Lingua 53 (1981) ISI- 172

North-Holland Publishing Compq

INTERPRETING FROM CO&TEXT”

Keith ALLAN

Received June r9HO

1. Preamble

My interest in this topic stems from the attempt to define the proper charact:rization of a theory of linguistic meaning. One problem I have

been conslJering is the relationship between the lexical item and its semantic description. In modern linguistics it has been fashionable to decompose lexical items into semantic components (also called semantic features, semantic markers, and semantic atoms). This is a practice that goes back perhaps as far as Plato’s Cratylus of the fifth century B.C., where Socrates analyzes o&nwtcr into ‘primary names’ (cf. 421e--422b). Certainly we find componential analysis in Bishop John Wilkins’s Es.w_I~ tou*crrd II Rd Chwcter. m~tl CI Pfu’lo.sophic~I L~t~gm~gc of 1668. But the modern tradition

probably rightly begins with Jakobson 1936 or Hjelmslev I943 (p. 6X’): continuing through Harris 1948 and Lounsbury 1956, before being adopted and propagated by means of Katz and Fodor’s seminal paper ‘The structure

of a semantic theory’ of 1963. Within linguistics there has been surprisingly little discussion of the ontological status of semantic components; or their

relation to words and other expressions in cvc’r_ lay language with which they often share a formal identity in fact, if nc’t m theory. Katz has suggested

that semantic components exist in the mind, cf:

* I am grlr teful to Ray Cattell, Ken Forster, Giiran Hammarstr6m. George Turner. and

Anna Wierzbicka for comments on an earlier version of this paper. None of them is in itn)

way responsible for my use 01’ their comments;’ nor do they necessarily approve my point

of view. This is a much revised version of a paper originally read to the AULLA 20 Con-

ference at Newcastle University in January 1980 and which appears in the Procwc/iu~.s ed.

by David L. Frost.

0 OX-3841,1981/000-000/$2,50 0 North-Hoiland Publishing Company

152

“A semantic marker is a theoretical term that designates a class of equivalent concepts or ideas”. (Katz 1967: 129)

“A semantic marker can be thought of as a certain kind of name of a universal concept”. (Katz and Nagel 1974: 323).

(Cf. also Katz 1972: 37; Katz and Fodor 1963: 210; Katz and Postal 1964: 16.) But ignoring such psychologism,’ and supposing semantic components

only exist as theoretical entities, do they constitute the primitive terms of a sustainable theory ‘? They do not. I believe it was David Lewis who first pointed out the inescapable fault in a semantic theory whose terms

are semantic components or, equivalently, semantic markers;’ he wrote

“Semantic interpretation in terms of them amounts merely to a trans- lation algorithm from the object language to the auxiliary language Markerese”. (Lewis 1972: 169)

The effect of this translation is to render the meaning of the object language, which is a natural language, available to speakers of the non-natural auxil- iary language Markerese. For the rest of us - which is in fact everyone. because there are no speakers of Markerese -- it will be necessary to trans-

late the auxiliary language back into a natural language, more often than not the object language ! In other words, the procedure adopted most widely in linguistic semantics under the influence of leading lights such as Katz, Weinreich,3 and McCawley is the following:

’ The bland assumption that there exist universal concepts awaits substantiation. and so

I find it hard to believe that there are universal concepts corresponding to all the semantic markers Katz has postulated in his works. Even if such concepts did exist, there is generi~l

agreement among semanticists that there can be no progress in a linguistic analysis whose

primitive terms are ideas, cf. Fodor ( 1977: 17); Fodor et al. (1975); Kempson ( 1977: 16f); Lyons ( 1968 : 474).

’ Katz in fact distinguishes markers from components, claiming that markers are not neces-

warily primitive and may be composed of semantic components. This distinction makes no

difference to the points made here and t.hroughout the paper, and to economize on space it is ignored.

’ Weinreich seems to have been aware of what he was doing; e.g. he wrote “For ordinary purposes languages serve as their own metalanguages” (1980: 55, cf. also 309). But the semantic features he adduces in ‘Explorations’ lay him open to the same charge as Katz and McCawley.

Thus, proponents of componential analysis play the Duke of York gambit: recall the verse

The grand old Duke of York, He had ten thousand men ;

He ma,,ched them up to the top of the hill, Then he marched them down again.

Even supposing Markerese to be a metalanguage able to represent all the meanings found in all natural languages (though no existing versions of Markerese come near to having such power, cf. Lehrer 1974: 170 for reasons) by this very fact it would be of the same notational class as a

natural language (cf. Cattell 1977: 34). Therefore Markerese is not inde- pendent of natural language (q.v. section 7 below), and claims for its superiority in semantic analysis are f’alse.

Searching for a more satisfactory approach to a theory of linguistic meaning, 1 have been looking at the way we interpret various words in different contexts, with the aim of sorting out what the semantic content of the words must be. To restrict the field, in the present paper I have concentrated discussion on animal nouns and taken only the hearer’s point of view. I will begin by considering the interaction between meaning and

form. Although form and meaning are to some extent mutually determining, they are not mutually defining. In section 2 WC shall look at the effect of countability on the interpretation of animal nouns. The particular question I address is whether or not reference is being made to the animal as food.

