Abstract
In order to fully understand what a person says to you, you need to activate many kinds of knowledge and ability. One requirement for comprehension is knowledge of the meanings of the words of which an utterance is composed. Suppose someone asks you to "open the window". Your understanding of the expression open the window requires - amongst other things - that you know the meaning of the verb open and the meaning of the noun window. You identify the window as a nominal constituent, whose referent is an entity of a certain kind - specifically, an entity of the kind designated by the noun window. You realise that you are supposed to perform a certain kind of activity with respect to this entity - specifically, the kind of activity designated by the verb ~.
Highlights
Abstract unitary semantic representation - brings with it some serious problems.io Consider a t~pic briefly touched on already: comRositionality
What a person mentally accesses is the particularised sense of ~, as this word is used with respect of windows, i.e. in the collocation open the window
How do prepositional phrases fit into compositional syntax and semantics? Linguistics 29, 591-621
Summary
In order to fully understand what a person says to you, you need to activate many kinds of knowledge and ability. The use of the word is extended, to cover many other kinds of activity (open the window, open one'~ eyes, etc.), until eventually the child's repertoire comes to approximate to that of the standard adult speaker (Taylor 1989: Ch. 13) These various considerations all point, it seems to me, in the same direction, namely that in understanding a sentence a person need not, and typically does not, access for each component lexical item in the sentence a highly abstract unitary meaning, which must be fleshed out according to the context in which the word is used. It is precisely in terms of such basic level activities (or "practices") that a person knows what paint means, and in terms of which paint is to be defined
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