LINGUIST List 11.1046

Wed May 10 2000

Books: Semantics, Pragmatics, Discourse

Editor for this issue: Scott Fults <scottlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Dewhurst, Charlotte (ELS), The Pragmatics of Propositional Attitude Reports, K.M. Jaszczolt (Ed)
2. Dewhurst, Charlotte (ELS), Semantics/Pragmatics: Presuppositions and Pronouns, B. Geurts (Ed)
3. Dewhurst, Charlotte (ELS), Semantics - Discourse, Beliefs and Intentions, K. Jaszczolt

THE PRAGMATICS OF PROPOSITIONAL ATTITUDE REPORTS 
Volume 4 in the Current Research in the Semantics/Pragmatics
Interface Book Series
Edited by K.M. Jaszczolt, Department of Linguistics, University of Cambridge
ISBN: 0-08-043635-8 * Hardbound * 226 pages * NLG 185 (euro 83.95) USD 97 

This volume is a collection of nine papers dealing with the topic of
reporting on beliefs and other attitudes, and in particular with the
issue of the semantics-pragmatics boundary dispute which is the core
topic of the current research in the field. Written by highly-regarded
philosophers of language and linguists working on theoretical
semantics and pragmatics, it brings together works in the mainstream
tradition of logical form and the contextualism-anticontextualism
debate and the research on the role of intentions, conventions, goals,
plans and cultural stereotypes in attitude ascriptions. The editor's
introductory chapter gives a valuable overview of the work, discussing
the importance of all these aspects of propositional attitude research
and stressing their compatibility and interdependence.

AUDIENCE
Advanced students and researchers in linguistics, philosophy and
cognitive science and in semantics, pragmatics, philosophy of language
and mind, and social anthropology.

CONTENTS
Introduction
Belief reports and pragmatic theory: the state-of-the-art (K.M. Jaszczolt)
Propositional attitudes in direct-reference semantics (S. Schiffer)
Interpreted logical forms, belief attribution, and the dynamic lexicon (P.
Ludlow)
Beyond sense and reference: an alternative response to the problem of
opacity (L. Clapp)
How do we know what Galileo said? (M.J. Cresswell)
A puzzle about belief reports (K. Bach)
Do belief reports report beliefs? (K. Bach)
Attitude ascriptions, context and interpretive resemblance (A. Bezuidenhout)
The default-based context-dependence of belief reports (K.M. Jaszczolt)
The background of propositional attitudes and reports thereof (D. Woodruff
Smith). 

For further information and full contents listings for all volumes in
the series visit the website at:

http://www.elsevier.nl/locate/series/crispi

*************************
ELSEVIER SCIENCE
Further details and ordering information for all Elsevier Science's
Linguistics Titles are available via our website at: www.elsevier.com
or by contacting your nearest Elsevier Science Office (numbers below):

Customers in the US and Canada: 
Tel: (+1) 212 6333730; E-mail: usinfo-felsevier.com
Customers in Europe, Middle East and Africa: 
Tel: (+31) 20485 3757; E-mail: nlinfo-felsevier.nl
Customers in Japan: 
Tel: (+81) 3 5561 5033; E-mail: infoelsevier.co.jp
Customers in Asia and Australasia: 
Tel: (+65) 434 3727; E-mail: asiainfoelsevier.com.sg
Customers in Latin America:
Tel: (+55) 21 509 5340; E-mail: elseviercampus.com.br

Alternatively contact: c.dewhurstelsevier.co.uk

PRESUPPOSITIONS AND PRONOUNS 
Edited by B. Geurts , Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
Nijmegen, The Netherlands 
Volume 3 in the Current Research in the Semantics/Pragmatics
Interface Book Series
ISBN: 0-08-043592-0 * Hardbound * 252 pages *
NLG 185.00 (euro 83.95) USD 94.00

In this volume, Geurts takes discourse representation theory (DRT),
and turns it into a unified account of anaphora and presupposition,
which he applies not only to the standard problem cases but also to
the interpretation of modal expressions, attitude reports, and proper
names. The resulting theory, for all its simplicity, is without doubt
the most comprehensive of its kind to date.

