3/15/2016 Context Dependence (such as it is) Kent Bach Presenters: Zhiqi Gong & Lin Xiao University at Albany

3/15/2016 About the Author Kent Bach is professor emeritus of philosophy at San Francisco State University. He was educated at Harvard College and University of California, Berkeley, and has written extensively in philosophy of language, theory of knowledge, and philosophy of mind. His books include Thought and Reference (Oxford, 1987, expanded edition 1994) and, with Robert M. Harnish, Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts (MIT Press, 1979).

3/15/2016 Outline 1. Semantics-Pragmatics Distinction 2. Narrow Context and Broad Context 3. Indexicals: Automatic, Discretionary, and Hidden 4. Context and Intention 5. Adjectives and Other Examples Key Points Context does not determine what the speaker (‘she') means in the utterance. Her communicative intention determines that. What context does do is provide information that the hearer (‘he') could use, presuming she intends him to, to figure out what is meant.

3/15/ Semantics-Pragmatics Distinction The semantics-pragmatics distinction has been formulated in various ways: 1) Linguistic (conventional) Meaning vs. Use 2) Context Independence vs. Context Dependence...

3/15/2016 Context Independence vs. Context Dependence It is a platitude that a sentence's linguistic meaning generally does not determine what is said in its utterance and that the gap between linguistic meaning and what is said is filled by something called "context." The intuitive idea behind this platitude is that what one says in uttering the words can vary, so what fixes what one says cannot be facts about the words alone but must also include facts about the circumstances in which one is using them; those facts comprise the "context of utterance."

3/15/2016 Context Independence vs. Context Dependence Context plays a role in semantics as well as pragmatics. Context can play a direct, semantic role, at least in connection with such word as 'I' and 'today'. They are context sensitive, in that their contents, what they contribute to the contents of sentences in which they occur, depend on the context in which they are used (p. 3)

3/15/ Narrow Context & Broad Context Ambiguity is not context dependence. 'The chicken is ready to eat' It might seem in a certain context (a father is talking to his son who is feeding chicken the on the farm) that the father is using it to mean that his son can feed the chicken. 'The context does not determine what the speaker means in her utterance-that is a matter of her intention-but it does determine what he could reasonably take her to mean' (p. 4)

3/15/2016 Narrow Context & Broad Context Narrow context consists of matters of objective fact to which the determination of semantic contents of certain expressions are sensitive. the identity of the speaker the hearer the time and place of an utterance. Broad context is the conversational setting, the mutual cognitive context or salient common ground. It includes the current state of the conversation, they physical situation, salient personal knowledge knowledge, and relevant borader common knowledge.

3/15/2016 Narrow Context & Broad Context 'Broad context includes the information that the speaker exploits to make what she means evident to the hearer and, if communication is to succeed, and that the hearer takes into account, on the assumption that he is intended to, to figure out what the speaker means' (p. 5)

3/15/2016 Narrow Context & Broad Context Narrow context literally determines, in the sense of fixing, what the speaker means. Broad context does not literally determine content. Its pragmatic role is provide a basis for the hearer to figure out what the speaker means. It is speaker's intention that enables the hearer to determine, in the sense of ascertaining, what the speaker means.

3/15/2016 Narrow Context & Broad Context Broad context imposes a rational constraint on the speaker's communicative intention: given what she intends to communicate, she should say something that makes evident to the hearer what she aims to convey.

2. Indexicals: Automatic, discretionary and hidden Indexicals:  pronouns (she, we, you),  demonstratives (this, that),  temporal terms (now, last week),  discourse indexicals (the former, the latter, pronouns as anaphor)

(3) a. A cop arrested a robber. He was wearing a badge. b. A cop arrested a robber. He was wearing a mask. What does “he” refer to? speaker’s intention, not context

2.1 Automatic indexicals Automatic indexicals: that refer independently of the speaker’s intention, but depend on “meaning and public contextual facts” (Perry 2001:58) (5) I am relaxed today. (8)You were relaxed yesterday. Kaplan (1989a): character (stable meaning of the expression) and content (reference) The use of “you” and “yesterday” is different from those for “I” and “today”.

