Understanding Semantics

This series provides approachable, yet authoritative, introductions to all the major topics in linguistics. Ideal for students with little or no prior knowledge of linguistics, each book carefully explains the basics, emphasising understanding of the essential notions rather than arguing for a particular theoretical position. Understanding Semantics offers a complete introduction to linguistic semantics. The book takes a step-by-step approach, starting with the basic concepts and moving through the central questions to examine the methods and results of the science of linguistic meaning. Understanding Semantics unites the treatment of a broad scale of phenomena using data from different languages with a thorough investigation of major theoretical perspectives. It leads the reader from their intuitive knowledge of meaning to a deeper understanding of the use of scientific reasoning in the study of language as a communicative tool, of the nature of linguistic meaning, and of the scope and limitations of linguistic semantics. Ideal as a first textbook in semantics for undergraduate students of linguistics, this book is also recommended for students of literature, philosophy, psychology and cognitive science.

Understanding Semantics, Second Edition, provides an engaging and accessible introduction to linguistic semantics. The first part takes the reader through a step-by-step guide to the main phenomena and notions of semantics, covering levels and dimensions of meaning, ambiguity, meaning and context, logical relations and meaning relations, the basics of noun semantics, verb semantics and sentence semantics. The second part provides a critical introduction to the basic notions of the three major theoretical approaches to meaning: structuralism, cognitive semantics and formal semantics. Key features include: A consistent mentalist perspective on meaning Broad coverage of lexical and sentence semantics, including three new chapters discussing deixis, NP semantics, presuppositions, verb semantics and frames Examples from a wider range of languages that include German, Japanese, Spanish and Russian. Practical exercises on linguistic data Companion website including all figures and tables from the book, an online dictionary, answers to the exercises and useful links at routledge.com/cw/loebner This book is an essential resource for all undergraduate students studying semantics. Sebastian Löbner is a Professor of Linguistics at the Institute for Language and Information at the University of Düsseldorf, Germany

Understanding Semantics, Second Edition, provides an engaging and accessible introduction to linguistic semantics. The first part takes the reader through a step-by-step guide to the main phenomena and notions of semantics, covering levels and dimensions of meaning, ambiguity, meaning and context, logical relations and meaning relations, the basics of noun semantics, verb semantics and sentence semantics. The second part provides a critical introduction to the basic notions of the three major theoretical approaches to meaning: structuralism, cognitive semantics and formal semantics. Key features include: A consistent mentalist perspective on meaning Broad coverage of lexical and sentence semantics, including three new chapters discussing deixis, NP semantics, presuppositions, verb semantics and frames Examples from a wider range of languages that include German, Japanese, Spanish and Russian. Practical exercises on linguistic data Companion website including all figures and tables from the book, an online dictionary, answers to the exercises and useful links at routledge.com/cw/loebner This book is an essential resource for all undergraduate students studying semantics. Sebastian Löbner is a Professor of Linguistics at the Institute for Language and Information at the University of Düsseldorf, Germany

The Z notation is a language for expressing mathematical specifications of computing systems. By providing a formal semantics for Z, this book justifies the claim that Z is a precise specification language, and provides a standard framework for understanding Z specifications.

This book introduces a theory, Naive Semantics (NS), a theory of the knowledge underlying natural language understanding. The basic assumption of NS is that knowing what a word means is not very different from knowing anything else, so that there is no difference in form of cognitive representation between lexical semantics and ency clopedic knowledge. NS represents word meanings as commonsense knowledge, and builds no special representation language (other than elements of first-order logic). The idea of teaching computers common sense knowledge originated with McCarthy and Hayes (1969), and has been extended by a number of researchers (Hobbs and Moore, 1985, Lenat et aI, 1986). Commonsense knowledge is a set of naive beliefs, at times vague and inaccurate, about the way the world is structured. Traditionally, word meanings have been viewed as criterial, as giving truth conditions for membership in the classes words name. The theory of NS, in identifying word meanings with commonsense knowledge, sees word meanings as typical descriptions of classes of objects, rather than as criterial descriptions. Therefore, reasoning with NS represen tations is probabilistic rather than monotonic. This book is divided into two parts. Part I elaborates the theory of Naive Semantics. Chapter 1 illustrates and justifies the theory. Chapter 2 details the representation of nouns in the theory, and Chapter 4 the verbs, originally published as "Commonsense Reasoning with Verbs" (McDowell and Dahlgren, 1987). Chapter 3 describes kind types, which are naive constraints on noun representations.

Understanding Semantics, Second Edition, provides an engaging and accessible introduction to linguistic semantics. The first part takes the reader through a step-by-step guide to the main phenomena and notions of semantics, covering levels and dimensions of meaning, ambiguity, meaning and context, logical relations and meaning relations, the basics of noun semantics, verb semantics and sentence semantics. The second part provides a critical introduction to the basic notions of the three major theoretical approaches to meaning: structuralism, cognitive semantics and formal semantics. Key features include: A consistent mentalist perspective on meaning Broad coverage of lexical and sentence semantics, including three new chapters discussing deixis, NP semantics, presuppositions, verb semantics and frames Examples from a wider range of languages that include German, Japanese, Spanish and Russian. Practical exercises on linguistic data Companion website including all figures and tables from the book, an online dictionary, answers to the exercises and useful links at routledge.com/cw/loebner This book is an essential resource for all undergraduate students studying semantics. Sebastian Löbner is a Professor of Linguistics at the Institute for Language and Information at the University of Düsseldorf, Germany

Introduces the major elements of semantics in a simple, step-by-step fashion. Sections of explanation and examples are followed by practice exercises with answers and comment provided.

This comprehensive resource pack, developed in conjunction with education staff, draws on the principles of Alison Bryan’s original Colourful Semantics approach to provide professionals with an engaging, dynamic way to support children’s language development. By coding sentences using colour, symbols and signs, this visual approach aims to: Teach understanding of question words Develop vocabulary and increase sentence complexity Increase range and complexity of verbs (children with delayed or disordered spoken language skills often overuse simple verbs such as do, go or get) Improve children’s written language skills This practical resource consists of three parts: a printed book containing ready-made session plan ideas, black and white vocabulary cards and worksheets; an online version using the current Colourful Semantics colour coding system, and an online version using the colour coding system used by Speech and Language Therapists from NHS Forth Valley. This is an essential pack for teachers and professionals looking to work on language development with children aged four to nine. The flexible session plans can be used with individuals, small groups and whole classes, and can be easily adapted by Speech and Language Therapists, teachers and other practitioners.