Katz offers a radical reappraisal of the linguistic turn in twentiethcentury philosophy. In addition to his general semantic theory, katz worked out detailed. 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. A misconception of the semantic conception of econometrics. Jerrold katz the art and popular culture encyclopedia. Katz develops a new philosophical position integrating realism and rationalism. 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 development of formal semantics in linguistic theory 11. Jerrold katz had been fighting off cancer for some time, but he lost that fight on february 7, 2002. The handbook of contemporary semantic theory edited by shalom lappin iblackwell publishers. We are not concerned here with these sub variations within the generally accepted theory of. Through a somewhat meandering intellectual journey that i undertook when i probably should have been writing, i found myself reading the late jerrold j katz s 1972 book entitled semantic theory. 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.
Semantics is a bridge discipline between linguistics and philosophy. It seems, moreover, that when constructing a semantic theory katz. He had just finished his new book, sense, reference, and philosophy. 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. No dust jacket, light wear to boards, page edges tanned. The reality of mathematics and the case of set theory. The significance of the distinction the philosophy of language can be viewed as a branch of the theory of knowledge. Fodor, with 945 highly influential citations and 188 scientific research papers. Generative semantics is the name of a research program within linguistics, initiated by the work of various early students of noam chomsky. Savin university of pennsylvania semantic theory is the latest version of the theory of meaning that mr. Jerrold katz develops a new philosophical position integrating realism and rationalism. While i began that book with a certain amount of cynicismi think ive been. 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.
The handbook of contemporary semantic theory edited by shalom lappin. Katz as katz can o jerrold katz we reject the recent criticisms of this view that stem from the use theory of meaning. Katz for davidsons semantics arise for extensionalist possible worlds semantics in the domain of necessary. Jerrold katz wikipedia wikipedia comunicacao humana. Is the semantic theory of semantic theory a scientific theory. Jerrold katz journal of philosophy 78 4 sense, reference and rulefollowing. Katz has elaborated and defended in numerous publications, beginning with the structure of a semantic theory 1963, in collaboration with jerry a.
An integrated theory of linguistic descriptions by katz, jerrold j. I was fortunate enough to visit with professor katz in manhattan on some occasions in the 90s, most recently in 1997. We believe that the reasons for this comparative dearth of work on semantic universals are mostly mundane. But we can know the markerese translation of an english sentence without knowing the.
Katzs account is criticized on the following grounds. The former position holds that syntactic, semantic, and phonological. Jerrold jacob katz 14 july 19327 february 2002 was an american philosopher and linguist biography. We examine potential semantic universals in three areas. Weinreich 1966, katz s later writings, or leech 1974. George lakoff and pieter seuren were also instrumental in developing and advocating the theory. Synthetic logic characterizations of meanings extracted from large corpora. His accomplishments include 1 developing the first comprehensive theory of semantics within generative grammar, 2 proposing that language. Katzs theory of the analyticsynthetic distinction for natural languages is presented. 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. Its one of the earliest approaches to semantics within generative grammar. An integrated theory of linguistic descriptions jerrold.
The syntax and semantics of entailment in duality theory davey, b. A semantic theory of a natural language is part of a linguistic description of that. He suggests that the related senses of a polysemous word are represented separately in the. Jerrold jacob katz was born july 14, 1932, in washington. The theory of semantic representation springerlink.
The last time i heard from him was in september 2001. A study of the cogito in relation to the philosophy of logic and. Kaufman journal of philosophical research abductive reasoning and linguistic meaning. This is intended to be the first in a series of posts in which i work my way through semantic theory by jerrold katz. Semantic theory studies in language jerrold j katz on. The relevance of linguistics to philosophy katz jerrold.
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. This paper does not attempt to present a semantic theory. He was appointed assistant professor of philosophy there in 1963, and became professor in 1969. 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. Katz s account is criticized on the following grounds. 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.
Aspects of the theory of syntax noam chomsky the m. Search for library items search for lists search for contacts search for a library. Two conceptions of semantic theory david lewis, general semantics. Indeed, according to the theory of language use that we have developed,2 the contextindependent mean. Putnams critique of katz project and quines dissolution of the analyticsynthetic distinction argued that. Katz s theory of the analytic synthetic distinction for natural languages is presented. Katz focuses on his main contributions to linguistic theory and the philosophy of language. Jerrold katz jerrold jacob katz 14 july 1932 7 february 2002 was an american philosopher and linguist.
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. Katz critiques the major arguments for contemporary naturalism and develops a new conception of the naturalistic fallacy. Multidimensional semantics for modal logics marx, maarten, notre dame journal of formal logic, 1996. 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. Contents notes on contributors xi preface xvii introduction 1 i formal semantics in linguistics 9 1. It assumed a semantic component that assigns semantic representations to lexical items and, by means of recursive projection rules, to phrases and sentences. Linguistics department university of maryland 1401 marie. Jerrold katz, on the general character of semantic theory. The advantage of semantic theory over predicate calculus in the representation of logical form in natural language. David bourget western ontario david chalmers anu, nyu area editors. Realism here means that the objects of study in mathematics and other formal sciences are abstract. He shows that the naturalism that emerged to become the dominant philosophical position was never adequately proved.
Facts about the semantics of natural languages have been contributed in abundance by many diverse fields, including philosophy, linguistics, philology, and psychology. 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. This paper1 does not attempt to present a semantic theory of a natural language, but rather to characterize the form of such a theory. An integrated theory of linguistic descriptions jerrold j. Analyticsynthetic and semantic theory springerlink. In 1954, he got his bachelors degree from george washington university. 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. Katzs theory of the analytic synthetic distinction for natural languages is presented. Linguistics, psychology, and the ontology of language. 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. 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.