On the Semantics of Wh-Clauses

ISBN-13: 9781138690769 / Angielski / Twarda / 2016 / 178 str.

Stephen Berman

Opis

First published in 1994, this book is concerned with certain kinds of wh-clauses, whose interpretations are easily and, the author argues, plausibly rendered by a logicosemantic analysis on which wh-phrases translate as open sentences, that is, as expressions of the semantically interpreted representation which contain free variables. After a review of influential contemporary analyses of the semantics of questions, concentrating on issues related to the truthconditional interpretation of these constructions, the author goes on to analyse logicosemantic similarities between wh-phrases and indefinite NPs. This analysis is extended in chapter V to account for asymmetries between wh-phrases and indefinites, but is preceded by the engagement and refutation of some of the challenges to it. The appendices discuss some peripheral points relating to the central points made by the author which are in need of further study.

Spis treści

Preface; Acknowledgments; I Introduction; 1 Overview 2 The Lewis/Heim/Kamp Theory 3 Summary Notes; II An Overview of Semantic Analyses of Questions; 1 Introduction 2 Categorical Approaches 3 Embedding Approaches 4 Propositional Approaches 5 Summary Notes; III A Nonquantificational Analysis of Wh-Phrases, I: Parallels Between Wh-Phrases and Indefinites; 1 Introduction 2 The Quantificational Variability of Wh-Phrases 3 Wh-Clauses as Restrictive Terms 4 Deriving the Restrictive Term: Presupposition 5 The Presuppositional Vagueness of clauses-embedding Predicates 6 Recapitulation Notes; IV Exhaustiveness; 1 Introduction 2 (Weak) Exhaustiveness 3 The Domain of Quantification 4 Summary Notes; V A Nonquantificational Analysis of Wh-Phrases II: Asymmetries Between Wh-Phrases and Indefinites; 1 Introduction 2 Data and Generalizations 3 Wh-Movement as a Determinate of Wh-Phrase Quantifiability 4 Nonquantifiable Wh-Phrases 5 Summary Notes; Appendices; A Wh-Phrases as Variables Over Functions B Definiteness and Global Accommodation C Complement If- and Whether-Clauses; Bibliography; Index

O autorze

Berman, Stephen