Formal Semantics
The Essential Readings
Published on 8. May 2008
496 pages
978-0-470-75818-2 (ISBN)
Description
Formal Semantics: The Essential Readings is a collection of seminal papers that have shaped the field of formal semantics in linguistics.
Reviews / Votes
"This volume contains a well-balanced selection of great paperscovering fifteen vibrant years of semantic research. My owndefinition of a classic paper is a paper that is endlessly borrowedby students, but rarely returned. The papers in this volume allshare the property that somewhere in the world somebody owns mycopy of them. It's great to find them all collected here." FredLandman, Tel Aviv University "Truth-conditional semantics has its roots in the work of Fregeand analytic philosophy, which was designed to overcome thevagueness, ambiguities, and dubious ontological commitments ofnatural language. Curiously, this intellectual tradition providedthe very foundation for the serious study of meaning in naturallanguage. This collection of seminal articles bears witness to thisastonishing development; it should be essential reading forlinguists and philosophers who are seriously interested inlinguistic meaning." Manfred Krifka, Humboldt UniversityMore details
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
09/2002
1st Edition
Wiley
€163.50
Shipment within 15-20 days
Persons
Paul Portner is Associate Professor of Linguistics andActing Director of the Interdisciplinary Program in CognitiveScience at Georgetown University. He is the author of numerousarticles on topics such as mood and modality, tense and aspect, andthe syntax/semantics interface.
Barbara H. Partee is Distinguished University Professorof Linguistics and Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts,Amherst and is the author of several landmark essays in formalsemantics. She has written and edited numerous books, includingMathematical Methods in Linguistics (with Alice ter Meulenand Robert Wall, 1990), Montague Grammar (edited, 1976), andQuantification in Natural Languages (edited, with EmmonBach, Eloise Jelinek, and Angelika Kratzer, 1995).
Content
Acknowledgments.
Introduction (Paul Portner and Barbara Partee).
1. The Proper Treatment of Quantification in Ordinary English(Richard Montague).
2. A Unified Analysis of the English Bare Plural (GregCarlson).
3. Generalized Quantifiers and Natural Language (Jon Barwise andRobin Cooper).
4. The Logical Analysis of Plurals and Mass Terms (GodehardLink).
5. Assertion (Robert C. Stalnaker).
6. Scorekeeping in a Language Game (David Lewis).
7. Adverbs of Quantification (David Lewis).
8. A Theory of Truth and Semantic Representation (HansKamp).
9. File Change Semantics and the Familiarity Theory ofDefiniteness (Irene Heim).
10. On the Projection Problem for Presuppositions (IreneHeim).
11. Toward a Semantic Analysis of Verb Aspect and the English'Imperfective' Progressive (David R. Dowty).
12. The National Category of Modality (Angelika Kratzer).
13. The Algebra of Events (Emmon Bach).
14. Generalized Conjunction and Type Ambiguity (Barbara Parteeand Mats Rooth).
15. Noun Phrase Interpretation and Type Shifting Principles(Barbara H. Partee).
16. Syntax and Semantics of Questions (Lauri Karttunen).
17. Type-Shifting Rules and the Semantics of Interrogatives(Jeroen Groenendijk and Martin Stokhof).
18. On the Notion Affective in the Analysis of Negative-PolarityItems (William A. Ladusaw).
Index.
