Optimality Theory and Pragmatics

by Henk Zeevat (Editor), Reinhard Blutner (Editor)

Ten leading scholars provide exacting research results and a reliable and accessible introduction to the new field of optimality theoretic pragmatics. The book includes a general introduction that overviews the foundations of this new research paradigm, and is intended to satisfy the needs of students and professional researchers interested in pragmatics and optimality theory. The papers address information structure, contrastive stress on pronouns, demonstratives, the pragmatics of pronoun resolution, blocking, binding theory, discourse relations, the genesis of pragmatics and syntactic case. Blutner and Zeevat's collection will be of particular interest to those exploring the interfaces of formal pragmatics with grammar, semantics, language change, philosophy of language and cognitive psychology.

317 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2003