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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 October 2006
THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF MEANING: IDEAS FOR A PHILOSOPHICAL GRAMMAR. Michele Prandi. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2004. Pp. xviii + 520. $162.00 cloth.
This volume is an attempt to develop a philosophical grammar, one that separates out and unifies the contributions to meaning from syntax, the lexicon, and conceptual structure, and one within which figures of speech such as metonymy and metaphor—conflictual complex meanings—can be explored and analyzed. These are forms of expression that the author views as neglected by philosophers and linguistics (although the work of Lakoff and other cognitive linguists would be one exception). The grammar itself is given in completely descriptive, informal terms.