The concept of theory of mind (ToM), a hot topic in cognitive psychology for the past twenty-five years, has gained increasing importance in the fields of linguistics and pragmatics. However, even though the relationship between ToM and verbal communication is now recognized, the extent, causality and full implications of this connection remain mostly to be explored. This book presents a comprehensive discussion of the interface between language, communication, and theory of mind, and puts forward an innovative proposal regarding the role of discourse connectives for this interface.
In The Connectives, Lloyd Humberstone examines the semantics and pragmatics of natural language sentence connectives (and, or, if, not), giving special attention to their formal behavior according to proposed logical systems and the degree to which such treatments capture their intuitive meanings.
This volume is a compilation of articles by international scholars active in the field of English historical linguistics. The majority of the studies are revised versions of papers presented at a workshop on “Clausal Connectives in the History of English” at the 13th International Conference of English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL) in Vienna on the 23–28 August 2004.
