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Componential Analysis and Feature Semantics

1. The componential hypothesis should not be confused with Frege's principle of compositionality, referred to in the previous chapter, which is accepted both by philosophi­cal semantics (not only model-theoretic semantics) and by most, though not all, strands of linguistic semantics. According to this principle, the meaning of complex expressions, such as sentences, derives from combining the meanings of the smaller scale units (the indi­vidual terms) which compose them.

2. Generative models in the seventies, for example, are all based on the now largely discarded hypothesis that the deep structure contains all the syntactic information neces­sary for a semantic interpretation.

3. See also Lyons 1977.

4. For a general critique of these models—the historical antecedent of which is the Porphyrian tree (III A.C)—see Eco 1984. Eco shows that the classical tree of properties as developed from Porphyry onward in terms of kinds and species (where the species is given by the kind plus the specific difference) is in reality only a tree of differences. He then goes on to show how the differences can be variously organized so that the tree explodes "in adust of differentiae, in a turmoil of infinite accidents, in a nonhierarchical network ol qualiA (Eco 1984: 68).

5. In psychological terms, one can see the lexicon as a means of access to our system of knowledge. "Words are addresses for information we have stored in memory. They can thus be seen as entry codes, or pointers to knowledge systems.

6. For a detailed discussion of this point, see Eco 1979 and 1984.

7. For a review and critical discussion of these opposing pairs, see Haiman 1980.

8. In addition to Quine 1953, see Bergmann 1953 and Grice and Strawson 1956 for a wider discussion of the issue.

9. Cf. Chomsky 1988.

10. A major criticism of this distinction is that it is relative and at least in certain cases arbitrary. The same meanings can be grasped in some cases through demonstrative examples and at other times by definition. Quine emphasized that meaning acquisition can vary widely from person to person, and Russell gave the example of swastika as a dictionary word which subsequently became an object word. Even though rigid distinctions may be impossible, however, the difference remains. There are in fact cases where we inevi­tably apprehend the meaning by demonstrative means, a typical example being colors. In other cases, the meaning of a term can be understood only through definition; think, for example, of the meaning of the expression imaginary number.

11. Cf. Eco 1996.

12. According to Eco, the distinction between semiotic and factual is based on the difference between what is already incorporated and what has not yet been recorded in the cultural code (and is therefore not yet convention). This distinction makes it possible to distinguish clearly between semiotic judgements like every unmarried man is a bachelor and factual judgements like Paul is a bachelor. It does not, however, allow one to distinguish quite as well between properties considered to be analytic, and therefore non-erasable, and properties which, although they are part of the code (and therefore semiotic in Eco's sense), are more easily erasable. The property "meow" of cat is undoubtedly semiotic and not factual, in that it is a semantic feature already present in the code, but it has nevertheless ,1 different degree of disability than the "unmarried" of bachelor. This difference does not depend on whether or not it is envisaged by the code, hut on the lact that the code itsell contains different levels ol cogency, whiili is, in lad, the problem I raise here.

Notes to Pages 61-76

13. Naturally the same experience could easily be described even without a specific word for it. We can easily imagine a language in which the word stop does not exist, and is substituted with something like "before I did it and now I do not." The experience, in other words, would exist even if the term did not.

14. Obviously it is not easy to establish the boundaries: for example, to what extent does changing one's sex mean changing one's identity?

15. Examples of figurative usage would be phrases like the deputy chair, the chair of

philosophy, etc.

16. Putnam sustains this thesis with the rather fantastic example of cat robots, an unsatisfactory line of argument. It would be much more convincing if it did not resort to such an unimaginable situation in which the point of departure is precisely what he is setting out to demonstrate (that is, that the property of "animal" can be erased). In fact, if we were to find ourselves in a situation where there were cat robots, it is not at all certain that we would continue to call them cats once we discovered that they were not animals. Probably we would say that we were mistaken, and that what we had thought to be a cat was in reality a robot. I will discuss this example more fully in section 6.3.1. For a discussion of these problems, see Napoli 1992.

17. There may be good reasons for making use of partial representations, even though we have come to the conclusion that there is no theoretically founded demarcation. The most important reason for maintaining dictionaty representations is that the encyclo­pedia in its totality is, according to Eco (1976), a regulative hypothesis that cannot in itself be represented. The global encyclopedia includes all the knowledge and undetstanding of a given cultute, and therefore is a limit concept which not only cannot be represented, but is hard even to imagine.

