1 / 78

Université de Neuchâtel, 19 January 2009 Time and Probability: A Contextual Semantic Account

Université de Neuchâtel, 19 January 2009 Time and Probability: A Contextual Semantic Account. Kasia M. Jaszczolt University of Cambridge, U. K. http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/kmj21. (1) m 3 ae:r 3 i: I kh 2 ian n 3 iy 3 ai: Mary write novel. (1) Mary wrote a novel.

azia
Download Presentation

Université de Neuchâtel, 19 January 2009 Time and Probability: A Contextual Semantic Account

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Université de Neuchâtel, 19 January 2009Time and Probability:A Contextual Semantic Account Kasia M. Jaszczolt University of Cambridge, U. K. http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/kmj21

  2. (1) m3ae:r3i:I kh2ian n3iy3ai: Mary write novel

  3. (1) • Mary wrote a novel. • Mary was writing a novel. • Mary started writing a novel but did not finish it. • Mary has written a novel. • Mary has been writing a novel. • Mary writes novels. / Mary is a novelist. • Mary is writing a novel. • Mary will write a novel. • Mary will be writing a novel. from Srioutai (2006: 45)

  4. (2) f3on t1ok rain fall • It is raining. (default meaning) • It was raining. (possible intended meaning)

  5. Outline • Contextualism in the truth-conditional approach to meaning • Default Semantics (Jaszczolt, e.g. 2005, 2009, forthcoming) • Unit of analysis • Sources of information contributing to the unit • Pragmatic compositionality • Merger representations: towards a formalization • Representing time in DS

  6. Post-Gricean theory of utterance/ discourse meaning radical pragmatics sense-generality contextualism

  7. (3) Some British people like cricket. (3a) Some but not all British people like cricket. (4) Tom dropped a camera and it broke. (4a) Tom dropped a camera and as a result it broke. (5) Everybody went to Geneva. (5a) Every member of the research group went to Geneva.

  8. Semantic analysis takes us only part of the way towards the recovery of utterance meaning. Pragmatic enrichment completes the process. Enrichment: and+> and then, and as a result some+> some but not all everybody+> everybody in the room, every acquaintance of the speaker, etc.

  9. Modulation (Recanati 2004, 2005): The logical form becomes enriched/modulated as a result of pragmatic inference and the entire semantic/pragmatic product becomes subjected to the truth-conditional analysis.

  10. what is said (Recanati) • primary meaning (Jaszczolt)

  11. what is said (Recanati) • primary meaning (Jaszczolt) ? Question: How far can the logical form be extended? ‘How much pragmatics’ is allowed in the semantic representation?

  12. Aspects of meaning are added to the truth-conditional content (‘what is said’) when they conform to our pre-theoretic intuitions. Availability Principle (Recanati).

  13. The logical form of the sentence can not only be extended but also replaced by a new semantic representation when the primary, intended meaning demands it. Such extensions or substitutions are primary meanings and their representations are merger representations in Default Semantics.There is no syntactic constraint on merger representations.

  14. Object of study of the theory of meaning: • Discourse meaning intended by Model Speaker and recovered by Model Addressee (primary meaning)

  15. (6) You are not going to die, Peter. (6a) There is no future time at which you will die, Peter. (6b) You are not going to die from this cut, Peter. (6c) There is nothing to worry about, Peter. Default Semantics: (6c) – substituted proposition (primary meaning)

  16. Summary so far • The output of syntactic processing often leaves the meaning underdetermined.

  17. Summary so far • The output of syntactic processing often leaves the meaning underdetermined. • The object of study of a theory of meaning is a pragmatically modified representation. (Default Semantics is a radical contextualist theory.)

  18. Summary so far • The output of syntactic processing often leaves the meaning underdetermined. • This pragmatically modified representation is an object of study of a theory of meaning (Default Semantics is a radical contextualist theory). • There is no syntactic constraint on the object of study.

  19. Summary so far • The output of syntactic processing often leaves the meaning underdetermined. • This pragmatically modified representation is an object of study of a theory of meaning (Default Semantics is a radical contextualist theory). • There is no syntactic constraint on the object of study. • Discourse meaning is construed as meaning intended by the Model Speaker and recovered by Model Addressee.

  20. Going beyond contextualism: DS does not recognize the level of meaning at which the logical form is pragmatically developed/modulated as a real, interesting, and cognitively justified construct. To do so would be to assume that syntax plays a privileged role among various carriers of information (contextualists’ mistake).

  21. (7) Child: Can I go punting? Mother: You are too small. (A) The child is too small to go punting. (B) The child can’t go punting.

  22. (7) Child: Can I go punting? Mother: You are too small. (A) The child is too small to go punting. (B) The child can’t go punting. (6) Situation: A little boy cuts his finger and cries. Mother: You are not going to die. (A) The boy is not going to die from the cut. (B1) There is nothing to worry about. (B2) It’s not a big deal.

  23. (7) Child: Can I go punting? Mother: You are too small. (A) The child is too small to go punting. (B) The child can’t go punting. (6) Situation: A little boy cuts his finger and cries. Mother: You are not going to die. (A) The boy is not going to die from the cut. (B1) There is nothing to worry about. (B2) It’s not a big deal.

