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The Grammatical Structure of Propositions

The Grammatical Structure of Propositions. Ulrich Reichard, University of Durham ulrich.reichard@durham.ac.uk Semantics and Philosophy in Europe 6 10-14 June 2013, Saint Petersburg. Outline. Grammar is Meaningful A Problem for Propositions Soames’ Cognitive-Realist Account

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The Grammatical Structure of Propositions

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  1. The Grammatical Structure of Propositions Ulrich Reichard, University of Durham ulrich.reichard@durham.ac.uk Semantics and Philosophy in Europe 6 10-14 June 2013, Saint Petersburg

  2. Outline • Grammar is Meaningful • A Problem for Propositions • Soames’ Cognitive-Realist Account • Propositions are Grammatically Structured

  3. 1. Grammar is meaningful

  4. Autonomous Syntax • Syntax is • autonomous • formal (concerned with well-formedness) • ‘The question […] of what the syntactic structure (underlying or superficial) of a sentence [is] is entirely independent of the question of what its semantic structure may be.' (Radford 1981: 167) • But, according to Chomsky 2012, the generative tradition has always been concerned with aspects of meaning including compositionality and scope.

  5. What Grammar does ‘The goal of grammar is to express the association between representations of form and representations of meaning.’ (Chomsky 1981: 17) Meaning Grammar Grammar Meaning Sound Sound

  6. Generativity in Grammar Only • Grammar is the origin of discrete infinity. • Conceptual-intentional (C-I) systems are • ‘performance systems’ (Chomsky 1995: 168) • ‘purely interpretive (Chomsky 1965: 21) Very much like the articulatory-perceptual (A-P) systems. • ‘As if syntax carved the path interpretation must blindly follow.’ (Uriagereka 1999)

  7. Strict Interfaces (Roeper 2007) • Nonsense-sentences vs. word-salad: • Colourless green ideas sleep furiously. • Furiously sleep ideas green colourless • We cannot help interpreting nonsense. Only the interpretation determines that the meaning is deficient. (Mukherji 2010, Roeper p.c.)

  8. Syntax and Semantics,Language and Thought • A decision as to the boundary separating syntax and semantics (if there is one) [...] will clearly remain open until these fields are much better understood.’ (Chomsky 1965: 159) • ‘The systems of thought […] use linguistic expressions for reasoning, interpretation, organizing action, and other mental acts’ (Chomsky 2009: 19). • ‘There may be a single internal language [generated by grammar], effectively yielding the infinite array of expressions that provide a language of thought.’ (Chomsky 2009: 32)

  9. UG is Optimized for Semantics • UG is ‘optimized relative to the CI interface.’ (e.g. Chomsky 2007) • ‘Mapping to the sensorimotor interface appears to be a secondary process […]. If so, then it appears that language evolved, and is designed, primarily as an instrument of thought’ (Chomsky 2009: 28-29).

  10. Structural Meaning • ‘The syntactic component specifies an infinite set of abstract formal objects, each of which incorporates all information relevant to a single interpretation of a particular sentence.’ (Chomsky 1965: 16) • Ambiguities have to be disambiguated in syntactic structure. (Chomsky 1965: 21) • The president called the senator from Texas. (Pietroski 2005: 257)

  11. The senator is from Texas The president called the senator from Texas

  12. The call is from Texas The president called the senator from Texas

  13. The president is from Texas The president from Texas can form a constituent only if word order is changed: The president from Texas called the senator

  14. Explaining Structural Meaning • If you want to work out the syntax of an expression, you need to consider its meaning. • If you want to know why an expression can mean what it does (and cannot mean what it cannot), you need to look at its syntax. • An additional semantic layer, could just reiterate this information. • Examples of grammatical explanations of semantic phenomena: Hinzen (2007), Reichard (2012, 2013), Hinzen and Reichard (2011), Reichard and Hinzen 2012).

  15. Summing Up • GG is usually taken to draw a rigid distinction between syntax and semantics (syntax is autonomous and formal). • But much of GG seems to be concerned with meaning: • Grammar is generative, CI only do what grammar tells them. • Grammar generates a language of thought. • UG is optimized for the C-I interface. • Grammar explains certain aspects of meaning.

