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TRUTH, INTERPRETATION AND IN· FORMATION Selected Papers of the 3rd Amsterdam
THE
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OF ASPECT AND AKTIONSARTEN
Jeroen Groenendljk, Theo M V. Janssen and Mar208pp lin Stokhof ad ( s.)
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A study of Internal lime reference In Swe
Chnster Platzack
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This book s I the first exhaustive theoret1cal study
of aspect and aktionsart wntten within the frame
pretation, and Information,which play a key role m current lmgulstlc and philosophical theories of
work of the
course representation structures. semantics of
study, It should be of mterest not onlyto students
language semant1cs.pronouns and anaphora. se mantics of plurals,and n I formational paradoxes.
cially
natural language semantics. Topics Include dis
conditionals, the boolean structure and natural
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Interested In
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\. lo C:I5Cio. profc::�r of Italian UnguiSt K .., :11 lhe l'niwr.>il) of Am:.terdam, present'> here a new ed1tion and an anal)sis of a X\1 lth centul)· e.•.sa> wh1ch has remamt>tl unknown O\er the ccnturic::s but which t"<Jntains linguistiC and cpi�temologic idea.., of gr<.>at value for the h1storr of lingUistic thoughr
P 13esnicr( 1648-170S ). ltnguist, suggests in hi.� Reumon des umgu(!S a S)'l!tem for learnmg fore ago languages through thctrcompario;on and addrc&.csba-;ic fan guistk problems �uch �the reJauon between languaf(e and culture, and the role of the metaphor S):.tem
Laun)
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foretgn languages. These rules have a rational nature but are c.xplam�'<.l and JU.'-ll· fled by the htstorr and the nature of a people In thL� \Va} Besnt<:r ts suggt"Stinga workmg h}polhCSJS \'.hach, accordang to ham, can be fulstOed but which can be very useful In whJCh way ha.-. �mer's work msptred or antlclpat�d 1he theories of lcibnV.. CondiUac, Harris. Vico, \'On HumlxJidt' Arc hts compar.tUH' 1deas modern and aCl:eptablc' ::\ Chomr.J.1 in hi� book Cartt�taul.lngmstic;..\ would prObabl�· have put this linguist from the �cnteenth t:entUI) among tho!--(? who haw propo:,ed "generauve" thecme. but haYe
also
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This booklet, presenting the text of a speech by Prof. Uhlenbeck, marked an Important polnt In the history of Indonesian Studies at Lelden. Wlth this talk he said farewell, factually If not formally, as professor of Javanese at Lelden- a function he fulfilled for
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Is the only existing
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Aantekenlngen blj Tjan Tjoe Slem's vertallng van de Lakon Kurupatl Rabl (VKI 29) 75 pp.
H.H Juynboll ln 1906. Because of Its relative Sim plicity, It
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A SUBGROUPING OF NINE PHILIPPINE STUDIES IN JAVANESE MORPHOLOGY E.M. Uhlenbeck
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LANGUAGES 140 pp
Teodoro A. Llamzon
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JOW7Ial o[SfflUlntics 3: 201-2 2 7
ACCESSIBILITY OF DELETION IN DUTCH1
ROBERT R. VAN OIRSOUW
ABSTRACI'
"Delete under identity in coordinated structures" 1his rule does not use structural infonnation; it refers neither to "deep" nor "surface" structure, but only to the linear order of constituents. The rule is subject to one primary constraint: a deletion target site must be accessible according to at least one of three criteria: it must be right peripheral to its clause, left-peripheral to it, or have a verb in it. An ac count is then given of what happens if a deletion target site is accessible according to more than one criterion. With these rules, it is possible to account for bidirectional deletions in Dutch subordinate SVO clauses, and unacceptable deletions such as •svoand sv•, VSOand VO, in Dutch
1. THE DEMARCATION PROBLEM
Consider the rules of Gapping, Right-node Raising, and Coordinate Re duction in Dutch. Gapping deletes verbs, Coordinate Reduction deletes leftmost material, and Right-node Raising deletes rightmost nodes1 under identity3 in coordinated structures. Examples of the effect of these rules are, respectively:
{1)
Jan at rijst en Pieti,Jvis Jan ate rice and Piet() ftsh
(2)
Jan kookt aardappels en f) bakt Jan boils potatoes and() fries
biefstuk4 steak
Downloaded from jos.oxfordjournals.org by guest on January 1, 2011
In this paper, I argue that the rules of Gapping, Right-node Raising, and Coordination Reduction in Dutch should be collapsed into one general rule which deletes material under identity in coordinated structures; a rule which says:
202 (3)
Jan slaat f) en Marie schopt de hond Jan hits fJ and Marie kicks the dog
Consider now the following sentences, all of which are examples of ac ceptable Dutch main clause coordinate deletions:
(4)
Jan koopt bloemen voor Marie, en Piet f) f) voor Susan Jan buys flowers for Marie, and Piet f) f) for Susan
(5)
Vaak
(6)
Jan geeft f) f) en Piet verkoopt een hoek aan Marie a book to Marie Jan gives fJ �and Piet sells
eet ik vlees en fJ f) Piet vis Often eat I meat and �� Piet fish
(7)
Jan eet Jan eats a. •Jan eet b. Jan eet
rijst en Jan eet vis rice and Jan eats fish rijst en Jan f) vis rijst en rJ CJ fish
(8)
Jan eet Jan eats a. •Jan eet b. Jan en f)
rijst en Piet eet rijst rice and Piet eats rice rijst en Piet � rijst fJ eten rijst
From the unacceptable reductions (7/8a) it is clear that, if a deletion target meets the conditions for both Gapping and Coordination Re duction, Gapping cannot apply. From sentence (8a) it will be clear that if a deletion target meets the conditions for both Gapping and Right-node Raising, Gapping may not apply on its own. The same can be observed for
Downloaded from jos.oxfordjournals.org by guest on January 1, 2011
From these examples it will be clear that Coordinate Reduction, Gapping, and Right-node Raising share at least one characteristic: they can delete both single constituents, and strings of constituents.5 Another characteristic which these rules share is that they are the only rules that can effect reduction of the length of a coordinated structure, and that they are restricted to coordinated structures.6 A question which arises when rules show similarities like the ones ob served above, is whether they are independent rules. If these rules, which operate under such highly similar circumstances, are truly independent, one expects to be able to apply the one without applying the other, and vice versa, in contexts where more than one can be applied. This turns out not to be the case; consider the following sentences:
203 (9); here we have the same type of deletion target as in (7) and (8), namely verb + noun, and again we fmd that the verb cannot be deleted without the noun also being deleted: (9)
Van drinken krijg je koppijn en van roken krijg je smoking gives you Drinking gives you headaches and kanker cancer a. •van drinken krijg je koppijn en van roken � je kanker b. Van drink en krijg je koppijn en van roken ()f) kanker
''DELETE UNDER IDENTITY IN COORDINATION"
2. THE STRUCTIJRE QUESTION
The unitary rule of deletion under identity in coordination is subject to constraints - deletion of the identical object is unacceptable, for instance, in a sentence like: (10)
lk geloof
dat Jan de hond schopt en Marie de hond I believe that Jan the dog kicks and Marie the dog slaat hits a. •Ik geloof dat Jan de hond schopt en Marie () slaat
The infonnation needed to state these constraints is of a specific nature: assuming that deletion under identity is an optional surface structure process, 7 it does not refer to underlying structural information such as ''semantic I underlying subject or• or ''semantic I underlying object or'. A clear illustration of this is Dougherty's (1970: 853) sentence:
''Mary was fun to tease, easy to please, and known to have fleas"
Downloaded from jos.oxfordjournals.org by guest on January 1, 2011
From sentences (7J) a-b) we can see that Gapping, CR and RNR do not operate independently, and from (9a-b) we see that the problem we ob served for the interaction between Gapping and CR, and Gapping and RNR also emerges in sentences to which one can only apply Gapping: partial deletions are subject to strong restrictions. Given this, given the similarity of the circumstances under which the rules apply, and also given the fact that none of the cases of deletion under identity in coor dination result in ung rarnmaticality if all identical material is deleted, it is more profitable to pursue an approach in which these three rules are collapsed into one; this rule says:
204 The deletion target Mary, which is surface subject, is deleted by surface subject, and no reference needs
to
CR as
be made to the underlying
functions of Mary. For Dutch, we can go even further: not only is in formation about
underlying
structure of deletion targets ignored by the
surface structure information illustrate this. First of all , it will
coordinate deletion rule, but
is ignored as
well by this rule. Let me
be clear that
notions of ''undulying subject" and "underlying object" play no role in
(12), the underlying subject is deleted under (13) the underlying object is deleted under identity:
coordinate deletion: in identity, while in
(12)
f/J
liep
f/J
walked
up and
Jan stond op en Jan got
up and
f/J f/J
naar buiten out
werd buiten gelaten was
out
shown
Now consider such universally established surface syntactic functions, functions which can be fulfilled by the same syntactic categories ''subject of'' and "object of'', in coordinate deletion. In a sentence like
(14),
the
subject is deleted forward 8, i.e. the subsequent occurrence of the identical subject is deleted. In
(15)
the deletion of the direct object has operated
forward: the antecedent occurrence of the object has been deleted.
(14)
Men kookt aardappels en One boils
(15)
potatoes
and
� bakt f/J fries
J:m kookt
f/J, en
Jan boils
�.and Marie fries
Marie bakt
biefstuk steak
aardappels potatoes
In Dutch, one can front constituents for stylistic purposes. Given that Dutch is a verb-second language for main clauses, fronting of the objects
(15) will give OVS word order. In this case, we fmd that subsequent occurrence of the subject is no longer possible: only the antecedent occurrence can be deleted. likewise, the antecedent occurrence of the direct object in (15) can no longer be deleted: only the subsequent occurrence may vanish. Subjects and objects have changed in
(14)
and
deletion of the
r6les for coordinate deletion; nevertheless, for other processes employing surface structural information of the type "subject of'', such as subject verb agreement, the subject - and object roles remain unchanged. The verbs agree with their surface subjects, irrespective of whether the sub jects precede or follow the verbs in question.
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(13)
Jan stond op en Jan got
205 (14)
a. • Aardappels kookt men en biefstuk bakt f) b. Aardappels kookt � en biefstuk bakt men
(15)
a. Aardappels kookt Jan en f) bakt Marie b. ·� kookt Jan en aardappels bakt Marie
(16)
Jan eet en � drinkt Jan eats and f/J drinks a. Eat f) en drinkt Jan? b. *Eet Jan en drinkt?
In a subject+verb+object sentence, we find that if inversion of subject+ verb has not taken place, identical subsequent subject deletion is possible, while if inversion has taken place, deletion is not possible; neither for the antecedent, nor for the subsequent occurrence. (17)
Jan eet kaas en f) drinkt bier Jan eats cheese and � drinks beer a. *Eet Jan kaas en drinkt � bier? b. *Eet f) kaas en drinkt Jan bier?
A last piece of evidence: in a coordination which has subject, verb, object, and adverb, e.g.: (18)
De toeristen bekeken de tulpen in Lisse en � aten een broodje in Delft The tourists looked at the tulips in lisse and f) ate a roll in Delft
We can front the place adverbials, which, given the Dutch verb-second rule, will put the subject in third position in the sentence, and in this case, both subsequent and antecedent deletions are impossible. (18)
a. *In lisse bekeken de toeristen de tulpen en in Delft aten � een broodje b. *In lisse bekeken f) de tulpen en in Delft aten de toeristen een broodje
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There is more evidence to suggest that such structural notions as "surface subject of' or "surface object of' are ignored by the coordinate deletion rule: in Dutch, questions are formed through inversion of subject and verb. In a verb-h>ubject sentence, we fmd that if inversion has taken place, the antecedent occurrence of an identical subject is deleted, while in the non inverted case, the subject occurrence is deleted:
206
From the above example it will be clear that such structurally defined notions as subject and object are less relevant to determining directionality and g rammaticality of coordinate deletion than the left-to-right position that constituents which fulfill the surface functions of subject and object occupy in the sentence. In the rest of this paper, I shall use linear order Oeft-to-right or right-to-left) of constituents to define constraints on coordinate deletions, and not take the structural relations that obtain between constituents9 into account.
3 . THE DATA: BIDIRECTIONALITY AND ACCESSIBILITY
(19)
Marie bakt � Marie fries � a. • Ik geloof dat I think that
en Hans kookt aardappels and Hans boils potatoes Marie () bakt en Hans aardappels kookt Marie f/J fries and Hans potatoes boils
It is likewise perfectly acceptable to delete identical subjects, unless these identical subjects are in second or third position in the clause as a result of the verb-second rule, or inversion in questions: (20)
Jan eet een hamburger en drinkt een biertje Jan eats a hamburger and () drinks a beer a. •Eet Jan een hamburger en drinkt f) een biertje? b. •vandaag eet Jan een hamburger en morgen drinkt biertje
Another case of an unacceptable deletion a direct object, as in: (21)
is an
f/J een
indirect object followed by
• Jan gaf () een hoek en Piet verkocht het meisje in de rode trui een plaat the girl in the Jan gave f/J a book and Piet sold red sweater a record
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The syntax of coordinate deletions in Dutch faces two main problems: bid irectionality and acceSSibility. Let us start with the latter. In the preceding two sections, we have already observed a number of cases in which deletion of a constituent under identity led to ungram rnaticality. It is impossible in Dutch subordinate clauses, which have SOV word order, to delete identical objects: whereas deletion of the identical object is perfectly acceptable in the main clause coordination (19), it is perfectly unacceptable in the subordinate clause coordination (19a):
207 The subjects and objects in these sentences are somehow ''inaccessible" to deletion: deletion in cases of the type cited above always results in un grammaticality. Now to bidirectionality. There are constraints on whether the sub sequent or the antecedent occurrence of identical material is deleted: Ross (1970) calls this directionality of deletion. Directionality is at first sight a daunting problem: sometimes constituents are deleted only for wards, sometimes they delete only backwards, and sometimes both are possible. Sentence-initial NP's delete forwards, as do adverbs adjacent to these; for example: Jan koopt wijn voor Piet en �f) bloemen voor Susan Jan buys wine for Piet and � f) flowers for Susan
Sentence-final NP's delete backwards, NP's or verbs:
as
do their immediately adjacent
(23)
Jan geeft f) f/J en Piet verkoopt een boek aan Marie Jan gives C) f) and Piet sells a book to Marie
(24)
Mannen f) f/J en vrouwen gebruiken make up Men f/J � and women use make-up
Medial verbs delete forwards, as do their right-adjacent NP'.s, unless the medial verb is right-adjacent to a sentence-initial NP (see 22) or left adjacent to a sentence-fmal NP (see 24): (25)
Jan eet rijst en Wim f) vis Jan eats rice and Wim � fish
(26)
Van drinken krijg je koppijn en van roken f/J C) kanker Drinking give you headaches and smoking 0 0 cancer
Final verbs delete backwards in main clauses10: {27)
Kleine kinderen 0 0 � en stoute kinderen moeten gaan slapen Small children 0 '/J f/J and naughty children must go sleep
Final verbs delete either forwards or backwards as do their left-adjacent NP's, unless there is only one constituent remnant after deletion, in which case deletion may operate only backwards:
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{22)
208
a.
Ik geloof dat Jan kaas eet, en Piet vlees � I believe that Jan cheese eats, and Piet meat f) Ik geloof dat Jan kaas ()en Piet vlees eet
a.
Ik geloof dat Jan Marie een boek geeft, en Klaas Susan f) f) I believe that Jan Marie a book gives, and Klaas Susan �() Ik geloof dat Jan Marie � �.en Klaas Susan een boek geeft
(28)
(29)
(30)
These ten types of gr ammatical and ungrammatical deletions under identity what will concern us in the next paragraph.
are
4. E STABUSHING ACCESSIBiliTY AND DIRECTIONALITY
If one examines the example sentences that have featured in the dis cussion in the previous paragraphs, there are two things that strike one. The first is that no unacceptable deletion involves deletion from the rightmost or leftmost periphery of a coordinated clause, irrespective of whether this is a main clause coordination or a subordinated clause co ordination. The second is that all deletions which are not straightforwardly forward deletions or straightforwardly backward deletions involve verbs. These, therefore, are the sites that interest us: verbs, and leftmost and rightmost peripheries. If we then proceed to look at the directionality of deletion of leftmost sites, we fmd that they delete forwards. If we look at the directionality of deletion of rightmost sites, they delete backwards. Lastly, if we look at the accessibility of deletion sites which are neither left-peripheral nor right-peripheral, they delete forwards, and they involve verbs somewhere in the target site. This gives us a very clear description of the problem areas: problems of accessibility and directionality must be solved in terms of "rightmost", '1eftmost" or "including verbs". I shall refer to these as '1eftperipheral", "rightperipheral" and ''verb" deletion sites, and state constraints on accessibility and directionality of deletion in terms of these types. This we shall do as follows: First of all we re-formulate the rule to incorporate the notion of accessibility:
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Ik geloof dat kleine kinderen f/J en stoute kinderen moeten gaan slapen I believe that small children � and naughty children must go sleep a. • Ik geloof dat kleine kinderen moeten gaan slapen en stoute kinderen f)
209 DELETE ACCESSIBLE MATERIAL UNDER IDENTITY IN COORDINATE STRUCTURES
right peripheral sites: A1
S ____--r---__ S and S
�
�
(X X)
(X X) X
X
-
left peripheral sites: A2
s
s
�
�
--
verb sites:
A3
X
(X X)
---
X
(X X)
s
�
S
and
S
,--y� (X X)
-v-""-
0-- (X X)--ti---0
where X is an unlike constituent, (X X) are optional unlike constituents, is like rnaterial. This leaves us with 0 is an ignored constituent, and essentially one type of inaccessible site, namely (B): --
s
B
____--r----
�
(O) x
--
S
and
s
x
�
(O) x
x
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Accessibility then has to be defmed in terms of left-peripheral, right peripheral, and verb strings: A site is accessible if it is adjacent to an S-boundary. A site may be left peripheral to an S-boundary (i.e. follow the S-boundary); in that case, deletion operates forward. A site may be right-peripheral to an S-boundary (i.e. precede an S-boundary); in that case, deletion operates backwards. If a site contains a verb, delete forwards as in left-peripheral sites, but in determining peripherality, ignore the first constituent. 1his leaves us with the following accessible sites, schematically re presented: (A)
2 10 and with a number of non-sites, namely
{C):
s
s
s
�
� s
s
�
�
0
0
s
s
s
�
X From {A,
B, C)
X
X
X
� X X X
X
it will be clear that what determines the accessib ility of
deletion in our approach , is the linear position of like and unlike material in the schema , not the structural relations that hold between the con stituents that make up the like or unlike material. The diagrams can be ill ustrated as follows: Diagram A1 - a right peripheral site , which may consist of one qr more constituents; for instance, sentences 28a , or 29a:
{28)
a.
{29)
a. lk geloof dat Jan Marie ��.en Klaas Susan een boek geeft
Ik geloof dat Jan kaas �
en Piet vlees eet
Diagram A - a left peripheral site, which may consist of one or more 2 constituents; for instance, sentences 16 and 31:
{16)
Jan eet en � drinkt
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s
211 (31)
Jan koopt een hoek voor zijn moeder en
00
een plaat voor zijn
vader
Diagram A1 2 obligatorily incorporate unlike material - a sentence in which there ls full identity between the members of the coordination (as in c1 ) is undesirable as a deletion target for two reasons: frrst of all, we do not wish to end a sentence with a coordinating conjunction, as we would if we were to allow deletion as a left peripheral site in 32, which is an odd, but not ungrammatical sentence: (32 )
Ik geloof
Klaas dronk en
believe that
Klaas dronk
Klaas drank and Klaas drank
a. *Ik geloof dat Klaas dronk en
f) 0
likewise, we do not wish to claim that every sentence which starts with a coordinating conjunction (the Bible, for instance, is full of these) is a right-peripheral reduced version of a sentence in which everything that follows the coordinating conjunction also precedes it - we do not wish to claim that (33a) is a fully expanded version of (33): (33)
Maar ik zal But
je
nooit
meer
geloven als je
tegen me liegt
I shall you never again believe if you to
me lie
a. Ik zal je nooit meer geloven als je tegen me liegt, maar
ik zal je
nooit meer geloven als je tegen me liegt. We find this same objection against deletion under full identity of co ordinates for V-string deletion. Although the unlike constituents in A
3 are represented as optional, the situation as represented in c , where there
2
is full identity between V -string sites, does not allow for V-string deletion - the ignored frrst constituent
0
may
never
be the only remnant after
V-string deletion. Thus, we may get V-string deletion in
(25)
Jan eet
rijst en
25, 26:
Wun � vis 0 fish
Jan eats rice and Wun
(26)
Van drinken krijg Drinking
gives
je
koppijn
en
van roken
you headaches and smoking
f) 0 00
kanker cancer
The deletion sites here are accessible because only one constituent inter venes between the identical material containing the verb and the leftmost $-boundaries. However, in (34), deletion as a V-string site is not allowed: the only remnant of the deletion there would be the "ignored constituent", the constituent that is "not seen" when position relative to the S-boundary
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I
dat
212 is established, and V -string deletion is thus disallowed under the constraint against full identity, as will be clear from (34a) : (34)
Mannen gebruiken make up en vrouwen gebruiken make up Men use make-up and women use make-up a. •Mannen gebruiken make up en vrouwen � (/J
However, (34) does meet the criteria for right-peripheral sites, so it should be possible to delete backwards, which it is: (34)
b. Mannen en vrouwen gebruiken make up
a.
Ik geloof dat Jan een boek �.en Piet een plaat koopt I believe that Jan a book (/J, and Piet a record buys Ik geloof dat Jan een boek k0opt, en Piet een plaat f/J
a.
Ik geloof dat Jan Marie een zoen geeft, en Klaas Marian f/J (/J I believe that Jan Marie a kiss gives, and Klaas Marian f/J f) Ik geloof dat Jan Marie f/J f/J, en Klaas Marian een zoen geeft
(35)
(36)
(37)
Ik geloof dat vegetariers (/J (/J en niet-vegetariers groenten eten I believe that vegetarians (/J 0 and non-vegetarians vegetables eat a. •Ik geloof dat vegetariers groente eten, en niet-vegetariers 0f/J
Now to diagram (B). This diagram predicts that any deletion site with one constituent or more between it and both the leftmost and the rightmost sentence boundaries will be inacceSSible to deletion, unless the deletion site contains a verb: in that case, the site will be accessible if there is only one constituent between the leftmost boundaries and deletion target sites.
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Diagram c3 is simply a statement of the fact that if all the material in a coordination is unlike, no deletion may take place. The reason for this will be obvious: such deletions would not be recoverable. This account of accessible deletion sites will make it clear immediately why in Dutch subordinate clauses deletion is bidirectional: in sentences (28/28a), and (29/29a), for instance, the deletion target sites are right peripheral, so they allow backward deletion, and they are strings which contain a verb and which are peripheral, so they will delete forwards as verb-strings. Thus, we may get (35), (35a), (36), (36a), but only (37), and not (37a), because (37a)has as only remnant the ''ignored" constituent, and is therefore unacceptable as V-string deletion.
213 Examples of inaccessible sites are therefore objects in SOV subordinate clauses, subjects in vso questions, indirect objects in svopd clauses, and subjects in AdvVSO clauses: (38)
*Ik geloof dat Jan (/J koopt, en Marie de kaas opeet I believe that Jan C) buys, and Marie the cheese eats
(39)
* Ben je moe Are you tired
(40)
*Jan koopt C) voor Marie en Klaas geeft een boek aan Susan Jan buys � for Marie and Klaas gives a book to Susan
(41 )
*Vanmorgen gebleven This morning
� naar huis? en wil and want � go home?
ben
C) in bed
was I here, and yesterday stayed � in bed
This concludes our initial discussion of accessible deletion sites in Dutch: left-peripheral sites, right-peripheral sits and Verb-string sites. In the next paragraph, I shall discuss the interaction between these sites, but before doing so , I shall demonstrate the workings of the deletion rule using a sentence which provides challenging problems for a non-linear, non unitary approach to coordinate deletions. Consider the following set of sentences:
(42)
Ik heb kaas gekocht voor Piet, en ik heb vlees gekocht voor Jan I have cheese bought for Piet, and I have meat bought for Jan b . Ik heb kaas gekocht voor Piet, e n � � vlees gekocht voor Jan voor Jan C) c. Ik heb kaas gekocht voor Piet, en C) � vlees voor Jan � d . * Ik heb kaas gekocht voor Piet, en ik heb vlees a.
It will be obvious how one gets from (42a) to (42b ): this is a case of left peripheral deletion. One then gets from (42b) to (42c) through verb-string deletion: after the ftrst deletion has applied, gekocht as a verb form is accessible as a Verb-string: vlees as fust constituent in the second sentence is ignored . Note that gekocht cannot be deleted if ik heb is not deleted fust . There are then a subject, a finite verb form , and an object which precede gekocht, of which only the subject can be ignored, and there is unlike material following gekocht, so that it is not accessible. Now consider a variant of (42a), and its deletion possibilities:
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was ik hier, en gisteren
2 14 {42)
e. Ik heb kaas voor Piet gekocht, en ik heb vlees voor Jan gekocht I have cheese for Piet bought, and I have meat for Jan bought f. Ik heb kaas voor Piet f) , en � 0 vlees voor Jan gekocht g. Ik heb kaas voor Pi.et gekocht, en 0 0 vlees voor Jan f)
Here ik heb is acceSSible as a left peripheral site , gekocht is accessible as a verb-string site and as a right-peripheral site, and gekocht therefore deletes either forward or backward . Note that this bidirectional deletion is not possible for (42a); (42h) is unacceptable : h. * Ik heb kaas 0 voor Piet, en 0 0 vlees gekocht voor Jan
5 . MEETING
TWO
ACCESSffill..I TY CRITERI A : PARTIAL DELETION YS .
