Adverbial modification is probably one of the least understood areas of linguistics. The essays in this volume all address the problem of how to give an analysis of adverbial modifiers within truth-conditional semantics. Chapters I-VI provide analyses of particular modifiers within a possible worlds framework, and were written between 1974 and 1981. Original publication details of these chapters may be found on p. vi. Of these, all but Chapter I make essential use of the idea that the time reference involved (...) in tensed sentences should be a time interval rather than a single instant. The final chapter (Chapter VII) was written especially for this volume and investigates the question of how the 'situation semantics' recently devised by Jon Barwise and John Perry, as a rival to possible-worlds semantics, might deal with adverbs. In addition I have included an appendix to Chapter III and an introduction which links all the chapters together. (shrink)

This book is an introduction to the current developments in model-theoretic semantics, which has become an essential part of the work in theoretical linguistics over the last decade. The author examines the model structure of Montague's theory and then presents elaborations on this basic model that have been of particular importance in the last few years: generalized quantifiers, the introduction of more structure in the domain of individuals, properties as primitive elements in the model, situations and similar 'smaller' worldlike entities. (...) Nothing is presupposed about knowledge of the mathematical and logical tools used in formal semantics, and Bach presents the informal with a minimum of formalism. (shrink)

McCawley supplements his earlier book—which covers such topics as presuppositional logic, the logic of mass terms and nonstandard quantifiers, and fuzzy ...