Events and semantic architecture / Paul M. Pietroski.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pietroski, Paul M.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Language and languages--Philosophy.

Language and languages.

Generative grammar.

Meaning (Psychology).

Physical Description:

vi, 267 pages ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2005.

Summary:

The meaning of an expression depends on its grammatical structure. But what, exactly, is the semantic contribution of syntax? From a Davidsonian perspective, many verbs are predicates of events; adverbial modifiers of such verbs are predicates of events; and being a syntactic argument of such a verb is a way of being a complex but still semantically monadic predicate of events. This invites the hypothesis, which Paul Pietroski defends on empirical and conceptual grounds, that combining expressions corresponds to predicate-conjunction and not function-application Chapters cover a range of constructions involving causative and serial verbs, plural noun-phrases, and complementizer phrases. Determiners are also analyzed as semantically monadic predicates, by treating quantification over events as a special case of quantification over things with participants.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [251]-264) and index.

ISBN:

0199244308

OCLC:

56964536