NYU imperatives workshop

Originally published on Language and Philosophy, March 21, 2016

Do scientists from differing disciplines have the same goals in addressing the same facts? Linguists attempt to accommodate all the natural language intuitions in their theoretical frameworks. That may lead them to extralogical means. Logicians have often taken on one or another natural language intuition and attempt to augment the logic to accommodate that intuition. In both cases there’s a question of purview: why not accommodate all the intuitions through the logical system, or how much of logic should accommodate the intuitions?

This became the battle at a workshop on imperatives at NYU today. Craige Roberts incorporated pragmatics into her analysis of imperatives to include a wide variety of natural language intuitions, while Kit Fine and Peter Vranas developed new logics to deal with some, but not all, intuitions. They both seemed to ignore that traditional logics are not just inadequate for linguistic intuitions, but also inadequate to basic facts about reality. If we assume that development of logics is still in its infancy, the attempt to accommodate each outstanding challenge is a step towards a more inclusive, flexible and useful logic.

Think of Kratzer’s lumps of thought. She observed that a single event can be represented in multiple descriptions that in sentential logic would imply multiple events, or if not implied, then at least failed to imply that that the descriptions were of the same event: if Sally made a painting that was a portrait depicting her sister, sentential logic would imply three events (or at least not imply one event) “Sally made a painting and painted a portrait and painted a picture of her sister.” That these three descriptions are of one event is not a linguistic intuition, it’s a fact of what Sally did. To formulate a logic that can identify these conjuncts as three descriptions of one event would be progress for logic, not for linguistics.

So it seems to me, logic is justified in picking its challenges independent of the needs of linguistics. The real test would be between AI and neurolinguistics — how are imperatives represented in the brain, how can they best be represented in a robotic program? I didn’t see anything from the linguists giving a brain representation argument the way, say, Chomsky did with syntax. There doesn’t seem to be an experimental program to follow, as there was with generative syntax. The logicians, on the other hand, were always mindful of the algorithmic value of their logic, but that’s why they are logicians.

There was also an interesting exchange on whether the background conditions of an imperative are factual or relative to the speaker or addressee. So “if it’s raining, take an umbrella” can be evaluated on whether it’s actually raining or whether the speaker thinks it’s raining. Does it matter whether it’s actually raining for the force of the imperative to hold? Roberts, the linguist, wants it to be contextual information of the speaker; Vranas wants to take this as factual so that the entailments can be validated within his three-valued logic. At first they seem to be different views — why should it matter whether it’s actually raining, since the imperative is the speaker’s insistence. But if there are only beliefs, and no facts, both views are the same. The force of the imperative, shared by the speaker’s intention and the addressee’s understanding of it, will shift if she comes to believe that it’s not actually raining.

The two talked past each other for about an hour. The problem is a really tough one. The entailments of speakers’ assertions are trivial. Sally said “I’m lying” just in case she said it. So as an assertion, it’s true. But the content, indexed to a speaker, is a paradox. It’s worth remembering that three-valued logic began with an attempt to incorporate the epistemic into the logic. The result is a loss of a distinction between the factual and the epistemic. But there’s an underlying problem: no one knows what is factual; all we know are our beliefs. Deductions from our beliefs will always be trivial; deductions from facts will require extralogical overlays for the epistemic. I worked out the problem a few years back here. I’ve complained that trivalence flattens modality here.

A theory for semantic drift

Originally published on Language and Philosophy, April 1, 2011

Okay, here’s a theory to account for some of the variety in semantic drift, the gradual change of a word’s meaning.

Going back to old Saussure, the sign has two sides, the physical shape (for speech, this is the sound of the word) and what the word means. You’d think that semantic shift would only happen on the meaning side, but semantics plays on both sides of the sign because both sides relate to other signs in the language.

Let’s expand Saussure’s duality a bit with Frege’s distinction between sense (something like idea) and reference (the real world objects determined by the idea). The meaning of the sign can shift if the idea drifts, expanding (losing information) or contracting (becoming informationally richer) or just replacing some information with new information. The many pressures or inclinations on idea drift have been well observed and studied in the literature.

The physical sound-shape side of the sign can be the source of meaning shift as well, odd as that may seem. Why would an arbitrary sound have an effect on meaning? Well, for example, sound shapes in English that bear strong resemblance to Greek or Latin words tend to be treated as more serious and formal than monosyllabic Anglo-Saxon words. That seriousness affects their semantic value. Ask a class of students which endeavor is more fun and which more serious, athletics or sports, and you will get a 90% agreement that sports are a less formal activity, although if you then ask whether they denote the same set of activities, you’ll get 100% agreement that they do (and a puzzled class of students).

Speakers have a blind spot in their linguistic capacity. They have great trouble distinguishing between the word and its meaning. There’s nothing surprising about it: we do a lot of our thinking in words, so the two — thought and word — incline to meld into one another.

So it is also not surprising that the formality of a word can influence its semantic shifts. Our social attitude to a word’s sound-place in the language is part of its meaning.

So far we’ve got the following aspects of meaning:

– idea

– social attitude to the idea and relation of the idea to other ideas

– attitude to the sound shape and the relation of the sound shape to other sound shapes

– reference.

Less observed is the possibility of drift caused by the reference.

The set of real-world objects referred to by a word is determined by the idea. The idea of the word “cat” determines the set of felines. When the idea is employed colloquially as in “hep cat,” the idea determines that “cat” denotes the set of counterculturally acceptable males. Because the referent depends on the idea, drift in the idea has received most scientific attention. But the referent, even though fixed by the idea, can be the source of semantic shift as well, because social attitudes to things is not fixed.
“Democracy” denotes a specific set of government types, but that set has not always been valued in the past as it is today. In the U.S., “democracy” is viewed as almost synonymous with “just” and “right.” It wasn’t always and it need not always be.

