I argue that linguistic meanings are instructions to build monadic concepts that lie between lexicalizable concepts and truth-evaluable judgments. In acquiring words, humans use concepts of various adicities to introduce concepts that can be fetched and systematically combined via certain conjunctive operations, which require monadic inputs. These concepts do not have Tarskian satisfaction conditions. But they provide bases for refinements and elaborations that can yield truth-evaluable judgments. Constructing mental sentences that are true or false requires cognitive work, not just an (...) exercise of basic linguistic capacities. (shrink)

This article reviews some linguistic and philosophical work in lexical semantics. In Section 1, the general methods of lexical semantics are explored, with particular attention to how semantic features of verbs are associated with grammatical patterns. In Section 2, philosophical consequences and issues arising from this sort of research is reviewed.

The structure of words is often thought to provide important evidence regarding the structure of concepts. At the same time, most contemporary linguists posit a great deal of structure in words. Such a trend makes some atomists about concepts uncomfortable. The details of linguistic methodology undermine several strategies for avoiding positing structure in words. I conclude by arguing that there is insufficient evidence to hold that word-structure bears any interesting relation to the structure of concepts.

Epistemic and deontic comparatives differ in how they interact with disjunction. I argue that this difference provides a compelling empirical argument against the semantics of Kratzer, which predicts that all modal comparatives should interact with disjunction in the same way. Interestingly, an identical distinction is found in the semantics of non-modal adjectives: additive adjectives like ‘heavy’ behave logically like epistemic comparatives, and intermediate adjectives like ‘hot’ behave like deontic comparatives. I characterize this distinction formally and argue that the divergence between (...) epistemic and deontic modals explained if we structure their semantics around scalar concepts: epistemic modals should be analyzed using probability , and deontic modals using expected value. (shrink)

It is commonplace in cognitive science that concepts are individuated in terms of the roles they play in the cognitive lives of thinkers, a view that Jerry Fodor has recently been dubbed ‘Concept Pragmatism’. Quinean critics of Pragmatism have long argued that it founders on its commitment to the analytic/synthetic distinction, since without such a distinction there is plausibly no way to distinguish constitutive from non-constitutive roles in cognition. This paper considers Fodor’s empirical arguments against analyticity, and in particular his (...) arguments against lexical decomposition and definitions, and argues that Concept Pragmatists have two viable options with respect to them. First, Concept Pragmatists can confront them head-on, and argue that they do not show that lexical items are semantically primitive or that lexical concepts are internally unstructured. Second, Pragmatists may accept that these arguments show that lexical concepts are atomic, but insist that this need not entail that Pragmatism is false. For there is a viable version of Concept Pragmatism that does not take lexical items to be semantically structured or lexical concepts to be internally structured. Adopting a version of Pragmatism that takes meaning relations to be specified by inference rules, or meaning postulates, allows one to accept the empirical arguments in favor of Concept Atomism, while at the same time deny that such arguments show that there are no analyticities. The paper concludes by responding to Fodor’s recent objection that such a version of Concept Pragmatism has unhappy consequences concerning the relation between concept constitution and concept possession. (shrink)

I argue that the debate on the division of labor between grammar and pragmatics, at least as it pertains to pragmatic free enrichment, needs to be better grounded empirically. Often, only a reduced set of facts from English is used to substantiate claims regarding pragmatic free enrichment. But considering a reduced set of facts from a single language can only afford limited (and, sometimes, wrong) results, because we can merely see whatever this one language chooses to express. Two cases studies (...) are presented: adjectival fragments, and implicit indefinite objects. A grammatical analysis is defended for them. (shrink)

While proper names in argument positions have received a lot of attention, this cannot be said about proper names in the naming construction, as in “Call me Al”. I argue that in a number of more or less familiar languages the syntax of naming constructions is such that proper names there have to be analyzed as predicates, whose content mentions the name itself (cf. “quotation theories”). If proper names can enter syntax as predicates, then in argument positions they should have (...) a complex structure, consisting of a determiner and its restriction, like common nouns (cf. “definite description theories of proper names”). Further consideration of the compositional semantics of proper names in the naming construction also shows that they have another argument slot, that of the naming convention. As a result, we will be able to account for the indexicality of proper names in argument positions and provide compositional semantics of complex and modified proper names (e.g., the famous detective Sherlock Holmes ). (shrink)

