Context-Sensitivity and Semantic Minimalism

Context-Sensitivity and Semantic Minimalism PDF Author: Gerhard Preyer
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191526630
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 384

Get Book Here

Book Description
Fifteen specially written papers examine the ways in which the content of what we say is dependent on the context in which we say it. At the centre of the current debate on this subject is Cappelen and Lepore's claim that context-sensitivity in language is best captured by a combination of semantic minimalism and speech act pluralism. Using this theory as their starting point, the contributors to this volume develop a variety of different views about the role of context in communication, and reveal its wide-ranging implications for all issues in the philosophy of language and linguistics.

Context-Sensitivity and Semantic Minimalism

Context-Sensitivity and Semantic Minimalism PDF Author: Gerhard Preyer
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191526630
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 384

Get Book Here

Book Description
Fifteen specially written papers examine the ways in which the content of what we say is dependent on the context in which we say it. At the centre of the current debate on this subject is Cappelen and Lepore's claim that context-sensitivity in language is best captured by a combination of semantic minimalism and speech act pluralism. Using this theory as their starting point, the contributors to this volume develop a variety of different views about the role of context in communication, and reveal its wide-ranging implications for all issues in the philosophy of language and linguistics.

Essays on Semantic Content and Context-sensitivity

Essays on Semantic Content and Context-sensitivity PDF Author: Juhani Yli-Vakkuri
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Language and languages
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description


Language in Context

Language in Context PDF Author: Jason Stanley
Publisher: Clarendon Press
ISBN: 0191527556
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book Here

Book Description
Natural languages all contain constructions the interpretation of which depends upon the situation in which they are used. In Language and Context, Jason Stanley presents a series of essays which develop a theory of how the situation in which we speak interacts with the words we use to help produce what we say. The reason we can so smoothly operate with sentences that can be used to express very different items of information, Stanley argues, is that there are linguistically mandated constraints on the effects of the situation on what we say. These linguistically mandated constraints are most evident in the cases of sentences containing explicit pronouns, such as 'She is a mathematician', where interpretation of the information expressed is guided by the use of the pronoun 'she'. But even when such explicit pronouns are lacking, our sentences provide similar cues to allow our interlocutors to determine the information expressed. We are, in the main, confident that our interlocutors will smoothly grasp what we say, because the grammar and meaning of our sentences encodes these constraints. In defending this theory, Stanley pays close attention to specific cases of context-sensitive constructions, such as quantified noun phrases, comparative adjectives, and conditionals. Philosophers and cognitive scientist have appealed to the dependence of what is intuitively said by a sentence on the situation in which it is uttered to argue against the possibility of a systematic theory of meaning for natural language. The theory developed in this book is a vigorous defence of the possibility of a systematic theory of meaning for natural language against these influential tendencies.

The Architecture of Context and Context-Sensitivity

The Architecture of Context and Context-Sensitivity PDF Author: Tadeusz Ciecierski
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030344851
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 319

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume addresses foundational issues of context-dependence and indexicality, which are at the center of the current debate within the philosophy of language. Topics include the scope of context-dependency, the nature of content and the character of input data of cognitive processes relevant for the interpretation of utterances. There's also coverage of the role of beliefs and intentions as contextual factors, as well as the validity of arguments in context-sensitive languages. The contributions consider foundational issues regarding context-sensitivity from three different, yet related, perspectives on the phenomenon of context-dependence: representational, structural, and functional. The contributors not only address the representational, structural and/or functional problems separately but also study their mutual connections, thus furthering the debate and bringing competing approaches closer to unification and consensus. This text appeals to students and researchers within the field. This is a very useful collection of essays devoted to the roles of context in the study of language. Its essays provide a useful overview of the current debates on this topic, and they put forth novel contributions that will undoubtedly be of relevance for the development of all areas in philosophy and linguistics interested in the notion of context. Stefano Predelli Department of Philosophy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

Compositionality, Context and Semantic Values

Compositionality, Context and Semantic Values PDF Author: Robert J. Stainton
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402083106
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 287

Get Book Here

Book Description
Are natural languages genuinely compositional? What roles does context play in linguistic communication, and by what means? In particular, does context interfere with the compositional determination of truth conditions? What meanings should theorists assign to sentences if compositionality is to be retained? These are the central questions of this important volume of new philosophical essays in honour of Ernie Lepore.

