Katz critiques the major arguments for contemporary naturalism and develops a new conception of the naturalistic fallacy. Jerrold katz, scott soames, michael devitt, and kim sterelny have presented a number of arguments, all intended to show that the chomskian subfield hypothesis is incorrectthere is a significant distinction between the disciplines of linguistics and psychology. A study of the cogito in relation to the philosophy of logic and. Whether youve loved the book or not, if you give your honest and detailed thoughts then people will find new books that are right for them. In addition to his general semantic theory, katz worked out detailed. It assumed a semantic component that assigns semantic representations to lexical items and, by means of recursive projection rules, to phrases and sentences. Katzs account is criticized on the following grounds. David bourget western ontario david chalmers anu, nyu area editors.
Katz develops a new philosophical position integrating realism and rationalism. Jerrold jacob katz 14 july 19327 february 2002 was an american philosopher and linguist biography. A semantic theory of a natural language is part of a linguistic description of that. Aspects of the theory of syntax noam chomsky the m. Linguistics department university of maryland 1401 marie. Postal the authors offer a theory concerning the nature of a linguistic description, that is, a theoretical statement about the kind of description that a linguist is able to give of a natural language. An integrated theory of linguistic descriptions by katz, jerrold j. The philosophy of language 1966 the underlying reality of language and its philosophical import 1971 language and other abstract objects 1981 the metaphysics of meaning 1990 realistic rationalism 2000. Weinreich 1966, katz s later writings, or leech 1974. We examine potential semantic universals in three areas.
The reality of mathematics and the case of set theory. He suggests that the related senses of a polysemous word are represented separately in the. I was fortunate enough to visit with professor katz in manhattan on some occasions in the 90s, most recently in 1997. This is intended to be the first in a series of posts in which i work my way through semantic theory by jerrold katz through a somewhat. Synthetic logic characterizations of meanings extracted from large corpora. Realism here means that the objects of study in mathematics and other formal sciences are abstract. The development of formal semantics in linguistic theory 11. Indeed, according to the theory of language use that we have developed,2 the contextindependent mean. Is the semantic theory of semantic theory a scientific theory.
George lakoff and pieter seuren were also instrumental in developing and advocating the theory the approach developed out of transformational generative grammar in the mid1960s, but stood largely. An integrated theory of linguistic descriptions jerrold. The former position holds that syntactic, semantic, and phonological. For anyone interested in a discussion of the formal properties of such a theory and suggestions on the precise formulation of semantic rules, i refer you to the article by jerrold katz and jerry fodor called the structure of a semantic theory. The significance of the distinction the philosophy of language can be viewed as a branch of the theory of knowledge. Analyticsynthetic and semantic theory springerlink. Fodor, with 945 highly influential citations and 188 scientific research papers. Contents notes on contributors xi preface xvii introduction 1 i formal semantics in linguistics 9 1. A misconception of the semantic conception of econometrics. But we can know the markerese translation of an english sentence without knowing the. Savin university of pennsylvania semantic theory is the latest version of the theory of meaning that mr. His accomplishments include 1 developing the first comprehensive theory of semantics within generative grammar, 2 proposing that language is an abstract rather than a physical or mental object, and 3 challenging the. Two conceptions of semantic theory david lewis, general semantics. Generative semantics is the name of a research program within linguistics, initiated by the work of various early students of noam chomsky.
This paper does not attempt to present a semantic theory. Kaufman journal of philosophical research abductive reasoning and linguistic meaning. Katz as katz can o jerrold katz we reject the recent criticisms of this view that stem from the use theory of meaning. Jerrold katz jerrold jacob katz 14 july 1932 7 february 2002 was an american philosopher and linguist.