Consider the denotation of “woman.” The boundaries of the set haven’t changed, and the properties that make a human a woman haven’t changed, but social attitudes have and the social place of women has. Surely these changes, which relate to the referent, not to the idea or the sound shape, have shifted the meaning.

“God” is another word that has surely shifted through changing attitudes to its referent, though discussing it presents the difficulty of dealing with an elusive referent.

Consider “computer.” The rapid technological advances have altered the set almost beyond recognition, from a room-sized machine exclusive to universities and military labs, to the palm pilot. That’s a reference change that directly shifts the idea.

One reason linguists don’t spend much effort observing reference-based shifts, is that those shifts depend on non linguistic phenomena, and so don’t instruct much about the nature of language itself. It would be useful, however, to learn the extent to which reference shift can be tolerated by a word and the broader linguistic effects of reference shift.

Then there’s metaphor. In a separate post I mentioned that metaphors trade on a few specifics of an analogy. They can dilute information as in

– the foot of the mountain

now means just the bottom — the toes, heel and arch are lost.

This is all just a start, but the point here is that semantic shift can occur on either side of the sign, the reference or the idea, the signified or the signifier.

I’m going to stop here for now, but there’s more in the first post on this blog, which gives a bunch of surprising facts and more surprising dynamics about semantic drift in gender words. The big surprise there is that euphemism frequently causes its opposite, pejoration.

Euphemism and euideism: distinct semantic strategies for French and Latin borrowed words

Originally posted June 11, 2007 on Language and Philosophy

The replacement of one idea for another is a strategy that looks like euphemism but is distinct from it. I’d like to call it euideism: just as euphemisms are acceptable word forms for taboo word forms, euideisms replace taboo ideas with acceptable ones. The difference between these two strategies plays upon the twofold nature of the sign observed so long ago by old Saussure: sound shape (word form) and referent (idea) —

euphemism is motivated by an attempt to replace one sound shape for another

euideism is motivated by an attempt to replace one referent for another.

The distinction also plays into differences in register between Anglo-Saxon, French-derived and Latin/Greek-derived vocabulary in English.

Some of our favorite, most comfortable words are, not surprisingly, taboo. Part of what makes a word comfortable is its restriction to the informal environment, and taboo defines the boundary of informality and personal freedom of expression. In formal company we find strategies to avoid those informal, comfortable words. Replacing a taboo word with a formal, often scientific, word is one strategy. The paradigm case is “feces” for “shit.”

The latter word is frequent: it is often used. It is also common: not only is it often spoken, but it is spoken by many people, it is widely used. And it is frequently used by its wide public — most English speakers seem to use it frequently, not rarely. It is a common expletive to express momentary dismay over one’s errors, whereas expletives like “asshole” are used to express immediate dismay over other’s errors, not one’s own. (Compare “schmuck,” which is commonly used as a descriptor, not an expletive, for agents of non immediate events.) Our degree of comfort with “shit” is evidenced by the wide range of its extended uses: “I gotta pick up some shit at the store,” “Girlfriend, you gotta get your shit together if you wanna graduate,” “What a crock o’shit that is,” “Don’t gimme your shit,” “shitfaced,” “You’re shittin’ me,” “What’s this shit?” none of which refer to the denotation of feces.

Typically, the euphemism is drawn from the formal, stiff and high-register Latin-borrowed vocabulary in English. As a replacement for the taboo word, it is only serviceable for one use: “I gotta pick up some feces at the store,” “Girlfriend, you gotta get your feces together if you’re wanna graduate,” “What a crock o’feces that is,” “Don’t gimme your feces,” “fecesfaced,” “You’re defecatin’ me,” “What’s this fecal matter?” are unrelated in meaning to the “shit” versions. “Feces,” in other words, means just one thing. It’s a scientific, specific word for turds.

No one seems to like the euphemism. And no surprise: it means only one thing and that thing is gross and disgusting. The taboo word, with its many extended uses, arouses much less disgust, if any. There we have the irony of taboo and euphemism: the taboo word is user-friendly, the euphemism is repugnant. That’s what makes the informal environment so much more comfortable.

There is, however, an alternative strategy for avoiding taboo words. It’s not the replacement of a taboo word with an acceptable word carrying the same denotation as “feces” for “shit.” It’s the replacement of the taboo idea with a word that has a slightly different denotation. A good example: “waste” for “shit”/”feces.”

Crucial to this strategy is the shift in focus or prototype. The first association that comes to my mind when I think of waste is paper waste, the waste that most typically finds its way into the office trash basket. It’s a much cleaner prototype than “feces,” which has as its focus human turds, which are at the extreme bottom end of the notion of uncleanness and dirtiness.

Notice that the three strategies, colloquial, formal and scientific correspond to the range of Anglo-Saxon, French-borrowed and Latin-borrowed lexicon mapped out by Hughes in his History of English Words:
A-S words are informal, warm and broad in their denotation and meaning and use
French-borrowed words are more formal and not as broad
Latin-borrowed words are cold, specific, scientific and formal.

The three words under consideration fit neatly. “Waste” is borrowed from French.

The replacement of one idea for another is a strategy that is distinct from euphemism. I’d like to call it euideism: acceptable ideas for bad ideas, just as euphemisms are acceptable words for bad words. The difference between these two strategies plays upon the twofold nature of the sign — sound shape and referent — observed so long ago by old Saussure:
euphemism is motivated by an attempt to replace one sound shape for another
euideism is motivated by an attempt to replace one referent for another.