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 Universityand 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

CONTENTS

Preface

Preface to the third 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

2. Sense relations

Overview

2.1 Propositions and entailment

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 Inferring existence from the has-relation

3.1.2 Hyponymy, prototypes, 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 part terms, metaphor and has-relations

3.2 Count nouns and mass nouns

Summary

Exercises

Recommendations for reading

4. Adjectives

Overview

4.1 Gradability

4.1.1 Non-gradable adjectives

4.2 Combining adjective meanings with noun meanings

4.2.1 Non-intersective adjectives with broader denotations

4.2.2 Privative adjectives

4.2.3 Relative adjective meanings

Summary

Exercises

Recommendations for reading

5. Verbs

Overview

5.1 Verb types and arguments

5.1.1 Other kinds of arguments

5.2 Causative verbs

5.2.1 Identifying embedded situations

5.3 Thematic relations

Summary

Exercises

Recommendations for reading

Notes

6. Tense and aspect

Overview

6.1 Talking about events in time

6.2 Tense

6.2.1 Preliminaries

6.2.2 Present, Past and Future

6.2.3 Tense and adverbials

6.3 Aspect

6.3.1 Habituality and simple aspect

6.3.2 Progressive aspect

6.3.3 Perfect aspect

6.3.4 Perfect aspect or tense?

Summary

Exercises

Recommendations for reading

7. Modality, scope and quantification

Overview

7.1 Modality

7.1.1 Modal verbs and tense

7.1.2 Epistemic and deontic modality

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

8. Pragmatic inference

Overview

8.1 Some ways of conveying additional meanings

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

9. Figurative language

Overview

9.1 Literal and figurative usage

9.2 Metaphor

9.3 Metonymy

9.4 Simile

9.5 Irony

9.6 Hyperbole

Summary

Exercises

Recommendations for reading

10. Utterances in context

Overview

10.1 Tailoring utterances to the audience

10.2 Definiteness

10.3 Given and new material

10.3.1 Pseudo-clefts

10.3.2 It-clefts

10.3.3 Passives

10.3.4 Lexical and syntactic converses

10.3.5 Focal stress

10.4 The Question Under Discussion

Summary

Exercises

Recommendations for reading

11. Doing things with words

Overview

11.1 Speech acts

11.2 Indicators of speech acts

11.2.1 Syntactic cues and indirect speech acts

11.2.2 Lexical cues

11.2.3 Cues based on conversation structure

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