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Structural Linguistics and Formal Semantics
Structural Linguistics and Formal Semantics
Jaroslav Peregrin
Introduction
2 De Saussure de-mythicized
4 Language as an Algebra
5 Saussure Mathematized
With the help of this framework, we find that many points previously
difficult to articulate, become surprisingly simple. An example is the
way we have just expressed the principle of compositionality: this
principle, which has been constantly subject to misunderstandings,
now becomes the simple and unequivocal claim of the homomorphic
character of meaning- assignment. Everybody who is familiar with the
basics of algebra easily understands; a misunderstanding is hardly
possible12.
We have stressed that de Saussure's claim is that the meaning of an
expression is its value resulting from oppositions present in the
system of language. We have stressed also that the value is a
reification of the way the expression functions as a building-block for
building wholes suitable for various purposes, notably true sentences.
Translated into our algebraic framework, the algebra of semantics
owes its being to certain oppositions present within the system of
language, notably to the opposition between truth and falsity, or,
which is the same, the equivalence of sameness of truth value.
Algebraic theory allows us to clarify how an algebra plus an
equivalence between elements of its carrier yields a new algebra: our
Definition 3 articulates this in explicating the term factor algebra; it
amounts to the "coalescing" of the equivalent elements of the original
algebra and to the corresponding adjustment of its operations. This
suggests the idea of considering the algebra of meanings as the
factor algebra of the algebra of expressions factored according to the
equivalence of sameness of truth value.
The obvious objection to embracing this conclusion is that it leads to
identifying meanings with classes of expressions, which seems to be
highly implausible. However, saying that the algebra of meanings can
be considered as an algebra of classes of expressions is not to say
that meaning be a class of expressions - the point of the structural
view is that meaning is not this or that kind of thing, that what there is
to meaning is rather only the structure of the algebra of meaning. This
is to say, in algebraic terms, that the algebra of meanings is definite
only up to isomorphism; the factor algebra of the algebra of
expressions must be seen as a mere representative of the whole
class of isomorphic algebras, each of which can be considered to
represent the algebra of meaning, and none of which can be directly
identified with it.
In fact, formal semantics can be seen as placing additional, pragmatic
requirements on the algebra which is to be considered as the algebra
of meanings; it endeavours to select that of the isomorphic algebras
which would be the easiest to work with. In particular, it is usual to
require that the operations of the algebra of semantics be as simple
as possible. Frege proposed that the meaning of a sentence should
be considered as the result of application of the meaning of its
predicate to those of its terms. This idea was subsequently
generalized to yield the general requirement that the operators of the
algebra of meaning should be operators taking as one of its
arguments a function and yielding what this function yields when it is
applied to the remaining arguments. This means that if F is an n-ary
operator of the algebra of expressions, then there exists an i such
that for every n-tuple e1,...,en of expressions from the domain of F it
holds that
||F(e1,...,en)|| = ||ei||(||e1||,...,||ei1||,||ei+1||,...,||en||).
7 Conclusion
NOTES
1. There are philosophers who evaluate even more harshly the way in which French structuralists
handled the heritage of de Saussure. Thus Pavel (1989, p. vii) characterizes their efforts as
follows: "They mistook the results of a specialized science for a collection of speculative
generalities. They believed that breathtaking metaphysical pronouncements could be inferred
from simple-minded descriptive statements." (Back to text)
