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In principle, comprehenders might always make immediate commitments to the interpretation of expressions (full commitment) or wait until such decisions are necessary (minimal commitment; Frazier & Rayner, 1990). One interesting case involves decisions about telicity: whether expressions refer to events that are determinate versus indeterminate with respect to an endpoint. Thus, the insect hopped is apparently determinate, but continuing with a clause beginning with until, in which case hopped must be interpreted as an ongoing activity, is possible. Studies using secondary lexical decision and "stop-making-sense" tasks found that comprehenders experienced difficulty with these continuations, compatible with full commitment (Pinango, Zurif, & Jackendoff, 1999; Todorova, Straub, Badecker, & Frank, 2000a, 2000b). However, we report 2 self-paced reading and 2 eye-tracking experiments that indicate readers do not experience any difficulty with these types of mismatches in telicity. We argue that during normal reading, comprehenders do not immediately need to commit fully to the telicity of events and that full commitment may only occur when processing demands induce immediate decisions. We contrast these results with evidence for full commitment in complement coercions, for example, began the book (McElree, Traxler, Pickering, Seely, & Jackendoff, 2001) and other forms of semantic interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the implications of linguistic diversity in educational writing programs. The ways on how composition programs need to change in order to meet the demands of a student population are examined. Issues regarding educational curriculum for first-year composition, materials and practices for teacher development are outlined.

