This paper offers an explanation of the fact that sentences of the form (1) ‘X may A or B’ may be construed as implying (2) ‘X may A and X may B’, especially if they are used to grant permission. It is suggested that the effect arises because disjunctions are conjunctive lists of epistemic possibilities. Consequently, if the modal may is itself epistemic, (1) comes out as equivalent to (2), due to general laws of epistemic logic. On the other hand, (...) on a deontic reading of may, (2) is only implied under exceptional circumstances – which usually obtain when (1) is used performatively. (shrink)

A critical review of Stenius' account of the logic of disjunctive permissions, leading to a proposal for a closely related approach in terms of "checklist conditionals".

This paper is about the semantic analysis of referentially opaque verbs like seek and owe that give rise to nonspecific readings. It is argued that Montague's categorization (based on earlier work by Quine) of opaque verbs as properties of quantifiers runs into two serious difficulties: the first problem is that it does not work with opaque verbs like resemble that resist any lexical decomposition of the seek ap try to find kind; the second one is that it wrongly predicts de (...) dicto (i.e. narrow scope) readings due to quantified noun phrases in the object positions of such verbs. It is shown that both difficulties can be overcome by an analysis of opaque verbs as operating on properties. This is a strongly modified version of a paper entitled lsquoDo We Bear Attitudes towards Quantifiers?rsquo that I have presented at conferences in Gosen (Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft), Ithaca (SALT I), and Konstanz (Lexikon). I owe a special debt to Hans Kamp and Arnim von Stechow for shaping my views on the subject of this paper during the past ten years or so. Comments from and discussions with the following friends and colleagues have also led to considerable improvements: Heinrich Beck, Steve Berman, David Dowty, Veerle van Geenhoven, Fritz Hamm, Irene Heim, Wolfgang Klein, Angelika Kratzer, Michael Morreau, Barbara Partee, Mats Rooth, Roger Schwarzschild, Wolfgang Sternefeld, Emil Weydert, Henk Zeevat, and three referees. (shrink)

This book tackles the issues that arise in connection with intensional logic -- a formal system for representing and explaining the apparent failures of certain important principles of inference such as the substitution of identicals and existential generalization -- and intentional states --mental states such as beliefs, hopes, and desires that are directed towards the world. The theory offers a unified explanation of the various kinds of inferential failures associated with intensional logic but also unifies the study of intensional contexts (...) and intentional states by grounding the explanation of both phenomena in a single theory. When an axiomatized realm of abstract entities is added to the metaphysical structure of the world, we can use them to identify and individuate the contents of directed mental states. The special abstract entities can be viewed as the objectified contents of mental files, and they play a crucial role in the analysis of truth conditions of the sentences involved in inferential failures. (shrink)

This extended investigation of the semantics of event (and state) sentences in their various forms is a major contribution to the semantics of natural language, simultaneously encompassing important issues in linguistics, philosophy, and logic. It develops the view that the logical forms of simple English sentences typically contain quantification over events or states and shows how this view can account for a wide variety of semantic phenomena. Focusing on the structure of meaning in English sentences at a &"subatomic&" level&-that is, (...) a level below the one most theories accept as basic or &"atomic&"&-Parsons asserts that the semantics of simple English sentences require logical forms somewhat more complex than is normally assumed in natural language semantics. His articulation of underlying event theory explains a wide variety of apparently diverse semantic characteristics of natural language, and his development of the theory shows the importance of seeing the distinction between events and states. Parsons demonstrates that verbs, also, indicate kinds of actions rather than specific, individual actions. Verb phrases, too, he argues, depend on modifiers to make their function and meaning in a sentence specific. An appendix gives many of the details needed to formalize the theory discussed in the body of the text and provides a series of templates that permit the generation of atomic formulas of English. (shrink)

Counterfactuals is David Lewis' forceful presentation of and sustained argument for a particular view about propositions which express contrary to fact conditionals, including his famous defense of realism about possible worlds and his theory of laws of nature.

Written by two of the leading figures in the field, this is a lucid and systematic introduction to semantics as applied to transformational grammars of the ...

