About this topic
Summary A semantics for a particular language L is a theory that maps each sentence of L onto its meaning, usually by having theorems of the appropriate form among its deductive consequences. It is standard (although controversial) to require an adequate semantics for L to be compositional – that is, to show how the meaning of each sentence of L is determined by the meanings of its basic lexical items and its syntactic structure. A central foundational question about semantics concerns its proper object of study: what features of an expression count as its semantic ones? One standard answer is that semantics should be “outward-looking” and concern itself with the word-world relational features of expressions, especially those that determine the truth-conditions of sentences. Another influential answer is that semantics should be “inward-looking” and concern itself with relationships between expressions and mental representations. Further important questions concern how linguistic meaning interacts with features of extra-linguistic context, how semantic and pragmatic phenomena are to be distinguished, and what role (if any) an adequate semantics for L should play in explaining the capacity of competent L-speakers to use and understand utterances in L.    
Key works See Davidson 1967, Soames 2009, Jackendoff 1990 and Higginbotham 1992 for important discussions of the proper object of study for semantics. Montague 1974 and Partee 1973 are crucial texts on the application of formal methods to the semantics of natural language. Devitt 2006 is a critical discussion on the role of semantic theory (and linguistics more generally) in explaining linguistic competence. Kaplan 1989 is a landmark treatment of context-sensitivity within semantic theory. Preyer & Peter 2007 and Szabó 2005 are valuable collections that discuss some of the controversies about the role of context in semantics and about how to distinguish semantics from pragmatics, respectively.
Introductions Good introductions to natural language semantics are Heim & Kratzer 1998, Larson & Segal 1995, and Chierchia & McConnell-Ginet 2000. Portner & Partee 2002 is a collection of important primary texts.
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History/traditions: Semantics

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  1. The Semantics of Deadnames.Taylor Koles - forthcoming - Philosophical Studies:1-25.
    Longstanding philosophical debate over the semantics of proper names has yet to examine the distinctive behavior of deadnames, names that have been rejected by their former bearers. The use of these names to deadname individuals is derogatory, but deadnaming derogates differently than other kinds of derogatory speech. This paper examines different accounts of this behavior, illustrates what going views of names will have to say to account for it, and articulates a novel version of predicativism that can give a semantic (...)
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  2. La notion de situation en linguistique.Claude Germain - 1973 - Ottawa,: Éditions de l'Université d'Ottawa.
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  3. Communicating through vague language: a comparative study of L1 and L2 speakers.Peyman G. P. Sabet - 2015 - New York, NY: Palgrave-Macmillan. Edited by Grace Qiao Zhang.
    Vague language refers to expressions with unspecified meaning (for instance, 'I kind of want that job'), and is an important but often overlooked part of linguistic communication. This book is a comparative study of vague language based on naturally occurring data of a rare combination: L1 (American) and L2 (Chinese and Persian) speakers in academic settings. The findings indicate that L2 learners have diverse and culturally specific needs for vague language, and generally use vague words in a more concentrated fashion (...)
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  4. Binema w tewerekanî watasazîy nwê.Azad Eḧmed Meḧmûd - 2015 - Hewlêr [Kurdistan, Iraq]: Le Biławkirawekanî Ekadîmyay Kurdî.
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  5. Znachenie kak fenomen aktualʹnogo i︠a︡zykovogo soznanii︠a︡ nositeli︠a︡ i︠a︡zyka: materialy IV Vserossiĭskoĭ nauchnoĭ konferent︠s︡ii 26--27 okti︠a︡bri︠a︡ 2018 goda.A. V. Rudakova (ed.) - 2018 - Voronezh: Ritm.
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  6. Attitudes de se: from properties to Kripkean propositions.Wolfgang Sternefeld - 2020 - Tübingen: Stauffenburg Verlag.
    The analysis of knowledge and belief has provoked intensive discussions in philosophy and linguistics. One of the issues in this area is the semantics of attitude verbs whose complement expresses a thought about the Self of the thinking person. What is the content of my belief when I think that I am tired? Some philosophers propose it is a proposition, others think it is a property. It will be shown in this essay that existing proposals in either direction are unsatisfying. (...)
