Review of Formal Pragmatics . Semantics , Pragmatics ,

Formal Pragmatics discusses various topics that are at the borderline of the semantics and pragmatics of natural language, in particular the treatment of indefinites and anaphora, presuppositions, and the analysis of focus. Enormous progress has been made in the last two decades in the analysis of these phenomena. It is time for this body of work to be summarized and described in a relatively easy accessible way such that students could become familiar with it. Kadmon’s 430 page long book does exactly that. It covers a substantial body of formal work on linguistic phenomena, and – according to the back cover – serves both as a textbook, as well as a reference or research book. It presupposes only a very minimal knowledge of formal semantics, but still manages to lead students through recent formal developments in the subjects treated in the book. However, this book is not written as a neutral overview or textbook: on controversial issues Kadmon always makes clear which analyses she prefers, and sometimes (especially on the analysis of focus) the book reports on novel research by herself and others. I have not used this book in my classes on formal pragmatics. Thus, I will evaluate this book mostly as a reference and research monograph. Having firm views regarding most of the subjects covered in this book, I cannot help it that these opinions sometimes influence my following discussion. The first part of the book deals with dynamic semantics. After a useful introductory discussion on conversational implicatures, presuppositions, and the interplay between context and content, the book consists of three parts: (i) dynamic semantics and its treatment