LINGUIST List 9.416

Thu Mar 19 1998

Books: Semantics, Pragmatics, Philosophy of Lang

Editor for this issue: Martin Jacobsen <martylinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Kristen Mitchell, new books in SEMANTICS, PRAGMATICS, & PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGES (4 titles)

ASPECT AND PREDICATION: The Semantics of Argument Structure
Gillian Catriona Ramchand, Oxford University

This book investigates the systematic correspondences between
syntactic structure and semantic interpretation in the domain of
predicate-argument relationships. Taking Scottish Gaelic as its
empirical base, the book provides a detailed working out of a semantic
system of argument classification which moves away from
lexically-driven thematic roles in the traditional sense and towards a
more constrained, syntactically motivated, set of primitives.

May 1997 264 pp.
0-19-823651-4 $55.00
Oxford University Press
 


LEXICAL SEMANTICS: The Problem of Polysemy
Edited by James Pustejovsky, Brandeis University, and Branimir
Boguraev, Natural Language Program, Apple Computer Inc., California

Lexical ambiguity presents one of the most intractable problems for
language processing studies and, not surprisingly, it is at the core
of research in lexical semantics. Originally published as two special
issues of the Journal of Semantics, this collection focuses on the
problem of polysemy, from the point of view of practitioners of
computational linguistics.

January 1997 224 pp.; 25 linecuts
0-19-823662-X paper $29.95
Oxford University Press
 


PARTS AND WHOLES IN SEMANTICS
Friederike Moltmann, City College of New York Graduate Center

This book develops a unified account of expressions involving the
notions of "part" and "whole " in which principles of the
individuation of part structures play a central role. Moltmann
presents a range of new empirical generalizations with data from
English and a variety of other languages involving plurals, mass
nouns, adnominal and adverbial modifiers such as as a whole, together,
and alone, nominal and adverbial quanitfiers ranging over parts, and
expressions of completion such as completely and partly. She develops
a new theory of part structures which differs from traditional
mereological theories in that the notion of an integrated whole plays
a central role and in that the part structure of an entity is allowed
to vary across different situations, perspectives, and dimensions.

August 1997 272 pp.
0-19-509574-X $39.95
Oxford University Press
 


DIACHRONIC PROTOTYPE SEMANTICS: A Contribution to Historical
Lexicology
Dirk Geeraerts, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

(Oxford Studies in Lexicography and Lexicology)

Prototype theory makes a crucial distinction between central and
peripheral sense of words. Geeraerts explores the implications of this
model for a theory of semantic change, in the first full-scale
treatment of the impact of the most recent developments in
lexicological theory on the study of meaning change. He identifies
structural features of the development of word meanings which follow
from a prototype-theoretical model of semantic structure, and
incorporates these diachronic prototypicality effects into a theory of
meaning change.

May 1997 224 pp.; 20 b/w figures
0-19-823652-2 $65.00
Oxford University Press
 


For more information about Linguistics titles from Oxford University
Press: e-mail: linguisticsoup-usa.org or 
Visit the Oxford University Press USA web site:
http://www.oup-usa.org
Oxford University Press USA

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1998 Contributors