Comments

  • A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
    ↪Srap Tasmaner


    Davidson wrote..

    Malapropisms introduce expressions not covered by prior learning, or familiar expressions which cannot be interpreted by any of the abilities so far discussed. Malapropisms fall into a different category, one that may include such things as our ability to perceive a well-formed sentence when the actual utterance was incomplete or grammatically garbled, our ability to interpret words we have never heard before, to correct slips of the tongue, or to cope with new idiolects.

    These phenomena threaten standard descriptions of linguistic competence.

    The question is, do the three principles forwarded by Davidson take proper account of the standard descriptions? If they do, then Davidson's argument in the paper seems to show a flaw in the standard description of linguistic competence.
  • A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
    he's going to claim there just is no such thing as linguistic competence — Srap Tasmaner

    That looks like a misunderstanding to me...

    These phenomena threaten standard descriptions of linguistic competence

    That does not deny linguistic competence. It does not say that there is no such thing as linguistic competence. It just places the conventional notions/accounting practices into question.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    ↪praxis


    There's not enough time to do both, proceed with the Supreme Court nomination and come to agreeable terms and conditions with relief. The strategy is that only one of these will succeed after the election.
  • A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
    His problem is to describe what is involved in the idea of ‘having a language’. He finds that none of the proposals satisfy the demand for a description of an ability that speaker and interpreter share and that is adequate to interpretation.
    — creativesoul

    I suppose I'm positing that the ability to attribute meaning to an otherwise meaningless utterance(to the interpreter) satisfies the demand that Davidson claims to be missing, and solves the problem of malapropisms. That ability, if I grant Davidson's notions of prior and passing theory, would be part of both.     — creativesoul

    ↪Banno
    does the above make sense?
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    ↪Michael


    That move will be used against him, and rightly so. Continue aggressively moving forward with Supreme Court nomination. End relief talk. There's not enough time before the election to do both. I think he knows he is going to lose, and is trying to secure safety for himself afterwards.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Did enjoy the video of him grimacing to breathe. — StreetlightX

    Watch closely and prior to recording his 'speech' he exits view for a time period long enough for him to be administered enough oxygen to catch his breath.
  • A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
    ↪Banno


    How would the T sentence method work for translating meaningful sentences that are not truth apt?

    For example...

    "Don't be scared of the virus." "Don't let the virus dominate your life."

    Are these out of reach, so to speak, beyond the 'domain' of application?
  • A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
    His problem is to describe what is involved in the idea of ‘having a language’. He finds that none of the proposals satisfy the demand for a description of an ability that speaker and interpreter share and that is adequate to interpretation. — creativesoul

    I suppose I'm positing that the ability to attribute meaning to an otherwise meaningless utterance(to the interpreter) satisfies the demand that Davidson claims to be missing, and solves the problem of malapropisms. That ability, if I grant Davidson's notions of prior and passing theory, would be part of both.
  • A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
    First, any general framework, whether conceived as a grammar for English, or a rule for accepting grammars, or a basic grammar plus rules for modifying or extending it—any such general framework, by virtue of the features that make it general, will by itself be insufficient for interpreting particular utterances. The general framework or theory, whatever it is, may be a key ingredient in what is needed for interpretation, but it can’t be all that is needed since it fails to provide the interpretation of particular words and sentences as uttered by a particular speaker. In this respect it is like a prior theory, only worse because it is less complete.

    Second, the framework theory must be expected to be different for different speakers. The more general and abstract it is, the more difference there can be without it mattering to communication. The theoretical possibility of such divergence is obvious; but once one tries to imagine a framework rich enough to serve its purpose, it is clear that such differences must also be actual. It is impossible to give examples, of course, until it is decided what to count in the framework: a sufficiently explicit framework could be discredited by a single malapropism.
  • A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
    According to Davidson, the problem is this: what interpreter and speaker share(the understanding of the speaker's words), to the extent that communication succeeds, is not learned and so is not a language governed by rules or conventions known to speaker and interpreter in advance; but what the speaker and interpreter know in advance is not (necessarily) shared, and so is not a language governed by shared rules or conventions. What is shared is, as before, the passing theory(the understanding of the speaker's words); what is given in advance is the prior theory, or anything on which it may in turn be based.
  • A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
    The problem is exactly how we successfully interpret malapropisms despite the fact that they are examples of incorrect, mistaken, unconventional, and thus novel, language use. Davidson is arguing that the odd success of malapropisms places conventional understanding of what counts as having a language, or perhaps what's needed for successful communication, into question.