TOTAL DELETION
In many places in the discussion in the previous sections we have assumed that deletion extends over all identical material, and we can observe that deletion of all identical material (which I shall henceforth refer to as total deletion) does not lead to unacceptable sentences provided that the con· ditions of accessibility and directionality are met. We have also seen that in some cases ungrammaticality could result from not deleting all like material (partial deletion); for instance, in (7a), where an identical verb is deleted without the identical subject having been deleted ; in (Sa), where the identical verb has been deleted without the identical object having been deleted, and in (9a), where the verb has been deleted, without the identical indirect object having been deleted .
(7)
a. •Jan eet rijst en Jan � vis
(8)
a. •Jan eet rijst en Piet 0 rijst
(9)
a. *Van drinken krijg je koppijn en van roken 0 je kanker
There are , however, also cases o f acceptable partial deletion: in a sentence like (43): (43)
Jan sloeg de hond en Jan sloeg de kat Jan hit the dog and Jan hit the cat
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(42)
215 it is possible t o delete just the subject, o r both subject and verb (though not just the verb ; that would give the same unacceptability as in (7a)).
(43)
a . Jan sloeg de hond en � sloeg de kat b. Jan sloeg de hond en � � de kat
In a sentence like (44), one can delete the subject without deleting the ob ject, or one can delete the object without deleting the subject, or one can delete both:
(44)
hond dog hond hond
What strikes us in (44, a , b , c) is that there are two deletion sites here , left-peripheral and right-peripheral, and these do not overlap in any way. In (43 , a, b) we have two deletion sites as well: a left-peripheral site and a verb site , and here the deletion sites partly overlap : the left-peripheral site includes the verb site, but the verb site, which ignores the first constituent, does not include the left -periphetal site. We have found, in sentence (7a) for instance , that the verb site may not delete to leave the target left peripheral site unaffected , but that the verb site may be left behind if left-peripheral deletion takes place. Then we have found that in sentence (8a), where we have a verb site and a right-peripheral site , which totally overlap , we cannot delete just the verb , and , as will be clear from (8c), we cannot delete just the direct object either: (8)
c. • Jan eet f) en Piet eet rijst
Lastly, we found that in sentence (9a), where we had a verb site con sisting of a verb+indirect object , we could not delete just the verb . As will be clear from (9c ), we cannot delete just the direct object either : (9)
c. •van drinken krijg je koppijn en van roken krijg � kanker
111is distributio n of facts can be captured as follows:
PARTIAL DELETION IS ALLOWED IF A SENTENCE CON TAINS MORE THAN ONE TYPE OF DELETION TARGET SITE. IF ONE DELETION TARGET SITE TYPE INCWDES THE OTHER, THE SUPERSITE DELETES FIRST TO LEAVE THE
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Jan sloeg de hond en Jan schopte de Jan hit the d og and Jan kicked the en Jan schopte de a. Jan sloeg � b . Jan sloeg de hond en � schopte de c . Jan sloeg en schopte de hond
2 16
SUBSITE BEHIND. IF 1WO DELETION TARGET SITE TYPES EXCWDE EACH OTHER, THEY MAY DELETE INDEPEN DENTLY. IF THEY INCWDE EACH OTHER; PARTIAL DE LETION IS DISALLOWED This
accounts quite straightforwardly for our observations: in
we have two deletion target sites which share no m aterial
-
(44 a , b, c) so
the two
sites may be deleted independently from each other. In (42 a, b), the larger left peripheral site includes the smaller verb site, so the left-peri pheral site may delete to leave the material which it shares with the ve.rb site behind .
In
a sentence like -
(8)
the right-peripheral site and the verb
so partial deletion
is
disallo wed: either verb
string deletion or right peripheral deletion has to take place. Given that the only remnant of verb string deletion would be the ignored first con stituent , which
is
disallo wed, right peripheral deletion has to take place.
Lastly , in a sentence like
(9)
partial deletion
is
disallo wed because the
sentence contains only one deletion target site, namely a verb site. Let
us
test
this
constraint for a few predictions.
A
site may be left
peripheral site and a verb site or a right peripheral site and a verb site.
A
left peripheral site will include the first constituent ; a verb site will ignore the first constituent. This means that according to our constraint,
SVO SVO and VO, and then to SVO and 0; this we have seen is indeed the case . SOV and SOV, however, should not reduce to SO and SOV, and then to S and SOV: peripheral site and verb site are the same here, namely OV. In a VSO and VSO structure, we should not be able to reduce first to VSO and SO and then to VSO and 0, and
SVO
should be reducible to
since verb site and left peripheral site are the same. Thus, although we do get sentences like (43a), we should not get the same deletion pattern in the interrogative equivalent. Th..i s turns out to be the case : (43)
c . • sloeg Jan de hond en sloeg de kat?
likewise, from (45 ), we should not be able to get either (45a) or (45 b), but only (45c ): a prediction which again turns out to be correct. Ik geloof
(45 )
dat
Jan het konijn knijpt
en
11
Piet het konijn
knijpt
I
believe
that Jan the rabbit
pinches and Piet the rabbit
pinches a. • Ik geloof dat Jan het konijn knijpt, en Piet het konijn b . • Ik gelo of dat Jan c.
Ik geloof dat Jan
� �
�
knijpt, en Piet het konijn knijpt
(}
en Piet het konijn knijpen
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site share all their material
217
We shall now tum to one further problem in coordinate deletions, namely the directionality problem.
6 . PROBLEMS OF DIRECTIONAUTY
(45)
en Piet koopt ook kaas Jan koopt kaas, Jan buys cheese, and Piet buys also cheese
If we use tile constraints outlined in the previous sections, we find that they are in conflict - whereas we have one deletion site in the antecedent clause, we have two in the subsequent clause. If we were to apply right peripheral deletion to the antecedent occurrence of kaas then we would violate the constraint on partial deletion - the site koopt kaas is a right peripheral site and a verb site, so partial deletion is not allowed : (45)
a. •Jan koopt � ' en Piet koopt ook kaas
Subsequent deletion of the verb-string koopt does not improve matters: (56)
b. • Jan koopt � ' en Piet � kaas
The acceptable reduction of (45) is (45c) 12 : (45)
Jan koopt kaas, en Piet � ook �
A somewhat similar case is the following: (46)
Jan heeft vandaag een vrije dag, en Piet heeft morgen een vrije dag Jan has today a day off , and Piet has tomorrow a day off
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In this discussion, I have assumed that Gapping, Right-node Raising, and Coordinate deletion are all part of the same process - all three delete material under identity in coordinated structures. One rule which also deletes material under identity in coordinated structures, although not exclusively in coordinated structures, is VP-deletion. I have already ex pressed my doubts about the existence of a rule of VP-deletion in Dutch in footnote (6); however, the fact remains that there are sentences in Dutch which do not fully obey the constraints we have outlined in pre vious paragraphs. Take, for instance, a sentence like (45):
218
Here w e have, besides the acceptable reduction (46a) which is according to the constraints, the reduction to (46b) wltich is not according to the constraints: {46)
a. Jan heeft vandaag � . en Piet � morgen een vrije dag b . Jan heeft vandaag een vrije dag, en Piet C) morgen �
{47)
Bakt Jan een ei, en bakt Piet een ei? Fries Jan an egg, and fries -Piet an egg? ·
the ungrammatical: {47)
a. * Bakt Jan een ei, en f) Piet f)?
This constraint against single remnants of deletion of verb-string sites has already been referred to in section 4 in the discussion on verb-string deletions. This constraint can now be formulated as follows: A SINGLE CONSTITUENT REMNANT OF DELETION MUST BE COORDINATION-FINAL; IT MAY NOT BE FOLLOWED BY A DELETION SITE Given this reformulated constraint, we can now capture our observations as follows: IF A COORDINATION IS A CANDIDATE FOR VERB-STRING DELETION AND RIGHT-PERIPHERAL DELETION, DELETION MUST OPERATE FORWARD AS A WHOLE, OR BACKWARD AS A WHOLE, IF "BIDIRECTIONAL" DELETION VIOLATES A CONSTRAINT. OTHERWISE, IT MA Y OPERATE FORWARD AS A WHOLE this way, we quite readily account for {45): bidirectional deletion here would violate the constraint on partial deletions. It readily prevents us from producing sentences like the above, as well as (47c) : In
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What (45) and (46) have in common is that the criteria for both verb string deletion and right-peripheral deletion are met , that in (45) deletion must operate forward as a whole, that in (46), deletion may operate for ward as a whole , and that the remnant of the deletion operation is not a single constituent . If there is a way in which deletion could operate, with out violating the constraints, and .le ave not more than one remnant , deletion may not operate in any other way : we do not wish to derive, from a sentence like:
219 (47)
c. • Jan bakt een ei, en Piet f) f/J
which is a sentence o f a type w e have already discussed in the fourth section of this paper. It allows (46a) and (46b). It should not allow "uni directional" deletions in the case of coordinations meeting the criteria for left-peripheral and right-peripheral deletions, and it should not be af fected by changes in wordorder, as in subordinate clauses or questions: this is shown to be the case in (48), (49), and (50): Jan leent geld van de bank en Jan steelt ballpoints van de bank Jan borrows money from the bank and Jan steals ballpoints from the bank a. • Jan leent geld van de bank en C) steelt ballpoints 0 b. Jan leent geld �. f/J en steelt ballpoints van de bank
(49)
Ik geloof dat Jan kaas I believe that Jan cheese a. •Ik geloof dat Jan � b . Ik geloof dat Jan kaas
(SO)
a. b.
koopt, en Piet ook kaas koopt buys , and Piet also cheese buys (/J , en Piet ook kaas koopt koopt, en Piet ook fJ f/J
Heeft Jan vandaag een vrije dag, en heeft Piet morgen een vrije dag? Has Jan today a day off , and has Piet tomorrow a day off? Heeft Jan vandaag f/J , en Piet morgen een vrije dag? Heeft Jan vandaag een vrije dag, en () Piet morgen f)?
7. TWO ASPECTS OF IN1ERPRETATION
The approach in this paper is a syntactic one - coordinations of sentences are reduced under identity , and these reductions may result in constituent coordination. As early as 1969, lakoff & Peters pointed out that such an approach would have to be supplemented for sentences such as
(53)
Jan en Marie zijn een leuk stel John and Mary are a nice couple
Such sentences cannot be derived in the same way as the examples cited so far, since the fully expanded sentence from which (53) would have to be derived is unacceptable :
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(48)
220 (53 )
a. •Jan is een leuk stel en Marie is een leuk stel John is a nice couple and Mary is a nice couple
l.akoff & Peters refer to predicates ofthis type as ''synnnetrical predicates"; symmetrical predicates require a coordinated subject NP. They claim that the difference between sentential coordination vs. phrasal coordination is mirrored in a semantic difference : phrase-structure coordinated NP's have a [+ joint) reading, whereas a coordination of NP's which results from a reduction of coordinated sentences has a [- joint] reading. Thus, a sen tence such as: Jan en Piet gingen vissen Jan and Piet went fishing
can mean that Jan and Piet set out separately, and fished separate ponds, as well as that they set out from the same place and at the same ,time to fish the same pond . There are some reasons for rejecting their suggestion that the mechanisms available for coordination {PS-rules and reduction rules) are responsible for these differences in the interpretation of a coordination . First of all , the differences of interpretation that we fmd for sentence {54) are also available for {5 5), where we cannot relate the differences to two mechanisms of coordination: {55 )
De jongens gingen vissen The boys went fishing
Secondly , we can have intuitions about [ ± joint] interpretations which are remarkably like those in {54), but where the two mechanisms of co ordination fail to supply the required number of structures to match our intuitions. In a sentence like: (56)
Jan en Marie hebben een kind John and Mary have one child
there is a [± joint] interpretation possible : to (56) one can add aOebei (= both), which is a litmus test for the [- joint) interpretation, or one can add samen (together), the litmus test for [+ joint] . In a sentence like: {57)
Jan en Marie hebben acht kinderen John and Mary have eight children
we can apply these two tests as well: the outcome will be that, in {57a), they are both parents of the same eight children, whereas in (57b ) there are sixteen children in all : ,
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(54)
221 (57)
a. Jan en Marie hebben acht kinderen samen b . Jan en Marie hebben allebei acht kinderen
However, it
is also
possible for there to b e twelve children i n all: 8 [-joint)
children, and 4 [+ joint] children. (58)
Jan
en
Marie hebben acht
een ander
John and Mary have a
kinderen: 4 samen,
en
4 uit
children : 4 together,
and 4 from
huwelijk
different
eight
marriase
A
third objection against relating the differences in interpretation ob
served by l..ako ff & Peters to different syntactic mechanisms for coordina tion is the fact that in certain cases, the [±joint) interpretation seems to be completely independent of the syntax o f coordination . or
both
Allebei
in Dutch,
in English, should occur only with [- joint] coordinations.
In
a
sentence such as : (59)
Jan e n Piet worden allebei door iemand John and Piet are
both
by
a fgehaald
someone picked up
we clearly have a [- joint] interpretation : John and Piet will be picked up by separate individuals . However, the active version of (59) is clearly [+ joint) :
(60)
Iemand
haalt
Jan
en
Piet allebei a f
Someone picks John and Piet both
up
Here Jan and Piet are picked up by the same person, while there is nothing in the internal structure of the coordinated NP's that could account for this difference in interpretation: (59) as well as
(60)
should be [ - joint] .
We can conclude that the [± joint) interpretation for coordinated NP's does not correlate with the syntactic mechanisms for achieving NP co o rdination . Titis statement should not be taken to mean that a coordination of NP's can only have one syntactic source: the difference between (53) and (34b) (53/53a) and (34/34b), for in stance, will need a syntactic ex planation .13 Nor should it be taken to mean that there can be only one semantic interpretation (e .g. "intersection of the sets of properties of') for conjoined NP's ; such a statement would clearly fail to account for the difference between
(6 1 ) and (62)
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Obviously, one cannot account for the possible numbers of children by referring to the two p OSSible syntactic mechanisms for coordination.
2 22 (6 1 )
John and Bill bought fish and chips
(62)
John and Bill ate fish and chips, respectively
It merely means that there are no clear syntactic correlates for the ob served semantic interpretations of conjo in ed NP's.
A
very challenging observation was called to my attention by Pieter
Seuren (personal communication), who pointed out that , in sentence (63a), the same person who bought a newspaper also bought a cigar, while in the ''fully expanded" version (63), Iemand
kocht
een sigaar e n
iemand
kocht
een
krant Someone bought a
cigar and someone bought a
newspaper a. lemand
kocht
een sigaar en
Someone bought a
cigar and
een krant
� f)
a
newspaper
It can furthermore be observed that in (64/64a), the deletion of someone has not served to narrow the number of victims down to one: (64)
Jan
schopt iernand
John kicks a. Jan
en
Piet
slaat iemand
someone and Peter hits someone
schopt
John kicks
f) f)
en
Piet
and Peter
slaat iemand hits someone
The question which then immediately arises, given that a left peripheral deletion produces a semantic effect which apparently a right peripheral deletion does not produce ,
is whether we
have been right in collapsing all
coordinate deletion rules into one. This can be tested in the following way : if certain types of expressions behave differently from other types of expressions in coordinated structures with respect to the semantic effect that they produce after deletion, and they also show differences with respect to syntactic constraints, then our conclusion in section ( 1 ) may have been pre rna ture . Let us first o f all locate the type o f expression.
As will be clear from (65/65a), iets (something) behaves like iemand: (65 )
lets
vangt
muizen en
Something catches mice a. Jan
f)
schopt
John kicks
en
Piet
and
�
drinkt m elk
f) drinks milk
slaat iets
f) and Peter hits something
We can also observe that
niemand (nobody) and niets (nothing) are similar:
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(63 )
this is not necessarily so:
223 (66}
Niemand is ann en ()0 tegelijkertijd gelukkig Nobody is poor and ()() at the same time happy
(67}
Niets is mooi Nothing is beautiful
en () () goedkoop and 0 f) cheap
The 'fully expanded' versions of (65 -67} clearly have interpretations which the reduced versions (65-6 7} lack. The same observation seems to hold for other existentially quantified expressions: Sommige mensen nemen vakantie Some people take a holiday
(69}
Een dwergje woont in het bos A dwarf lives in the forest
(70}
Jan ondervraagt Q en Piet schaduwt een paar verdachten John questions f) and Peter tails a few suspects
(7 1 )
Jan bakt John fries
en � gaan naar de zee and () go to the sea
en () bewondert Sneeuwwitje and � admires Snowwhite
fJ en Midas kookt een biggetje � and Midas boils a piglet
From the example sentences cited so far, we can see that the deletions obey the directionality constraint : leftmost sites delete forwards, and rightmost sites delete backwards. Our problem cases also are subject to the constraint on accessibility: this will be clear from: (72}
niemand gezien en vandaag heeft f) friet *Gisteren is gegeten Yesterday was no one seen and today has Q chips eaten
(73)
* Ik geloof dat Jan iemand schopt en Piet f) slaat I believe that John someone kicks and Peter () hits
The 'problem cases', therefore, obey the syntactic constraints set out in the previous paragraphs. They furthennore seem to be restricted to left peripheral sites, none of the right peripheral sites in (63 -73} behave like the left peripheral sites, and the verb sites in (74-75} behave like right peripheral sites: (74}
Jan heeft iemand geschopt, en Piet John has someone kicked , and Peter
()() geslagen () () hit
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(68}
224 (75 )
Klaas bakt een biggetje in olie, e n Midas f) f) in boter Klaas fries a piglet in oil, and Midas f)� in butter
(76)
a. Jan slaat � en Piet schopt de hond John hits VJ and Peter kicks the dog b . Jan heeft de hond geslagen, en Piet Q f) geschopt 15 John has the dog hit , and Peter � � kicked door Jan geslagen en f) Q door Piet geschopt c. De hond is and � Q by Peter kicked The dog was by John hit
Here we find that deletion is possible, and that, apart from differences in aspect, (76a-c) have the same interpretation. If, however, we replace de hond by, for instance, iemand, or iets, we fmd that in left peripheral sites, the interpretation is one where the intended reference is the same for both occurrences of iemand, or iets, whereas this is not the case for verb sites, or right peripheral sites: (77)
a. Jan slaat Q en Piet schopt iemand John hits f) and Peter kicks someone b . Jan heeft iemand geslagen, en Piet � Q geschopt and Peter � � ·kicked John has someone hit , c. Iemand is door Jan geslagen, en � Q door Piet geschopt Someone was by John hit , and � Q by Peter kicked
We see, therefore, that the syntax of coordinate deletions is not affected by the requirement of intended referential identity for existentially quantified expressions in left peripheral sites, and that the challenging observations on such sentences as (77a-c) can be accounted for quite readily provided we refer to the different deletion target sites.
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This leaves us with the hypothesis that there is a stronger requirement on identity than that of linear surface constituent order (see footnote 2) for left peripheral sites and that this requirement is restricted to existential ly quantified expressions, and that the requirement states that existential ly quantified expressions in left peripheral sites which do not have the same intended reference block deletion .14 This constraint can be tested quite easily: if we have a coordination not containing an existentially quantified expression, and we change the word order so that, from a left peripheral site, a site becomes a verb site or a right peripheral site, reduction should not result in any change of interpretation.
225 8. CONCLUSION
Titis unitary rule and its constraints mlke it possible to account in an elegant and natural fashion for such hitherto intractable phenomena as bidirectional deletion in Dutch, and the unacceptability of various de letions under identity. Department ofEnglish University of Utrecht Oudenoord 6 3513 ER Utrecht - Holland
NOTES am
grateful to Klara Hoi, Bernard Comrie, and Martin Everaert for expressing
1.
I
2.
Identity is deimed
their opinions on some of the data and ideas advanced here, and to Lucette &eking for typing a very messy manuscrip t. All errors and omiM!ons are my own. as
identity of representation. Given that the type of rep
resentation I man use is surface order of constituents, and that lexical items are identical if identically represented at surface level, one can readily establish identity
for the purposes of deletion coordination. In a sentence like
(John) [asked) [me] [a difficult question] and (John) [waited for] [ the answer] the first constituent John is identical for the purposes of deletion.
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In this paper, I have demonstrated the following for Dutch: a) There is great similarity between rules like Gapping, Coordination Reduction, and Right-node Raising, and complex problems disappear if these are collapsed into one. b) The unitary rule of deletion under identity in coordinated structures requires no information about constituent structure, only information about surface linear order of constituents. c) The unitary rule of deletion under identity is subject to constraints on acceSSibility and directionality. d) Partial deletion of identical material is only allowed if more than one accessibility criterion is met ; if verb -string and right-peripheral sites are involved , deletion operates either optionally or obligatorily forward . e) There is a constraint against non-coordination-fmal single constituent deletion remnants. f) There is no syntactic motivation for a [± joint] interpretation. g) There is an interesting constraint on intended referential identity in existentially quantified leftmost deletion target sites.
226 3. See e.g. Jackendoff 1972, Hudron 1 9 76 , and Gazdar 1 9 8 1 , for further dis cussion of these rules.
4. There is some discu ssion about w hether such sentences should be accounted for through some type of deletion rule, or through a PS-rule which directly generates
coordin ately conjoined VP's. I shall adopt the former approach: not only is the
existence of a coherent category VP extremely doubtful for Dutch, but the rule of
CR, as:
once it is formulated to account for obvious non-constituent coordinations such
S oms
eet
Jan vis
��
en
S ometimes eats Jan fish and
Piet vlees
t' 1J Piet meat
will generate constituent coordinations without any additional constraints or rules Hudson 1 976 . S. In Gazdar 1981 we find an approach which allows Right-node Raising only for
constituents. For sane further in adequacies of that approach, see van Oirsouw 1 982. 6 . See Hudson 1976. For English, one might argue that VP-deletion also reduces
coordinated structures. For Dutch, h owever, VP-deletion does not exist. An essential
characteristic of the available accounts of VP-deletion (e.g. Sag 1 9 76) is that VPD leaves a finite-verb-form behind,
as
in:
0 0
John eats fi sh , and Peter does
John eet vis, en
�
Peter
as
well
ook
(*doet) As w ll be clear from the above sentences, Dutch does not have the equivalent of English VPD. For a further discu ssion of VPD in coordinated structures, see
van
Oirsouw 1 983. See aho note (2) above.
7 . This is a well-established assum ption in the literature on coordination. I shall as follows: both inpu t and output of a rule whkh deletes
interpret this assumption
under identity in coordinated structures must be grammatical sentences of the language in question. For further elaboration on this, see van Oirsouw 1 9 8 1 .
8.
!l:e
For a further discussion on the direc tion o f operation o f coordinate deletion rules, Ross 1 970, or van Oirsouw 1983.
9 . F o r the purposes of this paper, I shall interpret "constituent"
as
synonymous
with "major category".
1 0 . Though see section 6 on one or two problems with "conflicting directionality". 1 1. I gloss over matters of wbject-verb agreement here. Although deletion can
result in a coordination of single subjec ts, which require a phral verb form , this "readjustment" of subject-verb agreement does not affec t our judgement here.
1 2 . For some speakers of Dutch, the reduction to: Meneer
bier
wn
een pfisje, en
This gentleman here wants a
ik
beer, and I
0 �
ook
also
een pilsje a
beer
is, in certain contexts, acceptable. Without going in to further detail, I would like to
point out that this reduction involves a conflict, not a violation of the existing
constraints. Only in the antecedent site is the constraint on partial deletion violated,
and the actual deletion does not take place in the antecedent site, but in the sub sequent site.
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being needed. For a further discussion of this problem, see van Oirsouw 1 9 8 1 , 1 983,
227 1 3 . For an enumeration of the differences between sentence-coordination and non sentence coordination, see van Oirsouw, 1 983. 14. Another identity requirement could be stated for verb sites: number & penon morphology on verbs doesn't 'count' for establishing identity. That this is so will be clear from:
Ik eet kaas en jullie t' vlees (t} I eat cheese and you () meat
=
eten)
1 5 . For a disrussion of the ambiguity in sentences like these, see van Oirsouw, 1981, ch. Ill.
Dougherty, R.C., 1970: A Grammar of Coordinate Conjoined Structures, I. Language 46 : 850�98.
Gazdar, G., 1981: Unbounded Dependencies and Coordinated Structures. Linguistic Inquiry 7: 1 55-1 84 . Hudson, R.A., 1 976: Conjunction Reduction, Gapping, & Right�ode Raising. Language 5 2 : 535-562. Jackendoff, R., 1 972: Gapping and Related Rules. L inguistic Inquiry 3 : 2 1-35. Lakoff, G. and S. Peters, 1 %9: Phrasal conjunction and symmetrical predicates. ln: D. Reibel and S. Schane (eds.) Modem Studies in English, Englewood Cliffs. Ross, J.R., 1 970: Gapping and the Order of Constituents. In : Bierwilch, M., and K.E. Heidolph (eds.), Progress in Linguistics. Mouton, The Hague. Sag, I.A., 1 976: Deletion and Logical Form. Ph .D. dissertation, MIT. Van Oirsouw, R., 1 9 8 1 : Deletion Processes in Coordinated Structures in English. Ph.D. dissertation, Cambridge University. Van Oirsouw, R., 1 982: Gazdar on Coordination and Constituents. L inguistic Inquiry 1 3 : 55 3-557.
Van Oirsouw, R., 1983 : Coordinate Deletion and n-ary Branching Nodes. Journal of Linguistics 1 9 : 305-3 19.
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REFERENCES
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Journal ofSemantics 3:
229-24 7
MEANINGS DON 'T GROW ON TREES *
NICHOLAS ASHER
ABSTRACT
1 . INTRODUCI10N
Intensional theories of meaning (Camap, 1 947 , Montague, 1 974, Cress well, 1 973) represent the truth conditions of an indicative sentence as a function from possible worlds, or more generally a set of indices, to truth values. These functions are determined by a lexicon that assigns functions from worlds to sets or individuals to each non-logical constant in an in tensional language L and by a recursive clause defining the function from worlds to truth values for closed sentences of L. Such theories face well known difficulties in accounting for the semantic facts. 1 First, they predict that any two sentences that are necessarily true will have the same intension and hence the same semantic content. Yet this prediction runs counter to speaker's intuitions about synonymy. Second, a similar dif ficuhy affects the predictions of intensional logic at the lexical level: expressions with the same extensions across indices should have the same • I would like to thank Dan Bonevac, Herbert Hochberg, and Ellen Woolford for comments on a previous draft of this paper, and the Center for Cognitive Science of The University of Texu at Austin for its generous research support.
