Online research in philosophy

(Though it is now known that many pronouns once lumped under ”bound variables” are in fact referential indefinites or other phenomena better accounted for in a DRT-like view of referents, there remain many true instances of sentenceinternally bound anaphora: this talk concerns only the latter.) Almost all versions of categorial grammar (CG) are differentiated from other syntactic theories in treating a multi-argument verb as an Ò-place predicate phrase (PrdP) that combines with a NP or other argument to yield a (Ò-1)-place PrdP (which, if (n–1) 1, then combines with another argument to yield a ´Ò ¾µ-place PrdP, until a sentence (0-place PrdP) results) – a ”curried function” account of argument structure. (In CG, Ú ÔÜ ÒÔ · ÒÔ Üµ. A number of CG analyses of Ú Ô bound anaphora (Bach & Partee 1980, Chierchia 1988, Szabolcsi 1992, Jacobson 1991, Dowty 1993, Jacobson 1999), though otherwise diverse, have in common that they treat anaphoric binding as a process that affects (only) a predicate phrase (PrdP) — usually (finite or non-finite) Ú Ô, else ÚÔ ÒÔ — by binding an internal pronoun, i.e. ”binding at the VP level”; semantically, this is usually indicated ´Üµ . The result of this binding is that the next argument the..

o (2000), 243). In particular, the idea is that binding interactions between the relevant expressions and natural lan- guage quantifiers are best explained by the hypothesis that those expressions harbor hidden but bindable variables. Recently, however, Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore have rejected such binding arguments for the presence of hid- den variables on the grounds that they overgeneralize — that, if sound, such arguments would establish the presence of hidden variables in all sorts of ex- pressions where it is implausible that they exist (Cappelen and Lepore (2005), Cappelen and Lepore (2002)).1 In what follows we respond to Cappelen’s and Lepore’s attempted reductio by bringing out crucial disanalogies between cases where the binding argument is successful and cases where it is not. But we have a deeper purpose than merely to respond to Cappelen and Lepore: we think the attempted reductio goes wrong by not taking sufficiently seriously the nature of the binding relation that holds between quantifiers and arguments/variables, and that our criticism will serve to highlight the nature and importance of this relation.

Binding relations are fimdamentally semantic in nature. They arise as relations that are established with an interpretation. This is most apparent with dynamic binding, of the kind found in Dynamic Predicate Logic. Here it is the runtime of the evaluation that may permit a binding relation, in..

Most people working on linguistic meaning or communication assume that semantics and pragmatics are distinct domains, yet there is still little consensus on how the distinction is to be drawn. The position defended in this paper is that the semantics/pragmatics distinction holds between (context-invariant) encoded linguistic meaning and speaker meaning. Two other ‘minimalist’ positions on semantics are explored and found wanting: Kent Bach’s view that there is a narrow semantic notion of context which is responsible for providing semantic values for a small number of indexicals, and Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore’s view that semantics includes the provision of values for all indexicals, even though these depend on the speaker’s communicative intentions. Finally, some implications are considered for the favoured semantics/pragmatics distinction of the fact that there are linguistic elements (lexical and syntactic) which do not contribute to truth-conditional content but rather provide guidance on pragmatic inference.

This paper deals with the voice system of Indonesian, and argues that certain of the constructions traditionally analysed as passives, should be given a different treatment, parallel to arguments by Kroeger (1993) for Tagalog. We examine the role of different conceptions of subject and their place in binding. We show that, unlike other Western Austronesian languages, the logical subject – l-subject for short (i.e., the semantically most prominent argument) plays little role in binding: being a logicalsubject alone does not make an argument a binder. Syntactic prominence is crucial, and in particular the data on binding in Indonesian presented here further confirms the notion of syntacticised argument structured (a-str) first proposed in Manning (1994, 1996b) and also adopted in Arka (1998) wherein a central role is given to the notion of a-subject. Like other Austronesian languages, the (surface) grammatical subject (i.e., the SUBJ in the f-structure or gr-subject for short) plays little role, especially in the binding of morphologically complex reflexives. The data from binding is supported by other syntactic tests such as topicalisation with pronominal copy.

The distinction between semantics and pragmatics is easier to apply than to explain. Explaining it is complicated by the fact that many conflicting formulations have been proposed over the past sixty years. This might suggest that there is no one way of drawing the distinction and that how to draw it is merely a terminological question, a matter of arbitrary stipulation. In my view, though, these diverse formulations, despite their conflicts, all shed light on the distinction as it is commonly applied, in both linguistics and philosophy. Although it is generally clear what is at issue when people apply the distinction to specific linguistic phenomena, what is less clear, in some cases anyway, is whether a given phenomenon is semantic or pragmatic, or both. Fortunately, there are other phenomena that are uncontroversially semantic or, as the case may be, uncontroversially pragmatic. Their example will help us get clear on what the semantics-pragmatics distinction is.

Most people working on linguistic meaning or communication assume that semantics and pragmatics are distinct domains, yet there is still little consensus on how the distinction is to be drawn. The position defended in this paper is that the semantics/pragmatics distinction holds between (context-invariant) encoded linguistic meaning and speaker meaning. Two other ‘minimalist’ positions on semantics are explored and found wanting: Kent Bach’s view that there is a narrow semantic notion of context which is responsible for providing semantic values for a small number of indexicals, and Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore’s view that semantics includes the provision of values for all indexicals, even though these depend on the speaker’s communicative intentions. Finally, some implications are considered for the favoured semantics/pragmatics distinction of the fact that there are linguistic elements (lexical and syntactic) which do not contribute to truth-conditional content but rather provide guidance on pragmatic inference.

Most theories of binding in most syntactic frameworks assume that the same notion of surface obliqueness that identi es the subject of a clause is also used for obliqueness conditions on re exive binding For instance in GB Chomsky binding theory is standardly de ned on S structure so that in Nancy can bind herself due to the c commanding con guration that also makes Nancy the subject of the sentence..

Abstract:  A current debate in semantics and pragmatics is whether all contextual effects on truth-conditional content can be traced to logical form, or 'unarticulated constituents' can be supplied by the pragmatic process of free enrichment. In this paper, I defend the latter position. The main objection to this view is that free enrichment appears to overgenerate, not predicting where context cannot affect truth conditions, so that a systematic account is unlikely (Stanley, 2002a). I first examine the semantic alternative proposed by Stanley and others, which assumes extensive hidden structure acting as a linguistic trigger for pragmatic processes, so that all truth-conditional effects of context turn out to be instances of saturation. I show that there are cases of optional pragmatic contributions to the proposition expressed that cannot plausibly be accounted for in this way, and that advocates of this approach will therefore also have to appeal to free enrichment. The final section starts to address the question of how free enrichment is constrained: I argue that it involves only local development or adjustment of parts of logical form, any global developments being excluded by the requirement for the proposition expressed to provide an inferential warrant for the intended implications of the utterance.

Names, descriptions, and demonstratives raise well-known logical, ontological, and epistemological problems. Perhaps less well known, amongst philosophers at least, are the ways in which some of these problems not only recur with pronouns but also cross-cut further problems exposed by the study in generative linguistics of morpho-syntactic constraints on interpretation. These problems will be my primary concern here, but I want to address them within a general picture of interpretation that is required if wires are not to be crossed. That picture will be sketched in sections 3 and 4; subsequent sections will focus on pronouns and binding, drawing heavily on what has preceded.