Linguistic Meaning Meets Linguistic Form

This book steers a middle course between the logical and cognitive approaches to semantics. Patrick Duffley argues for a radical revision of the semantics/pragmatics interface, proposing that the dividing line be drawn between content that is linguistically encoded and content that is not encoded but still communicated.

Patrick Duffley is Professor of English Linguistics at Université Laval in Quebec City. His research uses concepts inspired by cognitive grammar and Guillaumian psychomechanical theory to develop a properly linguistic-semantic approach to grammar and syntax. He has published monographs on the English infinitive and gerund-participle, as well as numerous articles on modal auxiliaries, wh-words, negative polarity, indefinite determiners, and both full verb and auxiliary inversion. His most recent book, Reclaiming Control as a Semantic and Pragmatic Phenomenon, was published by John Benjamins in 2014.