    Davidson suggests that convention has it that, and I quote...

    ...in the case of language the hearer shares a complex system or theory with the speaker, a system which makes possible the articulation of logical relations between utterances, and explains the ability to interpret novel utterances in an organized way.

    This... ...has been suggested, in one form or another, by many philosophers and linguists, and I assume it must in some sense be right. The difficulty lies in getting clear about what this sense is.

    If someone wishes to argue that Davidson does not have the basic conventional understanding right, then the burden is upon them to show how his account above is found lacking or wanting. That is, if there is a germane difference between the two, then it needs set out here. Until then, I'm assuming that his account of convention is close enough.

    He further expands upon this conventional understanding by setting out what it would take. In other words, what be the case in order for a speaker and listener to even be able to share a complex system or theory which makes possible the articulation of logical relations between utterances, and explains the ability to interpret novel utterances in an organized way. He's setting out what he believes to be a bare minimum criterion, according to conventional standards, for all cases of successful communication/interpretation, which also explains our ability to interpret novel utterances.

    As a result of all the reasons I've given on page nine, I find Davidson's notion of first meaning to be inadequate for taking proper account of any malapropisms. Given that his notions of passing and prior theory are grounded upon his notion of first meaning, and since that is found lacking, so too are his notions of passing and prior theory. Although, the issue may be his use of "intention". If that is conventional, then that may be the issue. The more I read, and understand, the more I believe that that may be the case.

    I've left first meaning out of the principles(criterion for linguistic competence), for I take them to be an accurate enough account of the conventional understanding and/or account that he's placing under scrutiny. In other words, these three principles serve as an adequate minimalist criterion for attaining, acquiring, and/or otherwise possessing the linguistic competence necessary for successful communication/interpretation of any kind, and that is what's in question.


    (1) A competent speaker or interpreter is able to interpret utterances, his own or those of others, on the basis of the semantic properties of the parts, or words, in the utterance, and the structure of the utterance. For this to be possible, there must be systematic relations between the meanings of utterances.

    (2) For speaker and interpreter to communicate successfully and regularly, they must share a method of interpretation of the sort described in (1).

    (3) The systematic knowledge or competence of the speaker or interpreter is learned in advance of occasions of interpretation and is conventional in character.


    According to Davidson, for all successful communication, what must be shared is the interpreter’s and the speaker’s understanding of the speaker’s words, which the three principles above do not effectively outline. With malapropisms what is common to the cases is that the speaker expects to be, and is, interpreted as the speaker intended although the interpreter did not have a correct theory in advance.

    All the things Davidson assumes an interpreter knows or can do depend on his having a mature set of concepts, and being at home with the business of linguistic communication. His problem is to describe what is involved in the idea of ‘having a language’. He finds that none of the proposals satisfy the demand for a description of an ability that speaker and interpreter share and that is adequate to interpretation.

    I suppose I'm positing that the ability to attribute meaning to an otherwise meaningless utterance(to the interpreter) satisfies the demand that Davidson claims to be missing.
  • A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
    ↪Srap Tasmaner


    Charming. No point in my continuing this conversation.
  • A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
    ↪Srap Tasmaner


    In addition, I've already begun laying the groundwork for an exposition, by pointing out that that which is interpreted is already meaningful, and that there is an actual difference between interpretation of that which is already meaningful and attributing meaning to that which is not. You've neglected that along with other relevant posts I've made since.

