of logical inference | p. 22 |
| Language and logic | p. 22 |
| Proof theory and model theory: syntax vs. semantics? | p. 24 |
| Logic, inference and natural-language semantics | p. 26 |
| Natural deduction: a syntactic mode of inference | p. 27 |
| Natural deduction for propositional logic | p. 28 |
| Conditional Elimination: Modus Ponens | p. 29 |
| Conditional Introduction: Conditional Proof | p. 33 |
| Negation and extending the set of conditional rules | p. 35 |
| The Elimination and Introduction rules for ^ | p. 38 |
| v Introduction and v Elimination | p. 41 |
| Reduction and Absurdum: a constrained variant | p. 44 |
| Commentary: propositional logic for linguists | p. 47 |
| Predicate logic | p. 49 |
| Predicate logic syntax | p. 50 |
| Proof rules of predicate logic | p. 52 |
| Defining inference proof-theoretically | p. 62 |
| The proof-theoretic force of the logical conditional | p. 62 |
| The de Morgan equivalences | p. 64 |
| Commentary: theoretical implications | p. 65 |
| Further reading | p. 66 |
| The semantics of logical inference: models and semantic types | p. 68 |
| Model-theoretic evaluation | p. 68 |
| Models for propositional logic | p. 69 |
| Model theory for predicate logic | p. 71 |
| Defining a model | p. 73 |
| Set theory: an introduction | p. 74 |
| Model-theoretic semantics for predicate logic | p. 75 |
| Model-theoretic evaluation of quantified formulae | p. 77 |
| Inferential relations semantically defined | p. 81 |
| Evaluating syntactic and semantic characterisations of inference | p. 83 |
| Type theory | p. 85 |
| The lambda operator | p. 87 |
| Types reprised | p. 92 |
| Interpreting typed expressions | p. 94 |
| Summary | p. 97 |
| Further reading | p. 98 |
| Quantification and plurality | p. 99 |
| Generalised quantifiers | p. 99 |
| Quantifiers, compositionality and coverage | p. 99 |
| Towards compositional quantification | p. 102 |
| Interpreting quantifiers | p. 105 |
| Cardinality quantifiers | p. 109 |
| Contextual quantifiers | p. 112 |
| Conservativity and monotonicity | p. 114 |
| Plurals | p. 119 |
| Interpreting plural noun phrases | p. 120 |
| Extending the ontology | p. 125 |
| Collective and distributive predicates | p. 129 |
| Mass terms | p. 133 |
| Coda | p. 134 |
| Further reading | p. 135 |
| Anaphora, discourse and context | p. 137 |
| Noun phrases and discourse properties | p. 137 |
| Anaphora and quantification | p. 140 |
| Types of anaphora | p. 140 |
| E-type pronouns | p. 143 |
| Discourse Representation Theory (DRT) | p. 147 |
| Introduction | p. 147 |
| DRS construction | p. 151 |
| Embedding | p. 155 |
| Interpreting DRSs | p. 159 |
| Accessibility | p. 163 |
| Conclusion | p. 166 |
| Coda | p. 166 |
| Further Reading | p. 167 |
| Time, tense and events | p. 169 |
| Time and tense | p. 170 |
| Simple tense logic | p. 172 |
| Some problems | p. 176 |
| Event theory | p. 180 |
| Types of eventualities | p. 182 |
| Tense in English | p. 184 |
| Reichenbach's analysis of tenses in English | p. 184 |
| Tense in DRT | p. 185 |
| Aspect and Aktionsart | p. 190 |
| Grammatical aspect | p. 191 |
| Lexical aspect | p. 192 |
| Representing aspect | p. 196 |
| Conclusion | p. 205 |
| Further Reading | p. 205 |
| Ellipsis as a window on context | p. 207 |
| Puzzles at the syntax-semantics interface | p. 207 |
| Ellipsis: preliminaries | p. 210 |
| Ellipsis: linguistic debates | p. 212 |
| Ellipsis: syntactic puzzles | p. 214 |
| Ellipsis: semantic challenges | p. 216 |
| Ellipsis as pragmatic reconstruction | p. 221 |
| Ellipsis: towards a unitary account | p. 223 |
| Dynamic Syntax | p. 225 |
| The tree-logic and tree-growth processes | p. 226 |
| Quantification dynamics and the epsilon calculus | p. 232 |
| Ellipsis and context | p. 235 |
| Use of context-provided formulae | p. 235 |
| Context-provided structure | p. 237 |
| Context as a record of parsing actions | p. 239 |
| Context defined | p. 241 |
| Summary reflections | p. 244 |
| Further reading | p. 244 |
| What a word can mean | p. 246 |
| The Generative Lexicon | p. 251 |
| Semantic Minimalism | p. 253 |
| Ellipsis and criteria for identity of content | p. 254 |
| Variability in word meaning: new avenues of research | p. 260 |
| Word meaning as concept-clusters | p. 260 |
| Language as a tool-box | p. 264 |
| New directions in semantics | p. 269 |
| Semantics and pragmatics | p. 270 |
| Coda | p. 272 |
| Further reading | p. 273 |
| Bibliography | p. 275 |
| Index | p. 285 |
| Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved. |
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