The central idea underlying Geurts' 'binding theory' of presupposition
is that anaphora is just a special case of presupposition
projection. But this is only one of the ways in which the concept of
presupposition is taken beyond its traditional limits. Geurts shows,
furthermore, that presupposition projection is crucially involved in
several phenomena that are not usually viewed in presuppositional
terms, such as modal subordination, de re readings of attitude
reports, and rigid designation.

While making his case for DRT and the binding theory, Geurts also
presents an incisive analysis of what is probably still the most
influential account of presupposition, viz. the satisfaction theory,
demonstrating that there are fundamental problems not only with this
theory but with the very framework in which it is couched.

AUDIENCE: Advanced students and researchers in semantics and
pragmatics; philosophers of language; computational linguists; and
cognitive scientists.


CONTENTS (Chapter Headings only):
Presupposition.
The Binding Theory
The Satisfaction Theory
Dynamic Semantics
Attitude Reports 
Modals
Names

For further information and full contents listing for all volumes in
the series visit the website at:

http://www.elsevier.nl/locate/series/crispi

************************
ELSEVIER SCIENCE

Further details and ordering information for all Elsevier Science's
Linguistics Titles are available via our website at: www.elsevier.com
or by contacting your nearest Elsevier Science Office (numbers below):

Customers in the US and Canada: 
Tel: (+1) 212 6333730; E-mail: usinfo-felsevier.com
Customers in Europe, Middle East and Africa: 
Tel: (+31) 20485 3757; E-mail: nlinfo-felsevier.nl
Customers in Japan: 
Tel: (+81) 3 5561 5033; E-mail: infoelsevier.co.jp
Customers in Asia and Australasia: 
Tel: (+65) 434 3727; E-mail: asiainfoelsevier.com.sg
Customers in Latin America: 
Tel: (+55) 21 509 5340; E-mail: elseviercampus.com.br

Alternatively contact: c.dewhurstelsevier.co.uk

DISCOURSE, BELIEFS AND INTENTIONS: SEMANTIC DEFAULTS AND PROPOSITIONAL
ATTITUDE ASCRIPTION 
By K. Jaszczolt, University of Cambridge, UK 
Volume 2 in the Current Research in the Semantics/Pragmatics
Interface Book Series
ISBN: 0-08-043060-0 * Hardbound * 384 pages * NLG 201.00 (euro 91.21) USD
102.00

This book is about beliefs, language, communication and cognition. It
deals with the fundamental issue of the interpretation of the
speaker's utterance expressing a belief and reporting on beliefs of
other people in the form of oratio obliqua. The main aim of the book
is to present a new account of the problem of interpreting utterances
expressing beliefs and belief reports in terms of an approach called
Default Semantics.

AUDIENCE: Students and researchers in linguistics (especially
semantics and pragmatics), social anthropology, and philosophy of
language.

CONTENTS (Chapter Headings only):
Semantic Ambiguities and Semantic Underspecification.
Semantic Defaults
Intentionality and Propositional Attitudes
The Default De Re Principle
Lexicon and the Power of Referring
Vehicles of Thought in Attitude Ascription
Discourse Representation Theory and Propositional Attitudes
Belief Reports in a Contrastive Perspective
D�nouement: Double Occam's Razor
 
REVIEW:
'extremely interesting and original...the majority of researchers
interested in this topic are explicitly aware of the fact that it
crosses the boundary between (linguistics and philosophy). This book
clearly crosses that boundary and seems to have a broader scope than
most works in this area.' Dr Billy Clark, Middlesex University,
September 1996

For further information and full contents listings for all volumes in
the series visit the website at:

http://www.elsevier.nl/locate/series/crispi

************************
ELSEVIER SCIENCE
Further details and ordering information for all Elsevier Science's
Linguistics titles are available via our website at: www.elsevier.com
or by contacting your nearest Elsevier Science Office (numbers below):

Customers in the US and Canada: 
Tel: (+1) 212 6333730; E-mail: usinfo-felsevier.com
Customers in Europe, Middle East and Africa: 
Tel: (+31) 20485 3757; E-mail: nlinfo-felsevier.nl
Customers in Japan: 
Tel: (+81) 3 5561 5033; E-mail: infoelsevier.co.jp
Customers in Asia and Australasia: 
Tel: (+65) 434 3727; E-mail: asiainfoelsevier.com.sg
Customers in Latin America: 
Tel: (+55) 21 509 5340; E-mail: elseviercampus.com.br

Alternatively contact: c.dewhurstelsevier.co.uk