2. Hjelmslev (1943, p.11).(Back to text)
5. For a more detailed expositions of the issues presented in this section see Peregrin (1994b).
(Back to text)
6. Chomsky himself, of course, would consider his approach not a mere improvement of
methodology, but as an empirical discovery concerning human's innate inner workings; we leave
this conviction of his aside, because it is peculiar to his own line of thought and it is not essential
to the formalistic turn as such.(Back to text)
7. Lewis claimed that linguistic theories of meaning are mere translations of natural language into
another, formal language, namely 'markerese'. However, I think that this caveat, as it stands, is
misguided: every explicit semantic theory is clearly a translation of natural language into another
language, be it 'markerese', the language of set theory, or whatever. The only way to do explicit
semantics is to make statements 's' means m, where m is an expression of a language.(Back to
text)
8. For general information about the concept of possible world see Partee (1989); for conceptual
analysis see Peregrin (1993a).(Back to text)
9. Kamp's framework aims, besides this, at capturing what can be called dynamics of language,
especially its anaphoric capacities; and it slowly becomes a paradigm of the semantic theory for
the nineties. (Back to text)
10. This point was made quite clear by Davidson (1984, p.30): "Philosophers of a logical bent
have tended to start where the theory was and work out towards the complications of natural
language. Contemporary linguists, with an aim that cannot easily be seen to be different, start
with the ordinary and work toward a general theory. If either party is successful, there must be a
meeting."(Back to text)
11. Taking the intensional aspect of language at face value, we have to relativize all of this to
possible worlds: the denotations of ||John|| and ||Mary|| (if we do not treat them as rigid, i.e.
possible-worlds-independent, designators) will be functions from possible worlds to the universe,
||to love|| a function from possible worlds to pairs of elements of the universe, and ||John loves
Mary|| will be a function from possible worlds to truth values: in some worlds (situations, time-
spans etc. the sentence holds true, in other worlds it does not.(Back to text)
12. The objection that such an explication is simple only due to the backlog of the complicated
theory of algebra, is not sound - algebra is nothing ad hoc, it is a well established theory whose
meaningfullness is independent of whether we do or do not use it within a theory of language.
(Back to text)
14. For Davidson's way of understanding semantic theory see Davidson (1984); see also
Peregrin (1994a).(Back to text)
15. The recent philosophical development of Richard Rorty documents that these two seemingly
disparate approaches to philosophy could lead to a unified stance.(Back to text)
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Olwen McNamara
Question: What do you get when you cross Derrida with a member of the
Mafia?
There are times when I feel that deconstruction positions me in just such a
predicament. Like Heller's Captain Yossarian for whom the very act of
declaring himself insane infuriatingly but indisputably proved his sanity; my
attempts to challenge Derrida's notions can sometimes leave me feeling as if
I am tacitly confirming their veracity. When, for example, I challenge the
suggestion that interpretations are multiple, or meaning infinitely deferred, I
am left with the uncomfortable sensation that the interpretation may not have
been uniquely apprehendable. That I was, in fact, as Derrida would caution,
simply indoctrinated into believing this to be case by the subtle and
innocuously regulating effect of the structures in the text. Dare I be seen to
display such naivete and lack of insight in Chreods??
Words for Saussure are not, of course, labels which have come to be
attached to things already comprehended independently; they supply the
conceptual frameworks for man's analysis of reality and also the linguistic
framework for his description of it. Saussure's model of a linguistic sign is of
a "two?sided psychological entity" (Saussure 1983 p. 99), comprising the
meaning of the word, or associated concept, together with (and inseparable
from) its sound image. He uses the analogy of two sides of a piece of paper
to illustrate the bond.
Saussure asserted the bipartite nature of the sign and avoided including the
referent, as in a typical tripartite relationship; this does not, I think, indicate
that he is equivocal about the existence of anything external to that
relationship. His belief was not that the referent was indistinguishable from
the linguistic state but that terms internal to the linguistic system defined
each other uniquely, by contrast and comparison, without regard to the
referent. If I am angry or hot there are a plethora of terms which I can use to
describe how I feel, each one limiting the range of applicability of the others.
This does not imply, however, that my temperament or temperature is a
quality of the linguistic state; it is not, there is a commonlyunderstood, real
perceptible and measurable difference between cold, warm and hot. The fact
that there are a range of words associated with the concept of temperature
does not, I believe, indicate that meaning can slip freely between them. In
fact I would argue that the presence of so many related terms actually limits,
rather than extends, the flexibility of the interpretation.
On the contrary, though, from the moment that one questions the possibility
of such a transcendental signified, and that one recognises that every
signified is also in the position of a signifier, the distinction between
signified and signifier becomes problematical at its root. (Derrida 1981 p.
43)
Derrida appropriates Saussure's terms signifier and signified but extends the
function of the signified to embrace the role of signifier in another act of
signification. Thus the signification process, if extended outward in this
manner, would presumably eventually encompass "the world itself [as]
discourse" (Tompkins 1988). Clearly the "distinction between signified and
signifier" will, as Derrida foresees, become "problematical".
