An Introduction to English Semantics and Pragmatics

by Patrick Griffiths, Chris Cummins (Editor)

Overview

This clear and accessible textbook introduces the crucial concepts essential to your study of the semantics and pragmatics of English. Coverage is wide-ranging, taking you from word meaning to the level of discourse, and explaining how these topics are treated in contemporary linguistic research. Chapters cover adjective, noun and verb meanings, situation types, figurative language, tense, aspect, modality, quantification, topic and focus. Explanations of entailment, compositionality and scope provide a foundation for subsequent study of formal semantics.
Supported by chapter summaries and with plenty of usage examples, exercises and discussion questions, you will not only gain a systematic overview of meaning in English but be equipped with the tools to argue for specific analyses as well.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781399504614
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	02/23/2023
Series:	Edinburgh Textbooks on the English Language
Edition description:	66,785
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.43(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Patrick Griffiths was a professor of English at Beppu University, Japan. He taught courses on semantics, the structure of English, psycholinguistics and general linguistics at a number of universities, including Beppu, the University of the South Pacific, and in the UK at York University and York St John.

Chris Cummins is Reader in Linguistics and English Language at the University of Edinburgh. His other works include Pragmatics (EUP, 2019) and Constraints on Numerical Expressions (2015), and he co-edited the Oxford Handbook of Experimental Semantics and Pragmatics (2019) with Napoleon Katsos.

Table of Contents

Preface to the second edition
1. Studying meaning
Overview
1.1 Sentences and utterances
1.2 Types of meaning
1.2.1 Denotation, sense, reference and deixis
1.3 Semantics vs. pragmatics
1.3.1 A first outline of semantics
1.3.2 A first outline of pragmatics
Summary
Exercises
Recommendations for reading
Notes
2. Sense relations
Overview
2.1 Propositions and entailment
2.1.1 Meaning postulates
2.2 Compositionality
2.3 Synonymy
2.4 Complementarity, antonymy, converseness and incompatibility
2.5 Hyponymy
2.5.1 Hierarchies of hyponyms
Summary
Exercises
Recommendations for reading
Notes
3. Nouns
Overview
3.1 The has-relation
3.1.1 Pragmatic inferences from the has-relation
3.1.2 Hyponymy and the has-relation
3.1.3 Parts can have parts
3.1.4 Spatial parts
3.1.5 Ends and beginnings
3.1.6 Body parts
3.2 Count nouns and mass nouns
Summary
Exercises
Recommendations for reading
4. Adjectives
Overview
4.1 Gradability
4.2 Composing adjectives with nouns
4.3 Adjective meanings in context
Summary
Exercises
Recommendations for reading
5. Verbs
Overview
5.1 Verb types and arguments
5.2 Causative verbs
5.2.1 More general causatives
5.3 Thematic relations
Summary
Exercises
Recommendations for reading
Notes
6. Tense and aspect
Overview
6.1 Tense
6.1.1 Preliminaries
6.1.2 Present, Past and Future
6.1.3 Tense and adverbials
6.2 Aspect
6.2.1 Habituality and simple aspect
6.2.2 Progressive aspect
6.2.3 Perfect aspect
6.2.4 Perfect aspect or tense?
Summary
Exercises
Recommendations for reading
Notes
7. Modality, scope and quantification
Overview
7.1 Modality
7.1.1 Modal verbs and tense
7.1.2 Deontic and epistemic modality
7.1.3 Core modal meanings
7.2 Semantic scope
7.3 Quantification
7.3.1 Some basics about sets
7.3.2 Simple quantifiers in terms of sets
7.3.3 Proportional quantifiers
7.3.4 Distributivity and collectivity
7.3.5 Quantifier scope
Summary
Exercises
Recommendations for reading
Notes
8. Pragmatics
Overview
8.1 Implicature
8.2 The Gricean maxims
8.2.1 Quantity implicatures
8.2.2 Scalar implicatures
8.2.3 Relevance implicatures
8.2.4 Manner implicatures
8.3 Relevance Theory
8.4 Presuppositions
Summary
Exercises
Recommendations for reading
Notes
9. Figurative language
Overview
9.1 Literal and figurative usage
9.2 Irony
9.3 Metaphor, metonymy and simile
Summary
Exercises
Recommendations for reading
Notes
10. Utterances in context
Overview
10.1 Definiteness
10.2 Given and new material
10.2.1 Pseudo-clefts
10.2.2 It-clefts
10.2.3 Passives
10.2.4 Lexical and syntactic converses
10.2.5 Focal stress
10.3 The Question Under Discussion
Summary
Exercises
Recommendations for reading
Notes
11. Doing things with words
Overview
11.1 Speech acts
11.2 Sentence types, and other indications
11.2.1 Syntactic cues and indirect speech acts
11.2.2 Lexical cues
11.2.3 Discourse cues
11.2.4 Integrating the information
Summary
Exercises
Recommendations for reading
Suggested answers to the exercises
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

This is an excellent self-contained introduction to the study of meaning. It is highly engaging, with sensibly paced introduction of concepts and technical terms that are central to the study of semantics and pragmatics. This new edition provides an excellent update to the material while maintaining the accessible style of the original.

Professor Ronnie Cann

This is an excellent self-contained introduction to the study of meaning. It is highly engaging, with sensibly paced introduction of concepts and technical terms that are central to the study of semantics and pragmatics. This new edition provides an excellent update to the material while maintaining the accessible style of the original.

Editorial Reviews

An easy-to-read and wide-ranging overview of the major research topics in English semantics and pragmatics... An Introduction to English Semantics and Pragmatics makes a significant and novel contribution to the field for two major reasons. First, the exercises at the end of each chapter and the suggested answers at the end of the book make the book a convenient material for practice sessions and student supervisions. Second, unlike, for instance, Cruse’s (2011) textbook, it contains several chapters devoted to pragmatics, which is more than welcome as there are already many textbooks on the market that are exclusively devoted to semantics... Another strength of AIESP is that it is entirely in line with the times. First, several recent references have been added to the original edition by Chris Cummins, in particular in Chapters 4 and 9 concerning adjectival meaning and metaphorical meaning. Second, it is not only based on classic theories such as speech act theory, but it also introduces more recent approaches such as Sperber & Wilson’s (1995) relevance theory... Summing up, AIESP is a highly valuable book for anyone interested in the study of English semantics and pragmatics. As a thought-provoking textbook, it will be particularly useful to graduate students working on these topics.

The Linguist List - Nicolas Ruytenbeek