LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS

Problem
Metaphilosophy or the nature of philosophical analysis
this is concerned with how to formulate meaning of a philosophically significant word in order to show all aspect of its meaning analyzing meaning of words what kind of representation be expressed.

Logical Empiricists
Assumption: natural languages are too incongruous, too amorphous, and too irregular for sheer description and is not capable of giving solutions to philosophical problems Solution: philosophers should cultivate the development of a theory of ideal, artificial languages which permit such great latitude for improving on natural languages that the individual philosophers is given virtually a free hand in deciding what is to be understood by the word in which a philosophical question is posed. Weakness: open to the charge that incongruity, amorphousness, and irregularity that they claim to be present in natural languages but which is nothing more than an artifact of his inadequate tools for describing natural languages

Ordinary Language Philosophy

Assumption: informal description in the use of the words in a natural language provides practically everything required for the solution of philosophical problems Solution: theory of language should be employed as a guide in the organization and generalization of the results of such description in order to deal successfully with philosophical issues. Weakness: without a theory of language which determines the formulation of the meanings of words on the basis of how well they predict semantic properties that the theory of language requires them to predict his particular analyses of the meanings of words cannot provide a secure foundation on which rest the solution to a philosophical problem.

evidence

reason

acceptance of assumption

descriptive inquiry

meaning of words

theory construction

fruitful insights from language

Problem with philosophically significant words

Part of the reason why philosophy has been puzzling about such words for over two thousand years is that conceptual distinctions (i.e. perhaps very complex, or subtle, or abstract) embodied in their meanings are in some sense hidden from our unaided linguistic intuition. Approach: make use of intuitive judgments Predicament: the disagreements about their treatment will be reflected in the disagreements about the adequacy of a solution to a philosophical problem that rests upon simple intuitive judgments about the conceptual distinctions embodied in the meanings of words

Solutions:
1. start with a clear case
the theory must extrapolate from the clear cases in such a fashion as to extend its generalizations to the unclear cases, thereby utilizing our strong intuitions about clear cases to compensate for our weak intuitions about unclear ones. the empirical support for the claim that a certain philosophically significant word embodies a certain conceptual distinction can be the same as the support for the clearest cases, even though the word itself is among the most unclear cases in the language

2. construct a theory
this presupposes a general conception of the nature of the formulation of the meaning of a word and of the rules that connect particular descriptions written in this form with predictions about the various semantic properties and relations found in languages.

 Ordinary language philosophers have at times talked about such notions as rules f language, oddity, etc., but they relied on intuitive, unexplicated conception of these concepts. Ordinary language philosophers never sought to construct a theory of language which offered a satisfactory formal definition of the proper formulation for the meaning of a word.

Theory of Semantics
formal definition of the formulation of the meaning of a word in a natural language was presented relates the meanings of words to the meanings of the constituents and sentences that are made up from them and that formally defines the semantic properties and relations of sentences in terms of the semantic characterizations of their constituents the theory determines the predictions that are made about these semantic properties and relations on the basis of the manner in which the meanings of the words in a sentence are formulated it provides a way of handling philosophically significant unclear cases in terms of generalizations from clear cases whose consequences imply their treatment

Success of Semantic Theory

start the investigation of philosophically significant unclear cases must thus await such extensive investigation offer evidence for the claim that this semantic theory is successful

Meaning of good
an example of a philosophically significant unclear case difficulties encountered in previous attempts to describe its meaning are at least as severe as those encountered in connection with any other philosophically significant word

Formulation of meaning of the word within the framework of semantic theory

1. providing an acceptable dictionary entry
a. acceptability how well the entry serves as a basis from which the meanings of the infinitely many sentences containing good can be projected by the rules of the semantic component

2. semantic information (semantic properties and relations in sentences)

a. semantic anomaly b. semantic ambiguity c. paraphrase relations, etc.

3. test hypothesis about the meaning of good

how well the semantic interpretations based upon the putative entry for good succeed in marking the semantic properties and relations in larger and larger classes of sentences in which good occurs.

4. revision of initial hypothesis, but direction of such revisions will be indicated by the sentences where our predictions fail.

syntactic portion of the entry for good accompanied by lexical readings for each types as a noun (e.g. The farmer sold his goods at market.) as an interjection (e.g. Good!) as an adjective as an adverb
the last two (i.e. adjectival and adverbial meaning) are considered as philosophically most interesting cases

Good in copula sentences

Article Noun is good.
Any syntactically compound sentence containing an occurrence of good as an adjectival modifier of a noun is derived transformationally from an underlying phrase marker which contains as a constituent a phrase marker for a copula sentence in which both good and the noun it modifies in the compound sentence appear with the same grammatical relation of modification holding between them.

Forms
X Noun (who, which) is Adjective Y or X Adjective Noun Y e.g. The watch is good.

Noun Phrase

Sentence

Noun

Noun Phrase

Predicate

Article

Noun

Copula

Adjective

 the 5 is wh-ed in the form of who or which and moved between 2 and 3 yielding a sentence structure
X Noun (who, which) is Adjective Noun Y

The watch which is good

 the relative pronoun is deleted along with the copula 3 and 4 is preposed in front of 2 but behind 3, yielding a sentence structure X Adjective Noun Y The good watch.

 This pattern of syntactic construction (i.e. simple copula sentences) leaves the semantic relations among the words involved unchanged. After the confirmation of the occurrences of good in simple copula sentences the characterization may not be extended to the characterization of the infinite set of compound sentences. This empirical correctness of predictions about the semantic properties of either simple copula sentences or compound sentences as evidence for the adequacy of the dictionary entry for the adjectival sense of good .