The present investigation challenges the traditional distinction between cohesion and coherence; i.e., the distinction between the syntactical rules governing the composition of lexical units within the scope of the clause and the semantic-pragmatic rules guiding the composition of text units beyond the scope of the clause. To this end it exposes two major principles of semantic combination that are active through all levels of linguistic composition: viz. frame-schematic structure and narrative structure. These principles are considered as being components of a semantic combinatorial system to be determined in terms of dependency relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper proposes a semantics for contextual (i.e., Temporal and Locative) Prepositional Phrases (CPPs) like during every meeting, in the garden, when Harry met Sally and where I’m calling from. The semantics is embodied in a multi-modal extension of Combinatory Categoral Grammar (CCG). The grammar allows the strictly monotonic compositional derivation of multiple correct interpretations for “stacked” or multiple CPPs, including interpretations whose scope relations are not what would be expected on standard assumptions about surfacesyntactic command and monotonic derivation. A type-hierarchy of functional modalities plays a crucial role in the specification of the fragment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article synthesizes different epistemological stages in the lexical analysis of a text or discourse. It reviews different conceptions of componential analysis, it validates the principle of compositionality and it proposes some descriptive means that can be used in lexical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reasoning system known as NARS constitutes a model of categorization. NARS is designed to be an adaptive system that works under the constraint of insufficient knowledge and resources. It consists of a categorical language, an experience-grounded semantics, a set of syllogistic inference rules, a dynamic memory structure, and a control mechanism that manages asynchronized parallel inference. In the system, reasoning and categorization are two aspects of the same underlying process. As a model of categorization, NARS unifies several existing theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kecskes: Linguistic underspecification of utterance content is widely accepted across different frameworks, including the neo-Gricean approaches (cf. Horn 2005; Levinson 2000) and relevance theory (Carston 2002, 2005; Sperber & Wilson 1986, 1995). There is also an agreement that if linguistic underdeterminacy is given, pragmatic inference is required if a hearer is to recover a speaker's meaning successfully. In your Default Semantics, you reject the idea of underdetermined semantic representation, and offer an alternative approach in which semantic representation is established with the help of intentions in communication. This means that intentions “intrude” into the semantic representation, and the semantic and pragmatic components are interwoven. What are the advantages of this one-level semantics as opposed to the modular view? It can be argued that, in a way, Default Semantics is also a modular approach because intentions can be considered preverbal thoughts generated in the “conceptualizer” and linguistically shaped in the “formulator” using Levelt's terminology (Levelt 1989, 1999). Do you agree with this line of thinking? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study offers scholars in composition and communication studies an opportunity to reflect on the relationship between feminists and rhetoric in the context of edited collections. The author first recasts recovery and gender critique as inventive arts for editors, and then analyzes a selection of edited collections' framing texts to demonstrate how editors compose their collections by mediating these arts. This work reveals that an early either/or relationship between the arts of recovery and gender critique gives way to a both/and approach that opens possibilities for multiple, rich avenues of inquiry in feminist rhetorical studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mundari, an Austroasiatic language of India (Munda family), has often been cited as an example of a language without word classes, where a single word can function as noun, verb, adjective, etc. according to the context. These claims, originating in a 1903 grammar by the missionary John Hoffmann, have recently been repeated uncritically by a number of typologists. In this article we review the evidence for word class fluidity, on the basis of a careful analysis of Hoffmann’s corpus as well as substantial new data, including a large lexical sample at two levels of detail. We argue that in fact Mundari does have clearly definable word classes, with distinct open classes of verb and noun, in addition to a closed adjective class, though there are productive possibilities for using all as predicates. Along the way, we elaborate a series of criteria that would need to be met before any language could seriously be claimed to lack a noun-verb distinction: most importantly strict compositionality, bidirectional flexibility, and exhaustiveness through the lexicon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One hundred years after the publication of "On Denoting" few works have been published that deal with the relation between the Theory of Definite Descriptions, which Bertrand Russell introduced in this essay, and the Principle of Compositionality. This is the field to be explored in this paper with the aim of bringing out what reasons one could resort -- in fact, what reasons led Russell -- to constraint the application of such a principle. Seen to this light, the acceptance of the Principle of Compositionality emerges as a decision that has to keep the right balance with further kinds of desiderata, i.e. logical, epistemological and metaphysical. To give support to this view, three theories of definite descriptions will be analysed and compared: two of them, those put forward by Russell and Peter Strawson, are among analytic philosophy's classic contributions. The third and more recent one is Stephen Neale's. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of debates about what form a theory of meaning should take, it is sometimes claimed that one cannot understand an intersective modifier-head construction (e.g., ‘pet fish’) without understanding its lexical parts. Neo-Russellians like Fodor and Lepore contend that non-denotationalist theories of meaning, such as prototype theory and theory theory, cannot explain why this is so, because they cannot provide for the ‘reverse compositional’ character of meaning. I argue that reverse compositionality is a red herring in these debates. I begin by setting out some positive arguments for reverse compositionality and showing that they fail. Then I show that the principle of reverse compositionality has two big strikes against it. First, it is incompatible with all theories of meaning on the market, including the denotationalism favored by neo-Russellians. Second, it explains nothing that is not already explained by its venerable predecessor, the principle of (forward) compositionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses both pure and indirect quotations. Pure quotations are direct from the speaker while indirect quotations reference others. There exist several arguments against Davidsonian views of indirect and pure quotations and some might find the central argument of the paper to be too focused. On the other hand, the paper talks broadly about various topics pertaining to the philosophy of language and semantic/pragmatic boundaries. The paper presents a question on the relationship between semanticists, compositionality, and innocence. It continues by giving Donald Davidson's answer to the question. Finally, the authors give their own opinions on the topic.

