Cresswell I 21
Lexical decomposition/analysis/Katz/word meaning/list/Cresswell: (Katz 1972
(1), p. 49). Example: "Chair":
(10) (object), (physical), (non-alive), (artifact), (furniture), (portable), (something with legs), (something with a back), (something with a sitting space), (seat for one).
Problem: Katz declines to say what, e.g. an (object) is.
N.B.: even in recent times (Harrison 1974
(2), 601 ff), we find this "object" as an English word (!) ((s) i.e. not perceived) as a physical object.)
Cresswell: that's all right, as long as we consider e.g. (seat for one) to be sufficiently similar to an electron in a physical theory.
I 32
CresswellVsKatz: we simply have no idea what the most basic entities of his decomposition should be. On the other hand, we have an idea of it in the semantics of possible worlds.
I 21
Semantics of possible worlds/word meaning/CresswellVsKatz: Example "chair": a function , so that for each world w and thing a, w ε ω (a) iff. a is a chair in w. See below I 51: omega/ω: evaluation of the predicate, w: possible world. ((s) ε ω (a)": the world w is an element of the set of the worlds in which this object is a chair "/" ω (a)": the function ω makes the object "ω(a)") from this object.
>
Semantics of possible worlds, >
Possible world.
I 32
Problem: this is not quite accurate: just as there is a reference to different worlds, there should also be one to different moments, where something is in one moment a chair, but not in another.
Context dependence/Cresswell: is taken into account both in the semantics of possible worlds (Cresswell 1973, 180) and in the Katz/Fodor semantics. (Katz, 1972
(1), 303ff). Circularity is only apparent here: if I use "chair" in my meta-language, I have, of course, presupposed the knowledge of the reader of this meta-language. So that the way in which the set of worlds where x is a chair was presented, the word "chair" was used.
Katz/Fodor semantics/semantics of possible worlds/Cresswell: one can connect both: e.g. "chair": we would not treat "chair" as a single symbol whose meaning is w, but as a complex expression of the form
(x is an object) & ... & (x is a seat for one).
>
Context-dependence.
1. Jerrold J. Katz. (1972). Semantic Theory. New York: Harper & Row
2. B. Harrison. (1974) KATZ, J. J. "Semantic Theory". Mind 83:599