We propose an account of dynamic predicates which draws on the notion of force, eliminating reference to events in the linguistic semantics. We treat dynamic predicates as predicates of forces, represented as functions from an initial situation to a final situation that occurs ceteris paribus, that is, if nothing external intervenes. The possibility that opposing forces might intervene to prevent the transition to a given final situation leads us to a novel analysis of non-culminating accomplishment predicates in a variety of (...) languages, including the English progressive. We then apply the force-theoretic framework to the composition of basic Vendlerian eventuality types within a lexical-decomposition syntax. The difference between predicates of forces and predicates of situations is argued to underlie the dynamic/stative contrast, and also to allow for a formal treatment of the difference between be and stay. Consequences for the relationship between language and cognition are discussed. (shrink)

Consider the following explanation: (1) George took his umbrella because it was just about to rain. This is an explanation of a quite distinctive sort. It is profoundly different from the sort of explanation we might use to explain, say, the movements of a bouncing ball or the gradual rise of the tide on a beach. Unlike these other types of explanations, it explains an agent’s behavior by describing the agent’s own _reasons_ for performing that behavior. Explanations that work in (...) this way have a number of distinctive and important properties, and we will refer to them here as _reason explanations_. Looking at the use of reason explanations with a philosophical eye, one is apt to experience a certain puzzlement. One wants to know precisely what makes a given reason explanation true or false. So, for example, the explanation given above seems to be saying that George’s reason for taking his umbrella was that it was just about to rain. But what exactly makes it the case that this is George’s reason? Does he have to actually be. (shrink)

This paper presents a slightly modified version of the compositional semantics proposed in Events and Semantic Architecture (OUP 2005). Some readers may find this shorter version, which ignores issues about vagueness and causal constructions, easier to digest. The emphasis is on the treatments of plurality and quantification, and I assume at least some familiarity with more standard approaches.

Methodological dualism in linguistics occurs when its theories are subjected to standards that are inappropriate for them qua scientific theories. Despite much opposition, methodological dualism abounds in contemporary thinking. In this paper, I treat linguistics as a scientific activity and explore some instances of dualism. By extracting some ubiquitous aspects of scientific methodology from its typically quantitative expression, I show that two recent instances of methodologically dualistic critiques of linguistics are ill-founded. I then show that there are nonetheless some divergences (...) between linguistic and other ordinary scientific methods, reflecting yet a third instance of methodological dualism. (shrink)

The empirical nature of our understanding of language is explored. I first show that there are several important and different distinctions between tacit and accessible awareness. I then present empirical evidence concerning our understanding of language. The data suggests that our awareness of sentence-meanings is sometimes merely tacit according to one of these distinctions, but is accessible according to another. I present and defend an interpretation of this mixed view. The present project is shown to impact on several diverse areas, (...) including inferential role semantics and holism, the nature of learning, and the role of linguistics in the law. (shrink)

Minimalist grammars (MGs) and multiple context-free grammars (MCFGs) are weakly equivalent in the sense that they define the same languages, a large mildly context-sensitive class that properly includes context-free languages. But in addition, for each MG, there is an MCFG which is strongly equivalent in the sense that it defines the same language with isomorphic derivations. However, the structure-building rules of MGs but not MCFGs are defined in a way that generalizes across categories. Consequently, MGs can be exponentially more succinct (...) than their MCFG equivalents, and this difference shows in parsing models too. An incremental, top-down beam parser for MGs is defined here, sound and complete for all MGs, and hence also capable of parsing all MCFG languages. But since the parser represents its grammar transparently, the relative succinctness of MGs is again evident. Although the determinants of MG structure are narrowly and discretely defined, probabilistic influences from a much broader domain can influence even the earliest analytic steps, allowing frequency and context effects to come early and from almost anywhere, as expected in incremental models. (shrink)

Multiple explanatory frameworks may be required to provide an adequate account of human cognition. This paper embeds the classical account within a neural network framework, exploring the encoding of syntacticallystructured objects over the synchronicdiachronic characteristics of networks. Synchronic structure is defined in terms of temporal binding and the superposition of states. To accommodate asymmetric relations, synchronic structure is subject to the type uniqueness constraint. The nature of synchronic structure is shown to underlie Xbar theory that characterizes the phrasal structure of (...) human languages. The derivation differentiates core Xbar properties from languagespecific properties. (shrink)

Do lexical items have internal structure that contributes to, or determines, the stable interpretation of their potential hosts? One argument in favour of the claim that lexical items are so structured is that certain putative verbs appear to be ‘impossible’, where the intended interpretation of them is apparently precluded by the character of their internal structure. The adequacy of such reasoning has recently been debated by Fodor and Lepore and Johnson, but to no apparent resolution. The present paper argues that (...) such ‘impossible word arguments' for internal lexical structure, although not apodictic, do constitute inferences to the best explanation for such structure. Alternative explanations for the ‘impossible words' are considered and rejected. (shrink)