How meaning works—from monkey calls to human language, from spoken language to sign language, from gestures to music—and how meaning is connected to truth.
We communicate through language, connecting what we mean to the words we say. But humans convey meaning in other ways as well, with facial expressions, hand gestures, and other methods. Animals, too, can get their meanings across without words. In What It All Means, linguist Philippe Schlenker explains how meaning works, from monkey calls to human language, from spoken language to sign language, from gestures to music. He shows that these extraordinarily diverse types of meaning can be studied and compared within a unified approach—one in which the notion of truth plays a central role.
“It's just semantics” is often said dismissively. But Schlenker shows that semantics—the study of meaning—is an unsung success of modern linguistics, a way to investigate some of the deepest questions about human nature using tools from the empirical and formal sciences. Drawing on fifty years of research in formal semantics, Schlenker traces how meaning comes to life. After investigating meaning in primate communication, he explores how human meanings are built, using in some cases sign languages as a guide to the workings of our inner “logic machine.” Schlenker explores how these meanings can be enriched by iconicity in sign language and by gestures in spoken language, and then turns to more abstract forms of iconicity to understand the meaning of music. He concludes by examining paradoxes, which—being neither true nor false—test the very limits of meaning.
Author(s): Philippe Schlenker
Publisher: MIT Press
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 488
City: Boston
Tags: Semantics
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Our Inner Meaning Machine
What Is Semantics?
The Road Ahead
A Note on References, Terminology, and Audiovisual Examples
How to Read This Book
Prologue: Primate Meanings
1 Meaning in the Wild
1.1 A Snake Encounter in Uganda
1.2 Our Primate Cousins
1.3 Semantics: Vervet and Diana Calls
1.4 Elusive Syntax: Titi Calls
1.5 Pragmatics: The Informativity Principle
1.6 Putting It All Together: Campbell’s Calls
1.7 Bilingualism in the Wild
1.8 Call Evolution
1.9 Ape Communication: Calls
1.10 Ape Communication: Gestures
1.11 Conclusion
I: THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF MEANING
2 Visible Logic: Sign Language and Pronouns
2.1 Sign Languages in History
2.2 Sign versus Spoken Languages
2.3 Pronouns as Logical Variables
2.4 Iconicity
2.5 Iconic Variables: A First Look
2.6 Iconic Variables: Iconicity in Action
2.7 Plural Pronouns
2.8 Conclusion
3 Me, Me, Me! Perspectives in Language
3.1 The First-Person Perspective
3.2 Perspectival Thoughts and Indexicals
3.3 Thought Reports and Logophoric Pronouns
3.4 The Perspectival Nature of the English Infinitive
3.5 The English First Person
3.6 Context Shift: The First-Person in Zazaki and Amharic
3.7 Visible Context Shift in Sign Language
3.8 Conclusion
4 Nouns and Verbs: Objects and Events
4.1 Singular, Plural, Mass
4.2 Making It Visible: Repetitions in Sign Language
4.3 Grammar Meets Iconicity
4.4 The Noun/Verb Analogy: Plurals versus Pluractionals
4.5 Count/Mass versus Telic/Atelic
4.6 Adjectives and Adverbs
4.7 Conclusion
5 Beyond the Here and Now I: From Objects to Situations
5.1 Situations
5.2 Tenses as Pronouns
5.3 Moods as Pronouns
5.4 Temporal Pronouns in Sign Language
5.5 Modal Pronouns in Sign Language
5.6 Conclusion
6 Beyond the Here and Now II: Describing and Classifying Objects and Situations
6.1 Puzzles with If
6.2 Definite Descriptions of Objects: The Meaning of The
6.3 Definite Descriptions of Situations: The Meaning of When and If
6.4 Classifying by Proximity: Objects
6.5 Classifying by Proximity: Temporal Situations
6.6 Classifying by Proximity: Modal Situations
6.7 Conclusion
II: USING MEANING
7 Logic Machine I: Predicate Logic
7.1 Formal versus Natural Languages
7.2 The Syntax of Predicate Logic: Getting Rid of Ambiguities
7.3 The Semantics of Predicate Logic: Adding Meaning
7.4 Conclusion
8 Logic Machine II: English as a Formal Language
8.1 English as a Formal Language: Syntax
8.2 English as a Formal Language: Semantics
