Syntactic Structures

SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES
9.2.5 There is one further difficulty of principle that should be
mentioned in the discussion of any semantic approach to phonemic
distinctness. We have not asked whether the meanings assigned to
distinct (but phonemically identical) tokens are identical, or merely
very similar. If the latter, then all of the difficulties of determining
phonemic distinctness are paralleled (and magnified, because of the
inherent obscurity of the subject matter) in determining sameness of
meaning. We will have to determine when two distinct meanings
are sufficiently similar to be considered 'the same.' If, on the other
hand, we try to maintain the position that the meanings assigned
are always identical, that the meaning of a word is a fixed and
unchanging component of each occurrence, then a charge of
circularity seems warranted. It seems_that the only way to uphold
such a position would be to conceive of the meaning of a token as
"the way in which tokens of this type are (or can be) used," the class
of situations in which they can be used, the type of response that
they normally evoke, or something of this sort. But it is difficult to
make any sense at all out of such a conception of meaning without a
prior notion of utterance type. It would appear, then, that even
apart from our earlier objections, any approach to phonemic
distinctness in semantic terms is either circular or is based on a
distinction that is considerably more difficult to establish than the
distinction it is supposed to clarify.
9.2.6 How, then, can we account for the widespread acceptance of
some such formulation as (117i)? I think that there are two explanations
for this. In part, it is a consequence of the assumption
that semantic approaches are somehow immediately given and are
too simple to require analysis. Any attempt to provide a careful
description, however, quickly dispels this illusion. A semantic
approach to some grammatical notion requires as careful and
detailed a development as is justly required of any non-semantic
approach. And as we have seen, a semantic approach to phonemic
distinctness is beset by quite considerable difficulties.
A second source for such formulations as (117i), I believe, is a
confusion of "meaning" with "informant's response." We thus
SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS
find such comments on linguistic method as the following: "In
linguistic analysis we define contrast among forms operationally in
terms of difference in meaning responses." 6 We have observed in
§ 9.2.3 that if we were to determine contrast by 'meaning response' in
any direct way we would simply make the wrong decision in a great
many places; and if we try to avoid the difficulties that immediately
arise, we are led to a construction that is so elaborate and has such
intolerable assumptions that it can be hardly taken as a serious
proposal. And we saw in § 9.2.5 that there are apparently even
more fundamental difficulties of principle. Hence, if we interpret
the quoted assertation literally, we must reject it as incorrect.
If we drop the word "meaning" from this statement, however, we
have a perfectly acceptable reference to such devices as the pair
test. But there is no warrant for interpreting the responses studied
in the pair test as semantic in any way.' One might very well
develop an operational test for rhyme that would show that "bill"
and "pill" are related in a way in which "bill" and "ball" are not.
There would be nothing semantic in this test. Phonemic identity is
essentially complete rhyme, and there is no more reason for
postulating some unobserved semantic reaction in the case of
"bill" and "bill" than in the case of "bill" and "pill."
It is strange that those who have objected to basing linguisitc
theory on such formulations as (117i) should have been accused of
disregard for meaning. It appears to be the case, on the contrary,
that those who propose some variant of (117i) must be interpreting
"meaning" so broadly that any response to language is called
"meaning." But to accept this view is to denude the term "meaning"
of any interest or significance. I think that anyone who wishes
to save the phrase "study of meaning" as descriptive of an important
F. Lounsbury, "A semantic analysis of the Pawnee kinship usage", Language
32.158-94 (1956), p. 191.
' One should not be confused by the fact that the subject in the pair test
may be asked to identify the utterance tokens by meaning. He might just as well
be asked to identify them by arbitrarily chosen numbers, by signs of the zodiac,
etc. We can no more use some particular formulation of the pair test as an
argument for dependence of grammatical theory on meaning than as an argument
that linguistics is based on arithmetic or astrology.