Description

Book Synopsis


Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables

Preface

Abbreviations and Symbols

Part I Preliminaries

1 Semantics in Linguistics

1.1 Introduction

1.2 Semantics and Semiotics

1.3 Three Challenges in Doing Semantics

1.4 Meeting the Challenges

1.5 Semantics in a Model of Grammar

1.5.1 Introduction

1.5.2 Word meaning and sentence meaning

1.6 Some Important Assumptions

1.6.1 Reference and sense

1.6.2 Utterances, sentences, and propositions

1.6.3 Literal and non-literal meaning

1.6.4 Semantics and pragmatics

1.7 Summary

2 Meaning, Thought, and Reality

2.1 Introduction

2.2 Reference

2.2.1 Types of reference

2.2.2 Names

2.2.3 Nouns and noun phrases

2.3 Reference as a Theory of Meaning

2.4 Mental Representations

2.4.1 Introduction

2.4.2 Concepts

2.4.3 Necessary and sufficient conditions

2.4.4 Prototypes

2.4.5 Relations between concepts

2.4.6 Acquiring concepts

2.5 Words, Concepts, and Thinking

2.5.1 Linguistic relativity

2.5.2 The language of thought hypothesis

2.5.3 Thought and reality

2.6 Summary

Part II Semantic Description

3 Word Meaning

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Words and Grammatical Categories

