This paper argues that relativity of truth to a world plays no significant role in empirical semantic theory, even as it is done in the model-theoretic tradition relying on intensional type theory. Some philosophical views of content provide an important notion of truth at a world, but they do not constrain the empirical domain of semantic theory in a way that makes this notion empirically significant. As an application of this conclusion, this paper shows that a potential motivation for relativism (...) based on the relativity of truth to a world fails. (shrink)

On one view, the point of an assertion is to update the common ground (Stalnaker 1978, Karttunen 1974). On another, the point of an assertion is to propose an update to the com- mon ground (Groenendijk 2009, Mascarenhas 2009, and related work on the structure of discourse, e.g., Ginzburg 1996, Roberts 1996, Gunlogson 2001). In Murray (to appear), I merge these two views. I argue based on evidence from declarative sentences with eviden- tials that assertion has two components: what is (...) at-issue and what is not. The not-at-issue component of assertion is added directly to the common ground while the at-issue compo- nent is proposed to be added to the common ground. Here, I extend this analysis to yes/no questions in Cheyenne and their interaction with evidentials. I propose that the distinction between what is at-issue and what is not is also present in questions, and that it can be modeled in the same way. Specifically, both declarative and interrogative sentences make two contributions: they restrict and structure the common ground. The restriction is based on the not-at-issue component while the structuring relation is based on the at-issue component. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the quantificational variability of Cheyenne indeterminates: the variety of interpretations they can receive and the grammatical contexts that condition these interpretations. Building on analyses of indeterminates in other languages, such as Kratzer and Shimoyama (2002), I present a Hamblin-style analysis of Cheyenne indeter- minates. The proposal builds on the analysis of declaratives and interrogatives argued for in Murray (2010). This analysis can account for the quantificational variability of indeterminates in the scope of propositional operators as (...) well as the scope of illocutionary mood markers. The analysis is formalized in an independently motivated update semantics (Update with Centering, Bittner 2011), which automatically provides the required alternatives. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to consider how the notion of analyticity can be dealt with in model-theoretical terms. The standard approach to possible-world semantics allows us to define logical truth and necessity, but analyticity is considerably more difficult to account for.

This paper presents syntactic and semantic rules for a fragment of English with mixed quotation. The fragment shows that quotation has a recursive and compositional structure. Quoted expressions turn out to denote characters, so the semantics of quotation simulates the pragmatics of speech, including dependence on utterance contexts and reference to mental entities. The analysis also accommodates varieties of unquotation, pure quotation, and causal reference.

I consider here the issue of whether and to what extent moral truths are absolute. My aim is to raise some new considerations in favor of moral relativism: the thesis that some moral statements can vary in truth-value depending on the moral standards at issue.1 2 This paper has three major components. First, I describe a new puzzle concerning the possibility of moral knowledge in light of expert disagreement. I argue that the best solution to this puzzle requires moral relativism. (...) Second, I develop a notion of a moral standard that incorporates recent developments in moral psychology, including work by.. (shrink)

Kaplan (1977) proposes a neo-Fregean theory of demonstratives which, despite its departure from a certain problematic Fregean thesis, I argue, ultimately founders on account of its failure to give up the Fregean desideratum of a semantic theory that it provide an account of cognitive significance. I explain why Kaplan's (1989) afterthoughts don't remedy this defect. Finally, I sketch an alternative nonsolipsistic picture of demonstrative reference which idealizes away from an agent's narrowly characterizable psychological state, and instead relies on the robust (...) multiply realizable relation between the skilled agent and demonstrated object.When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but it finds none. Then it says, 'I will return to my house from which I came.' When it comes, it finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So will it be also with this evil generation. (shrink)

Boghossian argued that externalism is incompatible with a transparency thesis according to which we can know a priori whether any two of our occurrent thoughts have the same or distinct content, and that this transparency thesis is integral to our commonsense conception of rationality, which requires the apriority of our logical abilities. Stalnaker offered a detailed compatibilist response to Boghossian. Boghossian criticized this response, and Stalnaker replied. But the outcome of that important discussion remained unclear, partly because it was unclear (...) how to understand the amended transparency thesis at which Stalnaker was gesturing. My aim in this paper is to settle the matter. I wish to clarify the terms of the debate, also by highlighting the relevant commitments of Stalnaker’s two-dimensionalist account, and to show that his compatibilist response, which appeals to diagonal propositions, is unsuccessful. (shrink)

