Books by Ruth M. Kempson

In this book, first published in 1975, Dr Kempson argues that previous work on presupposition has been mistakenly based on a conflation of two different disciplines: semantics, the study of the meanings assigned to the formal system which constitutes a language, and pragmatics, the study of the use of that system in communication.

Semantics is a bridge discipline between linguistics and philosophy; but students are rarely able to reach that bridge, let alone cross it to inspect and assess the activity on the other side. Professor Kempston's textbook deals with the standard linguistic topics such as componential analysis, semantic universals and the syntax-semantics controversy.