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Speech Act Theoretic Semantics City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 6-2014 Speech Act Theoretic Semantics Daniel W. Harris Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/222 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] SPEECH ACT THEORETIC SEMANTICS by DANIEL W. HARRIS A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Philosophy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2014 ii © 2014 DANIEL WALLACE HARRIS All Rights Reserved iii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Philosophy in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Gary Ostertag ______________ ____________________________________________________ Date Chair of Examining Committee Iakovos Vasiliou ______________ ____________________________________________________ Date Executive Officer Michael Devitt David Rosenthal Stephen Neale ____________________ Supervisory Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iv Abstract SPEECH ACT THEORETIC SEMANTICS by Daniel W. Harris Adviser: Professor Stephen Neale Abstract: I defend the view that linguistic meaning is a relation borne by an expression to a type of speech act, and that this relation holds in virtue of our overlapping communicative dispositions, and not in virtue of linguistic conventions. I argue that this theory gives the right account of the seman- tics–pragmatics interface and the best-available semantics for non-declarative clauses, and show that it allows for the construction of a rigorous compositional semantic theory with greater ex- planatory power than both truth-conditional and dynamic semantics. v PREFACE & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Te ideas of Paul Grice have come up ofen during the recent boom of work on the seman- tics–pragmatics interface. In experiencing this boom, first as an undergraduate at Simon Fraser University in , then in graduate seminars at the City University of New York, New York Uni- versity, and Rutgers, as well as in summer schools at the Central European University in and the University of Riga in , I have ofen thought that if we really want to understand the se- mantics–pragmatics interface, it is not enough to be Griceans when it comes to pragmatics; we must also work out the details of a properly Gricean semantics. Part of Grice’s ambition in introducing the program of intention-based semantics, initially in his paper, ‘Meaning,’ and later in his William James Lectures (: chs.–), was to give a theory of the timeless meanings of utterance-types, and this category includes (but is not exhausted by) the meanings of linguistic expressions. Te most worked-out version of Grice’s take on linguistic meaning can be found in his paper, ‘Utterer’s Meaning, Sentence Meaning, and Word Meaning’ (: ch.). Tis paper is a difficult read, and it languished, unanthologized until the publication of Studies in the Way of Words in , in the pages of the short-lived and rela- tively obscure journal, Foundations of Language (–). I suspect that the essay’s relative obscurity partly explains the fact that Grice has had little influence on contemporary theorizing about linguistic meaning.1 Grice’s article has influenced the present work immensely. Grice 1 Of course, Grice’s theory of conversational implicature has had a massive influence on seman- tics, but this influence has been from outside, via its influence on pragmatics, by placing limits on what is generally taken to be the scope of semantic explanation. On occasion, Gricean reasoning has had a more direct influence on semantics—for example, via Schiffer’s () objections to hidden-indexical theories of propositional-attitude reports. Another example is Potts’ () use of Grice’s definition of conventional implicature in the course of bringing that notion into main- stream semantics. (Ironically, of course, although Potts attributes all four of the clauses of his definition to Grice, he argues that none of Grice’s own examples are genuine cases of conventional implicature.) vi does the following things in the paper: (a) he lays the foundations for a theory of the nature of sentence meaning and semantic underspecification that I develop and defend in Chapter Two, (b) he builds on his intentionalist theory of illocutionary force, and hints at how it can be used to give a semantics of grammatical mood that influences the theory I build in Chapter Tree;2 (c) he sketches a metasemantic theory that is the main inspiration for the theory I give in Chapter Four; and, finally, (d) he outlines a proto-speech-act-theoretic account of the composition of complex utterance-type meanings, which is one of the main influences on the account of the composition- ality that I give in Chapter Five. To