Boundaries Crossed: The Influence of English on Modern Polish

The influence of English on Polish dates back to the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; however, it gained momentum after 1989, when Poland overthrew communism and opened its borders to the West. In research on the Polish language, which culminated at the end of the twentieth century, Mańczak-Wohlfeld(2006) recorded about 1700 English borrowings collected from various dictionaries, media and spoken language sources. Because of the continuous influx of borrowings, this number is probably not truly indicative of the real scale of the influence that English has been exerting on Polish

Meaning and individual minds : the case of if

PhD ThesisTraditionally (e.g. Sperber & Wilson 1995, Levinson 2000, Jackendoff 2002, Chomsky 2005a), linguistic expressions have meaning in virtue of having linguistic semantic properties. It is often claimed that linguistic semantics is functionally distinct from but related to the semantics of thought. In particular, linguistic semantics is assumed to be deterministically (necessarily and always) decoded in utterance interpretation and fed, as a basic premise, to pragmatic processing. Linguistic semantics is supposed to aid (i.e. constrain) utterance interpretation insofar as it is at least ‘widely’ shared among speech community members (Carston 2002). However, it has been suggested that linguistic semantics is problematic (e.g. Burton-Roberts 2005, Gibbs 2002, Recanati 2005). This thesis argues that the notion of linguistic semantics, as well as the process of deterministic decoding of such content, is implausible and explores the consequences of this claim for a theory of meaning and utterance interpretation. In the first part, I raise questions about the nature of semantics (externalism or internalism) as well as its structure (atomism, molecularism or holism). In line with the Representational Hypothesis (e.g. Burton-Roberts 2012), I maintain that thought is the only locus of semantics and that meaning is not a property of linguistic expressions, but a cognitive relation between an uttered word and semantics (of thought). I argue that whereas semantic content is holistic, meaning (in the sense of Burton-Roberts) is locally – i.e. contextually – constrained to a degree which, all things being equal, allows for successful communication. I argue that utterance interpretation is a wholly pragmatic inferential process, immediately constrained by a personal (i.e. holistic) inference about the communicative intention of a particular speaker in a particular conversational context. I claim that such a process of utterance interpretation can be implemented in terms of Hintzman’s (1986) multiple-trace theory of memory. In the second part, I illustrate my argument by an analysis of the relation between the word if and Material Implication (MI). I show that the claim (e.g. Grice 1989, Noh 2000) that if semantically encodes MI cannot be maintained. I argue that the application of MI has to be pragmatically determined and, therefore, when MI applies, it does so at the level of (holistic) thought – not at the (anyway problematic) linguistic semantic level. I explain the interpretation of conditionals in terms of Horton & Gerrig’s (2005) extension of a multiple-trace theory of memory into the study of common ground. I also discuss the implications of a wholly pragmatic account of utterance interpretation for the distinction between explicit and implicit communication.PhD bursary I received from the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics and for conference grants offered by the School and by the Centre for Research in Linguistics and Language Sciences

Reporting conditionals with modals

Conditionals and modals work in tandem in some instances of practical reasoning, or decision making. Consider the following example (from Kratzer 2012): a. I want to become a mayor. b. (q) I will become a mayor only if (p) I go to the pub. c. Therefore, I should go to the pub. Given what the cogniser wants (a) and the relevant circumstances (b), the conclusion that the cogniser goes to the pub comes out as necessary. Hence, the presence of the necessity modal should in (c). Indeed, given the context of (a), the necessity modal in (c) is simply a reflection of the necessity of p for q, which is overtly represented by the use of the ‘only if p, q’ construction. This chapter looks into whether indirect reports of conditionals – in particular, indirect reports which involve the use of a modal verb – are sensitive to the necessity of p for q in cases where necessity is not overtly represented in a conditional, as in ‘if p, q’ formulations. We report on two online experiments into the relation between (i) perceived necessity or sufficiency of the truth of a conditional antecedent for the truth of the consequent, and (ii) the formulation of an indirect report of a conditional with necessity or possibility modals (have to, should, could). In Experiment 1, the ‘necessity/sufficiency of p for q’ variable was manipulated by contextually altering the number of alternative antecedents (e.g. Cummins et al. 1991; Thompson 1994; Politzer 2003). It was found that modals used in indirect reports of ‘if p, q’ conditionals co-vary with the number of alternative antecedents in predictable ways. This suggests that modals used in indirect reports of ‘if p, q’ conditionals may be a diagnostic for biconditional versus material interpretations of conditionals. The aim of Experiment 2 was to find out whether the results of Experiment 1 could be replicated in contexts which lower/eliminate the believability of the conditionals. It was found that manipulating the believability variable has no reliable effect on the results

