Overview
- This volume represents compositionality as a cornerstone of linguistic theory
- Introduces a new theory of formal languages
- Explores in great detail the technical aspects of compositionality
Part of the book series: Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy (SLAP, volume 89)
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About this book
This book argues that languages are composed of sets of ‘signs’, rather than ‘strings’. This notion, first posited by de Saussure in the early 20th century, has for decades been neglected by linguists, particularly following Chomsky’s heavy critiques of the 1950s. Yet since the emergence of formal semantics in the 1970s, the issue of compositionality has gained traction in the theoretical debate, becoming a selling point for linguistic theories.
Yet the concept of ‘compositionality’ itself remains ill-defined, an issue this book addresses. Positioning compositionality as a cornerstone in linguistic theory, it argues that, contrary to widely held beliefs, there exist non-compositional languages, which shows that the concept of compositionality has empirical content. The author asserts that the existence of syntactic structure can flow from the fact that a compositional grammar cannot be delivered without prior agreement on the syntactic structure of the constituents.
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Table of contents (6 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Authors and Affiliations
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Interpreted Languages and Compositionality
Authors: Marcus Kracht
Series Title: Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2108-1
Publisher: Springer Dordrecht
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011
Hardcover ISBN: 978-94-007-2107-4Published: 06 August 2011
Softcover ISBN: 978-94-007-3756-3Published: 27 November 2013
eBook ISBN: 978-94-007-2108-1Published: 06 August 2011
Series ISSN: 0924-4662
Series E-ISSN: 2215-034X
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: X, 214
Topics: Semantics, Logic, Mathematical Logic and Formal Languages, Philosophy of Language