@article {Rapaport:February 2002:0924-6495:3,
	author = "Rapaport W.J.",
	title = "Holism, Conceptual-Role Semantics, and Syntactic Semantics",
	journal = "Minds and Machines",
	volume = "12",
	year = "February 2002",
	abstract = "<P>This essay continues my investigation of `syntactic semantics': the theory that, pace Searle's Chinese-Room Argument, syntax does suffice for semantics (in particular, for the semantics needed for a computational cognitive theory of natural-language understanding). Here, I argue that syntactic semantics (which is internal and first-person) is what has been called a conceptual-role semantics: The meaning of any expression is the role that it plays in the complete system of expressions. Such a `narrow', conceptual-role semantics is the appropriate sort of semantics to account (from an `internal', or first-person perspective) for how a cognitive agent understands language. Some have argued for the primacy of external, or `wide', semantics, while others have argued for a two-factor analysis. But, although two factors can be specified&#150;-one internal and first-person, the other only specifiable in an external, third-person way&#150;-only the internal, first-person one is needed for understanding how someone understands. A truth-conditional semantics can still be provided, but only from a third-person perspective.</P>",
	pages = "3-59(57)",
	url = "http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/mind/2002/00000012/00000001/00389767"
}