THE NATURE OF LINGUISTIC MEANING

Abstract The first part of this paper outlines the relevant aspects of functional structuralism serving lexicographers as a departure point for building a model of lexical meaning useable in the Dictionary of Contemporary Slovak Language. This section also points to some aspects of Klára Buzássyová’s research on lexis and wordformation that have enriched the functionalstructuralist paradigm. The second section shows other theoretical and methodological frameworks, such as linguistic pragmatics, cognitive linguistics and corpus linguistics (all of them departing in some respect from the structuralism and, in other aspects, being complementary with it) that can enhance the structuralist basis of the model. The third section outlines an extended model of lexical meaning that represents a synthesis of all those theoretical frameworks and, at the same time, represents a reflection of three language constituents: 1. The social constituent is present in consideration of communicative functions of utterances, naming functions of lexical units, functional styles and registers, language norms, and situational contexts; 2. The psychological component takes the form of consideration of the prototype effect, the abolition of boundaries between linguistic meaning and other parts of cognition; 3. Thanks to the structural/systematic component, a description of paradigmatic and syntagmatic behaviour of words can be performed, and an inventory of formalcontent units and categories (lexemes, lexies, wordforming and grammatical structures) can be provided. In our dictionary practice, the abovementioned model is reflected in the methodological procedures as follows: 1. Systemization of repetitive (regular, standardized) phenomena; 2. Prototypicalization of meaning description; 3. Contextualization/encyclopedization of meaning description; 4. Pragmatization of meaning description; 5. Continualized presentation of language phenomena, i.e., introduction of numerous phenomena of transient and indeterminate nature and indicating the existence of a semanticpragmatic and lexicalgrammatical continuum; 6. “Discretization” of combinatorial continuum, i.e., identification and description of entrenched word combinations with naming functions.

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From Meaning to Content

10.1093/oso/9780198739548.003.0004 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

François Recanati

Keyword(s):

Linguistic Meaning ◽

Semantic Value

According to a widespread picture due to Kaplan, there are two levels of semantic value: character and content. Character is determined by the grammar, and it determines content with respect to context. In this chapter Recanati criticizes that picture on several grounds. He shows that we need more than two levels, and rejects the determination thesis: that linguistic meaning as determined by grammar determines content. Grammatical meaning does not determine assertoric content, he argues, but merely constrains it—speaker’s meaning necessarily comes into play. On the alternative picture he offers, there are four basic levels, only one of which is determined by the grammar. Pragmatics is what enables the transition from each level to the next.

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Loaded Words

10.1093/oso/9780198758655.003.0004 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Kent Bach

Keyword(s):

Target Group ◽

Linguistic Meaning

What, as a matter of linguistic meaning, is added by referring to people with a slurring term rather than with its neutral counterpart? Hybrid expressivism says that slurs have the same descriptive contents as their neutral counterparts and that what distinguishes them is an expressive component. This chapter argues that hybrid expressivism gets the order of explanation backwards and it offers an alternative, loaded descriptivism. This says that the second component of the meaning of a slur is descriptive, not expressive. Using a slur expresses contempt all right (or some such attitude), but not as a matter of meaning. It does so because, thanks to its meaning, using it imputes contemptibility to members of the target group.

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Showing, Expressing, and Figuratively Meaning

10.1093/oso/9780198791492.003.0009 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Mitchell Green

Keyword(s):

Perspective Taking ◽

Figurative Language ◽

Common Ground ◽

Linguistic Meaning ◽

Psychological State ◽

Proper Understanding ◽

Speaker Meaning

We first correct some errors in Lepore and Stone’s discussion of speaker meaning and its relation to linguistic meaning. With a proper understanding of those notions and their relation, we may then motivate a liberalization of speaker meaning that includes overtly showing one’s psychological state. I then distinguish this notion from that of expression, which, although communicative, is less cognitively demanding than speaker meaning since it need not be overt. This perspective in turn enables us to address Lepore and Stone’s broadly Davidsonian view of figurative language, which rightly emphasizes the role of imagination and perspective-taking associated with such language, but mistakenly suggests it is sui generis relative to other types of pragmatic process, and beyond the realm of communication. Figurative utterances may influence conversational common ground, and may be assessed for their aptness; they also have a characteristically expressive role that a Davidsonian view lacks the resources to explain.

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Discourse, Context, and Coherence

10.1093/oso/9780198791492.003.0006 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Una Stojnić

Keyword(s):

Prima Facie ◽

Context Sensitivity ◽

Linguistic Meaning ◽

Linguistic Features ◽

Linguistic Feature ◽

Discourse Context ◽

Context Sensitive ◽

Pure Indexicals

On the received view, the resolution of context-sensitivity is at least partly determined by non-linguistic features of utterance situation. If I say ‘He’s happy’, what ‘he’ picks out is underspecified by its linguistic meaning, and is only fixed through extra-linguistic supplementation: the speaker’s intention, and/or some objective, non-linguistic feature of the utterance situation. This underspecification is exhibited by most context-sensitive expressions, with the exception of pure indexicals, like ‘I.’ While this received view is prima facie appealing, I argue it is deeply mistaken. I defend an account according to which context-sensitivity resolution is governed by linguistic mechanisms determining prominence of candidate resolutions of context-sensitive items. Thus, on this account, the linguistic meaning of a context-sensitive expression fully specifies its resolution in a context, automatically selecting the resolution antecedently set by the prominence-governing linguistic mechanisms.

