This book presents a study of the connections between vagueness and gradability, and their different manifestations in adjectives (morphological gradability effects) and nouns (typicality effects). It addresses two opposing theoretical approaches from within formal semantics and cognitive psychology. These approaches rest on different, apparently contradictory pieces of data. For example, for psychologists nouns are linked with vague and gradable concepts, while for linguists they rarely are. This difference in approach has created an unfortunate gap between the semantic and psychological studies of the concepts denoted by nouns, as well as adjectives.
Foundations of Western Civilization II: A History of the Modern Western World (48 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture) Taught by Robert Bucholz / Loyola University of Chicago / D.Phil., Oxford University
As Americans, we are rooted in different soils, in different lands. We draw on different philosophies and religions to sustain us. And we earn our livings in different ways. But no matter what our differences, there is one bond we share, says Professor Robert Bucholz. But how did the decentralized agrarian principalities of medieval Europe become great industrial nation-states? How and why did absolutism rise and then yield to democratic liberalism?
Dan Davis, an electronics engineer, had finally made the invention of a lifetime: a household robot that could do almost anything. Wild success was within reach—and Dan’s life was ruined.
In a plot to steal his business, his greedy partner and greedier fiancée tricked him into taking the “long sleep”—suspended animation for thirty years. But when he awoke in the far different world of A.D. 2000, he made an amazing discovery. And suddenly Dan had the means to travel back in time—and get his revenge.
The analysis of discourse is probably one of the most complex problems of linguistics. It can be approached from many different directions, involving a large variety of different methods. This volume unites psycholinguistic studies, investigations of logical and computational models of discourse, corpus studies, and linguistic case studies of language-specific devices. This variety of approaches reflects the complexity of discourse production and understanding, and it also reflects the necessity of understanding the complex interplay of diverse parameters which influence these processes.
One of the basic tenets of cognitive linguistics, which sets it apart from most other linguistic theories, is the conviction that language is a dynamic system that emerges from language use. Such a usage-based view on language attributes a central role to the notion of frequency. Fre-quency plays a crucial role in the emergence, processing, and change of virtually every type of language structure.
The first volume is concerned with a variety of more general questions that arise once a usage-based perspective is taken more seriously. Given the different papers, we divided this volume in four different parts plus one general introduction.
Foundations of Western Civilization II: A History of the Modern Western World (48 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
