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Natural languages are riddled with context-sensitivity, yet how do we understand one another so effortlessly? Contrary to the dominant position, this book argues that meaning is determined entirely by discourse conventions, as we draw on a broad array of subtle linguistic conventions that determine the interpretation of context-sensitive items.
List of contents
- 1: Introduction
- Part I: So, What is Context and How Does it Work?
- 2: The Model of a True Demonstrative: Extra-linguistic Effects on Situated Meaning
- 3: An Alleged Ambiguity and the Dynamics of Context Change
- 4: Pointing Things Out: Prominence and the Attentional State of a Discourse
- 5: Context and Discourse Conventions
- 6: Interlude: Context and Common Ground
- Part II: Contextualizing Content
- 7: Content in Context
- 8: The Challenge: Non-propositionalism
- 9: Dynamic Propositionalism
- Part III: The Logic of Prominence
- 10: Content, Context and Logic
- 11: Prominence Semantics for Modality
- Part IV: Conclusions and Directions
- 12: The Grammar of Prominence
- Part V: Appendices
- Appendix A: Formal Definitions for the Attention-Coherence Approach to Pronoun Resolution
- Appendix B: A Formal Language for Modality with Coherence
About the author
Una Stojnić is an assistant professor of philosophy in the Department of Philosophy, Princeton University. Prior to joining Princeton, she was an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy at Columbia University, a Bersoff assistant professor and faculty fellow in Philosophy at NYU, and a research fellow in philosophy in the School of Philosophy at ANU. She earned her PhD in Philosophy and a Certificate in Cognitive Science from Rutgers University in 2016.
Summary
Natural languages are riddled with context-sensitivity, yet how do we understand one another so effortlessly? Contrary to the dominant position, this book argues that meaning is determined entirely by discourse conventions, as we draw on a broad array of subtle linguistic conventions that determine the interpretation of context-sensitive items.
Additional text
Context and Coherence exhibits the virtues of good writing in philosophy. Pragmaticians in particular will learn a great deal of formal semantics and will be pressed to ponder deep issues in philosophy of language and philosophical logic. They'll also learn, more concretely, lots of new lessons about how some kinds of pronoun resolution happen and relatedly, about unnoticed conventions governing discourse prominence.
