Existential Sentences: Their Structure and Meaning - Softcover

Lumsden, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0415053005 ISBN 13: 9780415053006

Publisher: Routledge, 1990

Synopsis

This study attempts to account for the relationship between the structure of existential sentences (ES) and their meaning. The book begins by considering the syntactic structure of ES and showing how the derivation of these sentences is compatible with general principles that have been proposed within recent versions of transformational grammar. The central chapters concentrate on the range of semantic restrictions pointed out by Milsark. After reviewing a number of approaches to the classification of quantifiers, Lumsden develops an account based on the presuppositional properties of different quantified expressions. The concluding chapter shows how syntactic representations together with logical forms are interpreted by hearers using assumptions concerning the speaker, knowledge of the immediate situation and the previous discourse, together with other background assumptions and contextual inferences.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0415053005
• ISBN 13: 9780415053006
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272