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10 - Nonfinite Verbal Forms and Natural Language Ontology

from Part V - Typologizing and Ontologizing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 October 2022

By
Gillian Ramchand
Edited by
Daniel Altshuler
Daniel Altshuler
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
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Summary

This chapter will argue that the ontological categories that we require for understanding meaning and meaning composition in natural language cannot be exclusively proxied by external objects in the world or judgments of truth. In other words, a set of metaphysically justified ontological objects is not what is required for natural language ontology, and the latter field should be considered a distinct philosophical and analytical exercise. The chapter takes as its central empirical ground the meaning of ’nonfinite’ verb forms in English. Paradoxes relating to the English progressive and passive constructions will be examined to show that lexical conceptual content needs to be defined more essentially, and that the integration of such essentialist content into forms which ultimately have extensionalist import requires the reification of the symbol qua symbol and the explicit representation of the utterance situation.

Keywords

imperfective paradoxresultative participletruthcontentsymbolreferencecontext
Type
Chapter
Information
Linguistics Meets Philosophy , pp. 302 - 334
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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