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Shifting Concepts

10.1093/oso/9780198803331.001.0001 ◽

2020 ◽

Keyword(s):

Experimental Philosophy ◽

Central Area ◽

Linguistic Meaning ◽

Human Cognition ◽

Important Work ◽

Linguistic Communication ◽

New Perspective ◽

Semantic Properties ◽

Conceptual Variation

Concepts stand at the centre of human cognition. We use concepts in categorizing objects and events in the world, in reasoning and action, and in social interaction. It is therefore not surprising that the study of concepts constitutes a central area of research in philosophy and psychology. Since the 1970s, psychologists have carried out intriguing experiments testing the role of concepts in categorizing and reasoning, and have found a great deal of variation in categorization behaviour across individuals and cultures. During the same period, philosophers of language and mind did important work on the semantic properties of concepts, and on how concepts are related to linguistic meaning and linguistic communication. An important motivation behind this was the idea that concepts must be shared, across individuals and cultures. However, there was little interaction between these two research programs until recently. With the dawn of experimental philosophy, the proposal that the experimental data from psychology lacks relevance to semantics is increasingly difficult to defend. Moreover, in the last decade, philosophers have approached questions about the tension between conceptual variation and shared concepts in communication from a new perspective: that of ameliorating concepts for theoretical or for social and political purposes. The volume brings together leading psychologists and philosophers working on concepts who come from these different research traditions.

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Frege and Wittgenstein: The Limits of the Analytic Style

Elements ◽

10.6017/eurj.v6i1.9022 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Christopher Sheridan

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

Logical Analysis ◽

Linguistic Meaning ◽

Bertrand Russell ◽

Gottlob Frege ◽

Symbolic Logic ◽

Scientific Language ◽

German Mathematician ◽

Broad Application ◽

Analytic Tradition

The analytic tradition in philosophy stems from the work of German mathematician and logician Gottlob Frege. Bertrand Russell brough Frege's program to render language-particularly scientific language-in formal logical terms to the forefront of philosophy in the early twentieth century. The quest to clarify language and parse out genuine philosophical problems remains a cornerstone of analytic philosophy, but investigative programs involving the broad application of formal symbolic logic to language have largely been abandoned due to the influence of Ludwig Wittgenstein's later work. This article identifies the key philosophical moves that must be performed successfully in order for Frege's "conceptual notation" and other similar systems to adequately capture syntax and semantics. These moves ultimately fail as a result of the nature of linguistic meaning. The shift away from formal logical analysis of language and the emergence of the current analytic style becomes clearer when this failure is examined critically.

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Fieldwork on epistemic authority markers: What we can learn from different types of data

Folia Linguistica ◽

10.1515/flin-2020-2046 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 54 (2) ◽

pp. 405-445 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Karolina Grzech

Keyword(s):

Data Collection ◽

Discourse Markers ◽

Epistemic Modality ◽

Linguistic Meaning ◽

Epistemic Authority ◽

Data Collection And Analysis ◽

The Right To Know ◽

Cognitive Study ◽

The Right

AbstractEpistemicity in language encompasses various kinds of constructions and expressions that have to do with knowledge-related aspects of linguistic meaning (cf. Grzech, Karolina, Eva Schultze-Berndt and Henrik Bergqvist. 2020c. Knowing in interaction: an introduction. Folia Linguistica [this issue]). It includes some well-established categories, such as evidentiality and epistemic modality (Boye, Kasper. 2012. Epistemic meaning: A crosslinguistic and functional-cognitive study. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton), but also categories that have been less well described to-date. In this paper, I focus on one such category: the marking of epistemic authority, i.e. the encoding of “the right to know or claim” (Stivers, Tanya, Lorenza Mondada & Jakob Steensig. 2011b. Knowledge, morality and affiliation in social interaction. In Stivers et al. 2011a). I explore how the marking of epistemic authority can be documented and analysed in the context of linguistic fieldwork. The discussion is based on a case study of Upper Napo Kichwa, a Quechuan language spoken in the Ecuadorian Amazon that exhibits a rich paradigm of epistemic discourse markers, encoding meanings related to epistemic authority and distribution of knowledge between discourse participants. I describe and appraise the methodology for epistemic fieldwork used in the Upper Napo Kichwa documentation and description project. I give a detailed account of the different tools and methods of data collection, showing their strengths and weaknesses. I also discuss the decisions made at the different stages of the project and their implications for data collection and analysis. In discussing these issues, I extrapolate from the case study, proposing practical solutions for fieldwork-based research on epistemic markers.

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Semantic analysis of body parts in emotion terminology: Avoiding the exoticisms of “obstinate monosemy” and “online extension”

Pragmatics & Cognition ◽

10.1075/pc.10.12.05enf ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 10 (1-2) ◽

pp. 85-106 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Keyword(s):

Semantic Analysis ◽

Linguistic Meaning ◽

Body Parts ◽

Conceptual Category ◽

Methodological Issues ◽

Central Concern ◽

Emotion Experience ◽

Linguistic Evidence ◽

Established Fact ◽

Is Failure

Investigation of the emotions entails reference to words and expressions conventionally used for the description of emotion experience. Important methodological issues arise for emotion researchers, and the issues are of similarly central concern in linguistic semantics more generally. I argue that superficial and/or inconsistent description of linguistic meaning can have seriously misleading results. This paper is firstly a critique of standards in emotion research for its tendency to underrate and ill-understood linguistic semantics. It is secondly a critique of standards in some approaches to linguistic semantics itself. Two major problems occur. The first is failure to distinguish between conceptually distinct meanings of single words, neglecting the well-established fact that a single phonological string can signify more than one conceptual category (i.e., that words can be polysemous). The second error involves failure to distinguish between two kinds of secondary uses of words: (1) those which are truly active “online” extensions, and (2) those which are conventionalised secondary meanings and not active (qua “extensions”) at all. These semantic considerations are crucial to conclusions one may draw about cognition and conceptualisation based on linguistic evidence.

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