Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Preface
- Introduction: Word Meaning and Creativity
- Part I Linguistic Creativity and the Lexicon
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Chomsky on the Creative Aspect of Language Use and Its Implications for Lexical Semantic Studies
- 3 The Emptiness of the Lexicon: Critical Reflections on J. Pustejovsky's “The Generative Lexicon”
- 4 Generativity and Explanation in Semantics: A Reply to Fodor and Lepore
- 5 The “Fodor”-FODOR Fallacy Bites Back
- Part II The Syntax of Word Meaning
- Part III Interfacing the Lexicon
- Part IV Building Resources
- Index
3 - The Emptiness of the Lexicon: Critical Reflections on J. Pustejovsky's “The Generative Lexicon”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 October 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Preface
- Introduction: Word Meaning and Creativity
- Part I Linguistic Creativity and the Lexicon
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Chomsky on the Creative Aspect of Language Use and Its Implications for Lexical Semantic Studies
- 3 The Emptiness of the Lexicon: Critical Reflections on J. Pustejovsky's “The Generative Lexicon”
- 4 Generativity and Explanation in Semantics: A Reply to Fodor and Lepore
- 5 The “Fodor”-FODOR Fallacy Bites Back
- Part II The Syntax of Word Meaning
- Part III Interfacing the Lexicon
- Part IV Building Resources
- Index
Summary
Abstract
We consider Pustejovsky's account of the semantic lexicon (Pustejovsky, 1995). We discuss and reject his argument that the complexity of lexical entries is required to account for lexical generativity. Finally, we defend a sort of lexical atomism: though, stricly speaking, we concede that lexical entries are typically complex, still we claim that their complexity does not jeopardize either the thesis that lexical meanning is atomistic or the identification of lexical meaning with denotation.
Introduction
A certain metaphysical thesis about meaning that we will call Informational Role Semantics (IRS) is accepted practically universally in linguistics, philosophy, and the cognitive sciences: the meaning (or content, or “sense”) of a linguistic expression is constituted, at least in part, by at least some of its inferential relations. This idea is hard to state precisely, both because notions like metaphysical constitution are moot and, more importantly, because different versions of IRS take different views on whether there are constituents of meaning other than inferential role, and on which of the inferences an expression occurs in are meaning constitutive. Some of these issues will presently concern us, but for now it will do just to mention such familiar claims as that: it's part and parcel of “dog” meaning ‘dog’ that the inference from “x is a dog” to “x is an animal” is valid; it's part and parcel of “boil” meaning ‘boil’ that the inference from “x boiled y” to “y boiled” is valid; it's part and parcel of “kill” meaning ‘kill’ that the inference from “x killed y” to “y died” is valid; and so on (see Cruse, 1986, Chap. 1 and passim).
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- The Language of Word Meaning , pp. 28 - 50Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001
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