review paul ziff

8/19/2019 Review Paul Ziff

1/3

Semantic Analysis by Paul ZiffReview by: Paul BenacerrafThe Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 29, No. 4 (Dec., 1964), pp. 193-194Published by: Association for Symbolic LogicStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2270374 .

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2/3

THE JOURNAL OF SYMBOLIC

LOGIC

Volume 29, Number 4, Dec.

1964

REVIEWS

Numerical

cross

references

are to

previous

reviews

in

this

JOURNAL

or

to

A

bibli-

ography f symbolic

ogic (this JOURNAL,

vol.

1, pp.

121-218),

or to

Additions

and

corrections

to

the latter

(this

JOURNAL,

vol.

3, pp. 178-212).

References

beginning

with a Roman numeral are

by

volume

and

page

to

the place

at which a

publication

has

previously

been reviewed

or

listed.

When

necessary

in

con-

nection with such

references,

a third

number

will be added in

parentheses, to indicate

position on the page.

Such

a

reference

is

ordinarily

to the

publication itself,

but

when

so indicated

the reference

may

be

to

the review or to both

the

publication

and

its

review. Thus

XXII

309

will

refer

to

the

review

beginning

on

page 309

of

volume 22

of this

JOURNAL,

or to the

publication

which s there

reviewed;

XXII

307 will

refer

to one of the reviews or one of the publications reviewed or listed on page 307 of

volume 22,

with

reliance

on the context to show which one

is

meant;

and

XXIII

23(1)

will

refer to the

first item listed on

page

23

of

volume

23, i.e.,

to

Boehner's

article, History of

scholastic

logic.

References such as

7145, 1253

are the

entries so

numbered

in

the Bibliography.

Similar

references preceded

by

the latter

A

or

containing

the fraction

i

or a

decimal

point (as A15524, 186j1, 2882.1)

are

to

the Additions and corrections.

A

reference

followed by

the letter

A is

a double reference to an

entry

of

the same number in

the

Bibliography and

in

the

Additions and

corrections.

PAUL ZIFF.

Semantic analysis. Cornell University Press, Ithaca 1960, xi +

255

pp.

The author's

principal purpose

is to

present

a metatheoretical

account of

the

semantics

of a natural

language.

He wishes

to show how

one

might

arrive

at

dictionary

entries

for the

morphemic

elements

of a natural

language

and

examines

what sorts

of

methodological problems might

be

encountered

along

the

way.

Although

he

does not

attempt

to

provide

a

discovery procedure

for

dictionary

entries,

he does

outline

in

some

detail

what

he

expects

would be the

major steps

in such

an

investigation.

We

shall

try

to

reproduce

this outline

here, greatly

oversimplifying

as we

go.

It

is

assumed

at

the

outset that the

linguist

has a

grammar

of the

language,

in

the

sense of Chomsky (cf. Noam Chomsky, Syntactic structures, The Hague 1957),

i.e., one

which

generates

all and

only

the

grammatical

utterances

of

the

language

and

assigns

a

structural

description

to each.

The

procedure

is

then to

pair

utterance

types

with

sets

of conditions

such that the

pairing

[uid,

wj] expresses

a

regularity

to

be

found in

connection

with

the utterance

ua.

These

pairings

are obtained

in

two

different

ways: (a) by

observations

carried

out

in

the context of

utterance

-

in which

case

the

regularity

takes

the form

Generally,

when

ui

is

uttered,

then

conditions wj

are

satisfied ;

and

(b)

by projection (to

be discussed

below)

-

in

which

case the

regularity

takes the

form

If

ui

is

uttered, then,

in

a standard

case,

conditions wj

are satisfied. Since

many regularities

of the

first

sort

will

obtain

which

will not

be

relevant to an analysis of the meaning ofmorphological elements of ui (let ui be I have

a

toothache

.

and

the condition

wt

be

that

the

Sun is

ninety-three

million

miles

from

the

Earth, a

condition

which will

presumably

be associated with

every utterance),

proposed pairings

are

judged

for

possible

relevance

according

to certain

principles,

and those

judged

irrelevant are excluded

(cf. Chapter II).

Accordingly,

let

0

be the set

of

utterances

for which

relevant

observational

pairings

have been obtained.

