Groundwork for a pragmatics for formalized languages
-
David Kashtan
Abstract
The use-mention distinction is elaborated into a four-way distinction between use, formal mention, material mention and pragmatic mention. The notion of pragmatic mention is motivated through the problem of monsters in Kaplanian indexical semantics. It is then formalized and applied in an account of schemata in formalized languages.
Acknowledgments
Most of the work for this paper was carried out when I was a post-doctoral fellow at the Edelstein Center for the History and Philosophy of Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. The paper benefited much from a discussion session with the Jerusalem group, and especially from comments by Rea Golan, Michael Goldboim, Balthasar Grabmayr, Aviv Keren, Ran Lanzet, Philip Papagiannopoulos, Carl Posy, and Gil Sagi. It was further improved by the critique of an anonymous reviewer for Semiotica.
References
Anand, Pranav & Nevins Andrew. 2004. Shifty operators in changing contexts. Semantics and Linguistic Theory 14. 20–37. https://doi.org/10.3765/salt.v14i0.2913.Search in Google Scholar
Bar-Hillel, Yehoshua. 1954. Indexical expressions. Mind 63(251). 359–379. https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/lxiii.251.359.Search in Google Scholar
Burgess, Alexis & Brett Sherman. 2014. Metasemantics: New essays on the foundations of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199669592.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Carnap, Rudolf. 1942. Introduction to semantics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Enderton, Herbert B. 1972. A mathematical introduction to logic. New York: Academic Press.Search in Google Scholar
Hawthorne, John & David Manley. 2012. The reference book. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199693672.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Kaplan, David. 1989. Demonstratives: An essay on the semantics, logic, metaphysics and epistemology of demonstratives and other indexicals. In Almog Joseph, John Perry & Wettstein Howard (eds.), Themes from Kaplan, 481–563. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Kashtan, David. 2018. An observation about truth, with implications for meaning and language. Hebrew University of Jerusalem PhD diss.Search in Google Scholar
Kashtan, David. 2020. How can “i” refer to me? In Tadeusz Ciecierski & Paweł Grabarczy (eds.), The architecture of context sensitivity. Berlin: Springer.10.1007/978-3-030-34485-6_10Search in Google Scholar
Korta, Kepa & John Perry. 2011. Critical pragmatics: An inquiry into reference and communication. Cambrige, MA: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511994869Search in Google Scholar
Kripke, Saul. 1975. Outline of a theory of truth. Journal of Philosophy 72(19). 690–716. https://doi.org/10.2307/2024634.Search in Google Scholar
Lewis, David K. 1990. Index, context, and content. In Stig Kanger & Sven Öhman (eds.), Philosophy and grammar, 79–100. Dortrecht: Reidel.10.1007/978-94-009-9012-8_6Search in Google Scholar
Major, Travis & Connor Mayer. 2019. What indexical shift sounds like: Uyghur intonation and interpreting speech reports. In Proceedings of NELS, Vol. 49, 255–264.Search in Google Scholar
Rabern, Brian & Derek Ball. 2019. Monsters and the theoretical role of context. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 98(2). 392–416.10.1111/phpr.12449Search in Google Scholar
Recanati, Francois. 2016. Mental files in flux. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198790358.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Schlenker, Philippe. 2003. A plea for monsters. Linguistics and Philosophy 26(1). 29–120. https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1022225203544.10.1023/A:1022225203544Search in Google Scholar
Searle, John R. 1983. Intentionality: An essay in the philosophy of mind. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139173452Search in Google Scholar
Schlenker, Philippe. 2017. Super monsters I: Attitude and action role shift in sign language. Semantics and Pragmatics 10. 1–65. https://doi.org/10.3765/sp.10.9.Search in Google Scholar
Searle, John. 1982. The rediscovery of the mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar
Smith, Peter. 2011. Squeezing arguments. Analysis 71(1). 22–30.10.1093/analys/anq120Search in Google Scholar
Strawson, Peter F. 1950. On referring. Mind 59. 320–344. https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/lix.235.320.Search in Google Scholar
Wettstein, Howard. 1986. Has semantics rested on a mistake? Journal of Philosophy 83(4). 185–209. https://doi.org/10.2307/2026531.Search in Google Scholar
Yalcin, Seth. 2018. Semantics as model-based science. In Derek Ball & Brian Rabern (eds.), The science of meaning: Essays on the metatheory of natural language semantics, 334–360. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780198739548.003.0012Search in Google Scholar
© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- An introduction: use and meaning – a special issue of Semiotica devoted to Jerzy Pelc
- Research Articles
- Functional logical semiotics of natural language
- The manner of use, the uses and sub-uses of terms in social sciences: from the functional approach to natural language to applied semiotics and the philosophy of science
- Investigations of an anti-semiote: Stanisław Lem’s semiotic ideas in light of semiotic functionalism of Jerzy Pelc
- Metaphilosophical metamorphoses of analytic philosophy of language
- Four puzzling paragraphs: Frege on ‘≡’ and ‘=’
- On how to legitimately constrain a semantic theory
- Łukasiewicz, determinism, and the four-valued system of logic
- The representation of gappy sentences in four-valued semantics
- Fictional names, their use and pragmatic interpretations
- Names of places
- Groundwork for a pragmatics for formalized languages
- Token reflexivity and logic
- Indexicals and essential demonstrations
- On the logical form and ontology of inferences in conversational implicatures
- Omnipresent meaning-interdependence and ubiquitous analyticity
- Are representations glorified receptors? On use and usage of mental representations
- Sounds and gestures of linguistic reference: the endurance of reality in the poetry of Wallace Stevens
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- An introduction: use and meaning – a special issue of Semiotica devoted to Jerzy Pelc
- Research Articles
- Functional logical semiotics of natural language
- The manner of use, the uses and sub-uses of terms in social sciences: from the functional approach to natural language to applied semiotics and the philosophy of science
- Investigations of an anti-semiote: Stanisław Lem’s semiotic ideas in light of semiotic functionalism of Jerzy Pelc
- Metaphilosophical metamorphoses of analytic philosophy of language
- Four puzzling paragraphs: Frege on ‘≡’ and ‘=’
- On how to legitimately constrain a semantic theory
- Łukasiewicz, determinism, and the four-valued system of logic
- The representation of gappy sentences in four-valued semantics
- Fictional names, their use and pragmatic interpretations
- Names of places
- Groundwork for a pragmatics for formalized languages
- Token reflexivity and logic
- Indexicals and essential demonstrations
- On the logical form and ontology of inferences in conversational implicatures
- Omnipresent meaning-interdependence and ubiquitous analyticity
- Are representations glorified receptors? On use and usage of mental representations
- Sounds and gestures of linguistic reference: the endurance of reality in the poetry of Wallace Stevens
