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Issues in the Philosophical Foundations of Lexical Semantics

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Issues in the Philosophical Foundations of Lexical Semantics Issues in the Philosophical Foundations of Lexical Semantics by Brian Edward Ulicny B.A. Philosophy, B.S. Electrical Engineering, University of Notre Dame (1986) Submitted to the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy at the MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY May 1993 © Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1993. All rights reserved. Author ................ ......... ................................. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy April 20, 1993 Certified by... ........ .... ........... ................. .......... James Higginbotham Professor, Linguistics and Philosophy Thesis Supervisor A ccepted by ................................. George Boolos Chairman, Departmental Committee on Graduate Studies ARCHIVES MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TFCHNOLOGY ¶JUN 03 1993 Issues in the Philosophical Foundations of Lexical Semantics by Brian Edward Ulicny Submitted to the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy on April 20, 1993, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy Abstract My dissertation defends and explores the thesis that in order for a speaker to un- derstand a natural language it is not only sufficient but necessary that the speaker tacitly know or "cognize" the truth-conditional contribution of the words and other sentential elements to the truth-conditions of the whole expression. A speaker's se- mantic competence is to be explained as the employment of an internally-represented axiomatized truth theory for that speaker's first language. By providing a theory of truth for a language, the truth of certain sentences follows on the basis of that theory alone. In the first chapter, I develop and defend a notion of analyticity suggested by Noam Chomsky in his Language and Problems of Knowledge (1986) against skeptical worries due to Quine and Burge. On Chonisky's view, analytic sentences are those sentences of natural languages true in virtue of "connections" between the semantic elements of the native linguistic endowment. I explain this idea of a semantic connection by way of a truth theory for the speaker's language. In "Two Dogmas of Empiricism", Quine argued that not even logical truths are analytic, however, since the seemingly fixed meanings of logical constants are empirically revisable. Quine's worry is the seeming incompatibility of quantum theory with, e.g., the distributive law of classical logic. I argue that the acceptance of quantum theory does not bring about the revision, but rather the clarification, of the meaning of "and" and "or". I contrast my view with those of Hilary Putnam and other writers. Natural language analyticities diverge from those of first order logics because the fixed semantic elements of natural languages and first-order logics differ. Part of the project of natural language semantics, then, is an account of logical form sufficient to expose the analyticity of a sentence. Chomskian analyticities are not coextensive with the sort of "folk analyticities" Quine targeted. "All bachelors are unmarried" isn't analytic in this Chomskian sense. In the next chapter, I consider Stephen Schiffer and Jerry Fodor's arguments for the conclusion that representing and employing a truth theory is not necessary for understanding language. Schiffer's argument consists in outlining the inner workings of a creature, Harvey, who comes to believe T-sentences appropriately but without employing truth axioms for the elements of the sentences he hears. I argue that Harvey cannot serve as a model for our capacities if Harvey doesn't learn to understand his language. For us, learning this is most plausibly seen as learning a truth theory for the language. Fodor takes Harvey to show that an account of compositional semlantic knowledge is redundant. iice semantic properties can be naturalized in terms of relations between the subject's brain and the world. 1 argue on the basis of the semantics of vague terms, tense, uninstantiated properties and other considerations that Fodor is not justified in supposing that the intentional content of thoughts and, thus, the semantic properties of expressions can be naturalized along the lines he envisions. Therefore, a theory of semantic knowledge is not superfluous to an account of understanding. The project of producing a truth theory for a natural language frequently involves the uncovering of structure not apparent on the surface of a sentence. In the final chapter of my thesis, I explore the truth-conditional semantics of verbs in relation to the metaphysics of events. Terence Parsons' (1991) proposal goes beyond Davidson's original analysis of the logical form of action sentences in taking the logical formu of, say, "Brutus stabbed Caesar" to include not only an event argument but also "thematic relations" borne by the sentence's arguments to the event. Parsons analyzes this sentence's truth-conditions as: ]e(stabbing(e) & Agent(e, Brutus) & Patient(e, Caesar)) where "Agent" and "Patient" are thematic relations borne by Brutus and Caesar to the stabbing event. I criticize Parsons' argument for such analyses, propose alterna- tive arguments, and consider special problems arising for such accounts in treating apparent event identities. Thesis Supervisor: James Higginbotham Title: Professor, Linguistics and Philosophy Acknowledgements I would like to express my deep thanks to my advisors, Bob Stalniaker, Noam Chonisky, and especially, lily thesis supervisor, Jim Higginbothain, for their guidance in this project. It has beer a great privilege to be able to discuss mny work with them from whom I have learned so much both through our discussions and through their own work in this field. Moreover, they have provided mue with an example I can only hope to emulate as to what it is to be a philosopher. It has been a great privilege to study at the Linguistics and Philosophy Department at MIT which seems to ime to be the ideal environment in which to begin to ask questions about this deeply fascinating phenomenon of human language. I am grateful to many other philosophers, linguists, and others at and around MIT for graciously discussing aspects of this thesis with me. These include: Richard Cartwright, Ned Block, Judith Thomnson, Michael Antony, Tova Rapoport, Kate Kearns, Paul Pietroski, Trafford Welden, Tim Dilligan, Lenny Clapp, Rob Stain- ton, Marga Reimer, Catherine Womack, Brian Loar, Martin Davies, Jason Stanley, Katherin Koslicki, tony Bures, Tom Green, Doug Jones, Michael Picard, Daniel Stol- jar, Danny Fox, Jonathan Bobaljik, Colin Phillips, Alec Marantz, Irene Heim, Eric Lormand, Paul Bloom, Jeff Gruber, Shawn Kern, and anyone else I've inadvertantly left out here. I would especially like to thank Paul Hoffman for his help and encour- agement during his years at MIT, Wendy Weber for her administrative acuity, and Chris Collins for sharing his knowledge of linguistics with me so generously. I would also like to thank Prof. Eugene Mellican at University of Massachusetts, Lowell, Prof. Robert Frederick at Bentley College, and Prof. David Layzer at Harvard University, for providing me the opportunity to teach while I was completing my thesis. Thanks to the guys in Tiirkoiz Kbbkie (Tim, Lenny, and Tom Green-the- Linguist), Col. Mahadevan ("Coach") Khandiah, and Rob Kempf, for miaking my stay at MIT so much fun. Special thanks, too, to Trafford Welden, for teaching me the ropes of graduate school as well as other fine points of deportment. Sarah McConville has been an unflagging source of support, encouragement, love, and joy, over these past years. To say that I couldn't have done it without her only 4 begins to do the matter justice. Thanks for everything, my Sweetie! Finally, I would like to dedicate this thesis to my earliest and best teachers, my parents, Mildred and Edward Ulicny, as well as my aunts, Srs. Cecilia and Mildred McClain, SC, for the support, love, and encouragment they've given me throughout my long years of schooling. "Is there an Absolute?" asked His Highness [the Maharajah of Chhokrapur] sud- denly. "That is what I want you to tell me. I look upon you as a kind of weezard; you must tell me these things. Is there an Absolute? Is there a God? Is there a future life?" "Well," I said, "you know the prayer of one of the Cato Street conspirators before his head was chopped off?" "No," said His Highness, looking at me with great expectancy. "What was the prayer?" "He said, "0 God-if there is a God-save my sould-if I have a soul."" I smiled, and he hid his face in his sleeve and his small body shook with laughter; then looking up at me again, he said: "What did he mean?" -from Hindoo Holiday: An Indian Journal by J. R. Ackerley Contents 1 Chomsky vs. Quine on Analyticity 11 1.1 Chomsky on Analyticity ......................... 12 1.2 Quine's Rejection of the Analytic/Synthetic Distinction ........ 19 1.2.1 Analyticity and The Revisability Thesis. ............. 20 1.2.2 Analyticity and Indistinguishability . ............... 36 1.2.3 Analyticity and the Roots of Reference ............. 50 1.3 Conclusions ............................ .... 52 2 Does Understanding Language Require Compositional Semantic Knowl- edge? 55 2.1 Schiffer's Counterexample: Harvey ................... 57 2.2 Fodor on Semantics and Intentionality ................. 72 2.2.1 Fodor's Theory of Content ................... 78 2.2.2 Vagueness and Asymmetry .................... 81 2.2.3 The Actual History Condition .................. 88 2.2.4 Difficulties with the Nomic Relation Condition ......... .. 91 2.2.5 Naturalizing Logical Consequence ................ 97 2.3 Conclusions 0............................... 99 3 Events and Thematic Relations 101 3.1 Verbs and Events in Logical Form .................... 105 3.2 Arguing for Thematic Roles in Logical Form .............. 116 3.3 Parsons' Dream Machine Argument ................... 122 3.4 Event Identity and Thematic Roles ................... 135 3.5 Conclusions .......................... ...... 148 Introduction This dissertation explores the thesis that a speaker's semantic competence is ex- plained by the speaker's internal representation and employment of a truth theory for that language.
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