1. Introduction This paper argues that a sideward/parallel movement analysis of so-called “Left- Peripheral Ellipsis” (LPE; Sag 1976) and Gapping constructions improves on the traditional deletion analysis in at least two important ways. First, it avoids the need to appeal to the notion of non-constituent deletion. Second, we attempt to show that directionality effects (Ross 1970 and others) can be derived without recourse to the head parameter or directionality stipulated in the application of transformational rules (which would require linear order in the narrow syntax and, further, would need to be parametrized); rather, we show that apparent directionality in LPE and Gapping constructions is a natural consequence of the interaction of Copy, Merge, PF-deletion of copies, and Cyclic Spell-Out— an effect that is derived only under a movement-based approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structuralism sought to introduce various kinds of autonomy into the study of language, including the autonomy of that study itself. The basis for this was the insistence on categorial autonomy, whereby categories are identified language-internally (whether in a particular language or in language). In relation to phonology, categorial autonomy is tempered by grounding: the categories correlate (at least prototypically) with substance, phonetic properties. This is manifested in the idea of ‘natural classes’ in generative phonology. Usually, however, in more modern grammars, despite some dissent, no such grounding (in meaning) has been attributed to syntax. This attitude culminates in the thesis of the ‘autonomy of syntax’ which was put forward in transformational-generative grammar. In what follows here it is argued that the consequences of this are very unfortunate. Distribution alone is insufficient to determine the identity of categories; what is relevant is the distribution of the prototypical members of the category, where prototypicality is notionally defined. Prototypical nouns, for instance, denote concrete, discrete, stable entities. Syntax, as well as phonology, is grounded. Groundedness ensures that only the prototypical behaviour of semantically prototypical members of a category determines its basic syntax; and this syntax reflects the semantic properties. Groundedness filters out potential syntactic analyses that are incompatible with this. For instance, given the diverse semantic characters of prototypical nouns and verbs, groundedness predicts that the X-bar theory of syntactic structure, which attributes parallel projections to lexical categories, is false. Consideration of the syntax of nouns and verbs confirms that this is indeed the case. The attribution to syntax of categorial autonomy without grounding should be abandoned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Besides their common lexical reading, the Spanish verbs amenazar ‘threaten’ and prometer ‘promise’ can also yield a modal reading. The shift from the former reading to the latter implies a change from a control structure to a raising structure and involves grammaticalization, more specifically auxiliation, which ends up in a layered co-existence of the two (or more) constructions. This paper is mainly concerned with the syntactic and semantic categorization of the grammaticalized quasi-modals amenazar and prometer. Generative accounts have focused on the difference between raising and control, but have not addressed the differences between the two verbs. This paper highlights that modal amenazar faces less constraints than modal prometer . Furthermore, the account presented below will show that epistemic and evidential auxiliaries have scope over the qualification expressed by modal amenazar and prometer, and are therefore not to be called “epistemic”. The paper also deals with the tense restrictions that these verbs undergo. Tenses such as the present perfect are not available in modal constructions with amenazar and prometer because of the activation of agentive patterns inherent to the lexical semantics of the verbs in question. The tense criterion is valid for verbs for which the grammaticalized form is not the most frequent one, but it does not account for true modals in Spanish and other Romance languages. The infinitive criterion turns out to be a good alternative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper introduces a unit of syntax beyond the constituent called the chain . A number of mechanisms are shown to be sensitive to chains, e.g. the formation of predicates and idioms, the ellipses of gapping, pseudogapping and VP-ellipsis, and the elided material of stripping and answer fragments. The presentation is couched in a surface syntax, dependency-based framework, as opposed to a constituency-based one. While the chain can be defined in a manner consistent with constituency, doing so requires that one adopt some controversial assumptions about the nature of constituency structure. The potential of the chain concept is great; it is the tool necessary to address the manner in which semantic compositionality occurs in the syntax. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent articles Fodor and Lepore have argued that not only do considerations of learnability dictate that meaning must be compositional in the well-known sense that the meanings of all sentences are determined by the meanings of a finite number of primitive expressions and a finite number of operations on them, but also that meaning must be‘reverse compositional’ as well, in the sense that the meanings of the primitive expressions of which a complex expression is composed must be determined by the meaning of that complex expression plus the manner of its composition. I argue against the requirement of reverse compositionality and against the claim that learnability requires it. I consider some objections and close the paper by arguing against the related claim that concepts are reverse compositional. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the works of British analytic philosopher Paul Horwich on deflationary account of meaning as an alternative to truth-theoretic semantics. Horwich presented how the meaning properties of words constituted and provides deflationary alternative to the Davidsonian truth-theoretic perspective through compositionality. Moreover, Horwich described and defended a deflationary account of meaning as an alternative to truth theoretic semantics through syntactic analysis of the sentences in the language and the interpretation of expressions.

