Understanding Semantics offers a complete introduction to linguistic semantics. The book takes a step-by-step approach, starting with the basic concepts and moving through the central questions to examine the methods and results of the science of linguistic meaning.
Understanding Semantics unites the treatment of a broad scale of phenomena using data from different languages with a thorough investigation of major theoretical perspectives.

This book focusses on computer methodologies as a way of investigating language and character in literary texts. Both theoretical and practical, it surveys investigations into characterization in literary linguistics and personality in social psychology, before carrying out a computational analysis of Virginia Woolf’s experimental novel The Waves.

Many linguists and philosophers of language explain linguistic meaning in terms of truth conditions. This book focuses on the meanings of expressions that escape such truth-conditional treatment, in particular the concessives: but, even if, and although. Corinne Iten proposes semantic analyses of these expressions based on the cognitive framework of relevance theory. A thoroughly cognitive approach to linguistic meaning is presented in which linguistic forms are seen as mapping onto mental entities, rather than individuals and properties in the real world. Researchers and advanced students in pragmatics will find this account lucid, clear and accessible.

Following the collapse of the former Yugoslavia, Croatian was declared officially to be a separate language, distinct from Serbian, and linguistic issues became highly politicized. This book examines the changing status and norms of the Croatian language and its relationship to Croatian national identity. It focuses on the period following the creation of an independent Croatian state in 1991, but encompasses broader historical developments to provide a context for understanding the contemporary linguistic situation.

This book applies linguistic analysis to the poetry of Emeritus Professor Edwin Thumboo, a Singaporean poet and leading figure in Commonwealth literature. The work explores how the poet combines grammar and metaphor to make meaning, making the reader aware of the linguistic resources developed by Thumboo as the basis for his unique technique.