18. See Eco 1993 on the history of the project of universal language.

19. "One cannot require that everything shall be defined, any mote than one can require that a chemist shall decompose every substance. What is simple cannot be decom­posed, and what is logically simple is no more given us at the outset than most of the chemical elements are; it is reached only by means of scientific work" (Frege [1892a] 1952:

42-43).

20. One might respond, like J. D. Fodor (1977), that there is no reason why there should be fewer primitives than the terms which they define. In the language of thought, each term is in reality primitive and innate. However, apart from the psychological plausi­bility of this solution, it rejects at least one of the seeming requisites for primitives, that of

finitude.

21. See Wierzbicka 1972, 1980, and 1996; and Goddard and Wierzbicka 1994.

22. For example, in Johnson-Laird and Quinn (1976) experimental data show that subjects required more time to define words considered more primitive than words consid­ered less primitive. However, as Wilks (1977) observed, even words in common everyday use that are certainly not primitives, like unscrew, are probably just as difficult to define as words which we might consider more naturally primitive. On the other hand, if we assume that primitives refer to cognitive entities which are deeper than the lexical level, experimen­tal verification, which can only operate on words, cannot reveal anything about them.

23. Katz (1966) argued that even if semantic features are marked in the orthography of a natural language, it is not possible for them to be identified with the words or expres­sions of the language used to supply theit significant labels.

24. According to Fillmore, "the ultimate tetms of a semantic description I take to be such presumably biologically given notions as identity, time, space, body, movement, ter­ritory, life, fear, etc., as well as undefined terms that directly identify aspects of 01 objects in the cultural and physical universe in which human beings live" (Fillmore 1971: 372).

25. According to Hjelmslev, figures of content are the limited components governing the formation of signs, comparable to the semantic features of Katz and Fodor: "But, with all ils limitless abundance, in order to be fully adequate, a language must likewise be easy

Notes to Pages 80-99

to manage, practical in acquisition and use. Under the requirement of an unrestricted number of signs, this can be achieved by all the signs' being constructed of non-signs whose number is restricted, and, pteferably, severely restricted. Such non-signs as enter into a sign system as parts of signs we shall here call figurae" (Hjelmslev [1943] 1961: 46).

26. In many cases the inventory of words used as definiens by dictionaries are similar to (and certainly include) the general words (like thing) whose existence in all known lan­guages would seem to be proof of my argument (cf. Simone 1990)

27. On this point, cf. Talmy 1988a.

28. Cf. Johnson 1987 and Lakoff and Johnson 1980.

29. I am thinking here of categories like that of causality on the conceptual plane, or the opposition between continual and discrete, which relates more to the perceptual plane, or to primitives such as euphoric/dysphoric, linked to deep intentionality and affect.

A Synthesis and Some Problems

1. Cf. Eco 1984, Manetti 1993.

2. "66. Consider for example the ptoceedings that we call 'games'. I mean board games, card-games, Olympic-games, and so on. What is common to them all?—Don't say: 'There must be something common, or they would not be called "games'"—but look mid see whether there is anything common to all.—For if you look at them you will not see something that is common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that. To repeat: don't think, but look!—Look for example at board games, with (heir multifarious relationships. Now pass to card-games; here you find many correspondences with the first group, but many common features drop out, and others appear. When we pass next to ball-games, much that is common is retained, but much is lost. Are they all 'amusing'? Compare chess with noughts and crosses. Or is there always winning and losing, or competition between players? Think of patience. In ball games there is winning anil losing; but when a child throws his ball at the wall and catches it again, this feature has disappeared. Look at the parts played by skill and luck, and at the difference between skill in chess and skill in tennis. Think now of games like ring-a-ring-a-roses; here is the element of amusement, but how many other characteristic features have disappeared! And we can go through the many, many other groups of games in the same way, can see how similarities crop up and disappear.

"And the resulr of this examination is: we see a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing: sometimes overall similarities, sometimes similarities of detail.

"67. I can think of no better expression to characterize these similarities than 'family resemblances', for the various resemblances between members of a family: build, features, color of eyes, gait, temperament, etc. etc. overlap and criss-cross in the same way.—A nd 1 shall say: 'games' form a family" (Wittgenstein 1953: 46).

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