Natural language semantics : formation and valuation / Brendan S. Gillon.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gillon, Brendan S., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Semantics--Textbooks.

Semantics.

English language--Semantics--Textbooks.

English language.

English language--Semantics.

Genre:

Textbooks.

Physical Description:

xiii, 713 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, MA : The MIT Press, [2019]

Summary:

"This textbook, which is completely self-contained and can be read by anyone with a secondary school education, is the result of the author's material prepared over the past 15 years of teaching introductory natural language semantics to graduate and undergraduate students at McGill University. The intended audience comprises undergraduate and graduate students in linguistics as well as those in philosophy, computer science and psychology with an interest in natural language semantics. The aim of the textbook is to teach the fundamentals of natural language semantics, with English as the principal, though not the exclusive, target language. The principal aim of the textbook is to provide the student with all the basics necessary to be able him or her read research in natural language semantics, regardless of the theory assumed by the author of the research. In contrast to other textbooks in the field, which aim to introduce students to a particular theory of natural language semantics, this textbook seeks to give to its reader a clear overview of the kind of natural language phenomena which, at least prima facie, fall within the ambit of an investigation of natural language semantics; to assist the reader in developing a mastery of the mathematical tools used to formulate hypotheses about the natural language phenomena studied; and to impart to the reader an appreciation of the interplay between hypothesis and data. As a result, the textbook is rich in its presentation of the patterns of English, drawing extensively on the best and most contemporary descriptive grammars of English. The textbook also has more than 500 exercises, with answers to half of them"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Language, linguistics, semantics : an introduction

Basic set theory

Basic English grammar

Language and context

Language and belief : implicatures and presuppositions

Classical propositional logic notation and semantics

Classical propositional logic deduction

English connectors

Classical predicate logic

Grammatical predicates and minimal clauses in English

Classical quantificational logic

Enrichments of classical quantificational logic

The Lambek calculus and the Lambda calculus

Noun phrases in English.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780262039208

0262039206

OCLC:

1050457335