This paper develops a formal model of the subtle meaning differences that exist between grammatical alternatives in socially conditioned variation and how these variants can be used by speakers as resources for constructing personal linguistic styles. More specifically, this paper introduces a new formal system, called social meaning games, which allows for the unification of variationist sociolinguistics and game-theoretic pragmatics, two fields that have had very little interaction in the past. Although remarks have been made concerning the possible usefulness of (...) game-theoretic tools in the analysis of certain kinds of socially conditioned linguistic phenomena :645–668, 1977; Dror et al. in Lang Linguist Compass 7:561–579, 2013; in Lang Linguist Compass 8:230–242, 2014; Clark in Meaningful games: Exploring language with game theory, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2014, among others), a general framework uniting game-theoretic pragmatics and quantitative sociolinguistics has yet to be developed. This paper constructs such a framework through giving a formalization of the Third Wave approach to the meaning of variation using signalling games and a probabilistic approach to speaker/listener beliefs of the kind commonly used in the Bayesian game-theoretic pragmatics framework :3–44, 2016, for recent overviews). (shrink)

This paper presents a general-purpose update semantics for expressions of subjective uncertainty in natural language. First, a set of desiderata are established for how expressions of subjective uncertainty should behave in dynamic, update-based semantic systems; then extant implementations of expressions of subjective uncertainty in such models are evaluated and found wanting; finally, a new update semantics is proposed. The desiderata at the heart of this paper center around the contention that expressions of subjective uncertainty express beliefs which are not persistent, (...) whereas propositions express beliefs that are persistent. I argue that if we make the move of treating updates in a dynamic semantics as Bayesian updates, i.e. as conditionalization, then expressions of subjective uncertainty will behave the way we want them to without altering the way propositions behave. (shrink)

‘Fred must open the door’ concerns Fred’s obligations. This obligative meaning is turned off by adding aspect: ‘Fred must have opened/be opening/have been opening the door’ are one and all epistemic. Why? In a nutshell: obligative ’must’ operates on procedural contents of imperative sentences, epistemic ‘must’ on propositional contents of declarative sentences; and adding aspect converts procedural into propositional content.

I argue for an account of vagueness according to which the root of vagueness lies not in the type of semantic-value that is best associated with an expression, but in the type of linguistic practice that renders the expression meaningful. I suggest, in particular, that conventions about how to use sentences involving attributions of vague predicates to borderline cases prevail to a lesser degree than conventions about how to use sentences involving attributions of vague predicates to clear cases.

It is arguably desirable to have a theory of meaning that (i) does not identify propositions with sets of worlds, (ii) enables to capture the dynamic character of semantic interpretation and (iii) provides the basis for a semantic program that incorporates and extends the achievements of Montague semantics. A theory of properties and propositions that meets these desiderata is developed and several applications to the semantic analysis of natural languages are explored.

Differences in the interpretation of would-conditionals with simple (perfective) and perfect antecedent clauses are marked enough to discourage a unified view. However, this paper presents a unified, Lewis–Stalnaker style semantics for the modal in such constructions. Differences in the interpretation of the conditionals are derived from the interaction between the interpretation of different types of aspect and the modal. The paper makes a distinction between perfective and perfect aspect in terms of whether they make reference to or quantify over Lewis-style (...) events. In making reference to Lewis-events, perfective aspect is shown to be incompatible with counterfactual would-conditionals. The so-called ‘epistemic flavor’ of perfective conditionals about the future is derived from the use of diagonalization as an interpretive strategy called upon to resolve reference. (shrink)

The paper analyzes the meaning of color terms within the framework of Kaplan's character theory (which, when generalized to a treatment of hidden indexicality or dependence on the context world, can perfectly accommodate Kripke's notions of apriority and of (metaphysical) necessity). It explains this framework and why it might be fruitfully applied to color terms. Then it defends six theses: that (1) the predicate "is red" and (2) even the relation "appears red to" are hidden indexicals (i.e., have, as used (...) in English, different extensions in different context worlds), that (3) the phenomenal, the comparative, and the epistemic reading of "appears red to" are not three different readings, but reflect the context world dependence of this term, that (4) the statement "x is red iff x would appear red to most English-speaking people under normal conditions" is a priori in English, but analytic only in one reading and not in another, and that these observations account well for the epistemology of color terms and allow us to be metaphysically conservative by claiming that our context world is presumably such that (5) the statement "x appears red to y iff x (appropriately) causes y to be in a certain (disjunctive) neural state N" is necessarily true and (6) the statement "x is red iff the reflectance spectrum of the surface of x is of some (disjunctive) kind R" is necessarily true as well. (shrink)

When used next to a predicate at the extreme of a scale such as perfect, the exclusive modifiers just and simply convey a distinctive intensifying effect, presenting a puzzle for theories of exclusivity and alternative-based meanings more broadly. In this article, I develop an analysis of these modifiers as a special kind of alternative-targeting operator, whereby the speaker signals that more specific descriptions than the one they just asserted—modeled here as granularity-based alternatives—are not assertion-worthy in the context—i.e., they need not (...) be asserted in order for a complete representation of the facts to be provided. On this analysis, the intensifying effect of these modifiers are derived from the interaction of exclusivity, granularity, and the distinctive semantic properties of predicates denoting the extreme of a scalar extreme. More broadly, the proposal affords a jumping-off point for further work exploring the interaction between scalarity and exclusive operators, highlighting a number of intriguing lines of future research across semantics and pragmatics. (shrink)