The article discusses the concept of construction-based grammatical theory which serves as best solution with the singular term theory. It elaborates singular term theory pertains which refers to that-clauses with complex singular terms designated propositions supported by the existence of oblique that-clauses in non-argument positions. The theory defies the traditional view of semantic compositionality by rejecting central dogma of semantics such as linguistic constructions on trivial logical or quasi-logical information to semantic interpretation.

The article discusses the principle of compositionality which claims that the meaning of a compound expression is determined by the meanings of its constituent expression and how they are composed. It examines various formal versions of PC along with the notion of meaning and the patterns of composition to determine its relationships with the Context Principle. Moreover, it explores the application of PC with context-dependence explicit for the stability of a schematic conceptual or epistemic idea to holistic pragmatism.

The article discusses the concept of Surprise argument formulated by American philosopher Donald Herbert Davidson to resolve the dispute in contemporary formal semantics over the proper semantic value for a semantic theory. It states that the dispute are doubts raised by philosopher Paul Pietroski about the compositionality of truth-conditions semantics as the semantic value for a sentence. Pietroski has provided evidence that truth-conditions are not compositional and supported by his fellow philosophers Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore on their idea regarding the distinction between the truth expressed semantically and the truth of speech act content.

Wittgenstein's‘Prototractatus’ raises difficult textual questions concerning both its structure and the date of its composition. I provide an account of the structure of the‘Prototractatus’ by investigating the hitherto unexplored connections between it and other early Wittgenstein manuscripts. I then consider the two most influential proposals on its date of composition, made by von Wright and McGuinness, and argue that neither of them stands up to scrutiny. I make an alternative suggestion, and discuss its implications for the significance of the‘Prototractatus’ in the study of Wittgenstein's early philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We investigate properties for allocation rules on directed communication networks and the formation of such networks under these payoff properties. We study allocation rules satisfying two appealing properties, Component Efficiency (CE) and the Hierarchical Payoff Property (HPP). We show that such allocation rules exist if and only if we restrict ourselves to a class of weakly hierarchical networks. Strengthening the hierarchical payoff property provides a similar result regarding the class of (strongly) hierarchical networks. Such hierarchical networks possess an explicit top-down structure. Subsequently, we discuss several possibilities to model the formation of such hierarchical networks. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A semantics may be compositional and yet partial, in the sense that not all well-formed expressions are assigned meanings by it. Examples come from both natural and formal languages. When can such a semantics be extended to a total one, preserving compositionality? This sort of extension problem was formulated by Hodges, and solved there in a particular case, in which the total extension respects a precise version of the fregean dictum that the meaning of an expression is the contribution it makes to the meanings of complex phrases of which it is a part. Hodges' result presupposes the so-called Husserl property, which says roughly that synonymous expressions must have the same category. Here I solve a different version of the compositional extension problem, corresponding to another type of linguistic situation in which we only have a partial semantics, and without assuming the Husserl property. I also briefly compare Hodges' framework for grammars in terms of partial algebras with more familiar ones, going back to Montague, which use many-sorted algebras instead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reprise questions are a common dialogue device allowing a conversational participant to request clarification of the meaning intended by a speaker when uttering a word or phrase. As such they can act as semantic probes, providing us with information about what meaning can be associated with word and phrase types and thus helping to sharpen the principle of compositionality. This paper discusses the evidence provided by reprise questions concerning the meaning of nouns, noun phrases and determiners. Our central claim is that reprise questions strongly suggest that quantified noun phrases denote (situation‐dependent) individuals—or sets of individuals—rather than sets of sets, or properties of properties. We outline a resulting analysis within the HPSG framework, and discuss its extension to such phenomena as quantifier scope, anaphora and monotone decreasing quantifiers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article focuses on the efficacy of using critical discourse analysis (CDA) in composition studies, based on the a study conducted at the Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. The author argues that CDA provides the theoretical and methodological context that can articulate explicitly the relationship between language practices and politics. He used CDA to analyze texts that circulated on the campus of Miami University, surrounding a conflict that exacerbated ongoing disputes about diversity, access, and standards. The University's Center for Black Culture and Learning on campus was broken into and papered with racist and homophobic flyers in 1998. The university failed to respond to this perceived hate crime in a way that addressed the fears and needs of minority and homosexual students and other outraged community members. That same semester, the English department fell under pressure to reconsider their first-year writing courses. As a participant in the protests and a member of the committee to revise the writing curriculum, the author found himself in the midst of both of these events, the confluence of which is not entirely coincidental. Based on this case, the author illustrates how potential of CDA for composition studies, demonstrating how the discourses of diversity, standards, and access circulated on University's campus.