    That distinction is crucial to understanding our ability to interpret and/or invent novel utterances, including but not limited to language acquisition itself.
  • A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
    The bottom of page nine...
    — creativesoul

    I've looked at the post a couple times, since you keep suggesting you provided all the answers there, and it's not doing much for me.     — Srap Tasmaner

    I'm not suggesting that it provides all the answers. I'm strongly suggesting that it adequately explains how we successfully interpret malapropisms.

    It finds Davidson's notion of first meaning inadequate, and thus also places his suggested fix to the problem into question as well. However, when regarding the inherent inadequacy of the three principles in question, I agree with Davidson. From that post...

    The issue:Malapropisms break the rules of conventional language use, but they are readily understood/interpreted by the listener nevertheless, and that particular sort of success causes unresolvable issues for any strict adherence to the following three principles...

    (1) A competent speaker or interpreter is able to interpret utterances, his own or those of others, on the basis of the semantic properties of the parts, or words, in the utterance, and the structure of the utterance. For this to be possible, there must be systematic relations between the meanings of utterances.

    (2) For speaker and interpreter to communicate successfully and regularly, they must share a method of interpretation of the sort described in (1).

    (3) The systematic knowledge or competence of the speaker or interpreter is learned in advance of occasions of interpretation and is conventional in character.

    Do you find my account of the issue contentious?


    On the one hand, sure it's reasonable to distinguish cases Davidson lumps together -- Lepore and Stone for instance argue that malapropisms, nonsense, and neologisms should all be treated quite differently. But just distinguishing cases he chooses not to is not enough; you also have to provide an analysis more compelling than his, and I don't see that on the bottom of page nine.

    The framework there is perfectly capable of explaining how we successfully interpret all cases of malapropism. Seeing how that is the issue at hand...

    It does quite a bit for me.
  • A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
    ↪Srap Tasmaner


    The bottom of page nine...
  • A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
    If it were this simple... — Srap Tasmaner

    If what were this simple? The discussion? The problem? The proposed solutions?

    You're presupposing that the conventional discourse has 'it' right, and because 'it' is complex, then the problem and/or the solution must be as well.

    I do not.
  • A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
    Davidson attempts to account for how we successfully interpret unconventional language use such as malapropisms by positing his notions of prior and passing theories. For the audience/listener, the prior theory expresses how he is prepared in advance to interpret an utterance of the speaker, while the passing theory is how he does interpret the utterance. For the speaker, the prior theory is what he believes the interpreter’s prior theory to be, while his passing theory is the theory he intends the interpreter to use.

    Now, these two notions are incoherent to me(muddled at best). So, perhaps the best thing to do now is for the participant here to find some agreement to build upon.

    Do we all agree that the three principles in question are found wanting in their ability to take proper account of how we successfully interpret malapropisms?
  • A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
    Talking about rules doesn't help. Rules are conventional. The conventional rules of language use cannot take account of the success of unconventional use. That is, it takes more than just knowing and/or following the rules of convention in order to correctly interpret malapropisms. So, if our linguistic competence is limited to the three principles Davidson set out, then linguistic competence cannot take the success of malapropisms into account. It is found wanting.
  • A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
    ↪Srap Tasmaner


    I find Davidson's account flawed in the ways I've set out heretofore. What you quoted was part of my position on the matter that Davidson is addressing; the odd success of malapropisms.

    I think that you and I are in agreement regarding Davidson's hypothesized account of matching prior theories regarding a plurality of people using several words unconventionally. You've called Davidson's account a "fairy tale", whereas on my view it is an accounting malpractice of actual situations where two or more people have no idea that they are using several words in ways the rest of the English-speaking community considers deviant. Hence, the mention of idiolects.



    ↪Janus


    Malapropisms show that academic convention has something seriously wrong somewhere along the line. The underlying issue - by my lights - is one that has been brushed aside, over-looked, and/or glossed over. I've discussed this already, without subsequent due attention. I suspect that what looks like going in circles is as a result.

