Linguistics Meets Philosophy

With input from a team of scholars, this book brings together linguistics and philosophy, empowering new conversations in the process.

Daniel Altshuler (Edited by)

9781108487290, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 October 2022

340 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 3.7 cm, 1.03 kg

'A splendid collection, shining a light on some of the most pressing issues in contemporary semantic theory. Taken as a whole, these studies make a compelling case for the importance of interaction between linguists and philosophers to the historical development of semantics as a field - and for why we should keep talking to each other in the future.' Hazel Pearson, Senior Lecturer in Linguistics

Linguistics and philosophy, while being two closely-related fields, are often approached with very different methodologies and frameworks. Bringing together a team of interdisciplinary scholars, this pioneering book provides examples of how conversations between the two disciplines can lead to exciting developments in both fields, from both a historical and a current perspective. It identifies a number of key phenomena at the cutting edge of research within both fields, such as reporting and ascribing, describing and referring, narrating and structuring, locating in time and space, typologizing and ontologizing, determining and questioning, arguing and rejecting, and implying and (pre-)supposing. Each chapter takes on a phenomena and explores it through a set of questions which are posed and answered at the outset of each chapter. An accessible and engaging resource, it is essential reading for researchers and students in both disciplines, and will empower exciting and illuminating conversations for years to come.

Linguistics meets philosophy: a historial preface Barbara H. Partee
Introduction Daniel Altshuler
Part I. Reporting and Ascribing: 1. Attitude ascriptions and speech reports Angelika Kratzer
2. Acquaintance relations Yael Sharvit and Matt Moss
Part II. Describing and Referring: 3. Referential and attributive descriptions Hans Kamp
4. On definite descriptions can familiarity and uniqueness be distinguished? Elizabeth Coppock
Part III. Narrating and Structuring: 5. On the role of relations and structure in discourse interpretation Julie Hunter and Kate Thompson
6. Narrative and point of view Pranav Anand and Maziar Toosarvandani
Part IV. Locating and Inferring: 7. Present tense Corien Bary
8. Evidentiality: Unifying nominal and propositional domains Diti Bhadra
Part V. Typologizing and ontologizing: 9. A typology of semantic entities Jessica Rett
10. Non-finite verbal forms and natural language ontology Gillian Ramchand
Part VI. Determining and questioning: 11. Vagueness & Discourse dynamics Sam Carter
12. Alternatives Matthijs Westera
Part VII. Arguing and rejecting: 13. The Semantics and Pragmatics of argumentation Carlotta Pavese
14. Assertion and rejection Julian J. Schlöder
Part VIII. Implying and (pre)supposing: 15. Implicatures Emma Borg
16. Presuppositions Márta Abrusán
17. Modals and conditionals Matthew Mandelkern.

Subject Areas: Philosophy [HP], Semantics, discourse analysis, etc [CFG], Philosophy of language [CFA], Linguistics [CF]