Reading � Jackendoff, �Foundations of language�, chs 9 + 10

Greg Detre

Tuesday, November 26, 2002

 

Notes

 

 

Excerpts

�To sum up our discussion of the ecological niche for specifically linguistic semantics in the f-mind: there is such a niche, but not as a separate level of structure. Distinctions like �logical/non-logical� and �dictionary/encyclopaedia� seem impossible to draw, and don�t appear to make any useful functional distinction in an account of the f-mind. Rather, linguistic semantics per se is the study of the interface between conceptualisation and linguistic form (phonology and syntax). It therefore studies the organisations of conceptualisation that can be expressed or invoked by language. In particular, lexical semantics studies the organisations of conceptualisation that can be bundled up in a single word (or to be clear, in an interface rule whose other end is a morpheme). But all such work can be pursued in the framework of a functional architecture simple like Figure 9.1, where there is no level of �strictly linguistic meaning� intervening between linguistic form and concepts.�

Reactions

 

Discarded

I don�t know how original it is, but it felt as though it could go a long way towards reconciling the different types of meaning and qualia under the same umbrella.

Questions

phrasal verb � an idiomatic verbal phrase consisting of a verb and adverb (e.g. break down) or a verb and preposition (e.g. see to).

how contentious are the following claims???

about the reference of declarative sentences

language being about representations rather than the external world