meaning in linguistic interaction respon

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American Philosophical Association Pacific Division, San Francisco, 30 March 2016

Book Symposium

Kasia M. Jaszczolt. 2016. Meaning in Linguistic Interaction:Semantics, Metasemantics, Philosophy of Language. Oxford:

Oxford University Press.

Response to Critics

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! How much does pragmatics (pragmatic inference, defaultinterpretations) contribute to the semantic representation?

! Can semantic representations be cognitively real and

compositional at the same time?

! Default Semantics (Jaszczolt 2005, 2010, 2016)

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JA: ‘She and her generation have been the beneficiaries!

of well-articulated Gricean, neo-Gricean and post-Gricean

views.’

• the Atlas-Kempson thesis

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K.M. Jaszczolt. 2005. Default Semantics: Foundations of a CompositionalTheory of Acts of Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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K. M. Jaszczolt. 2010. ‘Default Semantics’. In: B. Heine and H. Narrog

(eds). The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Analysis. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press. 215-246.

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K. M. Jaszczolt. 2016. Meaning in Linguistic Interaction: Semantics,Metasemantics, Philosophy of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Part I: Why primary meanings?

Part II: Compositionality in Default Semantics

Part III: The role of derivation in Default Semantics

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Part I: Primary meanings

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Assumptions

• The output of syntactic processing often leaves themeaning underdetermined.

• The object of study of a theory of meaning is a

pragmatically modified representation.

• There is no syntactic constraint on the object of study.

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Primary meaning

(1) A: Shall we meet tomorrow?

B: I’m in London.

(1a) B is in London at the time of speaking.

(1b) B will be in London the following day.

(1c) B can’t meet A the following day.

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Primary meaning

Primary meaning is the most salient meaning intended by the

Model Speaker and recovered by the Model Addressee. It need

not obey the syntactic constraint (pertain to LF or enriched LF).

Default Semantics rejects the post-Gricean ‘imbricated picture

of meaning’ (Parikh 2010: 5) but preserves the core Gricean

assumptions concerning the provenance and type of meaningthat constitutes the object of analysis: intended, recovered,based on general principles of rationality, formalizable, truth-

conditional.

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Comparison with Equilibrium Semantics (ES)

DS agrees with ES on the uniform treatment of explicit andimplicit meaning (Parikh 2010: 162)

In DS, the primary/secondary distinction cuts across the said/

implicit divide

– even on the contextualist construal of what is said as

allowing for enrichment.

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Why primary meanings?

1. There is no evidence that enriched logical forms arecognitively plausible candidates for what it said.

2. Enriched logical forms sit half-way between the semantic

representations adopted by minimalists (the output ofsyntactic processing) and cognitively real primary

communicated content that can correspond to (i) the bare

logical form, (ii) enriched logical form, or (iii) override sucha syntactic constraint altogether.

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Comparison with ES

Gricean pipeline picture: ‘semantics first yields anunderspecified, context-free, and conventional content that is

subsequently filled in contextually by pragmatics.’

‘In stark contrast, in [ES] the context of utterance drills down

into the lowest lexical levels of sentences, making even so-called literal content thoroughly situated’ (p. 123)

! On this portrayal, Default Semantics (DS) is a non-pipelinepost-Gricean account and as such shares some assumptions

concerning the interaction of aspects of information with ES.

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Comparison with ES

‘The basic idea of [ES] ! is that each part of a symbolsystem has a certain semantic ! value that interacts with the

semantic ... values of all the other parts so that they are all

jointly in balance’ (Parikh 2010: 301)

! Analogous assumptions can be adopted in a Gricean

framework, with the added advantage of psychologicalexplanations and psychological plausibility (discussed

later). Cf. lateral influences in:

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(2) ‘The city is asleep.’ (from Recanati 2012)

x (City (x) # $y (City (y) % y = x) # Asleep(x))

(i) enrichment: ‘the city we are looking at’

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(ii)

resolving referential or attributive reading on the level of

semantics

Asleep (l )

l = London

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(iii) resolving metaphors on the level of semantics:

Quiet (l )

or:

$x (Inhabitant-of-l (x) % Asleep(x))

or:

!

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Comparison with ES

In DS, content is intended by the MS and recoveredby the MA in a situation. As such, it is the same for

the speaker and the addressee.

DS assumes intentions but calculates meaning fromthe processes pertaining to different sources. In this

sense, DS agrees with ES that ‘intentions are

invisible to the addressees’; they are not used in the

derivation.