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  7. Lexical meaning, concepts, and the metasemantics of predicates.Michael Glanzberg - 2018 - In Derek Ball & Brian Rabern (eds.), The Science of Meaning: Essays on the Metatheory of Natural Language Semantics. Oxford University Press.
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  8. Changing notions of linguistic competence in the history of formal semantics.Barbara H. Partee - 2018 - In Derek Ball & Brian Rabern (eds.), The Science of Meaning: Essays on the Metatheory of Natural Language Semantics. Oxford University Press.
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  9. David Lewis on context.Robert Stalnaker - 2018 - In Derek Ball & Brian Rabern (eds.), The Science of Meaning: Essays on the Metatheory of Natural Language Semantics. Oxford University Press.
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  10. Axiomatization in the meaning sciences.Wesley H. Holliday & Thomas F. Icard - 2018 - In Derek Ball & Brian Rabern (eds.), The Science of Meaning: Essays on the Metatheory of Natural Language Semantics. Oxford University Press.
    While much of semantic theorizing is based on intuitions about logical phenomena associated with linguistic constructions—phenomena such as consistency and entailment—it is rare to see axiomatic treatments of linguistic fragments. Given a fragment interpreted in some class of formally specified models, it is often possible to ask for a characterization of the reasoning patterns validated by the class of models. Axiomatizations provide such a characterization, often in a perspicuous and efficient manner. In this paper, we highlight some of the benefits (...)
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  11. What is -or, for that matter, isn't- "experimental" semantics?Pauline Jacobson - 2018 - In Derek Ball & Brian Rabern (eds.), The Science of Meaning: Essays on the Metatheory of Natural Language Semantics. Oxford University Press.
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  12. Códigos ambiguos.Natalia Arregui Barragán (ed.) - 2022 - Granada: Editorial Comares.
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  13. Meaning in language: from individual to collective: proceedings from the 33rd International Conference of the Croatian Applied Linguistics Society.Mihaela Matešić & Anita Memišević (eds.) - 2023 - New York: Peter Lang.
    Meaning lies at the very heart of the development of language. Therefore, it is not surprising that the linguists have long been fascinated by the study of meaning, from the early days of the discipline to the present. Over time, the approach to meaning has evolved, shifting from structuralist analyses of linguistic signs to a focus on the combinatory potential of grammatical structures. Currently, the dominant cognitive-semantics approach examines meaning in relation to concepts and the human brain's abilities. One of (...)
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  14. The cognitive variation of semantic structures.Prakash Mondal - 2024 - New York, NY: Routledge.
    This book explores the cognitive constraints and principles of variation in structures of linguistic meaning across languages. It unifies cognitive-semantic representations with formal-semantic representations to make a unique contribution to the study of typological generalizations and universals in natural language semantics. This unified approach not only helps reveal why semantic structures have the observed variation they have, but also sheds light on the compelling cognitive and formal regularities and patterns in the variation of linguistic semantics. The book also advances the (...)
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  15. Pictorial Syntax.Kevin J. Lande - forthcoming - Mind and Language.
    It is commonly assumed that images, whether in the world or in the head, do not have a privileged analysis into constituent parts. They are thought to lack the sort of syntactic structure necessary for representing complex contents and entering into sophisticated patterns of inference. I reject this assumption. “Image grammars” are models in computer vision that articulate systematic principles governing the form and content of images. These models are empirically credible and can be construed as literal grammars for images. (...)
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  16. On the Rigidity of General Terms.Alper Yavuz - 2012 - Dissertation, Bogazici University
    The aim of this thesis is to discuss whether general terms are rigid and if they are, how their rigidity should be interpreted. To this end, I first present the problems related to the rigidity of general terms. The most important ones among them are the following: What do general terms refer to? Is there any difference between the terms called “natural kind terms” and other general terms? After that, I discuss the arguments of three competent interpretations which try to (...)
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  17. Comprendre la sémantique.Roger Ledent - 1974 - Verviers: Marabout.
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  18. Metaphorical Uses of Proper Names and the Continuity Hypothesis.Jacob Hesse, Chris Genovesi & Eros Corazza - 2023 - Journal of Semantics.
