Misusing Language
Michael O’Rourke
October 16, 1996
Draft for W.S.U. Talk
I.Introduction
Coming in to the middle of Chapter VI of Through the Looking Glass, we find Humpty Dumpty saying, “When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean---neither more nor less.” To this, Alice replies, “The question is whether you can make words mean so many different things.” Humpty responds, “The question is which is to be master---that’s all.”[1]
The skepticism in Alice’s reply suggests that she thinks it is language and not Humpty Dumpty that should be identified as the master in this case. Indeed, she believes Humpty Dumpty has misused the language when he used ‘glory’ to mean ‘a nice knockdown argument’. Normally (although not in this case), we are good at divining the meaning of a speaker’s words in cases of linguistic misuse---of figuring out what went wrong and correcting it so as to get at what the speaker meant to say. However, we start our search for what went wrong only after we conclude that something has gone wrong. This is revealing: it suggests that we apply normative standards when communicating, and that our contributions and our interpretations of other contributions are conditioned if not determined by what results from that application. That is, we aim to get things right when we communicate, and to this end we rely on normative standards.
At this point, it would serve us well to step back and examine what it is we want to do here. As I see it, the philosophy of language should be out to build a theory of linguistic communication. This theory should comprise three sub-theories: a theory of linguistic structure (i.e., syntax), a theory of linguistic meaning (i.e., semantics), and a theory of speaker meaning (i.e., pragmatics). Before we can begin this project, however, we need to determine what phenomena our theory should explain, what phenomena it should explain away, and what phenomena it should ignore. In this essay I’ll focus primarily on the theory of linguistic meaning, and I’ll ask the following question: should semantics explain, explain away, or ignore a phenomenon that I’ll call misfit definite descriptions. In considering this question, I’ll focus on normative standards that apply within semantics. It is important to recognize that there is a price associated with getting the answer wrong here. If you regard it as something the theory should explain and you are mistaken, then you will look at data that you shouldn’t and thus treat noise as evidence, a move that will certainly lead you astray. If you fail to regard it as something the theory should explain and you are mistaken, then the theory you’ll develop will either be merely partial, or it will be a model of a special case of a more general phenomenon passed off as the general account.
The phenomenon I wish to focus on here is one that would appear to support Humpty Dumpty: the case of misfit definite descriptions. Definite descriptions are noun phrases that begin with the word ‘the’, or can be translated into such a phrase: for example, ‘the first word on this line’, ‘the speaker’s tie’, etc. Call a definite description a misfit when it is used to mention an item that it does not describe. The prevailing attitude toward misfit descriptions currently is that since they are mistakes, they cannot be relevant to semantic theory, i.e., they are not phenomena that the semantic theory should be developed to explain. These folks acknowledge that one can use misfit descriptions and successfully communicate, but they argue that this is a pragmatic fact that should be explained only after we have a semantic theory of definite descriptions in place. Call the intuition at work here---viz., that semantic models for natural language should be built to explain language used correctly---the intuition of semantic correctness. After presenting misfit descriptions in more detail, I develop this intuition with the help of Gareth Evans, who characterizes it in terms of linguistic convention. I then introduce an example involving a misfit description that would appear to be semantically correct and use that case to argue for the semantic relevance of misfit descriptions. In addition to resuscitating misfit descriptions, I hope to provide some considerations that support Humpty Dumpty’s way of thinking.
II.A Semantic Role for Misfit Descriptions?
In "Reference and Definite Descriptions", his seminal paper on the semantics of definite descriptions, Keith Donnellan argues that a definite description can be used either to refer to a particular item, singling that item out for (possible) identification, or it can be used to mention whatever item has the property associated with the description. The former is the referential use and the latter the attributive use. One can say that in the referential use, the intended referent is essential to the utterance made, whereas in the attributive use, the description is essential.
