Situating Semantics
Situating Semantics

Author: Michael O'Rourke

Publisher: Bradford Books

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 618

ISBN-13:

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Original commentary on the work of philosopher John Perry by prominent contemporary analytic philosophers, with Perry's detailed and original responses; topics include the metaphysics of identity, semantics, and philosophy of mind. John Perry, Henry Waldgrave Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University, is one of a handful of contemporary analytic philosophers to combine the focused approach of most current work in analytic philosophy with the more expansive systems-building of earlier analytic philosophers and contemporary philosophers in other disciplines. Perry, like W.V.O. Quine, Donald Davison, David Lewis, and Hilary Putnam, focuses on narrow topics across a broad range of subjects. In this volume, leading contemporary analytic philosophers contribute original essays in each of the areas that have been most influenced by Perry's work--metaphysics, language, and mind. Perry himself contributes detailed and original replies. After a comprehensive introduction to Perry's work by the editors that places semantics at the heart of Perry's philosophical strategy, the essays discuss Perry's contributions to the metaphysics of identity, the philosophy of language--in particular, contributions related to reference and unarticulated constituents--and the philosophy of mind. The essays and replies provide new perspectives on Perry's philosophical contributions over the last four decades, and yield insights into contemporary debates on these topics. Contributors Robert Audi, Kent Bach, Patricia Blanchette, Herman Cappelen, Eros Corazza, Ernie Lepore, Brian Loar, Peter Ludlow, Genoveva Marti, Michael McKinsey, Stephen Neale, Michael O'Rourke, John Perry, François Recanati, Cara Spencer, Kenneth A. Taylor, Corey Washington

Conceptual Atomism and Justificationist Semantics
Conceptual Atomism and Justificationist Semantics

Author: Manuel Bremer

Publisher: Peter Lang

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 148

ISBN-13: 9783631578766

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Conceptual atomism claims that most concepts cannot be decomposed into features, so that the conjunction of the features is equivalent to the concept in question. Conceptual atomism of this type is incompatible with many other semantic approaches. One of these approaches is justificationist semantics. This book assumes conceptual atomism. Justificationist semantics in its pure form, therefore, has to be wrong. Nevertheless, its epistemological approach to questions of evaluations and semantic rules could still stand. The main question is how conceptual atomism can be combined with some justificationist ideas. This new synthesis centres on the representational theory of mind and 'internalist' semantics, but ties these to ideas which stress the epistemic commitments that accompany successful assertions.

Semantics
Semantics

Author: John I. Saeed

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2022-12-27

Total Pages: 597

ISBN-13: 1119709857

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The latest edition of the bestselling introduction to the field of linguistic semantics, updated throughout and featuring a wholly new chapter on inferential pragmatics Semantics, Fifth Edition, is a comprehensive and well-balanced introduction to the study of the communication of meaning in language. Assuming no previous background in semantics and limited familiarity with formal linguistics, this student-friendly textbook describes the concepts, theory, and study of semantics in an accessible and clear style. Concise chapters describe the role of semantics within contemporary linguistics, cover key topics in the analysis of word and sentence meaning, and review major semantic theories such as componential theory, formal semantics, and cognitive semantics. The updated fifth edition incorporates recent theoretical developments and important research in linguistic semantics, featuring an entirely new chapter examining the overlap between inferential pragmatics and Relevance Theory, truth-conditional meaning, and other traditional areas of semantics. Revised and expanded sections discuss the continuing growth and consolidation of cognitive semantics, various contextual features of language, conceptualization and categorization, and construal and perspective. This edition includes new exercises with solutions, up-to-date references to relevant literature, and additional examples with data from a wide range of different languages. Covers basic concepts and methods as well as key theoretical models, current lines of research, and important writers Explains general concepts in semantics before gradually moving to more advanced topics in semantic description and theoretical approaches Highlights the relation between cross-linguistic variation and language universals Provides students with the background necessary to understand more advanced and specialized primary semantics literature Includes a glossary of technical terms and numerous exercises arranged by level of difficulty Highlights the relationship between semantics and cross-linguistic variation, language universals, and pragmatics With detailed examples from a wide range of contexts and a wealth of practical exercises, Semantics, Fifth Edition, remains the perfect textbook for undergraduate students of linguistics, English language, applied linguistics, modern languages, and computer sciences.

