This handbook is the first to explore the growing field of experimental semantics and pragmatics. In the past 20 years, experimental data has become a major source of evidence for building theories of language meaning and use, encompassing a wide range of topics and methods. Following an introduction from the editors, the chapters in this volume offer an up-to-date account of research in the field spanning 31 different topics, including scalar implicatures, presuppositions, counterfactuals, quantification, metaphor, prosody, and politeness, as well as exploring how and why a particular experimental method is suitable for addressing a given theoretical debate. The volume's forward-looking approach also seeks to actively identify questions and methods that could be fruitfully combined in future experimental research.
Written in a clear and accessible style, this handbook will appeal to students and scholars from advanced undergraduate level upwards in a range of fields, including semantics and pragmatics, philosophy of language, psycholinguistics, computational linguistics, cognitive science, and neuroscience.
1: Chris Cummins and Napoleon Katsos: Introduction
2: Dimitrios Skordos and David Barner: Language comprehension, inference, and alternatives
3: Judith Degen and Michael K. Tanenhaus: Constraint-based pragmatic processing
4: Richard Breheny: Scalar implicatures
5: Sherry Yong Chen and E. Matthew Husband: Event (de)composition
6: Florian Schwarz: Presuppositions, projection, and accommodation
7: Myrto Grigoroglou and Anna Papafragou: Spatial terms
8: Heather Ferguson: Counterfactuals
9: Kristen Syrett: Distributivity
10: Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga: Genericity
11: Rick Nouwen, Stavroula Alexandropoulou, and Yaron McNabb: Modified numerals
12: Ye Tian and Richard Breheny: Negation
13: Lyn Tieu and Jacopo Romoli: Plurality
14: Adrian Brasoveanu and Jakub Dotlacil: Quantification
15: Patricia J. Brooks and Olga Parshina: Quantifier spreading
16: Stephanie Solt: Adjective meaning and scales
17: Nicola Spotorno and Ira Noveck: Ironic utterances
18: Nausicaa Pouscoulous and Giulio Dulcinati: Metaphor
19: Petra B. Schumacher: Metonymy
20: Sam Alxatib and Uli Sauerland: Vagueness
21: Marie Juanchich, Miroslav Sirota, and Jean-François Bonnefon: Verbal uncertainty
22: Hugh Rabagliati and Mahesh Srinivasan: Word senses
23: Kristen Syrett: Antecedent-contained deletion
24: Edgar Onea: Exhaustivity in it-clefts
25: Christina S. Kim: Focus
26: Ming Xiang: Negative Polarity Items
27: Hannah Rohde: Pronouns
28: Catherine Davies and Jennifer E. Arnold: Reference and informativeness
29: Judith Tonhauser: Prosody and meaning
30: Thomas Holtgraves: Politeness
31: Paula Rubio Fernández: Theory of Mind
32: J. P. de Ruiter: Turn-taking
