E-Book Overview
Iceberg semantics is a new framework of Boolean semantics for mass nouns and count nouns in which the interpretation of a noun phrase rises up from a generating base and floats with its base on its Boolean part set, like an iceberg. The framework is shown to preserve the attractive features of classical Boolean semantics for count nouns; the book argues that Iceberg semantics forms a much better framework for studying mass nouns than the classical theory does.
Iceberg semantics uses its notion of base to develop a semantic theory of the differences between mass nouns and count nouns and between different types of mass nouns, in particular between prototypical mass nouns (here called mess mass nouns) like water and mud versus object mass nouns (here called neat mass nouns) like poultry and pottery. The book shows in detail how and why neat mass nouns pattern semantically both with mess mass nouns and with count nouns.
Iceberg semantics is a compositional theory and in Iceberg semantics the semantic distinctions defined apply to noun phrases of any complexity. The book studies in depth the semantics of classifier noun phrases (like three glasses of wine) and measure noun phrases (like three liters of wine). The classical wisdom is that classifier interpretations are count. Recent literature has argued compellingly that measure interpretations are mass. The book shows that both connections follow from the basic architecture of Iceberg semantics.
Audience: Scholars and students in linguistics - in particular semantics, pragmatics, computational linguistics and syntax – and neighbouring disciplines like logic, philosophy of language, and cognitive science.
E-Book Content
Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy 105
Fred Landman
Iceberg Semantics for Mass Nouns and Count Nouns A New Framework for Boolean Semantics
Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy Volume 105
Series Editors Cleo Condoravdi, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA Orin Percus, University of Nantes, France Zoltan Szabo, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA Editorial Board Members Johan van Bentham, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Gregory N. Carlson, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA David Dowty, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA Gerald Gazdar, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK Irene Heim, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA Ewan Klein, ICCS, Edinburgh, UK Bill Ladusaw, Cowell College, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, USA Terrence Parsons, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA
Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy publishes monographs and edited volumes that focus on issues related to structure and meaning in natural language, as addressed in the semantics, philosophy of language, pragmatics and related disciplines, in particular the following areas: • philosophical theories of meaning and truth, reference, description, entailment, presupposition, implicatures, context-dependence, and speech acts • linguistic theories of semantic interpretation in relation to syntactic structure and prosody, of discourse structure, lexical semantics and semantic change • psycholinguistic theories of semantic interpretation and issues of the processing and acquisition of natural language, and the relation of semantic interpretation to other cognitive faculties • mathematical and logical properties of natural language and general aspects of computational linguistics • philosophical questions raised by linguistics as a science. This book series is associated with the journal Linguistics and Philosophy: http:// www.springer.com/journal/10988
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/6556
Fred Landman
Iceberg Semantics for Mass Nouns and Count Nouns A New Framework for Boolean Semantics