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Barbara Abbott

{{short description|American linguist}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2018}}

{{Infobox academic

| name = Barbara Kenyon Abbott

| birth_name =Barbara Kenyon Abbott

| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1943}}

| nationality = American

| discipline = Linguist

|alma_mater=University of California at Berkeley|academic_advisors=George Lakoff|workplaces=Michigan State University|sub_discipline={{Plainlist|

}}|thesis_year=1976|thesis_title=A study of referential opacity}}

Barbara Kenyon 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.{{Cite web|url=https://lx.berkeley.edu/publications/study-referential-opacity|title=A study of referential opacity|website=Berkeley Linguistics|access-date=2019-04-14}} From 1976 to 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.{{Cite news|url=http://grad.msu.edu/graduatepost/docs/f03feature.pdf|title=Contributing to the Love of Wisdom|last=Reyes|first=Julie|date=2003–2004|work=The Graduate School Newsletter|access-date=June 6, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305072343/http://grad.msu.edu/graduatepost/docs/f03feature.pdf|archive-date=March 5, 2016|url-status=dead|publisher=Michigan State University}} She is now a Professor Emerita.

Career

Abbott's semantics and pragmatics research examines topics in reference and noun phrase interpretation, focusing on philosophically influenced aspects of word meaning, presupposition, and conditional sentences. She has been pivotal in both uniting formal semantics—which adapts analytical techniques from logic to natural languages—and analytical pragmatics—which clarifies 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 uniqueness.{{Cite book |last=Barker |first=Chris |title=Possessive Weak Definites |publisher=University of Massachusetts |year=2004 |series=University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers |citeseerx=10.1.1.183.9321}} Her book Reference,{{cite book|last1=Abbott|first1=Barbara|title=Reference|date=2010|publisher=Oxford University Press Inc.|location=New York|isbn=978-0-19-920257-7|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oceRVzsfAcgC}} focusing on noun phrases as referring expressions, shows that the issue of speakers' use of language forms to refer to entities has been at the heart of debate among linguists and philosophers for centuries.{{Cite web|url = https://linguistlist.org/issues/22/22-267/|title = LINGUIST List 22.267: Philosophy of Language: Abbott (2010)|date = January 16, 2011|access-date = June 6, 2015}}

Abbott was a professor at Michigan State University where she taught linguistics and philosophy from 1976 to 2006. Her main concentrations are semantics and pragmatics Her book Reference focuses on the issue of how far reference is and if it is a two-place or three-place relation.{{Cite book|url=https://global.oup.com/academic/product/reference-9780199203451?cc=us&lang=en&#|isbn=9780199203451|title=Reference|publisher=Oxford University Press|date=2010-05-13|series=Oxford Surveys in Semantics and Pragmatics}} Abbott is also known for her other published works which include Natural Language Semantics, Language, Linguistics and Philosophy, Journal of Pragmatics, and Mind. She has also published articles, such as Some Problems In Giving An Adequate Model-Theoretic Account of Cause in 1974, and Some Remarks on Referentiality, in 2011.{{cite web|url=https://msu.edu/~abbottb/vita.htm|title=Vitarev.htm|date=August 7, 2015}}

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".{{Cite web|url = https://www.rcpd.msu.edu/scholarships/recipients|title = Award Recipients RCPD|access-date = June 6, 2015|archive-date = July 11, 2019|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190711191328/https://www.rcpd.msu.edu/scholarships/recipients|url-status = dead}} 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,{{Cite web|url = https://linguistlist.org/issues/15/15-2457/|title = Calls: Pragmatics/Semantics/China|access-date = June 7, 2015|date = 2004-09-04}} and was featured as a guest speaker at the International Cognitive Science Conference held at Pomona College that same year.{{Cite web|url=http://www.pomona.edu/news/2005/03/15-Cognitive-Science-Conf.aspx |title=International Cognitive Science Conference |access-date=June 8, 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150613121425/http://www.pomona.edu/news/2005/03/15-Cognitive-Science-Conf.aspx |archive-date=June 13, 2015 }} 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.{{Cite web|url = https://www.phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de/fff/fff-conference-ctf09/overview-call/|title = FFF CONFERENCE CTF09|access-date = June 7, 2015|website = Philosophische Fakultät der HHUD}}

Abbott has served on the editorial board of academic journals including The Journal of Pragmatics,{{Cite book|url = http://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-pragmatics/editorial-board/|title = Journal of Pragmatics Editorial Board|access-date = June 6, 2015}} Natural Language and Linguistic Theory,{{Cite journal|title = Editorial Note|date = November 1989|journal = Natural Language & Linguistic Theory }} and Intercultural Pragmatics,{{Cite journal|title = Front matter, Volume 11, number 3|year = 2014|journal = Intercultural Pragmatics }} as well as serving as a referee for articles in Philosophy of Science{{Cite journal|jstor = 10.1086/665592|title = JSOR-Philosophy of Science|journal = Philosophy of Science|volume = 79|issue = 2|pages = 326–331|doi = 10.1086/665592|year = 2012}} and in Language.

