topics: |  language | cognitive | semantics

attempts to formulate a semantic model for argument structures.

--from intro:

The closing words of Chomsky's monograph Syntactic Structures are these:

     . . . one result of the formal study of grammatical structure is that a
     syntactic framework is brought to light which can support semantic
     analysis. Description of meaning can profitably refer to this underlying
     syntactic framework, although systematic semantic considerations are
     apparently not helpful in determining it in the first place.
     The notion of ''structural meaning" ... appears to be quite suspect...
     Nevertheless, we do find many important correlations, quite naturally,
     between syntactic structure and meaning; or, to put it differently, we
     find that the grammatical devices are used quite systematically. These
     correlations could form part of the subject matter for a more general
     theory of language concerned with syntax and semantics and their points
     of connection. (Chomsky 1957, 108)

To develop the "more general theory" that Chomsky envisions, one must
confront two basic problems:

* Problem of Meaning : characterize the phenomena that a theory of
meaning is to account for, and to develop a formal treatment of
semantic intuitions. In particular, a formal theory of meaning must
      be expressive enough to account for the distinctions of meaning
      made by language users, and for the semantic relations — including
      inference — that speakers can draw among words, phrases, and
      sentences. It must also provide the basis on which speakers relate
      words, phrases, and sentences to their understanding of the
      nonlinguistic world, so that they can make judgments of reference
      and truth.

 * Problem of Correspondence is to characterize the relationship between
	the formal treatment of meaning and the formal structure of syntax.

[In 2000+, Cog Linguists might ask: but is meaning expressible formally?
 the key q. may be how to express meaning.  surely, structures as in
 formal algebra seem inadequate? ]

These two problems are clearly not entirely separate. One's choice of
semantic formalism has an immediate effect on possible solutions to the
Problem of Correspondence. Other things being equal, we should rate more
highly a solution to the Problem of Meaning that permits a more perspicuous
solution to the Problem of Correspondence. On the other hand, one cannot
work out a theory of meaning solely for the purpose of simplifying the
Problem of Correspondence: there are many other boundary conditions that
must simultaneously be satisfied.

The present study is an exploration of the interaction between these two
problems.

E-concepts vs I-concepts

There is a fundamental tension in the ordinary language term concept.

On the one hand, concepts seem to be "out there in the world" - e.g. "the
Newtonian concept of mass".  One "grasps concepts" just as one grasps a
physical object, except that one does it with one's mind.  On th other
hand, a concept within one's head is a private entity, a product of the
imagination that can be conveyed to others only by means of language,
gesture, drawing, or some other imperfect means.

Chomsky: e-language = language seen as an external artifact,
	   i-language = lg as a body of internally encoded information

For characterizing the mental resources that make possible human knowledge
and experience of the world, it is crucial to choose I-concepts rather than
E-concepts [so as to remain com[patible with generative linguistics.]  p.8

The problem of acquisition: Universal Grammar

How can a child acquire the rules of syntax on the basis of the fragmentary
evidence available? In particular, how does the child induce rules from
instances of well-formed sentences?  This question is rendered especially
pointed by the fact that the community of generative linguists, with all
their collective intelligence, have not been able to fully determine the
syntactic rules of English in over thirty years of research, supported by
centuries of traditional grammatical description; yet of course every
normal child exposed to English masters the grammar by the age of ten or
so. This apparent paradox of language acquisition motivates the central
hypothesis of generative linguistics: that children come to the task of
language learning equipped with an innate Universal Grammar that narrowly
restricts the options available for the grammar they are trying to
acquire. The driving issue in generative linguistics, then, is to determine
the form of Universal Grammar, consonant both with the variety of human
languages and also with their learnability. p.10