2. Countability and the interpretation of animal nouns

The lexeme lunch is interpreted quite differently in ( 1) and (2):

( 1) Nelly likes lambs. (rabbits/goats/chickens) (2) Nelly likes lamb. (rabbit/goat/chicken)

154

The different interpretations are the effect of the differing countability of the NP in which the lexeme occurs.4 Used countably in (1) the lexeme

refers to animals; used uncountably as in (2) it refers to meat from the

animal. So (2) has the paraphrase (2’), but (1’) is not - or not normally - a paraphrase of (I), for a reason to be given shortly.

(2’) Nelly likes to eat lamb. (rabbit/goat/chicken)

( 1’) ‘??Nelly likes to eat lambs. (rabbits/goats/chickens)

It lwould be precipitate to conclude that the animal noun used countably only refers to the animal itself, and reference to food from the animal is made only through uncountable NPs, for compare (3) and (3’) with (2)

and (2’).

(3) Bruce likes oysters. (witchetty grubs/snails/pilchards)

(3’) Bruce likes to eat oysters. (witchetty grubs/snails/pilchards)

However, ‘oysters’ in (3) does not necessarily refer to food, cf.

(4) Bruce likes oysters, because pearl farming has made him a mint.

So countableness is not the criterion for determining whether or not the animal noun is being used to refer to food.

Why is it that (3) is ambiguous where (l), which is formally similar, is not’? For exemplification of the kind of difference there is between them, compare (5) and (6) :

(5) Would you like another oyster, or have you eaten enough? (6) ‘??Would you Qe another lamb, or have you eaten enough?

The reastin for using some nouns uncountably - as in (2) - to refer to

foodstuff, and others countably - as in (3) or (5) - lies with different habits of eating the various animals. It is usual for the whole of one or more

witchetty grubs, oysters, snails, shrimps, pilchards, etc. to constitute a meal for a person, and in consequence each creature is separately significant within the meal. Thi:, individual significance is indicated by the use of a

’ For arguments that countability - i.e. the opposition category. and not a category of the lexical class Noun

countable vs. uncountable

. see Allan (1980). is an NP

c*otrntaM~ NP headed by the appropriate animal noun. By contrast it is normal for people to enjoy a meal jion? animals such as lambs, rabbits, goats and chickens rather than eat the whole of one or more such creatures: thus within the context of a meal, these animals are not significant as individuals and this is indicated through using an uncountable NP when referring to their meat The dubious acceptability of (1’) is now explicable. ?Nullr lilies to cat kunbs is only acceptable in the unlikely event that

Xelly is some nonhuman creature which consumes one or more lambs at a sitting. This kind oj’ pragmatic condition on the interpretation of such sentences needs to be included in a theory of linguistic meaning for two reasons: o*le is to account for the facts discussed in respect of exx. f i ), (2)

and (3). The <Ither, to account for the differing well-formedness cond%r/ns obtaining with respect to (I’) and (3’). There is no question of a possible semantic distinction between the class of nouns like /an& rabbit, goat and C~I~&XV~ and the class that includes ~rstur, witchett?* grub, pilchard and mail; because outside the ccntext of one meal for one person, the countability constraint on lexemes 1 ke lamb, used to refer to food, proves unnecessary, cf.

(7) Those people won’t eat lambs, but they do eat goats. (8) Hindus don’t eat cows, and muslims don’t eat pigs.

So there cannot be an,y semantic feature preventing such animal nouns as kwb, gout, pig or COM’ from heading the countable direct object NP of an eating predicate; nor any comparable environment. Instead, what we have to have is a complex of pragmatic conditions determining which form is reasonable where, and when.

Used countably, the animal noun refers to individual animals; and whether or not they are interpreted as foodstuff depends on contextual clues. This should be obvious from examples (3’) (8) in which the defining context is spelled out; but a null context can also decade interpretation.: thus in (9) the animal noun is not normally interpreted as foodstuff.

(9) Would you like another lamb?

The uncountable use of such nouns makes reference either to the substance af the animal, or to some produce from it. In the case of meat, it is difficult to decide which; but in any event this difficulty is an irrelevance to the language user, and hence to the linguist, however much it might trouble the philosopher. It is often the case that the animal noun may be

used uncountably in referring to foodstuff even when one or more of the creatures are consumed at a sitting, e.g.

(10) Bruce likes oyster. (witchetty grub/pilcE;Ird/Gmp)

Such uncountable instances are permissible presumably because the sub-

stance is intrinsic to the individual, and the particultir significance of the individual animals is simply ignored (for other instances of this see Allan

1976, 1980). What I have demonstrated in section 2 is that $NVN UPC! cmtcur togcth

indicate the proper interpretation to be given a lexical item. In the remainder

of the paper I will hold form constant by discussing only uncountable instances of animal nouns, and consider the effect of different kinds of contextualization.

3. The notion of customary reference

Used uncountably, we have seen that the. animal noun may refer to food; but it does not necessarily do so, check (11):

(11) Jacqueline prefers leopard to fox.

Consid, - a reasonable interpretation for this, and after a moment or two’s reflection, if not sooner, you will doubtless conclude that (1 I) must be understood along the lines of ( 11’):

(11’) Jacqueline prefers leopard skin to fox fur.