Language arises from the interaction of three complex adaptive systems — biological evolution, learning, and culture. We focus here on cultural evolution, and present an Iterated Learning Model of the emergence of compositionality, a fundamental structural property of language. Our main result is to show that the poverty of the stimulus available to language learners leads to a pressure for linguistic structure. When there is a bottleneck on cultural transmission, only a language which is generalizable from sparse input data is stable. Language itself evolves on a cultural time-scale, and compositionality is language's adaptation to stimulus poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Provides information on conditionals and compositionality. Examples of possible non-compositionality in English; Instances that depend upon sensitivity of conditionals to counterfactual situations; Description of the problem of the compositionality of quantified conditionals.

Modal fictionalists propose to defuse the unwanted ontological commitments of modal realism by treating modal realism as a fictional story, and modal assertions as assertions, prefixed by a fictionalist operator, that something is true in that story. However, consideration of conditionals with modal antecedents raises the problem of embedding, which shows that the simple prefixing strategy cannot succeed. A compositional version of the fictionalist strategy is developed and critiqued, and some general semantic morals are drawn from the failures of both strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ordinary semantic compositionality (meaning of whole determined from meanings of parts plus composition) can serve to explain how a hearer manages to assign an appropriate meaning to a new sentence. But it does not serve to explain how the speaker manages to find an appropriate sentence for expressing a new thought. For this we would need a principle of inverse compositionality, by which the expression of a complex content is determined by the expressions of it parts and the mode of composition. But this presupposes that contents have constituent structure, and this cannot be taken for granted. However, it can be proved that if a certain principle of substitutivity is valid for a particular language, then the meanings expressed by its sentences can justifiably be treated as structured. In its simplest form, this principle says that if in a complex expression a constituent is replaced by another constituent with a different meaning, the new complex has a meaning different from the original. This principle is again inversely related to the normal compositional principle of substitutivity. The combination of ordinary and inverse compositionality is here called ‘strong compositionality’. The proof is carried out in the algebraic framework developed by Wilfrid Hodges and Dag Westerståhl. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some utterances of sentences such as ‘Every student failed the midterm exam’ and ‘There is no beer’ are widely held to be true in a conversation despite the facts that not every student in the world failed the midterm exam and that there is, in fact, some beer somewhere. For instance, the speaker might be talking about some particular course, or about his refrigerator. Stanley and Szabó (in Mind & Language, 15, 2000) consider many different approaches to how contextual information might give meaning to these ‘restricted quantifier domains’, and find all of them but one wanting. The present paper argues that their considerations against one of these other theories, considerations that turn on notions of compositionality, are incorrect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the view of the author regarding the limitations of the existing quantitative literature on compositional effects. According to the author, the response to the limitations of statistical studies should be ask if there was less direct evidences that could bear on the subject. The author also mentions that quantitative studies could not be reliably establish presence of compositional effects.

Questions the gist of J. Fodor's argument regarding compositionality and epistemic possession conditions, namely that nothing can be essential to or constitutive of a concept unless it composes. Assumptions to account for Fodor's productivity and systematicity.

Discusses the simplest adjective-noun constructions and the apparent problem that they pose for compositionality. Two distinct levels of meaning associated with constructions of the sort in question, both of which are compositionally determined. Principle of compositionality; Linguistic data; Problem of adjectives.

