Abstract

This paper starts from the observation that the standard arguments for compositionality are really arguments for the computability of semantics. Since computability does not entail compositionality, the question of what justifies compositionality recurs. The paper then elaborates on the idea of recursive semantics as corresponding to computable semantics. It is then shown by means of time complexity theory and with the use of term rewriting as systems of semantic computation, that syntactically unrestricted, noncompositional recursive semantics leads to computational explosion (factorial complexity). Hence, with combinatorially unrestricted syntax, semantics with tractable time complexity is compositional.