Knowledge of Meaning: An Introduction to Semantic Theory PDF
Preview Knowledge of Meaning: An Introduction to Semantic Theory
Preface This book is designed to present, motivate, and defend a particular approach to semanticsf or natural languages. It is an introductory work aimed primarily at undergraduate and graduate students of philosophy and linguistics. Yet if we have done our job properly, it should be accessiblet o readersw ith little or no background knowledge of the field. Our approach has strong theoretical commitments. Although we have tried to be fair to alternative approac hes, we do not intend our work to provide a general introduction to them. We do believe, however, that our approach provides a good framework within which to raise many of the important questions of semantics, from fundamental conceptual and methodological ones to detailed empirical and technical ones. Many of the questions raised within our framework are of general concern, and our discussion of them is intended for anyone interested in semantics, whether or not they share our specific views. We have commitments at two levels. We have background, methodological commitments about the general nature of semanticsf or naturallanguag.es. We believe that semanticsc an and ought to be pursued as a science, specifically, as the empirical study of a particular human cognitive competence, the competence to understand the meanings of words and sentence.s Our views about the nature of this scienced erive largely from Noam Chomsky's work in syntax and phonology. We have merely carried those ideas over to the field of semantics . We introduce these matters in chapter I and illustrate their application throughout the book as we deal with various particular kinds of natural- languages tructures. We also have commitments concerning the formal structure of a semantic theory. Here we follow Donald Davidson's idea that a truth theory of the kind developedb y Alfred Tarski can servt as the formal basis of a semantic theory. Preface This core idea is introduced in chapter 2 and, again, is applied and developed throughout the book. By laying out and defending our approach in detail, we hope to make clear exactly what it involves, why it is plausible, and, inevitably, what its weak- nessesa re. We believe that our formulation of the subject matter has intellectual attractions both for linguists and philosophers. Over the last two decades, formal linguistic semantics has stood largely alone. Connections to syntactic theory have rarely been pursued beyond the level of using trees motivated by current syntax as the objects of semantic interpretation. There is little notion of a common subject matter or a shared program. Likewise, connections to the philosophy of language have rarely been pursued beyond the narrow confines of possible-world semantics. In the linguistics literature it is rare to seed iscussions of the interesting work on the nature of meaning, of predication and quantification, of linguistic knowledge, and so on, that have enlivened the philosophy literature. Finally, connections with other domains of cognitive psychology have rarely been pursued within formal semantics, despite the very ' interesting work now being done in aphasia and childrens acquisition of knowledge of meaning. The result is that a large amount of very interesting and relevant work, especially in philosophy, is largely unknown in the field. We have tried very hard to draw on this work and to show its vital links to linguistic semantics. We hope that linguists will find a good deal of new material here to stimulate their interests. Similarly, philosophy of language has often been pursued without a great deal of attention to detailed empirical matters. We believe, however, that attempts to address even the most general philosophical questions about linguistic meaning benefit greatly from serious study of empirical linguistics. From this methodological standpoint we have taken up many of the central questions in philosophy of language, tor example, questions about the relation of meaning to the world, of meaning to mind, and of mind to world. We believe that philosophers will find this scientific approach both challenging and invigorating. Our formulation of the subject matter also has attractions for the teacher. The approach developed here offers a way into truth-conditional semantics that is substantially different from Montague grammar, which has been a dominant force in linguistic semantics over the last two decades. In our experience , the vast technical apparatus of .Montague grammar, and the substantial effort that students must expend in mastering it, limits the time that xii; Preface can be spent on the fundamental conceptual questions of semanticso r on specific empirical problems. Our approach offers a simpler formulation of truth- conditional semantics, one that preservest he general virtues of formal rigor and explicitness but one whose technical toolbox is lighter and a good deal easier to carry about. Although truth conditions continue to play their central role, gone are models, types, lambda abstraction, lambda reduction, characteristic functions, functions from functions to functions, higher-order inten- sionallogic (IL), and a great deal more. Those trained in Montague grammar may be surprised to discover how many of the results of formal semanticsc an be retained without these devices. In teaching this material, instructors will find that they can spend much less time building technical skills and correspondingly more time on empirical and conceptual matters. Acknowledgm ents Writing this book has turned out to be a much-longer-term project than either of us anticipated , and we each have inevitably accumulated many debts of thanks along the way. (cid:0) Richard Larson Professionally I owe special thanks to three people: Noam Chomsky , James Higginbotham , and Peter Ludlow . Chomsky and Higginbotham were not only terrific colleagues at MIT ; they were also largely responsible for shaping my views of linguistic theory . Their influence is present on every page, from technical details to metatheory , and I am profoundly grateful to them both. Peter Ludlow first introduced me to the modem Davidsonian program in semantics. We have argued over all aspects of this material and have co taught it on numerous occasions. It has been a pleasure to have him as a friend and colleague. Special thanks also to Barry Schein, Jason Stanley, and Kathrin Koslicki for many pleasant discussions and arguments about all the issues in this book, and many more besides. Finally , my deepest personal thanks to my wife, Susan, and my daughter, Gwendolyn , for their love and support and for making clear what is most important in life. xvi Acknowledgments (cid:0) Gabriel Segal I have many people to thank. As with most of my work, my contributions to this book have been greatly helped by lengthy discussions with a group of philosophers that meets more or less assiduously every second Monday at ' 19 Gordon Square: Tim Crane, Keith Hossack, Mike Martin, Lucy O Brien, David Papineau, Barry C. Smith, Scott Sturgeon, and Bernhard Welss. I have ' pre~ented various sections of the material at various meetings in King s College , London, and I am grateful to all my colleaguest here for their constructive comments, support, and encouragemen;t in particular, to Tad Brennan, Chris Hughes, MM . McCabe, Richard Sorabji, and Alan Thomas. Jim Hopkins kindly read some chapters and made helpful suggestions. So too did Mark Sainsbury, to whom many thanks are also due for numerous fruitful discussions. I have also benefited greatly from discussions with many friends, in particular , Ned Block, George Boolos, Don Davidson, Alex George, Marcus Giaquinto, Peter Ludlow, Fraser McBride, Stephen Neale, Terry Parsons, Chris Peacocke, Peter Simons, Bob Stalnaker, Jason Stanley, StephenS chiffer, and David Wiggins. I owe special debts to two of my teachersw hen I was a graduate student at MIT : Noam Chomsky and Jim Higginbotham. Noam was an excellent teacher - kind and supportive. He remains ~ friend and constant source of inspiration . Jim also taught me well and has continued to be a good friend. Over the past nine years I have spent many hours discussing semantics with him and have learned a great deal as a result. It will be apparent to anyone who knows ' Jims work that his influence on me has been broad and deep. Richard Larson and Gabriel Segal Many colleaguesp rovided us with comments and suggestions. Our thanks to Martin Davies, Ernie Lepore, and Barry Schein for detailed discussion and criticism on every chapter of the manuscript and for helping us to make this a much better book than it otherwise would have been. Thanks also to Kent Bach, Noam Chomsky, Rob Cummins, Norbert Hornstein, Peter Ludlow, Robert May, Stephen Neale, Paul Pietroski, and Stephen Schiffer for comments , suggestions, and many bracing challenges. xv;; Acknowledgments We have also had considerable assistancef rom the folks at the MIT Press during the process of writing this book. Our thanks to Harry and Betty Stanton, who were with us at the beginning five years ago, and to Teri Mendelsohn, who gave us (many) timely pushesi n the later stagesa nd got us to the end. Thanks also to our cop yeditor, Alan Thwaits, for many very helpful suggestions, for patience, and for a lot of hard work. Amy Pierce supervised the final stageso f publication and we are grateful for her assistance. Finally, we thank Rudy Fara for help in reading proof and for philosophical discussion , Xuan Zhou for numerous corrections, and Aleen Marsh for aid in preparing the indexes. The material in this book has been presented in classesa t Kings College, MIT , and SUNY at Stony Brook, as well as at the 1992 Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute at UC Santa Cruz and the 1993 Girona International Summer School in Linguistics. The students who participated in those classesp rovided enthusiasm and fun, as well as many helpful comments on everything from terminology to problem sets. Our use of their names in the example sentenceso f this book is a sign of the warm affection and sincere ~ratitude that we feel for their help. 1 The Nature of Semantic Theory Semantics is the study of linguistic meaning. Ultimately , its goal is to provide theoretical descriptions and explanations of all of the phenomena of linguistic meaning. In this chapter we introduce the general subject matter of semantic theory and attempt to chart its place and responsibilities in the study of language . Our aim will be to answer certain broad but fundamental questions regarding the data of semantic theory, the object of semantic investigation , the nature of semantic principles and rules, and the task of semantics in relation to other, sister sciences. (cid:0) 1.1 The Pretheoretical Domain of Semantics Like any scientist, the semantic theorist must begin with whatever data are pretheoretically available and seek a satisfying explanation of them; the semanticist must start by addressingt he pretheoretical domain. We begin our explorations by examining the kinds of phenomenat hat initially present themselves as facts about meaning, and hence the kinds of things our semantic theory might plausibly be responsible for. Considering the data in a rough, intuitive way, we may distinguish three general subdomains. First, there are facts about linguistic expressionst hemselves, including various properties that 1 they have and various relations holding among them. Second, there are facts about the relationships betweenl inguistic expressionsa nd the world we live in, discuss, and sometimes argue about. And finally, there are facts about the relationships between linguistic expressionsa nd the speakersw ho use them to formulate thoughts, communicate ideas, persuade, and act. Let us examine thesed omains briefly. Chapter J 1.1.1 Semantic Properties and Relatio. Among the semantic properties that we would ascribe to natural-language expressions, the most obvious are surely the actual meaningst hat those expressions have. The following, for