The Science of Meaning: Essays on the Metatheory of Natural Language Semantics

422 Pages·2018·5.065 MB·

by  Derek Ball, Brian Rabern

OUPCORRECTEDPROOF – FINAL,15/6/2018,SPi
The Science of Meaning
OUPCORRECTEDPROOF – FINAL,15/6/2018,SPi
OUPCORRECTEDPROOF – FINAL,15/6/2018,SPi
The Science
of Meaning
Essays on the Metatheory of
Natural Language Semantics
edited by
Derek Ball and Brian Rabern
1
OUPCORRECTEDPROOF – FINAL,15/6/2018,SPi
3
GreatClarendonStreet,Oxford,OX26DP,
UnitedKingdom
OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford.
ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship,
andeducationbypublishingworldwide.Oxfordisaregisteredtrademarkof
OxfordUniversityPressintheUKandincertainothercountries
©theseveralcontributors2018
Themoralrightsoftheauthorshavebeenasserted
FirstEditionpublishedin2018
Impression:1
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedin
aretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans,withoutthe
priorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress,orasexpresslypermitted
bylaw,bylicenceorundertermsagreedwiththeappropriatereprographics
rightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproductionoutsidethescopeofthe
aboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment,OxfordUniversityPress,atthe
addressabove
Youmustnotcirculatethisworkinanyotherform
andyoumustimposethissameconditiononanyacquirer
PublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmericabyOxfordUniversityPress
198MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NY10016,UnitedStatesofAmerica
BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
Dataavailable
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2017961365
ISBN 978–0–19–873954–8
Printedandboundby
CPIGroup(UK)Ltd,Croydon,CR04YY
LinkstothirdpartywebsitesareprovidedbyOxfordingoodfaithand
forinformationonly.Oxforddisclaimsanyresponsibilityforthematerials
containedinanythirdpartywebsitereferencedinthiswork.
OUPCORRECTEDPROOF – FINAL,15/6/2018,SPi
Contents
Contributors vii
IntroductiontotheScienceofMeaning 1
DerekBallandBrianRabern
1. Whatis—or,forthatMatter,isn’t—‘Experimental’Semantics? 46
PaulineJacobson
2. AxiomatizationintheMeaningSciences 73
WesleyH.HollidayandThomasF.Icard,III
3. DavidLewisonContext 98
RobertStalnaker
4. FromMeaningtoContent:IssuesinMeta-Semantics 113
FrançoisRecanati
5. RevivingtheParameterRevolutioninSemantics 138
BryanPickel,BrianRabern,andJoshDever
6. ChangingNotionsofLinguisticCompetenceintheHistory
ofFormalSemantics 172
BarbaraH.Partee
7. LexicalMeaning,Concepts,andtheMetasemanticsofPredicates 197
MichaelGlanzberg
8. InterpretationandtheInterpreter:OntheRoleoftheInterpreterin
DavidsonianFoundationalSemantics 226
KathrinGlüer
9. ExpressingExpectations 253
InésCrespo,HadilKarawani,andFrankVeltman
10. FregeanCompositionality 276
ThomasEdeZimmermann
11. SemanticTypologyandComposition 306
PaulM.Pietroski
12. SemanticsasModel-BasedScience 334
SethYalcin
13. SemanticPossibility 361
WolfgangSchwarz
14. SemanticsasMeasurement 381
DerekBall
Index 411
OUPCORRECTEDPROOF – FINAL,15/6/2018,SPi
OUPCORRECTEDPROOF – FINAL,15/6/2018,SPi
Contributors
Derek Ball,UniversityofStAndrews
Inés Crespo,InstitutJean-NicodandNewYorkUniversity,Paris
Josh Dever,UniversityofTexas,Austin
Michael Glanzberg,NorthwesternUniversity
Kathrin Glüer,StockholmUniversity
Wesley H. Holliday,UniversityofCalifornia,Berkeley
Thomas F. Icard, III,StanfordUniversity
Pauline Jacobson,BrownUniversity
Hadil Karawani,ZASBerlin
Barbara H. Partee,UniversityofMassachusetts,Amherst
Bryan Pickel,UniversityofEdinburgh
Paul M. Pietroski,Rutgers,TheStateUniversityofNewJersey
Brian Rabern,UniversityofEdinburgh
François Recanati,InstitutJean-Nicod,Paris
Wolfgang Schwarz,UniversityofEdinburgh
Robert Stalnaker,MassachusettsInstituteofTechnology
Frank Veltman,UniversityofAmsterdam
Seth Yalcin,UniversityofCalifornia,Berkeley
Thomas Ede Zimmermann,Goethe-UniversitätFrankfurt
OUPCORRECTEDPROOF – FINAL,15/6/2018,SPi
OUPCORRECTEDPROOF – FINAL,15/6/2018,SPi
Introduction to the Science
of Meaning
DerekBallandBrianRabern
By creating certain marks on paper, or by making certain sounds—breathing past
a moving tongue—or by articulation of hands and bodies, language users can give
expressiontotheirmentallives.Withlanguagewecommand,assert,query,emote,
insult, and inspire. Language has meaning. This fact can be quite mystifying, yet a
scienceoflinguisticmeaning—semantics—hasemergedattheintersectionofavariety
ofdisciplines:philosophy,linguistics,computerscience,andpsychology.
Semanticsisthestudyofmeaning.Butwhatexactlyis“meaning”?Whatisthetarget
ofsemantictheory?Thereisaverywiderangeofviewsontheissue,rangingfrom
theclaimthatsemanticsstudiessomethingpsychological(e.g.asemanticfacultyor
brainprocessing),totheclaimthatsemanticsstudiessomethingaboutconventionsof
thelinguisticcommunity,totheclaimthatsemanticsstudiesabstractmathematical
structures—amongmanyotherpossibilities.Andevenifweknewthetarget,wewould
facearangeoffurtherquestions:howshouldwetrytocharacterizethetarget?What
wouldatheoryofthetargetlooklike?
The aims of this Introduction are to acquaint the reader with some of the main
views different theorists have taken on these difficult issues; to discuss the type
of phenomena semanticists study; and to give some basic technical background
in compositional model-theoretic semantics necessary to understand the chapters
inthiscollection.Webeginwiththelastofthesetasks.
I.1 Basics of Formal Semantics
Whilefoundationalissuesremainhighlycontroversial,thereisadominantapproach
tofirst-ordersemantictheorizing,whichtakestheformofacompositional,model-
theoretic,andtruth-conditional(orinterpretive)semantics.Wefirstpresentsomeof
theimportantpillarsofthisstyleofapproach,beforeturningtothemetatheoretical
issues.