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COGNITIVE SCIENCE 8, 275304 (1984) Literal Meaning and Psychological Theory*
BibTeX
@MISC{Gibbs_cognitivescience,
author = {Raymond W. Gibbs},
title = {COGNITIVE SCIENCE 8, 275304 (1984) Literal Meaning and Psychological Theory*},
year = {}
}
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Abstract
This paper evaluates the psychological status of literal meaning. Mast linguis-tic and philosophical theories assume that sentences have well-specified literal meanings which represent the meaning of a sentence independent of context. Recent debate an this issue has centered an whether literal meaning can be equated with context-free meaning, or whether a sentence’s literal meaning is determined only given a set of background assumptions. Neither of these positions meet the demands of a psychological theory of language understanding. Sentences da not have well-defined literal meanings, regard-less of whether these are determined in light of a set of background assump-tions. Moreover, the putative literal meanings of sentences da not contribute in systematic ways toward the understanding of speakers ’ utterance mean-ings. These observations suggest that the distinctions between literal and metopharic meanings, ond between semantics ond pragmatics, hove little psychological validity. This paper assesses the relation of literal meaning to a psychological theory
Keyphrases
literal meaning psychological theory cognitive science background assumption context-free meaning putative literal meaning sentence literal meaning psychological status well-defined literal meaning recent debate speaker utterance mean-ings philosophical theory language understanding systematic way well-specified literal meaning little psychological validity metopharic meaning background assump-tions
