{"product_id":"on-what-we-mean-arnold-j-chien-9780761824176","title":"On What We Mean","description":"In \u003ci\u003eOn What We Mean\u003c\/i\u003e, Arnold Chien discusses the meaning of a speaker, a notion we use in everyday conversation. Speaker's meaning is a fundamental notion of pragmatics, i.e. the study of the relation between words and speakers. Yet everyday speaker's meaning has not been systematically studied in philosophy or linguistics. Chien's approach to these issues is to take a speaker's meaning as an answer to \"what do you (s\/he) mean\" (WDYM) questions. He then analyzes WDYM-questions in terms of Bas van Fraassen's analysis of why-questions, according to which, a question consists of a set of parameters whose values vary according to the context. The constraints on speaker's meanings are analyzed in terms of certain constraints on answers to WDYM-questions. The account is extended to metaphor, understood to be a kind of conceptual indeterminacy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Arnold J. Chien\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0761824170\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780761824176\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University Press of America\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 11\/08\/2002\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 236\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.77lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.54d","brand":"Arnold J. Chien","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48991991988479,"sku":"9780761824176","price":89.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/on-what-we-mean-arnold-j-chien-9780761824176","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}