In a language such as Greek where the morphological and syntactic phenomenon of nominal composition is extensively developed, the interpretation of a compound needs to take into account as much as possible its sense and the phraseological associations that could lead to the creation of the word in question. To illustrate this fact, five examples are considered: ... 'weak, feeble' < *'unable to hit' (... cf. ....), ... said in particular of heralds, not 'illustrious, noble' but perhaps 'he who cries loud', i.e. ... ... cf. ... 'fasting from food' < *'who has not been looked after, cared for', i.e. *on-[:omhe-no-s, cf. [sup *]kem-h[sub 2]- in ... same for ... Od. 23, 190-191 = ... perhaps 'born far away (from his parents)': ... cf. [sup *]h[sub 2]eug- 'grow'. Finally, ... can be compared to ... rather than ..., the original sense having been 'who rejoices in his ..., hence 'carefree'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the totality of nominal compounds attested in the Sabellic languages. It intends to evaluate any lexical correspondences between Sabellic and Latin and to classify the types of composition as productive or rather marginal respectively. Common innovations in the system of nominal composition contribute to the arguments in favour of a linguistic unity of Proto–Italic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Provides information on a study which reported on three coordinated studies that had the purpose of developing, evaluating and refining a framework to describe how experienced raters make decisions while evaluating ESL/EFL compositions. Background of the three studies; Implications from the three studies.

The article discusses the effort and the transition of the careers of several successful scholars before they became professionals in their own fields. The author conducts a study on the life of some influential compositionists which includes David Bartholome, Lisa Ede and Peter Elbow and she investigates the similarities and dissimilarities of their experiences during their training until they become composition professors. The author's purpose in administering the study was not only to find the connection of literature into becoming a compositionist but also to find her commonality with the scholars in terms of the profession she chose.

Paul Horwich argues for a ‘deflationary’account of compositionality, according to which, ‘. . . the compositionality of meaning imposes no constraint at all on how the meaning properties of words are constituted’. We have arrived at a tentative diagnosis, which is that Horwich fails to enforce several distinctions that turn out to be crucial. For example, sometimes he puts his main conclusion in the way we just quoted but sometimes, even on the following page, he puts it like this: ‘understanding one of oneÕs own complex expressions (non-idiomatically) is, by definition, nothing over and above understanding its parts and knowing how they are combined’. We propose, in what follows, to consider how Horwich’s deflationary account of compositionality fares if the distinction between theories of meaning and theories of understanding is properly attended to. Here’s how we think it all turns out: – Horwich is right to claim that compositionality is neutral with respect to the metaphysics of understanding expressions when ‘understanding’ refers to a (merely) dispositional state; but not when it refers to an occurrent state. – Horwich is right strictu dictu to claim that compositionality is neutral with respect to the character of lexical meanings, but only strictu dictu. – Compositionality taken, together with other constraints that semantic theories are required to satisfy, reduces the options in the theory of lexical meaning to a bare minimum. The first part of the paper is about compositionality and understanding, the second part is about compositionality and lexical meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My approach to the compositionality of meaning is deflationary in two respects. In the first place it shows that there is no need for a Tarski-style truth-theoretic account of it, and thereby avoids the difficult methodological and technical problems that would have to be solved on such an account. And in the second place it shows that compositionality imposes no constraint whatsoever on theories of lexical meaning. On the first of these points I am opposing Davidson and the tradition in semantics that he instigated. On the second point I am opposing Fodor and Lepore who have denounced various accounts of lexical meaning (including the one I favour – the use theory) for not squaring with compositionality. My plan for this paper is to outline the deflationary approach, to sketch its advantages, and to defend it against objections that have been made by Davidson, Fodor and Lepore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early part of the paper, I attempt to explain a dispute between two parties who endorse the compositionality of language but disagree about its implications: Paul Horwich, and Jerry Fodor and Ernest Lepore. In the remainder of the paper, I challenge the thesis on which they are agreed, that compositionality can be taken for granted. I suggest that it is not clear what compositionality involves nor whether it obtains. I consider some kinds of apparent counterexamples, and compositionalist responses to them in terms of covert indexicality and unspecific meanings. I argue that the last option is the best for most of the cases I consider. I conclude by stressing, as against Horwich and Fodor and Lepore, that the appropriate question concerns the extent to which compositionality obtains in a natural language, rather than whether it obtains or not, so that the answer is essentially messy, requiring detailed consideration of a wide range of examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the compositionality and inferentialism of pragmatist theory by Robert Brandom. Emphasis on the human and social character of content; Fundamental role of judgement in the theory of mind; Productivity of linguistic and cognitive capacities.

