Two Ways to Smoke a Cigarette

Author: Sainsbury, R.M.

Source: Ratio, Volume 14, Number 4, December 2001 , pp. 386-406(21)

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Abstract:

In the early part of the paper, I attempt to explain a dispute between two parties who endorse the compositionality of language but disagree about its implications: Paul Horwich, and Jerry Fodor and Ernest Lepore. In the remainder of the paper, I challenge the thesis on which they are agreed, that compositionality can be taken for granted. I suggest that it is not clear what compositionality involves nor whether it obtains. I consider some kinds of apparent counterexamples, and compositionalist responses to them in terms of covert indexicality and unspecific meanings. I argue that the last option is the best for most of the cases I consider. I conclude by stressing, as against Horwich and Fodor and Lepore, that the appropriate question concerns the extent to which compositionality obtains in a natural language, rather than whether it obtains or not, so that the answer is essentially messy, requiring detailed consideration of a wide range of examples.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9329.00171

Affiliations: 1: King's College London, London WC2R 2LS, UK

Publication date: 2001-12-01