Katz, J. Recent Issues in Semantic Theory

JERROLD J.
KATZ
RECENT ISSUES IN SEMANTIC THEORY*
I. INTRODUCTION
The present paper has two objectives. In part, it is a reply to Uriel Wein
reich's paper 'Explorations in Semantic Theory' 1, which critically discusses
the conception of a semantic theory first published in 'The Structure of a
Semantic Theory' 2 and subsequently extended in a number of publications,
including, chiefly, my 'Analyticity and Contradiction in Natural Language' 3,
Postal's and my book An Integrated Theory of Linguistic Descriptions4, and
my 'Semantic Theory and the Meaning of "Good"'.5 Weinreich's paper
contains serious misrepresentations of the theory developed in these publi
cations, stemming from misunderstandings about its aims and basic as
sumptions. It also presents what is purported to be a preferable conception
of semantic theory. One objective of this paper is, therefore, to expose his
misrepresentation and to demonstrate that his alternative conception of
semantic theory is not preferable.
However, I have kept this paper from being exclusively critical by utilizing
the opportunity afforded by a discussion of Weinreich's paper to further
elaborate my theory of the semantic component of a linguistic description.
My replies to Weinreich's criticisms are used here as convenient vehicles
both for presenting recent thoughts of mine on semantic theory and for
further clarifying and explaining the stands I take on some major issues in
theoretical semantics. Therefore, the paper's other objective is to make
constructive contributions to the field of semantics.
* This work was supported in part by the Joint Services Electronics Program (Contract
DA36-039-AMC-02300(E)), the National Science Foundation (Grant GP-2495), the
National Institutes of Health (Grant MH-04737-05), the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration, and the U.S. Air Force (ESD Contract AF19(628)-2487); also by a grant
from the National Institutes of Health (MH-05120-04) to Harvard University, Center for
Cognitive Studies.
1 Weinreich (1966), 395-477.
2 Katz and J. A. Fodor (1963), 170-210.
3 Katz (1964b), 519-546.
4 Katz and P. Postal (1964).
5 Katz (1964a), 739-766. And, more recently, a book that Weinreich did not have available
to him when he wrote his paper: Katz (1966).
124
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RECENT ISSUES IN SEMANTIC THEORY*
II. SEMANTIC THEORY IN BRIEF
In this section, I will present a summary of the semantic theory set forth
in my publications cited above. The extent of Weinreich's misrepresentations
makes such a presentation necessary in order that the reader have a state
ment of the theory readily available with which to compare them. Such a
comparison makes it easier to see how Weinreich's misrepresentations, all
taken together, give a false over-all picture of my semantic theory.
My conception of semantic theory was not developed as an isolated system
of principles but as an integrated part of a broader theory about the nature
of language in general. The basic problem of this broader theory - referred
to as linguistic theory6 - is to explicate the abstract form of the knowledge
that makes a speaker competent to communicate in his language. Linguistic
communication is envisaged as a process in which syntactically structured
and acoustically realized objects serve as vehicles for transmitting meaningful
messages from one person to another. The speaker encodes his inner, private
thoughts and ideas in the form of external, publicly observable, acoustic
phenomena, and the hearer decodes such physical phenomena to obtain his
own inner experience of the same thoughts and ideas. The solution that
linguistic theory offers for this basic problem has to be a delineation of the
principles that make it possible for different speakers of the same language
to assign the same meaning to the same acoustic signal. This solution must
take the form of a model which shows how the rules of particular linguistic
descriptions pair a phonetic representation of any appropriate acoustic
signal with its proper semantic interpretation.
According to the model developed by those working on linguistic theory,
the manner in which phonetic representations are paired with semantic
interpretations is specified by the organizational structure that linguistic
theory imposes on linguistic descriptions. A linguistic description, which is
a formal reconstruction of the internalized rules that constitute a speaker's
knowledge of his language, consists of three components. One of these three
is a syntactic component of the sort described by Chomsky in a variety of
publications.7 This component generates an infinite set of abstract formal
objects, called structural descriptions, each of which specifies the full syntactic
description of a single sentence. The other two components are a phono
logical component and a semantic component, as described, respectively in
the work of Halle and Chomsky8 and in the work of Fodor, Postal, and
6 Cf. Chomsky (1957, 1964, 1965).

7 Cf. the bibliography in Chomsky (1965).
8 Cf. the previous cited works of these authors, and Halle (1959); also Chomsky and
M. Halle, The Sound Pattern of English, Harper & Row, Inc., New York (in press).
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JERROLD J. KATZ
myself.9 The former component determines the phonetic shape of each

formal object generated by the syntactic component, while the latter provides
a semantic interpretation for each. Both these components thus have a purely
interpretive function.
More specifically, the structural description of a sentence contains a single
superficialphrase marker and a set of underlying phrase markers.10 The super
ficial phrase marker describes the 'surface structure' of the sentence, the
segmentation of the sentence (in the form in which it is phonetically realized)
into continuous constituents and the classification of these constituents into
one or another syntactic category at the levels of phrases, words, etc. The
underlying phrase markers describe the 'deep structure' of the sentence,
including, in particular, the grammatical relations that hold between its
constituents. The phonological component operates on the superficial phrase
marker to derive its phonetic representation, while the semantic component
operates on the underlying phrase markers to derive their semantic inter
pretations. Since this superficial phrase marker is generated by applying
some sequence of transformations to each of the appropriate underlying
phrase markers, the phonetic representation of a sentence is correlated
with its semantic interpretation by virtue of the fact that the underlying
phrase markers to which the semantic interpretation is assigned are trans
formationally related to the superficial phrase marker that receives the
phonetic representation. Hence, this transformational relation, together with
the manner in which the three components of a linguistic description operate
with respect to each other, serve as the basis on which phonetic representations
of acoustic signals are associated with their proper semantic interpretations.
This framework imposes a certain general makeup on semantic theory.
Semantic theory must bear the same relation of the semantic component that
phonological theory and syntactic theory bear, respectively, to the phono
logical and syntactic components. That is, semantic theory must express the
universal semantic structure of natural languages in the form of a model of
the semantic component that adequately characterizes the notions dictionary,
semantic rule, and semantic interpretation. The adequacy of the character
ization depends on whether each empirically successful semantic component
is an instance of the model, exemplifying every aspect of it. From this it
follows that the model must specify at the semantic level:
(i) organizational universals, the structure of the subcomponents of the
semantic component and the relations between these subcomponents;
9 Cf. footnote 8 above.

10 l am using the notion 'underlying phrase marker' in exactly the sense in which Chomsky
uses the notion 'deep phrase marker' in Chomsky (1965). Cf. Katz and P. Postal (1964),
particularly, Chapter 3, section 7.
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RECENT ISSUES IN SEMANTIC THEORY
(ii)formal universals, the formal structure of the rulesin each subcomponent;

(iii) substantive universals, the theoretical vocabulary that provides the
constructs for the formulation of particular rules with the formal structure
required by the formal universals.
The semantic theory set forth in the publications cited above presented
such a model. The model was designed as a hypothesis to explain how the
semantic competence of a speaker enables him to obtain the meaning of new
sentences - sentences he has never previously heard or spoken - on the basis
of this competence and his knowledge of the syntax of his language. The
hypothesis was that the semantic competence of a speaker enables him to
obtain the meaning of new sentences, and other new compound syntactic
constituents, as a compositional function of the meanings of their parts and
grammatical relations.1' Since infinitely many possible sentences are novel
arrangements of familiar lexical items, this hypothesis assumes that the
speaker's semantic competence provides him with meanings for each of the
finitely many lexical items of his language and a set of rules for combining
the meanings of linguistic constructions to compositionally form the
meaning of each sentence of his language and each compound constituent
of each sentence.
The organizational universals of semantic theory specify a definition of the
notion semantic component as part of this model. According to them, the
semantic component of a linguistic description consists of a dictionary in
which the senses of lexical items are represented and a set of projection rules
that provide the combinatorial machinery for constructing the representations
of the meaning of syntactically compound constituents from the represen
tations of the meanings of their parts. The dictionary is a list of entries, each
of which consists of a lexical item expressed in phonological notation, a set
of syntactic markers that characterize the syntactic features of the item, and
a finite set of lexical readings which exhaustively represent the senses of the
lexical item. A lexical reading consists of a set of semantic markers that
represent the conceptual components which make up one sense of the item,
then, optionally, a distinguisher that serves to divide senses of lexical items
for which there is no systematic conceptual distinction in the language, and,
finally, a selection restriction that states the condition under which that sense
can combine with senses of other constituents to form conceptually congruous
meanings.
Lexical readings are assigned to appropriate occurrences of lexical items
1 But, of course, not only new sentences. We claim that sentences which are not new are
also understood by a speaker because he obtains their meaning as a compositional function
of the meanings of their parts. The emphasis is placed on novel sentences because under
standing their meaning cannot be based on familiarity.
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JERROLD J. KATZ
in underlying phrase markers on the basis of a convention according to

which a reading of a lexical item in the dictionary is associated with an
occurrence of that item in an underlying phrase marker just in case the
syntactic markers in the entry categorize the item in the same way that it is
categorized by the labeled nodes dominating its occurrence in the underlying
phrase marker. Once all the lexical readings that can be assigned to occur
rences of lexical items in the underlying phrase marker are assigned, the
projection rules proceed to combine lexical readings to form derived readings,
which are then combined by projection rules to form further derived readings,
until each constituent in the underlying phrase marker, including the whole
sentence, is given a set of readings. When the readings assigned to the
component parts of a compound constituent are combined to form a derived
reading, the projection rule that combined them assigns that derived reading
to the compound constituent as a representation of one of its senses.
The formal universals specify a definition of the notion semantic rule, and
most importantly, the notion projection rule. Projection rules are differ
entiated from one another by their conditions of application and by the
operations they perform to form derived readings from lexical and/or derived
readings. A projection rule applies to a set of readings for constituents that
are grammatically related and there is a different projection rule for each
distinct grammatical relation. So there is one projection rule for attribution,
one for the subject-predicate relation, one for the verb-object relation, and
so on. Each projection rule performs a distinct operation on the readings to
which it applies. For example, the projection rule that combines readings of
a modifier and its head forms the derived reading by taking the Boolean
union of the semantic markers in each, whereas the projection rule that
combines for a verb and its object forms the derived reading by embedding
the reading of the latter into that of the former at a fixed position. Such
combinatorial operations are performed only if the readings to which a
projection rule applies meet the condition governing the combination.
Projection rules thus enforce selection restrictions by blocking all combi
nations where a reading does not contain the semantic markers necessary
to satisfy the selection restriction in another. The result of applying the
projection rules to an underlying phrase marker whose lexical items are
associated with appropriate sets of lexical readings is a semantically interpreted
underlying phrase marker, i.e. an underlying phrase marker each of whose
nodes is assigned a maximal set of readings.
The substantive universals specify the notion semantic interpretation of a
sentence. This notion can be defined as the set of a semantically interpreted
underlying phrase markers for the sentence and the set of statements about
the sentence that follow from these semantically interpreted underlying
128
phrase markers together with the definitions of semantic properties and

relations in semantic theory. Accordingly, to specify the notion of a semantic
interpretation, semantic theory must contain both a theoretical vocabulary
of semantic markers which makes it possible to characterize the notion of a
reading as a set of elements in this vocabulary and a set of definitions for
semantic properties and relations. These definitions determine the conditions
under which a statement predicating such a property or relation of a sentence
follows from one of its semantically interpreted underlying phrase markers.
The theoretical vocabulary of semantic markers provides a representational
system for meanings in the same sense that Jakobson's and Halle's theory
of distinctive features provides a representation system for the phonetic
structure of acoustic signals or Chomsky's theory of substantive, syntactic
universals provides a representation system for syntactic structures.12 Since
the semantic markers utilized in the construction of dictionary entries for
particular linguistic descriptions will be drawn from this universal vocabulary,
the vocabulary offers a language-independent means of representing the
common conceptual system underlying communication in natural languages.
The same representational mechanism for characterizing meanings within a
particular natural language thus also serves to characterize meanings across
natural languages, so that it is possible to formulate the fact that trans
lationally equivalent sentences express the same conceptual content by
giving each sentence in a translationally equivalent n-tuple the same semantic
representation (i.e. the same reading) in different linguistic descriptions.
Semantic markers must, therefore, be thought of as theoretical constructs
introduced into semantic theory to designate language invariant but language
linked components of a conceptual system that is part of the cognitive
structure of the human mind.
A semantic marker is a theoretical term that designates a class of equivalent
concepts or ideas. Consider the idea each of us thinks of as part of the
meaning of the words 'chair', 'stone', 'man', 'building', 'planet', etc., but not
part of the meaning of such words as 'truth', 'togetherness', 'feeling',
'shadow', 'integer', 'departure', etc. - the idea that we take to express what
is common to the meaning of the words in the former group and that we use
to conceptually distinguish them from those in the latter. Roughly, we might
characterize what is common to our individual ideas as the notion of a
spatially and temporally contiguous material thing. The semantic marker
(Physical Object) is introduced to designate that notion. It provides a
means of expressing the generalization that the words in the former group
are semantically similar in this conceptual respect whereas they differ in
12 Cf. Chomsky (1965), Chapter 1, section 5.
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JERROLD J. KATZ
meaning from the words in the latter group in the same respect. Such
generalizations are expressed by including this semantic marker in the lexical
readings for the words in the former group and excluding it from the lexical
readings for those in the latter.
Derived readings also provide statements of semantic regularities. The
expressions 'one of the bachelors on my block', 'an uncle who lives in Detroit',
'my best male friend', 'the bull that left the farm last week', 'the neighborhood
priest', 'her younger brother', 'my sister's spouse', etc., are all semantically
similar in that each has the concept maleness in its meaning, while the ex
pressions 'a cheerful classmate", 'our favorite sister', 'sticks and stones', 'the
truth about city politics', 'the parent who visited the school', 'my watch', etc.,
are not similar in the relevant respect either to the expressions in the previous
list or to each other. Such semantic generalizations are obtained by projection
rules that assign derived readings containing the semantic marker (Male) to
each of the expressions in the former list. They cannot assign a derived reading
containing this semantic marker to any expression in the latter because
(Male) is not in any of the lexical readings for the components of these
expressions.
Thus, one way to think of semantic markers is as the elements in terms of
which semantic generalizations can be made. But another is to think of them
in terms of the role a set of semantic markers plays as the representation of a
sense. In this role, they provide a decomposition of a sense of a constituent,
breaking it down into its component concepts. They thus provide the formal
elements that make it possible for us to reveal the structure of complex
semantic entities: a configuration of semantic markers assigned to a con
stituent as its reading mirrors the structure of the sense of the constituent
because formal elements in the configuration stand for components of that
sense.
The semantic interpretation of a sentence is the object paired with its
phonetic representation in the linguistic reconstruction of the process by
which speakers pair meanings with speech signals. It consists of a set of
semantically interpreted underlying phrase markers together with the set of
statements that follow from them and the definitions of semantic properties
and relations in semantic theory. Thus, to complete the definition of a
semantic interpretation, semantic theory must contain an exhaustive list of
such definitions. In previous publications, we offered the following definitions
among others:
(1) A constituent of a sentence S, including S itself, is semantically anoma
lous just in case the set of readings assigned to it is empty.
(2) A constituent of S, including S itself, is semantically unique just in case
the set of readings assigned to it contains one member.
130
(3) A constituent of S, including S itself, is semantically ambiguous n-ways

just in case the set of readings assigned to it contains n members, for n > 1.
(4) S, is a paraphrase of S2 just in case the set of readings assigned to
S, and the set of readings assigned to S2 have one member in common.
(5) S1 is a full paraphrase of S2 just in case the set of readings assigned to
S1 and the set of readings assigned to S2 are identical.
(6) A constituent C1 is synonymous with another C2 just in case the set of
readings assigned to one contains a member that is also in the set assigned to
the other.
(7) C1 is fully synonymous with C2 just in case the set of readings assigned
to C1 and the set of readings assigned to C2 are identical.
(8) One constituent or sentence is semantically distinct from another just in
case the set of readings assigned to one does not have a single member in
common with the set assigned to the other.
(9) A constituent is semantically similar to another constituent with respect
to the concept f just in case the readings assigned to both contain the
semantic marker (s).
(10) One sense of a constituent C1 is included in a sense of constituent C2
just in case every semantic marker in a reading for C1 is also in a reading for
C2.
We also gave definitions for such properties and relations as analyticity,
contradiction, syntheticity, inconsistency antonymy, entailment, and so
forth.13
Not only do such definitions complete the definition of a semantic interpre
tation, they also provide a basis for systematically testing both linguistic
descriptions and semantic theory. Each such definition is formulated in
terms of a purely formal condition on semantically interpreted underlying
phrase markers. Therefore, given a definition for the semantic property P
or relation R and a semantically interpreted underlying phrase marker for a
sentence S, if the semantically interpreted underlying phrase marker has the
formal features required by the definition, then the semantic interpretation of
S contains a statement that S has the property P or bears R to another
sentence. In this manner, the semantic interpretation of a sentence provides
predictions about its semantic properties and its semantic relations to other
sentences. These predictions can be tested against the judgments fluent
speakers make about the meaning of the sentence by determining whether
sentences predicted to have the same property or relation are classified
together on the basis of judgments reflecting the linguistic intuition of fluent
speakers. Thus, the description of the language given by a semantic com
13 Cf. Katz (1964b), and now The Philosophy of Language, Chapter 5.
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JERROLD J. KATZ
ponent and semantic theory can be submitted to empirical tests that may
either confirm or disconfirm them. If such predictions are falsified, it be
comes necessary to make suitable revisions in either the semantic component
or the relevant definition or both on order to block the false predictions.
III. WEINREICH S PRELIMINARY CRITICISMS
At the outset, Weinreich badly misrepresents the above conception of the

explanatory goals of semantic description. After quoting a remark of Fodor's
and mine about such goals, which clearly contradicts his interpretation of
our position'4 he says:
In actuality, KF is concerned with an extremely limited part of the semantic
competence: the detection of semantic anomalies and the determination of the
number of readings of a sentence.15
Weinreich incorrectly characterizes our conception of the output of a semantic

component by presenting it not as a semantic interpretation of a sentence but
as an integer, 0 in case the sentence is anomalous, 1 in case it is unique, and
2 or greater in case it is two or more ways semantically ambiguous. But we
quite explicitly state, both there in the article from which Weinreich quotes
and in many places elsewhere 6, that a semantic component is concerned
with every facet of the speaker's ability to grasp the meaning of sentences on
the basis of compositional constructions from the meanings of their parts.
Moreover, as the very passage that Weinreich quotes explains, we do not
limit semantic description in the manner he suggests, for this quotation
includes the qualification that a semantic component must be able to mark
"every other semantic property or relation that plays a role in this ability"'17
In our previous publications, we discussed at great length many other aspects
of this ability besides the determination of whether a sentence is semantically
14 Weinreich (1966), 397. Note especially our qualification [4].