Personal life

Abbott grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut and currently resides in Michigan with her husband, Larry Hauser.{{cite web|url=http://sharecareleelanau.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=35299&module_id=190130|title=Board Members|website=ShareCare of Leelanau, Inc.|access-date=2019-04-14|archive-date=May 26, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200526113530/https://www.sharecareleelanau.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=35299&module_id=190130&sl=1549307862|url-status=dead}}{{Cite web|url=https://msu.edu/~abbottb/Site/Barbara%20Abbott%27s%20home%20page.html|title=Barbara Abbott's home page|website=Michigan State University|access-date=2019-04-14}}

Publications

=Books=

  • Abbott, B. 2010. Reference. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Gundel, Jeanette K. and Barbara Abbott, eds. 2019. The Oxford Handbook of Reference. Oxford University Press.

=Significant articles=

  • Abbott, B. 1976. "Right node raising as a test for constituenthood," Linguistic Inquiry.
  • Abbott, B. 1993. “A pragmatic account of the definiteness effect in existential sentences,” Journal of Pragmatics 19, 39–55.
  • Abbott, B. 1995. "Some remarks on specificity," Linguistic Inquiry 26:2, 341–7.
  • Abbott, B. 1996. "Doing without a partitive constraint," In J. Hoeksema (ed.) Partitives: Studies on the Syntax and Semantics of Partitive and Related Constructions.
  • Abbott, B. 1997. “Definiteness and existentials,” Language.
  • Abbott, B. 1997. “A note on the nature of 'Water'." Mind 106, 311–319.
  • Abbott, B. 1999. "Support for a unique theory of definiteness," Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistics Theory (SALT) 9.
  • Abbott, B. 1999. “Water = H2O." Mind 108, 145–148.
  • Abbott, B. 2000. “Presuppositions as nonassertions,” Journal of Pragmatics, 32: 1419–1437.
  • Abbott, B. 2002. "Donkey Demonstratives," Natural Language Semantics.
  • Abbott, B. 2002. "Definiteness and Proper Names: Some Bad News for the Description Theory," Journal of Semantics.
  • Abbott, B. 2003. "Some notes on quotation," Belgian Journal of Linguistics.
  • Abbott, B. 2003. "A reply to Szabo's "Descriptions and uniqueness," Philosophical Studies.
  • Abbott, B. 2004. “Definiteness and Indefiniteness,” The Handbook of Pragmatics, L Horn and G. Ward (eds.) Malden. MA: Blackwell.
  • Abbott, B. 2006. “Definite and Indefinite," Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics.
  • Abbott, B. 2008. “Presuppositions and Common Ground,” Linguistics and Philosophy.
  • Abbott, B. 2010. “Where have some of the presuppositions gone?” Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning: Neo-Gricean Studies in Pragmatics and Semantics in Honor of Laurence R. Horn, B. Birner, G. Ward (eds.) Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
  • Abbott, B. 2011. "Out of control: The semantics of some infinitival VP complements, " In Pragmatics and Autolexical Grammar: In honor of Jerry Sadock, edited by Etsuyo Yuasa, Tista Bagchi and Katharine Beals. pp. 229–242. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
  • Horn, L. and B. Abbott. 2012. "(in)definiteness and implicature," In W. Kabasenche, M. O'Rourke, and M Slater (eds.) Reference and Referring. MIT Press.
  • Abbott, B. 2013. Linguistic solutions to philosophical problems: The case of knowing how. In John Hawthorne & Jason Turner, eds., Philosophical Perspectives 27, 1–21.

References

{{Reflist|30em}}

External links

  • [https://www.msu.edu/user/abbottb/Site/Barbara%20Abbott%27s%20home%20page.html Website]
  • [http://linglang.msu.edu/linguistics/faculty/abbott Faculty webpage]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abbott, Barbara}}

Category:1943 births

Category:Living people

Category:UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni

Category:Michigan State University faculty

Category:20th-century American linguists

Category:21st-century American linguists

Category:People from Greenwich, Connecticut

Category:American women linguists