LINGUIST List 11.2445
Sat Nov 11 2000
Books: Language and Thought, Syntax
Editor for this issue: Naomi Ogasawara <naomilinguistlist.org>
Links to the websites of all LINGUIST's supporting publishers are
available at the end of this issue.
Directory
Jud Wolfskill, Language and Thought: Oratio Obliqua, Oratio Recta by F.Recanati
Jud Wolfskill, Syntax: Phrasal Movement and Its Kin by D.Pesetsky
Message 1: Language and Thought: Oratio Obliqua, Oratio Recta by F.Recanati
Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2000 16:57:21 -0500
From: Jud Wolfskill <wolfskilMIT.EDU>
Subject: Language and Thought: Oratio Obliqua, Oratio Recta by F.Recanati
I thought readers of this list might be interested in this book. For more
information please visit http://mitpress.mit.edu/promotions/books/RECOPF00
Oratio Obliqua, Oratio Recta
An Essay on Metarepresentation
Frangois Recanati
Among the entities that can be mentally or linguistically represented
are mental and linguistic representations themselves. That is, we can
think and talk about speech and thought. This phenomenon is known as
metarepresentation. An example is "Authors believe that people read
books."
In this book Frangois Recanati discusses the structure of
metarepresentation from a variety of perspectives. According to him,
metarepresentations have a dual structure: their content includes the
content of the object-representation (people reading books) as well as
the "meta" part (the authors' belief). Rejecting the view that the
object representation is mentioned rather than used, Recanati claims
that since metarepresentations carry the content of the object
representation, they must be about whatever the object representation
is about. Metarepresentations are fundamentally transparent because
they work by simulating the representation they are about.
Topics covered in this wide-ranging work include the analysis of
belief reports and talk about fiction, world shifting, opacity and
substitutivity, quotation, the relation between direct and indirect
discourse, context shifting, semantic pretense, and deference in
language and thought.
Frangois Recanati is a Research Director at CREA/CNRS in Paris.
6 x 9, 450 pp., 2 illus., paper ISBN 0-262-68116-1, cloth ISBN 0-262-18199-1
Representation and Mind series
A Bradford Book
Jud Wolfskill 617.253.2079 phone
Associate Publicist 617.253.1709 fax
MIT Press wolfskilmit.edu
5 Cambridge Center http://mitpress.mit.edu
Fourth Floor
Cambridge, MA 02142
Message 2: Syntax: Phrasal Movement and Its Kin by D.Pesetsky
Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2000 16:58:18 -0500
From: Jud Wolfskill <wolfskilMIT.EDU>
Subject: Syntax: Phrasal Movement and Its Kin by D.Pesetsky
I thought readers of this list might find this book interesting. For more
information please visit http://mitpress.mit.edu/promotions/books/PESPPF00
Phrasal Movement and Its Kin
David Pesetsky
This study investigates the types of movement and movement-like
relations that link positions in syntactic structure. David Pesetsky
argues that there are three such relations. Besides overt phasal
movement, there are two distinct types of movement without
phonological effect: covert phrasal movement and feature
movement. Focusing on wh-questions, he shows how his classification of
movement-like relations allows us to understand the story behind
wh-questions in which an otherwise inviolable property of
movement--"Attract Closest"--appears to be violated. By demonstrating
that more movement takes place in such configurations than previously
suspected, he shows that Attract Closest is actually not violated at
all in these cases. This conclusion draws on recent research in both
syntax and semantics, and depends crucially on Pesetsky's expanded
repertoire of movement-like relations.
David Pesetsky is Ferrari P. Ward Professor of Linguistics at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is an editor of Is the Best Good
Enough? (MIT Press, 1998) and the author of Zero Syntax (MIT Press, 1994).
6 x 9, 144 pp., paper ISBN 0-262-66166-7, cloth ISBN 0-262-16196-6
Linguistic Inquiry Monographs #37
Jud Wolfskill 617.253.2079 phone
Associate Publicist 617.253.1709 fax
MIT Press wolfskilmit.edu
5 Cambridge Center http://mitpress.mit.edu
Fourth Floor
Cambridge, MA 02142
Pubs-postscript-html