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In "Meanings don't grow on Trees" I investigate Lewis's proposal for using syntactical information to distinguish between intensions. Lewis's proposal, if it succeeds, would eliminate certain deficiencies in the predictions made by poSSib le world semantics concerning synonymy. I provide two criteria for judging semantic theories: descriptive adequacy and explanatory adequacy. I argue that Lewis's proposal concerning synonymy fails on both counts. I then offer a different approach to problems with synonymy. Synonymy judgments involve two different kinds of meaning: truth conditional content, provided by model theoretic semantics, and "in formation content," provided by a semantics in terms of conceptual role. In developing the notion of information content, I show how it solves some of the problems Lewis's proposal addresses.
230
2. WHAT IS A SEMANTIC TIIEORY SUPPOSED TO DO?
As a propaedeutic to my criticism of Lewis's approach, I first want to in dicate possible grounds for criticism of a semantic theory. There are two desiderata for a semantic theory that have motivated much research in the semantics of natural language: descriptive adequacy and explanatory adequacy. To be descriptively adequate, a theory of meaning must cor rectly predict semantic properties of expressions of the language that competent speakers judge the language to have. Examples of such properties are validity, inconsistency, entailment, independence, and consistency. Speakers have certain pretheoretic intuitions about validity, logical im plication, consistency, and independence. We also have formal, logical definitions of these notions (say in fust order logic) that are intended to capture and predict the semantic relations in a language just in virtue of the meaning of some specified set of logical constants. A full semantic theory , however, seeks to characterize validity, entailment, consistency, and the like in a language in which every meaningful expression is in terpreted. Consequently, in analyzing semantic relations in a fully in terpreted language, the ordinary logical notions must be modified. A descriptively adequate semantic theory must provide definitions of se mantic relations suited to its semantic interpretations. Thus, for instance, a semantic theory will determine entailment by set-theoretic inclusion of semantic values, synonymy by identity of semantic values.
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semantic content according to the semantic theory, yet this too runs against linguistic intuitions. To solve the fust difficuhy, Lewis (Lewis, 1 972) proposes a modern variant on the theme of Camap's intensional isomorphism {Camap, 1 947). He uses syntactic structure to individuate intensions more finely and identifies semantic values of sentences with interpreted phrase structure trees. He advocates two sorts of meaning: one a fine-grained sort of meaning represented by an interpreted phrase structure, another a coarser sort of meaning represented by a simple intension. Lewis's approach has been influential and attractive, but it has a number of significant dif ficulties. Lewis is right, I shall argue, to distinguish between two sorts of meaning, but he is wrong in how he makes the division. His fme-grained meanings place the work of semantics in syntax, which past and current syntactic theories are ill equipped to handle; further, his fme-grained meanings do not adequately account for the semantic facts of synonymy themselves. I shall p ropose a different division of the notion of meaning, which solves both difficulties with the notion of synonymy in intensional semantics.
231
3. LEWIS'S VERSION OF INTENSIONAL ISOMORPHISM
Lewis 's fme-grained meanings are attractive, because they seem to solve the ftrst problem with intensional semantics, namely teat its semantic values are not fmely enough individuated to account for differences in meaning. The hope is that Lewis's 'trick' will make possible worlds semantics descriptively adequate . Lewis's fme-grained meanings are interpreted phrase structure trees without their terminal nodes {i.e., the lexical items themselves). I shall call these truncated phrase structure trees. Let us take a simplistic cate gorial grammar just to see how Lewis's suggestion produces results. I shall include in the grammar two sentence compounding rules: S -+ S or S, and S -+ it is not the case that S. The only other formation rule I adopt is: S -+ PN Vi , where 'PN' denotes the c&tegory of proper names and 'Vi ' the category of intransitive verbs. The intensions of the categories are easy enough to specify: for every PN we associate a constant function from worlds to an individual; for each Vi , we assign as its intension a function from worlds to sets of individuals. These will be our primitive intensions. We defme the intension of a sentence to be a function from worlds to truth-values in the normal fashion . The fine-grained meaning of a sentence then, consists of a sequence of categories and intensions that defmes its interpreted phrase structure tree. Consider for instance the sentence
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To b e explanatorily adequate, a semantic theory must provide an analysis of meaning in the sense that it must specify meanings and se mantic properties without appealing to the notion of meaning. A truth conditional theory specifies meanings by specifying the conditions under which a sentence is true. Intensional theories treat truth conditions as "intensions", functions from sets of indices (which I will simplify here to sets of worlds) to truth-values. They are recursively defined from a base set of functions from indices to individuals or sets that correspond to the denotation and application of lexical items in the language. The ex planatory vahie of such a formalization consists in the analysis of meaning in terms of the notions of truth, reference and application. The latter notions are amenable to precise treatment and are conceptually clearer than the notion of meaning.2 A truth-conditional theory like possible worlds semantics, then, promises an explanatory analysis of meaning in terms of more 'transparent' notions by redescribing facts about meaning using the conceptual apparatus of model-theoretic semantics. To be predictively adequate, however, we need to augment possible worlds semantics in some way. In the next section, I explore Lewis's proposal for doing this.
232 Horatio flies. It has in our simplistic theory the following interpreted, truncated phrase structure tree:
{1 )
Horatio flies or it is not the case that Horatio flies
(2)
Porky grunts or it is not the case that Porky grunts
On Lewis's view, (1 ) and (2) have the same syntactic structure, the same coarse intension (i.e. the intension associated with the node at the origin of the two respective trees), but the intensions assigned to the other non terminal nodes of the two trees differ. Consequently, these two sentences have a different L-meaning, and this squares with our intuitions that ( 1 ) and (2) differ i n meaning. Lewis's strategy still allows him to define entailment and contra dictoriness in model-theoretic terms. By looking at the origin of the tree (the topmost node), we may determine truth at an index i for a sentence as follows: the sentence S (or its associated meaning) is true at an index i iff the intension at the origin of its L-meaning returns truth at i. One can now define semantic notions like entailment, satisfiability, and the like in ways familiar to intensional logic. Lewis points out that stronger truth relations are possible, however, in this framework. We have at our disposal
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where 4>1 (w) = truth just in case l/>2 (w) E lj>3(w), l/>2 (w) = the individual that is Horatio in w and tjJ3 (w) = the set of all those things that fly in w. The main virtue of Lewis's approach is that, being able to distinguish fme shades of meaning, it promises better predictions concerning syn onymy. To evaluate its success, however, we need to formulate a criterion for synonymy, based on the fme shades of meaning. Two sentences of a language are synonymous according to Lewis just in case they have the same syntactic structure and the same intensions assigned to the corre sponding nonterrninal nodes in each tree; this amounts to having the same fmer shade of meaning. More formally, we will say that two sentences S and s ' are L-synonymous (for "Lewis synonymous") just in case S and 1 S' have isomorphic truncated phrase structure trees T and T and with every pair of nodes of r and r ' in tre extension of the isomorphism is associated an identical intension in the L-meanings of S and S'. One nice prediction is immediate : not all tautologies have the same meaning. On a standard intensional semantics (I ) and (2) have the same semantic values.
233 the possibility of mapping intensions of one L-meaning onto the in tensions of another ; the mappings of particular interest (Lewis calls them variants) are those that have kernels that are the identity function. An example of such a mapping is the following: where m and m ' are L meanings and N(m) the set of nodes of m whose intensions are those associated with a logical vocabulary, f"m -+ m 1 such that Vx E N(m) \ty E N(m ') (f(x) = y +-+ x = y)
(3)
Bill kisses Mary
(4)
Mary is kissed by Bill
Or again:
(5)
John gave the book to Mary
(6)
John gave Mary the book
Since these pairs of sentences have non-isomorphic truncated phrase structures, (3) and (4) are not L-synonymous, nor are (5) and (6). To solve this difficulty, we may with Lewis resort to transformations on the base component of the grammar to get (3) and (4), as well as (5) and (6) to be synonymous with each other. This requires augmenting the set of phrase structure rules with a set of meaning-preserving transformations. I shall follow tradition by also distinguishing between the surface syn tactic structure o f a sentence and a base or 'deep' structure which, to gether with transformations, determines the surface structure, and hence
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This is the mapping whose kernel is restricted to intensions of a logical vocabulary (let us call these logical variants). We can now distinguish the notion of logical truth from the notion of truth in virtue of meaning: a sentence S with meaning m is logically true just in case every logical variant of m has an intension at its origin that returns truth for every set of indices i; S is true in virtue of its meaning just in case m has an in tension at its origin that returns truth for every set of indices i. 1bis is another apparent bonus of lewis's approach. Nevertheless, the preceding definition of L-synonymy is clearly in adequate in representing facts about synonymy for just slightly more complex sentences than can be represented in our simplistic categorial gramma r. Competent speakers judge certain pairs of sentences with dif ferent surface or $-structures to have the same meaning, as in for in stance,
234 their truncated p hrase structure. We may assign intensions to non-tenninal nodes in a deep structure, so that we can then defme a map meanin g-p reserving transfonnations,
¢,
based on
from truncated, interpreted deep
structures to L-meanings. Let us call the set of Lmeanings related to a conunon, interp reted deep structure by
¢
an L '-meaning. The notion of
y
L ' -meaning provides a revised criterion of sy nonym ,
L '-synonymy :
two
sentences S and S ' are L '-sy nonymous just in case the L -meaning of S and the Lmeaning of S ' belong to the same L'-meaning. The revised criterion of sy nonymy is c lose to the thesis that generative semanticists first espoused almost twenty years ago. Lewis's proposal requires that sy ntax isolate meaning-preserving transfonnations in some
his
theory to be testable em
preserving
transfonnations.
Not all
transfonnations or sequences of
transfonnations p reserve meaning. Many authors, most notably Owmsky , have noted that passivization, which certainly seems to p reserve meaning in simp le examples like
(4) fails to p reserve meaning when quanti Everyone languages and Two languages are known by
(3)
and
fiers are involved . Consider for instance the difference between
in the room knows two everyone in the room ; passivization in this case affects truth-conditions by
changing the scop e of the quantifiers. Further, passivization and pro nominalization alone seem to preserve meaning, but when operating to gether they often do not. Thus
(7) and (8),
(3)
and
(4)
are sy nonymous and so are
where we have a fully co-indexed deep structure:
(7)
The fact that Tom won the election surprised Tom i i
(8)
The fact that Tom won tite election surp rised hirn i i
But consider (9), which is the result of applying passive · after prono minalization: (9)
H e was surp rised by the fact that Tom won the election i i
(9) is ungrammatical and cannot be sy nonymous with
(7)
or (8). Conse
q uently, it seems false that certain transformations are always meaning preserving. These results can be accommodated by postulating an order in which the transfonnations can be app lied, but this (and other so lutions) se em to leave a transfonn ational syntax with little or no principled and general way to determine meaning-p reserving mappings. Standard trans formational syntax provides no way of sp ecifyin g these transfonnations without an ap p eal to an unan alyzed notion of meaning. Worse, there are sentences that seem to be synonymous, yet carmot be accounted for by
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princip led and general way in order for
pirically. But there are severe difficulties in trying to specify meaning
235 means of transformations from a common deep structure (Brame, 1976). The following pair is a good example : (10)
Seymore used a knife to cut the salami
(11)
Seymore cut the salami with a knife
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Generative grammarians tried to postulate a common deep structure for (1 0) and (1 1) to account for their apparent synonymy. But it then turned out that one could not at all explain the behavior of adverbs in such sen tences - e.g., compare Seymore rapidly used a knife to cut the salami (??) versus Seymore rapidly cut the salami with a knife, and such difficulties gradually led syntacticians to abandon the approach that the notion of L'-meanings requires.3 While earlier transformational theories of the sort appealed to by Lewis fail to make the notion of L'-meaning descriptively adequate, current syntactic theories like Government and Binding (GB) Theory (Chomsky, 1982) or Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) (Bresnan, 1982) are not even equipped for doing such a job . They do not determine a set of meaning preserving transformations. Transformations in Government and Binding Theory are of a very general nature; there is in fact only one kind : where o: is any category, move o: (somewhere). Ungramm atical results are removed by a series of filters applied to structures derived from base structures by means of such transformations. Theories of binding, government, case and 0-roles of various expressions determine these filters. At first glance, it seems possible to use the notion of semantic argu ments or 0-roles of GB (and analogous notions in LFG) to take the place of meaning-preserving transformations in the following way : any two sentences with the same verb such that the verb's 0-roles (agent, patient, etc . . .) are mapped to arguments with the same intension are synonymous. This suffices to take care of the synonymous pairs (3) and (4) and (5) and (6). For those sentences containing different verbs, however, this strategy is not available , since 0-roles are specific to a particular verb and no means exists for identifying 0-roles of different verbs, unless one resorts to lexical semantics and an unanalyzed notion of meaning. Moreover, where two sentences are synonymous but their verbs have different kinds of 0-roles as in (10) and (1 1), the strategy appears hopeless. It seems plausible to assume that the 0-roles of knife are different in (1 0) and (11), even though (1 0) and {1 1) seem to be synonymous. One can make similar comments about LFG. Thus, Lewis's strategy seems no more promising with current syntactic theories than it does with those of twenty years ago. It seems obvious that syntax alone will not be able to rescue a se mantics using L' -meanings from descriptive inadequacy concerning the facts about synonymy.
236 Lewis's characterization of synonymy further fails to be descriptively adequate, because it is too weak to distinguish the meanings of two sen tences with the same phrase structure but different lexical expressions with the same intensions. This is an old criticism of Camap's theory of intensional isomorphism (Camap , 1 947) made by Mates {1 952); but the criticism still carries weight in the philosophical literature (Burge, 1 978). Consider the following sentences: {1 2)
Gorse is gorse
{1 3 )
Gorse is furze
world.
Gorse
and furze must have the same intension, if we accord them
the directly referential status of natural kind terms. Yet there is a
facie
prima
doubt as to whether such sentences are sy nonymous, at least if we
adopt something like Mates's criterion for synonymy; the criterion is that if two expressions are synonymous, then substituting one for the other in any sentential context should not alter the truth-value of the whole. However, many have argued that while any competent speaker believes {1 2 ) many may not believe ( 1 3 ). Consequently, { 1 2 ) and {1 3 ) fail to be synonymous, according to Mates's criterion. The argument here depends upon a nwnber of assumptions, and it is not my intention or purpose to defend all of them here. Nevertheless, it is a weakness of Lewis's proposal that
it
provides no solution to this longstanding problem for intensional
semantics.4 Finally , Lewis's proposal fails to be explanatorily adequate . On Lewis's proposal, the syntax of a sentence is supposed to contribute heavily to its meaning in two ways: fust, syntax is supposed to contribute to meaning because meanings are sets of interpreted phrase structure trees; second, syntax is supposed to determine the set of those interpreted trees by specifying the set of meaning p reserving transformations. Intensions, the p roper part of a model theoretic semantics, do very little work. In fact we can dispense with them entirely at little additional cost in the w ay of descriptive inadequacy. We can replace intensions with extensions by amending a Tarskian theory of truth so that it too is a categorial gramm ar. Instead of assigning intensions to the lexical items we would assign simple extensions, objects, and sets of objects in a model that represents the actual world. Let us call an E-meaning (for "extensional meaning") a truncated phrase structure tree in which each category is paired with an appropriate extension, and let us call an
E '-meaning
those extensional correlates of L'-meanings.
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{1 2) and {1 3 ) have the same L-meaning and the same L'-meaning for the things that are gorse in any world are just the things that are furze in that
237 Let us defme E-synonymy and E '-synonymy similarly to the way that we have defined L-synonymy and L' -synonymy. The E-meanings of (1 ) and
(2),
e1 and e2 are not identical, because even though e1 and e2 have the
same extension assigned to the topmost
S node (truth), there is no iso
morphism such that every node in e 1 is paired with a node in e2 such that they have the same extension. This relies on the plausible assumption that the set of things that grunt (in the model that represents the actual world) is not identical to the set of things that fly, and that Porky denotes some particular pig, while
does not. Moreover, there is no meaning
Horatio
preserving transformation that would allow us to derive
and (2) from (2) diverge as E '-synonymous. A further
(1 )
the same deep structure , and so the E '-meanings of (1 ) and
(1 )
and
(2)
are not E- or
benefit for extensional theories that use Lewis's approach is the use of variants; using logical variants on E-meanings will also serve to distinguish sentences that are logical t ruths from those that are merely truths. 5 Though we can predict that not every instance of a theorem of logic is synonymous in an E- or E' -semantics, these theories have even more difficuhies in dealing with lexical synonymy; there are well-known examples of words having the same extension but plausibly diverging in meaning. Certainly , the examples
{1 2)
and
(1 3)
will pose difficulties for such
theories.6 However, both Lewis's proposal and one based on the notion of E '-meanings have similar problems, and the advantage of intensional semantics over an extensional one has been obscured by the role that syntax is supposed to play in determining meanings. Moreover, this is a role that syntax cannot succeed in playing, as we have already seen. Two kinds of meaning arise on Lewis's proposal. One handles the notion of meaning applicable to questions of synonymy and identity of meaning; the other is concerned with familiar model-theoretic notions. Though intensions, or to some extent extensions, can address familiar model-theoretic notions, syntax is supposed to do the hard work of determining synonymy, an area where extensional and intensional se mantic theo ries of the simple sort have foundered. But then model theoretic semantics by itself fails to explicate the nature of meaning.
4. 1WO CONCEPTS OF MEANING Lewis's distinction between two sorts of meaning is on the right track, even though semantics, not syntax, must define them . Recall that in tensional logic's criterion of synonymy, sameness of intension, generated bad predictions both at the sentential and the lexical level . This occasioned the development of L-meanings, but L-meanings and their derivatives do not solve the problems they were supposed to. Instead of L-meanings,
I
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well. Consequently,
238
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propose here to develop two notions of meaning: one that corresponds to Lewis's notion of coarse meaning (the truth-conditional semantics furnished by intensional logic) and another that describes the information content o f a sentence for a particular (competent) speaker o f the language. I propose that two sentences may have the same coarse meaning or the same truth-conditional content but not convey the same information to a competent speaker of the language. I shall argue that this distinction, when filled out, solves the problems that L-meanings were supposed to solve. I shall accept with Lewis intensional logic's characterization of coarse meaning, or truth-conditional content. It is worth pointing out, however, that other analyses of truth-conditional content are possible and that they do not, by themselves, solve the problems that L-meanings address. One could replace the possible worlds characterization of truth-conditional content with a characterization in terms of situations and situation se mantics (Barwise and Perry, 1 983). The motivation behind the theory is to capture the notion that sentences denote states of affairs in a precise way. The theory produces different and better results than intensional theories do for some constructions in natural language (most notably, naked infinitive perception reports (Barwise, 1 98 1 , Asher and Bonevac, 1 983)) and looks promising for others . Nevertheless, with regard to the simple indicative sentences that are the subject of scrutiny here, situation semantics runs into trouble with predictions about synonymy in the same way in which simpler intensional theories do. In situation semantics, sentences stand for fragments of worlds ex tended in space and time that Barwise and Perry call situations. They represent situations by means o f sets of pairs o f space time locations and situation types. Situation types are partial functions from n+ 1 tuples, each consisting of an n-ary relation and n individuals, into I 0, 1 } . For dealing with the simple fragment involved in the examples I want to treat, I can simplify considerably the details of the theory without distortion; I shall take the semantic value of a sentence to be a set o f situation types. Let us call these S-meanings; sameness of S-meaning is the criterion for S-synonymy. In order for the theory to block the prediction that (I) and (2) are synonymous, they must be assigned different S-meanings. But to see that (I ) and (2) are assigned different S-meanings, we must defme the S-meanings of logically complex sentences in terms of the meanings of their constituents; that is we must give a recursive definition of truth or 'support' at a situation. Since situation types are partial functions, to specify S-meanings we will have to determine the conditions under which a situation type assigns 1 to (supports) a sentence and the conditions under which it assigns 0 to (refutes) a sentence . If we limit ourselves to a
239 slight extension of the fragment discussed earlier, the definition is pretty obvious. Our simple fragment will again contain proper names and in transitive verbs. Proper names and intransitive verbs will all denote objects; verbs will denote properties, while proper names will denote individuals. Let us symbolize the denotation of an expression a by [ a ] and let any situation type. Then, if
A
s
be
is a sentence of the form 'a (3', where a is a
PN and (3 a V i
Definition 1 : s supports A iff s ([ IJ ] , [ a ] ) = 1 ; s refutes A iff s ( [ (3 ] , [ a ] ) = 0 .
A and
B b e any sentences of our fragment.
Def1nition 2: If C = 1 A, then s supports C iff s refutes A. s refutes C iff s supports A Definition 3 : If C = A & B, then s supports C iff s supports A and
s supports B. s refutes C iff s refutes A or s refutes B. Definition 4: If C = A v B, then s supports C iff s supports A or
s supports B. s refutes
C iff s refutes A and refutes B.
Now it turns out that (1 ) and (2) need not have the same S-meaning; some situation types may support (1 ) but not (2) and vice-versa , though n o situation type ever refutes (1 ) or (2). Thus, not every necessary truth has the same semantic value in situation semantics. However, though situation semantics makes the right prediction for (1 ) and (2), it handles (1 4) and ( 1 5 ) no better than intensional logic does. ( 1 4) (15)
Horatio flies Horatio flies, or Porky grunts and it's not the case that Porky grunts
( 1 5 ) is an instance of the wff
'A
v (B & I B)'. By our definition above ,
then, (1 5 ) has exactly the same S-meaning as (1 4). Every situation type that supports (1 4) supports ( 1 5); and since no situation type ever supports
Porky grunts and it is not the case that Porky grunts,
every situation type
that supports ( 1 5 ) also su pports (1 4). 7 But is the prediction that (1 4) and
( 1 5) are synonymous any better than the prediction that ( 1 ) and (2) are synonymous? ( 1 4) and (1 5 ) of course have a different L-meaning, and it seems that speakers might agree with Lewis's prediction. It will also be difficult to distinguish the S-meanings of (1 2) and (1 3) from each other,
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Let
240 insofar as we treat
gorse
and
furze
as directly referential terms that pick
out the same natural kind. Thus, though we may adopt S-meanings to give us a different notion of truth conditional content from that provided by ordinary intensional semantics, S-meanings do not help u s very much in addressing the problems that L-meanings were intended to solve . The preceding discussion of truth-conditional content indicates that though intensional logic fails to specify an adequate criterion of synonymy, other versions of truth-conditional content do little better. Instead, we need a distinction between truth-conditional content and another type of meaning.
I
want
to
argue that speakers' judgments of synonymy and
philosophers' criteria for synonymy, like Mates's, conflate or combine two
I
shall call "information." There seems to be an intuitive distinction between a notion of meaning (semantic content) that has to do with the facts or aspects of the world that an indicative sentence describes on a given occasion of use and a notion of meaning (information) that has to do with the conceptual role it (or a representation of it) plays within the cognitive world of a speaker. Filling out this distinction requires two sorts of inter pretations: one a truth-conditional semantics, the other a semantics in terms of fu nctional role.
I
tum now to developing this second sort of
interpretation. The notion of conceptual role is itself only slightly less vague than the notion of information itself. But there is a connection between con ceptual role and the much more well- defined notion of subjective con ditional probability.
This
connection derives from two premises: (i) the
conceptual role of an expression is determined by one's beliefs about the expression's referent, denotation or truth conditions;
(ii)
these beliefs
themselves have strengths relative to certain inputs from the environment or relative to the acceptance of other information (i.e . given a subjective certainty concerning other beliefs). What are, however, beliefs about denotations, referents and truth conditions? Beliefs about referents and denotations are simply beliefs that such and such an object bears such and such a relation to other objects or has such and such a property (or have such and such arguments) relative to other beliefs or relative to information that the speaker provi sionally or even counterfactually accepts. These beliefs will also vary in strength. Beliefs about the truth-conditions
o f a sentence 'p' consist
simply in beliefs that p that vary in strength according to what other beliefs the speaker has or what other information he provisionally or even counterfactually accepts.
