Interpreting Imperatives

ISBN-13: 9789400737570 / Angielski / Miękka / 2013 / 272 str.

Magdalena Kaufmann

Opis

Imperative clauses are recognized as one of the major clause types alongside those known as declarative and interrogative. Nevertheless, they are still an enigma in the study of meaning, which relies largely on either the concept of truth conditions or the concept of information growth neither of which are easily applied to imperatives. This book puts forward a fresh perspective. It analyzes imperatives in terms of modalized propositions, and identifies an additional, presuppositional, meaning component that makes an assertive interpretation inappropriate. The author shows how these two elements can help explain the varied effects imperatives have, depending on their usage context.Imperatives have been viewed as elusive components of language because they have a range of functions that makes them difficult to unify theoretically. This fresh view of the semantics-pragmatics interface allows for a uniform semantic analysis while accounting for the pragmatic versatility of imperatives. "

Recenzje

From the reviews:

"This book provides an analysis of imperatives that aims to unify the study of their linguistic form with that of their various potential uses. ... A benefit of this book is that linguists of different areas may find it useful. Because it includes in-depth syntactic analyses of imperatives, as well as semantic and pragmatic ones, different chapters target different audiences. Most linguists interested in imperatives would likely find the whole book helpful ... ." (Mary Johnson, The Linguist List, February, 2013)

Spis treści

Setting the Scene . Individuating Imperatives . Trying a Purely Functional Individuation . Trying a Purely Formal Individuation . Imperatives as Clause Types . Clause Types and Actual Utterances . Semantics or Pragmatics? – Deciding on the Boundaries . The Framework .- How to Handle Imperatives in Semantics . Three Parameters of Classification . Split and Uniform Representationalism . Assigning Meaning to Imperatives: Static or Dynamic . Possible Denotata for Imperatives . A Few Recent Approaches to Imperatives . Speech Acts as Input to Semantic Computation . Performative Modals and Non- epistemic Context Change Potentials . (Ex-)Changing the World . Imperatives as Updating To-Do Lists . Modalized Propositions: Idea and Motivation . Performative and Descriptive Modal Verbs . Updates and Speech Acts . Imperatives and Declarative on a Par .- Imperatives as Graded Modals . Modality in Possible Worlds Semantics . Simple Modality . Personal and Impersonal Conversational Backgrounds . Graded Modality . Imperatives at the Syntax-Semantics Interface .  General Considerations on the Syntactic Make-Up of Imperatives . Tense, Aspect, and their Relation to Modality . Temporal Oppositions in Imperatives . The Imperative Subject . Do Imperatives Express Personal Modality? . Conclusion .- From Modalized Propositions to Speech Acts . Contextual Dependence in the Propositional Meaning Components . ORDERs, COMMANDs, and REQUESTs . PROHIBITIONs . WISHes and ABSENT WISHes . ADVICE . Constraining the Predictions: the Presuppositional Meaning Component . Restrictions Familiar from Modal Verbs . The Authority Condition . Epistemic Uncertainty , and Ordering Source Restriction . Putting it all together . Some Considerations on Propositionality and Rejections .- Possibility Readings . Permitting Permissions . PERMISSION-like Speech Acts . Any Troubles? . Indifference any-imperatives .  Subtrigged Necessity any-imperatives . Recapitulating any-Results . for example-ADVICE . (In)Exhaustive Necessity and Possibility . Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend . Conclusion .- Embedding Imperatives . Reported Speech and Imperatives from a Cross-Linguistic Perspective . Indirect Speech, Parentheticals, and Quotations . Quotative Constructions in Japanese and Malagasy . Fossilized Constructions . Context Harmony in Old Germanic . Embedded Imperatives in Modern High German . Conclusion . Conditional Imperatives and Modal Subordination . A Full Paradigm of CIs . CIs and The Modal Operator Analysis of Imperatives . Modal Subordination . Conclusion . Conditional Conjunctions and Disjunctions . Comparing Conditional Flavors in IaDs, IoDs, and Speech Act Conjunctions , Towards an Analysis of Type II IaDs . Imperatives in IoDs and Non-Classical Disjunctions in General . Conclusion .- References .- Index