Barbara Abbott

Barbara Abbott (born 1943) is an American linguist. She earned her PhD in Linguistics in 1976 at the University of California at Berkeley under the supervision of George Lakoff.[1] From 1976 through 2006 she was a Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages at Michigan State University, with a joint appointment in Philosophy.[2] She is now a Professor Emerita.

Research

Abbot's research in areas of semantics and pragmatics examines topics in reference and noun phrase interpretation, looking at philosophically influenced aspects of word meaning, presupposition, and conditional sentences.[3] She has been pivotal in uniting formal semantics, which adapts analytical techniques from logic to natural languages, and analytical pragmatics in order to order clarify the workings of definite and indefinite noun phrases in English. Her work surveying the uses of definiteness in different languages shows how it has mainly been seen in terms of familiarity or in terms of uniqueness.[4] Her book Reference, focusing on noun phrases as referring expressions, shows that the issue of how speakers use language forms to refer to entities has been at the heart of debate among linguists and philosophers for centuries.[5]

In 1993 Abbott received an Outstanding Faculty & Staff Award at MSU for "contributions to equal opportunities for achievement and providing an environment that encourages excellence".[6] In 2005, she was an invited speaker at the Third International Conference in Contrastive Semantics and Pragmatics held in at the Shanghai International Studies University in China,[7] and was featured as a guest speaker at the International Cognitive Science Conference held at Pomona College that same year.[8] In 2009 she was an invited speaker at the Second Conference on Concept Types and Frames in Language, Cognition, and Science at the Heinrich-Heine-University of Duesseldorf.[9] Abbot has served on the editorial board of academic journals including The Journal of Pragmatics[10]The Journal of Pragmatics, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory[11], and Intercultural Pragmatics,[12] as well as serving as a referee for articles in Philosophy of Science[13] and in Language.

Upon retirement from MSU, Abbot and her husband, philosopher Larry Hauser, have been volunteering in ShareCare, a non-profit organization that provides Michigan residents with affordable assisted living services.[14]

Publications

Books

Significant articles

References

  1. "Alumni and Downloadable Dissertations". Retrieved June 7, 2015.
  2. Reyes, Julie. "Contributing to the Love of Wisdom" (PDF). Retrieved June 6, 2015.
  3. "Barbara Abbot". Retrieved June 6, 2015.
  4. Barker, Chris (2004). "Possessive Weak Definites". University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers. CiteSeerX: 10.1.1.183.9321.
  5. "LINGUIST List 22.267: Philosophy of Language: Abbott (2010)". January 16, 2011. Retrieved June 6, 2015.
  6. "Award Recipients RCPD". Retrieved June 6, 2015.
  7. "Calls: Pragmatics/Semantics/China". Retrieved June 7, 2015.
  8. "International Cognitive Science Conference". Retrieved June 8, 2015.
  9. "FFF CONFERENCE CTF09". Philosophische Fakultät der HHUD. Retrieved June 7, 2015.
  10. "Journal of Pragmatics Editorial Board". Retrieved June 6, 2015.
  11. "Editorial Note". Natural Language & Linguistic Theory. November 1989.
  12. "Front matter, Volume 11, number 3". Intercultural Pragmatics. 2014.
  13. "JSOR-Philosophy of Science". Retrieved June 7, 2015.
  14. Hubbell, Amy (August 16, 2012). "East Leland couple helps drive ShareCare". Leelanau Enterprise. Retrieved June 6, 2015.

External links

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