LINGUIST List 13.1019

Sat Apr 13 2002

Books: Presupposition & Assertion in Dynamic Semantics

Editor for this issue: Dina Kapetangianni <dinalinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Christine Sosa, Presupposition and Assertion in Dynamic Semantics by David I. Beaver

PRESUPPOSITION AND ASSERTION IN DYNAMIC SEMANTICS; David I. 
Beaver;paper ISBN: 1-57586-120-8, $24.95, cloth ISBN: 1-57586-121-6, 
$64.95, 325 pages. CSLI Publications 2001. 
http://cslipublications.stanford.edu 
email: pubscsli.stanford.edu.

To order this book, contact The University of Chicago Press. Call 
their toll free order number 1-800-621-2736 (U.S. & Canada only) or 
order online at http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ (use the search 
feature to locate the book, then order).

Book description:

This book presents a comprehensive overview and discussion of the 
burgeoning field of presupposition theory, introducing a wealth of 
new data and critical commentary. Working within the recently 
developed framework of Dynamic Semantics, the author develops his own 
account of presupposition and solves some well-known problems of 
other accounts. According to the view developed, while semantics is 
concerned with information update, there is one part of the meaning 
of an utterance which requires no update: the utterance's 
presupposition.
Although this book assumes general understanding of pragmatics and 
semantics, the reader needs no prior familiarity with presupposition 
theory or recent dynamic approaches to the study of meaning.


"This book is an excellent up-to-date introduction to the study of 
presupposition and presupposition projection. Technically 
sophisticated, Beaver's work does justice to the empirical and 
conceptual complexities of its subject matter, along with presenting 
many original ideas. If you suspect that presupposition was exhausted 
by the work of linguists and philosophers in the 1970's, this book 
shows why the topic has become fresh and exciting again."
-Irene Heim, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

"This book provides an excellent overview of the issues and 
controversies of the field. The dynamic semantics developed in the 
second half of the book follows the direction charted by Karttunen 
and Heim in their early work, and gives an elegant solution to many 
problems that have plagued previous theories. Many books about 
presupposition have been written. This is the book to read."
-Lauri Karttunen, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center