2.2 Discretionary indexicals Discretionary indexicals: such as “now”, “then”, “here”, “we”, “you”, “she” (different from “I”, “today”). Compare “today” and “now” the extent of that time no definite/clear reference What determines the reference? Context? (Impose rational constraints on that intention and on the hearer’s inference) Speaker’s referential intention

Hidden indexicals They seem to express definite propositions, yet they seem to be missing something necessary for that. Weather and other environment reports Terms with missing complements Relational terms Perspectival terms

Relational terms Relational terms: words involving a relation to something, such as “neighbor”, “fan”, “enemy”, etc. (18) Oliver is a neighbor. (18+) Oliver is a neighbor of Jim. Determined by context? No, determined in the context.

3/15/ Context & Intention The role of the speaker's intention is to determine what the speaker means, not the contents of expressions the speaker uses. Where expression content is determined, as in the case of automatic indexicals, it is determined by narrow context, without the help of the speaker's intention.

3/15/ Context & Intention The role of the speaker's intention is to determine what the speaker means, not the contents of expressions the speaker uses. Where expression content is determined, as in the case of automatic indexicals, it is determined by narrow context, without the help of the speaker's intention.

3/15/2016 Audience-directed/pragmatic intention: If the speaker intends to use a demonstrative to refer to a certain object, she does so with the audience in mind. Recognizing that intention is all the hearer has to do for the reference to be conveyed. It is not the word 'that' but the speaker's use of it that manifests here referential intention and triggers the hearer's inference to what she intends to refer to.

3/15/2016 Cases where intention and the demonstration diverge Fido Spot What is controlling is not the intention, but the act of demonstration.

3/15/2016 Agent of context Exceptional cases: ‘I am not here now’ ‘I will not be in my office today’ Distinction between the semantic content of the sentences in which they were originally uttered and the contents they are to be taken to have when heard by a caller or read by a visitor.

3/15/2016 Agent of the context can be some other than the person who actually produced the token, for example, of ‘I’.

4. Adjectives and other additional examples  Gradable adjectives  Terms for response-dependent properties  Predicates of personal taste

4.4 Odds and ends Automatic indexicals Discretionary indexicals and demonstratives Weather and other environment reports Terms with missing complements Relational terms Perspectival terms Gradable adjectives Response-dependent properties Predicates of personal test Possessive phrases,adjectival phrases, noun-noun compounds Subsentential utterances Propositions: in, on, to, at, for … Light verbs: have, do, put, go … …

Questioning the context-sensitive line of reasoning Some philosophers and linguists have suggested that a preponderance of sentences are context-sensitive. The meaning of the sentence is context-sensitive because the truth value of utterances of a given sentence varies in different contexts. Problems  A great many sentences are just semantically incomplete.  There are longer, more elaborate sentences, one for each context, whose utterance would have made what the speaker meant fully explicit.  A drastic implication: thought are essentially ineffable.

Conclusion (P28) It has to be the content of the expression itself that varies, and it has to be the context, in a way determined by the meaning of the expression, that makes the difference. What passes for a sentence’s intuitive content is often the proposition a speaker uses it convey.

Reflection  A strong focus on intention (as a priori), on speaker, on cognition  Semantics versus Pragmatics Semantic incompleteness. A contextual issue or not? In what situation will we feel about the incompleteness?  A complete focus on intention implies extreme relativism,perhaps also leading to the “ineffable thought”, which Bach ascribed as a “drastic implication” to contextualism.  Moderate contextualist  somewhere between Semantics camp and Pragmatics camp Breakthrough: Dr. Kecskes’ socio-cognitive perspective,striving for a balance between intention and context.

Thank you!