A View of Language [Hardcover]

This book contains a collection of twenty-two papers written by the author between 1972 and 1999, reflecting the development of his highly independent ideas over this period. The papers, which are still topical today, are divided into four sections: General Theory, Syntax, Semantics, and Creole Linguistics.

Introduction
Part I: General Theory
1. Language, World, and Cognitive Processing
2. Grammar as an Underground Process
3. Autonomous vs. Semantic Syntax
4. Doing Sums with Language
5. Internal Variability in Competence
6. The Paradoxes and Natural Language
Part II: Syntax
7. Predicate Raising and Dative in French and Sundry Languages
8. Negative's Travels
9. Operator Lowering
10. A Problem in English Subject Complementation
11. Clitic Pronoun Clusters
Part III: Semantics
12. Presuppositions and the Universe of Interpretation
13. Logical Form and Semantic Form: An argument against Geach
14. Lexical Meaning and Presupposition
15. Presupposition and Negation
16. Why Does 2 Mean 2 ? Grist to the anti-Grice mill
17. Towards a Discourse-Semantic Account of Donkey Anaphora
18. A Discourse-Semantic Account of Topic and Comment
Part IV: Creole Linguistics
19. Semantic Transparency as a Factor in Creole Genesis,(with H. Chr. Wekker)
20. Serial Verb Constructions
21. The Auxiliary System in Sranan
22. The Question of Predicate Clefting in the Indian Ocean Creoles

Pieter A. M. Seuren was lecturer of linguistics at Cambridge and Oxford universities. From 1974 until 1999 he was Professor of Philosophy of Language and of Theoretical Linguistics at Nijmegen University. Upon retirement in 1999, he became a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics at Nijmegen. He is the author of, among others,Operators and Nucleus(1969),Discourse Semantics(1985),Semantic Syntax(1lœ