ICLC 5, K.U. Leuven, 9 July 2008 Meaning Merger: An Object of Study for Contrastive Semantics and Pragmatics?

1. ICLC 5, K.U. Leuven, 9 July 2008Meaning Merger:An Object of Study for Contrastive Semantics and Pragmatics? Kasia M. Jaszczolt University of Cambridge, U. K. http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/kmj21

2. m3ae:r3i:I kh2ian n3iy3ai: Mary write novel

3. (1) • Mary wrote a novel. • Mary was writing a novel. • Mary started writing a novel but did not finish it. • Mary has written a novel. • Mary has been writing a novel. • Mary writes novels. / Mary is a novelist. • Mary is writing a novel. • Mary will write a novel. • Mary will be writing a novel. Srioutai (2006: 45)

4. f3on t1ok rain fall • It is raining. (default meaning) • It was raining. (possible intended meaning)

5. Object of study of contrastive semantics and pragmatics

6. Object of study of contrastive semantics and pragmatics • Discourse meaning intended by Model Speaker and recovered by Model Addressee (primary meaning)

7. Object of study of contrastive semantics and pragmatics • Discourse meaning intended by Model Speaker and recovered by Model Addressee (primary meaning) • Unit of analysis

8. Object of study of contrastive semantics and pragmatics • Discourse meaning intended by Model Speaker and recovered by Model Addressee (primary meaning) • Unit of analysis • tertium comparationis for representation of discourse

9. Object of study of contrastive semantics and pragmatics • Discourse meaning intended by Model Speaker and recovered by Model Addressee (primary meaning) • Unit of analysis • tertium comparationis for representation of discourse • Theory of discourse meaning which models this object of study

10. Object of study of contrastive semantics and pragmatics • Discourse meaning intended by Model Speaker and recovered by Model Addressee (primary meaning) • Unit of analysis • tertium comparationis for representation of discourse • Theory of discourse meaning which models this object of study • Default Semantics (Jaszczolt 2005; forthcoming a)

11. Post-Gricean theory of utterance/ discourse meaning radical pragmatics sense-generality contextualism

12. (3) Some British people like cricket. (3a) Some but not all British people like cricket. (4) Tom dropped a camera and it broke. (4a) Tom dropped a camera and as a result it broke. (5) Everybody came to Leuven. (5a) Every speaker registered for ICLC 5 came to Leuven.

13. Semantic analysis takes us only part of the way towards the recovery of utterance meaning. Pragmatic enrichment completes the process. Enrichment: and +> and then, and as a result some +> some but not all everybody +> everybody in the room, every acquaintance of the speaker, etc.

14. Modulation (Recanati 2004, 2005): The logical form becomes enriched/modulated as a result of pragmatic inference and the entire semantic/pragmatic product becomes subjected to the truth-conditional analysis.

15. What is said (Recanati) • Primary meaning (Jaszczolt)

16. What is said (Recanati) • Primary meaning (Jaszczolt) ? Question: How far can the logical form be extended? ‘How much pragmatics’ is allowed in the semantic representation?

17. Aspects of meaning are added to the truth-conditional content (‘what is said’) when they conform to our pre-theoretic intuitions. Availability Principle (Recanati).

18. The logical form of the sentence can not only be extended but also replaced by a new semantic representation when the primary, intended meaning demands it. Such extensions or substitutions are primary meanings and their representations are merger representations in Default Semantics (Jaszczolt). There is no syntactic constraint on merger representations.

19. (6) You are not going to die, Peter. (6a) There is no future time at which you will die, Peter. (6b) You are not going to die from this cut, Peter. (6c) There is nothing to worry about, Peter. Default Semantics: (6c) – substituted proposition (primary meaning)

20. Summary so far • The output of syntactic processing often leaves the meaning underdetermined.

21. Summary so far • The output of syntactic processing often leaves the meaning underdetermined. • This pragmatically modified representation is an object of study of a theory of meaning (contextualism: Default Semantics).

22. Summary so far • The output of syntactic processing often leaves the meaning underdetermined. • This pragmatically modified representation is an object of study of a theory of meaning (contextualism: Default Semantics). • There is no syntactic constraint on the object of study.

23. Summary so far • The output of syntactic processing often leaves the meaning underdetermined. • This pragmatically modified representation is an object of study of a theory of meaning (contextualism: Default Semantics). • There is no syntactic constraint on the object of study. • Discourse meaning is construed as meaning intended by the Model Speaker and recovered by Model Addressee.

24. Tertium Comparationis The main problem of Theoretical Contrastive Studies: what criterion of measurement should we use to contrast languages? Platform of reference/ comparison, tertium comparationis (Krzeszowski 1990)

25. Pragmatic tertium comparationis: illocutionary force (7) English: A: How nice you look today. B: Thank you. (8) Polish: A: Jak ładnie dzisiaj wyglądasz. B: To tylko stara sukienka. (It’s only an old dress.)