It concerns itself with a special case in epistemology, linguistic. Meaning as denotation semantic interpretation by means of them semantic markers amounts merely to a translation algorithm from the object language to the auxiliary language markerese. It seems, moreover, that when constructing a semantic theory katz. His accomplishments include 1 developing the first comprehensive theory of semantics within generative grammar, 2 proposing that language. After receiving a phd in philosophy from princeton university in 1960, katz became a research associate in linguistics at the massachusetts institute of technology in 1961. The advantage of semantic theory over predicate calculus in the representation of logical form in natural language. The handbook of contemporary semantic theory edited by shalom lappin. This is intended to be the first in a series of posts in which i work my way through semantic theory by jerrold katz. Jerrold katz the art and popular culture encyclopedia. Jerrold katz wikipedia wikipedia comunicacao humana. Quine quines reference selection restriction semantic component semantic markers semantic properties semantic representations semantic structure semantic theory semantically anomalous sense sentence type someone speaker specified statement surface structure symbols synonymous things tion. Katz offers a radical reappraisal of the linguistic turn in twentiethcentury philosophy.
Search for library items search for lists search for contacts search for a library. Katz focuses on his main contributions to linguistic theory and the philosophy of language. Jerrold katz journal of philosophy 78 4 sense, reference and rulefollowing. Jerrold katz, on the general character of semantic theory. The domino theory claims that there is a dependency structure to the set of antiintensionalist arguments wherein one of them, quines argument that no sense can be made of concepts in the theory of meaning, is fundamental. In 1954, he got his bachelors degree from george washington university. The syntax and semantics of entailment in duality theory davey, b. In this book published after his death in 2002 katz proposes a nonfregean notion of intensionalism which aims to survive the criticism that freges intensionalism faced e. Katz s account is criticized on the following grounds. The handbook of contemporary semantic theory edited by shalom lappin iblackwell publishers. No dust jacket, light wear to boards, page edges tanned. An integrated theory of linguistic descriptions jerrold j. He shows that the naturalism that emerged to become the dominant philosophical position was never adequately proved. Katzs theory of the analyticsynthetic distinction for natural languages is presented.
Katz has elaborated and defended in numerous publications, beginning with the structure of a semantic theory 1963, in collaboration with jerry a. Multidimensional semantics for modal logics marx, maarten, notre dame journal of formal logic, 1996. Katz for davidsons semantics arise for extensionalist possible worlds semantics in the domain of necessary. Facts about the semantics of natural languages have been contributed in abundance by many diverse fields, including philosophy, linguistics, philology, and psychology. We believe that the reasons for this comparative dearth of work on semantic universals are mostly mundane. Katz s theory of the analytic synthetic distinction for natural languages is presented. Linguistics, psychology, and the ontology of language. Jerrold jacob katz was born july 14, 1932, in washington. We are not concerned here with these sub variations within the generally accepted theory of. Semantic theory studies in language jerrold j katz on. Jerrold katz had been fighting off cancer for some time, but he lost that fight on february 7, 2002. Semantics is a bridge discipline between linguistics and philosophy. His accomplishments include 1 developing the first comprehensive theory of semantics within generative grammar, 2 proposing that language is an abstract rather than a physic al or mental object, and 3 challenging the. Putnams critique of katz project and quines dissolution of the analyticsynthetic distinction argued that.
He had just finished his new book, sense, reference, and philosophy. This paper1 does not attempt to present a semantic theory of a natural language, but rather to characterize the form of such a theory. George lakoff and pieter seuren were also instrumental in developing and advocating the theory. Synthetic logic characterizations of meanings extracted from. While i began that book with a certain amount of cynicismi think ive been. In addition to his general semantic theory, katz worked out detailed accounts of presupposition, illocutionary force, idioms and names, and published authoritatively on the work of such philosophers as rene descartes, gottlob frege, willard van orman quine, and ludwig wittgenstein. The last time i heard from him was in september 2001. The theory of semantic representation springerlink. Its one of the earliest approaches to semantics within generative grammar. Jerrold katz develops a new philosophical position integrating realism and rationalism. The relevance of linguistics to philosophy katz jerrold.