
Published online:
01 January 2011
Published in print:
01 November 2010
Online ISBN:
9780191710223
Print ISBN:
9780199226993
Contents
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1. Two types of rule 1. Two types of rule
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2. Semantic flexibility 2. Semantic flexibility
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3. Standing meaning vs occasion meaning 3. Standing meaning vs occasion meaning
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4. Counterexamples 4. Counterexamples
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5. Context-dependence 5. Context-dependence
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6. Saturation and modulation 6. Saturation and modulation
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7. Compositionality and modulation 7. Compositionality and modulation
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8. Is Contextualism a threat to compositionality? 8. Is Contextualism a threat to compositionality?
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Chapter
1 1 Compositionality, Flexibility, and Context-Dependence
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Pages
27–48
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Published:November 2010
Cite
Recanati, François, '1 Compositionality, Flexibility, and Context-Dependence', Truth-Conditional Pragmatics (Oxford , 2010; online edn, Oxford Academic, 1 Jan. 2011), https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199226993.003.0002, accessed 17 May 2025.
Abstract
It has often been observed that the meaning of a word may be affected by the other words which occur in the same sentence. How are we to account for this phenomenon of ‘semantic flexibility’? This chapter argues that semantic flexibility reduces to context-sensitivity and does not raise unsurmountable problems for standard compositional accounts. On the other hand, it would be a mistake to assume too simple a view of context-sensitivity. Two basic forms of context-sensitivity are distinguished. The second form — sense modulation — shows that there is more in the meaning of the whole than can be derived from the meanings of the parts.
Keywords:
compositionality, semantic flexibility, modulation, context-sensitivity, linguistic context
Collection:
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