I
shall take these beliefs themselves to
consist of a pair of representations and a numerical value between
1
0
and
representing strength of belief; one representation, the second in the
pair, tells us the information relevant to determining the conditional
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kinds of meaning, one of which is truth-c onditional content, the other
241
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degree of belief in the truth-condition or proposition represented by the fust representation of the pair . Each belief then could be considered as a point in the graph of some conditional probability function defined on jt:2 , where :R.. is the set of representations. Thus, the central concept underlying the notion of conceptual role is the strength or subjective certainty assigned to a representation relative to certain inputs (these inputs being information in the form of other representations), which I shall represent by means of conditional probability. To talk about conceptual role precisely, then, we require a system of representation and an algorithm for mapping natural language discourse into representations. Of course, we could simply take natural language itself as the medium of representation; the language of the lambda calculus or first order logic would, however, be more tractable. Since probability distributions for first order formulas are well understood (Field, 1 977, Leblanc, 1983), I shall assume that the underlying representations onto which we map sentences are equivalent to first order formulas. These representations will determine the truth conditions of natural language sentences when interpreted model-theoretically and will determine their information content when interpreted probabilistically .8 Let us call those conditional probability functions that determine the information content of expressions, speaker content functions. Since speaker content functions represent beliefs, however, we must design them so that they faithfully represent the beliefs of a competent speaker. Even competent speakers can hold inccnsistent beliefs and their beliefs are not comprehensive - i.e., they do not have a well-defined conditional degree of belief about anything that can be expressed in natural language relative to anything else. Accordingly, speaker content functions must be partial probability functions; where defined they will obey the axioms of conditional probability . Moreover, competent speakers will have assigned to them a set of speaker content functions, so that it may be possible for them both to have high degrees of belief in contradictory propositions. Insofar as we intuitively think of beliefs as occurring in clusters or 'families,' each speaker content function represents one such cluster or family. A further complication is that competent speakers may hold necessarily false beliefs. A competent speaker can have necessarily false beliefs as long as they are not logically false beliefs, as we shall see shortly. But he cannot have logically false beliefs, since if ¢ is a theorem of first order logic, then the axioms for conditional probability require that for every speaker content function :1' , V ljJ :1' (¢11/1) = 1 , where defined.9 Consequently, a competent speaker cannot believe that 1¢, where ¢ is a theorem of logic, though he need not believe every theorem of logic either. Oearly, however, more constraints have to be imposed on speaker content functions than simply the axioms of conditional probability. We
242
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must in addition impose constraints that will make speakers be competent. For if we were to allow the information content of a sentence S for a competent speaker, as defmed by the conditional distributions of a set of speaker content functions on the representation associated with S, to take on whatever set of values was consistent with the axioms of conditional probability, our competent speaker might be certain that a sentence was false in circumstances in which it was obviously true, believe and act as though S' were the contradictory of S, when S' was synonymous with S and so on. His linguistic practice would be in a bad way, and we would have little grounds for rupposing that he was a competent speaker. The information content of an expression must approximate its truth-con ditional content in the sense that a speaker must, by and large, have beliefs that accurately reflect the truth-conditional relations that obtain between the sentences of his language. Concerning synonymy, I shall require that speaker content functions be equipollent with respect to sentences with the same intension. Let 1/> and 1jJ be representations; 1/> and 1jJ are equipollent under .1' iff '\/x .1' (1/>/x) = .1' (ljl/x), where those probabilities are defined.10 Equipollence, however, does not provide us with a criterion of same information content . A speaker may be certain of two sentences, con ditional upon any information whatsoever (and hence they will be equipol lent) and still claim that they do not convey the same information, be cause they are intuitively about different objects, different properties and the like. A criterion that captures this intuition is the following. Two sentences S and S' have the same information content for a speaker A just in case their representations are strongly equipollent under every speaker content function for A. 1/> and 1jJ are strongly equipollent under .1' iff 1/> and 1jJ are equipollent under .1' and if 1/> or 1jJ are logically complex, their atomic constituents (either sentences or formulas) are also equipollent under .1' . 11 Let us say that speakers judge two expressions to be syn onymous just in case they have the same information content and the same truth-conditional content. Strong equipollence allows us to distinguish between the information content, and hence the meaning, of (1 ) and (2). Though (1 ) and (2) must be equipollent by our criterion, they are not, for most speakers, strongly equipollent, since there is no reason for correlating degrees of belief about Porky and his �nting with degrees of belief about Horatio and his flying. Let us now consider the case of (1 2) and (1 3). Recall that we have assumed that gorse and furze have the same intension. Consequently, accord ing to our constraint, the conditional distributions for (1 2) and ( 1 3 ) must at least btr' equipollent under all speaker content functions. Nevertheless, this allows that (1 2) and (1 3) may not take the same con-
243 d itional values everywhere. Though presumably the conditional probability of
(I 2) is always 1
where defined at all, the probability of { 1 3) may be less
than 1 , conditional upon certain info rmation that the speaker might accept or countenance (e .g., the information that gorse grows only in Wales and furze is primarily to be found in England's Lake District). Within the framework set out here , this is allowed, because we may assume that there can be a speaker content function that does not return a distribution for (12) at all but only (1 3). The rationale behind this is that a belief in
(I 3)
is sensitive to a variety o f background assumptions,
whereas (12) requires intuitively no special background assumptions at
all ; and thus, it seems reasonable to suppose that (12) and (1 3 ) belong to
(I 3) is necessarily
true ,
representation associated with (1 3) a value of less than 1 . What remains to be accounted for are the speaker judgments o f sen tence pairs (3) and
(4), (5)
and
(6), (7)
and
(8),
and (1 0) and (1 1 ). The
answer or explanation involves detailed questions about how we are to represent the tru th-conditions of these sentences, but presumably the sentences in each pair have the same truth-conditions. In some of the cases, it seems that the representations of the truth-conditions will be identical; in these cases, the two sentences must have the same information content, and so we do predict synonymy. We would, for instance, expect our algorithm to assign the same representation of truth-conditions to (3 ) and (4), though when quantifiers are present, the order of the quanti fiers in sentences and their passivizations may not only force a change
in
the representations but a change in truth-conditions as well. Perhaps the same could be said of
(5)
and
(6),
and of
(7) and (8). 1 2 A detailed examin
ation of problems involving such sentences, however, would require extensive treatment of the structure of a representational system for determining truth-conditions and the algorithm that would map syn tactic structures into such representations. That is beyond the scope o f this paper. Th e present framework, however , offers a means with which to investigate these problems . By distinguishing information content and truth-conditional content, we can begin to tie together a number of different problems confronting semantics. Mates's criterion of synonymy, though perhaps misnamed , tells us something about complicated intentional contexts - namely, that perhaps the truth-conditions for reports about belief and other intentional states involve not only truth-conditions of their embedded clauses but also the information content of these embedded clauses for the subject. Though info rmation content approximates truth-conditional content, there are also discrepancies; as we saw with the case of (12) and (1 3), speakers may have beliefs that distinguish with respect to information content
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quite different clusters of beliefs. Note that though
it is perfectly consistent for a speaker content function to assign the
244
5 . SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS: A FINAL NOTE
Lewis is right to point out that there are at least two notions of meaning. He distinguished between them in the wrong way, however, The dis-
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b etween two expressions with the same intension. This distinction general izes the intuition behind Frege's account of the informativeness of certain identity statements (Frege, 1 966), and moreover is compatible with a directly referential truth-conditional semantics for natural kind terms, proper names and indexicals, made famous by Kripke , Putnam and Kaplan (Kripke, 1972 , Putnam, 1 975a, Putnam, 1 975b, Kaplan, 1 977). 13 Here we have seen that distinguishing between truth-conditional content and information content is important to sorting out our intuitions about synonymy. Speakers provide judgments both about semantic content and about informativeness, and they sometimes conflate the two notions. Consequently, adequate semantic theories may diverge more definitely from intuitions about synonymy, when speakers conflate informativeness with semantic content. In general, then, synonymy judgments are less reliable than other sorts of judgments. We should not ask a truth-conditional theory of meaning to provide more than truth-conditional equivalence toward a criterion of synonymy, provided we have a sufficiently precise notion of truth-conditions. In formativeness, on the other hand, should not be a phenomenon that the truth-conditional component has to explain, since a semantic theory has to do with a certain relation between language and the world, while in formativeness has to do with a relation between the world, language and an individual speaker's psychological states. These are two distinct areas of study . Informativeness is a notion that must be accounted for in terms of functional role and sameness of information content defmed in terms of functional role. We might call this "speaker synonymy." Speaker synonymy will be a function of not only the meaning of expressions in the language but also of many idiosyncrasies of the speaker's experiences. These idiosyncrasies should not be part of a theory of meaning for the language. For instance, the structure as well as the content of the in dividual's memories and the kind of inferencing mechanism that a person actually uses to process linguistic data, will all be relevant to determining speaker meaning. While these structures may share certain features with the relevant structures of all speakers of the language, divergences will often account for informativeness. A good semantic theory should be able to distinguish between "speaker meaning" and truth-conditional content, and thus avoid the problems with synonymy that L-meaning failed to solve.
245 tinction
is
not between syntax and semantics, but ra ther between in
formation content and truth-conditional content. Distinguishing between info rmation content and truth-conditional content solves two problems at once. It takes the burden off syntax and the search for meaning-pre serving transformations, and semantic synonymy is n ow a matter of truth conditional equivalence. On the other hand, it explains away those ap parent problems with synonymy at the lexical level by allowing that sen tences may be semantically synonymous (in the sense of having the same descriptive content) without being speaker-synonymous (their having the same functional role). Lewis's strategy, however, raises an important issue for semantics: required for semantics? It seems clear that
not
all syntactic information is
relevant to semantics; some configurational
information must be discounted, if we are to avoid puzzles about the synonymy of sentences (3}(1 0), for instance. On the other hand , con figurational information is important in deciding aspects of quantifier scope (Cooper, 1 983) and anaphora (Kamp , 1 98 1 ). Depending on the syntactic theory considere d , the requirements may vary. It is an issue, unfortunately, that goes far beyond the scope of this paper.
The University of Texas at A ustin Center for Cognitive Science GRG 220
Austin, Texas 78712
NOTES 1 . Camap, 1 947, anticipated these difficulties with his notion of intensional iso morphism. 2. For a discussion of this point, see Davidson, 1 967, Platts, 1 979, McDowell, 1 976 . 3 . See Brame, 1 976, chapters 1 and 2 for details. 4. One could solve this problem by requiring that two L-meanings be identical iff the intensions paired with each other by means of the isomorphism also have the same '1abels" or lexical strings in the terminal nodes of the full phrase structure tree. This distinguishes between (1 2) and (1 3) at the cost of saying that no two distinct sentences are synonymous with each other. But clearly, speakers find distinct sen tences to be synonymous, so this is not a viable option. 5 . Capturing entailments and other semantic predictions in such an extensional theory might require, however, a different approach. In Asher, 1 983 , I argue that the best way for an extensional theory to capture facts about entailment, contra dictoriness and the like is to resort to proof-theoretic definitions of these terms within the context of a Tarskian formal theory of tru th . But since extensional theories following Lewis's lead would likewise have a coarse meaning given by a Tarskian theory of truth as well as the more finegrained E-meanings and E' -meanings to deal with synonymy, there need be no insurmou ntable problem in defining some
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is
What syntactic information
246
REFERENCES Asher, N . , 1 982: Truth Conditions and Semantic Competence: Toward a Theory of Linguistic Understanding. Ph .D. thesis, Yale University . Asher, N., 1 9 8 3 : The Trouble with Extensional Semantics. Forthcoming in : Philo
sophical Studies. D. Bonevac, 1 9 8 3 : How Extensional is Extensional Perception? (Forth coming in Linguistics and Philosophy). Barwise, J., 1 9 8 1 : Scenes and Other Situations. Journal of Philosophy 78 : 369-397. Barwise, J. and J. Perry, 198 3 : Situations and A ttitudes. MIT Press, Cambridge, Asher, N. , &
Massachusetts.
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semantic relations using the coarser notion of meaning. Mter all, this is the approach followed for Lewis's intensional theory. 6 . Some may resort here to properties to solve these difficulties; but property theorists of course will have to determine somehow which properties are assigned to which common n ouns, adjectives and verbs, and this is really n o different than the problem intensional semantics has with intensionally isomorphic sentences that plausibly differ in meaning. 7 . Barwise and Perry (1983 : 5 3 ) suggest that situation types need not be partial functions, though they do introduce them in the book as such (p . 7) . If situation types need not be partial functions, then obviously the meanings of ( 1 4) and (1 5) may differ. If situation types are not partial functions, however, I find it diffi cult to see how they can represent "chunks" of the world, since they might both verify and refute a particular sentence. I find this possibility unintelligible, unless we no longer consider the notions of verification and refutation as one way of explicating the notion of truth conditions. 8. 1llis allows us to consider many�orted fust order languages where the domain of quantification may range not only over individuals, but sets of individuals, events, and the like. An example of this sort of representational system is given in Karnp, 1 98 1 . Though some may argue that the expressive p ower of such a language will not by sufficient to determine correctly the truth-conditions of natural language dis course, it is not at all clear that a many�orted language is not sufficient to produce a viable semantic theory. 9. Otherwise, conditional probability functions would not provide models for first order logic. 10. The term "equipollence" is due to Field, 1 977. 1 1 . We can define in a relatively straightforward way a conditional distribution for representations that are equivalent to open sentences or formulas of a first order language. We simply replace the occurrence of each free variable with an arbitrary name or tag for an arbitrary individual. This has, however, a consequence for the mapping of proper names in the natural language into the representational system; in effect we shall map proper names of English into predicates in the representational system that apply to these tags for arbitrary individuals. But we can still adopt a directly referential theory of proper names in a natural language with such a device. 1 2 . If we treat names as predicates (see note 1 1 ), it seem s that th e second ocrurrence of Tom in (7) will only make a trivial addition to the first order representation of (8); otherwise the two representations will be identical. This trivial addition should make no difference to the strong equipollence of (7) and (8). 1 3 . I investigate this compatibility in Asher, 1 982.
247
Mates, B., 1 95 2 : Synonymity. In : L. Linsky (ed.), Seman tics and the Philosophy of Language. University of lllinois Press, Urbana; pp . 1 1 1 -1 38. McDowell, J., 1 976: Truth Conditions, Bivalence, and Verificationism. ln : G. Evans and J. McDowell (eds.), Truth and Mean ing. Oxford University Press, Oxford ; pp. 42-66. Montague, R., 1974: Formal Philosophy. Yale University Press, New Haven. Platts, M., 1 979: Ways ofMeaning. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London. Putnam, H ., 1 975 : The Meaning of 'Meaning'. In: H. Putnam (ed.), Mind, Language and Reality: Philosophical Paper8, Volume 2. Cambridge University Press, Cam bridge; pp. 2 1 5 -2 7 1 . Putnam , H., 1 97 5 : Explanation and Reference. In: H . Putnam (ed.), Mind, Language and Reality: Philosophical Paper8, Volume 2. Cambridge University Press, Cam bridge; pp. 1 96 -2 14.
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Brame, M., 1 976: Conjectures and Refu tations in Syn tax and Smuzntics. North Holland, Arnste�dam. Bresnan, J. (ed.), 1 982: The Mental Representation of Grammatical Relafiong_ MIT Press, Ca m bridge. Burge, T., 1 978: Belief and Synonymy . Journal ofPhilosophy 75: 1 1 9-1 38. Carnap, L , 1 947: Meaning and Necessity. University of Cll icago Press, Olicago. Chomsky , N., 1 982: Lectures on Government and Binding. Faris Publications, Dordrecht. Cooper, R., 1 983: Quantification and Syntactic Theory. D. Reidel, Dordrecht. Cresswell, M., 1 973 : Logics and Languages. Methuen & Co., London. Davidson, D., 1 % 7 : Truth and Meaning. Synthese 1 7: 304-3 23. Field, H., 1 977: Logic, Meaning and Conceptual Role. Joumal of Philosophy 74: 3 79-409. Frege, G., 1 96 6 : On Sense and Reference. ln: M. Black and P. Geach (eds.), Trans la tions from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege. Basil Blackwell, Oxford; pp. 56-78. Kamp, H. , 1 98 1 : A Theory of Truth and Semantic Repre sentation. ln : J. Groenen dijk, Th . Janssen & M. Stokhof (eds.), Formal Methods in the Study ofLanguage. Mathematisch Centrum Tracts, Amsterdam; pp. 277-3 22. Also published in: Tru th, Interpretation and Information, J. Groenendijk, Th . Janssen & M. S tokhof (� .). Faris Publicati..ms, Dordrecht; pp. 1 -4 2. Kaplan, D., 1 97 7 : Demonstratives. Unpublished Mimeograph. Kripke, S., 1972: Naming and Necessity. ln: D. David!!On and G. Harman (eds.), Semantics ofNatural Language. Reidel, Dordrecht; pp. 25 3-3 5 5 . Leblanc, H . , 1 983: Alternatives t o Standard First Order Semantics. ln : D. Gabbay & F. Guenthner (eds.), Handbook of Philosophical Logic, Volume I: Elements of Classical Logic. Reidel, Dordrecht; pp. 1 89-274. Lewis, D., 1 97 2 : General Semantics. 1n: D. Davidson and G. Harman (eds.), Seman· tics of Natural Language. Reidel, Dordrecht; pp. 1 69-2 18.
Journal of Semantics 3: 249-256 A REPLY TO MARTIN ON AMBIGUITY ARNOLD M. ZWICKY AND JERROLD M. SADOCK
0. INTRODUCfiON
'Negation, Ambiguity, and the Identity Test' in this journal ( 1 982),
linguists in deciding whether or not particular sentences are ambiguous, examin.es the application of these tests to negation by
not in English , and
concludes that claims by Atlas ( 1 9 77) and Kempson ( 1 975) that there is no ambiguity between an external and an internal interpretation of
not
have not been p roven. We do not propose to reconsider the negation issue here (but see Blackburn ( 1 983) for a response to Atlas that is generally consistent with our remarks); rather we are conunenting on Martin's interpretations of (a) the function of identity tests in linguistic argu mentation; (b) the notio n of the term
undcrstarrling
word
in linguistic analysis; and (c) the use of
in Zwicky and Sadock ( 1 97 5 ; hereafter ZS). We
contend that M is mistaken on all three points and that in consequence his analysis fails as an explication o f id entity tests.
1 . THE FUNCfiON OF IDENTITY TESTS
We begin b y pointing out that nentity tests are designed
to
determine
whether a particular string of words in some language is to count as a single entity in the syntax of that language, or as two syntactically dist inct entities. We take as uncontroversial the claim that ( 1 ) represents (at least) two syntactically d istinct entities. (1)
We saw her duck
Equally uncontroversial, in our view , is the claim that (2) represents (at least) two syntactically distinct entities. (2)
The bill is huge
Counterposed to examples like ( 1 ) and (2) are examples like (3), which we
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In
John N. Martin attempts an explication of the 'identity tests' used by
2 SO b elieve uncontroversially represents only o ne syntactic entity (d isregarding the inherent vagueness of names like Jill an�
Herb).
Jill met Herb's cousin
(3)
(Note that no semantic claims follow directly from what we have above.
In
said
particular, it is not true that a string s represents two syntactical
ly d istinct entities if and only
if its
range of meanings can be expressed as
(sl v s2) for some sl and s2. The ranges of meanings for
(I ) and (2) can be
so expressed , it is true, but so can the range of meanings for (3) - for instance, as 'Jill met Herb 's female cousin' or as 'Jill met Herb 's male The point of looking for tests is to
shed
light on cases where pre
theoretical intuitio ns are unclear, while maintaining the distinction between
(I) and (2)
on the one hand, and (3) on the other. Identity tests rely on a
class of reduction transformations (o r elliptical constructions, if one prefers a nontransfonnational recasting o f these ideas) subject to an identity condition. Among these transformatio ns are those illustrated in (4) below . Jill m et Herb 's cousin, and Laura met Herb 's cousin
(4)
a. Jill met Herb 's cousin and
S so did Laura l l Laura did too 5
b . Jill and Laura (each) met Herb's cousin
In
(4a) one occurrence of
so
did
met Herb 's cousin is replaced b y an expression, did too ; and in (4b), one occurrence of met Herb 's cousin is In both cases, the material that is replaced or missing must be
or
missing .
syntactically identical to other material
in the sentence. When we con
(2), w hich represents two syntactically different en S2 , we see that for such reduction transformations, S l and
sider a string like tities
S2
Sl
and
count as nonidentical ; it follows that although (Sa) represents four
syntactically d ifferent entities, (Sb ) represents only two . (S)
a. The b ill is huge and the bill is astonishing
b.
The bill is huge and astonishing
(2) and (3) has semantic (2) has its associated semantic readings The beak is huge') corresponding to S l and
The syntactic difference between examples like correlates. Each syntactic entity in (sl , The expense is huge' ; s2,
S2
respectively , so that the string (Sa), with its conjoined full clauses, has
four semantic readings - one reading for each of the four syntactic entities it represent s ; but the reduced (Sb ), representing only two syntactic entities,
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cousin '.)
251 lacks the two 'cro ssed ' readings o f (Sa), 'The expense
is astonishing' and
'The beak
is
is huge and the beak
huge and the expense is astonishing', and
has only the 'parallel' readings of (Sa), The expense is huge and the ex pense is astonishing' and 'The beak is huge and the beak is astonishing ' . The string i n (3), ir. contrast , represents only one syntactic entity, and the same will be true for the conjunction of full clauses in (4) as well as for any of the reductions in (4a-c). Even though
(3) and (3 ') each represents only one syntactic entity, it is
still possible to state two different sets of truth Jill met Herb 's cousin
(3 ')
Laura met Herb 's cousin
conditions for each in such a w ay that its truth conditions are equivalent to a disjunction , (cl v c2) for
(3),
(dl v d2) for
(3 ').
The full conjunction
in (4) then has the truth conditions (cl v c2) & (dl v d2), equivalent to a disjunction of four pairs of conditions - (cl & dl ) v (cl & d2) v (c2 & d l ) v (c2 & d2) - and t h e reduced conjunctions i n (4 ) have the sam e truth con ditions, including the 'crossed' truth conditions (cl & d2) and (c2 & dl ). Therefore , semantic considerations alone are not enough to distinguish true ambiguity from generality. We stress again that the reason why tests based on certain reduction transformations distinguish cases like
is
(2)
from those like
a string representing two distinct syntactic entities and
(3) is that (2) (3) is a string
representing one syntactic entity, while reduction transformations require syntactic id entity between the reduced material and material in another conjunct. What constitutes syntactic nonidentity , at least in the clear cases?
(6)
a.
A
d ifference in syntactic structure at some point in a string ;
this can be a simple difference in constituent organization, as in
Ann and Beth and Carol wa/ disagree,
o r more complex (a
matter of transformational derivation, or in some analyses, sub category membership), as in
FArl likes Fred more than Gerald;
b . a difference in syntactic structure at some point in a string, accompanied by the occurrence of one or more phonological (or orthographic) stretches representing distinct lexical items, as in ( l ) ; c . the occurrence of one or more phonological (or orthographic) stretches representing distinct words, like the two words
bill in
(2) ; d . the occurrence at some point of a phrase (like
Delbert kicked
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(3)
252
the bucket)
that is either the product of the ordinary rules of
the syntax or is an idiom. (6) is a list o f the types of am biguity that must be recognized in the syn tactic descriptio n of a language - subtypes of structural ambiguity in (6a), ambiguities that are both structural and lexical in (6b), and subtypes of lexical ambiguity in (6c) and (6d) . The identity tests are tests for am
biguities in
the syntactic description of a string: t o b e somewhat more
precise,
A
(7)
string
is
syntactically ambiguous as between syntactic represen
T, if reduction trans
formations of the appropriate sort (n amely those requiring syn tactic identity), when applying
to T,
yield st rings with only two
('parallel') syntactic representations, not four. Note that
(7)
is not a definition of syntactic ambiguity, but only a (suf
ficient) condition relating syntactic ambiguities in one set of strings to those
in another.
If
(7) is
to b e at all useful, rather than merely true, we
must be able to argue, independently of identity tests, that certain strings are syntactically ambiguous in certain ways.
In
this connection, we point out that
M is entirely (1 ) again.
the identity tests to zeugma . Consider st ring that it is structurally ambiguous in (8) and (8)
correct
in
relating
One way to argue
is
to adduce two sets of strings like those
(1)
represents the (essentially accidental)
(9) -
a . We saw them duck b . We saw him duck c . We saw her meditate d . We saw her vanish
(9)
a. We saw their d uck b . We saw his duck c. We saw her mallard d . We saw her wildebeest
from which we conclude that
confluence of two different patterns.
In
each set, the strings are
(un
controversially , we hope) unambiguous, and within each set they have the same constituent structure ; but these constituent structures differ in (8) and
(9),
the difference residing in the substring
T
comprising the last
two words of these strings. If reduction transformations respect syntactic identity, it follows that they cannot apply to the string in
(10) to
yield those in
(1 1 ).
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tations S l and S2, differing in some substring
253
(10)
a. We saw their duck and we saw them duck b . We saw her meditate and we saw her mallard
(11)
a . *We saw their and them duck b . *We saw her meditate and mallard
The strings in (1 1 ) are zeugmatic, indeed fatally so for the purposes of comprehension. The same syntactic id entity condition that predicts (I I) to be zeugmatic bars the crossed syntactic representations in (1 2b) from ( 1 2a), itself a conjunction of two strings like (1). a . We saw her duck and we saw her crow b . We saw her duck and crow
The same observations can be made about simpler examples like
(13)
a.?? She filled a pen with pigs and ink. [zeugma] b . We noticed, and then contemplated, a pen. [only two re presentations]
In general, syntactic identity conditions both rule out certain reduced conjunctions and also bar particular syntactic structures for others.
2. THE WORD
In our discussion in the preceding section, as in ZS, we assumed a Saus surean conception of word (in fact, of the more inclusive technical notions lexical item and expression). For us, a word is a pairing of phonological (or orthographic) form and meaning. It is not meaning alone : gorse and furze are two different words, not one. And it is not sound (or script) alone : knight and night are two different words, not one, and so are pen 'writing implement ' and pen 'enclosure for animals'. Martin , unfortunately, speaks of the zeugmatic (14) and ( 1 5) - his ( 1 8) and (19) - as ''involving the same syntactic entity . . . used in two different senses" (p. 26 1 ).
( 1 4)
Tony Benn is a radical and so is the square root of2
( 1 5)
Ink goes in pens and so do pigs
We grant that the two occurrences of radical in ( 1 6) are both nouns and have the same pronunciation (and spelling), and that the two occurrences
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( 1 2)
254 of pen in (I 7) are both nouns and have the same pronunciation (and spelling). (16)
Tony Benn is a radical and the square root of 2 is a radical
(17)
Ink goes in pens and pigs go in pens
(18)
Tony Benn is a liberal and the square root of 2 is irrational
Oearly distinct words with identical pronunciations are a commonplace occurrence in every language , and they arise historically in a number of ways - by the phonological convergence of different words, by semantic divergence from a single word , by borrowing from other languages or dialects, and by invention. To deny that they exist is to take appearance (in this case , phonology) for reality . It is also to confound the task of distinguishing these cases from an intuitively quite different set of phe nomena, such as the possibility of interpreting past verb forrns as referring to the recent or remote past , the poSSibility of understanding brother to refer to an older or younger brother, and the like .