These pairings are then used

to

associate

with

each

morphological

element

mi

of

0

that has

meaning

in

the

language

conditions which

might plausibly

193


3/3

194

REVIEWS

represent the contribution

made by mt to the utterances in which it appears. Taking

meaning to

be

primarily

a matter of

non-syntactic semantic regularities

and of contrast,

Ziff

forms

the

conditions to be associated

with

mi

by taking

into consideration both

those

conditions associated

with each element of 0 that contains

mt,

and

each

element

of 0 that contains a morphological element that contrasts with

mi.

Letting

dj(mt)

be

the

j-th element

of 0

(under

some

enumeration) which contains

mi,

then

dj(mt)lmk

is that element of

0 which

results by replacing

mi

with

mk

in

dj(mt).

We call the first

set the

distributive

set for

mi

in

0, and, relative to any given

element

dj(mi)

of the

distributive set,

dj(mt)lmk

is

an element of

the contrastive

set for

mi

in

0. Keeping

i,

j,

and k

fixed,

and

ignoring

many complications

which Ziff points out, then the

peculiar

contribution

made

by

mi

to

dj(mi)

will

be those conditions associated with

dj(mt)

minus

those associated

with

dj(mt)lmk.

Letting

A

vary you obtain a set

of

sets

of

conditions

for

the j-th element

of

the

distributive

set for

mi.

Letting

j

vary

as

well, you

associate with

mi

a

set

of sets

of

setsof conditions. Eliminating irrelevant ones

according

to

further

principles

(cf. pp. 160-6)

Ziff

finally obtains a set (of sets

of

sets

ofconditions)

on the

basis of

which the

dictionary entry

is

to

be devised. The dictionary

entry

for

mi

is conceived of as a

theory

to

explain

the

regularities

thus obtained.

Given these

dictionary definitions

it

will

then be

possible

to project conditions

(i.e.,

derived

pairings)

onto utterances not

in

0-

utterances not yet uttered, or infre-

quently uttered,

or

with

respect

to

which no

relevant

regularities

have been

found

on

the

first level.

Also,

since

the

language

under

study

will probably contain meta-

linguistic statements,

further

projections

can

be made

on

the

basis of the knowledge

at hand:

A

bachelor

is an

unmarried man.

can

be used

to

obtain conditions pertaining

to bachelor even if that word does not occur in 0, although the others do. So,

pairings

obtained

by projection

serve as

correctives to the

original assignment,

if

they

are

disconfirmed,

and as a means to

extending

the

analysis

to

utterances

not

in 0.

The final chapter

is

devoted

to an application of these techniques to an analysis

of the

English

word

good.

Unquestionably,

a

theory

of this sort

raises

many

more

problems

and

questions

than it

can

settle.

That is one of its virtues.

Many

of

these have been discussed

by

other

reviewers

(cf.

XXIX 2

16(12)

and

XXIX

2

16(13)

for

more comprehensive

and

searching reviews). Nevertheless,

this

reviewer

found

the

book an

extremely

stimu-

lating

and

original

one. It

is,

to this reviewer's

knowledge,

the first ystematic attempt

to write on these questions. Whether or not a completed semantic theory of a natural

language

will have

the

form

outlined

in

this

book,

it will

certainly have to deal

decisively

with the

problems

raised

by

Ziff. Of

interest to

philosophers

will be

the

question

whether

the notion

of

meaning

as

explicated by

Ziff

can

serve

as

the basis

for the traditional

philosophical notion(s)

of

analytic.

It

seems clear

to this reviewer

that

it

cannot.

A finished

semantic

analysis

a

la

Ziff

will

be

an

empirical theory

containing hypotheses

concerning

the

meaning

of

morphological

elements

of

the

language.

As

such,

it

will

provide

no

sharp way

of

distinguishing

between

regularities

associated with

mi

because

certain

(non-linguistic) regularities

obtain in the

world

(e.g.

cows

are

not

blue)

and those associated with

mi

for

linguistic

reasons

(e.g.

cows are animals). Borderline cases (e.g. a cow is a quadruped) will remain thus.

Also of

interest to

philosophers,

particularly

those

interested

in

linguistic analysis,

will

be

the

methodological points

that

are to be

drawn

concerning

the

confirmability

of

metalinguistic

statements

about

a

natural

language

if

Ziff's

account

is

even

roughly

correct.

Space

does not

permit

discussion of these

issues

here.

PAUL

BENACERRAF

HAROLD JEFFREYS.

Scientific inference. Second edition

of VII 175(9).

Cambridge University Press,

Cambridge 1957,

viii

+ 236 pp.

Harold Jeffreys s the author

of several classics

in

applied and applicable mathe-

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