15 Weinreich(1966), 397. Weinreich says that we only touched on the notion of paraphrase
in passing and he then concludes that paraphrase determination is not one of the concerns
of semantic theory in our sense. Even if we only touched on it, so long as we made it one
of the concerns, which we certainly did, it is clear-cut misrepresentation to say that, in
actuality our conception of semantic theory is not concerned with this notion. But we did
more than just touch on it, we defined the paraphrase relation in terms of identity of
readings. This is hardly more or less than defining anomaly in terms of absence of reading
or ambiguity in terms of multiplicity of readings, and these notions he accepts as genuine
concerns of semantic theory according to us.
16 Consider any of the works referred to in footnotes 3, 4, and 5.
17 Again, why does Weinreichignore discussions of the determination of semantic properties
and relations such as analyticity, contradiction, syntheticity, entailment, antonymy,
inconsistency, presupposition, possible answer, etc.? Not agreeing with the explications
we offer for these notions is one thing, but to ignore those offered, and thereby mis
characterize our theory, is quite another.
132
anomalous or semantically ambiguous, and nowhere, throughout this entire

discussion, do we ever give these two particular aspects any privileged treat
ment or accord them a special role not accorded to the other aspects that
also help to make up the speaker's semantic competence.
Hence, Weinreich's first and most serious misrepresentation of our seman
tic theory consists in taking two things that our theory requires of an adequate
semantic component to constitute the only things that a semantic component,
on our conception of semantic theory, is required to do. But it is amply clear
just from the publications of ours cited in Weinreich's own bibliography that,
beside requiring a semantic component to predict semantic anomaly and
semantic ambiguity, we also require it to predict such other semantic
properties and relations as synonymy, paraphrase, antonymy, semantic
distinctness, semantic similarity, inclusion of senses, inconsistency, ana
lyticity, contradiction, syntheticity, entailment, possible answer to a question,
presupposition, and so forth. Now, the qualification "and so forth" is abso
lutely crucial in just the respect that the qualification which appears in the
passage of ours quoted by Weinreich is. Such qualifications express our ac
knowledgement of the fact that the list of semantic properties and relations to
which they are appended are not exhaustive. Listing such semantic properties
and relations as semantic anomaly, semantic ambiguity, as well as the others
that are mentioned above commits us to the claim that the ability of a speaker
to make judgments about these form part of his semantic competence, while
including such qualifications expresses our recognition that it has not yet
been determined what other particular abilities also comprise parts of this
competence. Weinreich has neglected both our discussions of semantic
properties and relations other than semantic anomaly and semantic ambi
guity and our explicit qualifications that those discussed do not exhaust all
the aspects of a speaker's semantic competence.
When a critic contradicts explicit statements given by the authors them
selves about the goals of their theory and says that the authors actually
mean something other than what they say, the critic is obliged to offer sound
reasons for his claim that they do not really mean what they say. Weinreich
does not provide any.
One further point. We have not just listed a set of requirements on the
predictive adequacy of a semantic component. We have also offered expla
nations of the semantic properties and relations which we require a semantic
component to predict and a general method for deriving such predictions
based on these explanations. That is, in each case, we have offered a definition
of the semantic property or relation which explains what it is that the
speaker's judgment is a judgment of, i.e. what structure is attributed to a
sentence when it is predicted to have a certain semantic property or bear a
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JERROLD J. KATZ
certain semantic relation to another. Therefore, even in the case of the two
semantic properties that Weinreich concedes to our conception of semantic
theory, semantic anomaly and semantic ambiguity, semantic theory tries to
do more than merely "detect" cases of the former and "determine" the
number of senses in cases of the latter. It also offers explanations of the
anomaly or ambiguity of a sentence on the basis of features of the repre
sentation of its meaning.
It is important to note in this connection that, although we have not as
yet given definitions for all the semantic properties and relations that play a
role in the speaker's semantic competence, the manner in which semantic
theory is formulated does commit us to the thesis that any other semantic
properties and relations about which speakers can make reliable judgments
can be defined in the same manner in which the ones considered so far have
been defined. That is, and this is a crucial point, our semantic theory is
built on the principle that all such aspects of a speaker's semantic competence
can be reconstructed and explained in terms of definitions framed in terms
of formal features of semantically interpreted underlying phrase markers.
Thus, any aspect of the speaker's semantic competence that can be expressed
in his judgments about the semantic structure of sentences can be predicted
from such definitions and the appropriate semantically interpreted under
lying phrase markers. One of the real tests of semantic theory lies in deter
mining the truth of this claim about the definability of semantic properties
and relations.
After first misrepresenting our conception of semantic theory in this way,
Weinreich proceeds to the errors of such a preoccupation with the concept
of polysemy. He writes:
But in assigning this concept so central a place, KF is guilty of two errors. In the
first place, it takes no cognizance of the obvious danger that the differentiation
of submeanings in a dictionary might continue without limit.'8
This is all what Weinreich says about the first alleged error at this point in
his paper. But he returns to it later, and we shall return to this criticism at the
appropriate point in this paper. However, we may make one observation
here. On the view that a semantic component is an explication of a speaker's
semantic competence, which Weinreich shares with us, it is quite impossible
to imagine how such infinite differentiation can be taken as a real danger.
Weinreich is here entertaining either the, possibility that the submeanitigs, or
senses, of a lexical item can in certain instances be infinite in number, or the
possibility that the senses of certain lexical items involve infinitely many
semantic distinctions, or the possibility that there are infinitely many lexical
18 Weinreich (1966), 398.
134
entries in the dictionary, or some combinations of these. However, there is

the best empirical reason for ruling out all of these possibilities. Namely,
no language with such a dictionary structure could be acquired or possessed
by creatures, such as ourselves, with finite brains that function in real time.
The fact that semantic competence is a human competence and that a sem
antic component is an explication of semantic competence eliminates the
possibility of such a danger. For this reason, in our statement of semantic
theory, we required that the dictionary be a finite list of entries, that each
entry consist of afinite number of lexical readings, and that each lexical read
ing contain a finite set of semantic markers. Given that we did make this
stipulation about the dictionary, it is all the more curious that Weinreich
should accuse us of not taking cognizance of what he calls an "obvious
danger".
Weinreich next accuses us of a second error. He writes:
In the second place, one would think a scientific approach which distinguishes
between competence (knowledge of a language) and performance (use of a language)
ought to regard the automatic disambiguation of potential ambiguities as a matter
of hearer performance.19
The mistake underlying this criticism is a confusion of two different things

under the ambiguous expression "automatic disambiguation of potential
ambiguities", one of which is part of the theory of competence and is treated
as such in our semantic theory while the other is part of the theory of per
formance and is treated as such by our semantic theory. First, there is the
sort of disambiguation that is a matter of the internal semantic structure of
a sentence, where various senses of certain of its constituents make no contri
bution to the meaning of the whole sentence due to their conceptual in
congruity with senses of other constituents in the sentence. Internal dis
ambiguation was explicated by us in terms of the operation of selection
restrictions, enforced by projection rules, to prevent the assignment of derived
readings to constituents whose component constituents have senses that are
conceptually incongruous with one another. We illustrated this sort of
disambiguation with a variety of examples, one of which is,
(1) The man hit the colorful ball.
We argued that (1) has no meaningful interpretation on which 'ball' has the
sense of a social activity, even though it has this as one of its senses in the
dictionary, because of the conceptual incongruity of relating a social activity
19 Weinreich (1966), 398.
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JERROLD J. KATZ
to a physical action such as hitting by making it the object on which the

action is performed. This type of disambiguation has as its limiting case sem
antically anomalous sentences, such as,
(2) The man hit the tea party with a hammer.
This type of disambiguation is regarded as a necessary task for semantic

components, since it concerns the internal semantic structure of sentences
and no extra-linguistic considerations enter essentially to decide such cases.
Thus, semantic theory takes such disambiguation to be a matter to be dealt
with in the theory of competence.
Second, there is the sort of disambiguation that is accomplished on the
basis of extra-linguistic considerations, particularly contextual information.
Consider a semantically ambiguous sentence such as,
(3) There is no school any more.
Utterances of such a sentence can occur in a situation where the hearer(s)

can decide that some of its possible senses do not apply but others do. For
example, suppose an utterance of (3) occurs while we are looking at a school
building, intact and undamaged. Then, the situation or context gives us the
information we need to decide that the utterance uniquely means that there
will be no more sessions of the teaching institution. The point becomes
clearer when we compare this case with one where an utterance of (3) occurs
while we are faced with the charred rubble of what was once the school.
Such cases of external disambiguation were referred to by Fodor and me as
"setting selection" and we took great pains to argue that they do not fall in
the domain of semantic components.20 Conflating these two distinct types
of disambiguation makes Weinreich's criticism of us seem plausible by
encouraging one type to be confused with the other. Thus the reader is
led to think that we require that external disambiguation be handled in
the same theory in which we propose to handle internal disambiguation.
Since these different types of disambiguation are clearly distinguished in our
first paper on semantic theory, it can only be concluded that Weinreich
misunderstood our original statement of the distinction.
It should be pointed out also that Weinreich's further claim that our
theory "could not explain sentences that are meant by the speaker to be
ambiguous" is not a criticism of our theory, as Weinreich believes it is.2'
For no theory dealing exclusively with linguistic cempetence can be expected
20 Katz and J. A. Fodor (1963), the section titled 'Linguistic Description Minus Grammar
Equals Semantics'.
21 Weinreich (1966), 398.
136
to explain the intentions of speakers in actual speech situations. Consider

parallel case in syntax. A speaker could use
(4) Visiting relatives can be annoying
with the express intention of referring to annoyance caused by relatives

visiting one, or with the express intention of referring to annoyance caused
by one's going to visit his relatives, or with the express intention of uttering
an ambiguous sentence (to confuse his hearer or refer to both annoyances
at once). Clearly, no one would say that the grammar of English has to
explain that a particular utterance of (4) was meant by the speaker to be
ambiguous and that another particular utterance of (4) was meant not to be.
Weinreich fails to appreciate the fact that a theory of competence, whether
at the semantic or grammatical level, abstracts away from features of
utterance contexts and concerns itself exclusively with inherent features of
the sentence-type, of which such utterances-in-context are just tokens.
Weinreich has misunderstood this aspect of the distinction between compe
tence and performance, taking intention, which is one psychological variable
influencing the latter, to be a significant feature of the former.
Finally, consider Weinreich's further claim that a semantic description in
our sense "'... cannot represent the ambiguity between a grammatical and a
deviant sentence".22 This claim is false, as can be seen from the discussion
of deviant sentences in my paper 'Semi-sentences' 23, where such a represen
tation is given. Admittedly, my theory of semi-sentences is far from com
pletely worked out, but it does offer a conception of how to represent ambi
guities between deviant and nondeviant cases. Semi-sentences, on my theory,
are related to appropriate grammatical sentences and by virtue of this
relation (explicated by a semi-derivation) semi-sentences are provided with
a semantic interpretation by a transfer of the semantic interpretation from
the appropriate grammatical sentences to them. Hence, if a particular pho
netic object has both a grammatical derivation and a semi-derivation, and
these are connected with different semantic interpretations, the phonetic
object will be represented as ambiguous. Thus, to support his charge that
semantic theory cannot do what it is supposed to do in this case, Weinreich
would have had to show that a semantic theory of the sort we propose
together with a theory of deviance of this kind is not adequate for marking
the ambiguities in question. Because he neglects the theory of deviance, he
has failed to support his charge.
22 Weinreich (1966), 398.

23 Katz (1964c), 400-416.
137
JERROLD J. KATZ
IV. SYNTACTIC MARKERS IN DICTIONARY ENTRIES
Weinreich begins his discussion of our treatment of syntactic markers by

saying that "the theoretical status of the syntactic markers in KF is not
clear".24 But he does not tell us why he thinks their status is unclear on our
conception of semantic theory. Certainly, the charge of unclarity is not being
made against the concept of a syntactic marker given by Chomsky and other
generative grammarians, since Weinreich himself accepts this concept. Since
we have only borrowed this concept in order to state the connection between
the syntactic and semantic components of a linguistic description, he cannot
mean his charge to apply to our adopted concept. Thus, he must mean it to
apply to our use of the concept.
But, then, the very opposite of Weinreich's charge is the case. For better
or worse, if one thing is crystal clear about our use of syntactic markers, it is
their status in dictionary entries and the role they play in the assignment of
lexical readings from dictionary entries to occurrences of lexical items in
underlying phrase markers. Our formulation of their status und utilization
is given in purely formal terms.
Just to set the record straight, let us review the account of their status and
utilization provided in previous publications. A dictionary entry consists of
a set of lexical readings associated with a phonological representation of a
morpheme and a set of syntactic markers. These syntactic markers provide
the information necessary to determine whether the lexical reading associated
with a morpheme M is to be assigned to an occurrence of M in an underlying
phrase marker. We proposed that the assignment take place just in case the
syntactic categorization of M in the underlying phrase marker ascribes to M
exactly those syntactic markers that appear in the set of syntactic markers
in the entry for M. Thus, syntactic markers in a dictionary entry simply
provide a necessary and sufficient condition for assigning a lexical reading
to those occurrences of the morpheme in the entry that have the requisite
syntactic properties. The determination of whether or not such a condition
is satisfied in the case of any particular phrase marker is made on the basis
of the purely formal operation of checking to determine if each symbol in
the set of syntactic markers in the entry for the lexical item M also occurs
among those symbols that label nodes dominating the occurrence of M
in the phrase marker.
After criticizing us for lack of clarity on this matter, Weinreich immediately
goes on to say,
It is probably fair to understand that the function of the syntactic marker SxMi is
24 Weinreich (1966), 400.
138
to assure that all entries having that marker, and only those, can be introduced
into the points of a syntactic frame identified by the category symbol SxMi.25
Since this is just to say what we have often said explicitly, it is not very
hard to see why Weinreich thinks it "probably fair" to understand us in
this way. But Weinreich's manner of phrasing this matter makes it appear
as if he is according us a better interpretation than our discussion deserves.
Actually, however, our discussion of the status and role of syntactic markers
is formally much more satisfactory than his rephrasing of them.26
Weinreich next observes, quite correctly, that our formulation of the
syntactic portion of a dictionary entry is given in terms of the type of
syntactic theory presented in such early works of Chomsky's as Syntactic
Structures and 'A Transformational Approach to Syntax'.27 In this type of
theory, subclassification under a major category (i.e. Noun, Verb, etc.) and
cross-classification with respect to subclasses were handled by using re
writing rules typical of what was then called the phrase structure sub
component of the grammar. Since these early works, Chomsky and others
have discovered that rules of this sort are too weak in expressive power to
permit a satisfactory systematization of cross-classificational phenomena at
the syntactic level. Thus, it is certainly true that our previous account of
syntactic markers, like those of other linguists prior to the discovery of the
inadequacy of using phrase structure rules to handle cross-classification,
were based upon an incorrect conception of the nature of the syntactic
markers that represent the syntactic properties and relations involved in
cross-classification under major categories. But since we went along with
others in accepting the older theory in which cross-classificational properties
and relations are treated as if they were subclassificational, we cannot be
accused of being unclear with regard to whether syntactic markers that
25 Weinreich (1966), 400.

26 Consider Weinreich's formulas in (2), page 401. For one thing, the rule (2i), according to
Weinreich, does not exhibit the fact that B and C are subcategories of A, but why not,
since any rule of this form produces a configuration of symbols in a phrase marker in
which either A dominates B or A dominates C. For another, he says (2ii) does show
subcategorization. This is true, but it does so for exactly the same reason that (2i) does.
In fact, these are formally the same cases, since A1 and A2 are just formally distinct, single
symbols like B and C. Weinrich thinks that the subscripts in (2ii) serve as subcategory
designations but actually all they do is formally distinguish A1 from A2 as different
symbols, just as the difference in shape between the letters B and C distinguish them as
different symbols. Finally, (2iii) is not, as Weinreich claims, a feature notation. Rather, it is a
rewrite rule, allowing us to add the line A + [+ F] or A + [- F] when we already have
the line A in a phrase structure derivation. Weinreich fails to understand that it is not the
inability of phrase structure rules to exhibit subcatagorization that makes features neces
sary but rather the inappropriateness of subcategorization at the level of cross-classification.
27 Chomsky (1957) and Chomsky (1962), 124-158; reprinted in Katz and J. A. Fodor
(1963), 211-245.
139
JERROLD J. KATZ
represent such properties and relations are to be understood in terms of the

older or newer type of theory.
The difficulty in using phrase structure rules to handle the phenomena
of cross-classification is that their use expresses the mistaken hypothesis
that the relation between a morpheme and the categories to which it belongs
is the same as the relation between a phrase and the categories to which
it belongs. But, as has been argued quite convincingly by Chomsky28,
subclassification and cross-classification under major categories is not
organized hierarchically in the way that phrases are categorized. Phrase
structure rules thus serve as an adequate model of phrase structure organ
ization but not as an adequate model of subclassification and cross-classi
fication structure. Consider an example. An English noun can be sub
classified as either common or proper, e.g. 'apple' vs. 'John'. Independently
of this, it can also be subclassified as count or mass, e.g. 'spoon' vs. 'blood'.
Further, it can be independently classified as masculine, feminine, or neuter,
e.g. 'brother' vs. 'lady' vs. 'stone'. Still further, it can be classified as abstract
or concrete, e.g. 'truth' vs. 'house'. And so forth. Now, if we try to handle
cross-classification by rules of the form A-*X, we have to choose one of
these distinctions - proper/common, count/mass, masculine/feminine/neuter,
abstract/concrete, etc. - as the highest category division in the hierarchy, for
it will be recalled that rules of this form hypothesize that subclassification
and cross-classification under major categories has the same hierarchical
organization as phrase structure. Suppose, then, we choose the proper!
common distinction; accordingly, with a further choice of the next highest
distinction, and another for the next highest, and still another for the next,
and so on, we might have rules like:
Noun-+Proper-Noun
Noun -+Common-Noun
Proper-Noun -Count-Proper-Noun
Common-Noun- Count-Common-Noun
Proper-Noun-- Mass-Proper-Noun
Common-Noun--Mass-Common-Noun
The trouble with such rules is the following. First, there is no motivation for
the choices that we have to make to establish subclassificational distinctions
as constituting levels in the hierarchy. Second, symbols such as 'Count
Proper-Noun', 'Count-Common-Noun', 'Mass-Common-Noun', etc. are
28 Chomsky (1965), 75-127.
140
formally speaking, as distinct from another as the symbols 'A', 'B', 'C', etc.
This means that, with these symbols, there is no way to express the relations
between subcategories, for the formalism treats the subcategories represented
by 'Count-Proper-Noun' and 'Count-Common-Noun' as bearing no more
relation to one another than the subcategories represented by 'Proper-Noun'
and 'Abstract-Noun'. As a consequence, although it will be possible, for
example, to state a transformational rule that applies only to Proper Nouns,
or one that applies only to Common Nouns, when it comes to a rule that
must apply to Count Nouns or one that must apply to Mass Nouns, it must be
stated in terms of the wholly unrelated subcategories of Proper-Noun or
Common-Noun. Accordingly, we miss a generalization thatwould increase the
simplicity and depth of the analysis. The seriousness of this failure is multiplied
ats we require further rules that apply to cases in terms of subcategories lower
down in the hierarchy. For in these cases, owing the nature of expansion by
rewriting rules, we will further increase the number of such unnecessary
distinctions that must be imported whenever a rule requires a subcategory
distinction. Therefore, if we represent cross-classificational subclassification
hierarchically, we have no motivation for the decisions about domination
that we adopt, and we are unable to formulate transformational rules so that
they make simple and revealing generalizations about the conditions under
which they connect underlying and superficial structures.
Because of this, Chomsky was led to develop a type of rule for representing
cross-classificational subclassification in syntax without imposing hier
archical ordering. This type of rule was already found in phonology29 and
Chomsky modelled his new theory of subclassification and cross-classifi
cation in syntax on phonological rules of this type. Revising his early version
of syntactic theory, he restricted the appearance of re-writing rules to what
he calls the categorical component of the grammar, which handles just the
phrase structure, and he introduced what he calls a lexicon, which is to
handle structure below the phrase level. The lexicon consists of an unordered
set of entries each of which is a set of syntactic features associated with a set
of phonological features that specify the lexical item itself. The syntactic
features are given in a complex symbol such as [+ Noun, + Common,
+Count, ...], where '+' indicates that the lexical item in question has the
feature so marked and '-' indicates that it does not. The categorical com
ponent contains, for each major category A, a rule A-- A, where A is a
dummy symbol for which complex symbols will be substituted according
to a fixed convention. The categorical component and the lexicon constitute
the base component of the syntactic component of a linguistic description.
29 Halle (1959).
141
JERROLD J. KATZ
The former component generates pre-terminal strings which consist of

occurrences of A and grammatical morphemes, but contain no lexical items
or subclassification markers. These are converted into terminal strings of the
base component when complex symbols are inserted into the positions
marked by occurrences of A in accord with the general convention for substi
tution. This new theory not only avoids the problems encountered in trying to
state cross-classificational relations in terms of a hierarchy system - there is no
longer a need for unmotivated choices because there is not longer the need
for arranging the subclassificational divisions into a hierarchy and the
transformational rules can now refer just to the feature(s) actually deter
mining their application - but it turns out also to lead to a sizable number of
extremely important additional results in syntax.30
Now, while it is perfectly true that Fodor and I originally based our con
ception of a dictionary entry on the early theory of syntactic subclassification
and cross-classification and thus inherited the mistakes of that theory, we had
very little alternative in the absence of a better theory at that time. But it is
just because we did indeed adopt the wrong conception that was then
prevalent that it is not true, as Weinreich claims, that we were eclectic as
between a category and feature interpretation of the syntactic markers in a
dictionary entry. Quoting Weinreich,
Single, global syntactic markers would correspond to implicit notations, such as
(2i); sequences of elementary markers, to a feature notation such as (2iii). The KF
approach is eclectic on this point. The sequences of markers 'Verb - Verb Transi
tive' for their sample entry 'play' corresponds to principle (2iii); the marker 'Noun
concrete' seems to follow the least revealing principle (2i).31
There is no justification for Weinreich to say that we regarded 'Verb

