Semantics and semiology are two of the most important branches of linguistics and have proven to be fecund areas for research. They examine language structures and how they are dictated by both the meanings and forms of communication employed — semantics by focusing on the denotation of words and fixed word combinations, and semiology by studying sign and sign processes. As numerous interrelated fields connect to and sub-disciplines branch off from these major spheres, they are essential to a thorough grounding in linguistics and crucial for further study.
‘Routledge Library Editions: Semantics and Semiology’ collects together wide-ranging works of scholarship that together provide a comprehensive overview of the preceding theoretical landscape, and expand and extend it in numerous directions. A number of interrelated disciplines are also discussed in conjunction with semantics and semiology such as anaphora, pragmatics, syntax, discourse analysis and the philosophy of language. This set reissues 14 books originally published between 1960 to 2000 and will be of interest to students of linguistics and the philosophy of language.
By Peter Lasersohn
February 26, 2018
First published in 1990, this dissertation presents an event-based model-theoretic semantics for plural expressions in English. The author defends against counterarguments the hypothesis that distributive predicates are predicates of groups, and not just individuals. By defining the collective/...
By Tanya Reinhart
February 26, 2018
First published in 1983, this book examines anaphora — a central issue in linguistic theory as it lies at the crossroads of several major problems. On the one hand it is believed that the same conditions that govern the interpretation of anaphora also govern syntactic movement rules but on the ...
By Cleo A. Condoravdi
February 26, 2018
First published in 1997, this book focuses on the semantics of definite and indefinite descriptions — taking the presuppositional theory of definiteness and indefiniteness proposed by Heim as a starting point. It seeks to show that there exists a special type of indefinites that have an ...
By John A. Nerbonne
February 26, 2018
First published in 1985, this book analyses temporal meaning in German. The framework is that of a model-theoretic semantics, more specifically one incorporating a multi-dimensional tense logic. The first chapter presents this logic and argues that three dimensions are optimal for the description ...
By Mandy Simons
February 26, 2018
First published in 2000, this book is about sentences containing the word or, dealing primarily with sentences in which or conjoins clauses, but also some cases in which it conjoins expressions of other categories. The author aims to give an account of the discourse properties and felicity ...
By Rosalind Coward, John Ellis
February 26, 2018
First published in 1977, this book presents a comprehensive and lucid guide through the labyrinths of semiology and structuralism — perhaps the most significant systems of study to have been developed in the twentieth century. The authors describe the early presuppositions of structuralism and ...
By Jean Mark Gawron
February 26, 2018
First published in 1983, this book represents an effort to lay the groundwork for a general approach to lexical semantics that pays heed to the needs of a theory of discourse interpretation, a theory of compositional semantics, and a theory of lexical rules. The first chapter proposes a basic ...
By Marjorie Boulton
February 26, 2018
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 ...
By David S. Clarke
February 26, 2018
First published in 1987, this book is an attempt to re-establish semiotic on the basis of principles consistent with its past history, rather than the ‘cultural semiotics’ of the European tradition, and especially with the guiding ideas of Peirce and Morris. The book is divided into two parts, with...
By Sándor Hervey
February 26, 2018
First published in 1982, this book looks at a wide variety of issues concerning the vast field of study that is ‘semiotics. It begins by tracing the beginnings of modern semiotics in the works two pioneering figures — Saussure and Peirce — in order to present fundamental assumptions, notions and ...
By Marjorie Boulton
February 26, 2018
First published in 1959, this book aims to provide a practical introduction to semantics, relating the critical study of language to real-life situation, with a wealth of anecdotes and numerous illustrations drawn from everyday personal predicaments. This book provides much information and much ...
By Gregory L. Ward
February 26, 2018
First published in 1988, this book examines the aspects of pragmatic competence involving the class of preposing constructions in English. By limiting the scope of investigation to particular grammatical categories, the author argues previous studies have failed to capture significant pragmatic ...