Re: RT list: Non-sentential utterances, logical form, explicatures (e.g. in poetry)

When you put it this way, I think we are on the same page. Apologies
for the misunderstanding..

All the best,
Stavros

On 13 February 2011 18:28, Jose Luis Guijarro Morales
<joseluis.guijarro@uca.es> wrote:
> You definitely have to assign a phrase structure. Otherwise you will not be
> able to start interpreting. Try this one:
>
> Patriotism! ... patriotism noses botox summer
>
> Upper after never seldom on top of
>
> Nice poor lucky noisy beautiful
>
> My our you him we her her her ... HER!
>
> It is impossible to assign it a phrase structure (with the exception,
> perhaps, of the third line  --with a syntactic reason, of course!), although
> all words are English (so it was with my previous quiz expression). Of
> course, the neat separation of my five steps above does not resemble real
> processing. It is a mere device to describe as explicitly as possible the
> many cognitive processes involved which happen almost simultaneously (and
> may, perhaps, even show some feed-back relationships between them).
>
> What I claim is that all the five processes are needed for trying an
> interpretation, although some, like, for instance, the extracting of the
> explicatures, may not yield full propositions, but rather semi-propositional
> representations (in the way Sperber described them in some of his papers).
> This is what leaves the final interpretation uncertain and depending on the
> personal contexts we may have constructed in order to extract some likely
> sense of the expression.
>
>
>
>
> El dia 13 feb 2011 17:22, Stavros Assimakopoulos
> <stavros.assimakopoulos@googlemail.com> escribió:
>
> I can't help but sense that we are slightly leaving the initial topic
> and delving into one which is immensely more complex and foundational.
> Either way, as far as I understand Chomsky's account in relation to
> parsing (and there is a big chance that I don't properly), the
> suggestion is that syntax is encapsulated and meaning comes in at
> another level. The example you mentioned could in principle be
> approached this way, but considering poetic language and the fact that
> there are no verbs present, things are more complicated in my view:
>
> Seven stars in the still water,
> And seven in the sky;
> Seven sins on the the King's daughter,
> Deep in her soul to lie.
>
> If you don't have access to the meaning of the words here, how can you
> reach a syntactic representation which would assume that the implied
> verb is something like 'there are' as opposed to any other verb, hence
> that there is no subject present. I hope my previous comment didn't
> hint at the conclusion that syntax is not necessary for decoding or
> whatever have you. I merely suggested that syntax cannot always
> provide us with some full template to which we will then assign
> meaning. It might be preferable to have syntax and semantics working
> together, and what I had in mind is categorial frameworks like HPSG or
> Dynamic Syntax. I hope this clarifies things a bit further.
>
> Best,
> Stavros
>
> On 13 February 2011 10:43, Jose Luis Guijarro Morales
> <joseluis.guijarro@uca.es> wrote:
>
> Yes, you are right. Like Sperber and Wilson, I believe that the chomskyan
> frame is quite adequate to clarify things. And to those that would question
> the basic syntactic level, as you seem to be claiming, I propose this quiz.
>
> What meaning do you think the following chain has?
>
> That that is is that that is not is not that that is is not that that is not
> nor is that that is not that that is is that it?
>
> Believe it or not, I have written it without the slightless hesitation,
> which you would also be able to do had you heard it pronounced it just once
> (as I did).
>
> As soon as we hear it, we immediately map the appropriate intonation of the
> expression with a phrase structure. It is only AFTER we have easily done
> that apparently difficult feat that we are able to go on along the other
> steps that I pointed to yesterday until we complete the whole interpretation
> process.
>
> Do you have a better description of it?
>
> I'd be mighty interested in reading it!
>
> José Luis Guijarro
>
> Facultad de Filosofía y Letras
> Universidad de Cádiz
> 11002 Cádiz, España (Spain)
> tlf: (34) 956-011.613
> fax: (34) 956-015.505
>
> --
>
> Stavros Assimakopoulos
> Postdoctoral Investigator
> Department of Philosophy I
> University of Granada
> ------------------------------------
> http://www.ugr.es/~stavros/
>
> José Luis Guijarro
> Facultad de Filosofía y Letras
> Universidad de Cádiz
> 11002 Cádiz, España (Spain)
> tlf: (34) 956-011.613
> fax: (34) 956-015.505

-- 
Stavros Assimakopoulos
Postdoctoral Investigator
Department of Philosophy I
University of Granada
------------------------------------
http://www.ugr.es/~stavros/