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The role of the cancellability test

Grice (1989: 44): a putative conversational implicature can becancelled in two ways:

1. It is explicitly cancellable when it is possible to add tothe utterance implicating p, ‘but not p’ or ‘I don’t mean

to imply that p’.

2. It is contextually cancellable if there are imaginable

situations in which such a potential implicature would

not arise.

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! Contextual cancellation pertains to implicatures which are

only, so to speak, ‘potential for the sentence’, while explicit

cancellation pertains to implicatures which are in addition‘potential for the given situation of discourse’ the utterance

implicating p, ‘but not p’ or ‘I don’t mean to imply that p’.

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Parikh (2010: 166): ‘!cancelability and reinforceability !

apply to all meanings but only in the presence of ambiguity’

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(3) A: Was the performance good?

B: Some people applauded.

PM: The recital was not very good. (implicit and primarymeaning; not normally cancellable on hearing B’s answer to

A’s question)

SM: Some but not all people applauded. (explicit and

secondary meaning; quite entrenched because PM goesthrough)

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Attempted cancellation: Some (>> but not all) peopleapplauded.

?(3a) But this does not mean the performance wasn't good;

most people left in a hurry to catch the last train.

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JA: ‘Bob doesn’t LIKE garlic but he doesn’t dislike it.’

DS – no cancellation, merely precisification.

•

intonation

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Part II: Compositionality in Default Semantics

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Merger Representations

•

Semantic representations of primary meanings are calledmerger representations (!).

• Merger representations have the status of mental

representations (cf. DRT).

•

They have a compositional structure.

• The outputs of sources of information about meaning merge

and all the outputs are treated on an equal footing.

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Compositionality is a methodological principle

‘!it is always possible to satisfy compositionality by simplyadjusting the syntactic and/or semantic tools one uses,

unless that is, the latter are constrained on independent

grounds.’

Groenendijk and Stokhof (1991: 93)

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Compositionality as an empirical assumption

Compositionality should be an empirical assumption about

the nature of possible human languages.

Szabó (2000)

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Lexicon/grammar/pragmatics trade-offs

What is expressed in the lexicon in one language may beexpressed by grammar in another.

What is expressed overtly in one language may be left to

pragmatic inference or default interpretation in another.

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Conditionals: An example of trade-offs

(4) The dog might bark. The postman might run away.

(3)

Guugu Yimithirr (Australian, QNL): no overt conditionals

from Evans & Levinson (2009: 443)

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Temporality in Thai: An example of trade-offs

(5) m3ae:r 3i:I kh2ian n3iy3ai:

Mary write novel


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(a) Mary wrote a novel.

(b) Mary was writing a novel.

(c) Mary started writing a novel but did not finish it.

(d) Mary has written a novel.

(e) Mary has been writing a novel.

(f) Mary writes novels. / Mary is a novelist.

(g) Mary is writing a novel.

(h) Mary will write a novel.

(i) Mary will be writing a novel. from Srioutai (2006: 45)


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Amharic: context shifting

(6) wänd"mme käne gar albälamm alä

my-brother “with-me I-will-not-eat”, he-said

My brother refused to eat with me.

(from Leslau 1995: 778)

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What is encoded in the grammar of Amharic, Englishexternalises by a conceptual shift to the context of

the current speech act (pragmatic process), optingfor the speaker’s perspective rather than the

perspective that belongs to the subject of the activity

or state in question.

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• Compositionality is a semantic universal

• Gricean principles of inference are a pragmatic

universal.

from von Fintel and Matthewson (2009)

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A universal:generative power of semantics/pragmatics(conceptual structure)

Not a universal:generative power of syntax

cf. no constituent structure as the organizing principle of

sentence structure (Warlpiri; Latin, Slavonic languages); norecursion (Pirahã)

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Compositional merger representations

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Sources of information for & in DS

(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)

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(iv) properties of the human inferential system IS

(6) The author of The Catcher in the Rye was a genius.

" referential reading, from strong intentionality:

(6a) J. D. Salinger was a genius.

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world knowledge (WK)

word meaning and sentence structure (WS)

situation of discourse (SD)

stereotypes and presumptions properties of human inferential system (IS)about society and culture (SC)

Fig. 1: Sources of information contributing to a merger representation !

merger representation !

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sources of information types of processes

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Mapping between sources and processes

WK " SCWD or CPI

SC " SCWD or CPI

WS"

WS (logical form)SD " CPI

IS " CD

DS makes use of the processing model and it indexes the componentsof & with a subscript standing for the type of processing.

