Pursuing Meaning

by Borg, Emma

• ISBN13: 9780199588374
• ISBN10: 0199588376
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-07-26
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Emma Borg examines the relation between semantics and pragmatics, and assesses recent answers to the fundamental questions of how and where to draw the divide between the two. In particular, she offers a defence of what is commonly known as 'minimal semantics'. Minimal semantics, as the name suggests, wants to offer a minimal account of the interrelation between semantics and pragmatics. Specifically, it holds that while context can affect literal semantic contentin the case of genuine (i.e. lexically or syntactically marked) context-sensitive expressions, this is the limit of pragmatic input to semantic content. Borg argues that this contextual influence on semantics can be limited to 'tame' pragmatics--the kind of rule-governed appeals to context whichwon't scare formally minded horses.

Author Biography

Emma Borg joined the Philosophy Department at the University of Reading in 1998, shortly before she completed her PhD at University College London. She has been with the Department ever since and is currently Head of Department. She has held visiting positions at Rutgers University and the University of Chicago, and was a recipient of a Philip Leverhulme Prize (for 'outstanding young researchers'). She is on the editorial boards for the journals Ratio, Theoria, and the International Review of Pragmatics, and has published widely on issues within the philosophy of language, including the monograph Minimal Semantics.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xxiii
Surveying the Terrain	p. 1
Minimal semantics	p. 3
Context-shifting arguments	p. 16
The current positions in logical space	p. 18
Reassessing the middle ground	p. 29
Minimal Semantics and Psychological Evidence	p. 48
Minimalism and what is said	p. 49
The relationship between semantics and psychology?	p. 52
The objection: psychological evidence runs counter to the theories	p. 56
The response	p. 62
Disagreements and agreements	p. 64
Propositionalism and Some Problem Cases	p. 73
The challenge to Propositionalism	p. 74
Non-minimalist responses to the problem cases	p. 76
Minimalist responses to the problem cases	p. 81
Intention-Sensitive Expressions	p. 112
The problem of semantically relevant intentions	p. 112
Rejecting (P1): conventionalism about reference	p. 115
Rejecting (P2): non-inferentialism	p. 122
Rejecting the argument: distinguishing reference fixing, reference identification, and semantic content	p. 134
Conclusion	p. 140
The Ontological Argument Against Minimal Word Meanings	p. 143
Semantic minimalism and Chomsky's semantic internalism	p. 146
The arguments against minimal word meanings	p. 151
Rejecting the arguments against minimal word meanings	p. 156
Conclusion	p. 164
The Methodological Argument Against Minimal Word Meanings	p. 165
The intra-linguistic burden for semantics	p. 166
The thin approach to carrying the intra-linguistic burden	p. 174
The thick approach to carrying the intra-linguistic burden: lexical complexity	p. 176
Fodor and Lepore's objections to lexical complexity	p. 183
Organization of the lexicon	p. 191
Minimal semantics and organizational lexical semantics	p. 202
Conclusion	p. 213
Bibliography	p. 217
Index	p. 229
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