  16. 2. A problem For propositions

  17. Propositions are needed... • as meanings of sentences • According to the structured propositions camp, truth-conditions are not fine grained enough. • as objects of propositional attitudes • as bearers of truth and falsity • as bearers of modal properties

  18. What kinds of things are propositions? • Neo-Russellians: Propositions as structured n-tuples consisting of objects, properties and relations. • ‘Thoughts are neither things in an external world, nor are they representations. [/] A third realm must be recognized.’ (Frege 1918: 353) • Positing third-realm entities is not explanatory. (e.g. Soames 2010:107)

  19. How can propositions represent? • Benacerraf style problem (King 2007: 7): ‘There are a number of distinct n-tuples, all of which seem to be equally good candidates for being the proposition that Annie likes Carl.’

  20. Which structure is the proposition that Annie likes Carl? Annie liking Carl Carl Annie liking Liking Annie Carl

  21. The Problem • It is hard to see how ‘any formal structure of this, or any other, sort could be that proposition.’ • ‘There is nothing intrinsic to such structures that makes them representational, and so capable of being true or false.’ (Soames 2010: 31) • We could assign a meaning to these structures and make them interpretable. • But then their meaning is not intrinsic to them.

  22. Soames’ cognitive realist account

  23. Soames’ proposal:Reverse the direction of explanation • ‘Sentences, mental states and utterances are not representational because of the relation they bear to inherently representational propositions. Rather, propositions are representational because of the relations they bear to inherently representational mental states and cognitive acts of agents.’ (Soames 2010: 7)

  24. The ‘cognitive realist’ account of propositions (Soames 2010, 2010a, forthcoming) • Cognitive acts/events in which we predicate something of something else are inherently meaningful. • Propositions are types of cognitive events the instances of which are agents’ predicating something of something else. • Types are abstractions from their tokens (Soames 2010:3). • Propositions then inherit their meaning from (purportedly) inherently meaningful cognitive event-tokens. • ‘The representationality, and hence truth conditions, of the propositions are due to the representational features of these possible instances.’ (Soames: forthcoming: 9) • So, there is nothing mysterious about propositions.

  25. Recent Developments... • Soames has recently given up some of the above: what is now inherently meaningful are act-types. • Why are cognitive act-/event-types inherently meaningful? • Moltmann’s account of propositions is based on similarity-classes of products of acts.

  26. How to distinguish propositions from other cognitive act types? • Soames recognizes several different cognitive acts: predication, function application, conjunction, etc. • What makes a certain cognitive event token a predication (as opposed to a conjunction)? • Probably that it realizes a certain kind of structure. • Whether an event token is a predication depends on the type it realizes. • According to Soames, types are abstractions from tokens. • We are in a circle.

  27. A problem for Soames’ cognitive realist account of propositions ‘Mere abstractions from predications do not explain why the instances realize the predication features they do. What appears to explain that is the agents’ realization of a system that coordinates and constrains their possible predications.’ (Collins 2011: 156)

  28. How can propositions be individuated? • Predications are tokens of the same propositions iff they have the same constituents, structured in the same way. • Annie likes Carl ≠ Carl likes Annie • Why are they different propositions? • Because they have different structures. • The structure cannot be a pure abstraction, otherwise it remains unexplained why the two propositions are different propositions.

  29. In Sum • Without act-types, we cannot distinguish • propositions from non-propositions • different propositions from one another. -> Way out: Give up the doctrine that structures cannot be inherently meaningful.

  30. 4. Propositions are grammatically structured

  31. The Structure of Propositions • Proposal: Grammar structures propositions. • Propositions are the meanings of sentences, and sentences are structured grammatically. • Soames (2010: 102) on ‘propositions’ vs. ‘act-types’, which unpack as CPs (clauses) vs. gerunds. • Gaskin (2008: 15): different functions of propositions ‘guaranteed by grammar’ via the distributional properties of that-clauses. • Grammar is meaningful. • In virtue of what are grammatical structures inherently meaningful, rather than just theoretical devices for tracking facts about meaning and well-formedness? • Grammatical structures as natural objects.

  32. Grammar as an analogue to DNA ‘You can map any DNA sequence of an organism to bottles and pancakes. The question is why you should [...]. The DNA codes for the proteins it codes for, playing a particular causal role in an organismic process [...]. An LF/SEM is, equally, a particular organismic structure. [Due to structural differences, different] expressions will play a different causal role in our mental life and behaviour.’ (Hinzen 2006: 228-229)

  33. Grammar and natural laws • The relation between a grammatical structure and its meaning is not logically necessary. • It is, however, biologically necessary: it is a matter of natural law. • Grammatical structure is in this sense inherently meaningful.