3 . UNDERSTANDINGS
The technical term understanding (a count noun) was introduced in ZS specifically to avoid the necessity of deciding ahead of time when the term reading would be appropriate. The term (semantic) reading is usually reserved for the idiosyncratic semantic content asso ciated with individual lexical items - and derivatively, with the semantic content associated with syntactic constructions by virtue of compositional semantic principles operating on the content of the parts of those constructions. In the case of a word like pen, to say that it has two readings is to say, albeit loosely, that there are two words pro nounced [prn] , each with its own reading. To say that a word like kudu has
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But that does not mean that they are the same entity, any more than the fact that identical twins are of the same sex and look alike means that they are the same person. The two different occurrences of radical in (1 6) are two different nouns that happen to be pronounced (and spelled) the same, and this difference counts as much in making the first VP in (16) non identical to the second as would the difference between is liberal and is irrational, which have phonologically (and orthographically) distinct ad jectives in them ; (1 6) is ineligible for reduction to (14) for the same reason that (18) is ineligJ.'ble for any reduction in its VPs .
255 only one reading is to say that there i s only one word
kudu,
the semantic
aspect of the word including sufficient specification to distinguish it from {inter alia)
wildebeest, zebra,
and
springbok,
b ut sufficient generality to
allo w reference to kudus o f all ages, both sexes, all sizes, and so on. The point of seeking a neutral word is to allow discussion of such un clear examples as the adjective luud (as in It is hard
to find the answer and The answer is hard to find), the verb break (as in The rock broke and Kevin broke the rock) and the negator not, among a great many prob lematic cases in English. The strategy is to exploit the semantic conse quences of the syntactic principle {7) above. First , we establish some difference in sets of truth conditions c1 and
(cl
v
c2)
c2
characterizes the truth conditions associated with a
phonologically {or orthographically) characterized unit w. Then we in vestigate the behavior of w under reduction by transformations requiring syntactic identity . The conjunction of one occurrence of w with another
has as its truth conditions a set equivalent to the disjunction of four sets of truth conditions (as in our discussion of {Sa) above). If the reduction of one occurrence of w on syntactic identity with another occurrence maintains all four sets of conditions, then w is a single ('unambiguous') word. If the reduction of one occurrence of w on syntactic identity w ith another occurrence reduces the number of sets of disjoined conditions to two of the original four, then w represents two distinct words. This discussion is simplified if we talk about a set of truth conditions as an
understanding.
The previous paragraph can be summ arized by saying
that if reductions under syntactic identity preserve the two understandings of w, w is a single word, but if they reduce the understandings to one {in other words, if they eliminate the 'crossed ' understandings), w represents two distinct words. Our desire to have a neutral term like
understanding is consistent with M (p . 264) rejects a states-of
an analysis in terms of 'states of affairs'.
affairs approach on the grounds of ontological parsimony , but there is much to be said for an ontology with a middle ground between individual possible worlds and intensions, the two alternatives
M
offers. Among other
things, we should like to have a way of making such ordinary observations as that the (unambiguous) English word
cousin
is unspecified as to sex,
relative age w ith respect to ego, generational level with respect to ego, maternal/paternal connection, and any number of other meaning dis tinctions that are the subject of consid erable lexical differentiation in other languages.
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such that
256 4 . FINAL REMARKS It seems to us that M has seriously mistaken the intentions and proposals in ZS. Almo st surely , some of his misconceptions were e ncouraged by our exposition, which was directed at an audience of linguists. We simply assum ed that a difference in words constituted a difference of syntactic structure, 9J that tactic structure as
bene sees a waUaby does not have quite the same syn bene sees an aardvark or Janet sees a waUaby, though
their labeled tree structures above the terminal nodes are identical. And we simply assumed that an 'ambiguous word'
is
really two words with the
same pronunciatio n, as Saussure proposed a hundred years ago . Starting
reading, ambiguity, and identity test. is beside the point , given
We believe that most of his analytical apparatus
M's misconceptions on the function of identity tests and on the nature of the word , and given his decision not to explore 'states of affairs' as ex plicanda of uruierstandings.
Linguiftics DqJartment Ohio State University and
Linguistics DqJartment University of Or icago
REFERENCES A tlas, J.D. , 1 9 7 7 : Negation, ambiguity , presupposition. L inguistics and Philosophy 1 : 3 2 1-3 36. Blackburn, W.K., 1983: Ambiguity and non�pecificity: A reply to Jay David A tlu. Linguistic� and Philosophy 6 : 4 79-498. Kempson, R.M., 1975: Presupposition and the Delimitation of Semantics. Cam bridge Univ. Press, Cambridge. Kimball, J.P. (ed.), 1 9 7 5 : Syntax and Semantics IV. Academic Press, New York. Martin, J.N ., 1 9 8 2 : Negation, am biguity, and the identity terJ.. Journal of Semantics 1 : 2 5 1-274. Zwicky, A .M . & Sadock, J.M., 1975 : Ambiguity tests and how to fail them. In: Kimball (ed.): 1-36.
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from the roughly contrary position on b oth matters, Martin has con structed a complex explication of
Journal of Semantics 3 : 257-260
DETACHMENT
f "MEANING DETACHMENT " B. DE CORNULIER
Detachment role: If P can be proven, and if moreover P -:> Q can be proven, then Q can be proven When someone says, If I am not crazy, it is raining, if he tacitly assumes, I am not crazy, he may obviously imply: It is raining. Such examples (p . 2) illustrate the fact that something like Detachment is commonly exploited in ordinary speech. 2) I assume that the notion meaning is such that the following relation holds:
Meaning-implication relation: U P means Q, then P implies Q 3) From the combination of 1 and 2 , the following rule can be derived:
Meaning Detachment rule (weak version): If P can be proven, and if moreover (P means Q) can be proven, then Q can be proven A
'thesis' corresponding to this 'rule' is informally stated as follows (p. 3):
Meaning Detaclunent thesis (weak version): (P plies Q
&
(P means Q)) im
Meaning Detachment, henceforth MD, is used to explain why, by saying X, and that X means Q, one may be committed to the truth of Q. Example, if one says: (Athens was a republic� - Thisi means that Athens had a president reelected every two years, (where indices indicate the referential scope o f ''this"), he is committed t o the truth o f the proposition Athens had a president reelected every two years, and this is accounted for by MD, which applies to the conjunction of the first sentence with the second one,
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The basic idea of my book Meaning Detachment is explicated as follows in its very first four pages: 1 ) Recall the Detachment rule, alias Modus Ponens (where ponens means detaching), according to which, in Propositional Calculus:
258 which says what the first o n e means. When the speaker p roperly means, or implicates in the sense of Grice , the proposition to the truth of which he is conunitted by MD, I call this a case of "strong" Meaning Detachment , accounted for by the following formula (which is not logically necessary ; p . l 4):
Meaning Detachment thesis means Q
(strong version): (P & (P means
Surprisingly, the frrst example by which illustrate the MD analysis is:
R.
Hauser &
C.
Gerstner
If I am not crazy, it is raining,
Q))
(1 983)
which in my
relation between such an example and M D "is not explicitly shown" in my book; therefore, they "could not resist to state explicitly" this correlation as follows:
(1)
P=
(2)
P means Q = I am
(3)
Q = It is raining
I am not crazy not crazy means It is raining
Then comes their appreciation: in this analysis, clause little more than an
ad hoc
(2)
"seems to be
assumption" ; this fully justifies their con
clusion : "An informal analysis employing such freedom in the intuitive reconstruction of concrete examples can fit anything into the schema" of my rule. But as we saw above , a different analysis was proposed on the second page of the book under review: replace Hausser's and Gerstner's reconstructed clause under discussion
2,
which is avowedly gratuitous, by the very sentence
(If I am not crrzzy, it is raining),
do without MD, simply
use something like the Detachment rule, and you get the analysis of the reviewed book.
This misunderstanding is not accidental, it is related to the very way in which Hausser & Gerstner present the principle of MD:
''Comulier formulates Modus Ponens as a rule of communication of the following form (. . ) : (P & (P means Q) implies Q - weak version: (P & (P means Q) means Q" - strong version : .
First minor misunderstanding: these are the "theses", not the ''rules" of MD (they are clearly distinguished on page
3
of the book). Second modifi
cation by the reviewers: they omit a second closing parenthesis after
P
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view neither requires, nor allows, applying such a rule. They fmd that the
259
means Q
(see above), which is crucial to the sense of these theses. Third
misunderstanding: they present Meaning Detachment as my ''formulation" of Detachment, while these two rules are clearly distinguished on pages
1
to
3
of my book, where the former is derived from the latter plus the
Meaning-hnplication relation; this confusion may be the source of their curious reconstruction of my analysis of sentences of the type IfP, Another misunderstanding, which gives a strange idea of
Detachment, will
Q. Meaning
appear by comparing my formulation, and their re
construction, of the analysis of an example which I warned was not "obvious" ; I write ( p .
1 6-1 7):
Do you mean that I may go out? - Of course!
(28)
is to ask him, not only if he means something, but if I may go out; the
positive answer doesn't mean simply "Yes I do", but also "Yes you may". The principle of this exchange is the following: since the con junction of P with (P means Q) means Q, to ask someone who is al ready responsible for P if he is also responsible for (P means Q) is, by anticipating the effect of meaning detachment on possible answers, to ask him if he is responsible for Q. Through this anticipated operation, the question about meaning in (28) amounts to asking for a permission".
R.
Hausser &
C.
Gerstner do not mention this analysis, neither do they
mention less complicated examples with an interplay of question and answ er, b ut they feel compelled to reconstruct my analysis as follows:
" (1 ) P = Do you mean that (2) P means Q
=
Do
I may go out?
you mean that I may go out?
means I want to go
out.
(3 ) Q =
I want to go out."
This, again, fully justifies their general conclusion about the book they are reviewing. But their reconstruction, mentioning the question examined in dependently of the answer, does not take the least account of the inter play between question and answer, which is the core of my analysis. The
P means Q
value should rather be assigned, first of all, to such an ex
pected answer as bined with some
You may go out, Gerstner's clause
Yes, I mean (by P) that you may go out, which, com previous utterance P of the asked person , would induce by MD. One of the things which make look Hausse r's &
2
particularly gratuitous is that, to reconstruct a P means
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"In certain questions, meaning detachment is exploited in a Jess ob vious way. To ask of someone in authority ·
260 Q
proposition, they do not even exploit the fact that the word
occurs in the question. The misunderstandings
since
their tone
is
1
mean
of the reviewers are all the more excusable
by no means aggressive. But they are worth correcting
b ecause of the personalities of the reviewers, because of the high scientific standard of the Journal in which the review was published, and because what was misunderstood was the very principle of the book under review.
Pont-Hus 44390 Petitmars, France
1 . No other review of my boo k presented such miliUndontandings. A detailed criticism of Meaning Detachment was published in Recanati (1 982), which I try to take account of in my formulation of MD in Comulier (1 984).
REFERENCES Comulier, B. de, 1 980 : Meaning Detachment. John Benjamins, Almterdam . Comulier, B. de, 1 984: A propos des Enonces Per[ormati[s. In: u Fra11fais Mo derne, 5 2 : 1 15-1 2 1, OLF, Paris. Hausser, R., & C. Gerstner, 198 3 : Review of Meaning Detachment (Comulier, 1 980). In: Journal of Semantics 2, 3/4; 350-352. Recanati, F., 1 982: Let hroncis per[ormatift. Editions de Minuit , Pam.
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NOTES
Journal of Semantics 3 : 257-260
DETACHMENT
f "MEANING DETACHMENT " B. DE CORNULIER
Detachment role: If P can be proven, and if moreover P -:> Q can be proven, then Q can be proven When someone says, If I am not crazy, it is raining, if he tacitly assumes, I am not crazy, he may obviously imply: It is raining. Such examples (p . 2) illustrate the fact that something like Detachment is commonly exploited in ordinary speech. 2) I assume that the notion meaning is such that the following relation holds:
Meaning-implication relation: U P means Q, then P implies Q 3) From the combination of 1 and 2, the following rule can be derived:
Meaning Detachment rule (weak version): If P can be proven, and if moreover (P means Q) can be proven, then Q can be proven A
'thesis' corresponding to this 'rule' is informally stated as follows (p. 3):
Meaning Detaclunent thesis (weak version): (P plies Q
&
(P means Q)) im
Meaning Detachment, henceforth MD, is used to explain why, by saying X, and that X means Q, one may be committed to the truth of Q. Example, if one says: (Athens was a republic� - Thisi means that Athens had a president reelected every two years, (where indices indicate the referential scope of ''this"), he is committed to the truth of the proposition Athens had a president reelected every two years, and this is accounted for by MD, which applies to the conjunction of the first sentence with the second one,
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The basic idea of my book Meaning Detachment is explicated as follows in its very first four pages: 1 ) Recall the Detachment rule, alias Modus Ponens (where ponens means detaching), according to which, in Propositional Calculus:
258 which says what the first one means. When the speaker p roperly means, or implicates in the sense of Grice , the proposition to the truth of which he is conunitted by MD, I call this a case of "strong" Meaning Detachment , accounted for by the following formula (which is not logically necessary ; p . l 4):
Meaning Detachment thesis means Q
(strong version): (P & (P means
Surprisingly, the frrst example by which illustrate the MD analysis is:
R.
Hauser &
C.
Gerstner
If I am not crazy, it is raining,
Q))
(1 983)
which in my
relation between such an example and M D "is not explicitly shown" in my book; therefore, they "could not resist to state explicitly" this correlation as follows:
(1)
P=
(2)
P means Q
(3)
Q = It is raining
I am not crazy
=
I am not crazy means It is raining
Then comes their appreciation: in this analysis, clause little more than an
ad hoc
(2)
"seems to be
assumption" ; this fully justifies their con
clusion: "An informal analysis employing such freedom in the intuitive reconstruction of concrete examples can fit anything into the schema" of my rule. But as we saw above, a different analysis was proposed on the second page of the book under review: replace Hausser's and Gerstner's reconstructed clause under discussion
2,
which is avowedly gratuitous, by the very sentence
(If I am not crrzzy, it is raining),
do without MD, simply
use something like the Detachment rule , and you get the analysis of the reviewed book.
This misunderstanding is not accidental, it is related to the very way in which Hausser & Gerstner present the principle of MD:
''Comulier formulates Modus Ponens as a rule of communication of the following form (. . ): (P & (P means Q) implies Q - weak version: (P & (P means Q) means Q" - strong version : .
First minor misunderstanding: these are the "theses", not the ''rules" of MD (they are clearly distinguished on page
3
of the book). Second modifi
cation by the reviewers: they omit a second closing parenthesis after
P
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view neither requires, nor allows, applying such a rule . They fmd that the
259
means Q (see above), which is crucial to the sense of these theses. Third misunderstanding: they present Meaning Detachment as my ''formulation" of Detachment, while these two rules are clearly distinguished on pages 1 to 3 of my book, where the former is derived from the latter plus the Meaning-hnplication relation; this confusion may be the source of their curious reconstruction of my analysis of sentences of the type IfP, Q. Another misunderstanding, which gives a strange idea of Meaning Detachment, will appear by comparing my formulation, and their re construction, of the analysis of an example which I warned was not "obvious" ; I write ( p. 1 6-1 7):
(28)
Do you mean that I may go out? - Of course!
is to ask him, not only if he means something, but if I may go out; the
positive answer doesn't mean simply "Yes I do", but also "Yes you may". The principle of this exchange is the following: since the con junction of P with (P means Q) means Q, to ask someone who is al ready responsible for P if he is also responsible for (P means Q) is, by anticipating the effect of meaning detachment on possible answers, to ask him if he is responsible for Q. Through this anticipated operation, the question about meaning in (28) amounts to asking for a permission".
R. Hausser & C. Gerstner do not mention this analysis, neither do they mention less complicated examples with an interplay of question and answ er, b ut they feel compelled to reconstruct my analysis as follows: " (1 ) P = Do you mean that I may go out? (2) P means Q = Do you mean that I may go out? means I want to go out. (3 ) Q = I want to go out." This, again, fully justifies their general conclusion about the book they are reviewing. But their reconstruction, mentioning the question examined in dependently of the answer, does not take the least account of the inter play between question and answer, which is the core of my analysis. The P means Q value should rather be assigned, first of all, to such an ex pected answer as Yes, I mean (by P) that you may go out, which, com bined with some previous utterance P of the asked person , would induce You may go out, by MD. One of the things which make look Hausser's & Gerstner's clause 2 particularly gratuitous is that, to reconstruct a P means
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"In certain questions, meaning detachment is exploited in a Jess ob vious way. To ask of someone in authority ·
260 Q
proposition, they do not even exploit the fact that the word
occurs in the question. The misunderstandings
since
their tone
is
1
mean
of the reviewers are all the more excusable
by no means aggressive. But they are worth correcting
b ecause of the personalities of the reviewers, because of the high scientific standard of the Journal in which the review was published, and because what was misunderstood was the very principle of the book under review.
Pont-Hus 44390 Petitmars, France
1 . No other review of my boo k presented such miliUndontandings. A detailed criticism of Meaning Detachment was published in Recanati (1 982), which I try to take account of in my formulation of MD in Comulier (1 984).
REFERENCES Comulier, B. de, 1 980 : Meaning Detachment. John Benjamins, Almterdam . Comulier, B. de, 1 984: A propos des Enonces Per[ormati[s. In: u Fra11fais Mo derne, 5 2 : 1 15-1 2 1, OLF, Paris. Hausser, R., & C. Gerstner, 198 3 : Review of Meaning Detachment (Comulier, 1 980). In: Journal of Semantics 2, 3/4; 350-352. Recanati, F., 1 982: Let hroncis per[ormatift. Editions de Minuit , Pam.
Downloaded from jos.oxfordjournals.org by guest on January 1, 2011
NOTES
Journal of Semantics 3 : 26 1 -2 7 5
REVIEW ARTICLE Hans-Jilrgen Eikmeyer and Hannes Rieser (eds.), Words, JYorlds, and Con texts. New Approaches in Word Semantics. (= Research in Text Theory Vol . 6). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/New York, 1 98 1 . viii + 5 1 5 pp. Ooth DM 178,-. ISBN 3-1 1.008504-6 . Peter Bosch The study of word meanings has been pursued in many different ways and by a number of different scientific disciplines. The universal difficulty of
without sacrificing the versatility and flexibility of word
meaning
to the
precision of a scientifically acceptable statement. Pe rhaps the solution to
this difficulty will eventually come from the insight that word meaning, after all,
is
not one unified thing that could be handled by any one theory
b ut requires many theories, supplementing each other, and each dealing only with particular aspects of the complex notion of meaning. For the time being, in any case , it would certainly seem advisable to leave many options open and take a generally pluralistic attitude.
In the volume to be reviewed , Eikmeyer and Rieser present recent results in the study of word meaning that derive from some of the major approaches in linguistics and philooophy. Developments originating from psychology, anthropology, and artificial intelligence play a more
this book. Considering , however, the great amount of is found already in philo&:>phy and linguistics, the restriction
marginal. role in d iversity that of scope
is understandable and would appear quite
sensible.
Among the approaches present are the European Structuralist tradition, Frame Theory, Formal Semantics, Speech Act Theory, Conversation Analysis, and - as a novelty - Catastrophe Theory . Many of the twenty papers in the volume, however, do not clearly fall into any particular one of these
categories but propose combinatio ns or variants of the better
established traditions. The book has a very detailed and useful subject index, though, un fort unately, no index of names. It is also unfortunate that the individual contributions are not preceded by abstracts, though there are summaries of all pap ers included in the ed itorial introduction. The first paper, on "Adverbs of Causation", by Max
Cresswell, attempts to
provide a semantics for this rather diverse class of expressions, based on
David Lewis's analysis of causation. Under Lewis's analysis the causal state ment
"a
caused
b" is
entailed by the counterfactual conditional "if a had
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the subject has been the fact that it is hard to be precise on something as fluctuating, iliosyncratic, vague , and elusive as the meanings of words
262
b
not occurred,
would not have occurred". Titis counterfactual then
interpreted in the possible world id iom :
a
respect to a world w, if and only if there is a world w '
are true in w and there true and
is
counterfactually implies b with '
such that a and
is no world more similar to w than w
'
b
in which a is
b not .
This would apply to the simplest case of adverbs of causation, like
fatally,
as in
Catherine fatally slipped, as follows :
Catherine fatally slipped
in the real world if and only if she slipped at time time t ' and if there
is a world w
'
t
and died at a later
in which she did not slip at
t ' and there is no world closer to ' slipped at t and did not die at t .
die at
t and
'
did not
the real world than w in which she
thing to do . Without some clarifiCation however of the notion that a '
particular w orld w is closer to a given world w than another world, there is no clear advantage of the poSSib le worlds idiom over the initial counter factual formulation, at least as far as the application of the approach to actual data
is
concerned . This
is
not to say that the intuitive formulation
in terms of the counterfactual conditional
is
satisfactory, but rather that
one formulation tells us as little as the other. Take the case where Catherine slipped on the roof, fell off and died. We may b e inclined to describe this situation by saying that Catherine fatally slipped . And this means that we would assume that , had she not slipped, she would still be alive. Now we can surely imagine circumstances where she did not slip and went on living happily ever after. And we could also imagine that she did slip but held on to the spout and was saved from her uncomfortable positio n by the ftre brigade, or that she landed in a swim ming pool next to the building or on a hay stack and climbed right up to the roof again to carry on with whatever she might have been doing there . - But in what sense should we say that these circumstances, or wo rlds, are fu rther removed from the actual world than the world where she does not slip and dies a peaceful death in the fall-out shelter like all the rest of us?
Is it just that we would consider it unlikely, or instances of great luck, if she falls into the swimming pool or on the hay stack? Perhaps we should say that the latter would certainly not be the ordinary course of events, not the sort of thing we would expect, other things being equal. - At any rate, it
is
these notio ns of likelihood, ordinary course of events, or default
expectation that need closer analysis. Talking of "distances" between different possib le worlds only covers up what needs Still, this
is
to
be investigated .
not strictly Cresswell's problem but a problem of the analysis
is the one from ''fatally" to the is interesting and illuminating . Category of Modality", Angelika Kratzer
of counterfactuals. The important step
counterfactual conditional. And this step
In her paper on "The Notional
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Unfortunately, however, Cresswell d oes not provide us with a distance measure between po SSible worlds, and this would probably be a difficult
263 d evelops her notion of modality as an explication of c omm on semantic properties of a long list of Gennan expressions, not only comprising equivalents of the notorious may,
can, or rTU.Jst. simple necessity,
There is, first of all, the notion of
"A
reconstructs as follows :
which Kratzer
proposition is a simple necessity in a world
w with respect to the conversational background f if and only if it follows from f(w ). The new notion of a conversational b ackground is explained "
as follows (we restrict our considerations here to epistemic conversational backgrounds): an epistemic background is a function that assigns sets of propositions to possible worlds, namely those propositions that are known in the world in question . As for the remaining notions, Kratzer
if p
proposition p follows from a Si't of propositions A
if and
is true in all those worlds of W where all propositions of
A
are tru e . (W is the set of all poSSible worlds, and a proposition is taken as a subset of W, i.e. the subset of all those worlds where the p roposition i s true.) The interesting innovation here is clearly the notion of a
background
and one may expect that fu rther work will uncover a large number of illuminating applications for this notion. But let us consider an example.
I am standing outside my front door and cannot fmd my keys, I am sure I took them with me when I went o ut. This is a situation where I may senSibly say "I must have lost my keys" and have in mind what Kratzer calls a 'simple necessity'. That is, the p roposition I express Suppose
although
by the above sentence is true if and only if it follows from the relevant epistemic background , here from what
I
know in that world . An un
fortunate consequence of this analysis is the following. Suppose that, in the above situation, have to infer it . Perhaps
I I
already know that
I
lo st my keys and do not
saw them drop into a sewer .
Also
in this case the
proposition 'follows', in Kratzer's sense, from my epistemic background aoo hence there is no difference between this situation and the earlier one. Still , one could hardly deny that the utterance
"I must have lost my keys"
is appropriate only in the frrst kind of situation. Any analysis that treats both situations alike mis se s something crucial about the use and perhaps also about the semantics of
must.
We say rTU.Jst
just
in case we know not
directly but on the b asis of an inference, and Kratzer's analysis should be amended to incorporate this distinction. But such an amendment may not be a trivial matter, because the relevant distinction between 'knowing directly' and 'knowing on the basis of inference' is not easy to draw . For instance the inferred knowledge of Fred being unmarried from the know ledge that he is a bachelor would seem to count rather as 'direct knowledge' ; it would seem odd if someone, having heard that Fred is a b achelor, were to conclude : "Oh , he must be unmarried then". On the other hand , there is less oddity in the conclusion 'rrhere must be about
5300
American
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explains that a only
264 soldiers in Grenada" if the previous information is that seven hundred soldiers have b een withdrawn from an original strength of six thousand .
Yet,
both conclusions wo uld seem to rest on 'analytical' inferences in
some sense of 'analytical'. Peter Lutzeier 's article on ''Words and Worlds" offers interesting con siderations of the use of possible worlds in natural language semantics. Lutzeier stresses that, as far as the interpretation of what people say in their language is concerned , not all possible worlds are quite on a par: there is fust o f all the actual world in which our speakers live that oc cupies a position of primacy; then there are all those possible worlds that
fairy tales and fiction books. Eventually there may also be possible worlds that are just ''too far away" from the actual wo rld of the speakers to be relevant for a semantics of their language . The notion of possible worlds that Lutzeier subsequently develops formally would seem to be able to handle such distinctions. And that is certainly a valuable result. Un fortunately , however, Lutzeier leaves us at this general level and refers the reader to future empirical investigatio ns that would have to specify the "fixed , most prominent set of world types" for a linguistic c orrunu nity. Lutzeier subsequently applies his notions to analyses of words like
possibly, constructions ilke x knows that p, and some German prepositions. These applications, however, are not very convincing, at least to m e , as analyses of the semantics of the corresponding expressions, and should probab ly rather be seen as having the statu s of illustrations for the formal approach.
Ekkehard
Konig 's paper is an excellent and well rounded-off study of
''The Meaning of Scalar Particles in Ge rman ". It is one of the few papers in the volume that are in the fust instance concerned with a particular set of data and provil e new insight into these data rather than using them in the discussion of matters mainly theoretical . The result is admirable : a o ne-piece account for the semantics of expressions like also, too , either, even, just, etc., o f which German has considerably more than English . The originality of the work here presented is not only in the actual proposal but also in the fact that Konig would seem the fust who has ever attempted to provide a uniform semantics for the expression s of th� superficially very diverse class, whereas there have been, on the other hand , quite a few studies on isolated expressions like
only
or even.
