Topics in Syntax and Semantics

Syntax and semantics are traditional areas of the study of language recognised in linguistics and philosophy of language. This overlap of research areas seems to justify publication of a volume containing both linguistic and philosophical papers on selected issues pertaining to syntax and semantics. While linguistics and philosophy of language remain distinct disciplines in a number of ways, this collection of papers attempts to demonstrate that exchange of ideas by the representatives of the two fields is not only possible: it can actually be fruitful. The major goal of this volume is to bring together the efforts of linguists and philosophers (representing different schools of thought within respective disciplines) trying to explore selected topics in syntax and semantics. The most obvious contrast between linguistics and philosophy of language – the preoccupation with the morphosyntactic distribution of specific linguistic elements in the former and striving for precise semantic analyses that abstract from language-particular morphosyntactic detail in the latter – is still visible throughout the book. Yet, one can observe some degree of openness to insights from philosophical investigation on the part of linguists and from linguistic research on the part of philosophers. This openness involves, among other things, ingesting the results of investigation in the other field, employment of terminology or even ‘borrowing’ some methods of research.