In short, the uncountable animal nouns in (11) most naturally refer to pelts rather than meat. In this respect (11) might be contrasted with (12):

( 12) Harry prefers lamb to goat.

in which the animal nouns most likely refer to meat. The different kind

of reference just exemplified can only be a function of the different lexical items: presumably, then /u:& and g~crr are meat referring; l~~pa~/ and +li,.\- pelt referring. But that this is incorrect is shown by (13) and (14).

157

(13) All we had to eat was leopard. (14) 1 prefer the lining to be made of lamb, because it’s softer.

The context of ‘leopard’ in (13) requires that it be interpreted to refer to leopard meat I that of ‘lamb in ( 14) that it refer to lamb skin. But if these interpretations are based on contextual information, how are the inter- pretations of the animal nouns in ( 11) and ( 12) to be accounted for, in view of the fact that no context is provided‘? I believe the answer lies in the notion of cirstorrwy r~~ferxw~~~, which is a pragmatic inference with the effect that in the absence of any contextual or situational clues to the interpretation of d linguistic expression, some customary interpretation will be assiged to it. (1 !) illustrates that uncountable /CO/XJIY~ and ji1.y custom- arily refer LO the pelts of these animals; (12) that uncountable krr~th and

gout customarily refer to meat. The notion of customary reference is based in large part on observance of the co-operative principle of making the

best sense possible of what is said. If there is no contextual or situational clue, then interpretation will be based on the intuitive assessment of the most likely, or least unlikely, meaning (which might, or might not, turn out to corr&te precisely with statistical probability). To my knowledge

lcrr~h is more probably used uncountably to refer to meat than to anything else, and /~+~r*d to leopard skin; hence the customa”y reference attributed

to each of them.

4. Are the different kinds of reference made by lexemes such as lamb and

leopard induced by different semantic components?

The question arises whether the customary interpretation or a contextually

induced interpretation of uncountable /LUIZ~ ;mi /~~~NIY/ is represented semantically within the grammar by an understood element that fails to surface. Although recent work in syntax shows a retreat from the pitfalls of postulating unrealized underlying forms, there has been no such move

in semantics. 5 Where an uncountable NP headed by an animal noun is

given a meat interpretation, it will contain the semantic component PELT

(or more likely either SKIN or FUR, but for convenience in exposition the

’ There are people whose work might seem to be ignored in this remark. because it shows

PO evidence of a retreat. e.g. Garcia (1977) or Wierzbicka (1972).

158

superordinate PELT will suffice) in contrast with MEAT. Let us suppose

that the underlying form of the meat expression follows the pattern of the surface in the comparable meat expressions whaie meat, seal meat, or

kangaroo meat. In an interpretative semantic model such as the one origin- ally proposed by Katz and Fodor (1963), adopted by Chomsky in Aspecfs, and developed in Katz’s Semantic iTheory (1972), we could imagine that

the uncountable Np[lamb] is somehow reduced from Np[lamb meat] by rules

comparable with those deriving such NPs as Z/MJ English, the Irish, the Qurch, etc. from Np[the English people], Np[the Irish people], Np[the Dutch people]. In a generative semantics model we might imagine that the un- countable Np[lamb] is a lexicalization either on the semantic structure LAMB

MEAT or on LAMB PELT. I will try to steer a neutral path between the two models so that the ensuing discussion will be comprehensible in terms of either one. For the sake of argument I will assume throughout this section that in a sentence like (15) the lexical item ‘lamb’ has the semantic structure LAMB MEAT.

( 15) We had lamb for dinner yesterday.

LAMB MEAT

An:’ in (16) the lexical item “lamb’ has the two-component structure -

LAMB PELT:

(16) I prefer the lining to be made of lamb, because it’s softer.

A LAMB PELT

The problem with the semantic analysis proposed here is maintai,iing a consistent relation between semantic components and lexical realization. The surface phrase lamb meat occurs only very rarely, where the meat is

contrasted with some other aspect of the animal, cf. (17):

( 17a) Does lamb meat have a grea,ter or lesser density than lamb skin‘? (17b) Much as I like to see lambs frisking about, I am even more fond

of lamb meat.

Neither of these sentences sounds very convincing to me, and in the ordinary way people would F obably employ some alternative mode of expression so as to avoid using lamb meat. It will, therefore, be necessary to have a well-formedness condition allowing the lexical item m-at to surface in the expression lamb meat only when the meat of a lamb is contrasted with some other aspect of the animal; but this is surely too vague a condition to incorporate in the grammar. It is all the more suspect for applying only when the animal noun involved makes customary refer- ence to meat: contrast (18) with (19).

(18) Lamb gets ever more expensive! (19) WhAe gets ever more expensive !6

There is a customary reference for lamb, but apparently none for wlzalu; that is, no extra-contextual high probability of it referring to any particular whale product; so if (19) were intended to refer to wlzak meat, then (20) would be the preferred form of it:

(20) Whale meat gets ever more expensive !

It follows that conditions on the surfacing rules for the lexical item lnecrt in the lexical expression whak meat will be different from those for same word in lamb meat. Thus, postulating a semantic component MEAT for every meat-referring NP leads to vagaries in the well-formedness conditions on the surfacing of the correlative lexical item meat; these inconsistencies point to a serious flaw in the analysis proposed.

