Introduction to English Semantics and Pragmatics PDF Download

Author: Patrick Griffiths
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748626883
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
An introduction to the linguistic study of meaning, this book outlines the meaning potential (semantics) of English and how language knowledge is put to use (pragmatics). As well as gaining a systematic overview of meaning in English, readers can learn how to argue for analyses. Among the significant concepts introduced are denotation, sense relations, event types, explicature, implicature, presupposition, metaphor, reference, speech acts and (at an elementary level) Generalised Quantifier Theory. Sense relations--such as antonymy and hyponymy--are presented as summarising patterns of entailment. The sense of a word is seen as the contributions it makes to the entailments carried by sentences.

Author: Paul R. Kroeger
Publisher: Language Science Press
ISBN: 3961101361
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 502

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Book Description
This book provides an introduction to the study of meaning in human language, from a linguistic perspective. It covers a fairly broad range of topics, including lexical semantics, compositional semantics, and pragmatics. The chapters are organized into six units: (1) Foundational concepts; (2) Word meanings; (3) Implicature (including indirect speech acts); (4) Compositional semantics; (5) Modals, conditionals, and causation; (6) Tense & aspect. Most of the chapters include exercises which can be used for class discussion and/or homework assignments, and each chapter contains references for additional reading on the topics covered. As the title indicates, this book is truly an INTRODUCTION: it provides a solid foundation which will prepare students to take more advanced and specialized courses in semantics and/or pragmatics. It is also intended as a reference for fieldworkers doing primary research on under-documented languages, to help them write grammatical descriptions that deal carefully and clearly with semantic issues. The approach adopted here is largely descriptive and non-formal (or, in some places, semi-formal), although some basic logical notation is introduced. The book is written at level which should be appropriate for advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate students. It presupposes some previous coursework in linguistics, but does not presuppose any background in formal logic or set theory.

Author: Carol A. Kates
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501752189
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
What is the nature of communicative competence? Carol Kates addresses this crucial linguistic question, examining and finally rejecting the rationalistic theory proposed by Noam Chomsky and elaborated by Jerrold J. Katz, among others. She sets forth three reasons why the rationalistic model shoudl be rejected: (1) it has not been supported by empirical tests; (2) it cannot accommodate the pragmatic relation between speaker and sign; and (3) the theory of universal grammar carries with it unacceptable metaphysical implications unless it is interpreted in light of empiricism. Kates proposes an empiricist model in place of the rationalistic theory—a model that, in her view, is more consistent with recent findings in linguistics and psycholinguistics. In attempting to clarify the nature of utterance meaning, Kates develops theoretical perspectives on phenomenological empiricism and produces an account of reference and intentionality directly relevant to empiricaly based theories of speaking and understanding. Among the major topics addressed in the book are transformational-generative and universal grammer, cognitive theories of language acquisition, pragmatic structure, predication and topic-comment structure, and empiricism and the philosophical problem of universals. An innovative and probing work, Pragmatics and Semantics will be welcomed by philosophers, linguists, and psycholinguists.

Author: Geoffrey N. Leech
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027225060
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 142

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Book Description
The aim of this book is to show the way forward to a coherent view of language in which the achievement of the formalist paradigm is strengthened to the extent that its claims are weakened. A formal theory such as generative grammar is a special theory which is to be subsumed in a general theory of linguistic communication that also includes pragmatics. The tension between the psycho-formalist and the socio-functional views could be resolved in a synthesis whereby both the psychological and social natures of language are fully acknowledged. Semantics and pragmatics, representing these two natures in the study of meaning, have distinct goals, which can be defined more clearly and pursued more effectively to the extent that both their distinctness and their interdependence are recognized.