    I'd invite you to read my reply on the bottom of page nine and let me know what you think about how it handles the odd success of malapropisms.
  • A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
    ↪Srap Tasmaner


    Is it though? I think not actually. What else are idiolects?
  • A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
    Is that a problem?
    — creativesoul

    It leads to Harry Hindu -ism.     — Banno

    I can assure you that it does not.
  • A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
    If you have a glance at the cluster of related Wikipedia pages, you'll find that classical malapropisms are a type of speech error and linguists generally classify them as competence errors. Mrs. Malaprop is a sort of walking Dunning Kruger effect, who believes she knows more about some English words than she does. Her speech, on the usual view, is not riddled with simple performance errors such as slips of the tongue, but with perfectly deliberate utterances that betray a lack of understanding of what the words she's saying mean.

    What Davidson notices is that she "gets away with it": her interpreters take her as saying what she thinks she's saying rather than as what she's actually saying. That this happens, is a fact. That it happens in real life, is a fact. So how are we to characterize these facts?     — Srap Tasmaner

    That post gets us back to the substance. I appreciate the fact that many others here like yourself have offered background. It helps me tremendously! To answer the question directly above...


    From my earlier post at the bottom of page nine...

    "Getting way with it" requires correctly translating an otherwise incorrect usage, by virtue of misattributing meaning to the words actually used. If our linguistic competence and/or ability were limited to those three aforementioned principles(all of which are restricted by/to convention), we could not ever know what the speaker meant, as compared/contrasted to what they said... but we do.

    What's needed for the successful translation of malapropisms is something extra, some innate ability that is not a matter of convention; a nonlinguistic method, element, and/or aspect of interpretation. That is, some innate means and/or ability to be able to successfully interpret another's meaning, whereas the ability itself is nonlinguistic in nature.

    The attribution of meaning(our innate ability to attribute meaning to that which is not already meaningful to us) fits the bill.

    Davidson recognizes this need as well. Hence, his notion of passing theory aims to do this. Although, I find it deeply flawed to begin with, and would charge linguistics with the same flaw:A gross misunderstanding of what meaning is and how it emerges onto the world stage.
  • A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
    IT's not a thing at all, unless you want to call acts "things"! — Banno

    Is that a problem?
  • On Misunderstanding
    Relevance?
  • On Misunderstanding
    ↪TheMadFool


    I don't follow. Care to connect the dots?
  • A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
    Davidson's whole point is that you could not possibly have learned such a rule in advance. I don't think any of us are contesting that -- of course you couldn't have. — Srap Tasmaner

    Or perhaps the ability to correctly translate malapropisms are not a matter of following a rule at all...

    Perhaps it's more that our knowing the rules, in advance, allows us to also know when they've been broken. Hence, the interpreter must misattribute meaning to "latrine" is cases of malapropism. That is to say that we gather the meaning of the term by the context, where the context includes situational awareness, and then we employ our inherent innate ability to attribute meaning(a shared method of translation), which is something certainly outside of learning the rules... for it's what allows us to do so.
  • A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
    And we have ready to hand a truth-conditional operator that will allow us to link 'S' with P, in equivalence. Hence a truth-conditional theory will have the form:
    'S' is true IFF p
    Where 'S' is the sentence we want the meaning of, and P the conditions under which the terms in S are satisfied - the truth conditions.     — Banno

    More formal sounding than my earlier understanding of the T sentence, but it seems that your view has evolved a bit. I've never seen you argue for the right side being the truth conditions of the left.



    That is, the fault is the assumption that there is a thing that can be called the meaning of the sentence. — Banno

    That is exactly right. The meaning of a sentence consists of more than one thing. The same is true regarding the meaning of a word or anything else that is meaningful.
  • A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
    ↪Banno


    Well done. Gotta love the simplicity of the T sentence.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    So, evidently there are some serious questions regarding when, exactly, Trump knew he had corona. In addition when, exactly, he contracted it. There are a number of people testing positive, including Chris Christy, who looks like someone that may have serious complications. Hope Hicks reportedly self isolated on Air Force One.

    Did the Trump kids know that they'd been possibly exposed to Hicks and refuse to wear masks anyway at last week's debate?
  • is it worth studying philosophy?
    No. If you have a choice, don't. — Banno

    It is only those obsessive type who do... because we do not have a choice.

