Responses to Speaks, Stojnić and Szabó

IF 1.1 1区 哲学 0 PHILOSOPHY
Jeffrey C. King
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Consider the class of contextually sensitive expressions whose context invariant meanings arguably do not suffice to secure semantic values in context. Demonstratives and demonstrative pronouns are the examples of such expressions that have received the most attention from philosophers. However, arguably this class of contextually sensitive expressions includes among other expressions modals, conditionals, tense, gradable adjectives, possessives, ‘only’, quantifiers, and expressions that take implicit arguments (e.g. ‘ready’ in sentences like ‘Molly is ready.’). Most theorists, including me, think that since the context invariant meanings of such expressions do not by themselves secure semantic values in context for these expressions, they must be supplemented in some way in context in order to secure semantic values in context. For this reason, I call these expressions supplementives. I just said that supplementives need some sort of supplementation to secure semantic values in context. Of course, the question of what form the supplementation in context takes is controversial. For example, ever since Kaplan claimed that the semantic value of a demonstrative or demonstrative pronoun in context is the demonstratum of its associated demonstration, there has been a lively controversy over whether that or some other account is the correct one. Call an account of how a given supplementive secures a semantic value in context a metasemantics for the supplementive. In King [2018] I argue that all supplementives have felicitous uses in which they haven’t been assigned unique semantic values in context. This conclusion is somewhat surprising, since many uses of supplementives in which they have not been assigned unique semantic values in context are quite infelicitous. I call felicitous uses of supplementives in which they haven’t been assigned unique semantic values in context instances of felicitous underspecification. The central idea is that in cases of felicitous underspecification, supplementives get assigned a range of candidates for being their semantic values in contexts rather than being assigned unique semantic values in contexts. Consider an example. Glenn and I are out surfing at Lost Winds beach. There are some surfers to our south stretching a quarter mile or so down the beach. I notice that some surfers in an ill-defined group to our immediate south are getting incredible rides. I say to Glenn looking south toward them ‘Those guys are good.’ It seems easy to imagine that nothing in the context of utterance determines a unique group of surfers as the semantic value in context of ‘Those guys’. For example, it is easy to imagine that I didn’t intend any specific, unique group to be the semantic value in context. Instead, there is a range of overlapping groups that are legitimate candidates for being the semantic value in context of ‘Those guys’. Nonetheless, my utterance is felicitous: Glenn had no qualms about my utterance and took it to be impeccably acceptable. So this is an instance of felicitous underspecification. As its title suggests, felicitous underspecification is the main topic of the present book. Here is a summary of what is in each chapter. Chapter 1 provides examples of felicitous underspecification for a variety of supplementives. In each case of felicitous underspecification considered in Chap. 1, I say how I think conversational participants update the Stalnakerian common ground after accepting the utterance of the sentence containing a felicitous underspecified use of a supplementive. I do so without there formulating a principle that determines the updates in question. In Chap. 2, I formulate such a principle and illustrate its predictions with some of the cases of felicitous underspecification considered in Chap. 1. I claim the principle correctly predicts the updates discussed in Chap. 1. In Chap. 3, I consider and discuss the mechanism that I claim associates ranges of candidate semantic values in context with felicitous underspecified uses of supplementives. In Chap. 4, I discuss cases in which felicitous underspecified uses of supplementives are embedded in certain ways: under negation, and under ‘believes’ and ‘doubts’. In Chap. 5 I take up I take up the question of why sentences containing felicitous underspecified uses of supplementives are felicitous in the contexts in which they are uttered. In particular, I formulate a notion of a context being appropriate for an LF, where an LF is felicitous in a context only if the context is appropriate for the LF. In particular, an LF ϕ containing a use of an underspecified supplementive in a context c will be felicitous only if c is appropriate for ϕ. In Chap. 6, I take up some problems that arise with underspecified uses of pronouns, demonstratives and possessives and consider revising the appropriateness condition of Chap. 5.

