84 - Chris Potts: Semantics, Pragmatics, and ChatGPT

Chris Potts is Professor and Chair of the Department of Linguistics at Stanford University, and also Professor by courtesy in the Department of Computer Science at the same. Chris has worked on a wide variety of topics in linguistics throughout his career, but has published on conventional implicature—check out his book, Logic of Conventional Implicatures (Oxford, 2003)—large language models, and compositional reasoning, among many other subjects. Robinson and Chris begin by discussing the relationship between linguistics and philosophy before turning to topics in semantics and pragmatics—references, the principle of compositionality, swearing, and more. After some thoughts on Chomsky’s legacy in linguistics, they talk about the impact of ChatGPT on the classroom and whether large language models are capable of understanding.

00:00 In This Episode…

01:13 Introduction

04:16 Chris and Linguistics

12:34 Linguistics and Philosophy

22:43 Proper Names and Reference

27:00 The Principle of Compositionality

41:59 Adjectives, Innateness, and Chomsky

57:36 Quantifiers

01:01:36 Swearing and Linguistics

01:04:42 ChatGPT in the Linguistics Classroom

01:12:00 Does ChatGPT Understand?

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University. Join him in conversations with philosophers, scientists, weightlifters, artists, and everyone in-between.