RE: RT list: VS: Ray Gibbs on logical form

Dear All,

before I start saying what I want to say, I'll briefly state my
understanding of the concept 'logical form', as I -- as well as others
of you who expressed as much in their posts -- have the feeling that
since Ernst August Gutt's original post which started this discussion,
quite different notions of logical form have been elaborated on.

My understanding of logical form with respect to a linguistic
utterance is that it is the semantic representation of that utterance,
built up according to the Principle of Compositionality and as such
not necessarily constituting a proposition. Derivatively, I also use
the term (interchangeably with 'semantic form') to refer to the
semantic representation (i.e. the lexical meaning) of individual
linguistic expressions. (Having said this, I also agree with Billy
Clark's suggestion that the term may also be used `...without any
reference to linguistic meaning or utterance interpretation.')

So much for clarification.

In reply to what Billy Clark stated in his post, I have a question
(though this might turn out to not be relevant). Also, I'd like to
bring in another aspect concerning the notion of underspecification of
semantic meaning and the consequences this has for the concept of
logical form.

Beginning with my question, Billy Clark wrote

> In another sense, 'logical form' has been used as a synonym (or near
> synonym) > for 'semantic representation', i.e. as a representation
> of the linguistically > encoded meanings of linguistic expressions.
> I don't think it follows from Relevance Theory that we entertain
> logical forms in this latter sense as part > of the interpretation
> process, even though we might want to represent them as > part of
> our theory to account for linguistic meaning and utterance
> interpretation.

I'm wondering whether the characterisation in RT of the process of
ad-hoc concept formation does not actually presuppose that an
expression's encoded meaning is entertained during processing (but
maybe I have a faulty understanding of what `to entertain' *means* in
this connection)?

As I understand it, ad-hoc concept formation is a process that starts
from an expression's encoded meaning and adjusts this with respect to
the actual utterance context. So, the encoded meaning is accessed
initially during processing, but subsequently worked on and
adjusted/changed.

And this brings me to my second point. Generally, I think that the way
ad-hoc concept formation is characterised (referring to adjustment of
encoded meaning) and the idea of the semantic meaning of an expression
being no more than a pointer to conceptual structures from which the
actual meaning of the expression in question is build (as proposed
e.g. by Carston 2002), are in conflict (I should mention that this has
also already been observed by N. Burton-Roberts in his (2005) paper
Varieties of semantics and encoding). If a pointer constitutes no more
than a concept schema, i.e. a maximally semantically underspecified
'logical form', the question arises whether it makes sense to assume
that it is this highly abstract meaning representation that is being
'adjusted'.

Turning to the idea of semantic underspecification and the pointer
metaphor as such: the main appeal of the idea of (linguistic) semantic
underspecification seems to be that it allows the formal semanticist
to uphold the principle of compositionality in the face of the
abounding variability/flexibility of meaning a particular phonological
form may be used to express in different utterance contexts. So, if
one assumes that lexical meanings are pointers (i.e. semantically
underspecified), then this constitutes a further reason why the
logical form build up within the language faculty for a particular
utterance could not be a proposition: it does not even include
determinate readings for (most of the?) expressions used. In a sense,
what are called the lexical meanings of expressions are no more than
place-holders for actual 'values' that are retrieved or constructed
from the conceptual space the lexical meaning is taken to point to.

However, if this is how logical forms of utterances are characterised,
I share the apprehension that it's a hopeless enterprise trying to
device some empirical test that could validate its psychological
reality.

And also, although from a formal perspective it is convenient to model
the lexical meaning of an expression as involving a parameter or
variable that has to get fixed during interpretation (namely, by
replacing it with the actual reading appropriate in the context), the
question arises whether this really is anything more than just a
formal tool.

In other words, I'm not sure whether anything crucial would be lost,
if one were to take the pointing metaphor seriously and assumed that
understanding the particular phonological forms a speaker used,
involves the (partial?) activation of the conceptual regions -- from
which the actual meaning (logical form/proposition) that is expressed
on the occasion is determined -- associated with those phonological
forms and that, in a sense, it is the phonological forms themselves
that 'point' and so no lexical semantic form, highly underspecified
and no more than a variable, or place-holder would be necessary.

Best Wishes
Kristin Börjesson

Linguistics Institute
University of Leipzig
Beethovenstrasse 15
04107 Leipzig

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Received on Fri Feb 18 13:24:05 2011