Where an NP refers to the animal’s pelt it is always possible, and of course usually necessary, for the lexical item corresponding to the hypo- thesized semantic component PELT to surface x the NP head. So the conditions on its surfacing are comparable with those governing the sur- facing of ‘meat’ in the lexical expression whale meat. Cf.

(21a) Jacqueline prefers leopard skin to fox fur. (21 b) Mink skin gets ever more expensive. (21~) Musquash fur is softer than beaver.

’ The reader is faced with a problem here. because I want (19) to be imagined witlmf un_v

cmfest. In practice, of course, it is presented within the context of a discussion of meat-

referring nouns, which probably influence judgement of its interpretation.

160 P.. Alhrt Itt tiqwetitt,~ /km corttc~.~t

(21d) Kangaroo skin isn’t much prized, even in Europe.

(21e) The taxidermist thinks colobus skin. is overpriced.

Nc:,,etheless, in surface structure the nouns nzi~lc and mzfsc]tf&z readily head uncountable NPs and customaril;l refl:r to the pelts of these animals.

But a noun like lr~.&, which customarily refers to meat, can only occur as surface head of an uncountable NP ref&ring to lamb skin provided the

reference is clear from context or situation. Thus it is the pragmatic conditions of context, situation, and customary

reference. that control the lexical spelling out of the proper interpretation of pelt and meat referring NPs; semantic composition is only relevant to identify the source animal. Take the sentence

(22) We use a lot of lamb.

A customary interpretation can be assigned to ‘lamb’ if there is no situational or contex.tual clue to its proper interpretation; but without these pragmatic

clues there is no way of assigning an appropriate .senrar~tic* representation under the current hypothesis. Given this hypothesis, all possible inter- pretations of ‘lamb’ in (22) must be expressed as disjunctions of semantic structures. But there is no upper bound to the number of p’ssiblt~ inter-

pretations to the uncountably used animal noun: for instance, there is the chef’s interpretation, the furrier’s, that of the bone meal manufacturer, the sound recordist for a country life program; there are the interpretations in sentences like (23):

(23a) The garage stinks of cat. (23b) That head we mounted was kudu; the horns are nothing like those

of an oryx.

And more. These interpretations cannot be said to emanate solely from the lexeme lrnzh, or cat, or k&r or whatever; they arise from the inter- action of the semantics of the animal noun with the semantics of other

lexemes in the context, and from pragmatic clues in the situation. The proposed semantic representations are therefore entirely dependent both for their discovery and t heir recovery on the contextual or situational environment of the lexeme (cf. Garcia 1977: 148ff). It is these pragmatic clues that give rise to the proper interpretation of a lexical item, and not the semantic representation intrinsic to the uncountable NP headed by the

animal noun. 1 therefore postulate that the uncountable Np[kimb] or Np[leo- pard] is not semantically decomposable, but consists solely of the semantic component LAMB or LEOPARD respectively. Since these ‘semantic com- ponents’ are isomorphic with the respective lexemes, it is preferable to treat the lexemes as primitive semantic terms and not mess with semantic components at all! I will discuss this matter further in the final section of the paper.

5. Pragmatic interpretation schemata

The emnhasized NPs in (24) are all interpreted as referring to meat.

(24a) Harry eats /~JFII~ all the time. (24b) May’s favourite dish is lq~d. (24c) A plate of ~~-JFZ~O/~FI has a lovely smell. (246) The butcher gave me a nice piece of wltc~k~.

The meat interpretation assigned these NPs is induced by certain co- constituents acting as interpreters for them. In (24a) the interpreter is ‘eat’; in (b) it is ‘dish’; in (c) it is -plate’; and in (d) ‘butcher’ and possibly ‘a piece of’. Note that in these sentences the interpreter is in the same clause as the animal noun, and either clause predicate, or an NP head. So we may postulate the following pragmatic interpretation schema :

(25) An uncountable NP headed by an animal noun will refer to the meat of the animal denoted by that NP when there is in the clause an NP head or clause predicate describing the preparation, pre- sentation, or consumption of food.

The rationale for such a schema is transparently obvious. For human beings at least, meat is food from an animal; and conversely, foizd from an animal is meat. Put another way, the animal as food is meat. (I will not worry -with fish, offal, and the like: which will complicate the discussion but present no interesting difficulty.) Consider (24a) H~w_J~ cats LA 41 u/l the time. The entailment of the predicate eat is that (1’ X cuts Y, then Y is (or is being treated us) jbod. It follows that if X eats Y, and Y is (an) animal, then Y is food, and therefore meat. In (24b), Mq’s jirvourite dish is leopard, we have a comparable set of inferences: if X’s favourite dish

162 K. Alh / hterpretitlg ,fiom cot~te.ut

is Y, then either Y is food; or Y is a description of the place of origin of the dish, or the substance from which it is made. Where Y is (an) animal,

it is extremely unlikely to be the substance from which the dish is made,

and so Y is food, and therefore meat. In (24c), a pIate oJ’pangolin, a plate of Y is food;’ and so ‘pangolin’ must refer to meat. In (24d), tire butcher gave me a nice piece oj’ whale, there is the possibility of ambiguity since the butcher may perform the act of giving in some other capacity than that of butcher (though, in such a case, the sentence would seem to violate the Gricean maxim of quantity, cf. Grice 1975). Counteracting this we have the implication of the phrase ‘a nice piece of whale’. I suspect that the quantifying phrase a piece qf’ is most likely used of an animal noun referring to meat, though I suppose it could be used of a pelt too. But taken together,, ‘a nice piece of’ and ‘the butcher’ reinforce a meat inter- pretation on ‘whale’ in this sentence, because a butcher gives meat in exchange for money, and this is the likely inference from (24d). So the interpretations of the animal nouns in (24) as meat referring can be ex- plained on the basis of the entailments of or inferences from either the clause predicate or the head of a co-occurrent noun phrase.

