Overview
- Brings together empirical and theoretical research on specificity
- Presents for the first time an overview over the specificity markers found in natural languages
- Shows that specific indefinites are no homogeneous class, but one that comprises various sub-kinds
- Deepens our understanding of specificity by concentrating on the similarities and differences among specificity markers in different languages
- Enhances our understanding of the connection between specificity and topicality
Part of the book series: Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy (SLAP, volume 92)
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Table of contents (8 chapters)
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Front Matter
Keywords
- Distribution of two Indefinite Articles
- Formal semantics
- German Specificity Markers bestimmt and gewiss
- Indefinites
- Intensional/modal operators
- Natural languages
- Pragmatic variation among specificity markers
- Semantics and pragmatics of indefinites
- Semantics-pragmatics interface
- Specificity markers and Nominal Exclamatives in French
- Syntax-semantics interface
- Topicality
- Widest scope
About this book
This anthology of papers analyzes a range of specificity markers found in natural languages. It reflects the fact that despite intensive research into these markers, the vast differences between the markers across languages and even within single languages have been less acknowledged. Commonly regarded specific indefinites are by no means a homogenous class, and so this volume fills a gap in our understanding of the semantics and pragmatics of indefinites.
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The papers explore differences and similarities among these specificity markers, concentrating on the following issues: whether specificity is a purely semantic or also a pragmatic notion; whether the contribution of specificity markers is located on the level of the at-issue content; whether some kind of speaker-listener asymmetry concerning the identification of the referent is involved; and the behavioral scope of these indefinites in the context of other quantifiers, negation, attitude verbs, and intensional/modal operators.
Editors and Affiliations
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Different Kinds of Specificity Across Languages
Editors: Cornelia Ebert, Stefan Hinterwimmer
Series Title: Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5310-5
Publisher: Springer Dordrecht
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2013
Hardcover ISBN: 978-94-007-5309-9Published: 09 November 2012
Softcover ISBN: 978-94-017-8141-1Published: 14 December 2014
eBook ISBN: 978-94-007-5310-5Published: 08 November 2012
Series ISSN: 0924-4662
Series E-ISSN: 2215-034X
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: VIII, 208
Topics: Semantics, Philosophy of Language, Comparative Linguistics, Syntax