3.3 Words and Lexical Items

3.4 Problems with Pinning Down Word Meaning

3.5 Lexical Relations

3.5.1 Homonymy

3.5.2 Polysemy

3.5.3 Synonymy

3.5.4 Opposites (antonymy)

3.5.5 Hyponymy

3.5.6 Meronymy

3.5.7 Member–collection

3.5.8 Portion–mass

3.6 Derivational Relations

3.6.1 Causative verbs

3.6.2 Agentive nouns

3.7 Lexical Typology

3.7.1 Polysemy

3.7.2 Color terms

3.7.3 Core vocabulary

3.7.4 Universal lexemes

3.8 Lexical Change

3.8.1 Introduction

3.8.2 Lexical shifts in meaning

3.8.3 System shifts in meaning

3.9 Summary

4 Sentence Relations and Truth

4.1 Introduction

4.2 Logic and Truth

4.3 Necessary Truth, A Priori Truth, and Analyticity

4.4 Entailment

4.5 Presupposition

4.5.1 Introduction

4.5.2 Two approaches to presupposition

4.5.3 Presupposition failure

4.5.4 Presupposition triggers

4.5.5 Presuppositions and context

4.5.6 Pragmatic theories of presupposition

4.6 Summary

5 Sentence Semantics 1: Situations

5.1 Introduction

5.2 Situation Types

5.2.1 States

5.2.2 Dynamic situation types

5.2.3 A system of situation types

5.2.4 Tests for situation types

5.4 Aspect

5.4.1 Aspect and tense

5.4.2 Comparing aspect across languages

5.4.3 Aspect and situation type

5.5 Modality and Mood

5.5.1 Modality

5.5.2 Mood

5.6 Evidentiality

5.7 Negation

5.7.1 Introduction

5.7.2 Clausal negation

5.7.3 Constituent negation

5.7.4 Metalinguistic negation

5.7.5 Polarity

5.8 Summary

6 Sentence Semantics 2: Participants

6.1 Introduction: Classifying Participants

6.2 Thematic Roles

6.3 Grammatical Relations and Thematic Roles

6.4 Verbs and Thematic Role Grids

6.5 Problems with Thematic Roles

6.6 The Motivation for Identifying Thematic Roles

6.7 Causation

6.8 Voice

6.8.1 Passive voice

6.8.2 Comparing passive constructions across languages

6.8.3 Middle voice

6.9 Classifiers and Noun Classes

6.9.1 Classifiers

6.9.2 Noun classes

6.10 Summary

7 Meaning and Context

7.1 Introduction

7.2 Deixis

7.2.1 Spatial deixis

7.2.2 Grammaticalization of context

7.2.3 Extensions of spatial deixis

7.2.4 Person deixis

7.2.5 Social deixis

7.3 Reference and Context

7.4 Knowledge as Context

7.4.1 Discourse as context

7.4.2 Background knowledge as context

7.4.3 Mutual knowledge

7.4.4 Giving background knowledge to computers

7.5 Information Structure

7.5.1 The information status of nominals

7.5.2 Focus and topic

7.5.3 Information structure and comprehension

7.6 Inference

7.7 Speech Act Semantics

7.7.1 Introduction

7.7.2 Austin's Speech Act Theory

7.7.3 Evaluating performative utterances

7.7.4 Explicit and implicit performatives

7.7.5 Statements as performatives

7.7.6 Three facets of a speech act

7.7.7 Indirect speech acts

7.7.8 Understanding indirect speech acts

7.7.9 Speech acts: a summary

7.8 Summary

Part III Theoretical Approaches

8 Meaning Components

8.1 Introduction

8.2 Lexical Relations in CA

8.2.1 Binary features

8.2.2 Redundancy rules

8.3 Katz's Semantic Theory

8.3.1 Introduction

8.3.2 The Katzian dictionary

8.3.3 Projection rules

8.4 Grammatical Rules and Semantic Components

8.4.1 The methodology

8.4.2 Thematic roles and linking rules

8.5 Talmy's Typology of Motion Events

8.6 Jackendoff's Conceptual Structure

8.6.1 Introduction

8.6.2 The semantic components

8.6.3 Localist semantic fields

8.6.4 Complex events and states

8.6.5 THINGS: Semantic classes of nominals

