Reinaldo Elugardo

Ellipsis and Nonsentential Speech

I: The Nature and Scope of Ellipsis. A: How Many Varieties? Against Reconstruction in Ellipsis M. Dalrymple. The Semantics of Nominal Exclamatives P. Portner, R. Zanuttini. B: Ellipsis and Nonsentential Speech: The Genuineness Issue. Nonsententials in Minimalism E. Barton, L. Progovac. A Note on Alleged Cases of Nonsentential Assertion P. Ludlow. On the Interpretation and Performance of Nonsentential Assertions L. Clapp. Nonsentences, Implicature, and Success in Communication T. Kenyon. The link between sentences and assertion: An Evolutionary Accident? A. Carstairs-McCarthy. II: Implications. Knowledge by Acquaintance and Meaning in Isolation A. Botterell. Co-extensive Theories and Unembedded Definite Descriptions A. Barber. The Ellipsis Account of Fiction-Talk M. Reimer. Quinean Interpretation and Anti-Vernacularism S. Davis. Saying What You Mean: Unarticulated Constituents and Communications E. Borg.

Logical Form and the Vernacular

Vernacularism is the view that logical forms are fundamentally assigned to natural language expressions, and are only derivatively assigned to anything else, e.g., propositions, mental representations, expressions of symbolic logic, etc. In this paper, we argue that Vernacularism is not as plausible as it first appears because of non-sentential speech. More specifically, there are argument-premises, meant by speakers of non-sentences, for which no natural language paraphrase is readily available in the language used by the speaker and the hearer. The speaker can intend this proposition and the hearer can recover it (and its logical form). Since they cannot, by hypothesis, be doing this by using a sentence of their shared language, the proposition-meant has its logical form non-derivatively, which falsifies Vernacularism. We conclude the paper with a brief review of the debate on incomplete definite descriptions in which Vernacularism is assumed as a suppressed premise.

George Berkeley and Peter Browne

Berkeley’s thoughts on the philosophy of language can be divided into two streams: a critical, negative stream detailing what language is not or does not do and a positive, development stream concerning what language really does. Within the negative stream are three main currents. First is Berkeley’s rejection of the need for abstract ideas to provide the significations of general names; second is Berkeley’s rejection of Locke’s thesis that names only immediately signify ideas; and third is Berkeley’s rejection of analogical names for religious language. Within the positive stream, there are corresponding currents. First, Berkeley adopts particular ideas put to a representative use as the grounds for the meaning of general names. Second, Berkeley posits meanings in addition to ideas, such as words whose meanings are constituted by the emotions they provoke. Third, Berkeley defends the meaningfulness of religious discourse without adopting ideas not fully grasped as their grounds. Peter Browne was critical of Berkeley’s attempt to defend religious discourse without analogical terms and his account of non-ideational meaning in general. His response is included here.

Reality and Representation.

Realism and anti-realism an argument for anti-realism of belief belief and representation the teleological theory of representation the possibility of error universal rationality naturalized epistemology naturalized realism inferential processes relativism, history and scepticism.