be sure, the sketches, outlines, and hints in Grice’s article are incomplete and confused in various respects. I have had to extrapolate from, build on, and, in places, heavily revise Grice’s ideas in order to arrive at the theory spelled out here. And, of course, my own views have also benefitted from a wide variety of other influences, some of which I’ll mention here. But it is unlikely that I would have thought up most of the components of what fol- lows if I had not read, and re-read, Grice’s paper. Te crucial thing about the ideas in that paper, as well as the ideas in this dissertation, is that their appeal is best seen from a perspective on the nature of language, communication, and the mind–language interface that is thoroughly Gricean. Tis is a perspective that I have inherited not only from Grice, but also from a succession of Gricean mentors. I bought my copy of Studies in the Way of Words for Mike Harnish’s undergraduate seminar at Simon Fraser University in .3 In my term paper for that course, which anticipates some of Chapter Two of this dissertation, I 2 Te initial formulation of Grice’s theory of illocutionary force can be found in his essay, ‘Utterer’s Meaning and Intention’ (: ch.). It builds on some ideas in Strawson (). 3 I first read Martinich’s (/) anthologized versions of ‘Meaning’ and ‘Logic and Conver- sation’ a year earlier, in Martin Hahn’s Philosophy of Language course at SFU, which was where I became interested in the philosophy of language in the first place. Te following autumn, Martin agreed to supervise a directed reading on Frege with me, and, in return, got to read a convoluted term paper in which I attempted to solve every problem in the philosophy of language all at once. vii defended the view that the reference of a demonstrative is fixed by the speaker’s communicative intentions. Te reading list for Mike’s seminar also included Stephen Neale’s epic review of Studies, ‘Paul Grice and the Philosophy of Language’ (), which I have re-read several times since. It took a couple of years afer I came to the Graduate Center to study with Stephen before he was able to convince me of the Gricean program in all of its nuance. By the middle of , I had become convinced of the fruitfulness of the methodological framework that Stephen calls linguistic prag- matism, and I had decided to work out the implications of that framework for linguistic meaning. In the fall of , I met with Stephen nearly every week, and we took turns discussing the early bits of this dissertation as well as some articles that I was helping him to prepare for publication in a volume of collected papers. In several of those articles (, , a), Stephen outlines what he calls the blueprint theory of meaning, and in ‘Term Limits Revisited’ (), he sketches an “act-syntactic” approach to the meanings of noun phrases—both ideas that he presented in greater detail in his seminar on linguistic pragmatism in the spring of . I was convinced that these ideas pointed in the direction of the right sort of approach to semantics—one that also fit nicely with Grice’s () approach. I had also been confused about how Stephen’s more conven- tional work on semantics—such as what he says in Descriptions () and Facing Facts ()— could possibly be compatible with his radically Gricean views about the semantics–pragmatics interface. So, with Stephen’s encouragement, I decided to work out a pragmatist approach to the foundations and methodology of natural-language semantics that could incorporate both the rigor of contemporary truth-conditional and dynamic semantics and the foundational depth of Griceanism. I am filled with gratitude for Stephen’s guidance and enthusiasm, without which this dissertation would not have been possible. Others—Gricean or otherwise—who, in their roles as professors and mentors, and through their seminars, questions, comments, and encouragement, have helped to shape the views pre- viii sented here include Kent Bach, Liz Camp, Michael Devitt, Peter Hanks, Kirstie Laird, Sandra La- pointe, Ernie Lepore, Peter Ludlow, Jeff Pelletier, Craige Roberts, David Rosenthal, Stephen Schif- fer, Dan Sperber, Jason Stanley, Zoltán Szabó, and Deirdre Wilson. I would particularly like to single out Michael Devitt, Ernie Lepore, Gary Ostertag, and David Rosenthal, both for agreeing to be members of my dissertation committee and for being suppor- tive and persistent forces for good in my intellectual life while I’ve been a graduate student. I took several of Michael’s seminars early in my career at the Graduate Center, and the subtle pattern of ways in which we agree and disagree has forced me to attend to many details of my views that might otherwise have gone unarticulated.
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