Sense and Syntax

This volume brings together in revised form some 11 essays on semantics published in books and journals since 1983, and includes 2 essays published for the first time. In this work, the author articulates a theory that emphasises the role of tacit knowledge and a view of the scientific problem of language acquisition derived from Chomsky's work. He defends a version of Davidson's thesis that knowledge of truth conditions is central to knowledge of meaning, examining at the same time the semantics of particular constructions to which the theory of truth is to apply. These constructions are considered in some syntactic detail, in the belief that syntactic and semantic theory can each illuminate the other. The results, Professor Higginbotham argues, suggest that syntactic forms are more abstract, and semantic principles more restricted, than is often supposed, and that human first languages may be specifically designed to make only limited use of higher-order logic.