Semantics

by Saeed, John I.

• ISBN13: 9781405156394
• ISBN10: 1405156392
• Edition: 3rd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-11-03
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

The third edition of this popular textbook provides an engaging and accessible introduction to semantics for students new to the field. Explores the basic concepts and methods of the field and discusses some of the most important contemporary lines of research Contains new solutions to chapter exercises in order to familiarize the student with the practice of semantic description Completely revised and updated to reflect recent theoretical developments Includes new sections on classifiers and noun classes, as well as conceptual integration

Author Biography

John I. Saeed is Associate Professor of Linguistics and Head of the School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences, Trinity College, University of Dublin. He is the author of several books, including Somali Reference Grammar (second edition, 1993) and Somali (1999).

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables

Preface

Abbreviations and Symbols

Preliminaries

Semantics in Linguistics

Introduction

Semantics and Semiotics

Three Challenges in Doing Semantics

Meeting the Challenges

Semantics in a Model of Grammar

Some Important Assumptions

Summary

Further reading

Exercises

Meaning, Thought and Reality

Introduction

Reference

Reference as a Theory of Meaning

Mental Representations

Words, Concepts and Thinking

Summary

Further reading

Exercises

Semantic Description

Word Meaning

Introduction

Words and Grammatical Categories

Words and Lexical Items

Problems with Pinning Down Word Meaning

Lexical Relations

Derivational Relations

Lexical Universals

Summary

Further reading

Exercises

Sentence Relations and Truth

Logic and Truth

Necessary Truth, A Priori Truth and Analyticity

Entailment

Presupposition

Summary

Further reading

Exercises

Sentence Semantics 1: Situations

Introduction

Classifying Situations

Modality and Evidentiality

Summary

Further reading

Exercises

Sentence Semantics 2: Participants

Introduction: Classifying Participants

Thematic Roles

Grammatical Relations and Thematic Roles

Verbs and Thematic Role Grids

Problems with Thematic Roles

The Motivation for Identifying Thematic Roles

Voice

Classifiers and Noun Classes

Summary

Further reading

Exercises

Context and Inference

Introduction

Deixis

Reference and Context

Knowledge as Context

Information Structure

Inference

Conversational Implicature

Summary

Further reading

Exercises

Functions of Language: Speech as Action

Introduction

Austin's Speech Act Theory

Categorizing Speech Acts

Indirect Speech Acts

Sentence Types

Summary

Further reading

Exercises

Theoretical Approaches

Meaning Components

Introduction

Lexical Relations in CA

Katz's Semantic Theory

Grammatical Rules and Semantic Components

Components and Conflation Patterns

Jackendoff's Conceptual Structure

Pustejovsky's Generative Lexicon

Problems with Components of Meaning

Summary

Further reading

Exercises

Formal Semantics

Introduction

Model-Theoretical Semantics

Translating English into a Logical Metalanguage

The Semantics of the Logical Metalanguage

Checking the Truth-Value of Sentences

Word Meaning: Meaning Postulates

Natural Language Quantifiers and Higher Order Logic

Intensionality

Dynamic Approaches to Discourse

Summary

Further reading

Exercises

Cognitive Semantics

Introduction

Metaphor

Metonymy

Image Schemas

Polysemy

Mental Spaces

Langacker's Cognitive Grammar

Summary

Further reading

Exercises

Solutions to Selected Exercises

Bibliography

Index

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