Confessions of a Lapsed Neo-Davidsonian: Events and Arguments in Compositional Semantics / Edition 1

by Samuel L. Bayer

Overview

First Published in 1997. The purpose of this doctoral study was to address the properties of thematic roles in the context of an event semantics. With specific interest in whether it was possible to show that thematic roles were indispensable objects in compositional semantics, and what a syntax/semantics map which incorporated such objects might look like.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780815328469
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	06/01/1997
Series:	Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics
Edition description:	REVISED
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	5.44(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction; Chapter 2 Events; Chapter 3 Events, Quantification and Plurality; Chapter 4 Davidsonian Semantics; Chapter 5 The Devil in the Davidsonian Details; Chapter 6 Neo-Davidsonian Semantics; Chapter 7 Attempting to Justify Neo-Davidsonian Composition; Chapter 8 Argument Accessibility and Events; Chapter 9 Conclusion;

Editorial Reviews

Contrasts the Davidsonian strategy of sentence semantics, which treats verbs as sets of ordered sequences of participants then extends the sequences to embrace the swell event; with the neo-Davidsonian, which considers verbs as sets of events and associates participants with these events through relations called thematic roles. Attempts to choose between them by focusing specifically on how meanings are constructed at the level of sentences and phrases. Finds deficiencies in both approaches, and proposes an improved neo-Davidsonian account. Revised from a 1996 Ph.D. dissertation for Brown University. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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