Examines the meaning of metaphors. Components of metaphors; Study on the principle of compositionality, radical interpretation and the principle of charity; Idea of metaphoric meaning.

Proponents of deflationism about meaning often claim that the principle of compositionality, when properly understood, places no constraint whatsoever on the nature of lexical meaning. This deflationary thesis admits of both strong and weak readings. On the strong reading, the principle does not rule out any theory of lexical meaning either alone or in conjunction with other independently plausible semantic assumptions. On the weak reading, the principle alone does not rule out any such theory. I argue that, though weak deflationism about compositionality has better initial prospects than strong, neither version of the thesis is credible. In particular, weak deflationism cannot be maintained in conformity with the deflationist commitment to explaining facts about phrase meanings in compositional terms, that is, by appeal to facts about the lexicon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consider the task under which I labour: These are supposed to be talks in the millennial spirit. My charge is to find, somewhere in the philosophical landscape, a problem of whose current status I can give some coherent account, and to point the direction in which it seems to me that further research might usefully proceed, And I'm to try to sound reasonably cheerful and optimistic in the course of doing so. No sooner did I begin to ponder these terms of engagement, than it occurred to me that cheer and optimism aren't really my thing; also that I hadn't heard of a topic in the philosophy of mind (which is the only part of philosophy that even I think that I know anything about) which seems to me to be other than a godawful mess. It struck me that my best course would be for me to change my name and go into hiding. Thus my first choice of a title for this lecture, which was ‘To Be Announced’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aim of this article is to elucidate the processes that characterize natural language interpretation. The basic hypothesis is that natural language interpretation can be characterized as an optimization problem. This innovative view on interpretation is shown to account for the crucial role of contextual information while avoiding certain well-known problems associated with compositionality. This will become particularly clear in the context of incomplete expressions. Our approach takes as a point of departure total freedom of interpretation in combination with the parallel application of soft constraints on possible interpretations. These constraints can be contextual, intonational or syntactic in nature. The integration of pragmatic and syntactic/semantic information in a system of ranked constraints is proposed to correctly derive the optimal interpretations in cases of nominal anaphorization, determiner quantification and elliptical comparatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on logical systems that model mathematical reasoning with unprecedented precision. Gottlob Frege, a German logician started what came to be known as the logicist programme with arithmetics around 1880. The article suggests a way of conceiving how the Fregean principles of compositionality and contextuality can be reconciled with one another and can in fact be seen as working together in the enterprise of interpretation. The elucidation of primitive, undefinable terms of logic, mathematics and metamathematics secures a place for the context principle in the writings of the late Frege in which no explicit reference to this principle can be found.

The article focuses on the usage of vague language and its interpretation in different ways. Such agreements about how to use vague words are bound to the particular contexts in which they are reached. A speaker can adjust the extension of a vague expression to suit his needs, relying on the hearer to recognize his intentions and to accommodate him. It has been suggested that the mechanism of the accommodation is in the compositional analysis of adjective-noun combinations. Communication proceeds relative to a context, which includes shared presuppositions. Among these are items of general knowledge, along with whatever the situation makes obvious and whatever has been established in the course of the conversation, whether it is true or false.

The article focuses on the principle of compositionality which is a fundamental principle of semantics. It is often stated as "the meaning of a complex expression is determined by the meanings of its constituents and by its structure." It has been suggested that the principle is a trivial platitude, a significant empirical hypothesis, a useful methodological assumption, a powerful philosophical thesis in need of a deep argument. If it is accepted that the principle of compositionality is an intricate thesis about the nature of possible human languages, one will be less inclined to think of it as a triviality or as a mere methodological assumption.