The second axis of slippage I identify is in between signs and also through
time. The French verb 'differer' has two meanings which in English
correspond to two distinct terms, 'differ' and 'defer'. Derrida, I think, uses
this catalyst to extend Saussure's notion of 'difference', which in its
nominative form means only, 'to differ from'. He invents a new French word,
'differance', which is to encompass the meaning absent from 'difference', that
is 'to defer'. Derrida claims,
Now the word difference (with an e) can never refer either to differer as
temporisation or to differends as polemos. Thus the word differance (with an
a) is to compensate ? economically ? this loss of meaning, for differance can
refer simultaneously to the entire configuration of its meanings. (Derrida
1982 p. 8)
... this graphic difference (a instead of e), this marked difference between
two apparently vocal notations, between two vowels, remains purely
graphic: it is read, or it is written, but it cannot be heard.
(Derrida 1982 p. 3)
Derrida enforces a way of looking at literature, and indeed life, that sees it as
a stream of self?referential structureless awarenesses. His redefinition of
terms extends the notion of text to include all that is humanly perceived and
he concludes that truth, meaning and understanding are impossible.
Tompkins (1988), is perhaps characteristic of many deconstructionist
accounts, she believes that
Her thesis is that the reader cannot apply an analysis to a text because she or
he is inextricably bound into the interpretative system. Tompkins, however,
proceeds to give a highly explicit five page exposition of exactly what
Derrida mean by differance in literary analysis. Although not myself
particularly well versed in literary criticism, the analysis does appear very
conventional in that it appears to regard, and refer separately to, the author
and his intentions on infinitely many occasions in a very positive manner.
Further, Tompkins appears to regard the text, and its interpretation, as very
much belonging to the author, rather than being her personal construct. It
seems that Derrida is no more reflexive in his exchanges, Ellis notes that
during a dispute between Searle and Derrida, the latter remarked on a
number of occasions that
Searle had misunderstood him and misstated his views, even adding at one
point that what he, Derrida, had meant should have been clear enough and
obvious to Searle. (Ellis 1989 p. 13)
Most readers, I suspect, would hold the view that an interpretation of a text
is achieved by a peculiar synthesis of reader and author. Further, that the
differences which this synthesis illuminates are ones of emphasis rather than
radically different explication. What accounts for this apparent absence of
free play in the interpretations? It could indeed be, as I have no doubt that
Derrida would claim, that readers are all indoctrinated by the subtle and
innocuous regulating effect of the structures in the text upon its
interpretation. One plausible alternative explanation is that the analysis
which led Derrida to asserting free play of meaning was completed in a void,
it divorced language from its context. Ellis mounts a convincing critique of
post?structuralism generally on this issue, asserting that it separates
language, intentionality and communication:
Literary theorists have grappled with the issue of language and intention and
some have argued that intentionality can be separated from language and
later added to assist with interpretation (Juhl 1980), while others deny it is
even possible... (Searle,1969, Knapp & Michaels, 1985). The separability of
intentionality and language might be debatable but not so intentionality and
communication. (Ellis 1991 p. 221)
Many of Derrida's key ideas are based upon Saussurian notions which in
turn were grounded in the linguistics of speech. Saussure portrayed langue
(a system of words combined with a set of rules values and norms) as a
social institution but endowed each person with an internal representation of
it, thus permitting it access to la parole, its realisation in every day acts of
speech and writing. In this way then Saussure firmly lodged his rule system
in the 'speech circuit' with access to individual acts of speech.
Deconstruction, however, in removing text from its communicative context,
claims that meaning is postponed, or indeed infinitely deferred; that
interpretations need to be subjected to interpretation. I would argue that this
is simply not practically substantiated in everyday life any more than it is in
text. Most observations and questions encountered in everyday life require
no clarification whatsoever as can be confirmed by the relatively few
occasions on which misunderstandings do occur. We are often painfully
aware of the occasions when things do go badly wrong; aircraft crash,
patients die, Light Brigades are annihilated, but these are thankfully
relatively infrequent. Conversely, I am amazed at times, when transcribing a
tape recording of a lesson just how few words are used, or apparently
required, to transfer meaning. Social intercourse is not dependent upon
language alone, there are a myriad of other signifiers which indicate how a
particular statement is to be interpreted.
