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Philosophy of Language on Language Communication Kasia M. Jaszczolt

Philosophy of Language on Language Communication Kasia M. Jaszczolt DTAL, University of Cambridge http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/kmj21. Outline. Delimitation of a theory of meaning: current controversies Interactive compositionality of meaning

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Philosophy of Language on Language Communication Kasia M. Jaszczolt

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  1. Philosophy of Language on Language Communication Kasia M. Jaszczolt DTAL, University of Cambridge http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/kmj21

  2. Outline • Delimitation of a theory of meaning: current controversies • Interactive compositionality of meaning • Example: first-person reference and cognitive access to oneself (beliefs de se and reports de se)

  3. Paul Grice Speaker: conversational implicature Addressee: pragmatic inference

  4. Everybody read Wittgenstein. Every member of the research group read Wittgenstein.

  5. ? What is the appropriate scope for the theory of meaning?

  6. Semantic Minimalism Minimal Semantics “The truth-conditional semantic theory is governed, not by rich (…) inferential processes, but rather by formally triggered, deductive operations.” Borg (2004: 8)

  7. ‘That is red’ is true iff the contextually salient object is red.

  8. Contextualism(currently dominant view) Utterance meaning is determined with the help of many sources of information and through the interaction of various processes.

  9. These processes are often automatic, ‘default’ Default/Interactive Semantics (Jaszczolt, e. g 2005, 2009, forthcoming e)

  10. State of the Art: There are several contextualist approaches to semantics and several minimalist ones and the debate is continuing.  effect on experimental approaches to linguistic communication

  11. Default Semantics (Jaszczolt 2005, 2009, 2010)Interactive Semantics (Jaszczolt, in progress, OUP) Parsimony of LevelsPrinciple (POL): Levels of senses are not to be multiplied beyond necessity. A: I’ve cut my finger. B: You are not going to die! x The boy is not going to die from this cut. There is nothing to worry about.

  12. Default Semantics abandons the syntactic constraint: Primary meaning is defined as the most salient meaning intended by the speaker and recovered by the addressee and it may sometimes override the logical form of the sentence.

  13. Merger representations What is expressed in the lexicon in one language may be expressed by grammar in another.

  14. Merger representations What is expressed in the lexicon in one language may be expressed by grammar in another. What is expressed overtly in onelanguage may be left to pragmatic inference or default interpretation in another.

  15. No ‘or’ in Wari’? Absence of a disjunctive marker  presence of some irrealis marker ’am ’e’ ca ’am mi’ pin ca perhaps live 3SG.M. Perhaps give complete 3SG.M. ‘Either he will live or he will die.’ from Mauri and van derAuwera (2012: 391)

  16. Composition of meaning • Compositionality as a property of semantics • Montague and followers, e.g. DRT, DPL, representationalism • Evans and Levinson (2009), generative power of semantics/pragmatics (conceptual structure)

  17. Interactive compositionality • Compositionality is a semantic universal

  18. Interlocutors frequently communicate their main intended content through a proposition which is not syntactically restricted. Experimental evidence: Nicolle and Clark 1999 Pitts 2005 Sysoeva and Jaszczolt 2007 Schneider 2009

  19. Merger Representation  • Primary meanings are modelled as the so-called merger representations.

  20. Merger Representation  • Primary meanings are modelled as merger representations. • The outputs of sources of information about meaning merge and all the outputs are treated on an equal footing.

  21. Merger Representation  • Primary meanings are modelled as the so-called merger representations. • The outputs of sources of information about meaning merge and all the outputs are treated on an equal footing. The syntactic constraint is abandoned. • Merger representations have the status of mental representations.

  22. Merger Representation  • Primary meanings are modelled as merger representations. • The outputs of sources of information about meaning merge and all the outputs are treated on an equal footing. The syntactic constraint is abandoned. • Merger representations have the status of mental representations. • They have a compositional structure.

  23. Sources of information for  (i) world knowledge (WK) (ii)word meaning and sentence structure (WS) (iii)situation of discourse (SD) (iv) properties of the human inferential system (IS) (v)stereotypes and presumptions about society and culture (SC)

  24. Mapping between sources and processes WK  SCWD or CPI SC  SCWD or CPI WS  WS (logical form) SD  CPI IS  CD In building merger representations DS makes use of the processing model and it indexes the components of  with a subscript standing for the type of processing.

