Shifting the Focus: From Static Structures to the Dynamics of Interpretation (Volume 14, Current Research in the Semantics/Pragmatics Interface) (Electronic book text)

How direct is the mapping between linguistic constructions and their interpretations? Much less direct than we commonly assume, according to Daniel Wedgwood. Extending current ideas from frameworks like Relevance Theory and Dynamic Syntax, Wedgwood upholds a radical position on modelling linguistic competence: the idea of interfacing static syntactic and semantic representations must be abandoned in favour of models of the incremental construction of meaning during parsing - which may involve significant pragmatic enrichment. In illustration, Wedgwood presents a detailed study of a key meeting point of grammar and pragmatics: focus, in particular its syntactic expression in Hungarian. The result is a strikingly simple explanation of a complex set of syntactico-semantic phenomena, touching on information structure, negation, quantification and complex predication. For its clear and bold theoretical argumentation and its novel analysis of some notorious data, this book will be of interest to all linguists, philosophers and computational linguists concerned with the relationships between syntax, semantics, pragmatics and information structure.; Wedgwood's book tackles two difficult tasks at once. It makes a radical contribution to debate about the basic form of linguistic theory and presents an impressively broad and deep example of specific linguistic analysis. This book will interest anyone concerned with the interrelations of structure and meaning in natural languages - whether on a philosophical level or via numerous concrete proposals on issues like the interaction of information structure with quantification and negation. - Professor James R Hurford, University of Edinburgh, UK. A novel and radical dynamic perspective on language, with Hungarian as a case study. Anyone interested in how the web of syntax and semantics fit together with properties of general reasoning should not miss out on this book. - Professor Ruth Kempson, King's College, London, UK.