|
|
|
|
Language in Context
Selected Essays
Jason Stanley
288 pages
|
234x156mm
978-0-19-922592-7
|
Hardback
|
05 July 2007
|
|
This item is temporarily out of stock, but may be ordered now for delivery when back in stock.
|
|
|
- Stanley's papers on context and communication collected together for the first time
- Challenges widely held views in a key area in the philosophy of language
- Extensive, previously unpublished introduction and postscript by the author
- Clear and concise prose style
Natural languages all contain constructions the interpretation of which depends upon the situation in which they are used. In Language and Context, Jason Stanley presents a series of essays which develop a theory of how the situation in which we speak interacts with the words we use to help produce what we say. The reason we can so smoothly operate with sentences that can be used to express very different items of information, Stanley argues, is that there are linguistically mandated constraints on the effects of the situation on what we say. These linguistically mandated constraints are most evident in the cases of sentences containing explicit pronouns, such as 'She is a
mathematician', where interpretation of the information expressed is guided by the use of the pronoun 'she'. But even when such explicit pronouns are lacking, our sentences provide similar cues to allow our interlocutors to determine the information expressed. We are, in the main, confident that our interlocutors will smoothly grasp what we say, because the grammar and meaning of our sentences encodes these constraints. In defending this theory, Stanley pays close attention to specific cases of context-sensitive constructions, such as quantified noun phrases, comparative adjectives, and conditionals.
Philosophers and cognitive scientist have appealed to the dependence of what is intuitively said by a sentence on the situation in which it is uttered to argue
against the possibility of a systematic theory of meaning for natural language. The theory developed in this book is a vigorous defence of the possibility of a systematic theory of meaning for natural language against these influential tendencies.Readership: Advanced students and scholars working in the philosophy of language and related fields; linguists and cognitive scientists interested in meaning and communication
|
|
|
Jason Stanley, Rutgers University, New Jersey Contributors:
with Zoltán Gendler Szabó
with Jeffrey C. King
|
|
|
"an outstanding contribution; the state of art in semantics and the philosophy of language; a must for everyone intending to take part in the semantic-pragmatics border debate...superb, illuminating" - Dorota Zielinska. Journal of Intercultural Pragmatics "This volume by Stanley is certainly an important voice in the semantics/pragmatics debate, a sulutary reminder of the (important/pervasive) role of grammar and semantics in interpretation, and a source of most illuminating methodological considerations... this is a most important book, whose ideas will have many ramifications" - Alessandro Capone , Australian Journal of Linguistics "Although the individual essays collected in Language in Context have
already been widely read and discussed, it is useful to have them collected in a single volume. Reading the essays together, framed by an informative Introduction and Postscript, one can appreciate the richness, complexity and breadth of Jason Stanley's theoretical framework. These essays represent the state of the art in semantics and the philosophy of language and are mandatory reading for anyone working in these and related areas...There is no question that Language in Context is an outstanding achievement. Not since Stephen Neale's Descriptions has a book brought the apparatus of formal semantics and linguistic theory to bear on issues in the philosophy of language in such a constructive and illuminating way." - Gary Ostertag, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
|
|
|
Introduction
1: Context and Logical Form
2: with Zoltán Gendler Szabó: On Quantifer Domain Restriction
3: Nominal Restriction
4: with Jeffrey C. King: Semantics, Pragmatics, and the Role of Semantic Content
5: Making it Articulated
6: Semantics in Context
7: Review of François Recanati's Literal Meaning
Postscript
Index
|
|
|
|
Recently Viewed
|
|
|
Knowledge, Markets, and Management
Kevin Robins, Frank Webster
£40.00
|
|
|
|
|
A Study of Human Capabilities
Martha C. Nussbaum, Jonathan Glover
£88.00
|
|
|
|
|
|
The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
|
|
