- Home
- e-Journals
- Pragmatics & Cognition
- Previous Issues
- Volume 3, Issue, 1995
Pragmatics & Cognition - Volume 3, Issue 1, 1995
Volume 3, Issue 1, 1995
-
Modularity and Speech Acts
Author(s): Robert M. Harnishpp.: 1–29 (29)More LessModules, as Marr (1982) and Fodor (1983) conceive of them, lie between sensory and central processes. Modules have the functional property of representing that portion of the world which turns them on, and nine non-functional or structural properties that facilitate carrying out that function. Fodor has proposed that the processing of linguistic information is carried out by a language module (LM), which therefore has the functional and structural features of modules. We argue that the proposed LM does not have the functional property of modules in general (section 2). And we argue that Fodor's candidate for the output of the LM, interpreted syntactic form, does not satisfy important structural properties of modules (section 3). We propose another candidate, speech act potential, and argue that it fits almost all of Fodor's conditions (section 4). We next report on some pilot sentence completion studies suggesting that speech act information can influence the course of a parse and hence are a part of the LM (section 5). Finally, we outline possible experiments to test the modularity of speech act information by online methods of priming (section 6).
-
How motion verbs are special: The interaction of semantic and pragmatic information in aspectual verb meanings
Author(s): Carol L. Tennypp.: 31–73 (43)More LessThis paper focuses on a distinction between two kinds of information in verb meanings: a highly structured, templatic part of the meaning, based on aspectual properties of the verb, and apart of the meaning which contributes to filling gaps in the templatic information. The two kinds of information differ in the nature and degree of connections to encyclopedic world knowledge. This demarcation between the two kinds of information is related to the semantics/ pragmatics distinction, and may be clearly articulated using Krifka's (1992) formalization of a homomorphism from objects to events. Motion verbs, for which the concept of distance plays a crucial role in the gap-filling information, are shown to be special in a number of ways, due to the special properties of distance as encoded in the world knowledge of the speaker. The possible universality of these findings is also discussed.
-
The imagist approach to inferential thought patterns: The crucial role of rhythm pattern recognition
Author(s): Ralph D. Ellispp.: 75–109 (35)More LessTmagists' hold that inferential thinking is built up from combinations of sensory and sensorimotor images in various patterns and modalities, and that the images are a more basic mental and neurophysiological operation than the logical thinking and conceptualization that are built up front them. 'Computationalists' hold just the opposite view — that images result from previous inferential processing which is more basic than the images. Suppose we define inference as the kind of thought process that we actually undergo when we do logical thinking, and not in the trivial sense in which any natural phenomenon which receives an 'input' from another then 'responds' to this 'input' (as for example when a ball responds to being hit by flying off at a certain angle). And suppose we define an 'image ' as any instance of imagining what it would be like to entertain some conscious state which we are not undergoing at the time — as for example when we imagine what it would be like to see something, to ride a roller coaster or to have a headache. I. e., 'images ' can be kinaesthetic and proprioceptive s well as sensory. Then it can be shown that inferential thinking is built up from patterns of images, including importantly the imaging of rhythm patterns corresponding to logical syntax. Furthermore, the acquisition of these inference rules can also be traced to a process of trying to imagine scenarios which might serve as counterexamples to the rules, and this kind of 'imagining ' can also be explained in terms of both sensory and proprioceptive images. The reason for this is twofold: First, even the apparently 'imageless ' concepts used to imagine such scenarios (e.g., the concept 'president') consist in each case of a feeling of preparedness to entertain a pattern of images which would be appropriate to provide a directly or indirectly ostensive definition of the concept in question, and this feeling of preparedness can be sensed proprioceptively. Secondly, a concept, even if it is not experienced as involving imagery, may nonetheless occur as an element of a larger pattern whose rhythm can be imaged. This paper defends an expanded version of the imagist approach, suggesting an important pragmatic role for the proprioceptive sensing of rhythm patterns in the acquisition and use of inference skills.
-
Relativism-pragmatism and the goals of cognition
Author(s): Nenad Miščevićpp.: 111–131 (21)More LessThe central goal of cognition is truth. This thesis is defended against the new wave relativist-pragmatists, notably Stephen Stich. First, the relativist-pragma-tist stance and its central line of argumentation is briefly presented, pivoting around the plurality of TRUTH-predicates. Against this, the following theses are argued for: (1) various TRUTH-predicates are not in semantic, epistemic, and instrumental competition, and they will stand for the same higher-level epistemic goal — believing and saying "p" only if p; (2) the choice among TRUTH-predicates for natural languages is epistemically and instrumentally insignificant; whereas (3) the choice among TRUTH-predicates for the (hypothetical) language of thought is not available to thinkers, since they do not choose in what interpreted language they think and therefore are not to be blamed for not exercising a choice where there is none.
Volumes & issues
-
Volume 31 (2024)
-
Volume 30 (2023)
-
Volume 29 (2022)
-
Volume 28 (2021)
-
Volume 27 (2020)
-
Volume 26 (2019)
-
Volume 25 (2018)
-
Volume 24 (2017)
-
Volume 23 (2016)
-
Volume 22 (2014)
-
Volume 21 (2013)
-
Volume 20 (2012)
-
Volume 19 (2011)
-
Volume 18 (2010)
-
Volume 17 (2009)
-
Volume 16 (2008)
-
Volume 15 (2007)
-
Volume 14 (2006)
-
Volume 13 (2005)
-
Volume 12 (2004)
-
Volume 11 (2003)
-
Volume 10 (2002)
-
Volume 9 (2001)
-
Volume 8 (2000)
-
Volume 7 (1999)
-
Volume 6 (1998)
-
Volume 5 (1997)
-
Volume 4 (1996)
-
Volume 3 (1995)
-
Volume 2 (1994)
-
Volume 1 (1993)
Most Read This Month
Article
content/journals/15699943
Journal
10
5
false
