Words and thoughts : subsentences, ellipsis, and the philosophy of language / Robert J. Stainton.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stainton, Robert, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Language and languages--Philosophy.

Language and languages.

Speech acts (Linguistics).

Grammar, Comparative and general--Ellipsis.

Grammar, Comparative and general.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 248 pages)

Other Title:

Subsentences, ellipsis, and the philosophy of language

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Clarendon Press ; New York : Published in the United States by Oxford University Press, 2006.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

It is a near truism of philosophy of language that sentences are prior to words. Sentences, it is said, are what we believe, assert, and argue for; uses of them constitute our evidence in semantics; only they stand in inferential relations, and are true or false. Sentences are, indeed, the only things that fundamentally have meaning.Does this near truism really hold of human languages? Robert Stainton, drawing on a wide body of evidence, argues forcefully that speakers can and do use mere words, not sentences, to communicate complete thoughts. He then considers the implications of this empiric

Contents:

The appearances and some background

Introduction : the appearances, and what they might mean

Further background issues

The genuineness issue

Not a full-fledged speech act?

Extra-grammatical maneuvers

Semantic ellipsis

Syntactic ellipsis

A divide-and-conquer strategy

A positive representational-pragmatic view

Implications

Language : thought relations

Sentence primacy

Sentences, assertion, and the semantics-pragmatics boundary.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [233]-242) and index.

Description based on print version record.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

0-19-925039-1

1-281-16405-4

9786611164058

0-19-153054-9

1-4356-1822-X

OCLC:

427507893