Semantic Theories

There is no doubt that the model presented here is incomplete. Many important categories, particularly negation and the adverbials, have been entirely ignored, and the treatment of Tense and the affixes is certainly inadequate. It also remains to be seen how the many constructions that have been ignored here are to be accommodated within the framework that has been outlined. However, the fact that a standard categorial lexicon, plus the four rule schemata, seems to come close to exhaustively specifying the (...) main clause constructions of English, and also seems to explain a number of major constraints on transformations, encourages us to compare the theory with certain alternatives, and to examine its broader implications. (shrink)

According to the communication desideratum (CD), a notion of semantic content must be adequately related to communication. In the recent debate on indexical reference, (CD) has been invoked in arguments against the view that intentions determine the semantic content of indexicals and demonstratives (intentionalism). In this paper, I argue that the interpretations of (CD) that these arguments rely on are questionable, and suggest an alternative interpretation, which is compatible with (strong) intentionalism. Moreover, I suggest an approach that combines elements of (...) intentionalism with other subjectivist approaches, and discuss the role of intuitions in developing and evaluating theories of indexical reference. (shrink)

Over recent years, various semantics have been proposed for dealing with updates in the setting of logic programs. The availability of different semantics naturally raises the question of which are most adequate to model updates. A systematic approach to face this question is to identify general principles against which such semantics could be evaluated. In this paper we motivate and introduce a new such principle the refined extension principle. Such principle is complied with by the stable model semantics for (single) (...) logic programs. It turns out that none of the existing semantics for logic program updates, even though generalisations of the stable model semantics, comply with this principle. For this reason, we define a refinement of the dynamic stable model semantics for Dynamic Logic Programs that complies with the principle. (shrink)

In Philosophy of language nowadays it is generally agreed that the meaning of a sentence can be analyzed in terms of a proposition determining its truth-conditions. Meaning would thus allow us to determine straightforwardly the conditions in which the utterance of a sentence having that meaning would be true. By criticizing radically such an approach, often attributed to Frege1, Ch. Travis means to delink the meaning of words from their truth-conditions in order to show, by means of contextualist arguments, that (...) truth is not a semantic property, but rather a pragmatic dimension of the evaluation of utterances, which is contextually assessed. In that process, Travis does not so much contest the Fregean account but rather retains some of its aspects that he associates with the radical anti-Platonist ideas of J.L. Austin. (shrink)

In communicative exchanges one of the most familiar phenomena is _accommodation_, which enables the addressee to incorporate a missing piece of information into her own view of the common ground. A less familiar, but equally important, phenomenon is what I call _discommodation_, whose main feature consists in the fact that the missing piece of information, although essential to the comprehension of the utterance, _cannot_ be shared by the addressee because it sounds problematic or even false to her. In such cases (...) it is possible to open a ‘presuppositional slot’ to take into account the assumptions that serve to select the reference of the noun phrase, but that are not incorporated into the revised context. One of the main purposes of the paper is to propose a definition of truth that does not ignore the role of discommodation when different views of the common ground are involved. 1. (shrink)

I hope I have convinced the reader that DR theory offers at least some exciting potential when applied to the semantics of belief reports. It differs considerably from other approaches, and it makes intuitively acceptable predictions that other theories do not. The theory also provides a novel approach to the semantics of other propsitional attitude reports. Further, DR theory enables one to approach the topic of anaphora within belief and other propositional attitude contexts in a novel way, thus combining the (...) semantics developed here with one of the theory's original motivations (Kamp, 1981a). However, these are unfortunately topics that I must reserve for another time. (shrink)

The dissertation examines several proposals for necessary and sufficient conditions for understanding sentences of a natural language within the context of a truth conditional theory of meaning. Any such proposal has two parts: first, an account of meaning, second, an account of an interpreter's attitudes toward meanings and meaningful expressions of a language. Efforts to provide an account of linguistic understanding by Frege, Davidson, Dummett and others have largely assumed a certain account of semantic knowledge that leads to difficulties when (...) joined with a truth conditional theory of meaning. It is argued that, rather than abandon an account of meaning in terms of truth conditions, a new account of semantic knowledge is required. A new account is sketched in the final chapter. ;The first chapter describes the "received view" of knowledge of meaning. When this view of knowledge is joined to a simple truth conditional theory of meaning, two puzzles about informativeness result: the problem of informative identity statements and the paradox of analysis. It is argued that an adequate analysis of linguistic understanding should provide solutions to these puzzles. ;The second chapter reviews Frege's analysis of linguistic understanding. It is argued that Frege's analysis faces difficulties because of well-known defects in the Fregean theory of meaning and because it fails to provide a fully satisfactory solution to the paradox of analysis. Explicit knowledge of an adequate truth conditional theory of meaning, it is argued in chapter three, might suffice for linguistic understanding, although Davidson's account should be rejected, because it is based on an inadequate truth conditional theory of meaning. In the fourth chapter, Dummett's analysis of necessary conditions for linguistic understanding is examined. Dummett provides reasons for rejecting the received view of knowledge of meaning but Dummett's positive proposals themselves fail to provide an analysis of linguistic understanding. ;A reinterpretation of an interpreter's attitudes towards truth conditions and meaningful expressions of a natural language is given in chapter five. The reinterpretation is compatible with the criticisms made by Kripke and others of the Fregean theory of meaning, and it tentatively proposes a solution to both puzzles about informativeness. (shrink)

