a theory of language is woefully incomplete without a serious account of meaning. So let us begin.
9.3 Meaning and its interfaces
Given the welter of overlapping positions on the issues, it makes most sense for mefirst to state my own aspirations
for semantic theory, then compare them to various alternative traditions. I take the basic problem to be to situate the
study of meaning in the study of the f-mind:
(5)How can we characterize the messages/thoughts/concepts that speakers express/convey by means of using language?
(6)How does language express/convey these messages?
I leave the terms“messages/thoughts/concepts”and“express/ convey”deliberately vague for the moment. Part of
our job is to sharpen them. In particular, one has to ask:
(7)What makesthesef-mental entities function as meanings?
Unfortunately, the intellectual politics begin right here: this is not the way everyone construes the term“semantics.”
Rather thanengageinargumentsbasedonterminologicalimperialism, Iwilluse“conceptualistsemantics”as a ter mof
art for this enterprise.^132 Above all, I don't want to get trapped in the question: Is this enterprise really a kind of
semantics or not?The relevant questions are: Is thisenterprise a worthwhile way of studyingmeaning?To what extent
can it incorporate intuitions and insights fro mother approaches, and to what extentcan it offer insights unavailablein
other approaches?
Inorder for a theoryofconceptualistsemanticstobeembedded ina larger theoryofthef-mind, itmust berecognized
that the messages/thoughts/concepts conveyed by language serve other purposes as well. At the very least, they are
used by the following cognitive processes:
- Processes that integrate a linguisticallyconveyedmessage with existing f-knowledge, including understanding
of context. - Processes that draw inferences and make judgments, based on the interaction of a linguistically conveyed
message with other f-knowledge. - Processes that use linguisticallyconveyedmessages todirectattentiontoand make judgments ontheworldas
perceived through the senses.
SEMANTICS AS A MENTALISTIC ENTERPRISE 271
(^132) My own particular set of proposals, which I have called Conceptual Semantics (Jackendoff 1990a) , is an exemplar of the approach but not the only possible one.