Open Compositionality: Towards a Methodology of Language offers a fresh view into human languages as supermodular, highly interactive cognitive capacities allowing for human unique thought and communication. It is a novel account of semantics as decision-making in tandem with the cognition first methodology.

• Cover
• Open Compositionality
• Open Compositionality: Toward a New Methodology of Language
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Chapter 1
  • Two Views of Language
    • 1.1 The Closed View: Closed Compositionality
    • 1.2 The Open View
    • 1.3 Why Both Views Matter
    • 1.4 Toward Open Compositionality
    • Note
• Chapter 2
  • The Closed View and Strong Compositionality
    • 2.1 A (Very) Brief History of Compositionality
    • 2.2 The Principle(s) and Methodology
    • 2.3 Applying the Methodology
    • 2.4 Independent Evidence for the Closed View
    • 2.5 Cognitive Psychological Facts and Semantic Theorizing
    • Notes
• Chapter 3
  • The Failure of Strong Compositionality
    • 3.1 Strong Compositionality as a Cognitive Hypothesis
    • 3.2 Strong Compositionality as a Processing Hypothesis
    • 3.3 Language acquisition and development
    • 3.4 Word Learning
    • 3.5 Syntax Acquisition
    • 3.6 Language Processing
    • 3.7 Natural Languages and Strong Compositionality
• Chapter 4
  • Open Compositionality and the Cognition-First Methodology
    • 4.1 The Lewisian Compromise
    • 4.2 Language as a Supermodule: What We Know and How We Know It
    • 4.3 Semantics as Decision-Making: How We Use It
    • 4.4 The Cognition-First Methodology
    • 4.5 Productivity, Systematicity, and Computability
    • 4.6 Open Compositionality against Alternatives
• Chapter 5
  • Lexical Processing Architecture and Substitution Failure
    • 5.1 The Phenomenon and Its Scope
    • 5.2 Memory for Proper Names
    • 5.3 Simple Heuristics for Proper Names
    • 5.4 Processing Architecture for Distinct Names
    • 5.5 A Processing Approach to Substitution Failure
    • 5.6 Frege’s and Kripke’s Puzzles
    • Note
• Chapter 6
  • Decoupled Representations and Empty Names
    • 6.1 Pretense and imaginings
    • 6.2 The cognitive account of empty names
    • 6.3 Solving philosophical puzzles
    • 6.4 Closing Remarks
    • Notes
• Chapter 7
  • Moral Discourse, Moral Cognition, and the Language Analogy
    • 7.1 The challenges of naturalist moral realism
    • 7.2 Moral cognition and development
    • 7.3 The Language Analogy
    • 7.4 Objectivity, Conventionality, Universality, and Normativity
    • 7.5 Knowledge, Motivation, and Semantics
    • Note
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author