  25. Merger representations are compositional. Compositionality is a methodological principle in contextualism and an empirical assumption about human languages

  26. Selected applications of DS • Origins: Jaszczolt 1992, 1999. Parsimony of Levels (POL) Principle: Levels of senses are not to be multiplied beyond necessity. • First applications: definite descriptions, proper names, and belief reports (Jaszczolt 1997, 1999); negation and discourse connectives (Lee 2002); presupposition, sentential connectives, number terms (Jaszczolt 2005) • Recent applications: temporality, and modality (Jaszczolt 2009; Srioutai 2004, 2006; Jaszczolt and Srioutai 2012; Engemann 2008; Jaszczolt forthcoming a,b); syntactic constraint on primary meaning (Sysoeva and Jaszczolt 2007; Schneider 2009; Jaszczolt 2012); first-person reference and de se belief reports (Jaszczolt forthcoming c, d)

  27. An example: First-person reference in discourse and cognitive access to oneself

  28. The scenario: ‘I once followed a trail of sugar on a supermarket floor, pushing my cart down the aisle on one side of a tall counter and back the aisle on the other, seeking the shopper with the torn sack to tell him he was making a mess. With each trip around the counter, the trail became thicker. But I seemed unable to catch up. Finally it dawned on me. I was the shopper I was trying to catch.’ Perry (1979: 3)

  29. Beliefs and expressions de se (1) The person with a torn bag of sugar is making a mess. (2) I am making a mess.

  30. referential semantics conflates (1) with (2): x [make-a-mess (x)] (kasia jaszczolt)

  31. ? Grammar produces the self-referring function Chierchia (1989: 28): The cognitive access to oneself is ‘systematically excluded from the interpretation of (non-pronominal) referential expressions. It is systematically present in the interpretation of overt pronouns. It is systematically and unambiguously associated with the interpretation of PRO the null subject of infinitives and gerunds. It is associated with the interpretation of long-distance reflexives (at least in some languages)’.

  32. ? Grammar produces the self-referring function Chierchia (1989: 28): The cognitive access to oneself is ‘systematically excluded from the interpretation of (non-pronominal) referential expressions. It is systematically present in the interpretation of overt pronouns. It is systematically and unambiguously associated with the interpretation of PRO the null subject of infinitives and gerunds. It is associated with the interpretation of long-distance reflexives (at least in some languages)’.

  33. An argument from non-pronominal expressions (but not the one you expect) xPace Chierchia, cognitive access to oneself is not so ‘systematically’ excluded from the interpretation of non-pronominal expressions: Sammy wants a biscuit. Mummy will be with you in a moment.

  34. Honorifics: • Japanese and Thai: the first-person marker has the characteristics of both a pronoun and a noun. Like nouns, pronouns do not form a closed class; like nouns, they form the plural by adding a plural morpheme; • also e. g. Burmese, Javanese, Khmer, Korean, Malay, or Vietnamese. Typically: ‘slave’, ‘servant’, royal slave’, ‘lord’s servant’, ‘Buddha’s servant’ are used for self-reference with self-denigration; • Thai: 27 forms of first person (‘mouse’) Siewierska (2004) and Heine and Song (2011)

  35. Conflation of the nominal with the pronominal: • Acoma (New Mexico), Wari’ (Brazil): no personal pronouns; • Generic one and arbitrary pro: One can hear the wolves from the veranda. It is scary PRO to hear the wolves from the veranda. Generic one and arbitrary (non-controlled) PRO express ‘generalizing detached self-reference.’ (Moltmann 2010)

  36. Degrees of cognitive access to oneself: I think I put this book back on the shelf. I think I remember PRO putting this book back on the shelf. I put this book back on the shelf. I remember PRO putting this book back on the shelf. Conscious awareness is present to different degrees rather than as a binary, all-or-nothing characteristic.

  37. An argument from 1st person pronoun Kratzer(2009): pronouns can be ambiguous between a referential and a bound-variable interpretation I’m the only one around here who can take care of my children. Only I admitted what I did wrong. Only you can eat what you cook.

  38. Restriction: Bound-variable uses are rare, restricted, and differ from language to language. Tylko ja jeden przyznałem się do błędu. only 1Sg soleSgMNom admit1SgPastMRefl to mistakeSgMGen Tylko ja jedna tutaj potrafię zajmować się Only 1Sg soleSgFNom here can1SgPres careInf Refl swoimi dziećmi. ReflPronPl Instr childPl Instr

  39. An argument from PRO (but not the one you expect) Lidia wants to be a scientist. no underlying ‘I’-reference ‘I want to be a scientist.’

  40. Self-referring that involves cognitive access to oneself defies any attempt to fit it squarely into the mould of a single, systematic morphosyntactic device.

  41. Interim conclusion: The cognitive access to oneself is expressed through the lexicon/grammar/pragmatics trade-offs.

  42. Reports de se Kasia believes that she is making a mess.

  43. Towards a (pragmatic) solution • self-ascription (linguistic semantic) • self-reference (linguistic pragmatic) • self-attribution (epistemic) • self-awareness (cognitive)

  44. De Se in Default SemanticsJaszczolt, forthcoming c, d Bel (x,’) the individual x has the cognitive state represented as an embedded representation ’

  45. It1 believed It1+t2 was making a mess. ?/In a sense, It1 believed It1+t2 was making a mess. It1 just didn’t know that the person It1 referred to was It1+t2.

  46. Merger representation: • coreference: condition [y=x]WS • the lack of self-awareness: differentiation of indexing on x and y (CD vs CPI) and the non-default use of the belief operator (CPI)

  47. ‘I believed, in a sense, I was making a mess.’ (marked reading)

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