example, are simple and immediate facts about the actual meaningso f three sentenceso f English and French: (1) a. The English sentenceC amelsh ave humpsm eanst hat camelsh ave humps. b. The French sentenceL es chameauxo n! desb ossesm eanst hat camels have humps. c. The English sentenceC amelsh aveh umpsd oes not mean that reptiles have wings. Clearly, facts of this kind represent primary data that we would want any semantic theory to account for. We want to understand what it means for a sentenceo r phrase to have the particular meaning or range of meaningst hat it does, and how it comest o have that meaning rather than some other. A seconds emantic property that we recognizei mmediately is ambiguity, the property of having more than one meaning. The sentencesin (2) give sample facts of this kind: (2) a. The English sentenceP edroj umpedf rom the top of the bank has two mea nIngs. b. The English sentenceM ad dogsa nd Englishmeng o out in the noonday sun has two meanings. c. The English sentenceJ ohn saw her duck has two meanings. The ambiguities arise from different sources in the three cases. Sentence( 2a) is ambiguous according to whether we understand the word bank as referring to a financial institution or a fluvial embankment. Ambiguity here arises from one of the component words. By contrast, (2b) is ambiguous according to whether mad is taken to apply to both dogs and Englishmeno r to dogs alone. Here ambiguity arises not in the words of the clause but rather in how we understand those words as combining. Finally, (2c) involves a combination of what occurs with (2a) and (2b). The pronoun her is ambiguous between a possessivefo rm (as in John saw her book) and a simple object form (as in John saw her). The word duck.is ambiguous between a noun and a verb. And the phrase her duck is ambiguous between a sentencelike phrase meaning she The Nature of Semantic Theory ducked and a nominal phrase meaning the duck that she owns. Again, an account of ambiguity and also of how ambiguity can arise would appear to be the province of semantic theory. A third semantic property that we might wish to recognize is anomaly: the property having an aberrant meaning. Anomaly is illustrated by the famous ' sentencei n (3), from Chomsky 1957, and by the lines of the childrens rhyme in (4), drawn from Leech 1974: (3) Colorless green ideas sleepf uriously. (4) I went to the pictures tomorrow, I took a front seat at the back; I fell from the pit to the gallery, And broke a front bone in my back. A lady she gave me some chocolate, I ate it and gave it her back; I phoned for a taxi and walked it, ' And that s why I never came back. (Opie, The Lore and Languageo f School Children, p. 25) In (3) and in each of the verseso f (4), we can identify some fonn of oddness; the sentencesa re all nonsensical in some way. It seemsr easonable to think that semanticss hould tell us about anomalies and their sources. Along with semantic properties that hold of individual expressions, we also recognize various semantic relations that hold among them. These include, for example, logieosemanticr elatio.. such as contradiction, implication, and synonymy. Examples (5) through (7) illustrate: (5) a. John believest hat the Earth isf lat contradicts John doubts that the Earth isf lat . b. John claims that the Earth isf lat contradicts John deniest hat the Earth isf lat . c. Somem ice migrate contradicts No mice migrate. (6) a. John is a human implies John is a mammal. b. Mary was laughing and dancingi mplies Mary was dancing. c. Mary usually takes the train implies Mary sometimest akes the train. d. i. This is a blue gun implies This is blue and This is a gun. ii. This is a small moon implies This is a moon but not This is small. iii. This is a toy gun implies This is a toy and This is not a gun. Chapter I (7) a. John sold a car to Mary is synonymous with Mary bought a car from John. b. Felicity is a female fox is synonymous with Felicity is a vixen. c. John saw Mary is synonymous with Mary wass eenb y John. d. Alice gave a present to Frank is synonymous with Alice gave Frank a present. The relations in (5) through (7) arise from different sources. Sometimes they issue from relations between particular pairs of words, such as believe/doubt, claim/deny, usually/sometimes, buy/sell. In other cases they come from from individual words, like and. In still other cases, the relations arise from pairs of sentencef orms, such as active/passive, (7c), and an oblique dative versus a double object, (7d). The examples of (6d) make it clear that such data are in fact rather subtle: although each of the right-hand sentencesin volves an adjective -noun combination and all these combinations are superficially similar in form, the implicational relations are quite different in the three cases. A second and slightly less familiar family of semantic relations is the group of thematic relations illustrated by the examplesi n (8) to (11), from Jackendoff 1983. Each of these triples displays a common pattern in meaning, a semantic parallelism. Thus the sentencesin (8) all expresst he idea of an object undergoing a change of some kind. In (8a) it is a change of location, in (8b) a change of possession, and in (8c) a change of properties. The sentencesin (9) express the common idea of an object traversing some path. The sentencesi n (10) all expresst he idea of an object extending over some path. And the sentences in (II ) expresst he idea of an object being oriented along a path:2 (8) a. The train traveled from London to Paris. b. The inheritance passedf rom John to Mary. c. The substancec hanged from liquid to gas. (9) a. John ran into the house. b. The mouse skittered toward the clock. c. The train rambled along the river. (10) a. The highway extends from Denver to Indianapolis. b. The flagpole reaches( up) toward the sky. c. The sidewalk goesa round. the tree. (II ) a. The sign points to Philadelphia. b. The house facesa way from the mountains. c. The cannons aim through the tunnel.
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