8.6.6 Cross-category generalizations

8.6.7 Processes of semantic combination

8.7 Pustejovsky's Generative Lexicon

8.7.1 Event structure

8.7.2 Polysemy and Qualia Structure

8.8 Problems with Components of Meaning

8.9 Summary

9 Formal Semantics

9.1 Introduction

9.2 Model-Theoretical Semantics

9.3 Translating English into a Logical Metalanguage

9.3.1 Introduction

9.3.2 Simple statements in predicate logic

9.3.3 Quantifiers in predicate logic

9.3.4 Some advantages of predicate logic translation

9.4 The Semantics of the Logical Metalanguage

9.4.1 Introduction

9.4.2 The semantic interpretation of predicate logic symbols

9.4.3 The domain

9.4.4 The denotation assignment function

9.5 Checking the Truth-Value of Sentences

9.5.1 Evaluating a simple statement

9.5.2 Evaluating a compound sentence with ∧ “and”

9.5.3 Evaluating sentences with the quantifiers ∀ and ∃

9.6 Word Meaning: Meaning Postulates

9.7 Natural Language Quantifiers and Higher-Order Logic

9.7.1 Restricted quantifiers

9.7.2 Generalized quantifiers

9.7.3 The strong/weak distinction and existential there sentences

9.7.4 Monotonicity and negative polarity items

9.7.5 Section summary

9.8 Intensionality

9.8.1 Introduction

9.8.2 Modality

9.8.3 Tense and aspect

9.9 Dynamic Approaches to Discourse

9.9.1 Anaphora in and across sentences

9.9.2 Donkey sentences

9.9.3 DRT and discourse anaphora

9.10 Summary

10 Cognitive Semantics

10.1 Introduction

10.2 Categorization

10.2.1 The rejection of classical categories

10.2.2 Embodiment and image schemas

10.2.3 Linguistic and encyclopedic knowledge

10.3 Polysemy

10.3.1 Prepositions

10.3.2 Modal verbs

10.4 Metaphor

10.4.1 Introduction

10.4.2 Conceptual Metaphor Theory

10.4.3 Features of metaphor

10.4.4 The influence of metaphor

10.5 Metonymy

10.6 Mental Spaces

10.6.1 Connections between spaces

10.6.2 Referential opacity

10.6.3 Presupposition

10.6.4 Conceptual integration theory

10.6.5 Section summary

10.7 Langacker's Cognitive Grammar

10.7.1 Nouns, verbs, and clauses

10.7.2 Construal

10.8 Construction Grammar

10.9 Summary

11 Inferential Pragmatics

11.1 Introduction

11.2 Propositions

11.3 Beyond propositions: Grice's conversational implicature

11.3.1 Introduction

11.3.2 Grice's maxims of conversational cooperation

11.4 Generalizing the Gricean Maxims

11.4.1 Horn's Q and R principles

11.4.2 Levinson's Q, I and M principles

11.5 Contextualism

11.5.1 Sentence and proposition mismatches

11.5.2 Gradable adjectives

11.5.3 Unexpressed temporal reference

11.5.4 Quantifier domain restriction

11.5.5 Cardinal numbers

11.5.6 Section summary

11.6 Relevance Theory

11.6.1 Introduction

11.6.2 Explicatures

11.6.3 Higher level explicatures

11.6.4 Implicatures

11.6.5 Implicature and explicature

11.6.6 Implicated premises and implicated conclusions

11.7 Lexical Pragmatics

11.7.1 Introduction

11.7.2 Polysemy and context

11.7.3 Microsenses and contextual modulation

11.7.4 Neo-Gricean lexical pragmatics

11.7.5 Lexical pragmatics in Relevance Theory

11.7.6 Section summary

11.8 Summary

Solutions to Exercises

Glossary

Index

Semantics

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      View other formats and editions of Semantics by John I. Saeed

      Publisher: John Wiley and Sons Ltd
      Publication Date: 22/12/2022
      ISBN13: 9781119709855, 978-1119709855
      ISBN10: 1119709857