Context-Sensitivity and Semantic Minimalism
Context-Sensitivity and Semantic Minimalism

Author: Gerhard Preyer

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2007-10-25

Total Pages: 374

ISBN-13: 0199213321

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"This book represents a continuation of the research project in philosophy of language and semantics represented in the journal "Protosociology" at the J. W. Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main." - editors' preface.

Philosophical Essays, Volume 1
Philosophical Essays, Volume 1

Author: Scott Soames

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 444

ISBN-13: 9780691136813

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The two volumes of Philosophical Essays bring together the most important essays written by one of the world's foremost philosophers of language. Scott Soames has selected thirty-one essays spanning nearly three decades of thinking about linguistic meaning and the philosophical significance of language. A judicious collection of old and new, these volumes include sixteen essays published in the 1980s and 1990s, nine published since 2000, and six new essays. The essays in Volume 1 investigate what linguistic meaning is; how the meaning of a sentence is related to the use we make of it; what we should expect from empirical theories of the meaning of the languages we speak; and how a sound theoretical grasp of the intricate relationship between meaning and use can improve the interpretation of legal texts. The essays in Volume 2 illustrate the significance of linguistic concerns for a broad range of philosophical topics--including the relationship between language and thought; the objects of belief, assertion, and other propositional attitudes; the distinction between metaphysical and epistemic possibility; the nature of necessity, actuality, and possible worlds; the necessary a posteriori and the contingent a priori; truth, vagueness, and partial definition; and skepticism about meaning and mind. The two volumes of Philosophical Essays are essential for anyone working on the philosophy of language.

Semantic Under-determinacy and Communication
Semantic Under-determinacy and Communication

Author: D. Belleri

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2014-11-13

Total Pages: 174

ISBN-13: 1137398442

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Combining a fresh, previously unexplored view of the subject with a detailed overview of the past and ongoing philosophical discussion on the matter, this book investigates the phenomenon of semantic under-determinacy by seeking an answer to the questions of how it can be explained, and how communication is possible despite it.

A Companion to the Philosophy of Language
A Companion to the Philosophy of Language

Author: Bob Hale

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2017-02-17

Total Pages: 1628

ISBN-13: 1118972104

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“Providing up-to-date, in-depth coverage of the central question, and written and edited by some of the foremost practitioners in the field, this timely new edition will no doubt be a go-to reference for anyone with a serious interest in the philosophy of language.” Kathrin Glüer-Pagin, Stockholm University Now published in two volumes, the second edition of the best-selling Companion to the Philosophy of Language provides a complete survey of contemporary philosophy of language. The Companion has been greatly extended and now includes a monumental 17 new essays – with topics chosen by the editors, who curated suggestions from current contributors – and almost all of the 25 original chapters have been updated to take account of recent developments in the field. In addition to providing a synoptic view of the key issues, figures, concepts, and debates, each essay introduces new and original contributions to ongoing debates, as well as addressing a number of new areas of interest, including two-dimensional semantics, modality and epistemic modals, and semantic relationism. The extended “state-of-the-art” chapter format allows the authors, all of whom are internationally eminent scholars in the field, to incorporate original research to a far greater degree than competitor volumes. Unrivaled in scope, this volume represents the best contemporary critical thinking relating to the philosophy of language.

Truth without Predication
Truth without Predication

Author: R. Szekely

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-02-12

Total Pages: 156

ISBN-13: 1137483296

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This book contains an original analysis of the existential there-sentence from a philosophical-linguistic perspective. At its core is the claim that there-sentences' form is distinct from that of ordinary subject–predicate sentences, and that this fundamental difference explains the construction's unusual grammatical and discourse properties.

The Reference Book
The Reference Book

Author: John Hawthorne

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012-03-29

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 0191629189

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John Hawthorne and David Manley present an original treatment of the semantic phenomenon of reference and the cognitive phenomenon of singular thought. In Part I, they argue against the idea that either is tied to a special relation of causal or epistemic acquaintance. Part II challenges the alleged semantic rift between definite and indefinite descriptions on the one hand, and names and demonstratives on the other—a division that has been motivated in part by appeals to considerations of acquaintance. Drawing on recent work in linguistics and philosophical semantics, Hawthorne and Manley explore a more unified account of all four types of expression according to which none of them paradigmatically fits the profile of a referential term. On the preferred framework put forward in The Reference Book, all four types of expression involve existential quantification but admit of uses that exhibit many of the traits associated with reference—a phenomenon that is due to the presence of what Hawthorne and Manley call a 'singular restriction' on the existentially quantified domain. The book concludes by drawing out some implications of the proposed semantic picture for the traditional categories of reference and singular thought.