    According to proponents of the continuity hypothesis, metaphors represent one end of a spectrum of linguistic phenomena, which includes various forms of loosening/broadening, such as category extensions and approximations, as well as hyperbolic interpretations. The continuity hypothesis is used to establish that the inferences derived from the set of linguistic expressions mentioned above result from the same or nearly similar pragmatic processes. In this paper, we want to challenge that particular aspect of the continuity hypothesis. We do so based on (...)
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  19. Copredication and Meaning Transfer.David Liebesman & Ofra Magidor - 2023 - Journal of Semantics 40 (1):69-91.
    Copredication occurs when a sentence receives a true reading despite prima facie ascribing categorically incompatible properties to a single entity. For example, ‘The red book is by Tolstoy’ can have a true reading even though it seems that being red is only a property of physical copies, while being by Tolstoy is only a property of informational texts. -/- A tempting strategy for resolving this tension is to claim that at least one of the predicates has a non-standard interpretation, with (...)
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  20. Natural Langage Processing.Ilexa Yardley - 2021 - Https://Medium.Com/the-Circular-Theory/.
  21. Anlambilim: sözcüğün anlam açılımı.Nizamettin Uğur - 2003 - İstanbul: Doruk.
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  22. Imennye perifrazy: teoreticheskiĭ aspekt.Polina Stasińska - 2003 - Zielona Góra: Oficyna Wydawnicza Uniwersytetu Zielonogórskiego.
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  23. Metaforicheskiĭ fragment russkoĭ i︠a︡zykovoĭ kartiny mira: kli︠u︡chevye kont︠s︡epty.Z. I. Rezanova - 2003 - Voronezh: Rit︠s︡ Ef Vgu. Edited by N. A. Mishankina & D. A. Katunin.
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  24. Studia z semantyki porównawczej: nazwy barw, nazwy wymiarów, predykaty mentalne.Renata Grzegorczykowa & Krystyna Waszakowa (eds.) - 2000 - Warszawa: Wydawn. Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego.
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  25. Problemy verbalizat︠s︡ii kont︠s︡eptov v semantike i︠a︡zyka i teksta: materialy mezhdunarodnogo simpoziuma, Volgograd, 22-24 mai︠a︡ 2003 g.M. F. Alefirenko (ed.) - 2003 - Volgograd: "Peremena".
    ch. 1. Nauchnye statʹi -- ch. 2. Tezisy dokladov.
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  26. Lakuny v i︠a︡zyke i rechi: sbornik nauchnykh trudov.I︠U︡. A. Sorokin & G. V. Bykova (eds.) - 2003 - Blagoveshchensk: Blagoveshchenskiĭ gos. pedagog. universitet.
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  27. Kognitive romanische Onomasiologie und Semasiologie.Andreas Blank & Peter Koch (eds.) - 2003 - Tübingen: M. Niemeyer.
    Dieser Sammelband zeigt anhand von Problemen der Lexik und Grammatik romanischer Sprachen sowie der linguistischen Metasprache, daß die onomasiologische und die semasiologische Perspektive in ihrer Komplementarität unabdingbare Bezugspunkte einer sich als 'kognitiv' verstehenden Sprachwissenschaft sein sollten. Mit im Detail unterschiedlicher Perspektivierung werden Fragen der synchronischen und diachronischen Lexikologie und Grammatik diskutiert, ausgewählte Konzept- bzw. Funktionsbereiche im Detail analysiert und Probleme der Grammatikographie und der Konzeptualisierung von Sprache beleuchtet.
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  28. A Jelentés dimenziói: modális elméletek Kripke után.Erzsébet Szabó & Zoltán Vecsey (eds.) - 2003 - Szeged: JATEPress.
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  29. Ėmotivnyĭ kod i︠a︡zyka i ego realizat︠s︡ii︠a︡: kollektivnai︠a︡ monografii︠a︡.V. I. Shakhovskiĭ (ed.) - 2003 - Volgograd: Peremena.
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  30. The origin of cross-cultural differences in referential intuitions: Perspective taking in the Gödel case.Jincai Li - 2021 - Journal of Semantics 38 (3).
