The Science of Meaning: Essays on the Metatheory of Natural Language Semantics

by Derek Ball (Editor), Brian Rabern (Editor)

Overview

By creating certain marks on paper, or by making certain sounds-breathing past a moving tongue-or by articulation of hands and bodies, language users can give expression to their mental lives. With language we command, assert, query, emote, insult, and inspire. Language has meaning. This fact can be quite mystifying, yet a science of linguistic meaning-semantics-has emerged at the intersection of a variety of disciplines: philosophy, linguistics, computer science, and psychology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198865735
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	09/30/2020
Pages:	432
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 6.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Derek Ball, Lecturer in Philosophy, University of St Andrews,Brian Rabern, Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Edinburgh

Derek Ball is a lecturer in philosophy at the University of St Andrews. His professional interests include the philosophy of language and philosophy of mind.

Brian Rabern is a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. His main research interests centre around philosophy of language, logic, and formal semantics.

Table of Contents

0. Introduction to the science of meaning, Derek Ball and Brian Rabern1. What is - or, for that matter, isn't - 'experimental' semantics?, Pauline Jacobson2. Axiomatization in the meaning sciences, Wesley H. Holliday and Thomas F. Icard, III3. David Lewis on context, Robert Stalnaker4. From meaning to content, François Recanati5. Reviving the parameter revolution in semantics, Bryan Pickel, Brian Rabern, and Josh Dever6. Changing notions of linguistic competence in the history of formal semantics, Barbara Partee7. Lexical meaning, concepts, and the metasemantics of predicates, Michael Glanzberg8. Interpretation and the interpreter, Kathrin Glüer9. Expressing expectations, Inés Crespo, Hadil Karawani, and Frank Veltman10. Fregean compositionality, Thomas Ede Zimmermann11. Semantic typology and composition, Paul Pietroski12. Semantics as model-based science, Seth Yalcin13. Semantic possibility, Wolfgang Schwarz14. Semantics as measurement, Derek Ball

Editorial Reviews

"Ball and Rabern have collected a set of prestigious chapters that well represent the current state of reflections on the nature, structure, and foundations of theories in mainstream FS. The volume will be of great interest to semanticists and contains a fair number of must-read essays (e.g., by Partee, Recanati, Yalcin) that could easily also be appreciated by linguists, cognitive scientists, and philosophers of language." — Giosuè Baggio, Journal of Logic, Language and Information

From the Publisher