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Primary meaning:

combination of word meaning

and sentence structure (WS)

conscious pragmatic inference pm

(from situation of discourse, social and

social, cultural and cognitive defaults (CD) cultural assumptions, and world

world-knowledge defaults pm (SCWD pm) knowledge) (CPI pm)

Fig. 2: Utterance interpretation according to the processing model of the revisedversion of Default Semantics

merger representation !

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Sources of meaning and salience

DS distinguishes default interpretations/meanings and

inferential interpretations/meanings where ‘default’ is

predicated of units of all levels of analysis at all stages of

derivation.

vs. Giora 2003, Giora et al 2015:

Default interpretations – automatic responses to a stimulus

Default meanings – salient meanings, ranked high in themental lexicon (graded salience)

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Primary meaning and systematicity:

an example form first-person indexicals

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Fig 3: # for ‘I believed in a sense I was making a mess ’


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Fig. 3: # for I believed, in a sense, I was making a mess.

(marked reading)

x y !!

[Kasia]CD (x)

[Kasia]CPI (y)

[y=x]WS

[[x]CD [believe]CPI!!]WS

!!: [[y]CPI is making a mess]WS

!

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The role of derivation in semantic theory

PP: ‘when there are multiple derivational processes availablesuch as unconscious default reasoning or language

processing or conscious pragmatic reasoning, then a meta-

level decision is required for which path to take in different

circumstances.’

‘finding appropriate meaning representations’ vs. ‘deriving

intended and optimal meanings through use’ (Parikh 2010)

Default Semantics: finding and modelling the output of one

derivation process pertaining to the main intended (MS) andrecovered (MA) meaning (Gricean)

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Derivation

‘the most interesting part of the book’ (Parikh 2016) or anecessary preamble to merger representations establishing

the ‘fluid characters’ on which the identified processesoperate?

"

‘preemptive normative stance’

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Instead of computing meanings by assessing all feasible

interpretations, DS predicts that algorithms can be built as aresult of researching patterns of neuronal activation that result

from speech-related actions (Pulvermüller 2010, 2012).

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The role of rational agency

Whose meaning?

Model Speaker – Model Addressee

" the question of psychologism

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JA: ‘Default Semantics, though psycholinguistically motivated

! is not a psycho-linguistic model.’

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Psychologism in semantic theory

?

Should psychological explanations be present indefinitions of truth-conditional content/primary

meaning?


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Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Frege1884: 90):

‘[t]here must be a sharp separation of the psychologicalfrom the logical, the subjective from the objective’

Grundgesetze der Arithmetik (Frege1893: 202):

‘being true is quite different from being held as true’

‘corrupting intrusion’ [of psychology on logic]


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Areas in which (moderate) psychologism is necessary

[1] The selection of the perspective to be adopted:that of the speaker, the addressee, or a ModelSpeaker – Model Addressee interaction;

[2] The unit on which pragmatic inference or defaultenrichment operate;

[3] The definition and delimitation of automatic(default) interpretations vis-à-vis conscious

pragmatic inference;

[4] The stance on the syntactic constraint (primarymeaning)

P h l i i [2]


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Psychologism in [2]:

Atlas (2006): against ‘armchair psychologising’ and

in favour of ‘empirical psychology of sentence-processing’.

But: ‘psychologising’ must appear before empirical

studies in order to identify the unit for experimental

testing (viz. fluid characters: ‘Ian’s book!’.)

[3] A t ti d f lt i t t ti


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[3] Automatic default interpretationsvs. conscious pragmatic inference

(9) Leonardo’s painting was stolen from Czartoryskis’Museum in Kraków.

(10) Larry’s book is a thrilling account of negation.

(11) bread/kitchen/steel knife

" DS does not concern itself with miscommunication

(12)


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(12)

A: So, is this your first film?B: No, it’s my twenty second.

A: Any favourites among the twenty two?

B: Working with Leonardo.

A: da Vinci?

B: DiCaprio.

A: Of course. And is he your favourite Italian director?

Richard Curtiss, Notting Hill ,1999

[4] Th t th t ti t i t


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[4] The stance on the syntactic constraint

Should primary meaning obey the syntacticconstraint?

Limiting pragmatic contributions to enrichment ofthe logical form is not independently justified orpsychologically plausible.


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(13) I haven’t eaten.

(13a) I haven’t eaten lunch yet.