The fust step Konig takes is to propose a uniform syntactic classi ficatio n of the expressions under discu ssion in tenns of a categorial gram mar: they are modif1ers of expressions or phrases in just about any cate-
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are within the range o f what our speakers would consider as future possi bilities , counterfactual alternatives, or as what they would create in their
265 gory , yielding new phrases of exactly the same syntactic category . In the syntactic analysis, however, Konig relies on earlier research by
Hans
Altmann. Despite its mainly empirical orientation the paper is also of theoretical interest. Many scalar particles have been seen as not con tributing to the truth-conditions of sentences in which they occur, or, ex pressed in a less flattering way for truth-conditional semantics: t ruth conditional semantics had nothing to · say about scalar particles. Now Konig shows that scalar particles do contribute to the truth-conditions, and it is here that their uniform semantic properties show. The contributbn by Hans.Jilrgen Eikmeyer and
Hannes Rieser,
''Meanings,
aims, as the title indicates, at an integration of notions from fonnal se mantics and the study of systems of knowledge and belief. The proposal
is roughly the following : linguistic meaning should be taken to incorporate factual knowledge and belief both in the form of extension-detennining functions (intensions) and in the form of stereotypes in the sense pro posed by Hilary Putnam. Stereotypes are not unifonn across a speech comm unity but differ according to the 'linguistic division of labour' (Putnam). Eikmeyer and Rieser explicate this notion in terms of what they call "backgrounds". These are sets of propositions believed to be true by speakers and these sets differ per subject matter between the respective experts and laymen . Different backgrounds again allow access to different contexts. These notions concerning knowledge and belief are linked up by Eikmeyer and Rieser with the central notions of intensio nal semantics
via a redefinitio n of possible worlds
as pairs of contexts and backgrounds
and by adjusting the notion of cornpositionality of intensio ns to the new notion of linguistic meaning .
An application of this approach that f�gures centrally in the paper is its aptness for the treatment of phenomena of vagueness in natural language. Vagueness, as conceived by the authors, can be brought about or can be eliminated by switching contexts: what is vague in one context may well be precise with respect to another c ontext and vice versa. This is an admirable programme, and one of it s main attractions in comparison with most other current approaches lies in the flexibility that can b e achieved by taking explicitly and systematically parameters like context and background into account. There are, however, a few prob lems that must not be overlooked. They derive mainly from the differ ent strands of research that Riese r and Eikmeyer are integrating. The first concerns the notion of context, which the authors want to see 'holistical ly' and in a realist spirit : contexts are just there, out in the world, and are left unanalyzed , without any internal structure. The authors assume, how-
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Intensions and Stereotypes, A New Approach to linguistic Semantics"
266
Michael Grabski 's paper ''Quotations as lndexicals and Demonstratives" is an excellent and illuminating piece of work, attempting an outline of a semantics of quotation in a framework akin to David Kaplan's double indexing approach. Very little work on quotations has yet been done and Grabski is led by very careful observation to the perhaps surprising result that quotation shares interesting and important properties with demon stration and anaphora. John C. Bigelow 's paper ''Truth and Universals" is certainly one of the philosophically most exciting contributions in this volume . He proposes a reconstruction of the Kripkean realist notion of possible worlds on the basis o f Russell's philosophy in his 1 9 1 2 book 1heProblemsofPhilosophy. The most attractive feature of Bigelow's proposal is that he can avoid the major internal puzzle that has bugged intensional semantics : the paradox (if you wish to call it that) of belief contexts. This, taken together with the fact that possible worlds in Bigelow's approach are no longer primi tive unanalyzed entities must certainly be regarded as a major achieve ment in the philosophy of semantics. It is only the price that has to be paid which makes the proposal less attractive: universals must be reckoned among the primitive notions of the theory. But whatever one's attitude
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ever, a number of functions that take contexts as arguments, or sets of contexts and even the set of all c ontexts. These functions cbuld, of course , never be calculated - and hence would be of rather limited empirical use because the set of c ontexts will remain non-denumerably infinite as long as we take contexts as unstructured , un-parametrized, wholes. Another difficulty I have concerns the constructi:>n of linguistic meanings as values of functio ns more generally. This view implies that, once the relevant parameters are fixed , there is no question any more about what the meaning of an expression is . But is the interpretation of linguistic expressions by humans really that deterministic? And if it is then we have here a deterministic theory all right but we shall hardly be able to apply it empirically, i.e. make actual predictions, because actual speakers can never really survey and take into account all relevant parameters in their linguistic behaviour. We would need an additional 'performance' theory. But then, why first make a theory about angels, i.e. abstract entities, if all we want is a theory about the chickens that are the real world down-to-earth instantiations of the angels of the theory? Surely, these questions are not specifically directed at Eikmeyer and Rieser, but concern linguistic theory formation more generally. Only one feels tempted to pose them again in this context, because Eikmeyer and Rieser make every effort to drive semantic theory into a more empirical and in that sense realistic perspective.
267 is towards countenancing intensional entities, Bigelow's paper will certain ly retain its value as a contribution to a better understanding of what ontological commitments come with a commitment to intensions.
Burghard Rieger's
paper "Feasable Fuzzy Semantics. On Some Problems
of How to Handle Word Meaning Empirically" is one of the papers, and there are several in this volume, that present genuinely n ew ideas about word semantics. Rieger, as I understand him, wo uld fundamentally sub scnbe to Zadeh's fuzzy semantics. Only there is a prob lem with that approach which has overshadowed some of its more attractive features: from where do we get the actual degrees of elementhood for the elements
and an eagle again is less of a bird than a sparrow, we still cannot do very much with this ranking in fuzzy semantics, unless we have a way of measuring the degree to which these feathered b ipeds are birds. Rieger pro poses an operational solution to this difficulty, based on the intuitive as sumption that a meaning of a word cannot be entirely independent of the meanings of the words with which it co-occurs. Hence one clue we have, as speakers or listeners as well as qua linguists, in de termining word meaning is the linguistic context . Rieger develops this simple intuition into automatic proced ures and probes how far it might get us. In a first step intensities of co-occurrence of words in a particular corpus are calculated and in a number of following steps a variety of semantic spaces are constructed that reflect different aspects of word m eaning. The results of these procedures applied to a c orpus of German news paper articles and carried out automatically by a computer are reproduced in Rieger's paper by means of a sample list of some lexical items. They are in striking agreement with the intuitions of German native speakers, and
this is the more surprising because the corpus Rieger used was really fairly small and certainly not very representative for ordinary Ge rman usage . One should c ertainly look forward to seeing Rieger's approach applied to much larger and more varied corpora. But what we have seen is very promising already. The few caveats I have are the following. I fail to see how co-occur rence based data should reveal very much about c ontextually largely un determined vocabulary , such as, in particular, the so-called logical vocabu lary of quantifier expressions, conjunctions, and also particles, prepo sitions, auxiliaries and their like. I have similar difficulties with highly general 'content ' words, which wo uld also seem
to
depend so little on their
environment (as far as their abstract , context independent , meaning is concerned) that even the analysis of very large corpora would probably tell us much less about them than just a hand ful of examples of use plus
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of a particular fuzzy se t? How do we determine these degrees empirical ly? If a penguin is less of a bird than a duck and a duck less than an eagle
2 68 ostensive definitions. Still , this is not much more than
a priori scepticism
and one would have to wait and see . Another point is the relationship between the 'rough' statistics-based semantic de scriptions we get from Rie ger (or from a dictionary , though in a less
U!Eful and illuminating form) and
the 'fme ' semantic descriptions one would want to provide for fully con textualized expressions. I would certainly assume that the former are needed as ingredients for the latter, but how we get from one to the other is still far from clear. But then ,
this
is not the problem at which
Rieger's paper is directed and my sceptical remarks should not d ivert the reader from the b rillia nce and originality of Rieger's proposal. They rather se rve to c ontextualize it by hinting at m atters that still have to be
The paper by
Joachim BaOweg
and
Helnu.tt Frosch,
"Formal Semantics
for the Progressive of Stative and Non-Stative Verbs", makes a not very convincing a ttempt at provid ing a semantics for what they call 'verbs of change '. The only e xample considered is the Gemi.an places , its English equivalent to
faD asleep.
einschlafen,
and , in
My trouble starts already with
the in itial intuitio ns. Ballweg and Frosch claim that if John
slept
is true
at an interval t we may c onclude that it is also true for each subinterval of
t.
Well, if that is so , it must be a matter of John being known as a particu
larly sound sleeper. But it is certainly not a matter of the m eaning of the
sentence . Unfortunately, it !Eerns that the authors need this false as
John slept with John fell asleep and John was falling asleep. For the latter sentences they claim that their truth at an interval t does not allow the inference that they are also true at each subinterval oft. John fell asleep should rather be seen as being true at an sumption in order to contrast
interval at the beginning of which John is awake and the end of which he is asleep and
John was falling asleep
is different in that here we may not
conclude that at the end of t John is actually asleep , nor that at the
beginn ing
of it he was awake . The sentence is true, Ballweg and Frosch
would claim, at any subinterval of the interval at which it is true that John fell asleep . The fundamental intuition of the authors is that during an interval of falling asleep the degree of being asleep increases between each two successive time points. Now, perhaps this is true in some cases, and perhaps it is even typically the case . But I should deny emphatically that the meaning of John
feD asleep has anything to do w ith the
nature of
the transition process . The focu s of such a statement would rather be on the
state of being awake and the state of being process that leads from one to the other. When I know John was awake at time t 1 and I see that he is asleep at t 2 (where t2 is later than t 1 - not many hours later , though) I may assert that he fell asleep, no matter what happened in b etween. By c ontrast, John was difference
between the
asleep , but not on the
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taken up .
269
falling asleep focusses on the process rather than on the difference between the states before and after. It
is
probably the formal semantics Ballweg and Frosch have developed
for the description of processes of gradual change that leads them into claims about the data that are at points hard to justify. And this pro posal of a "semantics of change" seems to be what they are really in terested in in this paper. Ballweg's own paper, which follows the joint paper with Frosch and
is
about ..Simple Present Tense and Progressive
Periphrases in German" fares much b etter with respect to the fit between formal proposal and data. The form al apparatus jointly developed with Frosch is here extended and applied to German data that not only p rovide formalism may even provide a better understanding. A weakness here is that what has been called ''anaphoric reference to time" (Partee) is de termined ad hoc , that is, simply by fixing an arbitrary time , and the mechanisms of temporal anaphora remain in the dark.
Wolfgang
Wildgen 's contnb ution . ..Archetypical Dynamics in Word Se
mantics: An Application of Catastrophe Theory" will, for many less mathematically minded readers, be a hard-going piece. I shall not make an attempt here at summ arizing the already fairly densely written paper but restrict myself to what I take to be its main thrust . There are many phenomena in natural language semantics that have never been treated and many of them have even entirely escaped se manticists' attention. In particular I am referring to phenomena o f variation and , more generally , dynamic aspects of the semantics of natural language.
This is
due , in part , to the great advances that have been made with res
pect to the more static properties of natural language by adopting the Fregean tradition of logic and semantics. The Fregean approach naturally abstracts from anything dynamic and also divides linguistic phenomena from their psychological connection in areas like memory or perception. Wildgen explores in his paper, and has explored in more c omprehensive stu dies be fore, the possibilitie s that differential topology, and Rene Thorn's Catastrophe Theory in particular, may have
to
offer as a descriptive
apparatus not just for tackling those neglected areas but probably for a far more comprehensive linguistic theory. Wildgen introduces the basics of Catastrophe Theory and exemplifies applications with respect to linguistic descriptions of adjectives of degree and a semantics of colour terms. There is certainly, as Wildgen himself emphasizes, not enough material yet for anybody to judge these first serious attempts in the application of Catastrophe Theory
to
Semantics (after some sketchy
work by Thorn himself in the early Seventies). But Wildgen does his best to be as concrete and perspicuous as possible, also about problems en-
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a good illustration for what the formalism can do but for which the
270 countered . What to me seems at issue now, however, is not so much to pass a judgement on first descriptive results but rather to get acquain t ed with the e � ntially new perspective this approach can offer: explicit fonnal description in areas that up to now have b ee n neglected
just
be
cause we lacked the heuristics of suitable formal descriptions and because informal theorizing did not seem to lead much further. Wildgen's paper is an extremely stimulating and infonnative piece of interdisciplinary work with competent accounts of relevant work in psychology , linguistics, philosophy , and mathematics, and it must be ad mired for the coherence of perspective it can offer. As to the develop ments in Catastrophe Theory, with which many readers are most likely
Waltraud Brennenstuhl
and
Thomas T. BaUmer
have two joint papers in
this volwn e , both concerned with different aspects of one large research enterprise : "An Empirical Approach to Frame Theory: Verb Thesaurus Organization" and "Lexical Analysis and Language Theory". The research in the background of both papers is a thesaurus of German verbs which Balhner and Brennenstuhl compiled in the Mid-Seventies . The thesaurus constitutes nothing less than a semantic classification of practically all German verbs. It is based on a close analysis of about eight thousand non-composite verbs. The first step of their classification procedure consists of an intuitive j udgement : given three verbs, which two are semantically more similar? Repeated application of this step yields about eight hundred similarity classes of verbs
verb models. verb model groups on the
(verb categories),
which are
grouped into forty
The models are again grouped into
eleven
basis of which three
verb types
are
defm ed . This procedure is empirical in the (weak) sense that it relies throughout on native speakers' intuitions as to meaning similarity and as to presupposition relations between the verb s and between the various categories, models, and model groups. Additional testing has been carried out
post festum
by Brennenstuhl and Ballmer to provide further em
pirical support . Unfortunately , the infonnatio n provided on these tests and their results remains rather sketchy and we more or less have to take the authors on trust when they say that the tests led to results that generally support the classifiCations o f their thesaurus. There is another point , however, where I have serious doubts: the in tuitive context-independent semantic similarity judgements on which the fust step of the classification is based. I remain unconvinced that the ability for such j udgements should be part of a native speaker's linguistic competence - mainly because there is no kind of language use for which such an ability
is
needed. But still, I b elieve that the total result should be
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least familiar, Wildgen provides in addition to a difficult b ut compre hensible introduction a very c omprehensive list of references.
271 judged independently of such doubts. Even i f the assum ed intuitions do not generally exist , one may be inclined to believe that they should d evelo p in the course of comparing some eight thousand verbs, time and again on different levels of analysis and in different oppositions. Further more, Ballm e r and Brennenstuhl can present, in the end , a highly co herent and plausible overall structure, so th�t even a sceptic like myself will probably have to acknowledge that this is at least
one way in which
the German verb lexicon may be structured for at least some German speakers. Thirdly , since the structure
is
embedded into a comprehensive
framework of interesting and in part entirely new linguistic observations on other than lexical levels (in particular with respect to syntax and it might be reasonable to suppose that individual differences that may exist on lower levels of the verb classification will even out on the more general and more ab stract levels. This is guaranteed not by any
a priori
a ssumption that "small mistakes won't matter" (theoretically they might just as well add up into one big mistake) but rather by what has been dubbed the "conspicuous fluency of d ialogue" among native speakers and their equally c onspicuous efficient interaction. No such assurance is available for other intuition-b ased thesauri that are nothing but word
lists
without any implications whatever for g ramm a r or other structures
found in the language . Since languages are, e ven though not literally purpose-made , con tinually re-adjusted in their development to the purposes they have to serve, in particular to being used for connnunication about a socially shared world, one may reasonably expect to fmd some reflection of the structure of this world also in the language. Brennenstuhl and Ballmer go a step further and argue, quite convincingly and supported by quantitative data from their thesaurus, that this structure can largely be found in the lexicon of a language . One may expect, for instance, that verb s designating important processe s in that socially shared world will be lexicalized and will play a fundamental role in the structure of the lexicon. We shoul d , more generally , and quite contrary t o what many linguist s have thought about the relation between
the world,
knowledge of the language
and
knowledge of
be able to abstract fundamental patterns of our factual know
ledge from the linguistic structure or the lexicon structure in particular. Ballmer and Brennenstuhl take this notio n seriously and produce what seems to me the m o st generally applicable and intuitively plausible frames that I have seen. The thesaurus structure automatically yields one additional advantage: it provides an overall structure in which the frames are inter related . The second of the two papers explains in great detail the role of the thesaurus in a theory of language.
I
have alluded to the importance of
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morphology) that flow directly from the hypothetical lexical structure ,
272 these consid erations above but
I
cannot go into an account of further
details, of which there are many , and many very exciting ones. The papers are both clearly written and well structured and generally, though not in
all places, persuasively argued . Most importantly however, they present what is probably one of the very few really original and theoretically exciting contributions to the large scale study of vocabularies that have been made in the last decades.
Dieter Metzing 's paper on "Frame Representation and Lexical Semantics" is a survey article, infonning the reader about various notions of knowledge representation as d eveloped in Artificial Intelligence . Unfortunately , the
is
not very c learly written and much of the material can be found in
better presentation elsewhere, though perhaps not as compressed . Dif ferences between the different approaches in AI are not very clearly articulated and some of the really central notions like algorithm, or
default,
heUTistic,
that should be properly explained to the reader less familiar
with AI remain marginal . In their paper on ''Word Semantics, Lexical Systems, and Text Inter p retation",
Fritz Neubauer
and
Janos S. Pet6fi present
a lexicon system
that is geared to meet the high and theoretically stimulating d emands of automatic text interpretation. The emphasis is not on implementational aspects but rather on the explicitness that is required for the purpose . This perspective demands a lexicon system that not only contains something like abstract word m eanings but is also capable of getting at the much more specific meanings a word may have in a particular occurrence in a text. Furtherm ore, there must b e a sufficient amount of factual knowledge available in the system to yield all the information a reader can extract from a text. The end product of the operation of text-interpretation, as conceived of by PetOfi and Neubauer , would be a representation in some d isambiguated canonical interlanguage which can serve as the basis for further p rocessing (ab stracting, translating, indexing, etc.). The lexicon system prese nted consists, roughly, of one bilingual lexicon that translates object language expressions into the interlanguage and con versely, p lu s one lexicon that provides explications for the expressions of the canonical interlanguage . These explications are divided , where appli cable, into a comp onent of stereotypical or c omm on-sense understanding and another comp onent of expert understandin g . One very pleasing feature o f the very systematic and clear exposition Neubauer and Petofi give is that they have also taken the trouble to provide the reader with examples and not just with an emp ty theoretical format for the lexicon sy stem. The examples are based on a thorough analysis of in formation p rovided in current dictionaries , encyclopaedias, and textbooks up
to university
leve l .
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piece
273 There are two points I should like to make with respect to the pro posal: the first concerns the empirical basis of the information represented. Since dictionaries, encyclopaedias, and textbooks are intended to provide scientifically accurate objective information, we may end up with a lexicon system that is quite different from any native speaker's mental lexicon system, which must be assumed to contain also large portions of unwarranted belief, prejudice, and other attitudes that are anything but 'objective' but guide the speaker in his process of interpretation. Interpretations not
mimic
produced
by
the
Neubauer-Petofi
system may thus
'natural' interpretation processes very well. But perhaps
this is not intended . There are sufficie ntly many other applications for the
in greater detail.
A
sentence like ''It needs a man to do that" will require
quite different representations of meaning for the word man d epending on what the local oppositions are : for instance a woman, a boy, or indeed another adult male human being . Certainly, in the last case it will be hard to understand what is meant without recourse to objectively and scientifical
ly unwarranted prejudice about what p eople think is a 'real' man. One might go further from here , arguing that this 'prejudiced m eaning' would even provide a good basis in the case of the other two oppositions and thus may be mo re generally applicable and more useful than the dictionary entry 'aduh male human' (which is more likely to result from encyclo paedias, d ictionaries, and text books). But then these remarks are probably jumping the gun. We must acknowledge what there is: a very detailed and well-founded proposal for the construction of a lexicon system . And if we had the actual lexicon system already at our disposal, questions like the ones hinted at would come up naturally in the course of operating the system and could be attended to or rejected fo r other priorities in due course .
Horst Geckeler 's contrib ution on
"Structural Semantics" provides a survey
of the developments of the 'Tubingen School" of European structuralism , under Coseriu, Geckeler, and associates.
Anglika Ballweg-schramm
describes in her paper on "Some Comments on
Lexical Fields and Their Uses in Lexicography" some current work in the compilation of a dictionary at the
/nstitut filr Deutsche Sprache in Mann
heim.
Aflnfred Pinkal's
contribution on "Some Semantic and Pragmatic Proper
ties of Gerrnan glauben " p rovides a convincing unified analysis of certainly the major senses of this German equivalent of the English believe, largely in
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system . The point may become of greater imp ortance, however, once mec�ms for contextual adjustment of word m eanings are considered
274 the spirit of C harles Peirce's famous proposal. Although Pinkal emphasizes the desirability of a formal semantic description, he settles in this paptr for an informal account along the lines of what analytic philosophers have called •conceptual analysis'. The difficuhy for an account in formal terms would mainly lie in the fact that there is no framework currently available that can smo othly incorp orate, next to the formal semantics, also pragmatic matters like Gricean irnplicatures, which Pinkal requires in the course of his analysis. There are also a number of contextually fixed parameters in the analysis that could indeed be injected into a formal treatment but are not really well enough understood and thus may well turn out Trojan horses.
Walther Kindt concludes the volume with reflections on ..Word Semantics and Conversational Analysis". The paper is largely programm atic in nature, never very concrete, and the line of argument is not always easy to follow. Kindt states some of these limitations himself. There are a num ber of interesting insights, though, in his paper that would certainly merit further development. It is probably all too clear that I have not been able to do justice to all the contnbutions in this volume. What I have tried to focus on are the ideas and developments that to me seemed to be of the most general interest.
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Willis J. Edmondson argues very convincingly in his paper ..Illocutionary Verbs and C onversational Behaviour" that we ought to distinguish the conceptualizations speakers of a language have as to the "things they do with words" from a technical cla&'lification of what people do in actual discourse. The fanner is a matter of common sense or of conceptual analysis, the latter is the business of an empirical theory of conversation b ehaviour. Searle's illocutionary acts are conceptualizations evoked in the native speaker by the corresponding illocu tionary verbs and not technical terms of a theory of conversation behaviour. They are not, Edmondson argues, suitable as such and cannot, as has often been assumed, be used in a scientific description of what people are doing in discourse. In the main part of the paper, Edmondson presents a classification of illocutionary acts that is geared to this purpose and is rather a classification of events in conversation behaviour than a classification of English speakers' con ceptualizations. This opens up the possibility of matching the illocutionary terms in the English lexicon against these classes and thus can give insight into how people perceive conversation behaviour, as well as into the semantics of these terms. A presupposition for Edmondson's approach is a descriptivist rather than Austinian perfonnative view of illocutions, for which Edmondson provides a number of persuasive arguments.
275 On the whole, Eikmeyer and Rieser's book is a very stimulating collection of work with consequences that in many cases reach well beyond lexical semantics.
Nijmegen University Dept ofPh ilosophy P. O. Box 9 1 08 6500 HK Nifmegen - Holland
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Finally a word on some technical matters. One hundred and seventy eight German Marks is not cheap by any standard and is indeed a frightening price for the private buyer. But then the book is excellently produced in traditional fashion, type-set and cloth-bound. A particularly remarkable feature is that footnotes actually appear at the foot of the page where they belong. What is hard to understand, however, and hard to justify, is that the publisher could apparently not spare the money to employ a copy editor to improve the texts stylistically and , worse, with regard to spel ling and grammar . The English of several of the authors (most of whom are not native speakers of English) is rather poor. If de Gruyter are set to enter the international English language book market they should not go on embarrassing themselves and their authors this way. The authors and editors of this book certainly deserve better.
JoUT7Ull ofSemantics 3 : 277-294
REVIEW ARTICLE
Andrew Woodfield (ed.), Thought and Object. Oarendon Press, Oxford, 1982. xi + 3 1 6 pp . £ 1 7 .50. Kim Sterelny I. INTRODUCTION
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'Thought and Object' is an interesting and characteristic set of essays. It's representative of functionalism, the most influential contemporary ap proach to philosophy of mind . The two central problems for any broadly physicalist theory of mind are those of subjectivity and intentionality. This collection focuses on various aspects of the problem of intentionality. Since the six contributions to this book (from Dennett , Burge , Kent Bach, Stich, McGinn, and Woodfield) are not excessively brief, I will not discuss the papers in series. Instead, I will try to extract and discuss a number of central themes running through the book. I will sketch these, before taking them up in some detail. But frrst a preliminary observation. Beliefs are one thing ; attributions of belief another. So two poles along which issues can be discussed are the psychological and the sernantical. A theory of belief is a psychological theory. A theory of belief attribution is a theory about a certain class of sentences. It is therefore a semantic theory . The two issues obviously have relations one for another, so it's unsurprising that the papers in the book all touch on both. However, the relative weight varies: Dennett and Bach focus primarily on the psy chological, while the others focus primarily on the theory of belief at tnbution. Let me now turn to some main themes of Woodfield's col lection . One focus of this book is representationalism, the idea that belief is a relation to an appropriately functionally salient inner representation . Most representationalists1 take these representations to be sentence-like in im portant ways. McGinn is sympathetic to this line, but, in various ways, Dennett, Stich, and Bach call it into question. Even if the Representationalist is right, important issues remain to be settled . Each belief of mine is an inner token of a representation. But we are not primarily interested in belief tokens but belief types. Not just my belief that Andropov is dead, but the beliefs of others as well. So how do we taxonomize beliefs. Under which conditions do we count some belief of mine the same belief as the belief of another? McGinn argues persuasively and vigorously for a two scheme taxonomy of belief.l Belief tokens have many properties. Any taxonomy will regard some as central, others as peripheral. The central properties are those crucial to the role the concept
278
thoughts. So, semantic properties are not relevant to one taxonomy of belief. But that's not the same as their being irrelevant tout court. Lycan, McGinn3 suggest that we need as well a wtle taxonomy of belief: a taxonomy which counts belief tokens as the same only if their referential properties are the same. They are the same only if they have the same truth conditions, which in tum requires that they are causally connected to the same environment . More on this later. A fmal thread linking many of these papers together is the distinction, or alleged distinction, between de re and de dicta belief. This distinction gets both explicit defense - from Bach and , in some ways, Burge - and ex tended criticism, especially by Dennett . Recent philosophy of belief is often convoluted, knotty, a torture to read . Rarely is it worse than on this issue . One reason is a thicket of rival terminologies: de re / de dicta, opaque/transparent , relational/non-relational, wide/narrow. It is often un clear whether these are supposed to mark the same distinction . It is still less clear whether there are supposed to be two different kinds of belief, or merely two different styles of belief attnb utions. I try to unravel a few of these knots at the end of this notice . let's now turn to representationalism .
