Jigsaw Semantics Introduction Introductory Notes Jigsaw Semantics or: Dynamic Semantics Put Together Again Formal semantics and formal pragmatics: ◮ the disciplines are much scattered and ◮ seriously challenged, or so it seems. Formal Semantics and Pragmatics: Discourse, Context, and Models We can give up, or reply: ◮ unite and meet the challenges. Paul Dekker Quantitatively speaking, this talk may have practically zero ILLC/Department of Philosophy content for this very audience. Universiteit van Amsterdam p.j.e.dekker@uva.nl April 15, 2010 Paul Dekker (UvA/ILLC) Formal Semantics and Pragmatics April 23 – 25 1 / 48 Paul Dekker (UvA/ILLC) Formal Semantics and Pragmatics April 23 – 25 2 / 48 Jigsaw Semantics Introduction Jigsaw Semantics Introduction Introductory Notes (Cont’d) Overview and Aims Truth-conditional semantics: ◮ locally viewed; My opinion on, and not an answer to, a question Barbara has ◮ globally viewed. addressed years ago: ◮ I don’t think semantics is a branch of mathematics, nor that it Goal-directed pragmatics: should be. ◮ locally viewed; ◮ I don’t think semantics is a branch of psychology, nor that it should ◮ globally viewed. be. Note: informative and inquisitive goals only. ◮ I also do not think that semantics is a branch of physics, or that it should be. Aims: ◮ work towards a broad coherent concept of interpretation, and ◮ answer the good-old contextualists. Paul Dekker (UvA/ILLC) Formal Semantics and Pragmatics April 23 – 25 3 / 48 Paul Dekker (UvA/ILLC) Formal Semantics and Pragmatics April 23 – 25 4 / 48
Jigsaw Semantics Truth Conditional Semantics (Local) Jigsaw Semantics Truth Conditional Semantics (Local) Gottlob Frege (1892) ¨ Ludwig Wittgenstein (1922) Uber Sinn und Bedeutung Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung ‘Sinn’ is an ‘Art des Gegebenseins’ of a ‘Bedeutung’. In the case of a sentence: a ‘Gedanke’ and a ‘Wahrheitswert’, respectively. Warum gen¨ ugt uns der Gedanke nicht? Weil und soweit es uns Einen Satz verstehen, heißt, wissen was der Fall auf seinen Wahrheitswert ankommt. ist, wenn er wahr ist. Ein Urteil ist mir nicht das bloße Fassen eines Gedankens, To understand a sentence means knowing what is the case sondern die Anerkennung seiner Wahrheit. in case it is true. (4.024) So werden wir dahin gedr¨ angt, den Wahrheitswert eines Satzes als seine Bedeutung anzuerkennen. Pushing Frege and Wittgenstein to the limit: meanings are truth It is not just the thought, the meaning of a sentence, or its conditions. representation of truth or falsehood, that counts, but the establishment of its truth or truth-value. Paul Dekker (UvA/ILLC) Formal Semantics and Pragmatics April 23 – 25 5 / 48 Paul Dekker (UvA/ILLC) Formal Semantics and Pragmatics April 23 – 25 6 / 48 Jigsaw Semantics Truth Conditional Semantics (Local) Jigsaw Semantics Truth Conditional Semantics (Local) Alfred Tarski (1944) The Semantic Conception of Truth Willard V.O. Quine (1960, 1987) and the Foundations of Semantics It is for these reasons that we count the concept of truth which is In this chapter we shall consider how much of language can be made discussed here among the concepts of semantics, and the problem of sense of in terms of its stimulus conditions, and what scope this leaves defining truth proves to be closely related to the more general problem for empirically unconditioned variation in one’s conceptual scheme. of setting up the foundations of theoretical semantics. ( Word and Object , Ch. 2, “Translation and Meaning”) There is nothing in linguistic meaning, then, beyond what is to be (. . . ) we wish to use the term “true” in such a way that all gleared from overt behavior in observable circumstances. equivalences of the form (T) can be asserted, and we shall call a (“Indeterminacy of Translation Again”) definition of truth “adequate” [from the material point of view] if all these equivalences follow from it. Pushing Quine and Tarski to the limit: meaning, if anything, is All [semantic] notions mentioned in this section can be defined in terms nothing but truth-, or satisfaction conditions. of satisfaction. (This is on truth , but also, designates , define , consequence , and synonymity .) Paul Dekker (UvA/ILLC) Formal Semantics and Pragmatics April 23 – 25 7 / 48 Paul Dekker (UvA/ILLC) Formal Semantics and Pragmatics April 23 – 25 8 / 48
