Semantics & the Frontiers of Communication

Semantics & the Frontiers of Communication PDF Author: Ozo-mekuri Ndimele
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Discourse analysis
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Default Semantics

Default Semantics PDF Author: K. M. Jaszczolt
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191532193
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages :

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In this pioneering book Kasia Jaszczolt lays down the foundations of an original theory of meaning in discourse, reveals the cognitive foundations of discourse interpretation, and puts forward a new basis for the analysis of discourse processing. She provides a step-by-step introduction to the theory and its application, and explains new terms and formalisms as required. Dr Jaszczolt unites the precision of truth-conditional, dynamic approaches with insights from neo-Gricean pragmatics into the role of speaker's intentions in communication. She shows that the compositionality of meaning may be understood as merger representations combining information from various sources including word meaning and sentence structure, various kinds of default interpretations, and conscious pragmatic inference. Among the applications the author discusses are constructions that pose problems in semantic analysis such as referring expressions, propositional attitude constructions, presupposition, modality, numerals, and sentential connectives. She proposes solutions to cutting edge problems in the semantics/pragmatics interface - for example, how many levels of meaning should be distinguished; the status of under-specification; how much contextual information should be placed in the representation of the speaker's meaning; whether there are default interpretations; the stage of utterance interpretation at which pragmatic inference begins; and whether compositionality is a necessary feature of the theory of meaning and if so how it is to be defined. The book is for advanced students and researchers in semantics, pragmatics, computational linguistics, and philosophy of language.

Default Semantics

Default Semantics PDF Author: Katarzyna Jaszczolt
Publisher: Oxford Linguistics
ISBN: 0199261989
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
In this pioneering book Kasia Jaszczolt lays down the foundations of an original theory of meaning in discourse, reveals the cognitive foundations of discourse interpretation, and puts forward a new basis for the analysis of discourse processing. She provides a step-by-step introduction to thetheory and its application, and explains new terms and formalisms as required. Dr Jaszczolt unites the precision of truth-conditional, dynamic approaches with insights from neo-Gricean pragmatics into the role of speaker's intentions in communication. She shows that the compositionality of meaningmay be understood as merger representations combining information from various sources including word meaning and sentence structure, various kinds of default interpretations, and conscious pragmatic inference. Among the applications the author discusses are constructions that pose problems in semantic analysis such as referring expressions, propositional attitude constructions, presupposition, modality, numerals, and sentential connectives. She proposes solutions to cutting edge problems in thesemantics/pragmatics interface - for example, how many levels of meaning should be distinguished; the status of underspecification; how much contextual information should be placed in the representation of the speaker's meaning; whether there are default interpretations; the stage of utteranceinterpretation at which pragmatic inference begins; and whether compositionality is a necessary feature of the theory of meaning and if so how it is to be defined.The book is for students and researchers in semantics, pragmatics, computational linguistics, and philosophy of language at advanced undergraduate level and above.

The Semantic Structure of Written Communication

The Semantic Structure of Written Communication PDF Author: John Beekman
Publisher: Summer Institute of Linguistics, Academic Publications
ISBN: 9781556714061
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 124

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Book Description
This work provides a brief overview of the basic relationships of meaning and structure of a language. The overview is followed by a more detailed analysis and practical application of the semantic relationships from the lowest level propositions through the highest level units of the text. A significant portion of the work addresses the semantic relations and roles of the communication units. The theory described in The Semantic Structure of Written Communication is applied in the books in the Semantic Structure Analyses Series. Each book has a systematic presentation, via a standard format and a tightly controlled discourse analysis of the Semantic Structure of the Greek text of the New Testament. The books in the Semantic Structure Analyses Series are designed to be used as a special kind of commentary to help translators find the precise meaning of the Source Language text. The SSA books are especially useful at points where regular New Testament commentaries are in disagreement or do not address themselves to the questions that translators are obliged to answer in the process of their work. In its format, an SSA includes a display of the semantic content and structure of each paragraph and each grouping of paragraphs in the text, in a form somewhat resembling a tree diagram. Also included are notes and comments justifying the analytical and exegetical decisions presented.

Communication: General Semantics Perspectives

Communication: General Semantics Perspectives PDF Author: Lee Thayer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
Based on the Eleventh International Conference on General Semantics--"A search for relevance, 1968".

A theory of the semantic structure of written communication

A theory of the semantic structure of written communication PDF Author: John Beekman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bible
Languages : en
Pages :

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What It All Means

What It All Means PDF Author: Philippe Schlenker
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262371774
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 488

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How meaning works—from monkey calls to human language, from spoken language to sign language, from gestures to music—and how meaning is connected to truth. We communicate through language, connecting what we mean to the words we say. But humans convey meaning in other ways as well, with facial expressions, hand gestures, and other methods. Animals, too, can get their meanings across without words. In What It All Means, linguist Philippe Schlenker explains how meaning works, from monkey calls to human language, from spoken language to sign language, from gestures to music. He shows that these extraordinarily diverse types of meaning can be studied and compared within a unified approach—one in which the notion of truth plays a central role. “It’s just semantics” is often said dismissively. But Schlenker shows that semantics—the study of meaning—is an unsung success of modern linguistics, a way to investigate some of the deepest questions about human nature using tools from the empirical and formal sciences. Drawing on fifty years of research in formal semantics, Schlenker traces how meaning comes to life. After investigating meaning in primate communication, he explores how human meanings are built, using in some cases sign languages as a guide to the workings of our inner “logic machine.” Schlenker explores how these meanings can be enriched by iconicity in sign language and by gestures in spoken language, and then turns to more abstract forms of iconicity to understand the meaning of music. He concludes by examining paradoxes, which—being neither true nor false—test the very limits of meaning.

Insensitive Semantics

Insensitive Semantics PDF Author: Herman Cappelen
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470754915
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Insensitive Semantics is an overview of and contribution to the debates about how to accommodate context sensitivity within a theory of human communication, investigating the effects of context on communicative interaction and, as a corollary, what a context of utterance is and what it is to be in one. Provides detailed and wide-ranging overviews of the central positions and arguments surrounding contextualism Addresses broad and varied aspects of the distinction between the semantic and non-semantic content of language Defends a distinctive and explanatorily powerful combination of semantic minimalism and speech act pluralism Confronts core problems which not only run to the heart of philosophy of language and linguistics, but which arise in epistemology, metaphysics, and moral philosophy as well

The Semantics of Media

The Semantics of Media PDF Author: J. Ross
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401156506
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 143

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Book Description
Media are objects with content and character that we describe using in- phrases: in the story, in the picture, in the movie, in the dream... Like the propositional attitudes, these objects present a variety of hard problems for semantic and philosophical analysis. The Semantics of Media is an organized exploration of fundamental questions in the semantics of media. The first three chapters set out a straightforward model within the possible-worlds framework, and consider how it might account for a range of notions applying to media generally: implicit vs. explicit content, propositional vs. individual content, causal vs. intentional content and the idea of a single World of the Medium. The final three chapters examine ways of elaborating the model to cover a range of phenomena keyed to the functionality of particular forms of media. Chapter Four is a discussion of fiction and our apparent reference to fictional characters. Chapter Five deals with the phenomenon of viewpoint in pictorial media. Chapter Six is a study of interactions between users and characters of media centering on the puzzling case of seeing in films. The Semantics of Media will be of interest to specialists in the fields of linguistics, philosophy and communications.

Semantics and Communication

Semantics and Communication PDF Author: John C. Condon
Publisher: MacMillan Publishing Company
ISBN: 9780023242205
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 170

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