Transitive' as anything but a category symbol just like 'Noun Concrete'. Of
course, in line with Chomsky's recent revision of the treatment of subclassi
fication and cross-classification, I would now prefer to treat transitivity and
concreteness as features rather than categories in a hierarchy.
But I was not then, nor am now, eclectic on the issue of subclassificational
properties in syntax.
Weinreich concludes the passage just quoted by saying:
To be sure, the examples in KF are intended to be only approximate, but they are
surprisingly anecdotal in relation to the state of our knowledge of English syntax;
what is more, they are mutually inconsistent.32
30 The treatment of the feature system given in this paragraph is one of two methods
proposed by Chomsky (1965), 75-127. At the present time, it is not known which of them
is preferable, but for the purposes of our discussion they are not sufficiently different to
warrant a comparison.
31 Weinreich (1966), 401.
32 Weinreich (1966), 401.
142
I will not dwell on the second of these charges. I am not sure what it means to
say that examples are inconsistent. If it is a way of saying that our treatment
of syntactic markers is inconsistent, then we have just answered this charge.
As to the first charge that our examples are "surprisingly anecdotal", I
must confess that I am puzzled that such a charge should be made at all.
Perhaps Weinreich means that the syntactic concepts we have used as ex
amples in previous publications are not representative of those available in
syntactic theory at its present state of development. However, his own
examples seem no better off than ours in this respect. Thus, interpreting
Weinreich to be referring to syntactic concepts, if correct, would mean that
he is operating on a double standard. Moreover, it would be an irrelevant
standard. Examples do not have to be representative, since they are not
intended to serve as an indication of the state of our knowledge of syntax.
They are only required to illustrate the point that they are supposed to be
examples of.
Thus, it must be that Weinreich has in mind examples of linguistic con
structions, the examples from English that we have used. In this case his
statement that our examples are "surprisingly anecdotal" criticizes us for
choosing examples that, individually, are not representative of actual speech
or that, collectively, do not comprise a corpus that is nearly extensive enough.
Thus, a set of examples that would clearly avoid this criticism would be one
whose members are literal transcriptions of natural speech and that is itself
in size somewhere on the order of the number of sentences in the books of a
well-stocked public library (or, in the case of words, somewhere on the order
of the number of words in a standard desk dictionary). Here, again, Wein
reich seems to operate on a double standard. But since Weinreich makes this
criticism repeatedly and since it is, of course, possible that both Weinreich
and we could be subject to the same valid criticism, it is important to show
that the criticism is not valid.
Let us take the two interpretations of the criticism separately. First, the
charge that our examples are not literal transcriptions of natural speech
falsely implies that they would be better as examples if they did reflect all the
linguistically irrelevant distortions characteristic of natural speech. But,
since these distortions are due to such things as memory limitations, dis
tractions, shifts of attention and interest, changes in motivation, idio
syncratic and random psychological errors, etc., this charge is based on a
failure to understand that the distinction between a theory of competence
and a theory of performance also involves a distinction between the sort of
evidence relevant to the former type of theory and the sort relevant to the
latter type. Evidence which is appropriate as a basis for judging a theory of
competence reflects only the ideal form of the speaker's linguistic knowledge,
143
JERROLD J. KATZ
while evidence which is appropriate as a basis for judging a theory of

performance exhibits the adulterations of the ideal that are causal effects of
the kind of psychological mechanism that determines how he uses his
linguistic knowledge. Consequently, if our examples were literal transcrip
tions of natural speech, thus containing all the linguistically irrelevant dis
tortions characteristic of natural speech, they would not be better examples
for a theory of competence, but would be examples that are appropriate to a
theory of performance rather than a theory of competence.
Second, if the charge is that we do not give nearly enough examples, then
it misses the important difference between a theoretical study whose main
interest is to propose a new conception of a system of rules for representing
linguistic structure and a descriptive study whose main interest is to show
that a certain class of linguistic structures in a given language can be ac
counted for within the framework of a particular system of rules. In the
former case, which includes both Weinreich's and our work, examples are
used as illustrations and as indications of the sort of evidence that would
confirm the new conception, and so they need not be so numerous. But, even
in the latter case, it is certainly wrong to think that enormous numbers of
examples are necessary and quite utopian to expect to obtain them. We can
not obtain such a huge corpus without turning linguists into mere data
collectors. Moreover, it is unnecessary to go on collecting further data after
a certain point because such further data does not significantly increase the
confirmation of our description. Other sciences recognize a point of di
minishing returns in confirmation and linguistics should too.
As a consequence of Chomsky's reinterpretation of syntactic markers at
the subclassificational level as features, semantic theory now faces the
question of how to manage the association of lexical readings with lexical
items in underlying phrase markers so as to capitalize on Chomsky's new
approach to syntactic cross-classification. It will be recalled that an entry in
the lexicon is a pair of a phonological distinctive feature matrix D which
specifies the spelling of a lexical item and a complex symbol C which pro
vides its syntactic features. This requires no change in the conception of the
dictionary, since a dictionary entry is an entry from the lexicon and a set of
lexical readings, as before. The lexical substitution rule allows us to replace
occurrences of A in pre-terminal strings by entries from the lexicon of the
form (D, C) just in case the syntactic marker dominating A appears in the
complex symbol C.33 For example, if an occurrence of A is dominated by
'Noun', we could substitute the entry (boy, [+ Noun, + Common, + Count,
+ Concrete, + Masculine, .. .]). Now, if the set of readings for D is already
33 Chomsky (1965), 84-106.
144
associated with (D, C) in the dictionary, of which the lexicon is a part, then
there is no reason for not allowing this set of readings to be carried along
with the substitution so that after all lexical substitutions each lexical item
in the underlying phrase marker will be assigned its proper set of lexical
readings. Thus, the obvious and most natural change to make in the con
ception of the semantic component to bring it in line with this change of
Chomsky's in the syntactic component is to drop the convention (1)34, since
the lexical substitution rule already performs the function that (I) was
designed to perform. The postulation of (I) can be thought of as something
that was necessary to fill a gap that existed in the earlier formulation of the
syntactic component. Its removal can be thought of not only as an increase
in the simplicity of the semantic component but also as the elimination of a
certain heterogeneity in the types of rules proposed in semantic theory.
That is, it was always somewhat unclear just what the status of (I) was.
Was it to be thought of as another type of projection rule different in kind
from the others or some other type of semantic rule? To adopt the former
interpretation complicates the general definition of the notion of a projection
rule because this definition then covers a more heterogeneous collection of
projection rules. To adopt the latter interpretation complicates the general
definition of the notion of a semantic rule because this definition then covers
a more heterogeneous collection of semantic rules.
This matter brings up a related one: the elimination of type 2 projection
rules and the theoretical advantage of this. In An Integrated Theory of
Linguistic Descriptions35, Postal and I suggested the elimination of type 2
projection rules from semantic components based on the elimination of
generalized transformations from the transformational subcomponent of
the syntactic component, and Chomsky36 discovered strong reasons in favor
of eliminating generalized transformations. Postal and I showed that singu
lary transformations do not make a contribution to the meaning of a
sentence, i.e. that whatever contribution they may appear to make must be
regarded as due to some inherent feature of underlying phrase markers.
We also showed that singulary transformations characteristically produce
phrase markers that are too structurally impoverished to be the objects
of semantic interpretation, i.e. when these transformations operate, they
cause the loss of syntactic information that is essential in order for semantic
rules to operate correctly. Thus, we concluded that semantic rules must
operate exclusively on phrase markers that have not been produced by the
application of singulary transformations. The syntactic function of gener
34Katz and J. A. Fodor (1963), 196.

35 Katz and P. Postal (1964), 67-68.
36 Chomsky (1965), 128-147.
145
JERROLD J. KATZ
alized transformations is to embed a phrase marker within another phrase

marker at a position already specified in the latter. Postal and I showed
that the semantic function of such embedding is just to indicate with
which readings of constituents in the matrix phrase marker a given reading
of the whole embedded phrase marker can be combined by projection
rules. On the basis of these conclusions, we suggested that the transfor
mational subcomponent of the syntactic component be modified by elimi
nating all generalized transformations in favor of another way of generating
phrase markers with other phrase markers embedded in them. One way of
thus dispensing with generalized phrase markers, the one that Chomsky
adopts, is simply to introduce a new re-writing rule into the categorical
subcomponent of the syntactic component which reintroduces the initial
category symbol 'S' within a derivation. Then, phrase markers within phrase
markers are generated by the application of re-writing rules of the form
A--...S... and the application of the other re-writing rules of the categorial
subcomponent to these internal occurrences of 'S'. The phrase marker that
results from such generation is what I have here been calling an underlying
phrase marker. Any phrase marker that can be produced by a set of general
ized transformations operating on a sequence of phrase markers can also be
produced in this fashion.
Chomsky was able to establish the validity of eliminating generalized
transformations in this manner by showing that such an elimination leads
to a stronger and more empirically successful syntactic theory. It was already
known that (i) the set of singulary transformations must be strictly ordered
with respect to priority of application, (ii) the set of generalized trans
formations requires no ordening whatever, (iii) singulary transformation
always apply to a constituent phrase marker before embedding, and (iv) the
only ordering that is required between the set of singulary and the set of
generalized transformations is that in many cases certain singulary transfor
mations must be applied to a matrix phrase marker after another phrase
marker has been embedded in it. On the early conception of syntactic theory
which specifies the existence of a set of generalized transformations, it is
necessary to state these facts as ad hoc requirements, but, as Chomsky points
out, the elimination of generalized transformations automatically builds into
the model of a syntactic component the only really necessary possibility for
ordering, viz. that among singulary transformations.37 Thus, we tighten the
constraints on the syntactic component and provide a means to organize
certain linguistic facts on far more general principles.
Now, if there are no generalized transformations, there is no need for a
37 Given, of course, the principle that singulary transformations apply cyclically from most
deeply embedded phrase marker consituent to least deeply embedded.
146
type 2 projection rule, since its only function was to insure that the readings
of constituents in a matrix phrase marker are combined by projection rules
with the right readings of phrase markers embedded in it, and this function
is performed by the constituent structure of underlying phrase markers. The
theoretical advantage in eliminating type 2 projection rules is the same as
that obtained by the elimination of (I). Namely, it is possible to make the
definition of 'projection rule' less complicated because the collection of rules
that it has to cover is now less heterogeneous than it was when it included
type 2 projection rules. We can define projection rules as rules that operate
on a partly semantically interpreted underlying phrase marker by combining
readings assigned to grammatically related constituents when the governing
selection restriction is satisfied and assigning the combination as a derived
readingto the constituent that dominates those whose readings were combined.
V. THE NORMAL FORM OF A DICTIONARY ENTRY
Weinreich contends that the normal form for a dictionary entry on our
theory "does not discriminate between fortuitous homonymy and lexico
logically interesting polysemy".38 What he means is that we provide the
same normal form for representing "lexicologically interesting cases of
polysemy" such as 'land' meaning country and 'land' meaning real estate
(also: 'cook' meaning one who prepares food for eating and 'cook' meaning
the preparation of food for eating) and for representing cases of "fortuitous
homonomy" such as 'rock' meaning back-and-forth movement and 'rock'
meaning a concreted mass of stony material. His criticism is that we ought
not use the same normal form for both types of case because, without
different normal forms to distinguish them, we cannot exhibit the relations
between lexicologically interesting cases of polysemy.
Weinreich does suggest that we might try to exhibit the similarity among
the senses in cases of lexicologically interesting polysemy, such as the simi
larity between the two senses of 'land' and the similarity between the two senses
of 'cook', by employing branching at the appropriate syntactic marker to
indicate overlapping and divergent portions of their senses.39 But, then,
38 Weinreich (1966), 402.

39 Actually, Weinreich's discussion here is somewhat confused by the fact that 'cook'
(meaning one who prepares food for eating) is not a distinct lexical item, as he assumed
it is. Rather 'cook' is an agentive noun with the pecularity that morphophonemically it
does not have er as a suffix. Thus, like other agentive nouns, such as 'bore' (i.e., 'He is a
bore', not 'He is a borer'), 'cook' has a zero suffix. Consequently, 'cook' in this sense gets
its meaning from a sentence-structure such as Somebody cooks something, not from a
dictionary entry, as in the case of the verb 'cooks'. But, having noted this oversight of
Weinreich's, we shall adopt his assumption for the sake of argument.
147
JERROLD J. KATZ
Weinreich goes on, the two senses of 'rock', which are not similar, would
have to be handled in the same manner. Thus,
KF would therefore have to be extended at least by a requirement that conflated

entries with branching of syntactic markers be permitted only if there is a recon
vergence of paths at some semantic marker; only, that is, if the dictionary entry
shows explicity that the meanings of the entries are related as in (6). But such
makeshift remedies, feasible
(6) Adolescent / Noun \_v (Human)

\, Adjective 7 (Non-adult) (Non-child)
though they are, would still fail to represent class shifting of the type to explore -
an explore, a package - to package as a (partly) productive process: the KF diction
ary would have to store all forms which the speakers of the language can form at
will.40
But this child of Weinreich's own imagination, which he himself disowns, is

not one that I would care to adopt. Not only is the remedy of having re
converging paths quite makeshift but it depends on dictionary entries being
in the form of tree-diagrams, which, although once entertained by us, is no
longer accepted as the best form for dictionary entries. I will return to this
point later.
Assuming that Weinreich's distinction between "fortuitous homonymy"
and "lexicologically interesting polysemy" is not based on diachronic con
siderations, in which case it would be irrelevant to a professedly synchronic
theory of language such as ours, we can represent the semantic similarity
between cases of the latter sort and the semantic dissimilarity between cases
of the former sort just in terms of semantic markers. My reply is thus that no
distinction in types of normal form is required to exhibit the semantic
relations involved.
The lexical readings for the two senses of 'cook' will be virtually the same
except that in the case where 'cook' means one who does the preparing the
lexical reading will contain the semantic marker (Human) whereas in the case
where 'cook' means the preparation itself the lexical reading will contain the
semantic marker (Process). On the other hand, the lexical readings for the
two senses of 'rock' will have no semantic markers in common. Moreover,
the two senses of 'land' is a phenomenon that falls somewhere between the
previous two phenomena, since the senses of 'land' are not as close in meaning
as the senses of 'cook' but not as different as the senses of 'rock'. What such
facts show is that there is no simple dichotomy between "lexicologically
interesting cases of polysemy" exhibiting similarly in meaning and cases of
"fortuitous homonymy" exhibiting no similarity in meaning, as Weinreich
40 Weinreich (1966), 402.
148
assumes. Actually, there is a range of similarity in meaning, whose limiting

cases are, at the one extreme, synonymy and, at the other, complete difference
in meaning. Weinreich's terminology makes it appear that there is a dichotomy
calling for a two way distinction in the notation of semantic theory, when in
fact, there is a scale of sense-similarity on which different pairs of lexical
items can be placed and thus compared with other pairs in terms of degree of
sense-similarity. Because he has oversimplified the problem, he fails to see
that the semantic markers, together with the normal formwhichspecifiesthata
lexical reading contain a set of semantic markers, provide just the theoret
ical machinery for representing the scale of sense-similarity. Weinreich's
criticism is thus like complaining that a rheostat does not do the work of
an on-off switch, when, in fact, we need some means of continuously vary
ing the lighting.
Furthermore, Weinreich fails to notice that plausible cases of class shifting
of the kind he discusses have a syntactic origin, as in the case of 'refuse' to
'refusal'.41 Our theory handles these cases quite nicely by providing a lexical
for the base form which then enters into the reading for the sentence struc
ture from which the derivative form comes transformationally. For example,
the reading for 'refusal' in a sentence such as
(5) John's refusal was accepted
comes from the lexical reading for the verb 'refuse' in the underlying sentence
structure for
(6) John refused something
Alternatively, I see no reason not to handle cases that are not syntactically
productive by having a separate dictionary entry for each form when, as in
the case of 'rock', the syntactic markers in their entries in the lexicon already
specify a feature distinction. Thus it will be possible to interpret the diction
ary as providing an explicit statement of the morphemes of the language by
representing each in terms of a unique (D, C) in the lexicon, an explicit state
ment of the senses of each morpheme by representing them in terms of the
set of lexical readings associated with its entry in the lexicon, and an explicit
statement of the similarities and differences between senses, both within a
dictionary entry and across dictionary entries, by representing such relations
in terms of identity and distinctness of semantic markers in lexical readings.
41 Katz and P. Postal (1964), Chapter 4, section 3. Cf. also footnote 39 of this paper.
149
JERROLD J. KATZ
VI. SEMANTIC MARKERS AND SYNTACTIC MARKERS
Weinreich next claims that our attempt to draw a distinction between syntac
tic and semantic markers does not succeed. But, again, his failure to represent
our semantic theory correctly makes his criticism irrelevant to the real issue
and causes him to overlook the essential distinction between these two sorts
of markers in the theory of language.
Weinreich's first step in formulating this criticism makes it appear as if
semantic and syntactic classification of lexical items proceed according to the
same principles. About semantic classification, he writes,
A general criterion of economy would presumably require that there be as few
markers (primes) as possible; hence, the analyst should aim to add markers only
when failure to do so would result in a failure to mark ambiguities or anomalies of
sentences. The general principle would seem to be that no semantic marker should
appear in the path of any dictionary entry unless it also appears in the selection
restriction of at least one other entry.42
Weinreich's mispresentation of the goals of a semantic component causes