    In this paper, we aim to trace the origin of the systematic cross-cultural variations in referential intuitions by investigating the effects of perspective taking on people’s responses in the Gödel-style probes through two novel experiments. Here is how we will proceed. In section 2, we first briefly introduce the MMNS (2004) study, and then critically review the two relevant studies conducted by Sytsma and colleagues (i.e., Sytsma and Livengood 2011; Sytsma et al. 2015). In section 3, we introduce the literature (...)
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  31. Feathered creatures speak: the study of semantic evolution and phraseology of domesticated and semi-domesticated birds.Małgorzata Górecka-Smolińska - 2012 - Rzeszów: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Rzeszowskiego. Edited by Grzegorz Kleparski.
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  32. Meaning and the dynamics of interpretation: selected papers of Hans Kamp.Klaus von Heusinger, Alice G. B. ter Meulen & Hans Kamp (eds.) - 2013 - Boston: Brill.
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  33. Cartographie des émotions: propositions linguistiques et sociolinguistiques.Fabienne H. Baider & Georgeta Cislaru (eds.) - 2013 - Paris: Presses Sorbonne nouvelle.
    La linguistique se penche sur les émotions afin de décrire les moyens langagiers de les exprimer ou de les représenter, tant au niveau de la structure de la langue que de l'interaction dans le discours. Par là même, elle met en exergue l'ubiquité des émotions dans le langage. Les contributions du volume Cartographie des émotions s'attachent à mettre à plat les liens entre langues et émotions. Elles cherchent à catégoriser, délimiter, appréhender les affects pour mieux comprendre les enjeux linguistiques et (...)
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  34. Emotions, language and identity on the margins of Europe.Kyra Giorgi - 2014 - New York, NY: Palgrave-Macmillan.
    Nations usually define themselves in positive terms; they proclaim themselves strong and victorious, or developed and prosperous. But what does it mean when the opposite is true - when negative feelings like regret, nostalgia, melancholy and fatalism are said to be the true essence of a culture? And what does it mean when these feelings are encapsulated in a single, untranslatable word?Bringing together three such word-concepts from Europe's periphery - saudade in Portugal, the Czech litost of Milan Kundera and Orhan (...)
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  35. Les émotions dans le discours =.Peter Blumenthal, Iva Novakova & Dirk Siepmann (eds.) - 2014 - Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Edition.
    Comment les mots permettent-ils d’appréhender ces objets obscurs que sont nos emotions? Diverses langues européennes offrent-elles les mêmes perspectives sur cette réalité mouvante, explorée aussi par plusieurs disciplines appliquées (didactique, lexicographie, traitement automatique des langues)? Le volume tente de répondre à ces questions en mettant en relief certaines innovations théoriques et méthodologiques en sémantique lexicale et en analyse du discours. How do words allow us to understand these obscure objects that are our emotions? Do various European languages offer the same (...)
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  36. Cognitive synonymy: a dead parrot?Francesco Berto & Levin Hornischer - 2023 - Philosophical Studies 180 (9):2727-2752.
    Sentences \(\varphi\) and \(\psi\) are _cognitive synonyms_ for one when they play the same role in one’s cognitive life. The notion is pervasive (Sect. 1 ), but elusive: it is bound to be hyperintensional (Sect. 2 ), but excessive fine-graining would trivialize it and there are reasons for some coarse-graining (Sect. 2.1 ). Conceptual limitations stand in the way of a natural algebra (Sect. 2.2 ), and it should be sensitive to subject matters (Sect. 2.3 ). A cognitively adequate individuation (...)
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  37. The unmasking of English dictionaries.Robert M. W. Dixon - 2017 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
    When we look up a word in a dictionary, we want to know not just its meaning but also its function and the circumstances under which it should be used in preference to words of similar meaning. Standard dictionaries do not address such matters, treating each word in isolation. R. M. W. Dixon puts forward a new approach to lexicography that involves grouping words into 'semantic sets', to describe what can and cannot be said, and providing explanations for this. He (...)
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  38. Bridging formal and conceptual semantics: selected papers of BRIDGE-14.Kata Balogh & Wiebke Petersen (eds.) - 2017 - Düsseldorf: DUP.