8.3 Explaining Structural Ambiguities
8.4 Using Structural Ambiguities
8.5 Conclusion
9 Logic Machine III: The Expressive Power of Human Language
9.1 English Is More Expressive than Predicate Logic
9.2 Extending the Logical Approach to English
9.3 Logical Form in Hungarian
9.4 Logical Form in English
9.5 The Dynamic Logic of Language
9.6 Logic in Grammar
9.7 Conclusion
10 Not Quite Saying It: Focus and Implicatures
10.1 What Is Said and What Isn’t
10.2 Moore’s Paradox
10.3 The Form and Meaning of Focus
10.4 Focus in Public Communication
10.5 Scalar Implicatures
10.6 Negative-like Environments
10.7 When Children Are More ‘Logical’ than Adults
10.8 Implicatures Take Time
10.9 Misleading with Implicatures
10.10 Conclusion
11 Not at Issue: Presuppositions, Supplements, and Expressives
11.1 What Presuppositions Are
11.2 Weak and Strong Presuppositions
11.3 Presuppositions and Linguistic Context
11.4 Supplements
11.5 Expressives
11.6 Conclusion
III: EXTENDING MEANING
12 Iconicity Revisited: Sign with Iconicity versus Speech with Gestures
12.1 The Importance of Gestures
12.2 Iconic Modulations
12.3 Co-speech Gestures Trigger Presuppositions
12.4 Post-Speech Gestures Trigger Supplements
12.5 Pro-Speech Gestures Can Be at Issue . . . but They Are Not Words
12.6 Conclusion
13 Grammar in Gestures
13.1 Homesigners
13.2 Gestural Grammar: Pointing and Agreement Verbs
13.3 Gestural Grammar: Nouns
13.4 Gestural Grammar: Verbs
13.5 Gestural Grammar: Context Shift
13.6 Conclusion
14 Meaning in Gestures
14.1 The Inferential Typology of Language
14.2 Gestural Supplements
14.3 Gestural Implicatures
14.4 Gestural Presuppositions
14.5 Gestural Expressives
14.6 From Gestures to Visual Animations
14.7 Conclusion
15 Meaning in Music
15.1 The Metamorphoses of a Sunrise
15.2 Meaning in Music—Really?
15.3 Bernstein’s Challenge
15.4 From Sound to Music
15.5 Revisiting Strauss’s Sunrise
15.6 Musical Inferences from Normal Auditory Cognition I: Frequency
15.7 Musical Inferences from Normal Auditory Cognition II: Loudness and Speed
15.8 Musical Inferences from Harmony
15.9 Musical Truth
15.10 Emotions
15.11 Conclusion
EPILOGUE: THE LIMITS OF TRUTH
16 The Limits of Truth I: The Riddle of Paradoxes
16.1 Liars
16.2 Tarski’s Challenge
16.3 Varieties of Paradoxes
16.4 Why Are There Paradoxes?
16.5 Beyond Truth and Falsity
16.6 Truth-Tellers
16.7 Empirical Liars
16.8 Conclusion
17 The Limits of Truth II: Solving the Riddle of Paradoxes
17.1 The Challenge
17.2 What Is the Meaning of ‘True’?
17.3 Constructing the Meaning of ‘True’
17.4 Ungrounded Statements: Liars versus Truth-Tellers
17.5 Does the Third Truth Value Really Matter?
17.6 Hidden Self-Reference: Berry’s Paradox
17.7 Anselm’s Argument
17.8 The Liar’s Revenge
17.9 Conclusion
Appendix I: Illustrating Kripke’s Construction
Appendix II: Berry’s Paradox and Anselm’s Argument
Conclusion
The Diversity of Meaning Operations in Nature
The Importance of Sign Languages
Varieties of Iconic Enrichments
Beyond Language
The Scientific Humanities
Appendix: Phonology, Morphology, and Syntax in Speech and in Sign
Glossary
Going Further
On Language in General
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Conclusion
Appendix
Notes
Introduction
Chapter 1: Meaning in the Wild
Chapter 2: Visible Logic: Sign Language and Pronouns
Chapter 3: Me, me, me! Perspectives in Language
Chapter 4: Nouns and Verbs: Objects and Events
Chapter 5: Beyond the Here and Now I: From Objects to Situations
Chapter 6: Beyond the Here and Now II: Describing and Classifying Objects and Situations
Chapter 7: Logic Machine I: Predicate Logic
Chapter 8: Logic Machine II: English as a Formal Language
Chapter 9: Logic Machine III: The Expressive Power of Human Language
Chapter 10: Not Quite Saying It: Focus and Implicatures
Chapter 11: Not at Issue: Presuppositions, Supplements, and Expressives
Chapter 12: Iconicity Revisited: Sign with Iconicity versus Speech with Gestures
Chapter 13: Grammar in Gestures
Chapter 14: Meaning in Gestures
Chapter 15: Meaning in Music
Chapter 16: The Limits of Truth I: The Riddle of Paradoxes
Chapter 17: The Limits of Truth II: Solving the Riddle of Paradoxes
Conclusion
Appendix: Phonology, Morphology, and Syntax in Speech and in Sign
Illustration Sources
Index
