From Grammar to Meaning
The Spontaneous Logicality of Language

Here, prominent figures in linguistics, including Noam Chomsky and Barbara H. Partee, offer new insights into the nature of linguistic meaning.

Ivano Caponigro (Edited by), Carlo Cecchetto (Edited by)

9781107033108, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 12 September 2013

378 pages, 21 b/w illus. 5 colour illus. 2 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.67 kg

In recent years, the study of formal semantics and formal pragmatics has grown tremendously, showing that core aspects of language meaning can be explained by a few principles. These principles are grounded in the logic that is behind - and tightly intertwined with - the grammar of human language. In this book, some of the most prominent figures in linguistics, including Noam Chomsky and Barbara H. Partee, offer new insights into the nature of linguistic meaning and pave the way for the further development of formal semantics and formal pragmatics. Each chapter investigates various dimensions in which the logical nature of human language manifests itself within a language and/or across languages. Phenomena like bare plurals, free choice items, scalar implicatures, intervention effects, and logical operators are investigated in depth and at times cross-linguistically and/or experimentally. This volume will be of interest to scholars working within the fields of semantics, pragmatics, language acquisition and psycholinguistics.

List of contributors
Acknowledgments
List of abbreviations
Introduction Ivano Caponigro and Carlo Cecchetto
Part I. From Grammar to Meaning: Foundational Issues: 1. Portrait of a semanticist as a young man: Gennaro Chierchia 1979–1988 Barbara H. Partee
2. Notes on denotation and denoting Noam Chomsky
Part II. From Grammar to Meaning: Formal Developments, New Findings, and Challenges: 3. On the existential force of bare plurals across languages Veneeta Dayal
4. Broaden your views, but try to stay focussed: a missing piece in the polarity system Anamaria F?l?u?
5. On the free choice potential of epistemic and deontic modals Maria Aloni and Michael Franke
6. Implicatures of modified numerals Clemens Mayr
7. A scalar semantics for scalar readings of number words Christopher Kennedy
8. Presuposition projection from quantificational sentences: trivalence, local accommodation, and presupposition strengthening Danny Fox
Part III. From Grammar to Meaning: Experimental Insights: 9. Unification in child language Stephen Crain and Rosalind Thornton
10. Acquisition meets comparison: an investigation of gradable adjectives Francesca Panzeri, Francesca Foppolo and Maria Teresa Guasti
11. Intervention in grammar and processing Adriana Belletti and Luigi Rizzi
Appendix A. Gennaro Chierchia's list of publications
Appendix B. 'Logic and Linguistics: A Marriage of Inconvenience'
References
Index of names
Index of subjects.

Subject Areas: Semantics, discourse analysis, etc [CFG], Linguistics [CF]