Railton and other Cornell realists argue that functional-role explanations in semantics are explanatorily incomplete without appeal to normative standards that govern correct application.

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Cornell realists(as the main school of thought being discussed): A group of philosophers from Cornell University who believe that moral facts (like what makes something 'good') are real and exist in the world, similar to how physical facts exist.
Functional-role explanations(as the type of explanation being discussed in semantics): A way of explaining meaning by describing what a word or concept does or how it works within a larger system, rather than pointing to a physical thing.
Normative standards(as what is needed to complete functional-role explanations): Rules or principles that tell us how things should be or ought to be done, rather than just describing how things actually are.
Railton(as a philosopher who developed a key theory in 1984): Peter Railton is a contemporary American philosopher who developed an influential version of consequentialism that tries to address criticisms of the theory.
explanatorily incomplete(as used in philosophy of science and explanation): Missing crucial information needed to fully explain how or why something works—like trying to explain a recipe without listing the ingredients.
semantics(Distinguished from metasemantics and pragmatics in Kaplan 1989): The domain that concerns the facts about what meanings words or phrases have.

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