Jigsaw Semantics Truth Conditional Semantics (Local) Jigsaw Semantics Truth Conditional Semantics (Local) Richard Montague, David Lewis, Barbara Partee Moral (. . . ) I regard the construction of a theory of truth—or rather, of the more general notion of truth under an arbitrary interpretation—as the All the work in truth-conditional semantics is exciting and basic goal of serious syntax and semantics. (Richard Montague, valuable and promising. “English as a formal language”, 1970) There is no reason to suppose that any of the truth-conditional analyses o ff ered, or any of those still to be o ff ered, are wrong Semantics with no treatment of truth conditions is not semantics. because they are well-formulated. (David Lewis, “General Semantics”, 1971) Principally, they are concerned with all and only the empirically generalizable data. (. . . ) an essential part of semantics is the construction of a theory of Psychological and sociological theories of meaning are trivial or truth for a language. (Barbara Partee, “Extensions”, 1973) circular. ◮ But that’s something for another occasion. Two aspects of Montague’s approach looked especially exciting. The first was the revolutionary (to a linguist) idea that the core data were the truth conditions of sentences. (Barbara Partee, “Reflections”, 2004) Paul Dekker (UvA/ILLC) Formal Semantics and Pragmatics April 23 – 25 9 / 48 Paul Dekker (UvA/ILLC) Formal Semantics and Pragmatics April 23 – 25 10 / 48 Jigsaw Semantics Truth Conditional Semantics (Global) Jigsaw Semantics Truth Conditional Semantics (Global) Wittgenstein Again Discourse Representation Theory (and Not only Wittgenstein) 2.1 Wir machen uns Bilder der Tatsachen. Just an example: 2.12 Das Bild ist ein Modell der Wirklichkeit. ◮ A man who is walking runs away from a dog he sees. Note: we make ourselves, sometimes huge, interconnected ∃ x (( Mx ∧ Wx ) ∧ ∃ y (( Dy ∧ Sxy ) ∧ Rxy )). representations of reality, of all kinds, pictorial, schematic, musical notation, chord schemes, and linguistic, . . . . x y How do we communicate them? In a DRS : Mx Dy ◮ In bits and pieces. Wx Sxy Rxy ≫ Here lies a problem of decomposition and reconstruction. There is the task of establishing connections in scattered How may we communicate this in bits and pieces? representations, which may very well be modeled on the technique of establishing anaphoric relationships in discourse. Paul Dekker (UvA/ILLC) Formal Semantics and Pragmatics April 23 – 25 11 / 48 Paul Dekker (UvA/ILLC) Formal Semantics and Pragmatics April 23 – 25 12 / 48
Jigsaw Semantics Truth Conditional Semantics (Global) Jigsaw Semantics Truth Conditional Semantics (Global) Linguistic Decomposition Markerese and Mentalese 1 A man was walking in the park. There is a reason not to be satisfied with the picture. 2 He saw a dog. 3 He ran away from it. Translation into Markerese is at best a substitute for real semantics. (David Lewis, 1971) Discourse representational theoretic decomposition: Our own opinion, for whatever it is worth, is that the calculating mind x 1 y 2 is a metaphor rather than a model. It is a powerful metaphor, no Mx 1 Dy 2 doubt, on which many branches of ‘cognitive’ science are based, and Sx 2 y 2 Rx 3 y 3 Wx 1 sometimes it can be helpful, even insightful. But it remains a way of speaking, rather than a true description of the way we are. Discourse representational theoretic reconstruction: (Groenendijk and Stokhof, DPL , 1987) x 1 = x 2 = x 3 and y 2 = y 3 . How to communicate pictures, paintings, schemes, and feelings, This should go for any kind of connections in discourse or which are not discourse representation structures? representation: ◮ identity, anaphora, causal, temporal and discourse relations, . . . . Paul Dekker (UvA/ILLC) Formal Semantics and Pragmatics April 23 – 25 13 / 48 Paul Dekker (UvA/ILLC) Formal Semantics and Pragmatics April 23 – 25 14 / 48 Jigsaw Semantics Truth Conditional Semantics (Global) Jigsaw Semantics Truth Conditional Semantics (Global) Budapest Metro Dynamic Predicate Logic DPL succeeds in associating all three separate sentences in the above example, with an independent meaning, in terms of input- output-conditions. The most inspiring middle sentence requires as an input an assignment which associates x with someone who sees a dog, and renders as output an assignment with the same value for x , and which associates y with a dog x sees. � g, h � ∈ [ [ ∃ y ( Dy ∧ Sxy )] ] i ff Metro Stations standing in direct and indirect connections, and ◮ g [ y ] h and h ( y ) is a dog such that g ( x ) sees g ( y ). standing in spatial relations with one another. What this picture displays, can only be adequately captured by This is so verifying! means of the right truth-conditions. What else? If i | = BudapestMetro . png then i | = ∃ x ( STAT x ∧ ∃ 3 y ( LINE y ∧ ON xy )). Paul Dekker (UvA/ILLC) Formal Semantics and Pragmatics April 23 – 25 15 / 48 Paul Dekker (UvA/ILLC) Formal Semantics and Pragmatics April 23 – 25 16 / 48
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