      Description

      Book Synopsis


      Table of Contents

      List of Figures and Tables

      Preface

      Abbreviations and Symbols

      Part I Preliminaries

      1 Semantics in Linguistics

      1.1 Introduction

      1.2 Semantics and Semiotics

      1.3 Three Challenges in Doing Semantics

      1.4 Meeting the Challenges

      1.5 Semantics in a Model of Grammar

      1.5.1 Introduction

      1.5.2 Word meaning and sentence meaning

      1.6 Some Important Assumptions

      1.6.1 Reference and sense

      1.6.2 Utterances, sentences, and propositions

      1.6.3 Literal and non-literal meaning

      1.6.4 Semantics and pragmatics

      1.7 Summary

      2 Meaning, Thought, and Reality

      2.1 Introduction

      2.2 Reference

      2.2.1 Types of reference

      2.2.2 Names

      2.2.3 Nouns and noun phrases

      2.3 Reference as a Theory of Meaning

      2.4 Mental Representations

      2.4.1 Introduction

      2.4.2 Concepts

      2.4.3 Necessary and sufficient conditions

      2.4.4 Prototypes

      2.4.5 Relations between concepts

      2.4.6 Acquiring concepts

      2.5 Words, Concepts, and Thinking

      2.5.1 Linguistic relativity

      2.5.2 The language of thought hypothesis

      2.5.3 Thought and reality

      2.6 Summary

      Part II Semantic Description

      3 Word Meaning

      3.1 Introduction

      3.2 Words and Grammatical Categories

      3.3 Words and Lexical Items

      3.4 Problems with Pinning Down Word Meaning

      3.5 Lexical Relations

      3.5.1 Homonymy

      3.5.2 Polysemy

      3.5.3 Synonymy

      3.5.4 Opposites (antonymy)

      3.5.5 Hyponymy

      3.5.6 Meronymy

      3.5.7 Member–collection

      3.5.8 Portion–mass

      3.6 Derivational Relations

      3.6.1 Causative verbs

      3.6.2 Agentive nouns

      3.7 Lexical Typology

      3.7.1 Polysemy

      3.7.2 Color terms

      3.7.3 Core vocabulary

      3.7.4 Universal lexemes

      3.8 Lexical Change

      3.8.1 Introduction

      3.8.2 Lexical shifts in meaning

      3.8.3 System shifts in meaning

      3.9 Summary

      4 Sentence Relations and Truth

      4.1 Introduction

      4.2 Logic and Truth

      4.3 Necessary Truth, A Priori Truth, and Analyticity

      4.4 Entailment

      4.5 Presupposition

      4.5.1 Introduction

      4.5.2 Two approaches to presupposition

      4.5.3 Presupposition failure

      4.5.4 Presupposition triggers

      4.5.5 Presuppositions and context

      4.5.6 Pragmatic theories of presupposition

      4.6 Summary

      5 Sentence Semantics 1: Situations

      5.1 Introduction

      5.2 Situation Types

      5.2.1 States

      5.2.2 Dynamic situation types

      5.2.3 A system of situation types

      5.2.4 Tests for situation types

      5.4 Aspect

      5.4.1 Aspect and tense

      5.4.2 Comparing aspect across languages

      5.4.3 Aspect and situation type

      5.5 Modality and Mood

      5.5.1 Modality

      5.5.2 Mood

      5.6 Evidentiality

      5.7 Negation

      5.7.1 Introduction

      5.7.2 Clausal negation

      5.7.3 Constituent negation

      5.7.4 Metalinguistic negation

      5.7.5 Polarity

      5.8 Summary

      6 Sentence Semantics 2: Participants

      6.1 Introduction: Classifying Participants

      6.2 Thematic Roles

      6.3 Grammatical Relations and Thematic Roles

      6.4 Verbs and Thematic Role Grids

      6.5 Problems with Thematic Roles

      6.6 The Motivation for Identifying Thematic Roles

      6.7 Causation

      6.8 Voice

      6.8.1 Passive voice

      6.8.2 Comparing passive constructions across languages

      6.8.3 Middle voice

      6.9 Classifiers and Noun Classes

      6.9.1 Classifiers

      6.9.2 Noun classes

      6.10 Summary

      7 Meaning and Context

      7.1 Introduction

      7.2 Deixis

      7.2.1 Spatial deixis

      7.2.2 Grammaticalization of context

      7.2.3 Extensions of spatial deixis

      7.2.4 Person deixis

      7.2.5 Social deixis

      7.3 Reference and Context

      7.4 Knowledge as Context

      7.4.1 Discourse as context

      7.4.2 Background knowledge as context

      7.4.3 Mutual knowledge

      7.4.4 Giving background knowledge to computers

      7.5 Information Structure

      7.5.1 The information status of nominals

      7.5.2 Focus and topic

      7.5.3 Information structure and comprehension

      7.6 Inference

      7.7 Speech Act Semantics

      7.7.1 Introduction

      7.7.2 Austin's Speech Act Theory

      7.7.3 Evaluating performative utterances

      7.7.4 Explicit and implicit performatives

      7.7.5 Statements as performatives

