A Defense of Free Enrichment from Stanleys Binding Argument

Abstract

In this paper, I defend and refine the contextualist thesis that there are processes of free pragmatic enrichment that contribute to the explicitly expressed proposition. First, I closely examine a major argument against the thesis, the so-called Binding Argument (BA), made by Jason Stanley (2000), and, finally, refute it on the grounds that it begs the question. Even if the charge of begging the question were not the case, one of its main assumptions, the Coincidence Assumption, in itself is empirically problematic or at least needs further justification. Finally, I adopt and expand the point briefly made in Section 4.2 of Jung (2010) on how a bindable variable for the bound interpretations of the examples used in the BA is pragmatically introduced in an alternative framework of our language faculty supported by Jackendoff (e.g., 1997), not in the one by Chomsky that the argument assumes.