    The articles in this volume are the outcome of the successful BRIDGE Workshop held in Düsseldorf in 2014. The workshop gathered a number of distinguished researchers from formal semantics and conceptual semantics and aimed to initiate a deeper conversation and collaboration instead of separating the two sides as competing views. The workshop provided a platform to further discuss parallelisms on specific semantic issues on the one hand and on the other hand to confront opposed claims from the two different perspectives. (...)
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  39. Svi︠a︡znostʹ teksta: mereologicheskie logiko-semanticheskie otnoshenii︠a︡.Olʹga Inʹkova - 2019 - Moskva: Izdatelʹskiĭ dom I︠A︡SK. Edited by Emilio Manzotti.
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  40. Semantična prozodija: leksikalni in besedilno-diskurzivni vidiki.Mojca Šorli - 2020 - Ljubljana: Založba ZRC.
    The monograph focuses on corpus analysis of texts, exploring the interface between lexical and discursive aspects of pragmatic meaning.
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  41. Autour de la reformulation.Olʹga Inʹkova (ed.) - 2020 - Genève: Droz.
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  42. Dimensiones del significado: una introducción a la semántica formal.Andrés Saab - 2021 - Buenos Aires: SADAF. Edited by Fernando Carranza.
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  43. al-Qarīnah wa-taṭbīqātuhā fī fihm al-maʻānī: dirāsah ibstimūlūjīyah.Quṣay Samīr ʻUbays Ḥassān ʻIzzāwī - 2021 - Bābil, al-ʻIrāq: Dār al-Furāt lil-Thaqāfah wa-al-Iʻlām.
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  44. La théorie sens-texte: concepts-clés et applications.Sébastien Marengo & Agnès Tutin (eds.) - 2021 - Paris: L'Harmattan.
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  45. Kont︠s︡eptologii︠a︡ v sovremennykh gumanitarnykh issledovanii︠a︡kh: lingvistika i lingvodidaktika: monografii︠a︡.O. V. Kulikova (ed.) - 2021 - Moskva: Prometeĭ.
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  46. Kollokationen: theoretische, forschungspraktische und fremdsprachendidaktische Überlegungen / Elmar Schafroth, Fabio Mollica, Carmen Mellado Blanco (Hrsg.).Elmar Schafroth (ed.) - 2020 - Berlin: Peter Lang.
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  47. Synchronie et diachronie, l'enjeu du sens: mélanges offerts au Pr. Hava Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot.Hava Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot, Annie Bertin, Thierry Ponchon & Olivier Soutet (eds.) - 2022 - Paris: Honoré Champion éditeur.
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  48. Semantic network analysis in social sciences.Elad Segev (ed.) - 2022 - London: Routledge.
    Semantic Network Analysis in Social Sciences introduces the fundamentals of semantic network analysis and its applications in the social sciences. Readers learn how to easily transform any given text into a visual network of words co-occurring together, a process that allows mapping the main themes appearing in the text and revealing its main narratives and biases. Semantic network analysis is particularly useful today with the increasing volumes of text-based information available. It is one of the developing, cutting-edge methods to organize, (...)
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  49. Essays on Postdeflationary Substantive Theorizing about Truth.Teemu Tauriainen - 2023 - Dissertation, University of Jyväskylä
    This dissertation explores the prospects of postdeflationary substantive theorizing about truth. Postdeflationary theories define the concept of truth or the property of being a true truthbearer in a way that respects the deflationary desiderata of clarity, purity, and permissiveness with truth-aptness, without a necessary commitment to the core negative thesis of the deflationary approach. Postdeflationary substantive theories further acknowledge the complexity and explanatory utility of truth in understanding and defining other concepts and phenomena. The motivation for pursuing this study arises (...)
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  50. Stance, inter/subjectivity and identity in discourse.Marín Arrese, I. Juana, Laura Hidalgo-Downing & Juan Rafael Zamorano-Mansilla (eds.) - 2023 - New York: Peter Lang.
    The volume addresses a variety of issues on Stance and Inter/Subjectivity, and the expression of Identity in discourse. It focuses on the multifaceted nature of stance, and the use of resources of epistemicity, effectivity, and evaluation and metaphor, as well as other dimensions within the domain of stance, such as mirativity, emotion and attribution. In this way it provides a more in-depth and a wider perspective into the nature of stance. The contributions feature the use of stance resources in several (...)
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