him to draw the wrong conclusion here. But even if our conception of these
goals were as he imagines them to be - just the marking of ambiguities and
anomalies - still his principle would not be a consequence of these goals, and,
accordingly, it could not serve as a general requirement of economy which
semantic theory imposes on the construction of semantic components.
Suppose there is a semantic marker (M) that appears in no selection re
striction of a semantic component, can (M) appear in a lexical reading in the
dictionary of this component? Surely it can, since (M) can still serve to
distinguish senses of a number of words and expressions in the language. Of
course, then, it will be true that those senses which (M) helps to distinguish
are never eliminated by selection restrictions in the process whereby pro
jection rules form derived readings, but this is obviously a possibility.
Consequently, Weinreich's principle is incorrect even on the view that a
semantic component only marks anomalous and semantically ambiguous
sentences. But, since, in actuality, the goals of a semantic component are
far broader, Weinreich's principle is merely a gratuitious proposal whose
rejection is guaranteed by virtue of the fact that its acceptance would prevent
a semantic component from having the semantic markers it needs to represent
other semantic properties and relations such as those enumerated in Section
III. If a semantic marker appears in a selection restriction, then it must also
appear in some lexical reading, but the converse does not hold. Therefore, the
classification effected by the introduction of a semantic marker into a lexical
42Weinreich (1966), 402.
150
reading can be motivated by the need to predict any one of this large variety
of semantic properties and relations.
About syntactic classification, Weinreich writes,
The reasons [for increasing the delicacy of subcategorization in syntax] turn out to
be precisely the same as those for semantics: a subcategorization step is taken if
failure to do so would make the grammar generate (a) ill-formed expressions or (b)
ambiguous sentences.43
This is, of course, a serious misrepresentation, too. That the goals of the
syntactic component which depend on subcategorization go far beyond just
the marking of ill-formed expressions and ambiguous sentences is clear from
a consideration of the concept of a transformation. Transformations are
rules for mapping underlying phrase markers describing the deep structure
of sentences into derived phrase markers and ultimately into superficial
phrase markers describing the surface structure of sentences. Each is
stated in terms of a structural condition that determines the set of phrase
markers that fall in the domain of the transformation and a sequence or
formal operations that convert phrase markers to which the transformation
has been applied into a derived phrase marker. The syntactic markers
that express subcategorization features, such as +Count, +Common, etc.,
provide part of the information which determines whether or not a given
phrase marker satisfies the structural condition of a given transformation.
From this it follows that subcategorization features, in part, control the
assignment of derived constituent structure and thus determine the superficial
phrase markers. Consequently, such features must be chosen and justified
on the basis of the full range of predictions about sentences that are made by
their superficial phrase markers. Weinreich would have a case if such pre
dictions were restricted to predictions about ill-formedness and syntactic
ambiguity, but, since, in fact, such predictions go well beyond these two
types, covering every aspect of the segmentation and classification of forma
tives, he has no case whatsoever. We can put the point in another, perhaps
more revealing, way. If the prediction of ill-formedness and syntactic
ambiguity were the only things that had to be determined from superficial
phrase markers, as they are on Weinreich's account, then we could dispense
with such phrase markers entirely. The output of the transformations could
be just integers, 0 in case there is no superficial phrase marker (the sentence
is ill-formed), 1 in case the sentence is syntactically unambiguous, and some
integer n (n> 1) in case the sentence is syntactically unambiguous n-ways.
But, obviously, from the fact that a string of formatives is assigned an integer
43Weinreich (1966), 403.
151
JERROLD J. KATZ
i, we can say nothing about how it is segmented into continuous constituents

and how these constituents are classified (e.g. which segments belong to the
same categories, etc.).
Hence, Weinreich's rationale for syntactic subcategorization misrepresents
the considerations involved in choosing and justifying subclassification fea
tures in syntax in the same way that the rationale he manufactured for us
misrepresents the considerations involved in choosing and justifying sem
antic markers. Weinreich has misrepresented syntactic subcategorization by
neglecting all of the descriptive goals of a syntactic component except for
the two which are similar to the two goals of a semantic component that he
recognizes our having set forth. Thus, he makes it look as if classification of
lexical items in syntax and semantics proceed according to the same principles
and have the same function because he has already made it appear as if both
kinds of classification are carried out to reach the same goals.
Given this much, it is then easy for Weinreich to make it appear plausible
that we beg the question of drawing a line between syntactic and semantic
markers when we argue that this line can be drawn in terms of the prin
ciples for their selection and the function they perform. But Weinreich's
criticism must be rejected once it is clearly recognized that our claim is that
syntactic and semantic markers can be distinguished in terms of consider
ations having to do with, on the one hand, all of the goals of the syntactic
component, and, on the other, all of the goals of the semantic component.
Our demarcation between syntactic and semantic markers defines a marker
as syntactic just in case it appears essentially in a rule of the syntactic com
ponent and defines a marker as semantic just in case it appears essentially in
a lexical reading of a dictionary entry of the semantic component. To say
that a marker appears essentially means that the successful operation of the
rule requires the information it contributes. To say that the rules require
such information means that that component cannot be better formulated
without those rules. Thus it is the appearance of markers such as + Count,
+ Proper, + Feminine, etc. in the structure-index of transformations that
permits us to say they are syntactic. Their appearance in an entry in the
lexicon does so only indirectly, since if a syntactic marker M does not appear
in the structure-index of any transformation, then the entries whose complex
symbol contains M would have to be replaced by ones that do not contain
M. But, although these definitions permit us to differentiate markers as
syntactic and semantic, they do this only given an optimal linguistic de
scription. Hence, they make no direct statement about the basis on which a
marker is selected for inclusion in the formulation of syntactic and semantic
rules or about the essential difference between markers selected for the former
and latter types of rules.
152
Furthermore, these definitions do not tell us whether or not the set of

markers that constitutes the intersection (or overlap) of the set of markers
that appear in the structure-indices of transformations and the set of markers
that appear in the lexical readings in the dictionary is empty. One question to
which we still require an answer is whether or not there are markers that are
both syntactic and semantic, i.e., appear both in the formulation of trans
formations and in the formulation of lexical readings.
However, if we look more closely at the differences in function between
transformational rules and lexical readings, we will be able to answer this
question on the basis of considerations that such an examination brings to
light. Transformations map underlying phrase markers into superficial
phrase markers, thus providing, in a superficial phrase marker, the full set of
predictions about the surface structure that is related to the deep structure
described by the underlying phrase markers. Thus, the motivation for se
lecting syntactic subclassification markers for a complex symbol of an entry
in the lexicon is that transformations require the information that they
specify in order to generate superficial phrase markers that incorporate
correct predictions about such things as segmentation cuts, constituent
membership of the segments, stress, and other features of pronunciation. On
the other hand, the motivation for selecting semantic markers for a lexical
reading is that dictionary entries and projection rules require the information
that they specify in order to generate semantically interpreted underlying
phrase markers from which we can correctly predict such things as semantic
anomaly, semantic ambiguity, synonymy, antonymy, paraphrase, analyticity,
contradiction, syntheticity, entailment, inconsistency, presupposition, and
so on. Consequently, both the basis for selecting a marker and the function
of the marker are different in the two cases.
These differences can be brought out clearly by an example. The example I
have chosen is the relation of synonymy, which, it should be noted, is one of
the semantic relations not recognized by Weinreich as something that
must be predicted by a semantic component on our account of semantic
theory. Cases of synonymous constructions are cases where grammatically
different objects are identical in meaning, and thus the system in which the
meanings of constructions in a language are represented must assign the
same semantic representation to each of the members of a set of synonymous
constructions, in spite, of their syntactic differences. That is, the markers that
syntactically differentiate one construction from another with the same
meaning cannot themselves be semantic markers, for if they were, the sem
antic distinction they reflect would have prevented these constructions from
being marked synonymous in the first place. Therefore, the natural definition
of synonymy under which constructions are marked as synonymous just in
153
JERROLD J. KATZ
case they have the same semantic representation requires that the vocabulary
of markers from which the elements of semantic representations are drawn
not include any markers that serve to syntactically differentiate synonymous
constructions.
Weinreich took our claim that semantic markers provide a means of
representing the conceptual content of constituents to be a statement of a
criterion for deciding whether a marker is syntactic or semantic.44 Our claim
was not intended as such, however. On our theory, the criterion governing
these decisions has to do with predictive success: whether a semantic com
ponent that treats a marker as syntactic by failing to employ it or one that
treats it as semantic by employing it is more successful in predicting semantic
properties and relations of sentences. Our claim that semantic markers
provide a means of representing the conceptual content of constituents was
actually intended to indicate that they represent components of the thoughts
and ideas conveyed by acoustic realizations of grammatical concatenations
of phonetic segments, not formal properties that determine the concatenation
of phonetic segments and the underlying organization of these segments into
grammatically related constituents. Perhaps this point can be appreciated
better if it is explicitly emphasized that subclassification markers in the
lexicon of the syntactic component express properties of one kind of object
whereas semantic markers represent the elements out of which another kind
of object - the meaning of the first - is composed. In this respect, semantic
markers are analogous to features in phonology, for phonological features
too represent elements out of which an interpretation of syntactic objects (in
their case, however, an interpretation in terms of pronunciation, not con
ceptualization) is constructed. Phonological features and semantic markers
provide theoretical vocabularies from which the interpretations, in terms of
sound and meaning respectively, are built. But, in a crucial respect, semantic
markers differ from both phonological and syntactic features: they, unlike
the latter ones, are not features at all. This is another reason why the theo
retical vocabularies of semantic theory and syntactic theory do not overlap.
A feature is a binary, or n-ary, distinction expressed in the form of a single,
unanalyzed symbol. A semantic marker, on the other hand, is a configuration
of symbols with internal structure. A semantic marker represents a concept
that forms part of the senses of linguistic constructions, and so it must have
an internal structure that represents, or is isomorphic to, the structure of the
concept it represents. Thus, semantic markers are, in this respect, more like
the labelled bracketings found in phrase markers, which are configurations of
symbols with an internal structure that represents the internal structure of
44 Weinreich (1966), 404.
154
the strings of morphemes they bracket. But, of course, the difference here is
that such bracketings represent the formal arrangement of formal objects,
rather than, as in the case of semantic markers, the structure of concepts.
Weinreich next argues as follows:
It is proposed, for example, that baby be marked semantically as (Human), but

grammatically as nonHuman (hence it is pronomalized by it), whereas ship is
treated in the reverse way. The problem, however, has been solved in a purely
grammatical way since Antiquity in terms either of mixed genders or of double
gender membership.45
It may be true that the construct of mixed gender enables us to solve a

problem, but that problem has nothing to do with the one about equating
syntactic and semantic markers raised by us. Weinreich has here confused
the problem to which we addressed ourselves with a quite different one.
Mixed gender concerns such facts as that the sentences,
(7) The baby lost its rattle
(8) The baby lost his rattle
(9) The baby lost her rattle
are all syntactically well-formed. We want to be able to construct the com
plex symbol for the lexical item 'baby' in such a fashion that we can trans
formationally obtain anyone of the forms 'it', 'he', or 'she', their correspond
ing possessives, and their reflexives as pronominalizations of 'baby'. The
claim that the construct of mixed gender solves this problem is essentially
the claim that we can obtain such forms by introducing the syntactic features
+Masculine, +Feminine, and +Neuter into complex symbol for 'baby'.
In contrast the problem that we raised is not a purely syntactic question, as
this one is, but is a logical or conceptual problem. We argued that unless
syntactic markers such as + Masculine and + Feminine are distinguished
from semantic markers (which may have a similar distribution in the
dictionary) the linguistic description will deal incorrectly with certain syn
tactic constructions or certain semantic constructions. Suppose, then, that
'baby' is entered in the lexicon with the features + Masculine, + Feminine,
and + Neuter in order that the linguistic description be able to deal with (7),
(8), and (9), and that the semantic markers (Male) and (Female) are equated
with + Masculine and + Feminine, respectively. This would force us to the
absurd conclusion that the concept of a baby involves both maleness and
femaleness and is thus internally contradictory, and we would be unable to
state the semantic regularity that 'baby', 'parent', 'sibling', 'child', 'class
mate', 'teacher', 'monarch', etc. have meanings that put no condition of sex
45 Weinreich (1966), 404.
155
JERROLD J. KATZ
upon the being to which they may refer. In order to clearly recognize that
this is a logical matter, not simply a grammatical one, consider the case of
'ship' which must receive the syntactic feature + Feminine so that sentences
such as
(10) The ship met her doom on the rocks
will be marked as syntactically well-formed. It is entirely obvious that from
(11) A ship collided with the rock

we cannot infer
(12) A female collided with the rock
that is, (11) does not entail (12). But it is equally obvious that from
(13) A spinster collided with the rock
we can infer (12), that is, (13) does entail (12). By holding that only semantic
markers express concepts which make up meanings, and thus distinguishing
(Female) from the syntactic marker that expresses feminine gender, we can
explain entailments such as the entailment of (12) by (13) and prevent our
selves from being committed to treating illicit inferences such as from (1 1) to
(12) as genuine entailments.
Another important point is this. A gender marker that appears in different
syntactic components, i.e. one in the grammars of different natural lan
guages, represents the same gender construct, just as occurrences of the
symbol 'NP' that appear in different syntactic components represent the same
construct of a noun phrase. We do not have different notions of feminine,
masculine, and neuter genders for each different language having a gender
system. Rather, there is a single, triadic gender distinction in syntactic theory
which is utilized to mark gender within any natural language. This being the
case, any identification of feminine gender with the concept of femaleness and
masculine gender with the concept of maleness, i.e. any attempt to assimilate
these semantic concepts to these syntactic ones, such as Weinreich's, implies
such identification for all natural languages with gender. This is bad enough
in light of the fact that languages such as French, German, Spanish, etc.
provide numerous examples, not just a few isolated cases as in English, of
constructions whose meaning with respect to the concepts of maleness and
femaleness is incorrectly predicted by saying that they are semantically male if
their gender is masculine and semantically female if their gender is feminine.
What is far worse for the proponent of such a view is that languages without
gender, such as Persian, Chinese, Japanese, etc., are ipso facto then taken to
have no words or expressions where the concepts of maleness and femaleness
are parts of their meaning. The point of the identification is, of course, to
156
eliminate semantic concepts like maleness and femaleness so that we can

economize on markers in the linguistic descriptions of languages. But this is an
attempt to achieve spurious economy. It is refuted because languages without
gender would, on such identification, be falsely taken to make no semantic
distinction between the meanings of words and expressions in terms of the
concepts of maleness and femaleness. Moreover, the attempt cannot be saved
by postulating special markers designed to draw this semantic distinction
in the case of such languages, because this would obviously vitiate the attempt
to do away with such semantic markers in linguistic theory by conceding the
necessity for them within some linguistic descriptions.
Weinreich argues further that it is unlikely that marking 'baby' with
(Human) would solve any semantic problems because "most things pre
dicable of humans who are not babies could no more be predicated of babies
than of animals (i.e. non-Humans)".46 It could certainly be argued in reply
to Weinreich that there are as many things predicable of babies and non
infant humans as there are things that cannot be jointly predicated of them,
since, in fact, there are infinitely many things predicable of both. But, it is
less important to dwell on this clearly inadequate reason than to reply
directly to Weinreich's claim that so marking 'baby' solves no semantic
problems. Thus, the important question is whether or not the lexical reading
for 'baby' has to contain the semantic marker (Human). This is just the
question of whether there is at least one case of semantic property or relation
that requires this item to be so marked in order for sentences exhibiting the
property or relation to be correctly predicted by the linguistic description.
Putting the question in this way, it is easy to show that marking 'baby' with
(Human) does solve some semantic problems. For example, (Human) is a
member of the species-antonymous n-tuple of semantic markers, and so
including (Human) in the lexical reading for 'baby', assuming that appropri
ate other members of this n-tuple are included in the lexical reading for
'puppy' 'cub', 'kitten', etc., enables us both to predict the antonymy of
items such as 'baby' 'puppy', 'cub', 'kitten' etc. and to predict that sentences
such as
(14) Babies are puppies
are contradictory on a reading.
Finally, Weinreich makes the criticism that we fail to
represent as a productive process the reference (especially by men) to lovingly
handled objects by means of she. The patent fact is that any physical object can in
English be referred to by she with a special semantic effect.47
46 Weinreich (1966), 405.

47 Weinreich (1966). 405.
157
JERROLD J. KATZ
This criticism implies that a semantic component ought to reconstruct this

sort of reference, which is surely a confusion about the competence-per
formance distinction. The confusion is simply that he has taken a purely
psychological effect produced by uttering a deviant sentence under suitable
conditions to be a feature of the speaker's semantic competence. It is easy to
show that no linguistic discription can have a convention to the effect that
any noun can have feminine gender or receive (Human) under conditions of
reference such as those Weinreich imagines. For this would mean that the
application of some syntactic or semantic rules would depend on information
about the sex of the speaker, his attitude toward the object, and the sex of the
object. But, then, the linguistic description would no longer be dealing with
sentence types; it would be dealing with individual utterance tokens of sen
tence types. Moreover, Weinreich is wrong in saying that any physical object
can in English be referred to by 'she'. Compare the sentences:
(15) John (the desk) is in the room but she will be gone soon
(16) Sally (the ship) is in the room but she will be gone soon.
The occurrence of 'she' in (16) but not (15) can refer to the subject of the
first clause as well as someone else.
VII. SEMANTIC MARKERS AND DISTINGUISHERS
Weinreich's initial complaint about our concept of a distinguisher is:
The hierarchization of semantic features into markers and distinguishers in KF

does not seem to correspond to either of the conventional criteria.48
The two conventional criteria to which Weinreich is referring here are, on the
one hand, what is thought of as meaning (or sense) and, on the other, what is
thought of as reference (or denotation). He goes on to argue that we are
caught in a dilemma. According to Weinreich, distinguishers are not moti
vated by considerations having to do with meaning because they do not
express conceptual components of senses as do semantic markers, and
distinguishers are not motivated by considerations having to do with refer
ence because our semantic theory does not try to handle the problem of how
linguistic constructions can refer to objects, actions, events, etc. in the
world. The mistake in this argument is the falsity of its assumption that a
theory of meaning which does not say everything about the solution to the
problem of reference cannot say anything about it. There is no a priori reason
to suppose that a semantic component is precluded from treating some aspects
48 Weinreich (1966), 405.
158
of reference and every empirical reason to suppose that it will treat some, for
it is quite clear that meaning and reference are closely related.
One of the more significant aspects of the distinction between competence
and performance is that the explanation of how linguistic constructions relate
to the world is a matter of formulating a psychological model which accounts
for the manner in which speakers employ their competence to refer to the
furniture of the universe. Theories of competence cannot describe such uses
of language, but they certainly must specify all the purely linguistic in
formation upon which referential uses of language depend. The syntactic
component must represent some of the information presupposed in refer
ential distinctions. For example, the information about pronoun-noun
relations that underlies the ambiguity of
(17) John tipped his hat and he left

is certainly referentially relevant information that has to be represented in
syntactic rules.49 Semantic markers themselves specify information that is
relevant to referential distinctions, as can be appreciated from the fact that
in readings they constitute conditions on the things to which linguistic
constructions can refer. For example, as more semantic markers are added,
say in attribution, the newly formed constructions involve progressively
tighter referential conditions, so that the denotation of the next construction
is generally narrower than the one before. Thus, the denotation of 'chair'
properly includes that of 'upholstered chair, which, in turn, properly includes
that of 'red upholstered chair', and so forth. Further, synonymous linguistic
constructions must have the same denotation and antonymous ones must
have different denotations unless they fail to refer at all as with 'witch' and
'warlock'. Therefore, there is nothing strange or illicit in motivating dis
tinguishers on the basis of referential considerations.
Distinguishers can be regarded as providing a purely denotative distinction
which plays the semantic role of separating lexical items that would other
wise be fully synonymous, such as, for instance, 'red', 'yellow', 'blue', 'green',
etc. Unlike semantic markers which represent conceptual components of
senses of lexical items and expressions, distinguishers mark purely perceptual
distinctions among the referents of conceptually identical senses. Presumably,
a psychological theory of the mechanisms of (visual, auditory, tactile, etc.)
perception will define the perceptual distinctions which distinguishers mark
at the linguistic level. Consequently, only a general theory of linguistic
performance, which incorporates and integrates accounts of linguistic compe
tence and perceptual mechanisms, can connect the distinguishers in the
49 Chomsky (1965), 145-147.
159
JERROLD J. KATZ
vocabulary of semantic theory with the constructs in the vocabulary of

perceptual theory that correspond to them. Only such a general theory can
explain, inter alia, how it is that different color words refer to different colors.
When Fodor and I wrote: "Distinguishers do not enter into theoretical
relations" and when we wrote that semantic markers "reflect whatever
systematic relations hold between items and the rest of the vocabulary of the
language" - which are the only remarks of ours about the contrast between
distinguishers and semantic markers to which Weinreich refers 50 - we meant
that the inter-sense congruity relations that are reconstructed by selection
restrictions hold only between conceptual components of senses. Thus we
argued at a number of points that selection restrictions are defined in terms
of semantic markers, not in terms of distinguishers. We did not say that
distinguishers have no role in marking semantic properties and relations
such as semantic ambiguity, synonymy, paraphrase, analyticity, and so on.
This view led us to the conclusion that semantic ambiguities in cases where
the readings that differentiate the terms of the ambiguity differ only by
distinguishers, if there be any, could be represented in a semantic com
ponent but could not be resolved on the purely linguistic basis that is offered
by the semantic component. I find no reason either in subsequent inquiries
into semantics or in anything Weinreich has said about semantic theory to
change this position regarding the contrast between semantic markers and
distinguishers.51
Weinreich also says
The whole notion of distinguisher appears to stand on precarious ground when
one reflects that there is no motivated way for the describer of a language to decide
whether a certain sequence of markers should be followed by a distinguisher or
not.52
This might seem a very peculiar thing for Weinreich to say in light of the fact
that he himself quotes a perfectly good example of one of the things that does
motivate the system of distinguishers for color words in English. That is, he
cites my example of the need to mark sentences such as
(18) Red is green

as contradictory. But Weinreich makes it perfectly clear that he regards my
treatment of cases such as (18) as contradictions due to distinguisher anto
50 Weinreich (1966), 405.

