Philosophy of Language
on Language Communication
Kasia M. Jaszczolt
DTAL, University of Cambridge
http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/kmj21
1
Outline
 Delimitation of a theory of meaning: current controversies
 Interactive compositionality of meaning
 Example: first-person reference and cognitive access to
oneself (beliefs de se and reports de se)
2
Paul Grice
Speaker:
Addressee:
conversational implicature
pragmatic inference
3
Everybody read Wittgenstein.
Every member of the research group read Wittgenstein.
4
?
What is the appropriate scope for the theory of
meaning?
5
Semantic Minimalism
Minimal Semantics
“The truth-conditional semantic theory is governed, not by rich (…)
inferential processes, but rather by formally triggered, deductive
operations.”
Borg (2004: 8)
6
‘That is red’ is true iff the contextually salient object is red.
7
 Contextualism (currently dominant view)
Utterance meaning is determined with the help of many sources
of information and through the interaction of various processes.
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These processes are often automatic, ‘default’
Default/Interactive Semantics (Jaszczolt, e. g 2005, 2009, forthcoming e)
9
State of the Art:
There are several contextualist approaches to semantics
and several minimalist ones and the debate is continuing.

effect on experimental approaches to linguistic
communication
10
Default Semantics (Jaszczolt 2005, 2009, 2010)
Interactive Semantics (Jaszczolt, in progress, OUP)
Parsimony of Levels Principle (POL):
Levels of senses are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.
A:
B:
I’ve cut my finger.
You are not going to die!
x The boy is not going to die from this cut.
 There is nothing to worry about.
11
Default Semantics abandons the syntactic constraint:
Primary meaning is defined as the most salient meaning intended by
the speaker and recovered by the addressee and it may sometimes
override the logical form of the sentence.
12
Merger representations
What is expressed in the lexicon in one
language may be expressed by grammar in
another.
13
Merger representations
What is expressed in the lexicon in one
language may be expressed by grammar in
another.
What is expressed overtly in one language may
be left to pragmatic inference or default
interpretation in another.
14
No ‘or’ in Wari’?
Absence of a disjunctive marker  presence of some irrealis marker
’am
perhaps
’e’
live
ca
’am
mi’
3SG.M. Perhaps give
pin
ca
complete 3SG.M.
‘Either he will live or he will die.’
from Mauri and van der Auwera (2012: 391)
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Composition of meaning
 Compositionality as a property of semantics
 Montague and followers, e.g. DRT, DPL,
representationalism
 Evans and Levinson (2009), generative power of
semantics/pragmatics (conceptual structure)
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 Interactive compositionality
 Compositionality is a semantic universal
17
Interlocutors frequently communicate their main intended
content through a proposition which is not syntactically
restricted.
Experimental evidence:
Nicolle and Clark 1999
Pitts 2005
Sysoeva and Jaszczolt 2007
Schneider 2009
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Merger Representation 
 Primary meanings are modelled as the so-called merger
representations.
19
Merger Representation 
 Primary meanings are modelled as merger representations.
 The outputs of sources of information about meaning
merge and all the outputs are treated on an equal footing.
20
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.
21
Merger Representation 
• Primary meanings are modelled as 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.
22
Sources of information for 
(i) world knowledge (WK)
(ii) word meaning and sentence structure (WS)
(iii) situation of discourse (SD)
(iv) properties of the human inferential system (IS)
(v) stereotypes and presumptions about society and culture
(SC)
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world knowledge (WK)
word meaning and sentence structure (WS)
merger representation Σ
situation of discourse (SD)
stereotypes and presumptions
about society and culture (SC)
properties of human inferential system (IS)
Fig. 1: Sources of information contributing to a merger representation Σ
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Mapping between sources and processes
WK
SC
WS
SD
IS





