Knowledge and Language pp 113-118 | Cite as
A Problem about Ambiguity in Truth-Theoretical Semantics
Chapter
Abstract
If one aims, as Davidson does, to build a semantics for a natural language on the foundation of Convention T, how far does one have to move away from the Tarskian paradigm in order to cope with the existence of ambiguity in many sentences of natural language? I shall argue that one needs to move a good deal further than Davidson supposes.
Keywords
Natural Language Oxford English Dictionary Ambiguous Sentence Syntactic Ambiguity Verbal Ambiguity
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Notes
- 1.For a defence of the existence of syntactic ambiguity here see A. M. Zwicky and J. M. Sadock, Ambiguity Tests and How to Fail Them, in J. P. Kimball (ed.), Syntax and Semantics Vol. 4, New York, Academic Press 1975, p. 13Google Scholar
- 2.An earlier version of this article formed part of a paper presented at the May, 1984 conference on Davidsons work in New Brunswick, N.J. I am grateful for comments by several members of the audience on that occasion and for other comments by Jonathan Adler and Alan Weir.Google Scholar
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© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2002