Formal Pragmatics: Semantics, Pragmatics, Presupposition, and Focus

Formal Pragmatics addresses issues that are on the borderline of the semantics and pragmatics of natural language, from the point of view of a model-theoretic semanticist. This up-to-date resource covers a substantial body of formal work on linguistic phenomena, and presents the way the semantics-pragmatics interface has come to be viewed today. Introduces Discourse Representation Theory and File Change Semantics, with their formal representation of context and context change. Covers presupposition, including the nature and status of presuppositions as well as presupposition projection. Deals with focus, its prosodic manifestation, and the model-theoretic analysis of its meaning and function. This volume, which serves as a textbook, as well as a reference or research book, offers a detailed discussion of key issues and clearly explains important, cutting-edge research.