51 Though, of course, I would be the first to admit that the treatment given various
examples in the early papers on semantic theory often err in packing too much information
into distinguishers that really belongs in semantic markers. However, we warned that those
examples are merely for the purposes of illustration, and that their treatment is not to be
taken to be a definitive account of their semantic analysis.
52 Weinreich (1966), 406.
160
nymy to be inconsistent with what Fodor and I said about distinguishers in

our paper. According to Weinreich,
The theory of distinguishers is further weakened when we are told (KF, fn. 16) that
"certain semantic relations among lexical items may be expressed in terms of
interrelations between their distinguishers". Although this contradicts the definition
just quoted [ cf. above], one may still suppose that an extension of the system
would specify some special relations which may be defined on distinguishers. But
the conception topples down completely in Katz's own paper (1964b), where
contradictoriness, a relation developed in terms of markers, is found in the sentence
Red is green as a result of the distinguishers! Here the inconsistency has reached
fatal proportions.53
Now, contrary to Weinreich's wholly unsupported claim, there is no in

consistency in our treatment of distinguishers. We hold that distinguishers
do not enter into the system of inter-sense congruity relations reconstructed by
selection restrictions, but, as we have shown above, holding this is perfectly
compatible with holding, as we also hold, that distinguishers in the readings
of semantically interpreted underlying phrase markers can play a role in
marking many of the semantic properties and relations of a sentence. Thus,
Weinreich's claim to have found a contradiction in our position rests on a
confusion between these two quite different types of relations.
With Weinreich's charge of inconsistency out of the picture, his more basic
criticism that there is no motivated way of deciding when we need a dis
tinguisher in a lexical reading is easily shown to be false. Consider the case
Weinreich himself refers to, viz. (18). We have to mark such sentences as
contradictory, and this means that their semantically interpreted underlying
phrase markers must contain a reading for the subject which has a semantic
marker or distinguisher that is antonymous with a semantic marker or dis
tinguisher in the reading for the predicate. The only question that remains is
whether the antonymous elements are semantic markers or distinguishers in
the case at hand. They can be either on our conception of semantic theory,
since Weinreich is simply wrong when he says that contradictoriness is
defined over semantic markers only. If the elements concerned are semantic
markers, then the distinction marked by these elemeints is a conceptual one.
If, on the other hand, they are distinguishers, this distinction is a (linguistic
ally reflected) perceptual one. In the case under consideration, it is amply
clear that we are dealing with a perceptual distinction, so that the elements
between which the antonymy relations holds are distinguishers. But even if
the case were not clear-cut, we could motivate our decision because we have
certain indirect empirical checks on whether we have made the right choice
53Weinreich (1966), 406.
161
JERROLD J. KATZ
in deciding that the elements are distinguishers. For example, if the elements
in this turn out to be required elsewhere in some selection restriction, we
have not made the right choice. Determining whether they are required in the
formulation of a selection restriction is a matter of constructing the semantic
component to predict the semantic properties and relations of sentences, as
discussed above.
Hence, it is certainly wrong for Weinreich to say that there is no motivated
way to make decisions about the occurrence of distinguishers in lexical
readings, unless, of course, he accepts nothing as motivating such decisions
that falls short of providing a discovery procedure for them. If he does not
insist on something that strong, I do not see how he can fail to accept
considerations of the sort just sketched as providing appropriate motivation.
If he does insist on a discovery procedure, he will be in the unfortunate
position of rejecting reasonable empirical constraints because they do not
meet impossible demands.
VIII. READINGS AND SELECTION RESTRICTIONS
Weinreich's next point is as follows:

it seems safe to conclude that the distinction between paths and selection restrictions
is as untenable as its (our semantic theory's) other specifications of the format of
dictionary entries.54
This conclusion is quite surprising because the argument Weinreich offers

on its behalf is based on a treatment of a phenomenon that Postal and I
originally discovered and that reinforces the distinction we have drawn between
the marker and selection restriction portions of a lexical reading. Let us
examine the matter in some detail. I will not include Weinreich's example
'pretty children' in my discussion because his analysis of this example rests
on the dubious assumption that from the sentence
(19) They are pretty children

we can validly infer the sentence
(20) They are girls.55
The type of case which Weinreich describes are sentences which, to represent
the sense of a pro-form in them, it is necessary to extract semantic markers
from a selection restriction in the reading of another constituent with which
the pro-form is grammatically related and to transfer these semantic markers
to the reading for the pro-form. Consider the sentences:
54 Weinreich (1966), 407.

55 Weinreich (1966), 407.
162
(21) It's addled

(22) He is reading something
It is clear that an English speaker's understanding of (21) and (22) involves
information about the meanings of the pro-forms in these sentences that is
not available to him from the meanings of 'it' and 'something' outside such
sentential structures. He knows that what is asserted to be addled in (21) is
either an egg or somebody's brain and that what the person referred to in
(22) is reading is some physical object with characters of some sort on it.
This information cannot be in the lexical readings for these pro-forms, since
in sentences such as
(23) It is on the table
(24) He has something
these pro-forms do not have such information in their senses. However, this
information is represented by some of the semantic markers in the selection
restrictions in the lexical readings for the constituents grammatically related
to 'it' and 'something' in (21) and (22), viz. the verbs 'addle' and 'read'.
The problem that is posed by such cases is how to specify that this infor
mation in the meanings of other constituents is also information about the
meanings of the pro-forms in such sentences. That is, how to utilize the
presence of semantic markers that represent this information in the relevant
selection restrictions to provide the required characterization of the senses of
the pro-forms. Postal and I first brought up this problem in our book An
Integrated Theory of Linguistic Descriptions, where we gave the following
solution. We introduced a new type of semantic marker, for which we coined
the term '(Selector)' and made it an obligatory element of the reading for
any pro-form. This semantic marker was contextually defined to be the set
consisting of all and only those semantic markers appearing in the selection
restriction of the reading for the constituent grammatically related to the
pro-form in the sentence in question. In accord with this definition, the
selector semantic marker in a reading of a pro-form is replaced by such a set
of semantic markers prior to its amalgamation by projection rules with the
reading of the constituent from whose selection restriction the members of
this set came.
Now, Weinreich accepts this solution of ours56, and yet, with no further
argument on his part, concludes that somehow (?) it undermines our dis
56Weinreich considers the adoption of "... a more powerful conception of the semantic
interpretation process, in which features of a selection restriction of a word Z would be
transferred into the path of another word W, when it is constructed with Z." He then goes
on to say, "This is the solution adopted by Katz and Postal..., and it is the general solution
which we will elaborate in ?3.3" (Weinreich, 1966, 407).
163
JERROLD J. KATZ
tinction between lexical readings and selection restrictions. But, not only is
there nothing here to undermine this distinction, the very concept of the
semantic marker (Selector) actually presupposes it. For (Selector) is defined on
the basis of an operation performed on the semantic marker part of one
reading, on the basis of a selection restriction in another: the first reading is
converted into a new reading for the same constituent by the addition of
semantic markers that are found in the selection restriction of the second.
Without the distinction which Weinreich regards as made untenable by the
concept of the semantic marker (Selector) it would not be possible to know
which of the semantic markers in the second reading are to be included in the
set that replaces (Selector) in the first or where these semantic markers
appear in the first.
IX. THE STRUCTURE OF DICTIONARY ENTRIES
Weinreich starts out by arguing that the ordering of semantic markers in

lexical readings provided by representing lexical readings as paths in a
tree diagram and the structure of lexical readings provided by representing
the dictionary entry for a lexical item as such a tree diagram should be
eliminated in favor of a treatment on which the semantic markers in a lexical
reading are considered a set and the lexical readings in a dictionary entry are
considered a set of such sets. For once I must agree with Weinreich. In fact,
before seeing his paper, I adopted this treatment myself.57 However,
Weinreich makes it appear as if there was never any theoretical motivation
for such ordering and on this basis he claims that its elimination would be
justified as a simplification of semantic theory. This is a mistake, and thus I
think that Weinreich has come to the right conclusion but for the wrong
reasons.
Now it certainly occurred to Weinreich that we had some motivation for
ordering the semantic markers in a lexical reading, for, in a footnote, he
writes:
The prospect that implicational relations among markers, such as those discussed
by Katz and Postal ... may automatically yield unique networks of features, is
attractive, but it is unlikely to be borne out when non-anecodotal evidence is
considered.58
Our original motivation for ordering semantic markers in lexical readings
was just to provide a formal means for representing such obvious facts as
that the concepts represented by the semantic markers (Human), (Plant),
(Animal), (Artifact), etc. are subsumed under the more general concept
57 Cf. Katz (1966), Chapter 5, and earlier still, Katz (1964a), 743.
58 Weinreich (1966), 409, footnote 24.
164
represented by the semantic marker (Physical Object). Such facts indicate

some form of hierarchical organization of the system of concepts that under
lie the semantics of natural languages. We sought to reconstruct this hier
archical organization with such ordering by having semantic markers such as
(Physical Object) dominate semantic markers such as (Human), (Plant),
(Artifact), (Animal), etc. in each lexical reading where they occur.
Thus, the ordering of semantic markers was not gratuitous formalism,
but was intended to deal with certain types of facts. This being so, the whole
way in which Weinreich puts the question of eliminating such ordering
wrongly makes it appear as if its elimination depends solely on considerations
of economy when, actually, the question has to be put as a matter of whether
or not ordering is the best method of describing the type of facts involved.
However, in the absence of an alternative to ordering semantic markers
- against which to compare such ordering on the basis of descriptive ade
quacy - asking whether ordering is the best means of describing the sort of
facts that Fodor and I sought to describe using ordering makes very little
sense. Consequently, we were stuck with ordering until another means of
describing these facts came along.
Therefore, it was not until the development of semantic redundancy rules,
first presented in An Integrated Theory of Linguistic Descriptions59, that the
question of whether ordering is the best descriptive method could be seriously
considered. Semantic redundancy rules were originally devised in order to
simplify lexical readings in dictionary entries and to express generalizations
about semantic structure at the lexical level. We noticed that in many cases a
semantic marker (Mi) must occur in a lexical reading because another se
mantic marker (Mj) occurs in that reading. That is, the occurrence of (Mj) in
the lexical reading makes the occurrence of (Mi) redundant if there is a
general representation of the regularity governing the occurrence of (Mi)
with respect to the occurrence of (Mi). For example, if any of the semantic
markers (Human), (Animal), (Plant), (Artifact), etc. occur in a lexical
reading RL, then RL must also contain the semantic marker (Physical Object).
Since the concepts represented by the former semantic markers are subsumed
under the concept represented by the latter, the occurrence of any of the
former semantic markers in RL makes the occurrence of the latter in RL
redundant. In order to avoid such redundancy and to obtain generalizations
that express such regularities, we proposed that the dictionary contain
semantic redundancy rules of the form:
[(M1l) V (Mj2) V ... V (Mi)] (Mi)
59 Katz and Postal (1964), 16-18.
165
JERROLD J. KATZ
With such a rule, we economize every lexical reading that reconstructs a sense
one of whose conceptual components is represented by either (Mi1) or (Mj2)

or ... or (Min) by formulating the lexical readings without the occurrence of
the semantic marker (Mi). All such rules comprise a redundancy rule sub
component of the dictionary. They apply to lexical readings once these are
assigned to the morphemes in an underlying phrase marker and expand
them by introducing (Mi). Such expansion is necessary in order that selection
restrictions that refer to (Mi) will apply properly.60
Given that the dictionary contains a redundancy rule subcomponent, we
can immediately formulate an alternative to ordering semantic markers in
lexical readings. Each redundancy rule in this subcomponent can be inter
preted as specifying that the semantic markers on the left-hand side of the
arrow represent concepts that are subsumed under the concept represented
by the semantic marker on the right-hand side. On this interpretation, the
hierarchy of concepts that we wish to describe falls out quite naturally:
(i) Those semantic markers appearing on the right-hand side of some
semantic redundancy rule but not on the left-hand side of any represent the
most abstract concepts, the semantic categories, of the language.
(ii) Those semantic markers appearing on the left-hand side of some
semantic redundancy rules but not on the right-hand side of any represent
the least abstract concepts of the language.
(iii) Given two semantic redundancy rules [...(M2). ..](M1) and [...(M3)
]-*](M2), the concept represented by (M1) will be at a level in the hierarchy
higher than that represented by both (M2) and (M3) but the concept repre
sented by (M2) will be at the next lower level and the concept represented by
(M3) will be at the level one below that at which we find the concept repre
sented by (M2).
Once this interpretation of the semantic redundancy rules was thought of,
it was immediately apparent that this alternative is far superior to ordering
semantic markers in lexical readings, so that the latter method of describing
the facts concerned must be eliminated in favor of the former. The superi
ority of the former method consists in this: semantic redundancy rules
provide as adequate a description of the facts as ordering semantic markers,
yet, unlike such ordering, they are needed in the semantic component anyway
to express generalizations about the relative occurrence of semantic markers
and to economize lexical readings. But ordering serves no other purpose than to
provide a reconstruction of the hierarchical organization of concepts. On these
grounds, we have strong motivation for altering the form of lexical readings
so that the semantic markers in lexical readings constitute an unordered set.
60 Katz (1966), 231-233.
166
Given that the semantic markers in lexical readings are unordered, Wein
reich levels another criticism. He considers the two sentences:
(25) Cats chase mice

(26) Mice chase cats
which he indexes as (18i) and (18ii) respectively. Concerning them, he says:
The paths of (1) cats, (2) chase, and (3) mice - although amalgamated in the order
1 + (2 + 3) in (18i) and as (2 + 1) + 3 in (18ii), would yield the same unordered set
of features {I 2 3}, as the amalgamated paths; for, as we have seen, there is neither
ordering nor bracketing of elements in a KF path. For similar reasons, the theory
is unable to mark the distinction between three cats chased a mouse and a cat
chased three mice, between (bloody + red) + sunset and bloody + red + sunset, and
so on for an infinite number of crucial cases.
For KF, the meaning of a complex expression (such as a phrase or a sentence) is
an unstructured heap of features - just like the meaning of a single word. The
projection rules as formulated in KF destroy the semantic structure and reduce the
words of a sentence to a heap.6'
Again, this is a criticism that rests solely on a misinterpretation of the theory

being criticized. Now, however, instead of misrepresenting the goals of a
semantic component by identifying them with just two of the particular
goals that fall under them, Weinreich misrepresents both the full set of
projection rules and the concept of a semantic marker. He misrepresents the
projection rules by identifying their operations with those of just one pro
jection rule and he misrepresents the concept of a semantic marker by treating
all semantic markers as if they were just like simple syntactic or phonological
features.
First, it is true that the projection rule which was proposed to deal with
cases of attribution, the rule that was referred to as (Rl)62, does perform just
the operation of forming the Boolean union of the semantic markers in the
two readings to which it applies. The derived reading given by this projection
rule is just a Boolean sum. But this operation is by no means characteristic of
other projection rules, and I said so quite explicitly in a paper that appeared
as far back as December 1964.63 Second, syntactic and phonological features
are binary, ternary, or n-ary distinctions that indicate that the items to which
they are ascribed have one or another member of a set of exclusive simple
properties. They have no internal structure formally and are not components
in the formal structure of other markers of their kind. Quite the contrary with
semantic markers. They have internal structure and can be components of
other semantic markers, for they are intended to reflect, in their formal
61 Weinreich (1966),410.
62 Katz and J. A. Fodor (1963), 198-200.
63 Katz (1964a).
167
JERROLD J. KATZ
structure, the structure of the concepts represented by them. Some confusion

on this may have resulted from the fact that many of the examples of sem
antic markers given in the early papers did not exhibit such formal structure.
This was due to the fact that, at the time, we were unable to state the struc
ture of the cases concerned because it was not known. But since we required
such semantic markers in order to formulate relations between them and
others, relations that did not depend on their internal structure, we had to
introduce them in the form in which they were given. They were thus regarded
as terms that would eventually be defined. Their definitions, when available,
were supposed to eliminate them in favor of appropriate formal structures.
For example, (Physical Object), although not presently definable, should
eventually be replaced by some formal configuration of symbols whose
internal structure represents the notion of some physical entity constituted
of spatio-temporally contiguous parts which endures in form unless its
permanence is terminated by outside influence. The case of semantic markers
is actually no different from that of many syntactic markers such as NP, V, A,
etc., since such syntactic markers, as used by all grammarians to date, are
undefined, but, nevertheless, needed to formulate relationships among the
strings of morphemes they classify.
However, there are a number of cases of semantic markers that are already
defined in the appropriate manner. Consider the semantic marker ((M)7(F))
which will appear in the lexical reading for the word 'spouse' in order that
the derived readings for expressions such as 'his spouse', 'her spouse', 'that
person's spouse', etc. will be correctly marked (Female), (Male), and
((Male) V (Female))64 respectively. That is, ((M)<L(F)) is contextually de
fined so that if the sex marker in the possessive of the construction with
'spouse' is (Male), ((M)]L(F)) =(Female), if it is (Female), ((M)L(F)) =
(Male), and if neither (Male) nor (Female) occurs but (Human) does - if
(Human) does not occur either, then the selection restriction in the reading
for 'spouse' will not be satisfied by the semantic markers in the reading for
the possessive - ((M)7 (F)) = ((Male) V (Female)). Other examples are the
evaluation semantic markers65, and still others are semantic markers that
occur in the readings for verbs, as illustrated by those discussed below.
Weinreich has simply ignored these types of semantic markers and on the
basis of the former type has jumped to the conclusion that semantic markers
are all nothing but simple features. Thus, he overlooks the fact that other
types have rich internal structure, which is just the place where we seek to
represent, by the opefation of some of those projection rules that Weinreich
64 The symbol 'V' in this semantic marker represents exclusive disjunction, either (Male)
or (Female) but not both.
65 Katz (1964a).
168
has also overlooked, the semantic differences between sentences such as (25)
and (26).
In order to see how a semantic component avoids the difficulty that Wein
reich mistakenly attributes to us, we will consider the way that a semantic
component for English would distinguish the meanings of (25) and (26).
Neglecting lexical readings for 'cat', 'mouse', the plural morpheme, and
other readings for other senses of 'chase', we may start with the reading for
the most familiar sense of 'chase': (((Activity of X) (Nature: (Physical))
((Motion) (Rate: (Fast)) (Character: (Following Y)) (Intention: (Trying to
catch ((Y) ((Motion))), <SR>. We consider this lexical reading in some
detail in order to convey an idea of the considerations involved in formulating
semantic representations of senses.
The semantic marker (Activity) distinguishes 'chase' in the intended sense
from state verbs, such as 'sleep', 'wait', 'suffer', 'believe', etc., and from
process verbs, such as 'grow', 'freeze', 'dress', 'dry', etc., and classifies it
together with other activity verbs, such as 'eat', 'speak', 'walk', 'remember',
etc. (Activity) is qualified as to nature by the semantic marker (Physical).
This indicates that chasing is a physical activity and distinguishes 'chase'
from verbs like 'think' and 'remember' which are appropriately qualified in
their lexical readings to indicate that thinking and remembering are mental
activities. But (Activity) is not further qualified, so that, inter alia, 'chase' can
apply to either a group or individual activity. In this respect, 'chase' contrasts
with 'mob' which is marked (Type: (Group)) - hence, the contradictoriness
of
(27) Mary mobbed the movie star (all by herself)
- and also contrasts with 'solo', which is marked (Type: (Individual)) -

hence,
(28) They solo in the plane on Monday
has the unique meaning that they each fly the plane by themselves on Monday.
Moreover, the semantic marker (Motion) indicates that chasing involves
movement from place to place whose mode is unspecified in the meaning of the
verb 'chase' but which can be specified by putting 'chase' in construction with
Manner Adverbials such as 'on foot', 'by car', and so on. This movement is
necessarily fast, as indicated by the semantic marker (Rate: (Fast)) which
distinguishes 'chase' from 'creep', 'walk', 'move', 'trail', etc. Also, this
motion has the character of following, as indicated by (Character:
(Following)) which distinguishes 'chase' from 'flee', 'wander', etc. Further
more, for someone to be chasing someone or thing, it is not necessary that
the person be moving in any specified direction. This is indicated by the
169
JERROLD J. KATZ
absence of a qualification on (Motion) of the form (Direction: ( )) which

would be needed in the lexical reading for 'descend', 'advance', 'retreat', etc.
But it is necessary that the person doing the chasing be trying to catch the
person or thing he is chasing, so that 'chase' falls together with 'pursue', on
the one hand, and both contrast with 'run after', 'follow', 'trail', etc., on the
other. This is indicated by (Intention of X: (Trying to catch ((Y) ( )))), where
'( )' in the lexical reading under consideration is the semantic marker
(Motion) which indicates that the person chased is himself moving also.
It is sometimes held that the person chased must be fleeing from someone or
thing, but this is a mistake because a sentence like
(29) The police chased the speeding motorist
does not imply that the motorist is fleeing at all. Finally, note that 'chase' is
not an achievement verb in the sense of applying just to cases where a definite
goal is obtained, since it is not necessary for the person to actually catch the
one he is chasing for him to have chased him, as is indicated by the non
anomalousness of sentences such as
(30) He chased him but did not catch him.

