jueves, 24 de noviembre de 2011

Chomsky on Semantics

The study of meaning and reference and of the use of language should be excluded from the field of linguistics. . . . Given a lingustic theory, the concepts of grammer are constructed (so it seems) on the basis of primitive notions that are not semantic (where the grammar contains the phonology and syntax), but that the linguistic theory itself must be chosen so as to provide the best possible explanation of semantic phenomena, as well as others.

"It seems that other cognitive systems -- in particular, our system of beliefs concerning things in the world and their behavior -- playan essential part in our judments of meaning and reference, in an extremely intricate manner, and it is not at all clear that much will remain if we try to separate the purely linguistic components of what in informal usage or even in technical discussion we call 'the meaning of lingustic expression.' "

"He showed that surface structure played a much more important role in semantic interpretation that had been supposed; if so, then the Standard hypothesis, according to which it was the deep structure that completely determined this interpretation, is false." 




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