      7.7.6 Three facets of a speech act

      7.7.7 Indirect speech acts

      7.7.8 Understanding indirect speech acts

      7.7.9 Speech acts: a summary

      7.8 Summary

      Part III Theoretical Approaches

      8 Meaning Components

      8.1 Introduction

      8.2 Lexical Relations in CA

      8.2.1 Binary features

      8.2.2 Redundancy rules

      8.3 Katz's Semantic Theory

      8.3.1 Introduction

      8.3.2 The Katzian dictionary

      8.3.3 Projection rules

      8.4 Grammatical Rules and Semantic Components

      8.4.1 The methodology

      8.4.2 Thematic roles and linking rules

      8.5 Talmy's Typology of Motion Events

      8.6 Jackendoff's Conceptual Structure

      8.6.1 Introduction

      8.6.2 The semantic components

      8.6.3 Localist semantic fields

      8.6.4 Complex events and states

      8.6.5 THINGS: Semantic classes of nominals

      8.6.6 Cross-category generalizations

      8.6.7 Processes of semantic combination

      8.7 Pustejovsky's Generative Lexicon

      8.7.1 Event structure

      8.7.2 Polysemy and Qualia Structure

      8.8 Problems with Components of Meaning

      8.9 Summary

      9 Formal Semantics

      9.1 Introduction

      9.2 Model-Theoretical Semantics

      9.3 Translating English into a Logical Metalanguage

      9.3.1 Introduction

      9.3.2 Simple statements in predicate logic

      9.3.3 Quantifiers in predicate logic

      9.3.4 Some advantages of predicate logic translation

      9.4 The Semantics of the Logical Metalanguage

      9.4.1 Introduction

      9.4.2 The semantic interpretation of predicate logic symbols

      9.4.3 The domain

      9.4.4 The denotation assignment function

      9.5 Checking the Truth-Value of Sentences

      9.5.1 Evaluating a simple statement

      9.5.2 Evaluating a compound sentence with ∧ “and”

      9.5.3 Evaluating sentences with the quantifiers ∀ and ∃

      9.6 Word Meaning: Meaning Postulates

      9.7 Natural Language Quantifiers and Higher-Order Logic

      9.7.1 Restricted quantifiers

      9.7.2 Generalized quantifiers

      9.7.3 The strong/weak distinction and existential there sentences

      9.7.4 Monotonicity and negative polarity items

      9.7.5 Section summary

      9.8 Intensionality

      9.8.1 Introduction

      9.8.2 Modality

      9.8.3 Tense and aspect

      9.9 Dynamic Approaches to Discourse

      9.9.1 Anaphora in and across sentences

      9.9.2 Donkey sentences

      9.9.3 DRT and discourse anaphora

      9.10 Summary

      10 Cognitive Semantics

      10.1 Introduction

      10.2 Categorization

      10.2.1 The rejection of classical categories

      10.2.2 Embodiment and image schemas

      10.2.3 Linguistic and encyclopedic knowledge

      10.3 Polysemy

      10.3.1 Prepositions

      10.3.2 Modal verbs

      10.4 Metaphor

      10.4.1 Introduction

      10.4.2 Conceptual Metaphor Theory

      10.4.3 Features of metaphor

      10.4.4 The influence of metaphor

      10.5 Metonymy

      10.6 Mental Spaces

      10.6.1 Connections between spaces

      10.6.2 Referential opacity

      10.6.3 Presupposition

      10.6.4 Conceptual integration theory

      10.6.5 Section summary

      10.7 Langacker's Cognitive Grammar

      10.7.1 Nouns, verbs, and clauses

      10.7.2 Construal

      10.8 Construction Grammar

      10.9 Summary

      11 Inferential Pragmatics

      11.1 Introduction

      11.2 Propositions

      11.3 Beyond propositions: Grice's conversational implicature

      11.3.1 Introduction

      11.3.2 Grice's maxims of conversational cooperation

      11.4 Generalizing the Gricean Maxims

      11.4.1 Horn's Q and R principles

      11.4.2 Levinson's Q, I and M principles

      11.5 Contextualism

      11.5.1 Sentence and proposition mismatches

      11.5.2 Gradable adjectives

      11.5.3 Unexpressed temporal reference

      11.5.4 Quantifier domain restriction

      11.5.5 Cardinal numbers

      11.5.6 Section summary

      11.6 Relevance Theory

      11.6.1 Introduction

      11.6.2 Explicatures

      11.6.3 Higher level explicatures

      11.6.4 Implicatures

      11.6.5 Implicature and explicature

      11.6.6 Implicated premises and implicated conclusions

      11.7 Lexical Pragmatics

      11.7.1 Introduction

      11.7.2 Polysemy and context

      11.7.3 Microsenses and contextual modulation

      11.7.4 Neo-Gricean lexical pragmatics

      11.7.5 Lexical pragmatics in Relevance Theory

      11.7.6 Section summary

      11.8 Summary

      Solutions to Exercises

      Glossary

      Index

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