The Role of Data at the Semantics-Pragmatics Interface (Mouton Series in Pragmatics [MSP] Book 9)

To join the recent debate on data problem in linguistics, this collection of papers provides complex dual purpose analyses at the interface of semantics and pragmatics (including historical, lexical, formal and experimental pragmatics). Based on several current theories and various types of data taken from a number of languages, it discusses object theoretical issues of referentiality, scalar implicatures, implicit arguments, grammaticalization, co-construction and syntactic alternation in their mutual connections to metatheoretical questions concerning the relationship between data and theory. Contents Contributors Introduction: The semantics-pragmatics interface from linguistic and metalinguistic perspectives Part One Issues of referentiality On the definiteness effect in existential sentences: Data and theories On the semantics and pragmatics of shifted indexicals Demonstratives and reference to individuated objects vs. reference to properties of objects: A contrastive analysis Part Two Scalar implicatures and beyond Two experiments and some suggestions on the meaning of scalars and numerals Some experimental aspects of optimality theoretic pragmatics Part Three Pragmatic ways from words to constructions and utterances The cognitive background of grammaticalization From syntactic alternations to lexical pragmatics How lexical-semantic factors influence the verbs' occurrence with implicit direct object arguments in Hungarian Co-constructing what is said in interaction Data-gathering methods in research on hyperbole production and interpretation Index

To join the recent debate on data problem in linguistics, this collection of papers provides complex dual purpose analyses at the interface of semantics and pragmatics (including historical, lexical, formal and experimental pragmatics). Based on several current theories and various types of data taken from a number of languages, it discusses object theoretical issues of referentiality, scalar implicatures, implicit arguments, grammaticalization, co-construction and syntactic alternationin their mutual connections to metatheoretical questions concerning the relationship between data and theory.

A collection of papers that provides complex dual purpose analyses at the interface of semantics and pragmatics. Based on several theories and various types of data taken from a number of languages, it discusses object theoretical issues of referentiality, scalar implicatures, implicit arguments, grammaticalization, and more.