Fodor and Lepore on Meaning Similarity and Compositionality Barbara Abbott The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 97, No. 8. (Aug., 2000), pp. 454-455. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-362X%28200008%2997%3A8%3C454%3AFALOMS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2 The Journal of Philosophy is currently published by Journal of Philosophy, Inc..
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454
T H E ,JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
COMMENTS AND CRITICISM
FODOR AND LEPORE ON MEANING SIMILARITY AND
COMPOSITIONALITY*
I
n "All at Sea in Semantic Space: Churchland on Meaning Similarity,"Jerry Fodor and Ernie Lepore' argue against the utility of a notion of meaning similarity as a replacement for meaning identity in theories of semantics. They argue that meaning similarity fails with respect to four desiderata, one of which is compositionality. This argument is not valid. Compositionality is the determination of the meanings of conlplex expressions by the meanings of their constituent parts (plus the way those parts are combined syntactically). Thus, the meaning of 'brown dog' is determined (in part) by the meanings of 'brown' and 'dog'. Fodor and Lepore point out that compositionality depends on the context independence of constituent meanings-for example, the fact that "'brown' means the same in the environment '-dog' that it does in the environment '-cat' ..." (386). Context independence is schematized in their principle (S2): S2. If rn is part of the meaning of 'a' and 'a' is a constituent of 'b', then rn is part of the meaning of 'b' (386).
Substitutil~gthe notion of meaning similarity, Fodor and Lepore derive (S3): S3. If rn is similar to part of the meaning of 'a' and 'a' is a constituent of 'b', then m is similar to part of' the meaning of 'b' (387).
Fodor and Lepore's argument that meaning similarity is not compositional is based on an attempt to show that (S3) is false. To do this, they give the following example: So, presumably, the meaning of 'cat' is similar to part of the meaning of 'The leopard is on the mat' (cats and leopards are both felines) and part of the meaning of 'The leopard is on the mat' is similar to part of the meaning of 'The explosion caused a lot of' damage' (leopards and explosions are both dangerous). But the meaning of 'cat' is not similar to any part of the meaning of 'The explosion caused a lot of damage'
(ibid).
*I am grateful to Rich Hall and Larry Hauser for their comments on a draft of this note. This JOUKNAL, XCVI, 8 (August 1999): 381-403.
0022-362X/O0/9708/454-55
O 2000 The Journal of Philosophy, Inc.
COMMENTS AND CRITICISM
455
But this example is not an instantiation of (S3). If we let m in (S3) be the meaning of 'cat', and 'a'be 'The leopard is on the mat', and 'b' be 'The explosion caused a lot of damage', then 'a'is not a constituent of '6'. There does not seem to be any other way to make the example instantiate (S3) either. In fact, principle (S3) appears to be true for compositional expressions. If (S3) were not true, then there could be a meaning m which was similar to part of the meaning of an expression 'a', but not similar to any part of the meaning of an expression 'b' of which 'a'is a constituent. Let n be the meaning part of 'a' to which m is similar. If 'a'is a constituent of 'b' and 'b' is compositional, then, by principle (S2), n must be part of the meaning of 'b'. But there is no reason to suppose that m would no longer be similar to n. The fact that principle (S3) holds for coinpositional expressions does not mean that meaning similarity is an appropriate notion on which to base a compositional semantics. Fodor and Lepore may still be right that it is not. One way to show that might be to show that (S3) is true for expressions whose meanings are intuitively not compositional. If that were the case, and if (S2) would not have been true for those expressions, that would indicate that (S3) is not a satisfactory replacement for (S2). Consider the fact that many people who are correctly describable as having red hair actually have hair that is orange colored. 'Red', in 'red hair', means something similar but not identical to what it means elsewhere. Intuitively, the phrase 'red hair' is not completely compositional. Someone could know what 'red' means and know what 'hair' means, and still be surprised on first learning to what the phrase 'red hair' applies. The failure to predict meanings of combinations is the essence of idiomaticity (the lack of compositionality), and (S3) fails to rule it out. On the other hand, some people may not find this argument against meaning similarity convincing. Compositionality is generally supposed to be the explanation for our ability to produce and understand novel utterances. It could be argued, however, that there is more idiomaticity in natural language than Fodor and Lepore believe to be the case. Possibly words commonly fail to be context independent (in Fodor and Lepore's sense), and we do a lot more guessing at the meanings of complex expressions than we do combining the unmodified meanings of the constituents. That issue goes beyond the scope of this note. BARR.4FL4 ABBOTT
Michigan State Uni\~ersity
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All at Sea in Semantic Space: Churchland on Meaning Similarity Jerry Fodor; Ernie Lepore The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 96, No. 8. (Aug., 1999), pp. 381-403. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-362X%28199908%2996%3A8%3C381%3AAASISS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-K
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