    I see Merk beat me to it!
  • If there is a Truth, it is objective and completely free from opinion
    ↪philosophience wordpress com


    What sort of things can be true and what makes them so?
  • A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
    What sort of thing is a Davidsonian method of interpretation? — Srap Tasmaner

    It's an accounting practice of that which existed in it's entirety prior to his account. As is linguistics.
  • A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
    ↪Banno


    That would be the last time that guy got invited to my dinner party.

    :wink:
  • If there is a Truth, it is objective and completely free from opinion
    Looks like using the forum for a free advertising campaign...
  • A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
    I took the speaker to be disparaging the quality of the soup. — Banno

    In which case, the speaker intended to say "latrine", and the conventional meaning of the term aligns perfectly with the speaker's intent.
  • A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
    ...thoughts about its thoughts, which becomes a problem of infinite regression. — RussellA

    I disagree, but it's irrelevant here. Infinite regress is the result of inadequate accounting practices.


    The bear believes that there are fish in the water and as there are fish in the water the bear has, what we call, a "true belief"... — RussellA

    Therefore, either true belief does not require truth, or truth is prior to language. Truth is presupposed within belief and statements thereof. Again, too far off topic here though.
  • A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
    The real question, then, is what do we interpret? Do we assign meaning to the specific tokens you produce? Or is there a little preprocessing first, a little data-scrubbing? — Srap Tasmaner

    That which is interpreted is already meaningful. We interpret meaningful things... correctly or not(and that has some nuance). There is an actual difference between interpretation and attribution. The latter gives rise to the former. Thus, I think the better question is how do we interpret? How do we correctly attribute(successfully interpret) and/or misattribute(misinterpret) meaning? We'll find that we do both, assign meaning to words, and engage in a bit of pre-processing... a kind of situational awareness. We do all this by virtue of drawing correlations between the language use and other things.



    ...a whole lot of this post should be replaced by actual science... — Srap Tasmaner

    Science of the attribution of meaning? Linguistics?

    I'm not following. You earlier mentioned the initial language acquisition of one's native tongue as a starting point, or something similar.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Conflating truth and belief is not helpful here. That's a large part of problem.
  • A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
    ...truth is a concept that only exists within language... — RussellA

    And yet non linguistic creatures have true belief.



    I'm not sure we ever squarely faced Davidson's central claim. — Srap Tasmaner

    Did you miss my post on the bottom of page nine? It answers all this.


    Take Lepore and Stone's example:

    That's a nice soup latrine.

    I think everyone would agree

    1. You said "latrine" when you meant to say "tureen".

    I do not agree. When mistaken, one unintentionally says the wrong word. Not all cases are mistakes or linguistic error. A joker, for example, intentionally means to say "latrine".




    Lepore and Stone describe the situation as

    2. You mispronounced "tureen" as "latrine".     — Srap Tasmaner

    Perhaps in some cases. Not with the joker.



    What's still not perfectly clear is whether

    3. By "latrine" you meant "tureen"'.

    Sometimes if one knows how to use both but misspeaks nonetheless for whatever reason. Not with the joker, or yet other cases where the speaker does not know the meaning of either, and did not quite learn how to correctly use the phrase(learned something sounding close, but unconventional nevertheless).



    That is, whether you were, consciously or not, assigning the meaning of the word "tureen" to the word "latrine".

    That is to misattribute meaning to "latrine".

    That is what the listener must knowingly do in order to correctly interpret the speaker, regardless of whether or not the speaker was mistaken or joking.



    And then, finally, there's the question of whether the interpreter must say

    4. In this sentence the word "latrine" means "tureen".

    They do not have to say that, but they do have to knowingly misattribute meaning to "latrine" by virtue of drawing a correlation between it and the referent of "tureen".
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    I think it has more to do with socio-economic policy... but yeah. Seems that way, huh? They certainly do everything in their power to inhibit certain people's ability to publicly speak about what the problems actually are...

    Bernie is one such person(whose been inhibited). I admire his participation in the general this time around.
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