  34. Conclusion I • Soames (2010): • The origin of meaning is to be found in cognition. • Propositions are cognitive-act types. • Types are abstractions from their tokens. • The problem: • Abstractions are arbitrary, depending on a theoretician. • Whether a certain act is a predication or conjunction is thus arbitrary. • But this result is not acceptable. • Question: Are there inherently meaningful types, and hence inherently meaningful structures?

  35. Conclusion II • The proposal: grammatical structures are inherently meaningful. • The grammar of sentences is closely related to propositions. • Grammar is meaningful. • Grammar can only be determined with the help of meaning. • Aspects of meaning are explained by grammatical structure. • If grammar is a natural object, the relation between grammatical form and content is secured by natural law.

  36. References Chomsky, N. 1965. Aspects of Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, Mass: M.I.T. Press. Chomsky, N. 1981. Lectures on Government and Binding. The Pisa Lectures. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter (1993). Chomsky, N. 1995. The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Chomsky, N. 2000. New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chomsky, N. 2007. Approaching UG from below. In: Interfaces + Recursion = Language? Chomsky’s Minimalism and the View from Syntax-Semantics, ed. by U. Sauerland and H.-M. Gärtner, 1-29. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Chomsky, N. 2009. Opening Remarks. In: Of Minds and Language : A Dialogue with Noam Chomsky in the Basque Country, ed. by M. Piattelli-Palmarini, J. Uriagereka and P. Salaburu, 13-43. Oxford: OUP. Chomsky, N. 2012. Problems of Projection. manuscript. Collins, J. 2011: The Unity of Lingusitic Meaning. Oxford: OUP. Fodor, J. 1998: Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong. Oxford: Clarendon. Frege, G. 1892: On Concept and Object. In: Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege, transl. by P. T. Geach ed. by P. T. Geach and M. Black, 42-55. Oxford: Basil Blackwell (1966). Frege, G. 1918: Logische Untersuchungen. Erster Teil: Der Gedanke. In: Gottlob Frege: Kleine Schriften, ed. by I. Angellelli, 342-62. Hildesheim: Georg Olms (1967). Gaskin, R. 2008. The Unity of the Proposition. Oxford: OUP. Hinzen, W. 2006: Mind Design and Minimal Syntax. New York: OUP. Hinzen, W. 2007. An Essay on Names and Truth. New York: Oxford University Press. Hinzen, W. and U. Reichard 2011. The Event-Argument Hypothesis: In Search of Evidence. Manuscript, delivered at SPE 4.

  37. King, J. 2007: The Nature and Structure of Content. Oxford: OUP. Mukherji, N. 2010: The Primacy of Grammar. Explorations in the Philosophy of Linguistics. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. Pietroski, P. M. 2005. Meaning Before Truth. In: Contextualism in Philosophy: Knowledge, Meaning, and Truth, ed. by G. Preyer and G. Peter, 255-302. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Radford, A. 1981. Transformational Syntax. Cambridge: CUP. Reichard, U. 2012. Making Events Redundant: Adnominal Modification and Phases. In: Philosophical and Formal Approaches to Linguistic Analysis, ed. by P. Stalmaszczyk, 429-75. Frankfurt a. M.: Ontos. Reichard, U. 2013. Inference and Grammar: Intersectivity, Subsectivity, and Phases. To appear in: Microvariation, Minority Languages, Minimalism and Meaning: Proceedings of the Irish Network in Formal Linguistics, ed. by A. Henry. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars. Reichard, U. and W. Hinzen 2012. Grammar and Ontology: What is the Connection? Delivered at SPE 5. Roeper, T. 2007. The Prism of Grammar: How ChildlanguageIlluminates Humanism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Soames, S. 2010: What is Meaning? Princeton: Princeton University Press. Soames, S. 2010a: Philosophy of Language. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Soames, S. forthcoming: Propositions as Cognitive Event Types. In: New Thinking about Propositions, ed. by J. C. King, S. Soames and J. Speaks. Oxford: OUP. Uriagereka, J. 1999. Multible Spell-Out. In: Working Minimalism, ed. by N. Hornstein and S. D. Epstein, 251-82. Cambridge: CUP.

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