  24. Interlocutors frequently communicate their main intended content through a proposition which is not syntactically restricted. Experimental evidence: Nicolle and Clark 1999 Pitts 2005 Sysoeva and Jaszczolt 2007

  25. Merger Representation  • Primary meanings are modelled as the so-called merger representations.

  26. Merger Representation  • Primary meanings are modelled as the so-called merger representations. • The outputs of sources of information about meaning merge and all the outputs are treated on an equal footing.

  27. Merger Representation  • Primary meanings are modelled as the so-called merger representations. • The outputs of sources of information about meaning merge and all the outputs are treated on an equal footing. The syntactic constraint is abandoned. • Merger representations have the status of mental representations.

  28. Merger Representation  • Primary meanings are modelled as the so-called merger representations. • The outputs of sources of information about meaning merge and all the outputs are treated on an equal footing. The syntactic constraint is abandoned. • Merger representations have the status of mental representations. • They have a compositional structure: they are proposition-like, truth-conditionally evaluable constructs, integrating information coming from various sources that interacts according to the principles established by the intentional character of discourse.

  29. Sources of information for : • world knowledge (WK); • word meaning and sentence structure (WS); • situation of discourse (SD); • properties of the human inferential system (IS); • stereotypes and presumptions about society and culture (SC).

  30. SC (8) A Botticelli was stolen from the Uffizi last week. (8a)A painting by Botticelli was stolen from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence last week.

  31. WK (9) The temperature fell below -10 degrees Celsius and the lake froze. (9a) The temperature fell below -10 degrees Celsius and as a result the lake froze.

  32. IS (10) The author of Cloud Atlas has breathtaking sensitivity and imagination. (10a)David Mitchell has breathtaking sensitivity and imagination.

  33. The model of sources of information can be mapped onto types of processes that produce the merger representation  of the primary meaning and the additional (secondary) meanings.

  34. Mapping between sources and processes WK  SCWD or CPI SC  SCWD or CPI WS  WS (logical form) SD  CPI IS  CD In building merger representations DS makes use of the processing model and it indexes the components of  with a subscript standing for the type of processing.

  35. Psychological plausibility of rich (contextualist) semantic content: ‘I think that it is agreed on all sides that if it is a fact that P is the semantic content of S (perhaps relative to context), then this fact must be grounded in natural psychological and/or sociological facts concerning the abilities and practices of competent speakers and interpreters. If the alleged facts concerning semantic content are not somehow grounded in such natural facts, then semantics would not fit into Chomsky’s cognitive paradigm in linguistics, nor even into the broader project of “naturalizing epistemology”.’ Clapp (2007: 251)

  36. There is a need to distinguish the two kinds of processes: the conscious, inferential one and the automatic, subdoxastic one. • Cf.: Levinson (2000) & Recanati (2002, 2004) – w.r.t. primary meanings

  37. Compositionality of Primary Meanings • Schiffer (e. g. 1991, 1994, 2003): compositionality is not a necessary property of semantics; composition of meaning may simply reflect compositional reality. Meaning supervenes on the structure of the world. • Recanati (2004): compositionality belongs to enriched, modulated propositions. ‘Interactionist’, ‘Gestaltist’ approach to compositionality. • DS: compositionality of utterance meaning rather than sentence meaning.

  38. Merger representations are compositional structures.

  39. Selected applications of DS • Origins: Jaszczolt 1992, 1999. Parsimony of Levels (POL) Principle: Levels of senses are not to be multiplied beyond necessity. • First applications: definite descriptions, proper names, and belief reports (Jaszczolt 1997, 1999); negation and discourse connectives (Lee 2002). • Recent applications: presupposition, sentential connectives, number terms, temporality, and modality (Jaszczolt 2005; 2009; Srioutai 2004, 2006; Jaszczolt and Srioutai forthcoming; Engemann 2008); syntactic constraint on primary meaning (Sysoeva and Jaszczolt 2007).

  40. Languages: English, Korean, Thai, Russian, French, German

  41. Representing Time

  42. Merger Representations for the Past (11) Lidia went to a concert yesterday. (regular past) (12) This is what happened yesterday. Lidia goes to a concert, meets her school friend and tells her… (past of narration) (13) Lidia would have gone to a concert (then). (epistemic necessity past) (14) Lidia must have gone to a concert (yesterday). (epistemic necessity past) (15) Lidia may have gone to a concert (yesterday). (epistemic possibility past) (16) Lidia might have gone to a concert (yesterday). (epistemic possibility past)

  43. a cline of decreasing epistemic commitment

  44. Fig. 3: Degree of epistemic commitment for selected expressions with past-time reference

  45. Acc ├ p ‘it is acceptable that it is the case that p’ Grice (2001)

  46. ACCΔ ├ Σ ‘it is acceptable to the degree Δ that Σ is true’

  47. Fig. 4: Σ for example (11) ‘Lidia went to a concert yesterday.’ (regular past) Σ

More Related