Context-Sensitivity and Semantic Minimalism

Context-Sensitivity and Semantic Minimalism PDF Author: Gerhard Preyer
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199213321
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 374

Get Book Here

Book Description
"This book represents a continuation of the research project in philosophy of language and semantics represented in the journal "Protosociology" at the J. W. Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main." - editors' preface.

Essays on Linguistic Context-sensitivity and Its Philosophical Significance

Essays on Linguistic Context-sensitivity and Its Philosophical Significance PDF Author: Steven Gross
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780815340386
Category : Context (Linguistics)
Languages : en
Pages : 164

Get Book Here

Book Description
Drawing upon research in philosophical logic, linguistics and cognitive science, this study explores how our ability to use and understand language depends upon our capacity to keep track of complex features of the contexts in which we converse.

Metasemantics

Metasemantics PDF Author: Alexis Burgess
Publisher:
ISBN: 0199669597
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 378

Get Book Here

Book Description
Metasemantics comprises new work on the philosophical foundations of linguistic semantics, by a diverse group of established and emerging experts in the philosophy of language, metaphysics, and the theory of content. The science of semantics aspires to systematically specify the meanings of linguistic expressions in context. The paradigmatic metasemantic question is accordingly: what more basic or fundamental features of the world metaphysically determine these semantic facts? Efforts to answer this question inevitably raise others. Where are the boundaries of semantics? What is the essence of the meaning relation? Which framework should we use for semantic theorizing? What are the intrinsic natures of semantic values? Are the semantic facts metaphysically determinate? What is semantic competence? Metasemantic inquiry has long been recognized as a central part of the philosophy of language, but recent developments in metaphysics and semantics itself now allow us to approach these classic questions with an unprecedented degree of precision. The essays collected here provide promising new perspectives on old problems, pose questions that suggest novel research projects, and taken together, greatly sharpen our understanding of linguistic representation.

Insensitive Semantics

Insensitive Semantics PDF Author: Herman Cappelen
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470754915
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Get Book Here

Book Description
Insensitive Semantics is an overview of and contribution to the debates about how to accommodate context sensitivity within a theory of human communication, investigating the effects of context on communicative interaction and, as a corollary, what a context of utterance is and what it is to be in one. Provides detailed and wide-ranging overviews of the central positions and arguments surrounding contextualism Addresses broad and varied aspects of the distinction between the semantic and non-semantic content of language Defends a distinctive and explanatorily powerful combination of semantic minimalism and speech act pluralism Confronts core problems which not only run to the heart of philosophy of language and linguistics, but which arise in epistemology, metaphysics, and moral philosophy as well

Philosophical Essays, Volume 2

Philosophical Essays, Volume 2 PDF Author: Scott Soames
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400833183
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 474

Get Book Here

Book Description
The two volumes of Philosophical Essays bring together the most important essays written by one of the world's foremost philosophers of language. Scott Soames has selected thirty-one essays spanning nearly three decades of thinking about linguistic meaning and the philosophical significance of language. A judicious collection of old and new, these volumes include sixteen essays published in the 1980s and 1990s, nine published since 2000, and six new essays. The essays in Volume 1 investigate what linguistic meaning is; how the meaning of a sentence is related to the use we make of it; what we should expect from empirical theories of the meaning of the languages we speak; and how a sound theoretical grasp of the intricate relationship between meaning and use can improve the interpretation of legal texts. The essays in Volume 2 illustrate the significance of linguistic concerns for a broad range of philosophical topics--including the relationship between language and thought; the objects of belief, assertion, and other propositional attitudes; the distinction between metaphysical and epistemic possibility; the nature of necessity, actuality, and possible worlds; the necessary a posteriori and the contingent a priori; truth, vagueness, and partial definition; and skepticism about meaning and mind. The two volumes of Philosophical Essays are essential for anyone working on the philosophy of language.