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of belief plays in psychological theory. Lycan and McGinn argue that in fact this concept plays two independent roles. One role is internal to the psychological organisation of the believer. Here we are interested in the explanation of behaviour. Belie fs (and other propositional attitudes) play a central role in mediating b etween sensory stimulation and behaviour. For this purpose , belie fs are individuated by cognitive role, i.e. (roughly) two belief tokens will count as tokens of the same belief: if they are apt to be formed from the same kinds of transducer stimulations; if they play roughly the same inferential role ; if, given similar hopes, expectations, etc. they would produce roughly the same behaviour. All of which is to say: they are tokens of the same belief if they play the same cognitive role or internal functtmal role. Now, beliefs that play the same internal functional role need not have the same truth and referential properties. Thus con sider a cloned brain of mine in a b ottle . let 's suppose its transducer stimulations have mimicked mine. It's Sterelny-in-a-bottle . Its internal states are narrow-functionally the same as mine, but are all truth (and reference) valueless, since it 's never had any causal commerce with the world . Fodor has christened this line o f thought 'methodological solipsism' . Its plausibility can b e demonstrated b y Twin E arth examples as well as cloned brains. Reagan and Twin Reagan's thoughts are about different objects: Reagan fears USSR; Twin Reagan fears Twin USSR. But that's a difference that makes no difference to their behaviour, so , if we are con cerned to explain their behaviour , we can regard them as having the same
279 11 A LANGUAGE OF THOUGHT?
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The 'brain sentence ' model of thought has obvious attractions. It (unlike some of its rivals) generalises neatly to other propositional attitudes. Hopes, for example, differ from beliefs in functional import. Beliefs both stand to evidence, and are acted on, in quite characteristic ways. While hopes aren't behaviourally irrelevant, they do not have their hands on the rudder in the way beliefs do. Further the language of thought model ex plains why beliefs have both a syntax and a semantics. Beliefs are like sentences in being true or false and in having referential structure. They also have a syntax, for we can have indefmitely many. So just as we need a recursive syntax to explain our language using ability, a recursive syntax would underlie our capacity to have an unbounded number of distinct thoughts. It is important to explain the causal potence of thought . Our behaviour partly depends on our particular stock of propositional attitudes. This fact frts naturally into a representationalist model. For on that model, thoughts are functionally salient inner symbols. Different attitudes will have dif ferent causal consequences. For they are fonnally distinct, and in virtue of this distinctness play different computational roles in our functional organisation. Oedipus tokens an 1-want-to -marry-Jocasta, not an !-want-to marry-Mum (pace Freud). Since the beliefs causal powers inhere in the representation itself, not the state of affairs represented, those different representations have different consequences for behaviour. Despite these and other advantages,4 Dennett will have none of this. Much of his long paper is given over to rebutting this picture and sketching an alternative. I am impressed by neither. The critique of sententialism reiterates and extends earlier papers. The critique is complex, but the central worries are firstly that sententialism is too narrow and secondly that it can give no coherent account of narrow functional role .5 Indeed , Dennett's long discussion (pp. 14-37) seems to vacillate between two in consistent lines of thought. The fust is that sententialism is too narrow , too fme-grained because it is syntactic (pp. 22-24, p . 3 7). The second is that sententialism can give no account of belief identity, for it cannot, as it needs to , identify syntax prior to an account of cognitive role (e .g. pp. 29-3 1 ). Dennett thinks sententialism is committed to a "startlingly strong" (p. 2 1 ) account of belief identity, given by the schema: x believes what y believes iff ( 3 L) ( 3 s) (L is a language of thought and s is a sentence of L and there is a token o f s in both x and y). The sententialist is committed to no such strong claim. For there are a multiplicity of levels of functional descriptions. The formal properties of an internal symbol, and its cognitive role are both aspects of the state's
280 function within the individual's mental life . They are both functionally determined . Further, since e .g. the inferential propertie s o f a representation are determined by its form, cognitive role supervenes on, and thus pre supposes, syntactic structure. Still , cognitive role might be a more abstract and general level of functional description than syntactic structure. Cog nitive role could have different syntactic realizations, just as syntactic form can have different orthographic (or neurographic) realizations. Then belief id entity could be defmed by appeal to cognitive role rather than syntactic form. While Dennett takes this point , he trivialises by disre garding the possib ility of three levels of functional description: cognitive role ; syntactic ; neurographic .6
Hence when he discusses this central
I
am
23-24).
here supposing that the syntax of our language of thought is
determined by the internal functional organisation of the mind . In places, Dennett see m s to doubt this. In virtue of what, he asks, is a token of s a token of s? He suspects that to this question there is no answer: we can not identify the sentences of L together with their structure solipsistically. It's hard to extract a clear argument for this claim. Nonetheless, I w ill try to reconstruct what seems to be one crucial argument . Consider a transducer signal, Re p . What would determine its syntactic analysis?
'We can't determine its syntactical form . . . except by determining its particular powers of combination and cooperation with the other ele ments, and ultimately its environmental import via those powers of interaction" (p. 30)
Two points are to be made here. First , note that Dennett fails to distin guish cognitive role and syntactic role . Grounds for attributing a syntactic analysis to Rep that are simultaneously grounds for attributing cognitive role . This idea can be resisted . Consider for instance the organisation of perceptual info rmation. There may be alternative internal organisations, alternative ways of decomposing the black box of perception.
If so, it will
probably be appropriate to speak of different syntaxes of perceptual representation, because of different interactions
within that box.
But
those representations may play just the same roles with respect to other cognitive functions: they might be accessed to memory , guide motion, and so forth in just the same way .
In
that case they would have the same
cognitive role within their respective organisms, but have different syn taxes. Secondly , the fmal quoted clause commits Dennett to the view that syntactic
id entification requires reference not just
to
the organism's
internal organisation but also to its embodiment in its environment. But Dennett 's nice discussion of methodological solipsism provides a good
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strategy for sententialism the middle and top level get blurred (pp.
281
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argument against this claim. For he points out that internal semantics is the only semantics available to the user of the symbols, the brain itself. Since the brain does use these symbols (if cognitive psychology is at all on the right track), it must be able to re-identify them despite its lack of direct access to their referential properties. Hence they must be identifiable independently of their full semantics. I d on't think Dennett's critique of sententialism works. Let me turn now to Dennett's positive account of belief and belief identity, developed through his concept of notional worlds. A subject's notional world is the world depicted by his beliefs. h 's how the world would be if all the subject's beliefs were true. One's fear world, I expect, is how the world would be if all one's fears were realised, and so on for the other attitudes. Dennett thinks systems with quite different functional organisations could inhabit the same notional world. He wants to demarcate represent ational powers from representational means. So we need to know how notional worlds are determined . To answer this question, Dennett returns to some ideas in his 'Intentional Systems'. A being's notional world is that world which is its ideal evolutionary niche. h 's the world its inner functional organisation best suits it to . A hardwired system is equisuited for a large class of possible worlds. The more plastic the system, the more its functional organisation will reflect its experience, and the class of possible worlds that constitute the notional world narrows down, though Twin Earth and similar cases show that it is never narrowed down to a single world. Let me explain why I am unconvinced by this suggestion. i) It seems to be just 2. restatement of behaviourism. Given the way notional worlds are determined , any two systems that are input-output equivalent have the same set of beliefs. They share notional worlds, be cause they are equally adapted to any environment. And vice versa, since the point of notional worlds is to abstract away from differences in the way input/output relations are mediated . The functional structure of the system is important for notional world identification only in its de termination of input/output structure. I will recycle just one argument 7 against positions of this type. Suppose Sue is a person and Sally a robot that mimics Sue's behaviour in virtue of an excellent physical and psy chological theory of Sue. Sally uses this theory to calculate what Sue would do in Sally's position, then does it . Sally has lots of beliefs about Sue, but doesn't have Sue's beliefs. But on Dennett's theory, they are input/output equivalent, hence share notional worlds, hence are universal co-believers. A decidedly implausible consequence. ii) Dennett wants a good taxonomy : he wants to capture similarities in belief that escape language of thought theories. We do this by 'super imposing' notional worlds and comparing for points and regions of similar-
282
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ity. I am not worried by the vagueness of this talk. But I do object to taking the metaphor literally. What are notional worlds and their ele ments? When is an element in one world the same as an element in another? Talk of notional worlds is a metaphor, but the way Dennett understands this metaphor is circular. He wants an account of representational powers independent of representational media . He eschews causal intercourse between representation and represented as a means of underwriting the former notion . So instead he relies on a possible worlds metaphor. But the only way ofcashing that metaphor is through a theory of representation. It's no accident that Dennett's illustrations of the metaphor are all rep resentations: fictions, and Winograd's famous block world programme. But a theory of propositional attitudes cannot rely on such illustrations, for what makes them representations are the thoughts of their creators. iii) At best, notional worlds defme na"ow functional equivalence. But a theory of belief needs as well an account of intentionality, an account of how beliefs relate to the world . Dennett is not explicit on this issue, but he seems to have in mind a "best fit" model (e .g. pp. 73-74). If an ele ment of my notional world is suitably like an element of this world, the belief object is the real world object. The central difficulty for this sug gestion is that it puts unreasonably severe constraints on the possibilities of misrepresentation. I cannot have beliefs about an object if my beliefs are largely wrong. 8 Nor does it solve the Twin Earth problems. Both water and Twin water are equally like Oscar's notional water, so which, if either, is his belief about? iv) As far as I can see, Dennett's account of belief does not generalise properly to other attitudes. For instance, what account is on offer for fear? We can coin an analogous metaphor easily enough, but what features of my narrow psychology fix the fear world? The ideal niche story perhaps fixes my notional world, but that is because we have fixed on certain out puts: those that would play a role in my survival and flourishing. But no alternative criterion seems available to do the parallel job for fear and other attitudes. Cashing the fear world metaphor looks particularly difficult because fear worlds can be inconsistent: I can fear both p and not p with out irrationality. Kent Bach and Stephen Stich give theories that, if correct, would un dermine sentential accounts of belief. Bach develops a theory of de re belief that is representational but not sententialist. De re beliefs are not, he thinks, ''fully conceptualised", hence are not inner sentences. I will take up his views when I tum to that intractable issue. Stich's line is less directly relevant for he offers a theory of belief attribution. One ad vantage of sententialism is that it sheds light on belief attnbutions. A sentence of the form "s believes p" will be true iff (i) s tokens an inner sentence that shares appropriate properties with p, and (ii) that token is
283 functionally salient in an appropriate way. Just in what way takes some stating of course , as does the relevant dimensions of similarity between inner token and outer attribution. Nonetheless, this seems an insightful view of the problem. Stich however gives a theory of belief attnb ution which, if it works, might make the appeal to inner representation re dundant . Since the theory is interesting in its own right, I will now con sider it in some detail. I should first say that Stich's paper is admirably clear, well written, readable .
III . STICH'S CARNAPIAN REVIVAL
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Stich's basic idea is this. The psychological state attributed by a belief sentence is a state similar to a possible state of the utterer: namely, the state that would typically cause the utterance of the content sentence. My statement : "Thatcher believes that Reagan is senile" is true only if Thatcher is in a psychological state relevantly similar to that possible state of mine which would typically play a central role in the production of my "Reagan is senile" tokens. Suitably tidied up, this proposal solves some of the problems of Car napian analyses. h solves the problem of the attribution of beliefs to speakers of other languages, and to alinguals, though of course, as some discussion of Woodfield makes clear (p. 277) only by great generosity about similarity. The chimp b elieves that that is a banana, because he is in a state relevantly similar to one that, were I in it , would typically cause my ''that is a banana" utterances. Of course , we need an account of relevant similarity. Stich provides one through the notion of content similarity, in tum seen as a multi-dimensional concept. He factors it into four vectors. Two of these are internal. States are similar in content if they play a similar role in our functional or ganisation. The other vectors are wide : states are similar in content if they have similar causal histories. I think Stich is right to see similarity as multi vectored , but I think we need only two: an internal notion of overall functional similarity, and a wide notion of causal history. While Stich's theory is an advance on Camapian accounts, I still think the language of thought model offers a better overall picture of belief attribution and of b eliefs themselves. Here is why. 1 . Stich's account does not generalise to other attitudes. The account depends on two factors: (1 ) beliefs frequently do produce linguistic behaviour, and (2) when they do, it's usually an utterance with the same content as the belief, since assertion is the main form of language use. So the belief that p is the typical cause of the utterance that p . N o such story holds for the other propositional attitudes. Doubtless in
284 linguals the other attitudes - wanting, fearing, hoping - have consequences for linguistic behaviour. But we cannot suppose that for each attitude there will correspond a characteristic lump of linguistic behaviour. The fear that p will have consequences for behaviour, but not typically token ing p . Stich's idea that the belief that p
is
the typical cause of saying p
depends on the fact that no other attitude normally has that consequence. So, for example, 'Thatcher fears that Re agan
is
senile" cannot be
analysed as the claim that Thatcher is in a psychological state that were
I
to have it would typically cause my "Reagan is senile" tokens. St ich's account fails to generalise.
2.
Stich wants
his
account of belief to be consistent with the fact that
lations to each other . These are features of what he caDs the ''global archi tecture" of folk psychology. While
his
account i3 consistent with this architecture, consistency
very weak condition .
I
is
a
think we should ask for m ore : our account of
belief should explain these principles. Stich's agnosticism about the
nature
If this
demand is appropriate,
of the psychological states attri
buted by belief sentences can be turned against him . His account yields no story about
I
why beliefs are
structured, semantic , inferentially potent ;
would make the same complaint about Woodfield's theory of belief
attribution. For ( 1 ) Stich says very little about beliefs except that they can be functionally characterised, and that they play a special role in linguistic behaviour, and
(2)
he cannot appeal to the
content sentence
of belief
ascriptions. He cannot explain the semantic and syntactic features of thoughts in terms of those features of thought ascriptions. For natural language in general, hence thought ascriptions in particular, has semantic properties only by virtue of the thoughts of language users. So it would be circular to invoke the semantic and syntactic features of thought as criptions to explain those features of thought. Stich thus gives no account of the properties of the states identified by the content sentences of belief ascriptions. The language of thought view has at least the advantage of being committal.
IV. METHODOLOGICAL SOLIPSISM
Methodological 9:>lipsism
is
a term of Fodor's.9
He
argued for it from a
computational model of the mind. Computational processes are both symbolic, in that they apply to representations, and formal, in that they apply in virtue of the syntax of those representations.
So, if psychological
processes are computational, the processes that mediate stimulii and behaviour can be descnbed in a semantics-free way. That
is,
they can be
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beliefs have structure , semantic properties, and stand in inferential re
2 85
"Brains
are
syntactic engines,
so
in the end and in principle the control
functions of a hwnan nervow system must be explicable at this level or
remain forever mysteriow. The alternative is to hold - most implausibly - that
content
or meaning or
semantic value
could be independent,
detectable causal properties of events in the nervous system" (p. 26)
The idea is that brains have access only to pulses from transducers. So to suppose that semantic properties - features of our real environment play a direct causal role involves the absurd idea that brainware could have direct access to being. But that is manifestly i mpoSSJ.b le. Our environment gets to affect our psy chology only by affecting the pulses. So the full story must be tellable in terms of pulses alone. The trouble with this line of argument is that it shows too much. For instance, Fodor, Dennett , Lycan, McGinn and I all want to recognize the cognitive role of some of these inner states. Tokening a Reagan-is-senile; tokening a Reagan-is se nescent is to token sentences with the sa me cognitive role. If I token one, and you another, we are co-thinkers despite the formal distinctness of the sentences. A parallel argument now shows that cognitive role is inert or redundant. For of course the brain has no direct access to cognitive role, but only to its particular syntactic instantiation. So it's instantiation that does the real work. But similarly, brains do not have direct access to the syntax of a representation. For a bit of brainwave has this form only in virtue of
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described in terms that presuppose nothing about the real world objects, if any , of an ind ividual's representations. Explaining behaviour requires no semantics for representations. The Twin Earth thought experiment can make this line of thought plausible, for Twin Earth cases are limiting case s of internal fu nctional si milarity. In one sense, Earthites do not have the same propositional attitudes as those of our Twin Earth doppelganger. I want Kasparov to win the world chess championship. My doppelganger has never seen a game of Kasparov in his life: he wants Twin Kasparov to win . The se mantics of our thoughts differ. But obviously this difference makes no difference to the explanations of behaviour. Any account of those processe s that link my t ransd ucer stimulations to my bodily motions will apply equally to Twin me. While this is a limiting case of fu nctional similarity, the appropriate taxonomy for a fu nctional dissecti on of the causes of behaviour seems to ignore referential semantics. What counts is fonnal id entity or similarity of represe nt ations, not identity of what those representations represent. This line of thought is certainly very plausible, and is accepted by the contributors to 'Thought and Object', Burge excepted. The attempts at a demonstrative argument given by De nnett and McGinn don't quite suc ceed, though. Dennett argues as follows:
286 having a certain neural structure together with highly complex relations to other structure s. So syntactic form
is
either uncoded, hence inert, or
coded into neural structures, hence redundant . And so on to the quarks and gluons. Thus, this way of putting the argument
is
inconsistent with function
alism itself. For that is the thesis that our inner states are perspicuously, robustly, and projectably descnb able through a hierarchy of levels of in creasing abstractness . At e ach level there are a set of robust generalisations unstatable at lower levels . Dennett's way of putting the point does not eliminate the possibility that semantics stands to cognitive role as cog nitive role stands to syntax. The same charge can be levelled at McGinn .
"beliefs play a role in the agent's psychology just in virtue of the in trinsic properties of the implicated internal representations" (p. 208).
Of course, in one sense, the only intrinsic properties of brainware are first order physical. In another sense, semantic properties can be intrinsic . Dretske, 10 for instance, suggests that
infomuztion
can be an intrinsic
property of a representation: in those situations in which the feature that codes the information is the feature in virtue of which it
is causally salient.
Despite my doubts ab out the attempts to construct apodictic argu ments for methodological solipsism, the idea is persuasive . Not however to Burge. He denies that there is any solipsistic sense of belief. The content of a belief is
not
a function of that which
thought uncontroversial for
de re
is
internal to the believer. This is
o r relational senses of belief. Burge
suggests that it holds quite generally . He is on to an important point here. For if we restrict ourselves to folk taxonomy , to folk psychology, he is undoubtedly right . All folk styles of belief attrib ution, including opaque or de
dicto
styles, involve wide taxonomies. Belief tokens p and q do not
c ount as the same if they diffe r in truth value, or in the individuals and kinds they refer to . Opaque contrasts with transparent attribution only in that referential identity is not
sufficient for belief identity .
Take , for instance, one of Burge's examples. Suppose Oscar has
dieto)
(de
the belief that some water contains no oxygen. Twin Oscar has a
b elief he would express in the same words. Are these beliefs one and the same? Construed opaquely , no. One could be true, the other false, if
XYZ is
oxygenfree . Twin Oscar's belie f
is a
different conceptual structure
from that of Oscar's. For only Oscar has the
concept of -water.
Neither
Twin Oscar nor anyone in his linguistic community has ever heard of water, seen it or even imagined it . So Twin Oscar cannot have this con cept. His belief is not Oscar's (pp.
108-1 1 1 ).
Burge thus correctly argues that we use no fully narrow style of belief
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For he simply robustly claims:
287 attribution (p .
102,
pp.
1 1 1 -1 1 2).
But he slides from this to the view that
there is no u se ful narrow taxonomy (p .
1 12).
There is no good argument
for this further claim, for it is unsupported by his observation (pp.
1 1 8)
1 17-
that w e n eed a semantic taxonomy . I think w e need both, a s I will
argue in the next section. Nor is the stronger claim independently plausible. For if computational models of psychological processes are correct, the b rain's view of inner symbols is syntactic . It must be, for c omputational processes depend solely on formal properties of the representation. Burge shows that our folk styles of belief attribution are at least partly semantic . He does not show that they ought to be, or that they
need
to
be. Let's tum to this issue.
The advantages of distinguishing between wide and narrow functional psychology is that it gives us two ways of taxonomising belief: an internal, or narrow taxonomy based on functional role, and a wide taxonomy based on truth conditions. Lycan was the flrst to see this as one advantage : the flrst to stop trying to show that one of these taxonomies is the right taxonomy. We all token many internal representations. There will be many similarities and dissimilarities between these tokens. A priori, there is no reason to suppose that there is just one good way of partitioning these tokens into types. Lycan and McGinn offer complimentary reasons for a d ouble taxonomy. Let's consider them. Lycan concentrates more on puzzle cases. Consider for exaample the
de
se cases. Oscar is sitting in a room looking at something he believes to be a
window ; in fact, it 's a mirror. He sees a snake under a chair on which a man Qtimself) is sitting. He tokens a that-poor-bastard-is-about-to-be-bitten. Does he believe he is about to be bitten? A currently standard line claims that he does not, thereby recognizing a special class of self-regarding beliefs. The two scheme theory enables us to avoid this unpleasant con clusion: we answer both yes and no. The truth conditions of "that poor bastard is about to be bitten" and "I
am about to be bitten" are the same .
So in one sense Oscar does believe he is about to be bitten. But in another sense, and one likely to be more important in this context (will Oscar engage in snake-avoiding behaviour) the answer is no. Oscar tokens a sen tence whose cognitive role is quite distinct from "I
am about to be bitten" .
Stich a lso argues that our taxonomy of belief is multidimensional by consideration of a range of ingenious and well described puzzle cases,
11
for instance the beliefs o f Mr . Oddsee whose system of visual discrimination varies sharply from the norm (pp.
1 85-1 89).
In a really excellent paper, McGinn extends this notion from belief to
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V. TWO SCHEME THEORlliS
288 meaning. 12 The notions of sameness of belief and sameness of meaning have two, independent vectors: cognitive role and refe rential semantics. Moreover , McGinn defends this idea on general theoretical grounds, not
just
puzzle cases. He deploys a number of arguments based on the nature
of belief states, the notion of a representation (pp .
point of a semantic theory.
2 1 1 -2 13 ),
I will sketch just the latter. point of a theory of meaning?
What , asks McGinn, is the
One point ,
where Dummett, Quine, and others start , is that the theory must
language use.
and the
explain
Thus we get the idea that a theory of meaning is a theory of
understanding. (Since the problem of sentence
production
adds to the
problem complexity without perspicuity.) The theory must explain use,
with an internalist conception of meaning. "Each of these proposals carries a certain conception of what the state
of semantic understanding consists in: that state will be defined by dispositions to verbal (and other) behavior it induces. What determines use is a state of the head" (p. 2 1 8). Meaning, on such theories, is the causal role of the state of semantic under standing. It is cognitive role, an intra-individual notion. This line would be right if we required from a theory of meaning only that it explain use . But it's not : language is as well a system of world-word relationships.
A second
role of a theory of meaning is to give an account of these relationships. Hence the role of theories of truth and reference in a theory of meaning. On the basis of considerations of
this
kind, McGinn gives an insightful
survey of contemporary approaches to semantics, with some emphasis on Dumm ett. Many fail because they are one component theories: those of Dummett, and Katzian translational semantics. Of course, both these t!leories are candidates for part of the theory of meaning: that part character ising use. The Davidson-McDowell theory is
not
solely about language
world relations, for many constraints (evidence, translation, charity) are imposed on candidate theories of truth. However, McGinn argues - con vincingly - that they are somewhat confused and ad hoc two scheme theories.
I
think
this
approach is right. But three problems stand in need of
solution if McGinn and his allies are to be vindicated. Let me outline them briefly.
(1)
So far,
I
have simply assum ed that we need to talk about the truth
conditions of propositional attitudes. Why need we do so? McGinn devotes a good deal of space to this difficult issu e 13 (pp.
220-229),
adopting a
relative of the Field-Devitt position . We need the semantic notions of truth and reference in a theory of communication. We employ semantic con-
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but not contain elements that "go beyond" use. Thus we get the rejection of truth theoretic approaches to semantics by Dummett et al., together
289 cepts when we take people's utterances, and the beliefs thereby revealed, to be generally reliable indicators of the world . We do take people's utterances that way because it enormously increases our ability to gain knowledge about the world . This line of thought raises complex and difficult issues. So too does its main rival : the view that we need se mantic concepts to explain why some beliefs lead to individual and species success.
Too
complex for full treatment here.
(2) If narrow taxonomy is what we
need to explain behaviour, why do
we not use it? Folk psychology enshrines wide individuation, near enough, in transparent belief ascription. When I say that Jack Smart believes of Quine that he is the greatest living philosopher, I classify
brain token
a dominantly truth-conditional taxonomy. But though
transparent roughly equals wide, equal opaque. When b eliefs are
Burge emphasizes that
na"ow
fails to
ascribed opaquely, identity of truth
conditions is a necessary though notoriously insu fficient condition for identity of belief. No folk psychological concepts are narrow . That's no refutation of the idea that we should embrace, as separate enterprises, wide and narrow psychology . But unexplained it would be an embarrass ment. I have two candidate explanations to advertise_ Michael Devitt has suggested that the opaque taxonomy of folk psy chology offers us an intellectual economy, though at a price. Since truth conditions are relevant to opaque classification, the explanatory pur poses of wide psychology can be served , though less efficiently, by opaque taxonomy . For it divides belief-tokens more finely than wide psychology requires. Similarly , since
the way a state
of affairs is represented is relevant
to opaque taxonomy, it will not co-classify tokens with distinct cognitive roles. Again , the partition is
finer
than we need . Nonetheless, opaque
taxonomy, though not maximally economical, is a general purpose taxo nomy . A second suggestion. Perhaps truth conditions serve an indexing role for narrow psychological states. Folk psychology embodies little in the way of input information usable in a narrow functional characterisation of a state. We know the usual environmental causes of most o f our cognitive states. We know what usually causes fried-chicken-and-watermelon appearances, but, qua folk psychologists, we know near enough nothing about the pattern of retinal images, transducer firings and the like that make up narrow psychologies' input descriptions. It 's precisely
this
lack that the
truth conditional element of opaque belief characterisation replaces, albeit only roughly and in normal conditions.
