Date: Mon, 19 Dec 1994 23:40:16 +0000
From: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: reply: (1) veridicality; (2) plurality
In-reply-to: (Your message of Mon, 19 Dec 94 17:14:46 EST.)
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To: Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Reply-to: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
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John:
> la kris. cusku di'e
> > > Semantics is about the meanings of utterances, and meaning has to
> > > to with what's been communicated.
> la .and. cusku di'e
> > Perhaps this is the root of our disagreement. Standardly, semantics
> > is about only the grammatically-determined meaning of utterances,
> > while it is *pragmatics* that has to do with what's been communicated.
> > "Meaning" is too broad a notion for semantics, and too narrow a
> > notion for pragmatics. I only use the word when being deliberately
> > vague.
> I wish to interject my opinion here: the distinction between semantics and
> pragmatics, as defined here, is a Pernicious Evil, introduced only out of
> somebody's desire to have a triad of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.

The split is really between grammar and non-grammar. Grammar contains
bit we might label syntax & semantics & phonology, if we wish.

> Semantics in And's sense is essentially a theory of meaning that kicks out
> all the hard cases, leaving them to a ragbag which it labels "pragmatics".

The criterion of kicking out is not the hardness of the case but rather
explicability without resort to rule. Roughly, "general knowledge and
common sense" can account for some phenomenon of interpretation, we don't
have to posit a rule of semantics for it.

I often use the chess example when explaining the difference to students:
while the rules alone don't fully account for chess playing behaviour,
the distinction between rules and general strategic principles etcera is
clear.

> I also find the idea of "grammatically determined meaning" hard to swallow:
> it reminds me of Mark Twain's infamous word-by-word "translation" of his
> story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" back from French
> into English, whereby "I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's
> different'n any other frog." becomes something that (because it is
> ungrammatical) I can't remember, but it was horrifying (I do recall that
> "ne...pas" becomes "not...not").

I don't understand why you are reminded of this. The grammatically
determined meaning of "Sophy kissed Edgar" is, roughly, "at some
time prior to the utterance 'kissed', there were some event(s) of
kissing, the kisser being Sophy and the kissee being Edgar".

In context, of course, a whole lot more information can be implied
by such an utterance.

> Having worked painfully to construct semantic accounts of the Lojban yacc/BNF
> grammar, I find that appeals to non-compositional constructions are
> constantly required, and that there is no natural separation between
> a compositional semantic and a non-compositional pragmatic level.

Don't understand - sorry.

I am ill at the mo, & my mind is frighteningly feeble.

---
And