| Description |
1 online resource (xi, 376 pages) |
| Contents |
Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1 THE BASIC TEMPORAL AND SEMANTIC STRUCTURE OF SENTENCES -- 1.1 Temporal and Semantic Structure -- 1.1.1 Temporal Structure -- 1.1.2 Reichenbach's 1947 Formalism -- 1.1.3 The 1947 Topology Supplemented -- 1.1.4 The Natures of Speakers, Tokens, Perceiver-Describers, Companions, and Situations -- 1.1.5 Persons, Competence, Groups, and Locations -- 1.2 Applying the Theory -- 1.2.1 Adverbials and Simple Sentences -- 1.2.2 The Future Tense -- 1.2.3 The Anterior and Posterior -- 1.3 Tense Is Not an SE Relationship |
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1.3.1 Tense Logic and the SE Relationship1.3.2 SE Relationships and the Consequences of Tenses -- 2 COMPLEX SITUATIONS -- 2.1 Propositional Attitudes -- 2.1.1 The Structure in Detail -- 2.1.2 An Epistemic Matter: Responsibility and Tense -- 2.2 Modals, Epistemic and Root -- 2.2.1 Root Modals -- 2.2.2 Epistemic Modals -- 2.3 'When' -- 2.3.1 Conditioned Root Modals -- 2.4 Iterative States: Habituals, Nomics, and Generalizations -- 2.4.1 The Structure -- 2.4.2 The Nomic Difference -- 2.5 Conditionals and Arguments |
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2.5.1 The Structure of the Standard Conditional2.5.2 The Subjunctive and Counterfactual Conditionals -- 2.5.3 Arguments, Conditioned Root-Modal Iteratives, and the Storytelling We -- 2.5.4 Conditionals, (A)s, Truth, and Scepticism -- 3 MEANING, MEANINGFULNESS, AND REFERENCE -- 3.1 Meaning and Meaningfulness -- 3.2 Truth Conditions and Meaning -- 3.3 Meaning as Referring -- 3.3.1 Indexicality -- 3.3.2 Exemplificational Reference to t, i[sub(s)], and p; Ties -- 3.3.3 On Referring: Picturing Situations -- 3.3.4 On Chomsky's Contribution |
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880-01 4.3.4 Identifying Reference and the Autonomy of Contents4.4 Demonstrative Reference -- 5 EXISTENCE AND TENSE -- 5.1 Existence: An Overview -- 5.1.1 Existence and Meaningfulness -- 5.1.2 Towards a Criterion of Existence -- 5.1.3 The Platonic Gambit -- 5.1.4 Existence Sentences -- 5.2 Mathematical Sentences, the Existence of Numbers, and Mathematical Truth -- 6 SITUATIONS AND ASPECTS -- 6.1 Situations -- 6.1.1 Movements -- 6.1.2 Processes (Including Activities) -- 6.1.3 Changes -- 6.1.4 States -- 6.2 Imperfectives and Perfectives of Situations with Bounds |
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880-01/(S 3.3.5 Just Slightly More Than Syntax and Lexicon Public Meanings -- 3.3.6 Means-Sentences -- 3.3.7 Meaning, Publicity, and Scepticism -- 3.4 Semantics and World: Double Constructivism -- 4 REFERENCE -- 4.1 The Standard View of Reference -- 4.2 Picture Reference -- 4.2.1 Recognizing and Classifying -- 4.2.2 Synonymy and Analyticity -- 4.2.3 Meaning Change -- 4.2.4 Proper Names -- 4.2.5 Complex Pictures -- 4.3 Identifying Reference -- 4.3.1 Other Views: Preliminary Remarks -- 4.3.2 Salience for ψ -- 4.3.3 Reidentification |
| Summary |
Using Reichenbach's (1947) theory of tenses and temporal structures as a point of departure, McGilvray modifies it to produce a theory of his own. Analysing the difficulties Reichenbach's theory has in explaining the relationship of a speaker to a world, he introduces a new model for this relationship based on the three-interval temporal topology that Reichenbachian theory assigns to the sentences of natural languages. McGilvray explains and defends in detail Reichenbach's theory of tense and temporal structure, criticising and rejecting the major rival theory, found in tense logic. He also applies Reichenbach's nonstandard topology to English, showing that it is correct for the language. A significant aspect of McGilvray's study is the supplementing of Reichenbach's topology by including speakers, sentences, situations, and things spoken about with the temporal intervals. McGilvray relocates and reinterprets a prime source of faulty intuitions concerning time and tense -- our feeling that the past, present, and future must be thought of in terms of the settled, the immediate, and the unsettled. He uses his theory to explain the temporal and semantic structure of complex constructions in English, including propositional attitudes, modals, and conditionals. As well, he adapts the structure that Reichenbach's theory assigns to sentences to the aspects perfective (complete) and imperfective (incomplete). The novel view of temporal and semantic structure developed by McGilvray touches on virtually all the puzzles concerning the philosophy of language -- meaning and meaningfulness, the nature of reference, truth, propositions, and worldmaking. His emphasis is on how the speaker, by articulating sentences and understanding them, is both free and constrained -- free to describe something which can be located at any time and in any world, but constrained by the beliefs, evidence, information, and commitments held or made at the time of speech |
| Analysis |
English language Semantics |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 361-370) and index |
| Notes |
English |
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Print version record |
| Subject |
English language -- Tense.
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Grammar, Comparative and general -- Tense.
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English language -- Reference.
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Role and reference grammar.
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LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES -- Grammar & Punctuation.
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LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES -- Linguistics -- Syntax.
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LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES -- Linguistics -- General.
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English language -- Reference
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English language -- Tense
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Grammar, Comparative and general -- Tense
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Role and reference grammar
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Semantik
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Tempus
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Englisch.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| LC no. |
93117136 |
| ISBN |
9780773563131 |
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077356313X |
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1282855727 |
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9781282855724 |
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9786612855726 |
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661285572X |
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