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Semantics, Fifth Edition, is a comprehensive and well-balanced introduction to the study of the communication of meaning in language. Assuming no previous background in semantics and limited familiarity with formal linguistics, this student-friendly textbook describes the concepts, theory, and study of semantics in an accessible and clear style. Concise chapters describe the role of semantics within contemporary linguistics, cover key topics in the analysis of word and sentence meaning, and review major semantic theories such as componential theory, formal semantics, and cognitive semantics.
The updated fifth edition incorporates recent theoretical developments and important research in linguistic semantics, featuring an entirely new chapter examining the overlap between inferential pragmatics, including Relevance Theory, and traditional areas of semantics. Revised and expanded sections discuss the continuing growth and consolidation of cognitive semantics, various contextual features of language, conceptualization and categorization, and construal and perspective. This edition includes new exercises with solutions, up-to-date references to relevant literature, and additional examples with data from a wide range of different languages. This valuable text provides students with the background necessary to understand more advanced and specialized primary semantics literature, highlighting the relationship between semantics and cross-linguistic variation, language universals, and pragmatics.
With detailed examples from a wide range of contexts and a wealth of practical exercises, Semantics, Fifth Edition, remains the perfect textbook for undergraduate students of linguistics, English language, applied linguistics, modern languages, and??computer sciences.