In distinguishing these two uses, he considers cases involving misfit definite descriptions, i.e., cases where a description the is used to mention an item it does not describe. He writes that in the attributive use, "if nothing is the then nothing has been said to be ," whereas in the referential use, "the fact that nothing is the does not have this consequence."[2] Adapting an example of Donnellan’s, consider the sentence, “The man with the martini is wanted on the phone” uttered by someone who is under the mistaken impression that there was someone in the room drinking a martini. If that speaker uttered it without intending to refer to any particular person---that is, if the use was attributive---then there is no one person about whom she is talking; if the speaker uttered it while intending to refer to someone in particular---that is, if the use was referential---then even though that person is not drinking a martini, she is nevertheless referring to him using ‘the man with the martini’ and saying of him that he is wanted on the phone. In general, then, the description is essential in the attributive use, and so a speaker relies on the property associated with it to serve up an item for predication; if nothing is the , then no claim is made. In the referential use, on the other hand, the intended referent is essential, and so a speaker uses the property merely as a way of getting at that object which she can identify in other ways; in this case, she makes a claim about that item even if it is not the . Thus, in using misfits to differentiate attributive and referential uses, Donnellan in effect argues that they are phenomena that must be explained by semantic theory, and so they are relevant to it.[3]
III.The Rejection of Misfit Descriptions
The importance of Donnellan's account of the referential/attributive distinction is undeniable, but many take exception to his use of misfit definite descriptions in developing it. For example, in describing Donnellan's reliance on misfits, Michael Lockwood argues that "Donnellan is here quite unnecessarily riding roughshod over the common-sense distinction between what a speaker means and what he actually succeeds in saying."[4] Echoing this, Howard Wettstein contends that "Donnellan does himself a disservice in claiming that the referential-attributive distinction can best be brought out by considering cases in which the description fits nothing."[5] Chiming in, Hector Neri-Castaneda remarks: “The fact at the bottom of all the fuss has nothing to do with definite descriptions. It is the fact that one can succeed in making a hearer think of something by means of expressions that do not in reality as the language goes correspond to .”[6]
While their specific diagnoses differ, these three, along with other philosophers[7] believe that Donnellan has made a mistake by relying on misfit descriptions in drawing the referential/attributive distinction. By doing so, he confuses what a speaker can do with the language with what that language means; that is, he confounds pragmatics with semantics. As a result, he illicitly introduces pragmatic elements into his account of the semantics of definite descriptions. His account may teach us something about language users, but nothing about language.
As these philosophers see it, a speaker can succeed in communicating her intended meaning with a misfit description because participants in the discourse episode can compensate for the mistake the speaker makes by exploiting cues drawn from the context of utterance. In such a case, the speaker does not intend to express the claim that her words convey. One may use the description to help get a read on what the speaker might mean, but it is just one cue among many and it is not privileged: the speaker succeeds in communicating despite her words, not because of them. Since the words are not being used in a way that is consonant with their meaning, this type of linguistic datum is dismissed as irrelevant to semantics. Behind this dismissal is an assumption: semantic theories should be developed to explain sentences that conform to intuitions about the correct use of our words, given their meanings. If a speaker makes no mistake in selecting a sentence to convey her intended meaning in a particular case, then the resulting utterance is deemed relevant to semantics in the sense that its significance should be explained by semantic theory; if she makes a mistake, then it is rejected as irrelevant. That is, an utterance is semantically relevant just in case it conforms to our intuitions of semantic correctness (i.e., if it is what I will call semantically correct).
An analogy might be illuminating here. Say you find yourself in a room full of people doing sums on a blackboard, but you are unaware of what it is they are doing. (Perhaps they are using a sort of code that you do not understand.) Assume that you are unable to communicate with these people verbally. If you were interested in modeling their behavior, you would try to discern the structure of their writings and then assign meaning to those writings. Given enough time and energy, this would likely succeed, but consider how difficult it would be to come up with an adequate model of their behavior if these people were bad at arithmetic. Perhaps you would have some intuition about which data are corrupt: you could decide, for example, to admit only those symbolisms that were produced with full confidence, rejecting all those that were produced with hesitance and consternation, or were subsequently crossed out or erased. This wouldn’t be perfect, but it would make the job easier. The situation is analogous in semantics: the goal is to model the meanings of utterances, and to this end one should eliminate the corrupt data. As with the arithmetic example, identification of this data is the tricky part. According to the view we’re now considering, linguistic data that is not semantically correct is deemed corrupt and rejected; on the other hand, data that conforms to these intuitions is admitted into the data pool.
At this point, we can produce an argument in three steps that expresses the dismissive attitude of these philosophers toward misfit descriptions. First, an utterance is semantically relevant (i.e., it qualifies as a datum that must be explained by semantic theory) if and only if it is semantically correct (i.e., it conforms to our intuitions of semantic correctness). Second, if an utterance contains a misfit description, then it is not semantically correct. Therefore, if an utterance contains a misfit description, then it is not semantically relevant. I have examined the first premise with the help of the analogy above. I now examine the second premise with the help of Gareth Evans.
