The Linguistic Description of Opaque Contexts (RLE Linguistics A: General Linguistics) (Routledge Library Editions: Linguistics)

The study of opacity falls under the general programme of showing how the meaning of any complex sentence is composed from the meanings of its constituent clauses, phrases and words. Opaque constructions are special from this point of view because the compositional principles that determine their meaning are so intricate. The main argument of this book is that the systematic ambiguity of opaque constructions has generally been underestimated.