SCWD or CPI
SCWD or CPI
WS (logical form)
CPI
CD
In building merger representations DS makes use of the processing
model and it indexes the components of  with a subscript standing for
the type of processing.
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Primary meaning:
combination of word meaning
and sentence structure (WS)
merger representation Σ
social, cultural and
cognitive defaults (CD)
world-knowledge defaultspm (SCWDpm)
conscious pragmatic inference pm
(from situation of discourse, social and
cultural assumptions, and world
knowledge) (CPIpm)
Secondary meanings:
 Social, cultural and world-knowledge defaultssm (SCWDsm)
 conscious pragmatic inferencesm (CPIsm)
Fig. 2: Utterance interpretation according to the processing model of the revised
version of Default Semantics
26
Merger representations are
compositional.
Compositionality is a methodological principle in contextualism
and an empirical assumption about human languages
27
Selected applications of DS
 Origins: Jaszczolt 1992, 1999. Parsimony of Levels (POL)
Principle: Levels of senses are not to be multiplied beyond
necessity.
 First applications: definite descriptions, proper names, and
belief reports (Jaszczolt 1997, 1999); negation and discourse
connectives (Lee 2002); presupposition, sentential connectives,
number terms (Jaszczolt 2005)
 Recent applications: temporality, and modality (Jaszczolt 2009;
Srioutai 2004, 2006; Jaszczolt and Srioutai 2012; Engemann
2008; Jaszczolt forthcoming a,b); syntactic constraint on primary
meaning (Sysoeva and Jaszczolt 2007; Schneider 2009; Jaszczolt
2012); first-person reference and de se belief reports (Jaszczolt
forthcoming c, d)
28
An example:
First-person reference in discourse
and cognitive access to oneself
29
The scenario:
‘I once followed a trail of sugar on a supermarket floor,
pushing my cart down the aisle on one side of a tall counter
and back the aisle on the other, seeking the shopper with
the torn sack to tell him he was making a mess. With each
trip around the counter, the trail became thicker. But I
seemed unable to catch up. Finally it dawned on me. I was
the shopper I was trying to catch.’
Perry (1979: 3)
30
Beliefs and expressions de se
(1) The person with a torn bag of sugar is making a mess.
(2) I am making a mess.
31
referential semantics conflates (1) with (2):
x [make-a-mess (x)] (kasia jaszczolt)
32
? Grammar
produces the self-referring function
Chierchia (1989: 28): The cognitive access to oneself is
‘systematically excluded from the interpretation of (nonpronominal) referential expressions. It is systematically present
in the interpretation of overt pronouns. It is systematically and
unambiguously associated with the interpretation of PRO the
null subject of infinitives and gerunds. It is associated with the
interpretation of long-distance reflexives (at least in some
languages)’.
33
? Grammar
produces the self-referring function
Chierchia (1989: 28): The cognitive access to oneself is
‘systematically excluded from the interpretation of (nonpronominal) referential expressions. It is systematically present
in the interpretation of overt pronouns. It is systematically and
unambiguously associated with the interpretation of PRO the
null subject of infinitives and gerunds. It is associated with the
interpretation of long-distance reflexives (at least in some
languages)’.
34
An argument from non-pronominal expressions
(but not the one you expect)
x Pace Chierchia, cognitive access to oneself is not so ‘systematically’
excluded from the interpretation of non-pronominal expressions:
Sammy wants a biscuit.
Mummy will be with you in a moment.
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Honorifics:
 Japanese and Thai: the first-person marker has the
characteristics of both a pronoun and a noun. Like nouns,
pronouns do not form a closed class; like nouns, they form the
plural by adding a plural morpheme;
 also e. g. Burmese, Javanese, Khmer, Korean, Malay, or
Vietnamese.
Typically: ‘slave’, ‘servant’, royal slave’, ‘lord’s servant’, ‘Buddha’s
servant’ are used for self-reference with self-denigration;
 Thai: 27 forms of first person (‘mouse’)
Siewierska (2004) and Heine and Song (2011)
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Conflation
of the nominal with the pronominal:
 Acoma (New Mexico), Wari’ (Brazil): no personal pronouns;
 Generic one and arbitrary pro:
One can hear the wolves from the veranda.
It is scary PRO to hear the wolves from the veranda.
Generic one and arbitrary (non-controlled) PRO express
‘generalizing detached self-reference.’ (Moltmann 2010)
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Degrees of cognitive access to oneself:
I think I put this book back on the shelf.
I think I remember PRO putting this book back on the shelf.
I put this book back on the shelf.
I remember PRO putting this book back on the shelf.
Conscious awareness is present to different degrees
rather than as a binary, all-or-nothing characteristic.
38
An argument from 1st person pronoun
Kratzer (2009): pronouns can be ambiguous between a referential
and a bound-variable interpretation
I’m the only one around here who can take care of my children.
Only I admitted what I did wrong.
Only you can eat what you cook.
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Restriction: Bound-variable uses are rare, restricted, and
differ from language to language.
Tylko ja jeden
przyznałem
się do błędu.
only 1Sg soleSgMNom
admit1SgPastM
Refl to mistakeSgMGen
Tylko ja jedna
tutaj
Only 1Sg soleSgFNom here
swoimi
ReflPronPl Instr
potrafię
can1SgPres
zajmować
się
careInf
Refl
dziećmi.
childPl Instr
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An argument from PRO (but not the one you expect)
Lidia wants to be a scientist.
no underlying ‘I’-reference ‘I want to be a scientist.’
41
 Self-referring that involves cognitive access to oneself defies any
attempt to fit it squarely into the mould of a single, systematic
morphosyntactic device.
42
Interim conclusion:
The cognitive access to oneself is expressed through the
lexicon/grammar/pragmatics trade-offs.
43
Reports de se
Kasia believes that she is making a mess.
44
Towards a (pragmatic) solution
 self-ascription (linguistic semantic)
 self-reference (linguistic pragmatic)
 self-attribution (epistemic)
 self-awareness (cognitive)
45
De Se in Default Semantics
Jaszczolt, forthcoming c, d
Bel (x,’)
the individual x has the cognitive state represented as an
embedded representation ’
46
‘I believe I am making a mess.’
x y ’
[Kasia Jaszczolt]CD (x)
[Kasia Jaszczolt]CD (y)