Accordingly, 'chase' contrasts with 'intercept', 'trap', 'deceive', etc.
The slots indicated by the dummy markers 'X' and 'Y' determine, re
spectively, the positions at which readings of the subject and object of 'chase'
can go when sentences containing the verb 'chase' are semantically in
terpreted. It should be emphasized that this feature of the readings of verbs
is not something that was concocted ad hoc to meet Weinreich's criticism,
but was invented some time ago and presented in published versions of
semantic theory, where it is justified in terms of a variety of independent
empirical considerations.66 On the basis of such considerations, we posited
two projection rules, one for the verb-object relation and one for the subject
predicate relation. The former rule embeds a reading of the object into the
Y-slot and the latter embeds a reading for the predicate, which encludes the
derived reading produced by the former rule, into the X-slot. They operate
in this order to give readings for the whole sentence. According to these
rules, the derived readings for the sentences (25) and (26) are, respectively,
(((Activity of R1) (Nature: (Physical)) ((Motion) (Rate: (Fast)) (Character:

(Following R2)), (Intention: (Trying to catch ((R2) (Motion))).
(((Activity of R2) (Nature: (Physical)), ((Motion) (Rate: (Fast)) (Charac
ter: (Following R1)), (Intention: (Trying to catch ((R1) (Motion))).
fi6 Katz (1964a).
170
where 'R1' is the reading for 'cats' and 'R2' is the reading for 'mice'. It is
obvious from this example alone that Weinreich's criticism that a semantic
component designed in terms of our conception of semantic theory would
assign the same semantic representation to sentences which differ in meaning
is totally false. His criticism appears applicable only when a realistic portrayal
of projection rules and semantic markers is obscured by one that omits just
those aspects of projection rules and semantic markers that makes the
criticism inapplicable.67
Before concluding this section, I would like to indicate the theoretical
power of dummy markers such as 'X' and 'Y' which act as categorized
variables for readings of subjects and objects. My account will be brief and is
intended more in the way of a sketch than a finished presentation.
Consider the examples:
(31) John sold the book to Mary

(32) Mary bought the book from John.
It is quite clear that (31) and (32) are paraphrases, and they will have to be so
represented in a semantic description of English. But they cannot be made
to come out as paraphrases on the basis of having the same underlying phrase
marker because this would require that we take one as a base form and derive
the other from it transformationally, i.e. by a permutation somewhat akin to
the exchange of subject and object in the case of passive constructions. The
simple fact is that there is no reason for choosing one as the base form that is
not at the same time also a reason for choosing the other as the base form.
Because this direct syntactic solution is out, and because other syntactic
solutions would distort the quite straightforward syntactic structure of (31)
and (32), it follows that the solution is essentially semantic. My solution is
this: 'buy' and 'sell' are process verbs, and as such, I treat them, conceptually,
as sequences of states. Now, the concept of a state is that of the condition of
something at a given time (or during a given time interval). Accordingly, we
67Weinreich (1966, 410) says, quite correctly, that the issue here is "how is the difference
in grammer concretely related to the difference in total meaning?" But, then, goes on to
say, in the very next sentence, "On this KF is silent. What is particularly ironic is that an
enterprise in semantics inspired by the most sophisticated syntactic research ever under
taken should end up with a fundamentally asyntactic theory of meaning." But, even if our
theory does give the wrong predictions by treating cases like (25) and (26) as paraphrases,
as we have been at great pains in the text to show it does not, still, Weinreich's conclusion
that the theory is asyntactic, that it is silent on the issue of the relation of syntactic and
semantic structure in sentences, would be false. For the whole conception of projection
rules, as has been said over and over again, is based on the idea that the combination of
readings, both with respect to which readings are combined and with respect to how they
are combined, is determined, except for selection, by the grammatical relations in the
sentence, and nothing else. On this, Weinreich is silent.
171
JERROLD J. KATZ
may represent a state in terms of the semantic marker (Condition ( )...( ) of

X at ti), where'( )...( )' is a set of semantic markers representing the particu
lar condition in an individual case, i.e. the one that differentiates the mean
ing of a particular state verb from the meanings of different state verbs, where
'X' is the reading of the subject of the state verb in question, and where 'ti'
is a particular time designation determined by the readings for the tense
constituent in the auxiliary and the temporal adverbs in the sentence. In
terms of this representation of a state, we may represent a process in terms
of the semantic marker ((Condition ( )...( ) of X at ti)-+... -+(Condition ( )
...( ) of X at ti +k)). The symbol '-+' indicates the transition or change from
one state to the next, and the symbols '...' between arrows indicate the
possibility of intermediate states between the initial and terminal states.
The initial and terminal states are determined by the lowest time designation
and the highest, respectively. Now, with this conceptual apparatus we can
represent the lexical readings for the verbs 'buy' and 'sell' in a way that will
make (31) and (32) come out as paraphrases after the operation of projection
rules. Thus, for 'sell' we give:
((Condition (Possession of Y) of X at ti)-+(Condition (Possession of Y) of

Z at ti+k)) & ((Condition (Possession of sum of money W) of Z at ti)-*
(Condition (Possession of sum of money W) of X at ti + k))
And for 'buy' we give:
((Condition (Possession of Y) of Z at ti)-+(Condition (Possession of Y) of

X at ti)) & ((Condition (Possession of sum of money W) of X at ti)-*
(Condition (Possession of sum of money W) of Z at ti +k))
'Z' is a variable for a reading of the indirect object ('Mary' in (31) and 'John'
in (32)) and 'W' is a variable for a reading that represents the sum of money
which the buyer exchanges for the object bought. In sentences such as
(33) John sold the book to Mary for one dollar

(34) Mary bought the book from John for one dollar
'W' functions as a variable for readings of the object of the prepositional

phrase. There is a selection restriction on the readings that may be values of
the variable 'W' which requires that they have the semantic marker (Sum of
Money) in them. If there is no value for 'W' (as in (31) and (32)), then 'W'
takes the semantic markers in its own selection restriction as its value. This
selection restriction distinguishes the verbs 'buy' and 'sell' from verbs such
as 'trade', 'exchange', etc. that are otherwise given the same process
semantic marker in their lexical reading. For, in the case of the latter verbs
the selection restriction on a reading to be substituted for 'W' is that it
172
contain (Physical Object). It strikes me that these relationships explicate

formally the insights of semanticists who have stressed the importance of
'semantic fields', since such formal relationships represent the field structure
that relates semantically 'buy', 'sell', 'trade', 'exchange', and other related
cases.
Now, it is to be observed that the readings for 'sell' and 'buy' are exactly
the same except that where 'X' appears in one 'Z' appears in the other, so
that 'buy' and 'sell' are represented as words whose meaning conceptualizes
the same process. But the difference in positioning of the dummy markers
'X' and 'Z' enables us in both cases to find the right reading for the agent
who relinquishes possession and the recipient who obtains possession, just
from the syntactic structure of the sentences concerned. For, the reading of
the subject of (31) will go in the semantic marker that represents the initial
state of the first process and in the semantic marker that represents the
terminal state of the second process, while the reading of the subject of (32)
will go in the semantic marker that represents the terminal state of the first
process and in the semantic marker that represents the initial state of the
second. Similarly, the reading of the indirect object of (31) will go in the sem
antic marker that represents the terminal state of the first process and in the
semantic marker that represents the initial state of the second, while the
reading of the indirect object of (32) will go in the semantic marker that repre
sents the initial state of the first process and in the semantic marker that repre
sents the terminal state of the second. Consequently, after the projection rules
applying to (31) and (32) have operated, they will provide the same derived
reading for each, and thus (31) and (32) will be marked as paraphrases, as
desired, viz.
((Condition (Possession of R ['the book']) of R ['John'] at Ln)-+(Condition

(Possession of R ['the book']) of R ['Mary'] at tLn+m)) & ((Condition
(Possession of sum of money W) of R ['Mary'] at tn)-+(Condition (Pos
session of sum of money W) of R ['John'] at tLn+m))
where 'R[ ]' stands for the reading of the constituent enclosed in the
brackets, 't_n' represents a time point earlier than the speech point (i.e. the
point in time when the utterance of the sentence occurs) and 't-n+ m' rep
resents a time point later than the one represented by the time-designation
t -n
X. WEINREICH S NOTION OF INFINITE POLYSEMY
Not only does Weinreich misrepresent our conception of semantic theory, he

also creates spurious semantic problems which he then criticizes our theory
173
JERROLD J. KATZ
for failing to handle. Weinreich writes,
When one considers the phrase eat bread and eat soup, one realizes that eat has a
slightly different meaning in each phrase: in the latter expression, but not in the
former, it covers the manipulation of a spoon. Continuing the procedure applied
in KF to polysemous items such as ball and colorful, we would have to represent the
dictionary entry for eat by a branching path, perhaps as in (20):
(20) eat (Action) ->... (Swallow)Z (Chew) -... <(Solid)>

`... - -- (Spoon) <(Liquid) >
But then the activity symbolized by eat is also different depending on whether
things are eaten with a fork or with one's hands; and even hand-eating of apples
and peanuts, or the fork-eating of peas and spaghetti, are recognizably different.
It is apparent, therefore, that a KF-type dictionary is in danger of having to re
present an unlimited differentiation of meanings.68
In Section III of the present paper, I pointed out why the possibility of such
infinite polysemy must be dismissed in the construction of a dictionary: the
dictionary is a reconstruction of one aspect of the speaker's semantic compe
tence, and since speakers are only equipped with finite brains, the mechanism
reconstructed by a dictionary can, in principle, store only finitely many bits
of information about the lexical characterization of a particular item. Since
there is obviously no rule that would enumerate each and every one of the
respects in which the "activity symbolized by eat" can be "recognizable
different" from case to case, it follows that Weinreich's problem about infinite
polysemy is spurious.
But why should Weinreich have manufactured such a pseudo-problem? The
only answer that seems to explain his doing so is that he fails to understand
the distinction between meanings of words and the actual things, situations,
events, etc. to which they can refer. For it is obviously true that the various
actions which can correctly be called eating may differ in just the ways that
Weinreich suggests, i.e. they may be performed with spoons, fingers, chop
sticks, knives, shovels, or whatever else strikes our fancy inside or outside
the boundaries of etiquette. But, and this is the fundamental point, they are,
nonetheless, eating in the same sense of the term. That is, they are all equiva
lent actions in so far as 'eating' applies to each with equal appropriateness and
the same meaning. Weinreich has not understood that meaning is an
abstraction away from all the variable features of what can be referred to by
a term, that in the meaning of a word we find represented only those features
of a thing, situation, event, action, etc. by virtue of which it is a thing, situ
ation, event, action etc, of a given type. The reductio ad absurdum of Wein
reich's position is the consequence that, on his position, no word or ex
pression can ever be used with the same meaning in which it is used at any
68 Weinreich (1966), 411.
174
other time, since there is always some difference in what is referred to from
one case to the next.
Presumably, Weinreich's failure to distinguish semantically irrelevant
referential features from genuine semantic considerations stems from his
feeling that the distinction between them is hard to draw. Excluding se
mantically irrelevant referential features from having a representation in
lexical readings will, according to Weinreich,
presuppose, as a primitive concept of the theory, an absolute distinction between

true ambiguity and mere indefiniteness of reference. The difficulty of validating
such a distinction empirically makes its theoretical usefulness rather dubious.69
By parity of argument, it could be held that the distinctions between virtue

and vice, sense and nonsense, sanity and insanity, beauty and ugliness, etc.
are of rather dubious theoretical usefulness because of the notorious diffi
culty of validating them empirically. Weinreich's extreme positivism not
withstanding, the plain fact is that no doubt is cast on the theoretical use
fulness of a distinction when it turns out to be a hard one to draw empirically.
Actually, it is an easy matter to show that the distinction between true
ambiguity and indefiniteness of reference is one that must be drawn in any
serious attempt to cope with the semantic structure of a natural language.
For, unless it is drawn, the attempt will die a death of "infinitely many
qualifications", one qualification for each of the infinitely many respects in
which things, situations, events, actions, etc. that are correctly referred to by
the same term in the same sense can differ. Moreover, the distinction between
true ambiguity and indefiniteness of reference can be easily motivated by the
simple consideration that each of the alternative senses of an ambiguous
constituent is referentially indefinite in just the same way, though, of course,
not with respect to the same particular features. Consider Weinreich's
example of 'eat' again. Besides the sense of 'taking food through the mouth,
chewing, and swallowing', this word also has the sense of 'destruction by
gradual consumption', as in
(35) The acid is eating the chain.

But both senses of the ambiguous word 'eat' are referentially indefinite, for
just as we can eat with one or another implement, so acid can be applied by
one or another means to one or another part of the chain; just as we can eat
one or another food, so one or another acid can eat one or another substance,
and so on.
However, the central point in this connection is that the validation of the
fi9 Weinreich (1966), 411-412.
175
JERROLD J. KATZ
distinction between semantically irrelevant referential features and genuine

semantic considerations does not depend on a criterion designed specially for
this purpose, as Weinreich seems to think, but is solely a matter of empirically
validating the whole semantie component in which the distinction is already
made formally. That is, this distinction will be automatically made by the
manner in which the lexical readings in the dictionary are written. We can
write lexical readings to include or exclude such semantically irrelevant
referential features as those Weinreich mentions by either introducing or not
introducing appropriate markers. Thus, we can always devise an alternative
dictionary in which there is, inter alia, a sense of 'eat' on which it means
'eating with a spoon', and we can test our dictionary against such alternatives
by determining which best predicts the semantic properties and relations of
sentences. It seems quite obvious that the semantic component whose
dictionary excludes such features will give better predictions, since the sem
antic components whose dictionary includes such features will run into an
unlimited amount of trouble in cases of predicting paraphrase and synonymy.
Even where such alternative semantic components can predict as well as
semantic components that exclude such features, they will be less adequate
on grounds of simplicity, since ex hypothesi they require more theoretical
machinery.
XI. PROJECTION RULES
Weinreich's discussion of projection rules involves a number of critical

mistakes which lead him to draw the conclusion that a semantic component
does not require a projection rule component. I will point out these mistakes
here, but will not enter into a lengthy discussion of the character of pro
jection rules because a general account of them has already been given. My
concern with pointing out these mistakes will be only to show that Wein
reich's conclusion is without foundation.
First, it is not the case, as Weinreich claims70, that type 2 projection rules
were eliminated because all optional transformations were debarred from the
transformational subcomponent of the syntactic component. Rather, as was
pointed out above, the reason that type 2 projection rules were eliminated is
70 Weinreich (1966), 412. Here Weinreich makes a very serious error. The position taken
by Postal and myself, and by Chomsky (1964), does eliminate certain optional trans
formations, viz. the generalized transformations, and it does change certain singulary
transformations from optional status to obligatory status, but it does not do away with
optional transformations. Certain singularies, those that deal with stylistic variants, such
as the cases 'He looked up the book' and 'He looked the book up' or 'I like only one of the
books you have' and 'Of the books you have, I like only one', still remain optional
transformations.
176
that, on the recent change in the syntactic component7l, all generalized

transformations are debarred from the transformational subcomponent, so
that type 2 projection rules no longer have a function to perform. On this
change, the recursive power of the grammar is relocated from the transfor
mational subcomponent to the phrase structure subcomponent by the elimi
nation of generalized transformations and the introduction of rules of the
form A-+... .S... into the phrase structure subcomponent which permit us to
begin the derivation of a sentence within the derivation of another sentence.
This means that phrase markers can contain other phrase markers as con
stituents, thus relating them in precisely the manner in which they would be
related by a T-marker. Consequently, the semantic effect of type 2 projection
rules can be obtained by using type 1 projection rules alone, since what was
formerly a problem of combining the readings of sentences in the same
T-marker is now a problem of combining the readings of different constituents
in the same (underlying) phrase marker. Weinreich has misunderstood the
nature of this revision in syntactic theory and also its consequences for
semantic theory.
Second, Weinreich starts with the fact that type 2 projection rules have
been eliminated from the semantic component, then, argues that there do
not have to be any type 1 projection rules either, and so he concludes that
there do not need to be any projection rules at all.72 The claim that type 1
projection rules can be eliminated also is false, and, therefore, his conclusion
is false. In order to show why this claim, is false, let us consider the two sorts
of considerations that Weinreich adduces in support of it.
First, he mistakenly says there must be as many type 1 projection rules as
there are binary constructions in the grammar. By itself, of course, this
would not imply that we can dispense with projection rules but only that,
perhaps, we need one projection rule for each case of binary branching. But,
still we would need projection rules: now more of them than before. How
ever, this situation would make the semantic component far less economical
than would be tolerable insofar as we would be forced to countenance a great
multiplicity of projection rules. So, and this is what appears to have escaped
Weinreich, it was just in order to avoid this intolerable situation, and to
formulate the generalization that whenever constituents bear the same
grammatical relation to each other their readings combine in the same way
that the conditions of application for type 1 projection rules were defined
in terms of grammatical relations, not branching. Thus, the application of a
type 1 projection rule depends on whether or not a particular set of con
71 Katz and P. Postal (1964), Chapter 3.