A comparable interpretation schema exists for uncountable NT’ headed

by animal nouns referring to pelts. Consider (26) in which the interpreters are emphasized :

(26a) Jacqueline was wearing mink.

(2Gb) This L’Otii is I~X.

(26~) Elspeth’s nc,8 handbag is crocodile. I think. (264) This settee’s made of buffalo. (26e) The tamerr has loads of impala right now. _

Once again the interpreter is either the predicate, or the head of an NP within the same clause as the animal noun. The pragmatic interpretation

schema used is roughly (27):

(27) An uncountable NP headed by an animal noun will refer to the pelt of the animal denoted by that NP when there is in the ‘clause

_ This is strictly inaccurate: it depends whether Y can reasonably be regxdea GS food, cf. The room was irl u drrwdfitl meLs.~, strewn with cfgarette hut ts, old r~ewspupcrs. dirty cwchy,

urtd dirt)* linen. There was even a plate qf’ clirt_v socks otl the dresser. There 1s no way that ‘dirty socks’ would be interpreted as food. Thus plate qf’ Y does not force a food inter-

pretation on Y willynilly. See below in this section for further discussion.

an NP head or clause predicate describing apparel, accessories to apparel, furniture, the creation of an artifact, or any object likely to be made from leather; or any place or process that involves pelts, hides, or leather.

This schema spells out the general knowledge we have concerning the likely uses of an animal pelt. It is this knowledge which is drawn upon in the establishment of the sets :>f infercnc,ns which are true or likely to be true given what is said, and the situation’ in which it is said.

Interpretation is a function of pragmatic processes operating on the interaction between the semantics of a linguistic expression and its context. The senizntics of an NP is not necessarily identical with its customary reference -- if it were the different interpretations would be impossible? An interpreter can only impose an interpretation on an NP where the semantics of the two are compatible; and what makes them compatible is that together they give rise to a possible construct (i.e. substance, object, event, etc.) in some possible world, defined by the setting and/or surround- ing discourse. Thus interpretation is heavily dependent on observation of the co-operative principle, and in particular the Gricean maxims of quality and relation (cf. Grice 1975). Interpretation works on the heuristic principle

All that an interpreter is, is the key to making a reasonable interpretation for one part of the whole. No linguistic item bears a flag indicating it has status as an interpreter.

6. The hierarchy of interpreter control

In (26a), Jwyuelin~ wus waring mink, ‘mink’ is the initial direct object of tr~r, and therefore interpreted as pelt-referring. But in (28), despite the fact that ‘a plate of lamb’ is the initial direct object of WCII’, ‘lamb’ is interpreted as meat-referring:

(28) A plate of lamb can be worn by no-one.

In section 7 the concrete noun hull is discussed, and its semantics und customary reference

are distinguished.

This interpretation is controlled by the head constituent of the super0rdina.e NP containing the uncountable Np[lamb] - namely, ‘plate’. There is a closer structural relation between ‘lamb’ and ‘plate’ in (28) than there is between ‘lamb’ and the clause predicate WQI’. A similar explanation holds for the meat interpretation given ‘mink’ in A &slr qf’ snir& CYWI~~ hu WOW t’q* ?io-o/Ie. It would therefore seem to be the case that

This postulate is borne out by examples like (29) and (30).

(29) T’x girl who wore mink was eating rabbit. (30) Ti;t. gili holding the plate was wearing rabbit.

‘Mink‘ in 429) is interpreted as pelt-referring by its own clause predicate \i’eur ; and ‘rabbit’ as meat by its own clause predicate eat. In (30) the interpretation of ‘rabbit’ is controlled by its clause predicate war, and not by the word ‘plate’ - which is located within a separate clause.

But, of course, interpreters do operate across clause boundaries. For example, in (31), the relative clause supplies a setting for the sentence. and its constituent ‘coat‘ serves to interpret ‘lamb’, in the main clause, as pelt-referring.

(31) The girl looking for a coat chose lamb.

This is permissible because there is no interpreter within the main clause, i.e. neither girl nor c/ecUe give rise to inferences that reveal anything about the proper interpretation for ‘lamb’. Cross-clause-boundary inter- pretations aYe not restricted to subordinate clauses; for instance, in (32) the interpretation of ‘goat’ is controlled by eat in the preceding co-ordinated clause :

(32) Harry eats lamb all the time, but Ernestine prefers goat.

Nor does the interpreter necessarily precede the NP whose interpretation it controls ; consider

(33a) Elspeth decided on the lamb, because she already had a pigskin cleat.