(13b) I am hungry.

Psychologism in [4]: !

N ti d PM


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Negation and PM

(14)

A: You should have chosen garlic for the crest.

B: I don’t like garlic.

PM: I don’t [particularly] like garlic.

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(15)

A: Why aren’t you eating?

B: I don’t like garlic.

PM: I hate garlic.

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‘devastation caused by the irruption of


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y p

psychology into [pragmatics]’ (Frege 1894: 209)

•

Primary meaning, default interpretation, pragmaticinference, fluid character, MS/MA perspective, all

require psychologism in DS;

•

These are decisions within the psychology of

processing rather than as to whether to admit

psychologism into pragmatic theory. E. g. S, A, MS/

MA perspectives are all ‘contaminated’, albeit todifferent degrees.

Default Semantics: Future prospects


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Default Semantics: Future prospects

PP: ‘!noting only that the evidence fromcontextualism or maximalism is overwhelming and

that a formal approach is desirable as far as one ispossible, the only viable option in my view is what

the author attempts.’

‘!but the task is formidable’

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ReferencesReferences


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Clarendon Press.

Atlas, J. D. 2006. ‘Remarks on F. Recanati’s Literal Meaning’ . Ms.

Evans, N. and S. C. Levinson. 2009. ‘The myth of language universals: Language

diversity and its importance for cognitive science’. Behavioral and BrainSciences 32. 429-492.

von Fintel, K. and L. Matthewson. 2008. ‘Universals in semantics’. The Linguistic

Review 25. 139-201.

Frege, G. 1884. Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik, eine logisch mathematischeUntersuchung über den Begriff der Zahl . Introduction. Breslau: W. Koebner. Transl.by M. Beaney in: M. Beaney (ed.). 1997. The Frege Reader . Oxford: Blackwell.84-91.

Frege, G. 1893. Grundgesetze der Arithmetik. Vol. 1. Preface. Jena: H. Pohle. Transl.by M. Beaney in: M. Beaney (ed.). 1997. The Frege Reader . Oxford: Blackwell.194-208.

Frege, G. 1894. Review of E. G. Husserl, Philosophie der Arithmetik I (Philosophy of Arithmetic I ). Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik 103. Transl. by H.Kaal in: G. Frege. 1984. Collected Papers on Mathematics, Logic, and Philosophy

ed. by B. McGuinness. Oxford: Blackwell. 195-209.

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Philosophy 14. 39-100.

Jaszczolt, K. M. 2005. Default Semantics: Foundations of a Compositional Theory

of Acts of Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Jaszczolt, K. M. 2008. ‘Psychological explanations in Gricean pragmatics: An

argument from cultural common ground ’. In: I. Kecskes and J. Mey (eds).Intentions, Common Ground, and Egocentric Speaker-Hearer . Berlin:

Mouton de Gruyter. 9-44.

Jaszczolt, K. M. 2009a. ‘Cancellability and the primary/secondary meaning

distinction’. Intercultural Pragmatics 6. 259-289.

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Jaszczolt, K. M. 2009b. Representing Time: An Essay on Temporality as Modality .Oxford: Oxford University Press.


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Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.215-246.

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processing’. In: K. M. Jaszczolt and K. Allan (eds). Salience and Defaultsin Utterance Processing . Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. 11-33.

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fluid characters’. Australian Journal of Linguistics 32. 209-237.

Jaszczolt, K. M. 2013. ‘Contextualism and minimalism on de se belief ascription’.

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Epistemology, Metaphysics. Stanford: CSLI Publications. 69-103.

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Pulvermüller, F. 2010. ‘Brain-language research: Where is the progress?’.Biolinguistics 4. 255-88.

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ReferencesPulvermüller, F. 2012. ‘Meaning and the brain: The neurosemantics of referential,

interactive, and combinatorial knowledge’. Journal of Neurolinguistics 25.


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Recanati, F. 2012. ‘Compositionality, flexibility, and context dependence’. In: M.Werning, W. Hinzen and E. Machery (eds). The Oxford Handbook of

Compositionality . Oxford: Oxford University Press. 175-191.

Srioutai, J. 2006. Time Conceptualization in Thai with Special Reference to d 1ay 1II ,

kh3oe:y, k 1aml 3ang, y 3u:I and c 1a. PhD thesis. University of Cambridge.

Szabò, Z. G. 2000. ‘Compositionality as supervenience’. Linguistics and

Philosophy 23. 475-505.

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