(3) In this
notice I have used functional notions profligately. I have
helped myself to notions like narrow functional identity and similarity, and to other narrow functional concepts : cognitive role, syntactic role, and the like . Thus I have claimed that two t9kens are tokens of the same
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according to
his
290 belief only if they play the same, or similar, functional roles. Now, functional states are the same, or similar, with respect to a particular functional organisation. They are holistically individuated. So a state of mine
is
functionally identical to a state of David Armstrong's only if we
share a functional organisation that defines that state . Similarly, for similarity. This
may be no problem for the p rogramme of defining beliefs functional
ly. For there are plenty of shared functional organisations. Thus psycholo gical models of memory, perceptions, and the like are possible. Similarly for more speculative models; for instance Dennett's account of conscious ness. These are characteristically general and abstract: significant functional are probably right for all of us. It 's also clear that I instantiate many idiosyncratic functional organi sations. The particular
way
(say) my long term memory is structured is
idiosyncratic . The location of the kinds of information together with their accessing routes will intimately reflect the vagaries of my personal history. No one else's memory will be organised in my way. So McGinn's idea faces a crunch question : what functional organisation
defines belief states? Is it a structure that we more or less share, or is it idiosyncratic? a
shared
If
it is a shared structure, the idea that a shared belief is
functional role works. But if it is idiosyncratic, I and Armstrong
can be co-believers only in the roughest and loosest sense. I do not know the answer to
this
question, but I think there is some
reason for pessimism. Let me illustrate this by pinching an example from Dennett's
[ 1 98 1 ]
paper. Jacques comm its murder in Trafalgar Square;
Sherlock arrests him; Boris reads about it in The Tunes, and David in Pravda. They all believe a Frenchman has been arrested in Trafalgar Square . But their experiences are very different : they came by this knowledge by d ifferent routes. So it is not at all obvious that their various encodings of this information are functionally similar. If this suspicion is right , it's trouble . For then narrow (and opaque) ascription would be very rough indeed . The functional similarities between Armstrong and me that allow us to be co-believers would be both loose and arbitrary .
In
tum it would be harder to resist eliminationists like
Churchland and Stich . I think that preserving folk concepts requires their integration with cognitive psychology. That will not be possible if those kinds are based only on instances.
loose and arbitrary similarities between their
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capacities are left unanalysed . If these models are right for any of us, they
29 1 VI. DE RE PUZZLES
The
de re I de dicta
distinction is a philosophical mess, both in itself and
in its relation to other important distinctions in the theory of belief. Discussion of the distinction plays a significant role in this collection: it is the central concern of one paper (Bach), and of a long section of another (Dennett). Dennett, like Stich, expresses a healthy scepticism about this whole issue, unravelling some of the worst tangles, and illuminating the issue, as usual, with the aid of some nicely constructed examples.
In
particular, there is a gentle parody of Putnam's Twin Earth examples, involving identical pizza parlours between which a dupe is unsuspectingly
(de dicta
and de re) does the victim
have about the two parlours when he awakes? I will say a little about Dennett's view before moving to Bach's defense of the distinction. Dennett makes a lot of sense on this puzzle. He emphasizes the im portance of psychologising the issue. We can make innumerable distinctions between beliefs, but few will be of interest . The de re
I de dicta
distinction
is worth drawing only if it plays a role in psychological theory. Dennett
thinks
that it does not . He rightly emphasizes that we must distinguish
b eliefs from belief attnbutions. The fact, if it is a fact, that we have two styles of attribution beliefs does
not
show that we have two psychological
states. We may just be descnbing the one state in different ways. Further, Dennett gets at a confusion in certain concepts of
de re
belief. There seems simuhaneously to b e the idea that the necessary con ditions for
de re· belief are internal to narrow psychology (for instance the de re belief is
notion of a vivid name) together with the idea that what a
about essentially individuates it. We can easily defme a bastard concept : a belief is
de re
about A if and only if the internal token of the believer
contains a vivid name of A. But composite concepts like this are psycho logically uninteresting. It
mixes, as we have seen
from the last section, two
quite separate theoretical concerns. Nonetheless, I think Dennett's scepticism excessive. Advocates of the distinction are getting at real phenomena about belief: indeed, they are getting at two phenomena, but they are run together. Suppose I have a belief about A. I have suggested that beliefs require an inner representation: in this case, a representation containing some term referring to A. There will be many ways of referring to A in my language of thought : names, descriptions of various kinds, even depictions if brainese includes ideo grams. The kind of referring expression may well be relevant to internal psychology. Causal theorists 14 claim that if an expression falls into a particular class (most names and demonstratives, some pronouns, 'refer ential' descriptions), then the singular term , and hence the whole internal token, will have a distinct and characteristic relationship to memories,
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transported while asleep. What beliefs
292 other beliefs, perceptual and linguistic capacities. Relations quite different than if the expression had been a Russellian description. It
is
not that
these expressions are more strongly about A; they can be empty. Rather, their route of reference is different ; they are functionally different from other singular terms. So the
de re I de dicto
distinction can be an attempt to draw a real
distinction between representational states. A
de re
attribution of belief
would be true only if that kind of belief was being tokened in the be liever. Kent Bach certainly has something like this in mind. One problem with this idea is that it is very crude : there will be many different kinds of internal states that purport to represent individuals: bivalent classifi Altern atively , we can understand the distinction from our two scheme perspective. We would then understand
de re
belief not as a distinctive
style of belief, but as a semantic taxonomy of belief. Dennett rejects taxonomies that essentially include the object (or kind) the belief is about. But he focuses only on narrow psychological concerns. There are others : we need to explain individual and evolutionary success and failure ; we need to explain c omm unication and its success; we need to explain the adaptive point of complex syntax-using organs like our brains. A psychol ogy attempting these tasks will require a semantic taxonomy: it will, for instance, need to appeal to what perceptual states are about. Dennett is right to reject attempts to make the
de re I de dicta
dis
tinction do double duty. It cannot both be a semantic taxonomy serving the needs of wide taxonomy, and a distinction within narrow functional psychology. He is wrong to leave little room for either. His own notional attitude taxonomy is too coarse for narrow needs, for it generalises over different representational means, but since it
is
internal, it will not do for
wide psychology either. Kent Bach's paper in defense of the distinction is technically ingenious, intelligent , and relatively clear-minded. It's a defense of the
dicto
distinction
within
de re I de
internal psychology. However, the account suffers
from three fundamental defects. 1 . It's a one scheme theory. Bach accepts a liberal version of methodo logical solipsism, then tries to re construct the theory of belief entirely within narrow psychology. This I think leads him into a series of dark remarks about indexicality and modes of presentation (pp. 1 35 -1 39) while trying to solve various puzzle cases from within a one-scheme theory . 2.
Bach has in mind an untenable dualism. He contrasts Russellish
d escriptive beliefs with those based on immediate perception. But there are an enormous range of intermediate cases: cases in which the object of belief is picked out by names, demonstratives, pronouns, improper definite
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cation is very coarse and unlikely to be adequate .
293
VII . FINAL REMA RKS
1his is a good collection, nicely symptomatic of current work: with all its interests, darkness, confusions and advances. I recommend it: in particular the papers by McGinn, Stich and Dennett are well written, full of argu ment, interest , and sharply chosen examples. Good stuff! 16 Department ofPh ilosophy R esearch School of Social Sciences Au stralian National University Can be"a. A CT.
NOTES For instance, Fodor (1 975, 1 978), Field (1 978), Harman ( 1 975), Devitt ( 1 98 1). The idea h�U been around for a while, but I think Lycan ( 1 98 1 ) was the first to explicitly endorse it. 3 . Devitt too in a forthcoming book (Devitt (1 984)). 4. Fuller lists will be found in Fodor (1 978), Lycan ( 1 98 1), Sterelny ( 1 983). 5. Dennett, following Kaplan, calli this "character". 6. To paraphrase Lycan: a certain inner state of mine could be: the result of per ceptual integration together with conceptualisation and the cause of certain signals to m y motor effectives; a tokening of 'there u a make under my foot'; a sequence of the characters 't' concatenated with 'b' . . . ; a sequence of neuron firings; etc. 7. A fuller discussion of an equivalent position u in Sterelny ( 1 98 1). 8. A view well rebutted in McGinn (1 977)). 9. In Fodor (1 980). 10. Dretske (198 1). 1.
2.
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descriptions, and the like. From the perspective of narrow psychology, we do not have one kind of belief, we have many. 3 . His central theoretical concept is never made clear and plausible. The basic idea is that de re beliefs are not fully conceptualized. By con trast to de dicto beliefs, their content is not fully propositional. It's very unclear what is meant by this claim : he certainly does not think of de re beliefs as like internal open sentences, or internal sentences with a name . De re beliefs include a "mode of presentation". It's this, presumably, that is not conceptualized . I see no reason to accept this idea. In his analysis of perceptual belief, the mode of presentation is a perceptual state of some kind. Why should we think perceptual states unconceptual? Bach refers to Dretske in this connection, but that author has pointed out that per ceptual states only become available for cognitive deployment after conceptualization. 15 So the whole notion of conceptualization is left, in my view, unsatisfactorily opaque.
294 1 1 . Stich's view is notationally different from that of Lycan. Instead of thinking that we have separate taxonomies of belief, Stich suggests that we have a complex taxonomy, but that pragmatic considerations affect the relative importance of the vee ton. 1 2. I think partly anticipated in Field (1 979) and Putnam ( 1 978). 1 3 . See also Michael Devitt's extended and careful discussion of these issues in his ( 1 984). 14. See especially Devitt (1 98 1). 1 5 . He calls this process digitalisation (Dretske ( 1 9 8 1)). 1 6 . Thanks to Michael Devitt and Bill Lycan for reading earlier versions of this stuff.
REFERENCES
3 79-409.
Field, H., 1 978: Mental Representation. Erkenntn is 1 3 , 9-6 1 . Fodor, J., 1 9 7 5 : Th e Langwzge of Though t. Harvester Press, Hassocks, Sussex. Fodor, J., 1978: Propositional Attitudes. The Monist 6 1 . 4 . Fodor, J., 1 9 80 : Methodological Solipsism Considered as a Research Strategy in Cognitive S cience, Behavioral and Brain Science 3 . 1 . Harman, G . , 1975: Th ought. Princeton Univemty Press, Princeton. Lycan, W., 1 9 8 1 : Towards a Homuncular Theory of Believing. Cognition and Brain Theory 4 .2. McGinn, C., 1977: Charity, Interpretation and Belief. Journal of Philosophy 74. 52 1-535.
Pu tn am , H., 1 978: Reference and Understanding. In: H. Pu tn am , Meaning and the
Moral Sdence!, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London Sterelny, K., 1 9 8 1 : Critical Notice of D.C. Dennett's Brainstorms, A ustralasian Journal ofPhilosophy 5 9. 4. Sterelny, K., 1983: Mental Representation: What Language is Brainese, PhilosophiCtZl Studies 4 3 : 365-382.
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Dennett, D.C., 1978: Brainstonns. Bradford, Cambridge, Mass. Dennett, D.C., 1 9 8 1 : Three Kinds of Intentional Psychology. In: Healey, R. (ed). Reduction, Time and Reality, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K. Devitt, M., 1 9 8 1 : Designation. Columbia U.P., New York. Devitt, M., 1984: Reali/IT11 and Truth. Forthcoming from Princeton U.P., Princeton. Dretske, F., 1 98 1 : Know/edge and the Flow of Information. Buil Blackwell, Oxford. Field, H., 1977: Logic, Meaning and Concep tual Role. Journal of Philosophy 74:
Journal of Semantics 3: 295-299
· REVIEW ARTICLE John
R. Searle, Intentionality. An Essay in the Hzilosophy ofMind. Cam
bridge University Press, Cambridge/New York,
0 5 2 1 22895 6 (hard £ 7 50 (paper).
cover);
0 5 2 1 27302 1
1 983.
Pp. x +
(paper). Price:
278. ISBN £ 20.00 I
Ge Calis In ancient times the term "intentional" perhaps only meant what it still means today in ordinary language, viz. "deliberate" or even only ''pur
it , i.e ., to distinguish intentional being, or representation, in explaining how the mind can have knowledge . Brentano discovered the directedness of the acts of consciousness to ward the intentional (or imm anent) object, i.e . , that intentionality con cerns the fundamental structure of consciousness itself: consciousness is always consciousness of something . Husserl not only fonnulated more precisely what functions these acts of consciousness have (they 'con stitute meaning'), he also introduced as an intennediate the 'noerna' (see
also F�llesdal, 1982). By some, this 'noerna' is interpreted nowadays as the software programme in cognitive processing. Noernata are supposed to be 'donnant' abstract hierarchical structures (about sets of possible objects of consciousness as-a-whole as well as about the possible modi of consciousness) that can
be
'awoken' and devel oped by input data. In
this
way the corresponding mental acts (and thus the mind) can refer to, or be directed at, the particular object we are specifically aware of (for example by seeing it , or perhaps only believing , imagining or desiring it). Noemata thus offer an internally specified , unifying, but always trans cendent perspective: there is always more to be known or said about the immanent object. The mental acts form a process of fulffihne nt. Because the conditions of satisfaction are internally specified in the noerna , an analysis of the constitution of meaning can 'bracket ' ontological questions concerning the 'real', 'objective ' existence of the object. Intentionality and noerna are perplexingly ambiguous and complex notions about infinite knowledge, far removed from ordinary language. A host of Hu�rl interpreters have tried to exemplify his concepts. However, because of this complexity, and precisely because very o ften all kinds of ontological
issu es
were reintroduced, the result was rather that
many heterogeneous philosophical movements or schools developed around some notion or other of intentionality. For that reason, intentionality, besides being a complex notio n, has also remained one of the most ob scure
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posive". But aheady in scholastic philosophy it was used to explain how a b eing can be present in another being without physically coinciding with
296
''What is one to do in the face of all thls distinguished past? My own approach has been simply to ignore it, partly out of ignorance of m ost of the traditional writings on Intentionality and partly out of the conviction that my only hope of resolving the worries which led me into this study in the first place lay in the relentless pursuit p f m y own investigations. It is w orth pointing this out because several people who read the manu,;:dpt claimed to find interesting agreements and dis agreements with their favorite authors".
However , the point is not that every writer on Intentionality should, a gain and again, comment on .Brentano 's or Hu sserl 's original writings. The point is that whatever insights a n author develops on his own must be related to the large p hilosophical contours in current discussio ns. For that purpose se condary writings (for examp le F�llesdal 's ) can do fine. But Searle mentions Brentano an d Husserl only once , and that only in passing and without any reference. His critics , like Hofsta dter , Fo dor and Pylyshyn, are not mentio ned at all . He does not even refer to Drey fus ' (1982)
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and confusing philo sophical notions. Nevertheless, in recent Cognitive · Science , and especially in t he so- called Computational Approach of M ind in Cognitive Psychology and Arti ficial Intelli ge nce (cp. Fo dor , 1983; Py1yshyn , 1984), this intentional notio n of rep resentatio n and perspective is of course more relevant t han ever before. Here we f ind the contemporary cou nterparts of the dif fere nt p hilo !l:>phical v iewpoi nts a nd a lso , again, the con comitant con fusing discussio ns. In this comp lex histori cal context Searle 's newest book , which bears precisely the title Intentionality. An Essay in the Philosophy of Mmd, should carry a special s ignillca nce. But does it present a better elaborated a nd clearer picture of the notions involved? Unfortunately , the answer mu st be negative. Sear le presents a private conceptual analy sis which is not embedded in history. It is roote d in a gro ssly no nspecific biolo gical concept of min d , ra ther than in a more refined noema tic or progranunatic concept. Searle stre sses the 'hardware ' aspect of cognitive processing and belittles the signi ficance of 'software ' approaches. Yet , nowhere does he argue , let alo ne state , that the se two approaches are not mutually ex clusive. In a ctual fact , the dile mma is a false one. He thus inevitably provokes attitu des of sharp a ntagonism on the part of representatives of the mainstream of Cognitive Science (see also the many comments on Searle 's famous 1980 article). Searle regards tra ditio n as something of a me ss, suggesting that traditio n, rather than the natu re of this dif ficuh problem area itself is responsible for all t he remaining unclarities. Searle wants above all to be clear - and in a way he certainly is - but he does not w ish to clear up the histo rical 'mess'. In his I ntro ductio n (p. ix) he w rites :
297
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excellent reader , ahhough this includes a chapter on Intentional States by Searle himself, anticipating this new book. In the Introduction of this book Dreyfus relates, with great care, to tradition and current discussions. Searle may be forgiven for not wishing to get entangled in the complex and often confusing labyrinth of the tradition. But he should, at least, take the trouble of making it clear to his readers where and how he links up with that tradition. (Of course, Searle has read a great deal of the con temporary and the older literature, which, though not explicitly mentioned, is somehow incorporated into the text.) Moreover, he should also take care not to duplicate what other authors, like Husserl, have already done, and perhaps not always so badly. Now what is the use of this book? If one reads it against the back ground of other literature as mentioned above (and Dennett, 1 978; Hauge land, 198 1 ; Hofstadter & Dennett, 1981 could be added) and the pre liminary articles in the excellent discussion Journal 1he Behavioral and Brain Sciences, it can be very useful. It has already been said that Searle's style of writing is very clear. Vague notions can be clarified or sharpened by reading him. Often one sees the vacuousness or triviality of certain popular notions (and also, one has to admit , some of Searle himself), due to the clarity of his formulations. In short, in spite of the serious short comings just commented upon, this book seems to me to be an excellent catalyst in the process of training one's thinking about intentionality. Searle is a very inspiring sparring partner because he continually invents new debating ploys and ingenious puzzles. The book has ten chapters, entitled : 1 . The nature of Intentional states; 2. The Intentionality of perception ; 3 . Intention and action; 4. In tentional causation; 5 . The background; 6 . Meaning; 7 . Intensional reports of Intentional states and speech acts; 8. Are meanings in the head? 9 . Proper names and intentionality; 1 0 . Epilogue: Intentionality and the brain. Right at the beginning of the first chapter Searle writes something which is crucially important for the understanding of his ultimate goals, but which antagonizes at least this reviewer . Searle claims that not all conscious states are intentional, and thus does not regard intentionality as the crucial characteristic of consciousness. Is Searle really that much of a stranger in this land? Mental states are only intentional, according to Searle, if you can ask: ''What is S about?" (p. 2). Undirected anxiety is thus not con sidered intentional by Searle, apparently because he wishes to make an absolute distinction between such cognitive processes as just being aware of one's anxiety and being aware of, say, frightening snakes, - a distinction which most of us will only regard as between different levels of intention ality. Yet , as a result of a complex argument, Searle does not exclude the possibility of self-referential forms of intentionality (chapters 2 and 3). He has a similar criterion to distinguish mental acts. Forming a mental
298 image of the Golden Gate Bridge is a mental act, he says, but believing something is just a state or event. In
his
Introduction Searle explains that one of his objectives with this
book is to provide a foundation for his earlier books
Expression and Meaning:
Speech Acts
and
"Intentional states represent objects and states
of affairs in the same sense of 'represent' that speech acts represent ". (p.
4)
However
(p. vii),
"their capacity to represent is not intrinsic but is
derived from the Intentionality of the Mind. The intentionality of mental states, on the other hand , is not derived from some more prior forms of Intentionality but is intrinsic to the states themselves". This is a very important issue which returns many times throughout the book. Even of perception and action, he says interesting things about these intrinsic or internal conditions of satisfaction in relation with the well-known problems of homunculi and infinite regress. The same holds for another preliminary statement, now about the confusing relation between inten sionality (Language again) and Intentionality (the Mind): 'The only con nection between them is that some sentences about Intentionality-with-a-t are intensional-with-an-s".
(p. 24)
The most important issue that non-linguists, familiar with Searle's writings, will be on the lookout for is his current elaboration of the notion of "causal power of the brain", now coupled with "intentional causation", launched and hotly debated in
his 1980 article. It is presented in chapter 4 10,
and completed with his solution of the Mind-Body problem in chapter
the epilogue of the book. Th e reader should check for himself whether this b uys him anything. Some might fmd it inspiring, some might not . In this reviewer's opinion its main merit lies in its clarity, and perhaps less in its contents.
Nijmegen University Department of Psychology P.O. Box 91 04 6500 HE Nijmegen The Netherlands
REFERENCES Dennett, D.C., 1978: Brainstonn B. PhOosophicol Es!iOys on Mind and hychology. Bradford Books, Montgomery Vt.. Dreyfus, H.L. (ed.) , 1 9 82: Husserl, Intentionality and Cognitive Science. MlT -Press, Bradford Books, Cambridge, Mass. Fodor, J.A., 1 983: The Modularity of Mind: An Es!Dy on Faculty hychology. MlT .Press, Bradford Books, Cam bridge, Mass.
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before Searle discusses the more basic forms of Intentionality, especially
299
Fpllesdal,
D., 1 9 82: Brentano and Husserl on intentional objects and percep tion.
Husserl's notion of noerna. ln : H.L. Dreyfus (ed.).
Haugeland, J. (ed.), 1 9 8 1 : Mind Design. Philosophy, Psychology, A rtificial In· telligence. Bradford Books, Montgomery Vt. Hofstadter, D.R. and D.C. Dennett (eds.), 1 98 1 : The Mind 's I. Fan tasies and Re· flec tions on Selfand SouL Basic Books, New York. Pylyshyn, Z.W., 1 9 84:
Computation and Cognition. Toward a Foundation for Cognitive Science. MIT-Press, Bradford Books, Cam bridge, MilS$. Searle, J.R. , 1 980: Minds, brains, and programs. The Behavioral and Brain &iences, 3 ; 4 17-45 7. Searle, J.R., 1 982: What is a n Intentional State? I n : H.L. Dreyfus (ed.).
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ANNOUNCEMENTS
PRAGMATICS DOCUMENTATION CENTER
bibliography of pragmatics from
1 938
through
1 985 .
This bibliography
will be a completely revised, integrated, expanded and updated version of J. Verschueren, 1 978, Pragmatics: An Annotated Bibliography (Amster dam: John Benjamins, xvi +
270
pp.) and the five supplements which have
appeared in the JoW7Zal ofPragmatics
{1 978-1 982).
The bibliography is intended to cover the field of pragmatics in its widest sense, including not only studies dealing with speech acts, pre suppositions, implicatures, and the like, but also some aspects of artificial intelligence, m any
forms of anthropological, sociolinguistic , psycho
linguistic and neurolinguistic research, most forms of discourse analysis and conversational analysis, and various applications of these various domains of inquiry. Everyone who is, has been, or will
be
active in any of the areas cited
is
kindly invited, in order to facilitate the compilation, to send a copy of their past and future publications (in any language , with full bibliographical reference) to the following address :
Pragmatics Documentation Center J. VerschuerenfJ. Nuyts Univemty ofAntwerp Linguistics (Genn. Phil.) Universiteitsplein 1 B-2160 Wilrijk Belgium
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A Pragmatics Documentation Center is being organized at the University of Antwerp (VIA), Belgium. Its frrst task will be to compile an annotated
INTERNATIONAL PRAGMATICS CONFERENCE Viareggio , Italy , September 1 -8 , 1985
First circular Organizers: Marcella Bertuccelli Papi (Universite de Geneve) Jef Verschueren (Belgian National Fund for Scientific Re search)
A im of the conference
recent years witnessed ever-increasing diversification. Various disciplines which m ake use of pragmatic concepts and which can directly contribute to our understanding of human communication , exist side by side, with different alleged aims and purposes, methodologies, and terminologies. It is the aim of this conference to contribute to the theoretical coherence which is needed to improve the comparability and applicability of research results.
Structure There will
be
five morning sessions during e ach of which two lectures will
be delivered by representatives of different disciplines dealing with prag matic aspects of language . To promote discussion, texts will
be
distnbuted
in advance. The tentative list of lecturers includes: H . CLARK (Stanford), U . ECO (Bologna), P. HOPPER (Binghamton), D. HYMES (Philadelphia), S. LEVINSON (Cambridge), D. PARISI (Roma), C . PERFETTI (Pisa), L J . PRIETO (Gen�ve), Ch . SCHWARZE (Konstanz), A . ZAMPOLLI (Pisa). Afternoon sessions will be organized around the themes touched upon during the morning lectures.
On the fmal day, a general synthesis and evaluation will follow in the form of a round table discussion.
Call for papers Papers on any topic studied from a pragmatic perspective are invited . Abstracts (in English) should
be
sent
(before February 15, 1985)
to :
Marcella BERTUCCELU PAPI, Universite de Geneve, Departement de langues et litteratures romanes, 3 Rue Condolle, CH-1 205 Gen�ve, Switzerland (tel. 022/360 7 17) and
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The field of pragmatics (as originally defmed by Charles Morris) has in
303 Jef VERSCHUEREN, University of Antwerp , linguistics (Germ . Phil .), Universiteitsplein 1 , B-2 6 1 0 Wilrijk, Belgium (tel. 03/2 3 0 1 680) (Proceedings of the conference will
be published by John Benjamins
B .V . ,
Amsterdam .)
Conference fees A
registration fee of $ 20.-- should be paid to the following account :
1 6260/00 Marcella Papi, Cassa di Rispamio di Firenze, Viareggio.
The City Council of Viareggio will provide reduced rate s for accom modation. Detailed information will be included in the second circular.
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Accommodation