Author: Ilse Depraetere
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319322478
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 357

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Book Description
This book explores new territory at the interface between semantics and pragmatics, reassessing a number of linguistic phenomena in the light of recent advances in pragmatic theory. It presents stimulating insights by experts in linguistics and philosophy, including Kent Bach, Philippe de Brabanter, Max Kölbel and François Recanati. The authors begin by reassessing the definition of four theoretical concepts: saturation, free pragmatic enrichment, completion and expansion. They go on to confront (sub)disciplines that have addressed similar issues but that have not necessarily been in close contact, and then turn to questions related to reported speech, modality, indirect requests and prosody. Chapters investigate lexical pragmatics and (cognitive) lexical semantics and other interactions involving experimental pragmatics, construction grammar, clinical linguistics, and the distinction between mental and linguistic content. The authors bridge the gap between different disciplines, subdisciplines and methodologies, supporting cross-fertilization of ideas and indicating the empirical studies that are needed to test current theoretical concepts and push the theory further. Readers will find overviews of the ways in which concepts are defined, empirical data with which they are illustrated and explorations of the theoretical frameworks in which concepts are couched. This exciting exchange of ideas has its origins in the editors’ workshop series on the theme ‘The semantics/pragmatics interface: linguistic, logical and philosophical perspectives’, held at the University of Lille 3 in 2012-13. Scholars of linguistics, logic and philosophy and those interested in the research benefits of crossing disciplines will find this work both accessible and thought-provoking, especially those with an interest in pragmatic theory or semantics.

Author: István Kenesei
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027298092
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
Professor Ferenc Kiefer of the Linguistics Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences was instrumental in bringing early transformational grammar to Europe. His extensive work contributes substantially to making a connection between the grammatical theory and other areas of linguistics. The 17 essays in this book celebrate his career by continuing to explore inter-area research in linguistics: pragmatics in grammar (de Groot, van Riemsdijk, Dressler & Barbaresi, Comrie), semantic compositionality and pragmatics (Wunderlich, Partee, Borschev, Szabo, Bach), logical structures and universals in semantics and pragmatics (van der Auwera, Bultinck, Burton-Roberts, Harnish, Wierzbicka) dialogue and thematic structure (Jonasson, Doherty, Hajicova, Panevova, Sgall, Allwood, Fraser).

Author: Alan Cruse
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748626891
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
This alphabetic guide introduces terms referring to key concepts in semantics and pragmatics. The study of meaning as it is conveyed through language - the domain of semantics and pragmatics--is one of the central concerns of linguistics, and its importance cannot be exaggerated. Written by an author well-known in the field of semantics, the glossary provides clear and accessible explanations of terms drawn from a wide range of theoretical approaches.

Author: Wesley M. Jacobsen
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 1501501054
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 1183

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Book Description
The volume on Semantics and Pragmatics presents a collection of studies on linguistic meaning in Japanese, either as conventionally encoded in linguistic form (the field of semantics) or as generated by the interaction of form with context (the field of pragmatics), representing a range of ideas and approaches that are currently most influentialin these fields. The studies are organized around a model that has long currency in traditional Japanese grammar, whereby the linguistic clause consists of a multiply nested structure centered in a propositional core of objective meaning around which forms are deployed that express progressively more subjective meaning as one moves away from the core toward the periphery of the clause. The volume seeks to achieve a balance in highlighting both insights that semantic and pragmatic theory has to offer to the study of Japanese as a particular language and, conversely, contributions that Japanese has to make to semantic and pragmatic theory in areas of meaning that are either uniquely encoded, or encoded to a higher degree of specificity, in Japanese by comparison to other languages, such as conditional forms, forms expressing varying types of speaker modality, and social deixis.

Author: Masayoshi Shibatani
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027285683
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
This volume reflects the influence of Chuck Fillmore’s ground-breaking work in the fields of semantics and pragmatics. The papers in the volume pay tribute to his pioneering research into the deepest realms of the nature of ‘meaning’.

Author: Zoltan Gendler Szabo
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199251517
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 476

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Book Description
This is a collection of papers by leading scholars in the philosophy of language and theoretical linguistics on how semantics and pragmatics embed into a larger theory of interpretation and also on the disputed territories between these disciplines.