(33h) Because she decided she preferred the lamb, Hetty put back the pigskin coat.

I do not think there is any doubt about the interpretation of ‘lamb’ in these two sentences; they unequivocally refer to the animal’s pelt.

The wider notion of context comprehends the topic of discourse. In (34) the topic of discourse is set by the first sentence, and the text which follows

’ is an exposition of this topic.

(34) We had very little to eat. There were plenty of leopards around, but Esmeralda didn’t like leopard, which made things very difficult.

This is a very unlikely scenario because leopards are barely edible, and their presence indicates the presence of other game too; but for the purpose of discussion i want to ignore the realism. In (34) the topic is ‘What there was for us to eat’ and ‘leopard’ must be interpreted as referring to meat, hence meat reference cannot be denied without anomaly, cf.

(35) We had very little to eat. There were plenty of leopards around

but Esmeralda didn’t like leopard except for the

made things very difftcult.

So the eating predicate in the topic statement acts as an interpreter for the uncountable animal noun which appears in the exposition of the topic. A topic is not limited to one speaker. For example, (34) might be rendered as (36):

(36) HQU+IY We had very little to eat. There were plenty of leopards . around, but -

Esn~rrukdu: But I didn’t like leopard. Hurry: And that made things difficult.

The conditions on the interpretation of ‘leopard’ in (36) are identical to those of (34). But if the topic is changed, control over the interpretation will usually be destroyed, cf.

(37) Harry : We had very little to eat. There were plenty of leopards around, but -

Harr_r :

Fred :

Your saying that reminds me how hungry I am. How about lunch at the Red Bull? Oh, and remind me to pick up my suit from the cleaners on the way back, eh? OK, let’s go ; but we have to get back early to see the rushes for the governor’s press conference. Anyway, I was going to say that although there were plenty of leopards about, Esmeralda didn’t like leopard - Sorry, but I’ve lost the thread.

The topic of discourse serves to interpret only when there is no structurally closer interpreter ; for instance, consider

(38) We had very little to eat. There were plenty of leopards around but Esmeralda didn’t like leopard, except to wear.

There are two references to leopard here; the first, controlled by the topic of discourse, is given a meat interpretation ; the second, controlled by ‘wear’, is consequently given a pelt interpretation.

A topic of discourse is not necessarily stated linguistically; it can be implicit in the situation of utterance. For example, suppose that returning from the local abattoir the bone-meal manufacturer’s truckie says to his boss:

(39) I’ve got horse, pig and goat, today.

The setting will clearly enough determine the reference to be to the bones of these animals. So where there is no interpreter available in what is said,

Stron;les t I

interpreter

head of superordinate NP .

constituent in same clause

item in context

topic of discourse

setting (situation of

utterance) I

customary reference

Each of

these inter-

acts with the

semantics of -

the NIT

Fig. I.

situational clues often permit interpretation. And, as already discussed,

when there are no situational clues either, interpretation relies on customary reference - if any.

And so I have identified the hierarchy in fig. 1 for interpretation made from an audience point of view. Stronger than the strongest interpreter, I can only envisage a self-explanatory NP such as ~tVru/e /neat. If customary reference fails, there must be incomprehensibility - or at least inadequate comprehensibility.

It was postulated earlier that the interpreter in closest structural proximity to an NP has control over its interpretation. This principle only holds when it3 structural characteristics are a relevant index of a potential inter- preter, viz. in the upper levels of the interpreter hierarchy. It is obviousl-+, impossible to contrast customary reference and setting on the basis of their relative structural proximity to anything, because they are not constituent’: in linguistic structure. At these lowest levels in the hierarchy, control is ;i function of the degree of attention focussed on the potential interpreter. Consider some examples.

(40) In the butcher’s, the girl wearing rabbit caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, and decided silver fox would have looked better.

The locative phrase ‘in the butcher’s’ creates a setting for what follows that might lead us to anticipate that any subsequent mention of an animal will be to refer to its meat. In fact, the power of the setting as an inter- preter of ‘rabbit’ in (40) is clearly outweighed by the interpretative strength of the structurally proximal predicate wear; and no confusion arises from (40). Compare this with

(41) ?“While in the butcher’s, Elspeth decided she preferred the lamb to the silver fox.

Again the locative phrase ‘while in the butcher’s’ creates a setting leading us to anticipate that any uncountable animal noun will refer to meat: thus, in the partially similar sentence (42) ‘lamb’ would undoubtedly be meat referring:

(42) While in the butcher’s, Elspeth decided she preferred the lamb.

However, looking back to (41) and the clause slle p@t*ruci the lamb to

tlrc JI’IIW-&X~, the final NP within this clause imposes a pelt interpretation on ‘lamb because the customary reference to silvcjr .fbs is to something worn and not eaten. Therefore in (41) we have conflict between the inter- pretation of ‘lamb’ suggested by the setting, and the interpretation suggested by the structurally closer NP ‘silver fox’. According to the hierarchy the latter ought to take precedence; perhaps part of the reason it does not is that the interpretation stemming from silvc~ jbs is based on customary reference, the weakest level in the interpretive hierarchy, and one that gives precedence to the interpretation imposed by the setting So what we have in (41) are conflicting indications for the proper inteipretation of ‘lamb’; and in consequence a violation of the Gricean maxim of manner, But there is more yet. Compare (41) with (43).