26. Main problems with speech act as tertium comparationis: • Cognitive reality of speech act types • Speech acts trigger different uptake in different cultures • Speech-act type – situation mismatch • Illocution – perlocution boundary problem

27. Faithful translation: translating the author’s intentions, assumptions, rather than structure and style (Nida 1964; Gentzler 1993; de Beaugrande 1980)

28. Faithful translation: translating the author’s intentions, assumptions, rather than structure and style (Nida 1964; Gentzler 1993; de Beaugrande 1980) ‘…the equivalence between a text and its translation can be neither in form nor lexical meanings, but only in the experience of text receivers.’ de Beaugrande (1980: 291).

29. Hypotheses in Jaszczolt (2003: 444): H1 Semantic equivalence is the equivalence of what is said. H2 Pragmatic equivalence is the equivalence of what is implicitly communicated.

30. H1 Semantic equivalence is the equivalence of what is said.  adequate, contextualist definition of what is said: primary meaning of Default Semantics

31. H1 Semantic equivalence is the equivalence of what is said.  adequate, contextualist definition of what is said: primary meaning of Default Semantics H2 Pragmatic equivalence is the equivalence of what is implicitly communicated.  Pragmatic equivalence is the equivalence of both primary and secondary meanings.

32. Primary Meanings of Default Semantics • Default Semantics (DS, Jaszczolt, e.g. 2005, forthcoming a, b) is a radical contextualist theory. • Objective: to model utterance meaning as intended by the Model Speaker and recovered by the Model Addressee.

33. Going beyond contextualism: DS does not recognize the level of meaning at which the logical form is pragmatically developed/modulated as a real, interesting, and cognitively justified construct. To do so would be to assume that syntax plays a privileged role among various carriers of information (contextualists’ mistake).

34. (9) Child: Can I go punting? Mother: You are too small. (A) The child is too small to go punting. (B) The child can’t go punting.

35. (9) Child: Can I go punting? Mother: You are too small. (A) The child is too small to go punting. (B) The child can’t go punting. (6) Situation: A little boy cuts his finger and cries. Mother: You are not going to die. (A) The boy is not going to die from the cut. (B1) There is nothing to worry about. (B2) It’s not a big deal.

36. (9) Child: Can I go punting? Mother: You are too small. (A) The child is too small to go punting. (B) The child can’t go punting. (6) Situation: A little boy cuts his finger and cries. Mother: You are not going to die. (A) The boy is not going to die from the cut. (B1) There is nothing to worry about. (B2) It’s not a big deal.

37. DS takes as its object of semantic representation the primary, salient, intended meanings and hence allows for the B interpretations to be modelled. • Interlocutors frequently communicate their main intended content through a proposition which is not syntactically restricted.  The representation of the primary meaning need not be isomorphic with the representation of the uttered sentence or with a development of that syntactic form. It need not constitute an enrichment/modulation of the proposition expressed in the sentence.

38. The syntactic constraint of post-Gricean contextualism is rejected. • The kind of meaning that is modelled in the theory of meaning is the primary meaning. The primary meaning is the main message intended by the Model Speaker and recovered by the Model Addressee.

39. Experimental evidence: Nicolle and Clark 1999 Pitts 2005 Sysoeva and Jaszczolt 2007 & forthcoming

40. Merger Representation  • Primary meanings are modelled as the so-called merger representations.

41. Merger Representation  • Primary meanings are modelled as the so-called merger representations. • The outputs of sources of information about meaning merge and all the outputs are treated on an equal footing. The syntactic constraint is abandoned.

42. Merger Representation  • Primary meanings are modelled as the so-called merger representations. • The outputs of sources of information about meaning merge and all the outputs are treated on an equal footing. The syntactic constraint is abandoned. • Merger representations have the status of mental representations.

43. Merger Representation  • Primary meanings are modelled as the so-called merger representations. • The outputs of sources of information about meaning merge and all the outputs are treated on an equal footing. The syntactic constraint is abandoned. • Merger representations have the status of mental representations. • They have a compositional structure: they are proposition-like, truth-conditionally evaluable constructs, integrating information coming from various sources that interacts according to the principles established by the intentional character of discourse.

44. Sources of information for : • world knowledge (WK); • word meaning and sentence structure (WS); • situation of discourse (SD); • properties of the human inferential system (IS); • stereotypes and presumptions about society and culture (SC).

45. SC (10) A Botticelli was stolen from the Uffizi last week. (10a)A painting by Botticelli was stolen from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence last week.

46. WS – lexicon and grammar SD – context-dependent inference

47. WK (11) The temperature fell below -10 degrees Celsius and the lake froze. (11a) The temperature fell below -10 degrees Celsius and as a result the lake froze.

48. IS (12) The author of Cloud Atlas has breathtaking sensitivity and imagination. (12a)David Mitchell has breathtaking sensitivity and imagination.

50. The model of sources of information can be mapped onto types of processes that produce the merger representation  of the primary meaning and the additional (secondary) meanings.