According to Suszko's Thesis,any multi-valued semantics for a logical system can be replaced by an equivalent bivalent one. Moreover: bivalent semantics for families of logics can frequently be developed in a modular way. On the other hand bivalent semantics usually lacks the crucial property of analycity, a property which is guaranteed for the semantics of multi-valued matrices. We show that one can get both modularity and analycity by using the semantic framework of multi-valued non-deterministic matrices. We further show that for (...) using this framework in a constructive way it is best to view "truth-values" as information carriers, or "information-values". (shrink)

What is the status of the thesis that sense determines reference in frege's philosophy of language? frege's endorsement of the thesis is notorious, and it has been heavily criticized in recent years. however, it seems to me that both with regard to its exact interpretation and to the role it plays in frege's philosophy of language the thesis is still in need of further clarification. the main claim of the present article is that a certain "realistic" interpretation of the above (...) thesis is implied by frege's main argument for the distinction between sense and reference, and that under this interpretation the thesis meets most of the objections raised against it. the central point of this interpretation is that the sense of a term incorporates conditions that provide ways for picking out an "independently identifiable" object (a "given" object) as the referent of the term. this interpretation is "realistic" in character in that it implies that the conditions incorporated in the sense of a term are not necessarily true of its referent. (shrink)

This book takes concepts developed by researchers in theoretical computer science and adapts and applies them to the study of natural language meaning. Summarizing over a decade of research, Chris Barker and Chung-chieh Shan put forward the Continuation Hypothesis: that the meaning of a natural language expression can depend on its own continuation.

Arguments are given against the thesis that properties and propositional functions are identical. The first shows that the familiar extensional treatment of propositional functions -- that, for all x, if f(x) = g(x), then f = g -- must be abandoned. Second, given the usual assumptions of propositional-function semantics, various propositional functions (e.g., constant functions) are shown not to be properties. Third, novel examples are given to show that, if properties were identified with propositional functions, crucial fine-grained intensional distinctions would (...) be lost. (shrink)

Actualists routinely characterize their view by means of the slogan, “Everything is actual.” They say that there aren’t any things that exist but do not actually exist—there aren’t any “mere possibilia.” If there are any things that deserve the label ‘possible world’, they are just actually existing entities of some kind—maximally consistent sets of sentences, or maximal uninstantiated properties, or maximal possible states of affairs, or something along those lines. Possibilists, in contrast, do think that there are mere possibilia, that (...) there are things that are not actual. They think that more exists than what actually exists. All I have done so far, though, is rephrase the slogan in various ways. To say that everything is actual is precisely to say that there are no things that do not actually exist, which is precisely to say that there are no mere possibilia, and which is also precisely to say that we cannot sep- arately quantify over what exists and what is actual. These claims all amount to the same thing. But what is that, exactly? What on earth does it mean to say that everything is actual, that there are no mere possibilia, and so on? What does the actualist slogan really come to? I think the literature is far from clear on this point, and that people work themselves into unnecessary muddles because of it. Indeed, certain confusions that I shall discuss in the first half of this article seem to be on the rise. It is high time to lay out the issues and the choice points as clearly as possible. There are two primary choices to be made; there are two axes along which versions of actualism can vary. One choice has to do with how to treat claims about things that merely could exist. The other choice has to do with the modal status of the view and of how we should think about the “actual” in actualism. I make no claim that the positions I will eventually endorse are star- tlingly new. I think that most people will agree with the decisions I make at both choice points and will in fact find some bits of this essay obvious. But not everyone agrees with my decisions, and it has been my experience that people differ remarkably about which bits they find obvious—a fact I find rather telling. My goal, then, is to show that the two axes are there and to clarify the consequences of the choices. (shrink)

Holism about thought content – especially coupled with a measure of semantic externalism – can provide us with an attractive account of how thinking relates to the world. It can help us to tell a neat story that starts out with the inseparable entanglement of truth and intelligibility: in order to understand thought, to confront it to the world and to give verdicts about that confrontation, we need to grasp a considerable amount of truths. A variety of positions that emerge (...) under the influence of Davidson’s arguments (see, for instance, his 1974) deny the possibility of severing the connection between thought and facts of the world. However, this holisticunderstanding of thought seems less attractive when it is forced to account for our capacities to engage with singularities. A (roughly) Davidsonian conception of thought faces serious problems when it tries to answer questions regarding singular thoughts, de re attitudes and beliefs, and the nature of items of the world that cannot be described or referred to without the aid of demonstratives. This tension between thought and singularity is a well-known one and shows up in different traditions of philosophy. We aim at easing the tension without giving up the intuitions behind holism. (shrink)

