front cover of Postverbal Behavior
Postverbal Behavior
Thomas Wasow
CSLI, 2002
Compared to many languages, English has relatively fixed word order, but the ordering among phrases following the verb exhibits a good deal of variation. This monograph explores factors that influence the choice among possible orders of postverbal elements, testing hypotheses using a combination of corpus studies and psycholinguistic experiments. Wasow's final chapters explore how studies of language use bear on issues in linguistic theory, with attention to the roles of quantitative data and Chomsky's arguments against the use of statistics and probability in linguistics.
[more]

front cover of Lexical and Constructional Aspects of Linguistic Explanation
Lexical and Constructional Aspects of Linguistic Explanation
Gert Webelhuth
CSLI, 1999

front cover of The Semantic Basis of Argument Structure
The Semantic Basis of Argument Structure
Stephen Wechsler
CSLI, 1995
Stephen Wechsler Subject: Linguistics; Semantics; Grammar--Syntax
[more]

front cover of The Many Faces of Agreement
The Many Faces of Agreement
Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, and Discourse Factors in Serbo-Croatian Agreement
Stephen Wechsler
CSLI, 2003
Agreement features correlate closely with semantics as well as with noun morphology. This book presents a precise formal theory of those correlations, illustrated with Serbo-Croatian and other languages. In explaining regular agreement as a network of constraints, the theory also predicts a restricted set of exceptional situations where normal agreement can give way to agreement mismatches.

With this framework in place, the authors explore a number of factors that affect agreement processes. The theory even explains the striking cross-linguistic generalizations expressed in Corbett's Agreement Hierarchy. Agreement is shown to be a distributed phenomenon, manifesting its many faces among the various components of grammar.
[more]

front cover of Foundations of Logic
Foundations of Logic
Completeness, Incompleteness, Computability
Dag Westerståhl
CSLI, 2023
A comprehensive introduction to logic’s central concepts.

This book provides a concise but detailed account of modern logic's three cornerstones: the completeness of first-order logic, Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems, and Turing's analysis of computability. In addition to the central text, an appendix explains the required technical terminology and facts. The main ideas behind the three cornerstones are explained in a simple, easy-to-grasp manner, and it is possible to select among the chapters and sections so that the reader becomes familiar with these ideas, even if some technicalities are skipped or postponed. A wealth of exercises accompany a wide selection of materials, including the histories and philosophical implications of the three main premises, making it useful as a textbook for undergraduate or graduate courses focusing on any of the three main themes. The material is rigorous and detailed but keeps the main ideas in sight, and there are numerous excursions into more advanced material for curious readers to explore. 
[more]

front cover of Geometry and Meaning
Geometry and Meaning
Dominic Widdows
CSLI, 2004
From Pythagoras's harmonic sequence to Einstein's theory of relativity, geometric models of position, proximity, ratio, and the underlying properties of physical space have provided us with powerful ideas and accurate scientific tools. Currently, similar geometric models are being applied to another type of space—the conceptual space of information and meaning, where the contributions of Pythagoras and Einstein are a part of the landscape itself. The rich geometry of conceptual space can be glimpsed, for instance, in internet documents: while the documents themselves define a structure of visual layouts and point-to-point links, search engines create an additional structure by matching keywords to nearby documents in a spatial arrangement of content. What the Geometry of Meaning provides is a much-needed exploration of computational techniques to represent meaning and of the conceptual spaces on which these representations are founded.
[more]

front cover of Acquaintance, Knowledge, and Logic
Acquaintance, Knowledge, and Logic
New Essays on Bertrand Russell's "The Problems of Philosophy"
Donovan Wishon
CSLI, 2015
Bertrand Russell, the recipient of the 1950 Nobel Prize for Literature, was one of the most distinguished, influential, and prolific philosophers of the twentieth century. Acquaintance, Knowledge, and Logic brings together ten new essays on Russell’s best-known work, The Problems of Philosophy. These essays, by some of the foremost scholars of his life and works, reexamine Russell’s famous distinction between “knowledge by acquaintance” and “knowledge by description,” his developing views about our knowledge of physical reality, and his views about our knowledge of logic, mathematics, and other abstract matters. In addition, this volume includes an editors’ introduction, which summarizes Russell’s influential book, presents new biographical details about how and why Russell wrote it, and highlights its continued significance for contemporary philosophy.
[more]

front cover of Unsettling Obligations
Unsettling Obligations
Essays on Reason, Reality and the Ethics of Belief
Allen W. Wood
CSLI, 2002
Should we hold beliefs only insofar as they are rationally supportable? According to Allen W. Wood, we're morally obliged to do so—and yet how does this apply to religious beliefs? Unsettling Obligations examines these and related ethical and philosophical issues, taking and defending stances on many of them. Along with the theme of belief and evidence, other topics include a historical perspective of philosophy based on the Enlightenment rationalist tradition and a study of how our practical commitments help define truth and value.
[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter