Meaning and Grammar - 2nd Edition: An Introduction to Semantics

Chierchia, Gennaro

ISBN 10: 026253164X / ISBN 13: 9780262531641

Published by The MIT Press, 2000

About this Item

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Bibliographic Details

Title: Meaning and Grammar - 2nd Edition: An ...

Publisher: The MIT Press

Publication Date: 2000

Binding: Paperback

Condition: New

Edition: second edition.

About this title

Synopsis:

This self-contained introduction to natural language semanticsaddresses the major theoretical questions in the field.

This self-contained introduction to natural language semantics addresses the major theoretical questions in the field. The authors introduce the systematic study of linguistic meaning through a sequence of formal tools and their linguistic applications. Starting with propositional connectives and truth conditions, the book moves to quantification and binding, intensionality and tense, and so on. To set their approach in a broader perspective, the authors also explore the interaction of meaning with context and use (the semantics-pragmatics interface) and address some of the foundational questions, especially in connection with cognition in general. They also introduce a few of the most accessible and interesting ideas from recent research to give the reader a bit of the flavor of current work in semantics. The organization of this new edition is modular; after the introductory chapters, the remaining material can be covered in flexible order. The book presupposes no background in formal logic (an appendix introduces the basic notions of set theory) and only a minimal acquaintance with linguistics. This edition includes a substantial amount of completely new material and has been not only updated but redesigned throughout to enhance its user-friendliness.

About the Author:

Jean-Jacques Laffont was Professor of Economics at theUniversite des Sciences Sociales de Toulouse and the InstitutUniversitaire de France and Director of the Institut d'EconomieIndustrielle.