Comment traiter, en grammaire générative, les phénomènes de coréférence? Comment des éléments différents à l'intérieur d'un énoncé (pronoms et syntagmes nominaux), peuvent-ils renvoyer, dans la réalité non-linguistique, aux mêmes individus ou objets? (Problème central pour le débat actuel sur les rapports entre syntaxe et sémantique.) Les phénomènes logiques de coréférence doivent être intégrés à la syntaxe : tel est le résultat à quoi aboutit la démarche de G. Fauconnier, extension en ce point de la théorie classique de Chomsky, démontrant du même coup l'applicabilité de celle-ci à des faits considérés jusque-là comme rebelles. Un autre résultat de cette recherche : les phénomènes d'accord, si importants dans la syntaxe du français, relèvent du même type d'explication que ceux de coréférence. Ce livre apporte donc, à la fois, des vues originales sur la grammaire française et une contribution importante au développement de la théorie générative générale.

The notion of singular (or de re) thought has become central in philosophy of mind and language, yet there is still little consensus concerning the best way to think about the nature of singular thought. Coinciding with recognition of the need for more clarity about the notion, there has been a surge of interest in the concept of a mental file as a way to understand what is distinctive about singular thought. What isn't always clear, however, is what mental files are meant to be, and why we should believe that thoughts that employ them are singular as opposed to descriptive. This volume brings together original chapters by leading scholars which aim to examine and evaluate the viability of the mental files framework for theorizing about singular thought. The first section of the volume addresses the central issues of the definition and nature of singular thought, as well as how it relates to the notion of a mental file. The second section addresses the legitimacy of the mental files conception of singular thought by assessing the philosophical motivations or the purported empirical support for the view, or by laying out a specific version of it. The third section helps to clarify both the notion of a mental file and the mental files conception of singular thought by focusing on their role in explaining de jure coreference in thought and language. The volume then concludes with a final section that casts doubt on the mental files conception and the legitimacy of the file-theoretic framework more generally.

Arc pair grammar is a new, extensively formalized, theory of the grammatical structure of natural languages. As an outgrowth of relational grammar, it constitutes a theoretical alternative to the long-dominant generative transformational approach to linguistics. In this work, David Johnson and Paul Postal offer the first comprehensive presentation of this theoretical framework, which provides entirely new notions of all the basic concepts of grammatical theory: sentence, language, rule, and grammar. Originally published in 1981. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This collection contains a selection of the most important contributions to semantic theory ranging from Gottlob Frege's essay 'On Sense and reference' written in 1892 to present-day thinkers in the field.

François Recanati has pioneered the 'mental file' framework for thinking about concepts and how we refer to the world in thought and language. He now explores what happens to mental files in a dynamic setting: Recanati argues that communication involves interpersonal dynamic files.

Research on current topics in linguistic theory, including new theoretical developments based on the latest international discoveries.