(43) Elspeth decided she preferred the lamb to the silver fox, while in the butchers.

(43) differs from (41) only in the positioning of the locative phrase that creates a setting for Elspeth’s decision. Yet (43) is much more acceptable than (41), and compatible with the maxim of manner. The reason necessarily lies with the position of the locative phrase: in (41) it is topicalized, in (43) it is not. The purpose of topicalization is to make an expression prominent in the focus of attention, to that extent giving it greater salience in the message. Thus in (41) the setting identified by the topicalized locative phrase is rendered a more important part of the message than is the setting mentioned in (43); in consequence it will be expected to be relatively more potent in the interpretation of’ ‘lamb’. This potency increases the degree of conflict with the alternative interpreter ‘silver fox’. In (43) the lack of prominence given the setting reduces its potency as an Qterpreter, leaving ‘silver “ox’ to dominate.

7. Coxwluding remarks

I began this paper with the protested interest in the nature of a theory of linguistic meaning. I have given only a very sketchy account of the way I believe pragmatic interpretation schemata should be formalized, namely through truth conditions or probability conditions on a set of inferences arising from what is said. It seems to me that the same approach is the only possible one for doing semantics. The terms used in inference rules

like those presented here involve the unmodified vocabulary of a na:ural

language, structured into expressions according to regular morphological and syntactic well-formedness conditions which obtain for that language. As I pointed out in section 4 above, lexemes will function as semantic primitives and there is no need to postulate semantic components. In evi- dence that semantic components (or, equivalently, semantic markers, semantic features, semantic atoms) can only be understood because they are isomorphic with lexemes in a natural language, we might take the celebrated componential analysis of hac*/tel~~ from Katz and Postal (1964), cited in fig. 2, and replace

bachelor

Noun

(Animal)

[having the academic degree

(Male) conferred for / \ completing the

(Adult) I

(Young)

\

first 4 years of college]

(Never-

married) (Knight) I SRj I <

<SR> I

iserving under

the standard

of another]

\ (Male)

\ (Young)

\ (Seal)

I [when without a

mate durini? i-5~

breeding time] I

l ) SR I

( > SR

Fig. 2.

the semantic markers with proper names in ;L one-to-one correlation as in fig. 3: the resulting representation of the dictionary entry is nothing short of gibberish, even leaving the distinguishers intact.”

It follows that unless we can associate semantic components with the English lexemes they resemble, in Katz’s examples of dictionary entries, thQse entries must become uninterpretable. In consequence, the claim that semantic components are theoretical constructs and not English lexemes is an empty one. Markerese is simply a notational variant of English.

’ The obsolwence of this particular form of Katzian dictionary entry is irrelevant to the

point at issue.

170

bachelor

(Fred) (Joe)

/‘

Ihaving the academic degree \

(Eunice) conferred for (Eunice)

/ \ completing the \ (Moshi) (Bert) first 4 years (Bert)

I I of college] (Ian) (Rod) \

I I.

I c >

(Chip) SR

( ) SR [serving under I

lwhen without a

the standard mate during the

of another] breeding time]

I C >

I SR < ) SR

Fig. 3.

The most convincing componential analysis of a section of open class vocabulary is presented in Bendix 1966. Bendix elicited (or solicited) his semantic components by means of inference rules; and although he pre- sented his semantic analyses of words in esoteric and obfuscating formulae,‘o his observations are generally either translated or translatable into natural language formulae, e.g. A ,qrir~ B C means ‘A causes B to have C’ (Bendix f966: 65). Whereas Bendix postulates the semantic components CAUSE and HAVE to be intrinsic to gir4, I can see no justification for anything other th:rn an inferential relationship; viz. given the truth of the proposition

(44) A gives B C

we can legitimately infer the proposition

(45) A causes B *to have C.

CAUSE and HAVE are invalid as semantic, components of gk outside of their structured relationship captured in (45); thus we see from (46) that bearing different syntactic relations to each other, they cannot be conceived to express the meaning of give.

“’ See Givbn (1979: par. 1.2) for discussion of proper and improper uses of formalism.

(46) A causes B and has C A has to cause B C A has B cause C

Therefore, the meaning of gire is only properly expressed in terms of the semantic components CAUSE and HAVE within the pair of propositions (44) and (45). There is no akmtage in postulating CAME and HAVE as

theoretical conbtructs; they XC simply natural language predicates within a complex proposr tion.

Lyons ( 1968 : 472) suggests ;hat the concrete noun M/ is composed of the three semantic constituents MALE ADOLT BOVINE. The only real justi- Iication rLr lighting on these terms is the set of inferences in (47):

(47) If it is true that B is a bull, then it is also true that B is male, and that B is adult. and that B is bovine.