72 Weinreich (1966), 413.
177
JERROLD J. KATZ
stituents, which may or may not be limited to two members73, occupy

positions in a configuration of symbols in an underlying phrase marker
which satisfies the definition of the particular grammatical relation with
which that projection rule deals. The grammatical relations of subject
predicate, verb-object, modifier-head (attribution), etc. each have the same
status as defined constructs in syntactic theory. Moreover, contrary to
Weinreich's unsupported claim, there is no reason to believe that the modifier
head relation cannot be defined in syntactic theory or that the definition of
this relation requires an illicit appeal to semantics.74 For modifiers, except
for relatives, are basically adjectives (since a good case can be made for
regarding adverbs as derived from adjectives75) which appear in simple
sentences at certain fixed, syntactically specifiable positions and enter com
pound sentences at certain fixed, syntactically specifiable positions, which
themselves determine the constituent that serves as the head.
Weinreich's second consideration, which was already shown to misrepre
sent seriously our semantic theory, is that "... the power of all projection
rules is the same: namely, to sum the paths of the constituents".76 Even if
this contention were true, it would still not follow that type 1 projection rules
are dispensable but only that they could all be collapsed into one general type 1
projection rule. Weinreich's claim that "the classification of constructions by
PRs could easily be shown within the categorial part of the syntax"77 is a
gratuitous claim and nothing that he says about this matter in later sections
of his paper, as we shall see, helps to explain how this might be accomplished.
Be this as it may, the basic point is that Weinreich's entire discussion of the
73Whether or not projection rules will be needed that deal with the readings of more than
two constituents depends, of course, on whether there are n-ary (for n > 2) grammatical
relations defined in the theory of syntax. Weinreich (1966, 413) makes it appear as if
everyone knew of such cases, and we simply failed to provide a treatment for them.
Actually, however, there is, up to this time, little basis for thinking that there are
such grammatical relations. If subsequent work in grammar finds some, then it will be
necessary to construct a type 1 projection rule for them, but finding a new case does not
necessarily affect the theory of projection rules, just as finding a new transformation does
not necessarily affect the theory of transformational grammar.
74 Weinreich (1966, 143) says, "Such notions as 'modifier' and 'head' ... have no status
in the theory at all; they beg a question in disguise and are probably undefinable without
reference to semantics." To the first point: if the theory he is referring to is ours, he again
exhibits his failure to understand the notion of a projection rule; if the theory is syntactic
theory, it is just false to say these notions have no status, for they specify the character of
the attribution relation. To the second point: Weinreich does not tell us what question is
supposed to be begged. To the last point: no argument is given as to why Chomsky's view
that grammatical relations such as this one are defined solely in terms of configurations of
syntactic markers in phrase markers, and so without reference to semantics, is incorrect.
75 Cf. Katz and P. Postal (1964), and also Ross (unpublished).
76 Weinreich (1966), 413.
77 Weinreich (1966), 413.
178
effect of projection rules becomes irrelevant because of his failure to recog

nize that we allow a variety of compositional patterns which go far beyond
just the forming of a Boolean sum of the semantic markers in the readings
combined to produce a derived reading.
Here, at the end of this section, it is appropriate to consider the following
general point about projection rules. All previous discussions of semantic
theory assumed that projection rules appear in a special subcomponent of
the semantic component of a linguistic description. This, of course, means
that we assumed that projection rules are language specific and that each
natural language requires a different set of them. I now think that this
position is very likely wrong and that there is only one set of projection rules
for every language. If this is indeed the case, then the projection rules will
appear in linguistic theory, as part of that theory's statement of the formal
universals at the semantic level. The semantic components of particular
linguistic descriptions will not contain projection rules, but will consist only
of a dictionary. This simplification of the conception of a semantic com
ponent is motivated by the following considerations. The only concepts that
are used in the formulation of projection rules are general notions such as
grammatical relations, the construct of constituent, the notion of a reading,
of a semantic marker, of a distinguisher, of a selection restriction, and certain
notions of logic and mathematics. Since the only linguistic concepts that enter
into their formulation are universals themselves, and since instances of them
will appear in every linguistic description, it seems reasonable to suppose
that the rules formed from them, the projection rules, are also universals.
The claim then is that there is a set of projection rules in semantic theory,
members of which apply in any process of semantic interpretation for any
language, whenever the process reaches the point at which their conditions
of application are satisfied. This does not imply that every grammatical
relation appears in every language, but only that, for every language in
which a grammatical relation R appears, there is the same definition of R in
terms of a configuration of symbols in a phrase marker. Likewise, this does
not imply that every language has the semantic operation for combining
readings corresponding to R, but only that every language that has oc
currences of R has the same semantic operation for the meanings of the
constituents that bear R to each other. Finally, this does not imply that every
language has the same readings, semantic markers, distinguishers, or selection
restrictions, but only that the semantic structure of every language can be best
described in terms of constructs that qualify as readings, semantic markers,
distinguishers, and selection restrictions.
It is worth commenting, in passing, that, on the view that projection rules
are universals, we obtain a very realistic picture of what happens in second
179
JERROLD J. KATZ
language learning. On this view, what we learn beyond phonology, and be

sides transformations, is a dictionary in which readings, most of which are
already in the dictionary for the native language, are correlated with mor
phemes in the foreign tongue (i.e. a dictionary of the foreign language). We
do not also learn a new set of projection rules, both according to this view
and according to everyone's experience in such situations. Once the learner
has mastered the phonology and transformations of the new language, and
can obtain the underlying phrase marker for a sentence in it, he can use
the dictionary he has learned to obtain its meaning because, he already
knows the right projection rules to apply.
XII. WEINREICH'S PROPOSAL FOR A NEW SEMANTIC THEORY
Satisfied that his critique of our semantic theory has shown it to be in

adequate, Weinreich next offers what he calls "a radically new approach" to
the construction of a semantic theory.78 He writes:
The goal of a semantic theory of a language, as we conceive it, is to explicate the
way in which the meaning of a sentence of specified structure is derivable from the
fully specified meanings of its parts.79
The "radical newness" of this approach escapes me, since this compositional
approach to semantics is exactly what I have been urging for the last few
years. The explanation for this seems to me to be the following: Wein
reich first misrepresented our theory almost to the point of unrecognizability
and then, misled by his own misrepresentation, inadvertantly adopted the
main idea of our semantic theory as the basis of his own "radically new
approach".
In what follows below, I will examine the various theses that comprise
Weinreich's proposal for a semantic theory. I will try to show that where he
offers a theoretically tenable thesis, it is taken from our semantic theory in
unmisrepresented form and that where he departs from our theory, his thesis
is not theoretically tenable, or else constitutes merely a terminological variant
of one of the notions in our theory.
Consider first his statement of the general relation between the semantic
and syntactic components in a linguistic description:
... we follow Chomsky on the important principle that the transformational
processing contributes nothing meaningful to a sentence, and that the operations of
the semantic component, leading to the semantic interpretation of a sentence,
should be defined entirely on the deep structure of the sentence.80
78 Weinreich (1966), 413.

79 Weinrreich (1966), 417.
80 Weinreich (1966), 417.
180
This principle about the semantic neutrality of syntactic transformations, as

well as its formalization as the organizational universal which restricts the
operation of the semantic component to underlying phrase markers ex
clusively, was first developed by Postal and me in our book An Integrated
Theory of Linguistic Descriptions.81 Thus, Weinreich here offers what we
would certainly accept as a theoretically tenable thesis. But, then, it can
hardly count as an improvement on our conception of semantic theory.
Next, consider his notion of a dictionary entry. That dictionary entries
consist of a set of phonological markers, a set of syntactic markers, and a set
of semantic markers is, again, nothing new.82 On the other hand, Wein
reich's stipulation that a particular dictionary entry not contain more than
one lexical reading, so that the different senses of a lexical item must be
represented by different dictionary entries, is indeed a departure of some
sort from our conception of the dictionary. But this difference is merely
terminological, a matter of alternative notation without any substantive
significance for semantics. For from the viewpoint of a formal theory of
linguistic competence, it cannot matter in the slightest to any substantive
question about the description of a language whether the pair of a distinctive
feature matrix D and its associated complex symbol C are listed once in the
dictionary with n lexical readings attached or whether the pair (D, C) is
listed n times, each instance being associated with just one of the n lexical
readings and each of the lexical readings being associated with just one of the
n occurrences of (D, C). It seems to me to be notationally more economical to
adopt our conception of the dictionary and not list (D, C) more than once,
i.e. our notation is a substantively equivalent way of avoiding such uneconom
ical repetitions, but I will not press this point. Furthermore, Weinreich's claim
that he is able on his method of writing dictionary entries to insure that under
lying phrase markers are free of lexical ambiguities adds no support whatever
to his thesis that lexical items with multiple senses should be represented in the
dictionary by a distinct entry for each of its senses.83 This claim is circular and
begs the question at issue: for freedom from lexical ambiguities means
nothing more than that the notation Weinreich advocates does not represent
a lexical item with n senses in terms of a single entry whose (D, C) is associated
with n lexical readings. This is like arguing that someone ought to trade his
car for another because after the trade the car he owns will not be the one he
formerly owned. In sum, then, Weinreich has not shown that his method of
writing dictionary entries has any substantive advantage over ours, nor could
he show this, since these alternatives are interdefinable notations. Hence, in
81 Katz and P. Postal (1964).

82 Weinreich (1966), 417.
83 Weinreich (1966), 418.
181
JERROLD J. KATZ
the absence of any possible justification for his method of writing dictionary
entries, it cannot be considered anything more than a less economical,
notational alternative.
At this point, Weinreich himself introduces ordering of semantic markers
in lexical readings, the very thing that he was formerly so eager to do away
with on grounds of simplicity. However, he does not want every set of sem
antic markers to be ordered and offers a rationale for ordering those that he
thinks must be treated in this way. Thus, he proposes to further characterize
his notion of a dictionary entry by the condition that a dictionary entry can
contain either clusters of semantic features, i.e. just sets of them, or con
figurations of semantic features, i.e. ordered sets of them, or (?) both. By
way of giving a rationale for introducing such ordering, he writes:
Suppose the meaning of daughter is analyzed into the components 'female' and
'offspring'. Anyone who is is a daughter is both female and an offspring; we
represent the features 'female' and 'offspring' as a cluster. But suppose the meaning
of chair is represented in terms of the features 'furniture' and 'sit'. Whatever is a
chair is 'furniture', but it is not sitting: it is 'to be sat on'. We would represent this
fact by saying that the features 'furniture' and 'sitting' form a configuration.84
Now, in my paper 'Semantic Theory and the Meaning of "Good" '85, I

propose a way of handling this type of case without appealing to ordering at
all. Although this paper was published well before Weinreich finished his, no
consideration is given to the way that I suggested there. In terms of the ideas
in that paper, we can write the lexical reading for the most common sense of
'chair', the one that Weinreich intends, as follows:
(Physical Object), (Non-living), (Artifact), (Furniture), (Portable), (Legs),

(Back), (Eval: Use (Serves as a seat for one person)) <SR>
A lexical reading of this sort, together with the rest of the system of evalu
ation semantic markers enables us to explicate the fact that the semantic
information that a chair is furniture is somehow different from the semantic
information that it is used for sitting. Thus, Weinreich's claim that ordering
is needed among semantic features in order to represent this difference
appropriately is false. Moreover, notice that ordering of the sort Weinreich
proposes is not even a suitable means of representing such differences in type
of semantic information. An ordering of symbols is an arrangement of them
into a sequence in accord with some principle that provides an interpretation
for differences in the positions of the sequence. For example, if we order
transformational rules in the customary fashion, we do so on the principle
that a transformation that is positioned after another can only be applied
84 Weinreich (1966), 419.

85 Katz (1964a).
182
after the other has been applied. But in Weinreich's use of ordering here there
is no principle for positioning symbols that represent semantic features. That
is, there is no linguistic interpretation for the formal arrangement in which a
symbol a precedes another b, which may, in turn, precede another c, and so
forth, beyond the stipulation that a semantic feature so ordered is not to be
taken in the straightforward way that is suggested by the symbol that labels
it. Thus, in the case of 'chair' Weinreich's arrow is simply used as a con
ventional symbol to indicate that the feature (sitting) should really have been
the feature (to be sat on). Why he did not simply use the feature (to be sat on)
without the circumlocution of (sitting) and ordering I cannot say. There is
no systematic import for this circumlocution in which ordering is used
speciously, whereas for the notion of an evaluation semantic marker con
siderable evidence for its systematic import has been presented.86
With respect to these notions of clusters and configuration, Weinreich
defines the notion of linking. The idea underlying this notion of linking is
something Weinreich calls "a basic tenet" of his approach, viz.
that the semantic structures of complex expressions and of simplex expressions are
in principle representable in the same form. ... This principle explains the possibility
of freely introducing new words into a language L by stipulating their meanings
through expressions couched in words of language L.87
This idea, however, is nothing more than a restatement of our principle,

incorporated in our definition of the notion of a reading, that derived
readings have the same form as lexical readings. The definition of the notion
of reading says that every reading is a set of semantic markers, with optional
distinguisher, and a selection restriction. Since the semantic structure of the
simplest constituents is represented by lexical readings and the semantic
structure of syntactically complex constituents is represented by derived
readings, and since both lexical and derived readings are covered by this
definition, it follows that the semantic structure of both the simple and the
complex constituents is, in principle, representable in the same form. Hence,
this "basic tenet" of Weinreich's approach is just a variant of one of our
definitions.
Linking is a device for forming unordered sets of semantic features. The
linking of the clusters and configurations in the semantic characterization of
an expression M with the clusters and configurations in the semantic
characterization of another expression N is just the Boolean union of these
clusters and configurations. The resulting Boolean union is the semantic
characterization of the compound expression MN.88 It thus looks very much
86 Katz (1964a).
87 Weinreich (1966), 419.
88 Weinreich (1966), 419.
183
JERROLD J. KATZ
as if the notion of linking is the back-door through which Weinreich might

allow in a disguised version of our projection rules. However, to fully
appreciate what is going on here, we must make a sharp distinction between,
on the one hand, the operation of forming the semantic representation of a
compound constituent, and on the other, the formal structure of the semantic
representation of a compound constituent which results from such an operation.
In terms of this distinction, it is clear that linking is not such a back-door.
Weinreich's notion of linking is actually part of a taxonomy of types of
formal structures exhibited in semantic representations, and, as such, it
describes one type of such representations. Linking cannot be compared with
projection rules because there is no concept of rule, i.e. of formal operations
for determining the structure of derived readings, built into it. Rather, from
our point of view, linking is a purported description of the formal character
of the output of some class of projection rules. Thus, Weinreich's approach
here is the same as approaches in syntax which favor writing descriptions
of the syntactic structure of sentences without generative rules. The in
adequacy of such approaches is that, although they can say something about
what knowledge concerning certain particular sentences a speaker has by
virtue of his linguistic competence, they cannot formulate a theory of what
his linguistic competence consists in, since they make no attempt to state
rules.
According to Weinreich, the semantic representations that can be classified
as linking are those for attribute and head constructions, subject noun and
main verb constructions, subject noun with predicate noun constructions,
main verbs with manner adverbial constructions, and descriptive adverbs
with adjective constructions.89 Since I would claim that all readings are, in
effect, sets of semantic markers, I can have no quarrel with Weinreich's
claim that the semantic representations for each of the cases just mentioned
are instances of linking. My quarrel with his taxonomy is over two other
matters. One is the absence of rules for generating the semantic repre
sentations that are classified in the taxonomy, and the other, to which we
turn shortly, is the notion of non-linking.90
But before we consider non-linking, it is necessary to examine Weinreich's
special concept of impure linking9l, where the use of ordering again arises and
can again be shown to be both unneeded and to abscure the real semantic
structure of the cases involved. Weinreich considers the case:
(36) A small elephant is big
89 Weinreich (1966), 424.

90 Weinreich (1966), 424-428.
91 Weinreich (1966), 422-423.
184
and observes, quite correctly, that (36) is not contradictory even though the
words 'small' and 'big' are antonymous.92 But he goes on, after this obser
vation, to give a wholly unsatisfactory account of the matter by saying that
these words
... are not simply predicated of a single entity, elephant. It seems, therefore, that the
features in a linking cluster (at least for some features and some constructions) are
ordered (with the features listed first being more "emphatic" or foregrounded);
and the associative rule would be suspended, so that ((a, b), c) : (a, (b, c)). Sub
clusters of features can then be shown to display tendencies toward contextual
specialization: the a of (a, b) would not be identical with the a of some (a, c):
littleness in elephants would be different from littleness otherwise.93
At first glance, it appears that by the introduction of ordering in clusters

Weinreich is directly contradicting his own distinction between clusters and
configurations. However, this is not the case. Rather, Weinreich has confused
ordering with grouping: what he is talking about is grouping, but he wrongly
calls it ordering. This saves him from the charge of inconsistency but this
does not matter much because it is quite clear that grouping cannot be made
to do the job that he wants it to do. The situation is this: since Weinreich
endorses a compositional theory of semantic interpretation, the symbols that
appear in the semantic characterizations of sentences such as (36) must be
obtained from those that appear in the semantic characterizations of their
constituents. Thus, whatever concept of littleness is represented by the
symbol 'a' in the semantic characterization of the lexical item 'little' is also
represented by the symbol 'a' in the semantic characterization of the whole
meaning of (36). This would mean that littleness in elephants is the same as
littleness otherwise. Therefore, Weinreich introduces the convention that
grouping changes the concept, so that 'a' grouped with 'b' is the concept of
littleness in b's (elephants), not littleness otherwise. But, although this
differentiation of concepts of littleness in terms of "contextual specialization"
does permit him to predict that (36) is not contradictory, it breaks down
utterly when it is made to carry a slightly stronger empirical load. For
example, it cannot, in principle, explain the meaning of a sentence such as:
(37) The elephant is littler than the dog

since here we require the same concept of littleness for the comparison and
the possibility of a common concept is ruled out by Weinreich's differentia
tion. Moreover, Weinreich's formalism, at best, represents littleness in
elephants, dogs, fleas, etc. as different from littleness with respect to each
other and with respect to other things. It does not explain the manner in
92 Weinreich (1966), 422.
93 Weinreich (1966), 422-423.
185
JERRQLD J. KATZ
which each case is different. What does it mean for an elephant to be little,
for a dog to be little, for a flea, etc.? How are little elephants, dogs, fleas, etc.,
qua little elephants, dogs, fleas, etc., different in size? Moreover, what is
common to littleness in one thing as compared with littleness in another?
It is thus quite apparent that there are overwhelming difficulties in Wein
reich's makeshift treatment of these problems in terms of the notion impure
linking.
It is, however, unnecessary to face these difficulties because, on our con
ception of semantic theory, there is a better way to handle cases like (36), (37),
and others that come up in connection with a semantic analysis of adjectives
such as 'little'. We divide adjectives semantically into two kinds, what I call
relative adjectives, such as 'little', 'big', 'small', 'heavy', 'tall', 'expensive', etc.,
and what I call absolute adjectives, such as 'red', 'carnivorous','spotted',
'sickly', 'scenic', etc. Relative adjectives further divide into size adjectives,
weight adjectives, cost adjectives, height adjectives, and so on. We concentrate
our attention on relative size adjectives, although the general treatment to be
given for them applies mutatis mutandis to the other types of relative adjec
tives. To begin with, we notice that what is said in (36) in its generic sense is
essentially the same as what is said by
(38) An elephant which is little for an elephant is big for an animal.
Thus, there is an implicit comparison in such uses of the positive form of

these adjectives. Moreover, we notice that sentences such as,
skyscraper
man
(39) The flea is big
United States
-tarantula
can be correspondingly rendered as,
skyscraper building
man human
(40) The flea is big for a insect
United States country
tarantula _ -spider
We notice that elephants are compared with animals, skyscrapers with
buildings, a man with humans, a flea with insects, The United States with
countries, a tarantula with spiders, and so on, and that the class of entities
with which something is compared is a category to which that thing belongs.
Further, it is clear that the semantic marker which represents this category
186
will appear in the reading for the subject noun. Thus, we can say that relative
size adjectives fix the object to which they are attributed at some position on
a scale of possible sizes whose calibration is determined by the meaning of
the noun they modify. That is, a sentence of the form
(41) N is big (little, huge, minute, etc.)

