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Thoughts and Natural Languages : Part II Joe Lau Philosophy HKU

Thoughts and Natural Languages : Part II Joe Lau Philosophy HKU. Issues. Argument from introspection Criticism of the hypothesis that LOT = NL Ambiguity, mental imagery,. LF and PF. Linguistic comprehension and articulation requires special linguistic representations.

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Thoughts and Natural Languages : Part II Joe Lau Philosophy HKU

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  1. Thoughts and Natural Languages : Part IIJoe LauPhilosophy HKU

  2. Issues • Argument from introspection • Criticism of the hypothesis that LOT = NL • Ambiguity, mental imagery, ...

  3. LF and PF • Linguistic comprehension and articulation requires special linguistic representations. • Current linguistic theories (e.g. Minimalism) recognize two levels of linguistic representations : LF and PF • LF = Logical Form • PF = Phonological Form

  4. PF • PF encodes information about the speech sounds for pronunciation. • Instructions to the articulatory system. • If two words are pronounced in the same way, they have the same PF.

  5. LF • Level of semantic representation • Encodes whatever grammatical information relevant to meaning. • Distinct from spoken or written sentences. • Example : lexical ambiguity resolved by different lexical entries for the same word • Example : (financial) bank1vs. (commercial) bank2. • Same PF.

  6. VP VP NP V NP PP V discuss N PP discuss N P NP violence P NP violence on TV on TV Argument from ambiguity revisited • Not enough to show that LOT is not LF, only that LOT must have more structures than spoken or written sentences.

  7. Thoughts and consciousness • Objection : We are not consciously aware of such syntactic structures when we are thinking. • Reply : Many aspects of thinking might not be conscious to the thinker. In (linguistic) thinking we only have access to a PF that corresponds to the thought. • Tip of the tongue phenomenon.

  8. Is it like this? UNCONSCIOUS CONSCIOUS A thought about a tree (LF) PF : /triy/

  9. If LOT = LF ... • Suppose X uses “chair” to mean tables, and Y uses “chair” to mean chair. • When they think “here is a chair” thy have different thoughts. • What about the corresponding LFs? Presumably they should be different. • If LOT=LF then LF must incorporate distinctions that correspond to differences in meaning for lexical entries.

  10. What about mental imagery? • What is the role of mental images in thinking? • Proposal #1 : Mental images are thoughts. • Proposal #2 : Mental imagery provides a working buffer to assist thinking, but they are not thoughts. • How to decide? What is thinking?

  11. Is it like this? CONSCIOUS  UNCONSCIOUS A thought about a tree /triy/

  12. Next week • Topic : More on LOT • No tutorials (every other week) • Problem set #2 will be posted.

  13. VP VP NP V NP PP V discuss N PP discuss N P NP violence P NP violence on TV on TV LF and structural ambiguity • LF not the same as written or spoken sentences. • “We shall discuss violence on TV.”

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