Good and its head noun

Semantic facts about simple predicateadjective sentences in which good appears that a semantic component must predict on the basis of such combinations of readings Some of the facts against which predictions concerning the semantic anomalousness or non-anomalousness of such sentences must be verified may be stated as follows

Two exclusive categories of nouns

Ca gr teo Ca gr 2 teo

neaetecmoe r rblae liqu, eetrict, plae moeu, if ns ti n ao id l c i nt, l cle to r ctie, met, po rhad, rtue i n a ke n sribbletru s c mo , nu, c , th, pek, te on e er, mo r, lugwtc ha r, a e , in gr, g infsn e wl the n, a h, mme moba tee ra o ad, tc e tc

 If the noun in a sentence of the form Art Noun is good is from these lists, the sentence is not semantically anomalous, whereas, if the noun is from the second, the sentence is semantically anomalous.
The razor blade is good. The grain of sand is good.

- One could not concoct special circumstances in which to attach an interpretation to an utterance of this sentence, e.g. we are trying to erect a geology exhibit and need a certain kind of grain of sand for a specimen. A reduced version of the sentence, The grain of sand is good for a specimen of the kind we need rather than as an occurrence of the anomalous sentence.

 A minimum condition for predicting these facts is that the dictionary contains a generalization expressing the aspect in which the members of the first lists are semantically similar and in which they are semantically dissimilar to each member of the second list.

 Evaluation of semantic marker into the lexical readings of the former nouns but the latter.
The inclusion or exclusion of this semantic marker indicates whether or not things covered by the meaning of the noun which has to do with the particular respect in which evaluations are made, within the language, of things in the extension of the noun This needs to represented in the notation of the semantic theory in order to determine whether a semantic marker is written as an evaluation marker.

(Eval: ( ) )

These parentheses indicate the presence of a semantic marker that specifies the particular aspect of meaning of the noun which serves as the standard of evaluation.

A noun whose reading is represented by a reading containing an evaluation semantic marker may have other components of its meaning that cannot be represented by such a marker. In this case the reading will contain as well semantic markers that are not evaluation semantic markers e.g. knife, watch, lung, meat, etc.

Lexical reading for knife

Knife Noun, Common Noun, Count noun; (Physical Object), (Nonliving), (With Blade), (With Handle), (Eval: (ease of dividing substances softer than its blade)); <SR>.

 In the reading for knife the semantic markers that represent the information that a knife has a blade and handle, for example are not evaluation semantic markers, whereas the semantic marker that represents the information that a knife is used for cutting is..

Reading for anesthetic

(Eval: (Effective in producing a temporary loss of feeling in a part of a body))

Readings of Nouns
Semantic Markers (Artifact) (Natural Substance) (Component of a System) (Member of a Team) Example knife, torpedo, watch, etc. Coal, wood, iron, etc. heart, camshaft, eye, quarterback, etc. Semantic Reading permits evaluation of their referents in terms of the uses (us) normally made of them permit evaluation of their referents in terms of fun ions (fn) performed by them in their position permit evaluation in terms of e fo an e of du ies (du) to which someone occupying such a role is obligated permit evaluation of their referents in terms of the purposes, decorative and symbolic permit evaluation in terms of easu a i i and perhaps ea fu ness

(Role)

mother, teacher, foreman, etc.

(Ornamentation)

jewelry

( ood)

meat, apples, cheese, etc.

 Nouns should be grouped into subclasses according to the specific different respects in which their referents are evaluated such as: (Evalus: ( )), (Evalfn: ( )), (Evalpu: ( )), (Evalus: ( )), (Evaldu: ( )), and so on. With these differentiated evaluation semantic markers we can express generalizations to the effect that artifacts are evaluated on the same basis, that foods are evaluated on the same basis, and so forth

 Lexical reading of good as an adjectival modifier:

good Adjective, further syntactic markers; (+) <(Eval.: ( ))>,

where the semantic marker (+) is contextually defined as follows:

(M1), (M2),

, (Mj), , (Mk), (+) <SR> Is by definition equivalent to (M1), (M2), , (+Mj), , (Mk), <SR>

* where x is a variable over the subscripts us, fn, pu, du, etc., * where (M1) is an evaluation semantic marker

(M1), (M2),

, (Mj), , (Mk), (+) <SR>

is by definition equivalent to

(M1), (M2), , (+Mj), , (Mk), <SR>

the left-hand side of this contextual definition is a reading-schema that represents the derived reading formed from the combination of the above reading for good hence the presence of the semantic marker (+) and a reading for a noun the right-hand side is a reading schema that represents the reading into which such a derived reading is converted by the operation of (+), i.e. by the application of this contextual definition.

<(EvalI: ( ))> * imposes the requirement that a derived reading formed from the reading for good and a reading for noun can result only if the reading for this noun contains an occurrence of an evaluation semantic marker.

Anomalous Sentences
a go te n a e e mn rao lae ife nst tic oe r to rec nma oe a rtu itize et r n e lry mt e lug wa a mr we o r n tc me e tc a go te li u e c ity lae mleu i letric nt o c le sc letru se mtenu ri t c o on a o in ge gra osa e mea te r in f n tc

 Sentences (e.g. The liquid is good, The scribble is good, The planet is good, etc.) where the words in category 2 are used have subject nouns whose reading contains no occurrence of an evaluation semantic marker and thus, in their semantic interpretation, these sentences receive no readings because the readings of their subject do not satisfy the selection restriction in the reading for good . Therefore, these sentences are marked as semantically anomalous.

 On the other hand, sentences (e.g. The razor blade is good, The watch is good, The meat is good, etc.) where the words in category 1 are used contain an evaluation semantic marker, and so satisfy the selection restriction in the reading of good, receive readings and are thus marked as nonanomalous.