Marco Cruciani

In this article, the authors try to answer the following questions: How can an object/instance seen for the first time extend a category or update a concept? How is it possible to determine the reference of a concept that represents a behaviour? In the first case, the authors discuss the learning of inferential linguistic competence used to update a concept through an approach based on prototype theory. In the second case, the authors discuss the learning of referential linguistic competence used to determine the reference of a concept (i.e., determination of an actual behaviour) through an approach based on embodied cognition. The authors show how combining prototype-based and embodied categorization in Wittgenstein’s rule-following praxis (the individual and community dimension), linguistic learning of a concept (inferential competence), and determination of its reference (referential competence) can be traced back to the same model. Keywords Action, Categorization, Embodied Cognition, Embodiment, Linguistic Inferential Competence, Linguistic Referential Competence, Perception, Prototype Theory, Reference, Sign.

The paper presents an inferential model of explicit communication based on the speaker’s interests and the addressee’s beliefs. After the introduction, the paper sets out some notions concerning explicit communication within the frameworks of truth-conditional pragmatics and relevance theory. The third section describes the phenomenon of semantic underdeterminacy, and the fourth section introduces non-demonstrative inferences in communication. The fifth section presents the model. The main notions involved are the speaker’s intended meaning and the addressee’s intended meaning. The former notion is centered on the speaker’s interest in situation: a speaker intends the meaning of an utterance on the basis of a partial order of preference with respect to a set of contextually plausible meanings. The latter notion is centered on the addressee’s communicative inference, which is based on the addressee’s belief about the speaker’s interest. The paper takes the notion of interest from cognitive social theory, the notion of meaning from semantics, and the notion of explicit meaning from pragmatics; and it uses the notion of communicative inference for explicit meaning in partial accordance with relevance theory. In the sixth section, the paper argues in favor of the inferential approach compared with the associative approach in determination of “what is said.” The paper’s method is conceptual analysis of declarative utterances used in communicative situations. The main finding of the paper has been to show that, in contextual underdeterminacy cases, speaker’s interest is a determining factor in communicative processes. Keywords: states of affairs; truth-conditions; semantic underdeterminacy; contextual underdeterminacy; speaker’s interest; goal-conditions; speaker’s intended meaning; addressee’s belief; communicative inference; addressee’s intended meaning; shared intended meaning; explicit communication.

The problem of determining intended meaning is a key topic in the study of linguistic processes. This paper attempts to answer the question: how do agents involved in a linguistic controversy determine the intended meaning of a sentence? The main thesis of the paper is that the determination of meaning is driven by agents’ situational interests. The process is analyzed in two phases , and the thesis is respectively declined in two hypotheses. The first is that an agent’s situational interest drives the individual choice of meaning for ambiguous sentences. It is argued in particular that formal semantics, the dictionary, context of use and domain knowledge are not sufficiently powerful to determine a unique meaning. From this it follows that an agent can legitimately choose a meaning given a set of acceptable meanings. This first proposal should impact on the problem of meaning under determination. The second hypothesis is that, in meaning negotiation processes, agents negotiate their own interests, and not directly the meaning. Meaning is then compatibly fixed on the agreement arising from the negotiation of interests. Focusing on cases of disputes concerning ambiguous clauses in employment contracts , I shall illustrate two linguistic controversies provoked by the same clause. The two controversies were resolved by determining two opposite meanings for the same expression. In the two situations, the two meanings were differently determined on the basis of different interests and two different negotiation processes. In this scenario I shall claim that the intended meaning can be regarded as an epiphenomenon of the negotiation of situational interests. This latter proposal should impact on the problem of determining the intended meaning in meaning negotiation processes