「極小命題」(minimal proposition)是極小主義(minimalism)與脈絡主義(contextualism)的爭辯焦點之一。前者認為純粹的語彙語法可以產生有真假可言的命題內容，語句或語詞本身的語意規則可能會要求脈絡的資訊來滿足某些語意的完整性，但不代表所有的脈絡影響因子皆須納入語意範疇。後者則主張極小命題要不是理論多餘的，要不是缺乏本體地位的，訴諸極小命題無法否定脈絡對於語意內容的影響。本計畫企圖關注的議題即為：什麼是此極小命題? 其所扮演的理論角色為何? 從什麼側面或從什麼基礎開始，語言本身有了自己的獨立意義而不受使用者的使用意圖或脈絡影響? 如果極小主義能為極小命題建構堅實的語意基礎，那麼脈絡主義所要求的脈絡影響因素或許的確不是語意理論的責任範疇。但本計畫欲論證此方向是失敗的：極小命題不是建構語意論的基礎，無法成功呈現語意之理解，本計畫提出語意潛質(semantic potential)作為建構語意理論的核心概念，認為語意理解的特徵才能解釋長久以來雙方各自堅持的語意直覺。 ‘Minimal proposition’ is one of the disagreements between minimalism and contextualism in the philosophy of language. The former maintains that there is a level of purely lexico-syntactically determined but also necessarily propositional sentence-level content. No matter how complex or wide the contextual intrusion is, there is fundamental understanding of linguistic items that barely involves contextual information. The contextual elements may come into as a part of semantic-content-determination only when there are semantic requirements from the sentences or expressions themselves. On the contrary, the latter regards the ‘minimal proposition’ as redundant, or simply thinks there is no ontological status for such theoretical construction. This project is aimed to examine the theoretical role of ‘minimal proposition’ in a semantic theory. If minimalism can construct the semantic basis for minimal proposition successfully, the contextual factors might indeed never be the threat to the traditional semantics. The project is intended to negate this direction, but positively suggests that semantic potential be the core concept in constructing a semantic theory, through which the nebulous debate between two rivals can be clarified.