IV.Evans on Linguistic Correctness
In Varieties of Reference, Gareth Evans develops a theory of singular reference that is grounded in a conception of linguistic understanding constrained in part by intuitions of semantic correctness. These intuitions typically form a part of the background against which he develops this theory, but he raises them into theoretical prominence when he turns to the semantics of definite descriptions. In considering whether there is a semantically legitimate referential use, he lays down the following condition on cases that can be introduced into evidence in support of such a use: “our intuitive judgements of the correctness or incorrectness of utterances support the ascription to the description-containing utterance of the referential, rather than the quantificational (i.e., attributive), truth-conditions.”[8] In searching for cases of this kind, Evans considers utterances that involve misfit descriptions and concludes that they would not be correct and so would fail to meet this condition. Of such an utterance, Evans remarks, “Undeniably, a mistake has been made, and the sentence should not have been uttered.”[9] Evans is clearly a member in good standing of the group of philosophers introduced in the preceding section, and I focus on him primarily because he supplies a way of making precise these intuitions that misfit descriptions are not semantically correct; that is, his approach to the semantics of definite descriptions permits us to develop a more precise version of the second premise of the argument advanced above.
As Evans understands it, these “intuitive judgements of the correctness or incorrectness of utterances” are grounded in the conventions of language. He contends that "words and modes of composition of a language are endowed with a significance by the conventions of a language," where this means that "the meanings of words are supervenient on social practices."[10] He illustrates his view of linguistic convention with an analogy involving the conventional rules that control a board game. Linguistic conventions constrain the use of linguist expressions much in the same way that the rules of a game constrain moves. Consider chess. The pieces have "powers and potentialities" that are guaranteed by the rules of the game, and this constrains the way in which those pieces can be used. Furthermore, when a player makes a move, that move has consequences within the game that are determined by the rules "quite independently of the purpose [the player] may have had in making the move."[11] If one uses the pieces without regard to the rules or their consequences, one is simply not playing chess. By analogy, words and expressions have meanings secured by linguistic conventions that constrain their use, and the use of an expression (typically) has effects that are independent of the thoughts in the mind of the speaker. If one uses words in a way that ignores convention, one talks without saying anything.
Evans contends that semantic theory must respect linguistic convention. We can represent his brand of linguistic conventionalism with the following theses:
1.The meaning of words and expressions of a language are determined by practices within the community of people who speak the language. Call this meaning so determined for a particular expression of the language the semantic potential of that expression.
2.Speaker intentions do not override convention; that is, one cannot make an expression mean something that is not contained in the semantic potential of the expression.[12]
These theses supply the general picture, but more detail must be added to account for expressions that can be used to refer to individual items, such as proper names, indexicals, pronouns, and definite descriptions---their semantic potential will be tied to the range of things they refer to. In Evans’ view, expressions such as these are conventionally associated with referential features. He observes:
The conventions governing referring expressions are such that, as uttered in a context of utterance, they are associated with a property which an object must satisfy if [that object] is to be the referent of the fully conventional use of that expression in that context.[13]
The referential feature of such an expression is a conventionally associated property, which is to say that the referential feature reflects the way speakers of the language use that expression. Thus, referential features determine the semantic potential of these expressions, and so we can add a third thesis to our list, one that accounts for the conventional character of referring expressions:
3.The semantic potential of a referring expression is determined by its referential feature.
For example, the description, ‘the philosophy speaker’ is associated with a referential feature---the property of being the philosophy speaker---by linguistic convention, and this constrains what we can mean when we use it. The range of possible denotations this description could have, given its referential feature, constitutes its semantic potential.
Taken together, these three theses give us the following picture of what a fully conventional---that is, a semantically correct---use of a referring expression:
If a use of a referring expression with the referential feature is fully conventional (i.e., semantically correct) then is used to refer to an item x that satisfies .
The referential feature of a definite description is its conventionally associated referential feature. A misfit description is used to talk about an item that does not satisfy its referential feature. As a result, misfit descriptions are not semantically correct, and so Evans dismisses them as semantically irrelevant. Thus, Evans gives us a precise way of thinking about the second premise of our argument: a misfit description is semantically incorrect because it violates linguistic convention, which is to say that it is used in a way that ignores the conventionally determined significance of the description in question.