Epistemological contextualism and semantic contextualism are two distinct but closely entangled projects in contemporary philosophy. According to epistemological contextualism, our knowledge attributions are context-sensitive. That is, the truth-conditions of knowledge ascribing sentences – sentences of the form of (1) S knows that p - vary depending on the context in which they are uttered. Contextualism admits the legitimacy of several epistemic standards that vary with the context of use of (1); it might be right to claim – for the same (...) cognitive subject S and the same proposition p – that (1) is true in one context, and false in another. The epistemological contextualist thesis is grounded in a semantic claim about the context-sensitivity of the predicate “know”: the semantic thesisis that a sentence of the form (1) does not express a complete proposition. Different utterances of (1) can, in different contexts, express different propositions: we must add in information about the context in order to determine the proposition expressed by (1). Many scholars have tried to spell out the semantic contextualist thesis on which epistemological contextualism is grounded. Our general aim in this paper is to evaluate the plausibility of a project that takes the opposite starting point, that is establishing the semantic contextualist thesis on the epistemological one. According to semantic contextualism, virtually no sentences of a naturallanguage express complete propositions – meaning underdetermines truth conditions. In our paper, instead of assuming the traditional view of meaning in terms of truth conditions, we suggest that a theory of meaning as justification may shed new light on the contextualist approach. We thus show how the notion of justification can be contextualized, arguing that our attempt provides an interesting and quite straightforward way of contextualizing meaning. (shrink)

What makes the words we speak mean what they do? Possible-worlds semantics articulates the view that the meanings of words contribute to determining, for each sentence, which possible worlds would make the sentence true, and which would make it false. M. J. Cresswell argues that the non-semantic facts on which such semantic facts supervene are facts about the causal interactions between the linguistic behaviour of speakers and the facts in the world that they are speaking about, and that the kind (...) of causation involved is best analysed using David Lewis's account of causation in terms of counterfactuals. Although philosophers have worked on the question of the connection between meaning and linguistic behaviour, it has mostly been without regard to the work done in possible-worlds semantics, and Language in the world is the first book-length examination of this problem. (shrink)

A volume of studies in philosophical logic by a group of younger philosophers in the UK. There is a core of problems in the theory of meaning which have been accorded a central importance by philosophers, logicians and theoretical linguists, and which have stimulated some of the most powerful and original work in these subjects. The contributors to the volume have a common interest in these topics, insist on their continuing and fundamental importance, and offer here a distinctive and original (...) contribution to them. (shrink)

In the presence of chance moves in a semantical game, the existence of pure optimal strategies does not guarantee the existence of winning ones. This fact provides a basis for constructing supervaluational semantical games with a chance move. Additional possibilities of using chance moves in game-theoretical semantics are also discussed.

According to Conceptual Role Semantics, the meaning of a representation is the role of that representation in the cognitive life of the agent, e.g. in perception, thought and decision-making. It is an extension of the well known "use" theory of meaning, according to which the meaning of a word is its use in communication and more generally, in social interaction. CRS supplements external use by including the role of a symbol inside a computer or a brain. The uses appealed to (...) are not just actual, but also counterfactual: not only what effects a thought does have, but what effects it would have had if stimuli or other states had differed. The view has arisen separately in philosophy and in cognitive science. The source of the view is Wittgenstein and Sellars, but the source in contemporary philosophy is a series of papers by Harman and Field. Other proponents in philosophy have included Block, Horwich, Loar, McGinn and Peacocke. In cognitive science, they include Woods and Miller and Johnson-Laird. (shrink)

According to Conceptual Role Semantics ("CRS"), the meaning of a representation is the role of that representation in the cognitive life of the agent, e.g. in perception, thought and decision-making. It is an extension of the well known "use" theory of meaning, according to which the meaning of a word is its use in communication and more generally, in social interaction. CRS supplements external use by including the role of a symbol inside a computer or a brain. The uses appealed (...) to are not just actual, but also counterfactual: not only what effects a thought does have, but what effects it would have had if stimuli or other states had differed. The view has arisen separately in philosophy (where it is sometimes called "inferential," or "functional" role semantics) and in cognitive science (where it is sometimes called "procedural semantics"). The source of the view is Wittgenstein (1953) and Sellars, but the source in contemporary philosophy is a series of papers by Harman (see his 1987) and Field (1977). Other proponents in philosophy have included Block, Horwich, Loar, McGinn and Peacocke (1992). In cognitive science, they include Woods (1981) and Miller and Johnson-Laird (1976). (See references in Block, 1987.). (shrink)