Vagueness, Ambiguity, and All the Rest
Linguistic and pragmatic approaches
This book aims to address a gap in the existing literature on the relationship between vagueness and ambiguity, as well as on their differences and similarities, both in synchrony and diachrony, and taking into consideration their relation to language use. The book is divided into two parts, which address specific and broader research questions from different perspectives. The former part examines the differences between ambiguity and vagueness from a bird-eye perspective, with a particular focus on their respective functions and roles in language change. It also presents innovative linguistic resources and tools for the study of these phenomena. The second part contains case studies on vagueness and ambiguity in language change and use. It considers different strategies and languages, including English, French, German, Italian, Medieval Latin, and Old Italian. The readership for this volume is broad, encompassing scholars in a range of disciplines, including pragmatics, spoken discourse, conversation analysis, discourse genres (political, commercial, notarial discourse), corpus studies, language change, pragmaticalization, and language typology.
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 347] 2024. vi, 286 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Published online on 24 September 2024
Published online on 24 September 2024
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
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Chapter 1. Introduction: How vague and ambiguous are vagueness and ambiguity?Ilaria Fiorentini and Chiara Zanchi | pp. 1–8
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Part I. Vagueness and ambiguity: Theory and methods
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Chapter 2. The role of ambiguity and vagueness in language changeElisabetta Magni | pp. 10–28
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Chapter 3. The role of ambiguity in intentional vaguenessMiriam Voghera | pp. 29–50
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Chapter 4. Vagueness and ambiguity are very different (persuasion devices)Claudia Coppola, Giorgia Mannaioli and Edoardo Lombardi Vallauri | pp. 51–83
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Chapter 5. Ambiguity in discourse: The Tübingen Interdisciplinary Corpus of Ambiguity PhenomenaAsya Achimova, Maren Ebert-Rohleder, Lorenz Geiger, Joel Klenk, Michael Reid, Thalia Vollstedt and Angelika Zirker | pp. 84–108
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Part II. Vagueness and ambiguity in language change and use: Theory and methods
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Chapter 6. Underspecification and ambiguity of voice markers: Synchrony and diachronyRiccardo Giomi and Guglielmo Inglese | pp. 110–147
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Chapter 7. Vague stuff: Cose as a general extender from Latin to ItalianIlaria Fiorentini and Chiara Zanchi | pp. 148–176
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Chapter 8. Vagueness explored: The role of comment clausesMaria Cristina Lo Baido | pp. 177–207
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Chapter 9. Using ambiguity and vagueness to avoid problematic answers: The case of Italian abbastanzaAlessandra Barotto | pp. 208–233
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Chapter 10. Vagueness and ambiguity of perlocutionary effects in Prime Minister’s Question time sessionsMilica Radulović | pp. 234–258
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Chapter 11. Place names in legal texts: Vagueness and ambiguity in the Italian Medieval Lombard kingdomsElisa D’Argenio and Chiara Ghezzi | pp. 259–280
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Index | pp. 281–286
Subjects
Main BIC Subject
CFG: Semantics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis
Main BISAC Subject
LAN009030: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Pragmatics