The Principle of Semantic Compositionality

Pelletier, Francis Jeffry

doi:10.1007/bf00763644

Cited by 180 publications

(76 citation statements)

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“…10 Some may find this characterization too strong. Particularly, the third requirement could be criticized, given that it is not obvious that the semantics of natural languages satisfies it (for a discussion of the semantic compositionality of natural languages, see, e.g., Partee [1984]; Pelletier [1994]). Besides, the recursivity built in the second requirement may also be criticized.…”

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confidence: 99%

You Don't Know How You Think: Introspection and Language of Thought

Machery

2005

The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science

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The question, 'Is cognition linguistic?' divides recent cognitive theories into two antagonistic groups. Sententialists claim that we think in some language, while advocates of non linguistic views of cognition deny this claim. The Introspective Argument for Sententialism is one of the most appealing arguments for sententialism. In substance, it claims that the introspective fact of inner speech provides strong evidence that our thoughts are linguistic. This article challenges this argument. I claim that the Introspective Argument for Sententialism confuses the content of our thoughts with their vehicles: while sententialism is a thesis about the vehicles of our thoughts, inner speech sentences are the content of auditory or articulatory images. The rebuttal of the introspective argument for sententialism is shown to have a general significance in cognitive science: Introspection does not tell us how we think.

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confidence: 99%

You Don't Know How You Think: Introspection and Language of Thought

Machery

2005

The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science

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“…Its modern formulation is generally attributed to the german philosopher, logician, and mathematician gottlob Frege, 2 and the version of the principle commonly used in linguistics is as follows (cf. Partee 1984, Pelletier 2004, Dever 2006, among others):…”

Section: The Principle Of Compositionalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Variability in the Syntax of Idioms

Hladnik

2017

ELOPE

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ABStRActgiven that the meaning of idioms is not predictable from the literal meaning of their parts, we can broadly define idioms as expressions with a non-compositional interpretation. Since language is a compositional system, this characteristic of idioms might suggest that they are atomic building blocks of language with no internal syntax. However, that turns out not to be the case. This paper explores the syntax of English verbal idioms and their degree of compositionality. Idioms do have an internal syntactic structure that is actually variable to an extent and, despite being superficially similar, different idioms exhibit different syntactic properties. The topics discussed include the variability of determiners in idioms, the subcategorisation of idioms based on their relative compositionality into two groups that behave differently with respect to their syntactic flexibility, and the identification of grammatical categories that are obligatory components of certain idioms but not others. Keywords: idioms; syntax; compositionality; determiners; passivisation Variabilnost skladnje idiomovPOvZEtEK glede na to, da pomena idiomov ni moč predvideti na podlagi dobesednega pomena njihovih sestavnikov, lahko idiome v grobem definiramo kot izraze z nekompozicionalno interpretacijo. Ker je jezik kompozicionalen sistem, bi lahko na podlagi te lastnosti idiomov sklepali, da so idiomi atomarni gradniki jezika brez notranje skladnje, vendar se izkaže, da ni tako. Prispevek obravnava skladnjo angleških glagolskih idiomov in njihovo stopnjo kompozicionalnosti. Idiomi imajo notranjo skladnjo, ki je do neke mere variabilna, in čeprav so si na prvi pogled enake, imajo podskupine idiomov različne skladenjske značilnosti. Obravnavane teme vključujejo variabilnost členov in ostalih določilnikov v idiomih, klasifikacijo idiomov glede na njihovo skladenjsko prožnost in prepoznavanje slovničnih kategorij, ki so obvezen sestavni del določenih idiomov.

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“…For if Mates is right, we either have to deny a plausible principle of compositionality (cf. Pelletier (1994)), or take intuitively synonymous words not to be synonymous after all. But in simple, extensional occurrences, "foot-doctor" and "chiropodist" just seem to mean the same.…”

Section: IImentioning

confidence: 99%

A pragmatic defense of Millianism

Båve

2006

Philos Stud

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A new kind of defense of the Millian theory of names is given, which explains intuitive counter-examples as depending on pragmatic effects of the relevant sentences, by direct application of Grice's and Sperber and Wilson's Relevance Theory and uncontroversial assumptions. I begin by arguing that synonyms are always intersubstitutable, despite Mates' considerations, and then apply the method to names. Then, a fairly large sample of cases concerning names are dealt with in related ways. It is argued that the method, as applied to the various cases, satisfies the criterion of success: that for every sentence in context, it is a counter-example to Millianism to the extent that it has pragmatic effects (matching speakers' intuitions).Among the first things students of the philosophy of language learn is that co-referring names cannot always be substituted salva veritate, in particular, not inside the scope of propositional attitude verbs like "believes", "knows", etc. For instance, it seems that one may believe that Hesperus is a star without believing that Phosphorus is, although Hesperus is Phosphorus.Adherents of Millianism, according to which substitutions of co-referring names are admissible in such contexts, take these intuitions to be the result of conflating certain pragmatic effects of the relevant sentences with their semantic content.Although Millianism stands or falls with the pragmatic defense, there is at present remarkably little by way of explanation of how the alleged pragmatic effects arise. Here, I 2 will try to show that the relevant sentences have certain special features in virtue of which what is saliently communicated is not their semantic contents, but pragmatically imparted propositions. Crucially, I will argue that these pragmatic effects can be shown to arise on existing pragmatic theories without any additional controversial assumptions (that may be suspected of only serving the purpose of defending Millianism). In particular, I argue, both Grice's theory and the Relevance Theory of Sperber and Wilson can be taken as they stand to entail the pragmatic effects needed. Further, many intuitions that have bothered theories of names in general, but not Millianism is particular, are also neatly explained on this pragmatic account.I first present Millianism and the conditions for a successful pragmatic defense. A pragmatic explanation is then given to the apparent failure of substitution of synonyms, which is subsequently transferred to analogous cases with names. Then, a number of other problematic cases are treated on similar lines. I end by comparing the resulting combined theory with other semantic accounts of names. IFor reasons that will emerge as we proceed, the Millian theory is best formulated with explicit mention of the notion of semantic (as opposed to pragmatic):Any instance of the following schema semantically expresses a true proposition: "a is such that S(he/she/it) if and only if S(a)". 1

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The Principle of Semantic Compositionality

Cited by 180 publications

References 11 publications

You Don't Know How You Think: Introspection and Language of Thought

You Don't Know How You Think: Introspection and Language of Thought

Variability in the Syntax of Idioms

A pragmatic defense of Millianism

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