makes a size judgment of Ns relative to, or compared with, some class of
entities determined by the meaning of 'N'. Each sentence in (39), and others
like them, are, accordingly, different in meaning in a way that reflects the
relevant semantic differences between the nouns 'skyscraper', 'man', 'flea',
'United States', 'tarantula', and so forth. Nonetheless, there is also a common
feature to the meanings of these sentences, viz., each is a judgment to the
effect that the entity referred to by the subject of the sentence is greater in
size than an average or typical member of some broader class of entities. To
represent these facts and incorporate them into a semantic component, we
introduce a type of semantic marker that we call a relative semantic marker,
which has the form:
[greater] [size]
( less in weight than (an average 1))
Thus, the lexical reading for 'big' and other relative size adjectives will
contain a relative semantic marker, which in the case of 'big' will be (Greater
in size than (an average s)). Y will be that semantic marker which represents
the category of entities with which the subject of the sentence is compared in
size, weight, cost, height, etc. The question is now how to determine Y in the
semantic interpretation of a particular sentence in a natural way.
We already know that I is one of the semantic markers in the reading for
the subject noun phrase of the sentence and I represents one of the semantic
categories to which this subject belongs. However, this is not enough infor
mation to uniquely determine E because the reading of the subject will contain
more than one semantic marker representing a semantic category. But
reflecting on the facts presented in (38) and (40) it seems reasonable to say
that I is in some sense the lowest semantic category in the subject's reading.
That is, it seems clear that no more abstract or general categories than those
indicated in (38) and (40) can be chosen in an equivalent rendering of (36)
and (39). For example, we cannot render 'The skyscraper is big' as 'The sky
scraper is big for a physical object' or in a more extreme case 'The flea is big'
as 'The flea is big for an animal'. Also, if you want to deny the claim that
fleas are big, you cite big insects, not horses or buildings. Hence, we can
contextually define 'V' to be that semantic marker in the reading of the
187
JERROLD J. KATZ
subject that represents the lowest semantic category as compared with any
of the other semantic categories represented by semantic markers in this
reading, where the lowest category is determined by the redundancy rules of
the dictionary and definition (ii) of page 166 in Section IX of this paper.
According to this definition of 'X', 'E' becomes that semantic marker in the
reading of the subject that ranks lowest in this hierarchy when the reading
of the subject and relative adjective are combined by a projection rule. Thus,
the relevant differences between the cases of (39) are indicated by the semantic
markers (Building), (Human), (Insect), (Country), and (Spider) and the
common feature of the meaning of these sentences is indicated by the fact
that in their readings these semantic markers occupy the same position, i.e.
each is a value of 'X' in semantic markers of the form (Greater in size than
(an average s)).
As we observed earlier, comparative sentences with a relative adjective
such as (37) involve a common concept for judging the things compared, i.e.
either a common concept of size, or of weight, or cost, or height, or whatever
it is. Moreover, the judgment in these cases is not made in terms of some
broader class of entities an average member of which serves as the standard of
greater, less, or equality. For example, (37) means that the elephant is smaller
on an absolute scale of size than the dog, not that the elephant is smaller
than an average animal and that the dog is bigger than that average animal.
Thus, such judgments are absolute judgments of size, weight, cost, height,
etc. between the objects compared. These facts are easily accomodated in the
above treatment of relative adjectives by the addition of a further condition
to the definition of 's'. The condition is this: in cases of as A as and Aer
comparatives, the component semantic marker (an average 1) in the relative
semantic marker of the reading for A becomes the reading for the noun
phrase subject of the second sentence, i.e. the reading for the subject of the
constituent sentence. Hence, in (37), the reading that replaces (an average Y)
would be that for the noun phrase 'the dog', and so we have as one of the
semantic markers in the reading for the predicate of (37), viz. 'is littler than
the dog', the semantic marker (Smaller in size than (D)), where '(D)' is the
reading for 'the dog'. Superlative sentences of the form 'NP1 is the Aest of
NP2' require a replacement of (an average X) by (Any R), where 'R' is the
reading for NP2. But these are matters of detail.
Returning to the main point, it must now be clear that this way of handling
relative adjectives makes Weinreich's solution both unnecessary and un
desirable. Our solution explicates the semantic structure involved in con
structions with relative adjectives whereas Weinreich's merely indicates
differences in meaning in certain of the constructions in question. Moreover,
ours deals with cases, such as (37), which Weinreich's cannot handle, and it
188
can be naturally extended to provide a way of handling comparative and

superlative sentences with relative adjectives, which Weinreich's cannot. The
device of a relative semantic marker capitalizes on the fact that the relevant
semantic marker for characterizing the class with respect to which size
(weight, cost, height, etc.) judgments are made with relative adjectives is
already in the reading for the subject of the sentence, so that the ad hocness
of Weinreich's solution is avoided. Furthermore, our solution also permits
us to represent the meaning of (36) and similar cases in such a fashion that it
is not marked as contradictory. For the semantic markers (Greater in size
than (an average 1)) and (Less in size than (an average X)) are antonymous,
i.e. belong to the same antonymous n-tuple of semantic markers, only if
each I is replaced by the same semantic marker(s).
Next, we turn to Weinreich's other type of semantic characterization for
constituents, viz. the non-linking cases. We shall now try to show that each
type of constituent for which Weinreich uses ordering to represent its
semantic structure can be better dealt with without ordering.
Consider the first type of non-linking case, for which Weinreich coins the
name nesting.94 In such a case, no new cluster is created from the clusters
that represent the meanings of the constituent's component constituents but
the component constituents a and b form a configuration (a-*b). The
example that Weinreich gives is the constituent 'fix teeth', and his argument
is that unless we treat the semantic characterization of this constituent as a
configuration we will be committed to construing the activity of fixing teeth
as the object teeth. However, such examples fail to provide any reason to
resort to ordering, since they can be easily handled without it. The appropri
ate sense of 'fix' is that of restoring something by replacing parts or putting
together its torn or broken pieces. The lexical reading for this sense will
contain the semantic marker (Activity) in order that 'fix' be classified with
other activity verbs and not with process, state, etc, verbs. It will also contain
an evaluation semantic marker because 'fix' in this sense can be modified by
'well' and 'badly' as in
(42) John fixes teeth well.

Roughly, the evaluation semantic marker will be (Eval: (Restores Y by
replacing parts or putting together torn or broken pieces)). The Y-slot in this
semantic marker, it will be recalled95, receives the reading for the object of
'fix'. Consequently, the reading of 'fix teeth' will be ... (Activity), (Eval:
(Restores (Teeth) by replacing parts or putting together torn or broken
pieces)).... Hence, on this semantic representation, an activity that is de
94 Weinreich (1966), 424-426.
95 Katz (1964a), 758-759.
189
JERROLD J. KATZ
scribed as fixing teeth is not thereby regarded as teeth. Moreover, on the

dubious hypothesis, accepted by Weinreich96, that a dentist is one who fixes
teeth, the sentence
(43) John is a good dentist

is a paraphrase of (42), as required.
The next type of non-linking case that Weinreich gives is what he calls
delimitation. This is the case of a semantic contribution of syntactic elements
in the determiner and predeterminer system - elements such as 'five', 'some',
'the', 'these', etc.97 - to the meaning of a Noun Phrase in which they appear.
But, besides coining the name 'delimitation' to cover such cases, Weinreich
says nothing about them and nothing whatever to justify regarding the
relation between their semantic characterization and that of the other con
stituents in the Noun Phrase as instances of ordering. The name "delimitation"
is just an empty label. Since there is no theoretical content to this label, there
is not the slightest indication of how the formal ordering alleged to be in
volved in these non-linking cases is to be used to account for the semantic
contribution of these elements in the determiner and predeterminer system.
Being equally ignorant of the semantic structure in this system, I have noth
ing to say by way of showing that such ordering cannot be fruitfully employed
in describing this structure, but, clearly, Weinreich's empty label cannot be
regarded as an improvement over my silence. Therefore, we conclude that
there is no case either pro or con for the use of ordering in the semantic
representation of this Noun Phrase system.
The last case of non-linking that Weinreich discusses is what he calls
modalization, i.e. the semantic function of words such as 'impossible',
'certainly', 'possibility', and so forth. But just as in the previous case of
delimitation, he offers nothing but a label. He writes:
In view of the highly tentative nature of these suggestions, we refrain from offering
a notation for this type of construction.98
Hence, again we can conclude that Weinreich's claim for the necessity of
ordering is not based upon any argument or evidence whatsoever. Without
any substantive analysis, it is certainly not possible to regard cases of
modalization as cases that require ordering of the sort that Weinreich intends
to use to handle other types of non-linking constructions. But here in the case
96 Weinreich (1966), 424. I say on this dubious hypothesis because the hypothesis is
obviously false. The sentence 'John fixes teeth but is not a dentist' is not contradictory, as it
would have to be were the hypothesis true, since it might not be John's profession to
treat, repair and care for people's teeth.
97 Weinreich (1966), 426-428.
98 Weinreich (1966), 428.
190
of such sentence adverbials, unlike the case of determiners and predeter

miners, there is some reason to think that such ordering is inappropriate.
The reader is referred to my treatment of a class of such modal adverbials
in my The Philosophy of Language.99
After concluding his taxonomy of types of semantic characterizations for
constituents, Weinreich introduces the notion of transfer features.100 A
transfer feature is a semantic element that appears in the semantic character
ization of a constituent but does not represent one of the components of the
sense of the constituent. Rather, it becomes a representation of a component
of a sense of any constituent that can be formed syntactically from the
constituent containing the transfer feature and another constituent that is
unmarked for the feature. That is, when a transfer feature occurs in the
semantic characterization of a constituent C1 which together with another
constituent C2 form a syntactically compound constituent C3, it transfers to
the semantic characterization of C3 as an element that represents a com
ponent concept in the sense of C3. A transfer feature is specially symbolized,
on Weinreich's account it is enclosed within angles, to indicate that its
appearance in C1 does not function to represent a feature of the meaning of
C1. One of the examples Weinreich gives is:
The fact that pretty is not normally applicable to Males, we have seen, could be
stated as part of the dictionary entry for pretty. However, it was also apparent
that when the proper context is unspecified as to [? Male], the word pretty itself
specifies it as [- Male].'01
It seems somewhat doubtful whether given that someone is correctly
referred to as a pretty person it follows that the person is female, since babies
and children of either sex can be referred to as pretty. But there is no point
to quibbling about examples here. If it should turn out that transfer features
are needed, our conception of semantic theory can accomodate them without
any change in the theory whatever. Nothing about our theory is incompatible
with the incorporation of a semantic marker of this sort.
Next Weinreich introduces a principle that conflicts with one of the basic
features of our theory. He writes:
... the major classes are nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs; ... All members of a
major class uniquely share a distinguishing semantic feature.... We intend the
distinguishing feature of each major morpheme class, e.g. [+ Noun], to be taken
as semantic in the full sense of the word; more revealing names might be 'thingness'
or 'substantiality'; 'quality' (for [+ Adjective]), and so on.102
99 Katz (1966), Chapter 5.

100 Weinreich (1966), 429-432.
101 Weinreich (1966), 429.
102 Weinreich (1966), 432.
191
JERROLD J. KATZ
This conflicts with our claim that a syntactic category such as noun does not
have an inherent semantic interpretation but that particular constituents
that are categorized as nouns in phrase markers have semantic structure
which is derived from the meanings of their component constituents. But
choice in this conflict is painfully clear: Weinreich's principle must be rejected
as empirically false because it implies that the meaning of every noun involves
the concept of thingness or substantiality. The list ot counter-examples is
indefinitely large, including such cases as 'virtue', 'socialism', 'shadow'
'truth', 'zero', 'relations', 'principles', 'itches', 'lap', 'pain', and so on.
It is so obvious that this principle of Weinreich's cannot be supported that
we have given an explicit reply to it only because Weinreich bases a major
feature of his theory on it. Given this principle that major morpheme classes
have inherent semantic features, these semantic features can appear in the
derivation of a sentence prior to the insertion of lexical entries. This Wein
reich allows, and to avoid redundancy, introduces theoretical machinery to
distribute the semantic features associated with major morpheme classes
down to the constituents they dominate in phrase markers. The semantic
calculatorl03, the basic mechanism of Weinreich's theory of the semantic
component, is nothing but a device for distributing semantic features down
a phrase marker. That is, semantic features associated with nodes labeled
with the symbol 'Sentence' or symbols for phrases of one type or another
or symbols for major categories (as Weinreich puts it "non-terminal nodes
of the categorical component") - where the association has been effected by
''semantically" revised phrase structure rules - are distributed down to the
morphemes that are dominated by those nodes in phrase markers.
There are two sorts of arguments given by Weinreich to motivate the
semantic calculator. One, which is based on the principle of inherent semantic
features for major morpheme classes, requires no further comment. The
other is that certain semantic features cannot otherwise be gotten into the
representation of a sentence's meaning at the level of terminal elements in
underlying phrase markers so they must be introduced higher up as features
of the whole sentence, one of its phrases, or one of its major categories.
Weinreich writes:
The introduction of semantic features into non-terminal nodes of the categorical
component also suggests a more elegant treatment of pro-forms, questions, and
imperatives than the one sketched by Katz and Postal (1964).... Katz and Postal
have shown the usefulness of postulating an I(mperative) and a Q(uestion) mor
pheme which function as "sentence adverbials". Since, however, these are elements
which have no segmental representation on any level, it is natural to introduce
103 Weinreich (1966), 455-465.
192
them as semantic features of the sentence as a whole. Treating Assertion, Command,

and Question as the values of a ternary feature. ...104
The mistake here is the false claim that the I and Q morphemes have no
suitable representation among the terminal elements of underlying phrase
markers, such that readings for them could be supplied by appropriate
dictionary entries. It is certainly true that I and Q have no segmental repre
sentation at the level of final derived phrase markers, but this does not matter
on our theory because the semantic component operates exclusively on
underlying phrase markers. The suggestion that Postal and I made was that
I and Q occur as terminal symbols in underlying phrase markers for impera
tives and questions respectively.105 Accordingly, Weinreich's statement that
I and Q "... are elements which have no segmental representation on any
level" (italics mine) is another misunderstanding of our theory. If they appear
as terminal elements in underlying phrase markers, there can be a dictionary
entry for each, which will permit us to assign appropriate lexical readings to
occurrences of them in underlying phrase markers.106 Consequently, there is
no need to introduce the semantic representations of the concepts of the
speaker requests and the speaker requests an answer, respectively the meanings
associated with I and Q, as features of sentences as a whole. Weinreich's
alternative of introducing these semantic representations as features of the
symbol 'S' that labels the node dominating the entire sentence is, therefore,
not necessary to get these features of the meaning of imperatives and ques
tions into representations of their meaning, and this argument for the
semantic calculator, too, breaks down. Since both arguments offered by
Weinreich in support of the semantic calculator fail, we can legitimately
dismiss the idea of a semantic calculator as one for which there is neither
empirical motivation nor need.
One further point. It might be that describing the syntactic structure of
questions and imperatives in languages that have inflectional forms for
them will require that Q and I be treated as syntactic features of verbs rather
than as sentence adverbials constituents. But, even so, it would be wrong to
introduce them in the manner Weinreich suggests, viz. as semantic features of
sentences as a whole, since, as features of verbs, their semantic character
izations can be included in the lexical readings for the appropriate verbs of
the language. Since these verbs will appear as terminal symbols in underlying
phrase markers, there will be elements in the segmental representation of
imperatives and questions with which to associated these lexical readings.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
104 Weinreich (1966), 440-442.
105 Katz and P. Postal (1964), 79-120.
106 Katz and P. Postal (1964), 79-120.
193
JERROLD J. KATZ
REFEREN CES
Chomsky, N. (1957), Syntactic Structures, Mouton & Co., The Hague.

Chomsky, N. (1962), 'A Transformational Approach to Syntax', in Proceedings of the
Third Texas Conference on Problems of Linguistic Analysis of English, 1958 (ed. by
A. A. Hill), pp. 124-158. Reprinted in The Structure of Language: Readings in the
Philosophy of Language (ed. by J. A. Fodor and J. J. Katz), Prentice-Hall, Englewood
Cliffs, pp. 211-245.
Chomsky, N. (1964), Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, Mouton & Co., The Hague.
Chomsky, N. (1965), Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Chomsky, N. and Halle, M. (forthcoming), The Sound Pattern of English, Harper & Row,
New York.
Halle, M. (1959), The Sound Pattern of Russian, Mouton & Co., The Hague.
Katz, J. J. and Fodor, J. A. (1963), 'The Structure of a Semantic Theory', Language 39,
140-210. Reprinted in The Structure of Language: Readings in the Philosophy of Language
pp. 479-518.
Katz, J. J. and Postal, P. (1964), An Integrated Theory of Linguistic Descriptions, M.I.T.
Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Katz, J. J. (1964a), 'Semantic Theory and the Meaning of "Good"', The Journal of
Philosophy 61, 739-766.
Katz, J. J. (1964b), 'Analyticity and Contradiction in Natural Language', in The Structure
of Language: Readings in the Philosophy of Language, pp. 519-546.
Katz, J. J. (1964c), 'Semi-Sentences', in The Structure of Language: Readings in the
Philosophy of Language, pp. 400-416.
Katz, J. J. (1964), The Philosophy of Language, Harper & Row, Inc., New York.
Katz, J. J. (1966), The Philosophy of Language, Harper & Row, Inc., New York.
Ross, J. R. (unpublished). 'The Grammer of Measure Phrases in English', presented at the
December, 1964, meeting of the Linguistic Society of America.
Weinreich, U. (1966), 'Explorations in Semantic Theory', in Current Trends in Linguistics
(ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok), vol. III, Mouton & Co., The Hague, pp. 395-477.
194
Recent Issues in Semantic Theory
Author(s): Jerrold J. Katz
Source: Foundations of Language, Vol. 3, No. 2 (May, 1967), pp. 124-194
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JERROLD J.

RECENT ISSUES IN SEMANTIC THEORY*

Foundations of Language 3 (1967) 124-194. All rights reserved.

II. SEMANTIC THEORY IN BRIEF

6 Cf. Chomsky (1957, 1964, 1965).

myself.9 The former component determines the phonetic shape of each

9 Cf. footnote 8 above.

(ii)formal universals, the formal structure of the rulesin each subcomponent;

in underlying phrase markers on the basis of a convention according to

phrase markers together with the definitions of semantic properties and

12 Cf. Chomsky (1965), Chapter 1, section 5.

(3) A constituent of S, including S itself, is semantically ambiguous n-ways

13 Cf. Katz (1964b), and now The Philosophy of Language, Chapter 5.

III. WEINREICH S PRELIMINARY CRITICISMS

At the outset, Weinreich badly misrepresents the above conception of the

Weinreich incorrectly characterizes our conception of the output of a semantic

14 Weinreich (1966), 397. Note especially our qualification [4].

anomalous or semantically ambiguous, and nowhere, throughout this entire

18 Weinreich (1966), 398.

entries in the dictionary, or some combinations of these. However, there is

The mistake underlying this criticism is a confusion of two different things

(1) The man hit the colorful ball.

19 Weinreich (1966), 398.

to a physical action such as hitting by making it the object on which the

(2) The man hit the tea party with a hammer.

This type of disambiguation is regarded as a necessary task for semantic

(3) There is no school any more.

Utterances of such a sentence can occur in a situation where the hearer(s)

to explain the intentions of speakers in actual speech situations. Consider

(4) Visiting relatives can be annoying

with the express intention of referring to annoyance caused by relatives

22 Weinreich (1966), 398.

IV. SYNTACTIC MARKERS IN DICTIONARY ENTRIES

Weinreich begins his discussion of our treatment of syntactic markers by

24 Weinreich (1966), 400.

25 Weinreich (1966), 400.

represent such properties and relations are to be understood in terms of the

28 Chomsky (1965), 75-127.

The former component generates pre-terminal strings which consist of

There is no justification for Weinreich to say that we regarded 'Verb

while evidence which is appropriate as a basis for judging a theory of

33 Chomsky (1965), 84-106.

34Katz and J. A. Fodor (1963), 196.

alized transformations is to embed a phrase marker within another phrase

V. THE NORMAL FORM OF A DICTIONARY ENTRY

38 Weinreich (1966), 402.

KF would therefore have to be extended at least by a requirement that conflated

(6) Adolescent / Noun \_v (Human)

But this child of Weinreich's own imagination, which he himself disowns, is

40 Weinreich (1966), 402.

assumes. Actually, there is a range of similarity in meaning, whose limiting

(5) John's refusal was accepted

(6) John refused something

VI. SEMANTIC MARKERS AND SYNTACTIC MARKERS

Weinreich's mispresentation of the goals of a semantic component causes

42Weinreich (1966), 402.

43Weinreich (1966), 403.

i, we can say nothing about how it is segmented into continuous constituents