[y=x]WS, CD
[[x]CD [believes]CD ’]WS
’:
[[y]CD is making a mess]WS
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It1 believed It1+t2 was making a mess.
?/In a sense,
It1 believed It1+t2 was making a mess. It1 just
didn’t know that the person It1 referred to was It1+t2.
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Merger representation:
 coreference: condition [y=x]WS
 the lack of self-awareness: differentiation of indexing on x
and y (CD vs CPI) and the non-default use of the belief
operator (CPI)
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‘I believed, in a sense, I was making a mess.’ (marked reading)
x y ’
[Kasia Jaszczolt]CD (x)
[Kasia Jaszczolt]CPI (y)

[y=x]WS
[[x]CD [believe]CPI’]WS
’:
[[y]CPI is making a mess]WS
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‘Kasia believes that she is making a mess.’ (default reading)
x y ’
[Kasia Jaszczolt]CD (x)
[Kasia Jaszczolt]CD (y)

[y=x]WS,CD
[[x]CD [believes]CD’]WS
’:
[[y]CD is making a mess]WS
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‘Kasia believes that she is making a mess.’ (non-default reading)
x y ’
[Kasia Jaszczolt]CD (x)
[Kasia Jaszczolt]CPI (y)

[y=x]WS
[[x]CD [believes]CPI ’]WS
’:
[[y]CPI is making a mess]WS
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Summary and Conclusion
 Representing the interaction of various processes that are active in
constructing meaning in linguistic communication gives us an
adequate theory of meaning only if the compositionality is shifted
to the level of the merger of information () as in DS.
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