Overview
- Includes pioneering studies of the online processing of various aspects of adjectival semantics
- Provides new quantitative evidence concerning hypotheses from formal semantic theories
- Promotes the interaction between researchers in linguistics, psycholinguistics, psychology and philosophy on the semantics of natural language
Part of the book series: Language, Cognition, and Mind (LCAM, volume 4)
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About this book
This volume is the first to focus specifically on experimental studies of the semantics of gradability, scale structure and vagueness. It presents support for and challenges to current formal analyses of these phenomena in view of experimentally collected data, highlighting the ways semantic and pragmatic theory can benefit from experimental methodologies. The papers in the volume contribute to an explicit and detailed account of the use, representation, and online processing of gradable and vague expressions using various kinds of controlled speaker judgment tasks, eye tracking, and ERP. The aim is to strengthen the foundations of experimental semantics and promote interaction between linguists, psycholinguists, psychologists, and philosophers who are interested in the semantics of natural language. Using data representing different languages and a variety of nominal and adjectival constructions, including degree modification and comparatives, the contributions address scale-based classifications of gradable predicates, such as the absolute vs. relative distinction; the nature of the standards for applicability of gradable expressions and the ways in which standards are determined; the nature of dimensions and multidimensionality in the meaning of scalar expressions; and the role of embodiment, subjectivity, and sociolinguistic considerations in the use and understanding of gradable expressions.
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Table of contents (11 chapters)
Editors and Affiliations
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Semantics of Gradability, Vagueness, and Scale Structure
Book Subtitle: Experimental Perspectives
Editors: Elena Castroviejo, Louise McNally, Galit Weidman Sassoon
Series Title: Language, Cognition, and Mind
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77791-7
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-77790-0Published: 06 July 2018
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-08541-4Published: 01 February 2019
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-77791-7Published: 20 June 2018
Series ISSN: 2364-4109
Series E-ISSN: 2364-4117
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: VI, 293
Topics: Semantics, Cognitive Psychology, Pragmatics, Psycholinguistics