Here we see that the lexemes bull, n2de, dult and howhe are used to label properties of some real or imagined object using regular English grammar and vocabulary. We can deduce from (47) that any object which has the property of being a bull, also has the properties of being male, adult, and bovine. This is quite different from claiming that the concrete noun hull has these properties : it only has the property of being predicable of bulls! In point of fact, two of the inferred propositions in (47) are false. Firstly, a new-born male calf is properly called a bull; and so it follows that if’ B is a Ml, thm B is mt necessari~v adult; and in consequence there was never any justification for positing ADULT as a semantic component of bull. Secondly, buN is not restricted in application to bovines; it is also properly used of male elephants, whales, seals, and alligators: so !f’ B is n bull, then B is riot 12~c~.ssuriI!_v bovirre and there is no justification for positing BOVINE as a semantic component of bull. A more accurate semantic cription of bull than (47) can now be given.

(48) If it is frup: that B is a bull and animal,” then it is necessarily that B is male.

des-

true

” This conjunct is necessary to ensure we arc not speaking of an episcopal edict. Notice. incidentally, that the form of the predicate NP u hull ensures we are dealing with the

countable hull.

Why should Lyons have described hi// in terms of an adult bovine? There

is a very reasonable explanation. The sex of an animal is hardly significant until it is capable of reproduction (even for young humans the pronoun

form may be ir), and therefore hlrll is generally used of adult animals. Then, the world of the English speaker is such that hull is much more likely to be used of a bovine than of any other kind of animal. So what

Lyons has done is identify not the semantics of htrll but its customary reference. We can rewrite (47) more accurately as (49).

(49) If it is true that B is a bull and an animal, then it is also true

that B is male, and likely true that B is adult, and likely true that B is bovine.

The only way to explicate these facts is through the kind of procedure ! have employed. thus proving the efficacy of inferences in semantic analysis.

The procedure used here in analyzing the semantics of @I> and huN is

of the same kind as was used earlier in stating pragmatic interpretations; and so I conclude that a theory of linguistic meaning, which should com- prehend both semantic and pragmatic ‘interpretation, will state meaning in terms of inferences that are true. or likely to be true, of a given linguistic expression. Because these inferences are expressed in the regular grammar and vocabulary of a natural language, the semantic primitives are given; and there is no necessity for the impossible quest after non-existent semantic components (markers, features, atoms) in order to translate meaningful natural language into the essentially meaningless auxiliary language Mar- kerese. The problem of defining the necessary rules of inference remains to be solved.

References

Allan. Keith. 1976. C’ollectivizing. Archivum Linguisticum 7, 99 117.

Allar. Keith, 1980. Nouns and countability. Language 56, 541 567. Bendix. Edward H., 1966. Componential analysis of general vocabulary. Bloomington : Indiana

Univ.

(‘atteli. Ray. 1977. About semantic representations. Tulanya 4, 30 38.

Chomsky. Noam. 1965. Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge. Mass.: MIT Press. Fodor. Janet D., 1977. Semantics: theories of meaning in generative grammar. New York:

Thomas Crowell.

Fodor, Janet D.. Jerry A. Fodor, Merrill F. Garrett, 1975. The psychological unreality of semantic representations Linguistic Inquiry 6. 5 1 S 53 1,

G&a, Erica C., 1977. On the practical consequences of theoretical principles. Lingua 43,

I29 170.

Giv6n. Tahny, 1979. On understanding granmar. New York: Academic Press.

Grice, H. Paul. 1975. Logic and conversation. In: Peter Cole, Jerry L. Morgan (eds.). Syntax

and semantics. vol. 3. 41 58. New York: Academic Press.

Harris, Zellig S., 1948. Componential analysis of a Hebrew paradigm. Language 24, 87 91.

Hjelmslev. Louis. 1943. Omkring sprogteoriens gundlaeggelse. Copenhagen.

Jakohson, Roman, 1936. Beitrag zur allgemeinrn Kasuslchre. Travaux du Cercle Linguistique

de Prague VI, 240 28X. Katz, Jerrold J., 1967. Recent issues in semantic theory. Foundations of Language 3. I24 194.

Katz. Jerrold J., 1972. Semantic theory. New York: Harper.

Katz, Jer,4d J.. Jerry A, Fodor. I963. Structure of a semantic theory. Language 39, I70 210. Katz. Jerrolu J., Richilrd 1. Nagel. 1974. Meaning postulates and semantic theory. Founda-

tions of Language I I, 31 I 340. Katz. Jerrold J.. Paul M. Postal, 1964. Towards an integrated theory of linguistic descriptions.

Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press.

Kempson. Ruth, 1977. Semantic theory. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press. Lehrer. Adrienne, 1974. Semantic fields and lexical structure. Amsterdam: North-Holland. Lewis, David. 1972. General semantics. In: Donald Davidson. Gilbert Harman (eds.), Sc-

mantics of natural language. I69 218. Dordrecht: Reidel. Lounsbury, Floyd G.. 1956. A semantic analysis of the Paw,nee kinship usage. Language 32.

158-194.

Lyons, John. 1968. Introduction to theoretical linguistics. London Cambridge Univ. Press.

McCawley, James D.. 1973. Grammar and meaning. Tokyo: T::il.ushan.

Weinreich, Uriel, 1980. On semantics. (Ed. by William Labov. Beatrice S. Wcinrclch.) [Univ.

of Pennsylvania Press. Wierzbicka. Anna. 1972. Semantic primitives. Berhn: Atncntium.

Wilkins, John. 1668. Essay toward a Real Character and a Philosophical Language. London.