
The Logic of Language
Language From Within Volume II
Pieter A. M. Seuren(Author)
Oxford University Press
Published on 29. October 2009
Book
Hardback
446 pages
978-0-19-955948-0 (ISBN)
Description
The Logic of Language opens a new perspective on logic. Pieter Seuren argues that the logic of language derives from the lexical meanings of the logical operators. These meanings, however, prove not to be consistent. Seuren solves this problem through an indepth analysis of the functional adequacy of natural predicate logic and standard modern logic for natural linguistic interaction. He then develops a general theory of discourse-bound interpretation, covering discourse incrementation, anaphora, presupposition and topic-comment structure, all of which, the author claims, form the 'cement' of discourse structure.
This is the second of a two-volume foundational study of language, published under the title Language from Within. Pieter Seuren discusses such apparently diverse issues as the ontology underlying the semantics of language, speech act theory, intensionality phenomena, the machinery and ecology of language, sentential and lexical meaning, the natural logic of language and cognition, and the intrinsically context-sensitive nature of language - and shows them to be intimately linked. Throughout his ambitious enterprise, he maintains a constant dialogue with established views, reflecting their development from Ancient Greece to the present. The resulting synthesis concerns central aspects of research and theory in linguistics, philosophy and cognitive science.
This is the second of a two-volume foundational study of language, published under the title Language from Within. Pieter Seuren discusses such apparently diverse issues as the ontology underlying the semantics of language, speech act theory, intensionality phenomena, the machinery and ecology of language, sentential and lexical meaning, the natural logic of language and cognition, and the intrinsically context-sensitive nature of language - and shows them to be intimately linked. Throughout his ambitious enterprise, he maintains a constant dialogue with established views, reflecting their development from Ancient Greece to the present. The resulting synthesis concerns central aspects of research and theory in linguistics, philosophy and cognitive science.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
Tree diagrams
Dimensions
Height: 242 mm
Width: 164 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
812 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-955948-0 (9780199559480)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Pieter Seuren is a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen. He was a lecturer in linguistics first at Cambridge, then Oxford, before moving to the Radboud University in Nijmegen in 1974 as Professor of the Philosophy of Language. Here he remained until his retirement in 1999, having in 1995 changed his appointment to Professor of Theoretical Linguistics. His books include Discourse Semantics (Blackwell 1985), Semantic Syntax (Blackwell 1996) and A View of Language (OUP 2001).
Content
1. Logic and Entailment ; 2. Logic: a New Beginning ; 3. Natural Set Theory, Cognition, and Natural Logic ; 4. Logical Power, Abelard, and Empirical Success Rates ; 5. Aristotle, the commentators and Abelard ; 6. The Functionality of the Square and of BNPC ; 7. The Context-Sensitivity of Speech and Language ; 8. Discourse Incrementation ; 9. Primary and Donkey Anaphora ; 10. Presupposition and Presuppositional Logic ; 11. Topic-Comment Modulation ; Bibliography ; Index