Böcker i Oxford Surveys in Semantics and Pragmatics-serien

This book examines the interplay between prosody-stress, phrasing, and melody-and interpretation-felicity in discourse, inferences, and emphasis. It presents the main phenomena involved, and introduces current formal analyses of prosodic structure, relevant aspects of discourse structure, intonational meaning, and the relations between them.

This book synthesizes and integrates 40 years of research on the semantics of questions, and its interface with pragmatics and syntax. It will be a unique resource for the novice and expert alike, and seeks to appeal to a variety of readers without compromising depth and breadth of coverage.

This book presents the essential background for understanding semantic theories of both verbal mood and sentence mood. Paul Portner evaluates and compares the theories, draws connections between seemingly disparate approaches, and highlights the most significant insights in the literature to provide a clearer understanding of how mood works.

The book presents a new logical framework to capture the meaning of sentences in conversation. It is based on a richer notion of meaning than traditional approaches, and allows for an integrated treatment of statements and questions. The first part of the book presents the framework in detail, while the second demonstrates its many benefits.