Meaning

Semantics, Pragmatics, Cognition
1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-0-367-02884-8
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 322 Seiten, Format (B × H): 174 mm x 246 mm, Gewicht: 579 g

Meaning addresses the fundamental question of human language interaction: what it is to mean, and how we communicate our meanings to others. Experienced textbook writer and eminent researcher Betty J. Birner gives balanced coverage to semantics and pragmatics, emphasizing interactions between the two, and discusses other fields of language study such as syntax, neurology, philosophy of language, and artificial intelligence in terms of their interfaces with linguistic meaning.

Comics and diagrams appear throughout to keep the reader engaged; and end-of-chapter quizzes, data-collection exercises, and opinion questions are employed along with more traditional exercises and discussion questions. In addition, the book features copious examples from real life and current events, along with boxes describing linguistic issues in the news and interesting and accessible research on topics like swearing, politics, and animal communication. Students will emerge ready for deeper study in semantics and pragmatics – and more importantly, with an understanding of how all of these fields serve the fundamental purpose of human language: the communication of meaning. Meaning is an ideal textbook for courses in linguistic meaning that focus on both semantics and pragmatics in equal parts, with special attention on philosophical questions, related subfields of linguistics, and interfaces among these various areas.

Appropriate for both undergraduate and graduate-level courses in semantics, pragmatics, and general linguistics, Meaning is essential reading for all students of linguistic meaning.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate and Undergraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Birner, Betty J.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Sprachwissenschaften

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of boxes

List of figures

List of truth tables

Preface

Acknowledgments

1. What is language?

Linguistics The rules of language Language change Research in linguistics

Philosophy of language: How meaning works Types of meaning Where is meaning located? The philosophers weigh in, beginning with: Frege Russell Strawson Donnellan The upshot

Semantics and pragmatics Discourse models and possible worlds

Exercises

2. Semantics I: Word meaning

What is a word?

Where words come from Historical descent Other sources of new words Lexical relations

Approaches to word meaning Componential analysis Other primitive-based approaches Prototype theory and The Great Sandwich Controversy

Exercises

3. Semantics II: Sentence meaning

Truth and meaning

Sentential relations

Logical operators Negation Conjunction Disjunction The conditional The biconditional

Propositional logic Analytic statements Synthetic statements

Predicate logic Predicates and constants Variables Quantifiers Ambiguity and scope

Exercises

4. Pragmatics I: The Cooperative Principle

Reprise: Semantics vs. pragmatics

The Cooperative Principle The maxims The maxim of Quantity The maxim of Quality The maxim of Relation The maxim of Manner Revisiting Grice’s problem Tests for conversational implicature

Implicature and pragmatic theory Conventional implicature The Gricean world view

Pragmatics after Grice Explicature Impliciture Neo-Gricean theory Relevance theory Boundary disputes

Exercises

5. Pragmatics II: Speech acts

Speech acts Performatives Constatives Types of speech acts: first pass

Indirect speech acts Felicity conditions Felicity conditions, speech acts, and the Cooperative Principle Types of speech acts: second pass

Politeness theory

Exercises

6. Language structure

The Chomskyan revolution

Sound structure

Word structure Morphemes Allomorphs Words Parts of speech Structure and function Representing word structure Other ways of building words

Sentence structure Ambiguity and constituency Representing sentence structure Expanding our grammar Structural ambiguity So what’s the point?

Exercises

7. Interfaces I: Semantics, pragmatics, and philosophy

Reference and the semantics/pragmatics boundary What do we refer to when we refer?

Deixis and anaphora Indexicals Deixis Personal deixis Spatial deixis Temporal deixis Discourse deixis Anaphora Reference resolution Cataphora Anaphora and phrase types

Definiteness Definiteness as uniqueness Definiteness as familiarity

Presupposition Testing for presupposition Presupposition triggers Theories of presupposition Accommodation

Exercises

8. Interfaces II: Structure and meaning

Semantic roles Argument-structure alternations

Information structure Preposing Postposing Argument reversal Inference Open propositions Constructions The type/token distinction

Exercises

9. Meaning and human cognition

Language and the brain Brain structure Neurons Aphasia

Language and thought Does the language I speak affect my view of reality?

Language use and world view Advertising Politics and public policy Language and prejudice

Connecting the dots

Exercises

10. Meaning, minds, and machines

The nuts and bolts

Natural-language processing

Artificial intelligence Data mining Deep learning

Meaning and the self Bodies and minds Language and consciousness

Exercises

References

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Betty J. Birner is a professor of Linguistics and Cognitive Science in the Department of English at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL. She received her Ph.D. in 1992 from Northwestern University, and has written extensively on pragmatics, the semantics/pragmatics interface, and information structure.