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7/29/2019 Composition Ality

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Compositionality

The notion that the meaning of a complex expression is a function of the meanings of its

parts. The Principleof Compositionality has played an important role in the work of a large

number of philosophers and semanticists including Gottlob Frege, Donald Davidson and

Richard Montague.

The Principle of Compositionality is a guiding principle for many semanticists and

philosophers, notably Frege, Davidson and Montague. It is sometimes referred to as Freges

Principle, although not everyone agrees that the idea originated with him. Frege (1892)

states it as follows: The meaning of a complex expression is a function of the meanings of its

parts and their syntactic mode of combination.

Perhaps the main reason that the principle is seen as important is the role it plays in

explaining the creativity and systematicity of language. We can explain how we are able to

produce and understand an infinite number of utterances if we assume that we know the

meanings of individual expressions and how to combine them into larger units.

It follows from this principle that the contribution of an expression, say the lexical item red,

to a more complex expression should be the same in all cases. The contribution of red

should be the same in the noun phrase red wool as in red cotton and in any other noun

phrase.W. V. O. Quine (1960) pointed out some problems with this assumption. For

example, the contribution of red in redapple is not the same as the contribution of pink

in pink grapefruit, since a red apple is usually understood to be an apple with (mainly) red

skin on the outside while a pink grapefruit is usually understood to be a grapefruit with

(mainly) pink flesh on the inside.

Propositional attitude* reports (utterances which contain a statement about an individuals

attitude to a proposition) provide a further test for the principle. For example, we can

believe all three of the following:

(1) Chris thinks his next-door neighbor is considerate.

(2) Chris thinks the person who reversed into his bicycle is inconsiderate.

(3) Chriss next-door neighbour is the person who reversed into his bicycle.

Despite these problems, most theorists prefer to retain the Principle of Compositionality

rather than attempting to develop a new account of the productivity and systematicity of

linguistic knowledge.


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CORRESPONDENCE THEORY

A theory that tries to solve the problem of what constitutes truth as a property of sentences

by claiming that there is a relation of correspondence between the meaning of true

sentences and the way the world is at a certain place and time.

Correspondence theory is the most prominent of several theories trying to solve the

problem of what truth is. It originates in Greek philosophy, specifically in the work of

Aristotle, and appears in the medieval period in the work of Thomas Aquinas and William of

Ockham. It was later a principle in Immanuel Kants philosophy, and its contemporary

version is mostly influenced by G. E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and

Alfred Tarski. For many people outside philosophy, including linguists and lay-persons, the

correspondence solution seems intuitively correct: in our daily lives we have to assume that

there is a relation between what people say and the things they talk about. But whether

what they say is true or false, we need the concept of truth because without it we would not

be able to describe what happens in the world.

One modern way of formulating the correspondence theory solution is to say that a

sentence (a proposition) is true iff (if and only if) it corresponds to some fact, or iff it

corresponds to some state of affairs. It is not hard to see the problem: in order to appreciate

the notion of correspondence one has to grasp the notions of sentence, factand state of

affairs respectively. Intuitively we would say that the truth of a sentence has to do with the

meaning of the sentence, and this may be differentiated from the state of affairs, which

seems to be what is out there, in reality. But can sentence meaning be separated from

fact? Some sentences for example, Open the window do not express facts, but in

general sentences are interpreted as expressing facts of some kind. So, if a sentence

meaning conveys true information, what is the difference between the meaning of a

sentence and the facts that it conveys? In other words, if sentencemeaning and fact are

the same thing, how can they not correspond?

Dictionary definitions on the notion of truth usually take up the nature of the relation

between language and reality. Some term for the concept of relation seems inescapable and

so it is in modern epistemology and philosophy of science. Thus the standard definition of

knowledge is justified truebelief (Dancy 1985: 23), meaning that there must be a relation

between beliefs and what the beliefs are about. If scientific knowledge is to count as

trustworthy, it must be true (see Popper 1963: 21550); there must be an agreement

between what science says and how things happen out there.

Kant expressed the correspondence principle in the most transparent way: Wahrheit ist die

bereinstimmung derErkenntnis mit ihrem Gegenstand, truth is the correspondence of

knowledge with its object (Kant 1781/1787, 1924/1927: 992), even though he did not

consider it a problem, while Tarski offered a technical and rather complicated clarification of

the correspondence relation based on predicate logic*. Although it is commonly accepted

that some idea of correspondence is a necessary requirement in truth theory*, it is also

commonly recognised that the nature of this relation is the source of much controversy.


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CREATIVITY

The ability of the ordinary use of language to be innovative and free from stimulus control.

As associated most recently with Noam Chomsky (though with ultimate roots in Cartesian

rationalism), it is claimed that this creativity points to the central place of language in thestudy of human nature.

See also: Behaviourism; Metaphor;

Universal Grammar

Key Thinkers: Chomsky, Noam;

Descartes, Ren; Humboldt,

Wilhelm von; Skinner, B. F.

In one sense, linguistic creativity has a

narrow meaning, referring to the ability

of human beings to innovate within

the lexico-semantic domain. Speakers,

writers and poets can use the elements

of their language to draw attention

to surprising and interesting aspects

of the world through metaphor*,

jokes and the like. However, there is

another, broader sense of linguistic

creativity, most commonly attributed

in the modern era to Chomsky, which

applies not to the activities of gifted

individuals, but rather to the ordinary

use of language by everyday speakers.

This creativity underlines the fundamental role that language plays in understanding the

essential nature of human beings and is often referred to by Chomsky as the creative aspect

oflanguage use.


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The most general aspect of creativity in this broad sense, and one which connects Chomskys

work to the earlier rationalist traditions of Wilhelm von Humboldt and Ren Descartes is the

observation that human beings can produce (and understand with no sense of novelty) an

infinite number of sentences which may be new in their experience or even new in the

history of the language.

This creativity is thus intimately connected with the generative nature of generative

grammar, and forms part of the key motivation for universal grammar*.

As noted in some detail by Chomsky (1959), human language use is also creative in the sense

of being free from identifiable stimulus control. It is appropriate to a situation, but it is not

caused by it.

A traditional behaviourist account of the response Dutch to a painting on the wall would be

to say that the speaker was under the stimulus control of the paintings Dutchness.

However, as Chomsky observes, a speaker could have just as easily responded Itstilted, Ithought you liked abstracts or an infinite number of other things. Chomsky (1966) notes

that this freedom from stimulus control was one of the Cartesian arguments for the

existence of mind. Machines, once the internal arrangement of the parts and the external

conditions are specified, behave in a completely predictable manner (or randomly).

However, human linguistic behaviour, like human thought and action more generally,

transcends simple mechanical explanation. Therefore, according to the Cartesians, human

linguistic capacities provided evidence for the existence of a second substance mind (as

distinct from mere body). Although metaphysical dualism no longer forms part of standard

scientific assumptions, these observations regarding linguistic creativity nonetheless dosuggest that, in studying language, we are studying one of the foundations on which our

humanity rests.

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