Natural Language Semantics discusses fundamental concepts for linguistic semantics. This book combines theoretical explanations of several methods of inquiry with detailed semantic analysis and emphasises the philosophy that semantics is about meaning in human languages and that linguistic meaning is cognitively and functionally motivated.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"The field of semantics within linguistics needs Allan's book to stand as a marker of the clash of two traditions (the formalist/logical tradition and the pragmatic discourse-based tradition) and as a partially successful attempt to integrate these traditions and to produce a workable synthesis of them. The work is extremely impressive from the point of view of scholarship. Allan is clearly widely read, and has given deep thought to the central problems of the field." James R Hurford, University of Edinburgh.
"Allan's book is a wonderful and useful addition to the semantics literature. It covers all topics, from formal to conceptual, to typological, and does so with insight and accessibility. I especially like the problems, which are well thought out and effective teaching tools. Allan is to be praised for taking on the immensely difficult task of writing this book and producing such a good book." William Frawley, University of Delaware.
Every computational linguist should own at least one semantics textbook. Allan's book stands apart from many other texts in the way it conveys a real sense of the variety and fecundity of language as spoken by living, breathing human beings." Computational Linguistics
From the Back Cover
Natural Language Semantics discusses fundamental concepts for linguistic semantics. This book combines theoretical explanations of several methods of inquiry with detailed semantic analysis and emphasises the philosophy that semantics is about meaning in human languages and that linguistic meaning is cognitively and functionally motivated.
Providing the reader with the basic tools and skills needed to progress to original research, this volume introduces fundamental assumptions about meaning in language, discusses lexicological semantics, and explains formal semantic tools. It reviews cognitive and functional approaches to semantics, investigates the internal semantics of clauses and turns from the semantics of predicates to the internal semantics of noun phrases. Throughout each chapter, exercises are provided to reinforce the text and facilitate learning.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Natural Language Semantics,
By meredith larson (DeKalb, IL United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Natural Language Semantics (Paperback)
Allan reviews some of the basic concepts of semantics, ranging from the hazy line between pragmatics and semantics to cognitive semantics. Through out this book, he offers sample problems and questions that further understanding of sometimes difficult subject matter. While not dwelling too long on particular operators, such as the lambda operator, Allan gives thorough and helpful definitions of logical forms and their use in semantics. Most interesting to students or linguistic hobbyists are his explanations of cognitive semantics (e.g., his discussion of Whorf's theories and basic color terms) and connotation versus denotation. Near the end of the book, the material is markedly more difficult and abstract, but overall it is an approachable and useful text. Anyone looking for a good introduction to semantics that doesn't talk down to nor lose its readers would be greatly rewarded by owning a copy of this book.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
This chapter outlines some fundamental concepts for semantics, concepts that will be referred to either explicitly or implicitly throughout the rest of the book. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
adverbs like vigorously, primary illocution, semantic markerese, hypothetical lexicon, converse predicates, morphosyntactic specification, journey schema, truth functors, derived lexemes, stereotype semantics, cooperative maxim, function from entities, naturalist hypothesis, communicative presumption, presupposition negation, stem lexeme, metalanguage expression, illocutionary point, definite successor, quantity implicatures, woman allergic, discrete ensemble, semantic metalanguage, symmetric predicates, basic colour terms Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Van Valin, King of France, Vantage Theory, Alexander the Great, Bob Dylan, New York, Robert Zimmerman, New Zealand, English Dictionary, Macquarie Dictionary, Caspar Cazzo, Christmas Day, Eastern Nilotic, Elizabeth Taylor, Even Harry, Every English, Leibniz's Law, Local Government, Suppose Julie New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
This chapter outlines some fundamental concepts for semantics, concepts that will be referred to either explicitly or implicitly throughout the rest of the book. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
adverbs like vigorously, primary illocution, semantic markerese, hypothetical lexicon, converse predicates, morphosyntactic specification, journey schema, truth functors, derived lexemes, stereotype semantics, cooperative maxim, function from entities, naturalist hypothesis, communicative presumption, presupposition negation, stem lexeme, metalanguage expression, illocutionary point, definite successor, quantity implicatures, woman allergic, discrete ensemble, semantic metalanguage, symmetric predicates, basic colour terms Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Van Valin, King of France, Vantage Theory, Alexander the Great, Bob Dylan, New York, Robert Zimmerman, New Zealand, English Dictionary, Macquarie Dictionary, Caspar Cazzo, Christmas Day, Eastern Nilotic, Elizabeth Taylor, Even Harry, Every English, Leibniz's Law, Local Government, Suppose Julie New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 100
books:
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11
books
cite this book:
See all 11 books citing this book
- Basic Processes in Reading: Perception and Comprehension by Davide LaBerge in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- King Henry (Structural Readers) by William Shakespeare on page 149, and page 155
- Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language by John R. Searle in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Cognitive Development and Acquisition of Language by Timothy E. Moore in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Philosophical Logic (Synthese Library) by J.W. Davis in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
See all 100 books this book cites
- Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language by Keith Allan in Front Matter, and Back Matter
- A Glossary of Semantics and Pragmatics (Glossaries in Linguistics) by Alan Cruse in Back Matter
- Structuring Sense: Volume I: In Name Only by Hagit Borer in Back Matter
- Thought, Language and Ontology: Essays in Memory of Hector-Neri Castañeda (Philosophical Studies Series) by Francesco Orilia in Back Matter
- Metaphor, Metonymy, And Experientialist Philosophy: Challenging Cognitive Semantics (Topics in English Linguistics) by Verena Haser in Back Matter
See all 11 books citing this book
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