Context and coherence : the logic and grammar of prominence /
"Natural languages are riddled with context-sensitivity. One and the same string of words can express indefinitely many different meanings on an occasion of use. And yet we understand one another effortlessly, on the fly. What fixes the meaning of context-sensitive expressions, and how are we a...
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
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Oxford, United Kingdom :
Oxford University Press,
2021.
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| Edition: | First edition. |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | "Natural languages are riddled with context-sensitivity. One and the same string of words can express indefinitely many different meanings on an occasion of use. And yet we understand one another effortlessly, on the fly. What fixes the meaning of context-sensitive expressions, and how are we able to recover this meaning so quickly and without effort? This book offers a novel response: we can do so because we draw on a broad array of subtle linguistic conventions that fully determine the interpretation of context-sensitive items. Contrary to the dominant tradition, which maintains that the meaning of context-sensitive language is underspecified by grammar, and depends on non-linguistic features of utterance situation, this book argues that meaning is determined entirely by discourse conventions, rules of language that have largely been missed, and the effects of which have been mistaken for extra-linguistic effects of an utterance situation on meaning. The linguistic account of context developed in this book sheds a new light on the nature of linguistic content, and the interaction between content and context. At the same time, it provides a novel model of context that should constrain and help evaluate debates across many sub-fields of philosophy where appeal to context has been common, often leading to surprising conclusions: for example, in epistemology, ethics, value theory, metaphysics, metaethics, and logic, among others"--Publisher's description. |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (230 pages) |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and indexes. |
| ISBN: | 9780192634825 0192634828 |