Catastrophe Theoretic Semantics

1. Introduction; 2. 1. Applied catastrophe theory: a short introduction; 3. 1.1. A sketch of the mathematical basis; 4. 1.2. Catastrophe conventions; 5. 1.3. The finite set of typical paths in the elementary unfoldings; 6. 1.4. An example: the standard cusp; 7. 2. Semantics from a dynamic perspective; 8. 2.1. Aspects of dynamic semiotics; 9. 2.2. The type of semantics aimed at by our model construction; 10. 2.3. Formal semantics on the basis of catastrophe theory: a comparison with logical semantics; 11. 2.4. Principles of interpretation; 12. 2.5. Rene Thom's list of semantic archetypes; 13. 3. The heart of catastrophe theoretic semantics: the set of semantic archetypes; 14. 3.1. The semantic archetypes derivable from the zero-unfolding; 15. 3.2. The semantic archetypes derivable from the fold; 16. 3.3. The semantic archetypes derivable from the cusp; 17. 3.4. The semantic archetypes derivable from the swallowtail; 18. 3.5. The semantic archetypes derivable from the butterfly; 19. 3.6. Archetypes derivable from unfoldings with codimension > 4 and corank 1; 20. 3.7. Semantic archetypes derivable from the compactified umbilics; 21. 4. Applications of catastrophe theoretic semantics; 22. 4.1. Dynamic inferences; 23. 4.2. Word semantics; 24. 4.3. Linguistic vagueness; 25. 4.4. Compositional processes; 26. 4.5. Application in neurolinguistics; 27. 5. Beyond catastrophe theoretic semantics; 28. 5.1. Beyond semantics: towards a dynamic theory of language; 29. 5.2. Beyond catastrophe theory; 30. Footnotes; 31. References; 32. Index