This dissertation is a study of the problem of beliefs about oneself, or so-called de se beliefs: for example, the beliefs that I would express by saying 'I am left-handed' or 'I am in Massachusetts'. The problem arises against the background conception of belief as a propositional attitude, i.e., as a relation between conscious subjects and abstract entities that are either true or false absolutely. ;Many philosophers have recently argued that the intentional objects of one's de se beliefs could not (...) be propositions: since, e.g., I can believe the proposition that Neil Feit is left-handed without believing myself to be left-handed , and I can believe any proposition expressed by a sentence of the form 'the F is left-handed'--where 'the F' is a qualitative description--without believing myself to be left-handed . ;I take the position that the argument is sound, and, after surveying various attempts to solve the problem, I defend the self-ascription view of belief: viz., the view that to have a belief is to ascribe a property to oneself. For example, I believe that I am left-handed simply by self-ascribing the property of being left-handed. ;I defend the view against various objections to it, discuss its relations to other views about the objects of belief and the other attitudes, and maintain that it can account for the acceptance of propositions and for beliefs about particular individuals as well as for beliefs directly about oneself. I argue that belief states are best taken to be self-ascribed properties, and try to solve some problems about de re belief from the perspective of the self-ascription view. (shrink)

This paper consists of two sections: first, I return to the question of precisely which contextual factors are at work in metaphorical interpretation, and of the relation between asserted, presupposed and implied information; the upshot of this will be a renewed emphasis on metaphor as a discourse phenomenon. Second, I sketch a preliminary argument as to what a social practice account of metaphor might look like. Recent explorations of the contextual factors involved in the interpretation ofmetaphor make crucial use of (...) David Kaplan’s Logic of Demonstratives, with its sophisticated treatment of context-dependence, and of the work on assertion developed by Stalnaker and others. All these approaches take contextual factors or parameters like that of speaker, time and place of utterance, etc., as given or primitive. Recent anthropological research, however, suggests that our practices constitute not only the contents of our utterances but also their contexts. Another recent development in linguistic anthropology is an increased attention to so-called language ideologies or metalinguistic beliefs, i.e., folk theories about the character and functioning of language. These insights suggest that metaphor is so thoroughly dependent on variable contextual and metalinguistic factors that it may well dissolve as a natural kind. At the very least, they suggest a shift away from the view of metaphor as a decontextualized sentence- or utterance-level phenomenon occurring in literate practices, which is still tacitly assumed in much literature on the topic. (shrink)

This thesis develops methods for representing how the contents of theories of meaning become conceived by their users. These contents are treated as the range of systematically elicited conceptions afforded by a designated corpus of key texts. The approach being taken involves first detailing a formal scheme for the components of situations attributed to various entities. This scheme is then applied as a framing device to form a template which accounts for the shared structure between the mental spaces which embody (...) how people conceive different theories of meaning. For the purposes of this task, cognition is treated as embodied in the sense that both the form and content of personal conceptualisations are largely dependent on what both bodily and ecological factors afford. The purpose of this approach is to help understand how theories operate when viewed as worldly entities within a materialist framework. The significance of such understanding lies in enabling analyses and comparisons which account for the effects of material restrictions such as how a theory’s presentation must necessarily be selective and how human cognition operates on models set by precedent. The framework being provided here allows the conceptions each individual theory of meaning elicits to be reduced to formal, commensurate models which account for differences between typical influences on the conceptions characteristic of different demographics such as experts of related fields. Approaching theories of meaning from this angle also reveals new avenues of comparison concerning otherwise implicit details. One involves theory-internal conditions on the full material identity of meaning-instantiating entities. The other concerns the extent of the domains for aggregating applicable influences for which a theory accounts and the range of those it may accommodate. (shrink)

In this squib, I evaluate the contradiction analysis (Abrusán in Natural Language Semantics 19(3):257–321, 2011, in Weak island semantics, 2014 ) and the necessary infelicity analysis (Oshima in Washio et al. (eds.), New frontiers in artificial intelligence, 2007 ; Schwarz and Simonenko in Natural Language Semantics 26(3–4):253–279, 2018b ) of factive islands in light of a pattern that has not been previously discussed in the literature: questions about propositions. I argue that while the necessary infelicity approach can straightforwardly explain the (...) acceptability of this kind of question, the contradiction account undergenerates, since it wrongly predicts their ungrammaticality. I claim that this prediction follows from the assumption that the domain of quantification contains contraries. Therefore, the main contribution of this squib is the observation that such an assumption cannot play an explanatory role in accounting for factive islands. (shrink)