References
REFERENCES
by
KIP CANFIELD
Dept. of Information Systems, University of Maryland
canfield@icarus.ifsm.umbc.edu
I. ON (PURE) RHETORIC
[1] Peirce (Buchler 99) says that the task of pure rhetoric
is "to ascertain the laws by which, in every scientific
intelligence, one sign gives birth to another, and
especially one thought brings forth another." Sign models
are metaphors that evolve to support any constellation of
ideas, and as de Man points out, "metaphors are much more
tenacious than facts" ("Semiology and Rhetoric" 123). Any
critique of current ideas dealing with human cognition and
symbolic behavior must therefore address the metaphoricity
of sign models.
[2] In what follows, we will explore a remarkable
parallelism in stories about the sign, between the discourse
of the humanities and of cognitive sciences. This
exploration will be conducted in the form of close readings
of two works, "Linguistics and Grammatology," Chapter 2 of
_Of Grammatology_ by Jacques Derrida, and "On the proper
treatment of connectionism" by Paul Smolensky. The
purpose
of these readings is not to apply results from one field to
another or to hypothesize direct influence, but rather to
investigate two rhetorical strategies that develop in the
face of the same metaphoric impasse. Both of the works in
question come out of a rejection of structuralism--in
philosophy and cognitive science, respectively--and
although
their arguments are basically the same, they take different
paths away from structuralism.
[3] Derrida stakes out a skeptic's position, one that shows
the aporias and contradictions inherent in the dyadic sign
model used by structuralists. He explicitly denies that
there is any way around these contradictions. Smolensky,
by
contrast, has the scientist's typical aversion to
skepticism, and he tries to reconceive the sign model that
underlies his theory of connectionism in order to resolve
those same contradictions. The parallels between these two
works, I will argue, may be attributed to a similarity in
the historical moment of each author, even though the
works
themselves are twenty years apart and their authors are of
different nationalities.
[4] Derrida stakes out his territory in opposition to
Structuralism, with its linguistic model of rules and
grammars for atomic units of meaning. Oversimplification
of
Structuralism can be dangerous (see Culler 28), but in
essence, Structuralism was an empiricist reaction to the
interpretive projects of the New Criticism, and it explained
referent meaning as the center of a symbolic system or
structure. In "Linguistics and Grammatology," Derrida
demonstrates the problems that such an autistic view of
human signification entails, and suggests that the dyadic
sign model of Saussure is in fact responsible for generating
the aporias of Structuralism.
[5] Smolensky's work is an oppositional response to
traditional Cognitive Science, that uneasy mixture of
Cognitive Psychology and Artificial Intelligence. Cognitive
Psychology, in turn, began as a reaction to the empiricism
of Behaviorism and its inability to refer to Mind as a
theoretical construct. The relatively humanistic models
employed by Cognitive Psychology came under attack after
the
field became heavily influenced by computer-based Artificial
Intelligence in the 1970s, and it became fashionable to
value cognitive models only if they had a computational
implementation. The state of this modeling led to very
simple and brittle models of human cognition and, in effect,
dragged Cognitive Psychology back towards Empiricism. For
example, a recent work by Alan Newell (_Unified Theories of
Cognition_) proposes a theory of cognition that is based
primarily on production rules (rules of the if/then type).
The complex problem of how the antecedents and
consequents
of these rules arise cannot be addressed in such a limited
architecture: in fact, Smolensky sees this sort of dyadic
sign model--the kind of model that is easily implemented on
a serial computer--as the basic problem for objectivist
Cognitive Science.
[6] Both Smolensky and Derrida, then, object to a tradition
that presents a simplistic, deterministic view of human
signification, and both elaborate a new vision of semantics
and dynamics for their sign models. Each author offers a
vision of human cognition that is more complex, more
mysterious, and less deterministic than the traditions they
oppose.
SMOLENSKY'S MODEL
DERRIDA'S MODEL
SEMANTICS
DERRIDA'S ORIGINS
DYNAMICS
DERRIDA'S DIFFERANCE
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REFERENCES