对 Speaks、Stojnić 和 Szabó 的回应
考虑一下语境敏感表达式的类别,它们的语境不变意义可以说不足以确保语境中的语义价值。指示词和指示代词是这类表达式中最受哲学家关注的例子。然而,可以说这一类对语境敏感的表达式还包括情态、条件、时态、可分级形容词、所有格、"只有"、量词以及含有隐含参数的表达式(例如 "莫莉准备好了 "等句子中的 "准备好了")。包括我在内的大多数理论家认为,由于这些表达式的语境不变义本身并不能确保这些表达式在语境中的语义价值,因此必须在语境中以某种方式加以补充,才能确保这些表达式在语境中的语义价值。因此,我把这些表达式称为补充表达式。我刚才说过,补充语需要某种补充才能确保语境中的语义值。当然,语境中的补充以何种形式存在是一个有争议的问题。例如,自从卡普兰(Kaplan)声称,在上下文中,一个状语或状语代词的语义价值是其相关的状语的状语(demonratum)之后,关于这种说法还是其他说法才是正确的,一直存在着激烈的争论。关于给定补语如何在语境中确保语义价值的解释,可以称为补语的元语义学。在 King [2018] 一文中,我认为所有的补充语都有在语境中没有被赋予独特语义值的恰当用法。这一结论有些出人意料,因为补充语在语境中未被赋予独特语义值的许多用法都相当不恰当。我把在语境中没有被赋予独特语义值的补充语的恰当使用称为恰当的欠规范。其核心思想是,在 "缺失规范 "的情况下,补语在语境中被赋予一系列候选语义值,而不是在语境中被赋予唯一的语义值。请看一个例子。格伦和我正在迷风海滩冲浪。我们南边有一些冲浪者,沿着海滩延伸了四分之一英里左右。我注意到,在我们南边的一个不明确的群体中,一些冲浪者正在获得令人难以置信的冲浪体验。我望着南边的冲浪者对格伦说:"那些家伙很厉害。我们不难想象,'那些家伙'在语境中的语义价值并不是由话语上下文决定的,而是由一群独特的冲浪者决定的。举例来说,很容易想象我并没有打算把任何特定的、独一无二的群体作为上下文的语义值。相反,在 "那些家伙 "的上下文中,有一系列重叠的群体都有理由成为语义值。尽管如此,我的发言仍然是有意义的:格伦对我的发言没有任何顾虑,并认为我的发言是无可挑剔的,是可以接受的。因此,这是一个 "悦耳的欠规范"(felicitous underpecification)的例子。正如本书的标题所示,"悦耳的未充分说明 "是本书的主题。以下是每章内容的摘要。第 1 章提供了各种补充语的 "恰当的欠规范 "实例。在第1章所考虑的每一个 "缺陷不足规范 "案例中,我都会说说我认为对话参与者在接受了包含缺陷不足规范使用的补充语的句子之后是如何更新斯塔尔纳克共同点的。我这样做并没有提出一个决定有关更新的原则。在第 2 章中,我提出了这样一个原则,并用第 1 章中考虑过的一些悦耳的未充分说明的情况来说明其预测。我声称该原则正确地预测了第 1 章中讨论的更新。在第 3 章中,我考虑并讨论了将上下文中候选语义值的范围与补充语的 "非善意的欠规范化使用 "联系起来的机制。在第 4 章中,我讨论了以特定方式嵌入补语的fullicitous underspecified uses的情况:在否定、"相信 "和 "怀疑 "下。在第 5 章中,我将探讨为什么包含补充词的 "非明确用法 "的句子在其语境中是 "非明确的"。特别是,我提出了一个语境适合于 LF 的概念,即只有当语境适合于 LF 时,LF 在语境中才是有意义的。具体来说,只有当 c 适合于 LF ϕ 时,一个在上下文 c 中使用了未指定补充语的 LF ϕ 才是有意义的。在第 6 章中,我将讨论代词、指示代词和占有词的非规范使用中出现的一些问题,并考虑修改第 5 章中的合适性条件。
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来源期刊
PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES
PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES PHILOSOPHY-
CiteScore
2.60
自引率
7.70%
发文量
127
期刊介绍: Philosophical Studies was founded in 1950 by Herbert Feigl and Wilfrid Sellars to provide a periodical dedicated to work in analytic philosophy. The journal remains devoted to the publication of papers in exclusively analytic philosophy. Papers applying formal techniques to philosophical problems are welcome. The principal aim is to publish articles that are models of clarity and precision in dealing with significant philosophical issues. It is intended that readers of the journal will be kept abreast of the central issues and problems of contemporary analytic philosophy. Double-blind review procedure The journal follows a double-blind reviewing procedure. Authors are therefore requested to place their name and affiliation on a separate page. Self-identifying citations and references in the article text should either be avoided or left blank when manuscripts are first submitted. Authors are responsible for reinserting self-identifying citations and references when manuscripts are prepared for final submission.
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