Includes bibliographical references and index.

Machine generated contents note: -- 1. Introduction: Alternatives in Semantics and Pragmatics; Anamaria Falaus -- 2. A Note on the Derivation of the Epistemic Effect as an Implicature; Luis Alonso-Ovalle and Paula Mene;ndez-Benito -- 3. Free Choice Nominals and Free Choice Disjunction: The Identity Thesis; Gennaro Chierchia -- 4. A Viability Constraint on Alternatives for Free Choice; Veneeta Dayal -- 5. On the Consequences of an Alternative Semantics for the Analysis of Intervention Effects; Clemens Mayr -- 6. Mere-ology; Elizabeth Coppock and David Beaver -- 7. Sets of Alternatives and Syntactic Movement; Marc Novel and Maribel Romero -- 8. On the Processing of Alternatives, Exhaustification and Covert Negation: The Case of Mai; Daniele Panizza and Jacopo Romoli -- 9. Grammatical Alternatives and Pragmatic Development; Alan Bale and David Barner.

"Alternatives in Semantics is the first volume to focus on alternatives as a key theme. It offers a survey of the use of alternatives in semantics and pragmatics, and an overview of current approaches and applications of alternative-based semantics, from both theoretical and experimental perspectives. The chapters represent different theoretical frameworks, which differ in the way they conceive of the source of alternatives, the status of alternatives, or the precise way in which they enter semantic composition. The contributions focus on various empirical phenomena making reference to alternatives (negative polarity and free choice phenomena, implicatures, presupposition, focus and intervention effects), offering new insights and exploring connections between them. The chapters assembled in this volume demonstrate the vitality of alternative-based semantics and offer a clear perspective on the many challenging questions that arise from its increasing range of applications"-- Provided by publisher.