Indirect Reports in Modern Eastern Armenian

In this work we consider the distribution of complementizers in Modern Eastern Armenian. There are two complementizers: wor and t‘e. They both introduce complement clauses, but t‘e also expresses a dubitative value, implying that the speaker has doubts on the content following the complementizer. Moreover, t‘e, when embedded under verbs of saying, shifts the anchoring of indexicals, moving the anchor from the speaker – better called utterer – to the subject of the saying predicate. On the basis of this and further evidence coming from the analysis of sequence of tense and if-clauses, we will argue that the position of t‘e in the left periphery of the clause occupies a high position in the syntactic hierarchy. The aim of this work is on one hand, a better understanding of indirect reports and their syntax and, on the other, a more precise characterization of indexicals across languages

Conditionality in individual minds: An argument for a wholly pragmatic approach to utterance interpretation

There is a growing body of research which undermines the traditional dual-processing model of utterance interpretation, whereby pragmatic inference is preceded by the context-independent process of linguistic decoding. This body of research suggests that utterance interpretation is a wholly pragmatic inferential process. In this paper, I seek to defend a wholly pragmatic approach by investigating the role of the purported process of context-independent decoding and the process of pragmatic inference in determining when a conditional is false. I show that material conditionality, like all kinds of conditionality, lies in pragmatically derived holistic thought, i.e. not in any putative linguistic semantics

Semantics, pragmatics and meaning revisited : the case of conditionals

This book systematically investigates what follows about meaning in language if current views on the limited, or even redundant, role of linguistic semantics are taken to their radical conclusion. Focusing on conditionals, the book defends a wholly pragmatic, wholly inferential account of meaning – one which foregrounds a reasoning subject’s individual state of mind. The topics discussed in the book include conceptual content, internalism and externalism, the semantics-pragmatics distinction, meaning holism and explicit versus implicit communication. These topics and the author’s analysis of conditionals will allow the reader to engage with some traditional and current research in linguistics, philosophy and psychology

Against referential semantics

This paper critically engages with Jerry Fodor‟s (1998, 2008) notion of referential semantics. I argue that Fodor‟s referentialism about semantic content is untenable for two reasons. First, it presupposes internalist content in the guise of mind-dependent properties that our minds attribute to mind-external entities. Furthermore, it is these properties that compose and not, as Fodor argues, reference. Relatedly, Fodor‟s „lexical-conceptual isomorphism‟ (i.e. the assumption that „atomic‟ concepts just are word meanings) raises problems. First, it incorrectly predicts one-to-one mapping between words and concepts. Second, referential equivalents like English shallow and French peu profond indicate that at least some „atomic‟ concepts have compositional content. The isomorphism is also incompatible with Fodor's view that thought is not necessarily language-dependent. Overall, I argue that the notion of referential semantics is conceptually untenable and, in the light of problems with lexical-conceptual isomorphism, it is also methodologically unmotivated. In the context of the externalist-internalist debate about the nature of semantic content, the problems with Fodor‟s referentialism strongly tip the balance in favour of internalism

Do we need specifically linguistic semantics?

Gibbs (2002) argues that there is no psycholinguistic evidence for the existence of linguistic semantics at the sentence or word level. I provide theoretical arguments in support of Gibbs’ view with reference to Relevance Theory’s distinction between lexical and ad hoc concepts. I argue that positing linguistic semantics and the process of deterministic decoding of such content is (i) problematic and (ii) unnecessary in constraining and explaining meaning in language. After discussing some problems with the nature and acquisition of linguistic semantics(i), I argue (ii) that the posited process of deterministic decoding of lexical concepts is redundant in loose use, cases of so-called concept narrowing and where the communicated concept is the same as the assumed lexical concept, i.e. in pretty much all cases. I argue that there is no linguistic semantics and that utterance interpretation is a wholly pragmatic inferential process. I defend my view by dismissing two potential criticisms: (a) If words do not have meaning in virtue of encoding linguistic semantics as their constitutive property, then how do they mean?; (b) If there is no linguistic semantics constraining word use, then how do we ever communicate successfully? I argue that Burton-Roberts’ (in press) definition of meaning-as-relation invalidates criticism (a) and that Hintzman’s(1986) multiple trace theory of memory and information retrieval invalidates (b)