The Semantics of Gradability, Vagueness, and Scale Structure
The Semantics of Gradability, Vagueness, and Scale Structure

Author: Elena Castroviejo

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-06-20

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 3319777912

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This volume is the first to focus specifically on experimental studies of the semantics of gradability, scale structure and vagueness. It presents support for and challenges to current formal analyses of these phenomena in view of experimentally collected data, highlighting the ways semantic and pragmatic theory can benefit from experimental methodologies. The papers in the volume contribute to an explicit and detailed account of the use, representation, and online processing of gradable and vague expressions using various kinds of controlled speaker judgment tasks, eye tracking, and ERP. The aim is to strengthen the foundations of experimental semantics and promote interaction between linguists, psycholinguists, psychologists, and philosophers who are interested in the semantics of natural language. Using data representing different languages and a variety of nominal and adjectival constructions, including degree modification and comparatives, the contributions address scale-based classifications of gradable predicates, such as the absolute vs. relative distinction; the nature of the standards for applicability of gradable expressions and the ways in which standards are determined; the nature of dimensions and multidimensionality in the meaning of scalar expressions; and the role of embodiment, subjectivity, and sociolinguistic considerations in the use and understanding of gradable expressions.

Vagueness, Gradability and Typicality
Vagueness, Gradability and Typicality

Author: Galit Weidman Sassoon

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2013-03-15

Total Pages: 446

ISBN-13: 9004248587

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Brill's Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages offers an accessible yet engaging coverage of medieval European history and culture, c. 500-c. 1500, in a series of themed articles, taking an interdisciplinary and comparative approach.

Gradability in Natural Language
Gradability in Natural Language

Author: Heather Burnett

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 0198724799

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This book presents a new theory of the relationship between vagueness, context-sensitivity, gradability, and scale structure in natural language. Heather Burnett proposes a new formal reasoning system called DelTCS in which she sets out a completely new theory of gradable linguistic constructions.

Measurements, Numerals and Scales
Measurements, Numerals and Scales

Author: Nicole Gotzner

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-02-07

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 3030733238

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This book brings together chapters on the semantics and pragmatics of measurement, scales, and numerical expressions. The chapters highlight recent developments in measurement theory, the meaning of numerical expressions and the relation between measurement scales and entailment scales. The authors provide explorations in formal and experimental semantics and pragmatics, as well as at the interfaces of this field with others including philosophy of language and sociolinguistics. This book will be of interest to students and scholars in these areas, as well as psychology, psycholinguistics and artificial intelligence.

Semantics - Lexical Structures and Adjectives
Semantics - Lexical Structures and Adjectives

Author: Claudia Maienborn

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2019-02-19

Total Pages: 588

ISBN-13: 3110623137

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Discover vital research on the lexical and cognitive meanings of words. In this exciting book from a team of world-class researchers, in-depth articles explain a wide range of topics, including thematic roles, sense relation, ambiguity and comparison. The authors focus on the cognitive and conceptual structure of words and their meaning extensions such as coercion, metaphors and metonymies. The book features highly cited material – available in paperback for the first time since its publication – and is an essential starting point for anyone interested in lexical semantics, especially where it meets other cognitive and conceptual research.

Hyperintensionality and Normativity
Hyperintensionality and Normativity

Author: Federico L. G. Faroldi

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019-03-28

Total Pages: 247

ISBN-13: 3030034879

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Presenting the first comprehensive, in-depth study of hyperintensionality, this book equips readers with the basic tools needed to appreciate some of current and future debates in the philosophy of language, semantics, and metaphysics. After introducing and explaining the major approaches to hyperintensionality found in the literature, the book tackles its systematic connections to normativity and offers some contributions to the current debates. The book offers undergraduate and graduate students an essential introduction to the topic, while also helping professionals in related fields get up to speed on open research-level problems.

The Sorites Paradox
The Sorites Paradox

Author: Sergi Oms

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-10-10

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 131673241X

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For centuries, the sorites paradox has spurred philosophers to think and argue about the problem of vagueness. This volume offers a guide to the paradox which is both an accessible survey and an exposition of the state of the art, with a chapter-by-chapter presentation of all of the main solutions to the paradox and of all its main areas of influence. Each chapter offers a gentle introduction to its topic, gradually building up to a final discussion of some open problems. Students will find a comprehensive guide to the fundamentals of the paradox, together with lucid explanations of the challenges it continues to raise. Researchers will find exciting new ideas and debates on the paradox.

Vagueness: A Guide
Vagueness: A Guide

Author: Giuseppina Ronzitti

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2011-03-03

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 9400703759

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This volume explores how vagueness matters as a specific problem in the context of theories that are primarily about something else. After an introductory chapter on the Sorites paradox, which exposes the various forms the paradox can take and some of the responses that have been pursued, the book proceeds with a chapter on vagueness and metaphysics, which covers important questions concerning vagueness that arise in connection with the deployment of certain key metaphysical notions. Subsequent chapters address the following: vagueness and logic, which discusses the sort of model theory that is suggested by the main, rival accounts of vagueness; vagueness and meaning, which focuses on contextualist, epistemicist, and indeterminist theories; vagueness and observationality; vagueness within linguistics, which focuses on approaches that take comparison classes into account; and the idea that vagueness in law is typically extravagant and that extravagant vagueness is a necessary feature of legal systems.

The Oxford Handbook of Experimental Semantics and Pragmatics
The Oxford Handbook of Experimental Semantics and Pragmatics

Author: Chris Cummins

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2019-03-19

Total Pages: 1125

ISBN-13: 0192509551

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This handbook is the first to explore the growing field of experimental semantics and pragmatics. In the past 20 years, experimental data has become a major source of evidence for building theories of language meaning and use, encompassing a wide range of topics and methods. Following an introduction from the editors, the chapters in this volume offer an up-to-date account of research in the field spanning 31 different topics, including scalar implicatures, presuppositions, counterfactuals, quantification, metaphor, prosody, and politeness, as well as exploring how and why a particular experimental method is suitable for addressing a given theoretical debate. The volume's forward-looking approach also seeks to actively identify questions and methods that could be fruitfully combined in future experimental research. Written in a clear and accessible style, this handbook will appeal to students and scholars from advanced undergraduate level upwards in a range of fields, including semantics and pragmatics, philosophy of language, psycholinguistics, computational linguistics, cognitive science, and neuroscience.