The Science of Meaning: Essays on the Metatheory of Natural Language Semantics

Description

By creating certain marks on paper, or by making certain sounds-breathing past a moving tongue-or by articulation of hands and bodies, language users can give expression to their mental lives. With language we command, assert, query, emote, insult, and inspire. Language has meaning. This fact can be quite mystifying, yet a science of linguistic meaning-semantics-has emerged at the intersection of a variety of disciplines: philosophy, linguistics, computer science, and psychology. Semantics is the study of meaning. But what exactly is "meaning"? What is the exact target of semantic theory? Much of the early work in natural language semantics was accompanied by extensive reflection on the aims of semantic theory, and the form a theory must take to meet those aims. But this meta-theoretical reflection has not kept pace with recent theoretical innovations. This volume re-addresses these questions concerning the foundations of natural language semantics in light of the current state-of-the-art in semantic theorising. 0: Derek Ball and Brian Rabern: Introduction to the science of meaning1: Pauline Jacobson: What is - or, for that matter, isn't - 'experimental' semantics?2: Wesley H. Holliday and Thomas F. Icard, III: Axiomatization in the meaning sciences3: Robert Stalnaker: David Lewis on context4: Franc?ois Recanati: From meaning to content5: Bryan Pickel, Brian Rabern, and Josh Dever: Reviving the parameter revolution in semantics6: Barbara Partee: Changing notions of linguistic competence in the history of formal semantics7: Michael Glanzberg: Lexical meaning, concepts, and the metasemantics of predicates8: Kathrin Gluer: Interpretation and the interpreter9: Thomas Ede Zimmermann: Expressing expectations10: Thomas Ede Zimmermann: Paul Pietroski11: Paul Pietroski: Semantic typology and composition12: Seth Yalcin: Semantics as model-based science13: Wolfgang Schwarz: Semantic possibility14: Derek Ball: Semantics as measurement