Do Linguistic Meanings Meet Linguistic Form?

Abstract

In this brief note, I offer some considerations to the effect of arguing (i) that Duffley's criticism to formal semantics is based on a dogma about the proper nature of the linguistic sing, and (ii) that, even when I agree with the general spirit of his realizational theory of meaning, an explicit theory of how syntax affects meanings realization is missing.* I would like to thank the special editors of Manuscrito for inviting me to comment Duffley's work and, of course, Patrick Duffley for all I have learnt from his book. I am also grateful to two anonymous reviewers. If this brief note is readable, it is thanks to my colleague and friend, Eleonora Orlando, who provided myriad of style suggestions. As usual, Verónica Ferri did an excellent job proofreading this paper.

Reply to “Do Linguistic Meanings Meet Linguistic Form?”

“…At the outset, I would like to thank the author of this contribution for pointing to the need to investigate in greater depth the role of syntax in the complex process leading to the conveying of the final take-home message expressed by a linguistic utterance, and for pointing out that this dimension is barely addressed in my monograph. In my defense, I would plead first of all that contrary to the contributor's allegation on page 156 of his text (Saab, 2022), I never reduced the factors on which the interpretation of primitive lexical meanings is based solely to "intentions", nor did I exclude any input of syntax in the interpretation process; all I claimed was that formal syntax sheds no light upon what is really going on. I would also plead that a nonautonomous syntax such as the one implied by my work needs to be built from the ground up, based on a careful reconstitution of the semantic content of the words that are assembled to form an utterance and the constraints that the latter place upon their assemblage, and on an even more careful separating out of this semantic content from pragmatic factors, which entails an analysis of what they contribute to the message as well.…”