What is Meaning? Fundamentals of Formal Semantics is a concise introduction to the field of semantics as it is actually practiced. Through simple examples, pictures, and metaphors, Paul Portner presents the field’s key ideas about how language works. - explains the fundamental ideas and some of the most significant results of modern semantic theory - combines foundational discussion with simplified analyses of complex phenomena to provide readers with a sense of the fascination to be found in the details of the human language - includes exercises and thought-provoking questions to facilitate learning
For the first time in decades The Eternal City is paralysed by a blizzard. And a gruesome discovery is made in the Pantheon - one of Rome's most ancient and revered architectural treasures. Covered by softly falling snow is the body of a young woman - her back horribly mutilated...But before Nic Costa and Gianni Peroni of the Questura can begin a formal investigation the US Embassy has brought in its own people, FBI Agents who want the case closed down as quickly and discreetly as possible.
A game of Life and Death. Sam Harrison (Jack) and Sara Rosen (Jill) delight in their board game that has photos of famous people; a simple roll of the dice determines their destiny. When sixty-four-year-old Senator Daniel Fitzpatrick is found murdered, the FBI makes a formal request for Cross. The FBI is stymied. The code name for President Thomas Byrnes is Jack. The First Lady's is Jill.
This book explores the key mechanisms underlying semantic change. Meaning changes work, the author shows, through modes of reanalysis undertaken by speakers and listeners, and are particularly evident in processes of grammaticalization in which lexical items lose autonomous meaning. Regine Eckardt's approach is derived from formal semantic theory and developed in the context of several in-depth case studies. Her book will interest scholars and advanced students of historical and comparative linguistics and formal semantics.