By a `denoting phrase' I mean a phrase such as any one of the following: a man, some man, any man, every man, all men, the present King of England, the present King of France, the center of mass of the solar system at the first instant of the twentieth century, the revolution of the earth round the sun, the revolution of the sun round the earth. Thus a phrase is denoting solely in virtue of its form. We may distinguish (...) three cases: (1) A phrase may be denoting, and yet not denote anything; e.g., `the present King of France'. (2) A phrase may denote one definite object; e.g., `the present King of England' denotes a certain man. (3) A phrase may denote ambiguously; e.g. `a man' denotes not many men, but an ambiguous man. The interpretation of such phrases is a matter of considerably difficulty; indeed, it is very hard to frame any theory not susceptible of formal refutation. All the difficulties with which I am acquainted are met, so far as I can discover, by the theory which I am about to explain. (shrink)

It is a truism that people speak ‘loosely’——that is, that they often say things that we can recognize not to be true, but which come close enough to the truth for practical purposes. Certain expressions. such as those including ‘exactly’, ‘all’ and ‘perfectly’, appear to serve as signals of the intended degree of approximation to the truth. This article presents a novel formalism for representing the notion of approximation to the truth, and analyzes the meanings of these expressions in terms (...) of this formalism. Pragmatic loosencss of this kind should be distinguished from authentic truth-conditional vagueness. (shrink)

By a `denoting phrase' I mean a phrase such as any one of the following: a man, some man, any man, every man, all men, the present King of England, the present King of France, the center of mass of the solar system at the first instant of the twentieth century, the revolution of the earth round the sun, the revolution of the sun round the earth. Thus a phrase is denoting solely in virtue of its form. We may distinguish (...) three cases: (1) A phrase may be denoting, and yet not denote anything; e.g., `the present King of France'. (2) A phrase may denote one definite object; e.g., `the present King of England' denotes a certain man. (3) A phrase may denote ambiguously; e.g. `a man' denotes not many men, but an ambiguous man. The interpretation of such phrases is a matter of considerably difficulty; indeed, it is very hard to frame any theory not susceptible of formal refutation. All the difficulties with which I am acquainted are met, so far as I can discover, by the theory which I am about to explain. (shrink)

I hear the patter of little feet around the house, I expect Bruce. What I expect is a cat, a particular cat. If I heard such a patter in another house, I might expect a cat but no particular cat. What I expect then seems to be a Meinongian incomplete cat. I expect winter, expect stormy weather, expect to shovel snow, expect fatigue---a season, a phenomenon, an activity, a state. I expect that someday mankind will inhabit at least five planets. (...) This time what I expect is a state of affairs. If we let surface grammar be our guide, the objects of expectation seem quite a miscellany. The same goes for belief, since expectation is one kind of belief. The same goes for desire: I could want Bruce, want a cat but no particular cat, want winter, want stormy weather, want to shovel snow, want fatigue, or want that someday mankind will inhabit at least five planets. The same goes for other attitudes to the extent that they consist partly of beliefs or desires or lacks thereof. But the seeming diversity of objects might be an illusion. Perhaps the objects of attitudes are uniform in category, and it is our ways of speaking elliptically about these uniform objects that are diverse. That indeed is our consensus. We mostly think that the attitudes uniformly have propositions as their objects. That is why we speak habitually of "propositional attitudes.". (shrink)

Chapter. 1. Logical. Form. as. a. Level. of. Linguistic. Representation. What is the relation of a sentence's syntactic form to its logical form? This issue has been of central concern in modern inquiry into the semantic properties of natural ...

It has been maintained that we need not tolerate such entities as pains, events, tasks, and obligations. They are indeed not required in connection with sentences like ‘Jones has a pain’, ‘the event of the sun’s rising occurred at eight’, ‘Jones performed at eight the task of lifting a stone’, or ‘Jones has the obligation to give Smith a horse’, which can be paraphrased without reference to the entities in question—for instance, in the case of the second example, as ‘the (...) sun rose at eight’. (shrink)

Summary Verbs of creation (create, make, paint) are not transparent. The object created does not exist during the event time but only thereafter. We may call this type of opacity temporal opacity. I is to be distinguished from modal opacity, which is found in verbs like owe or seek. (Dowty, 1979) offers two analyses of creation verbs. One analysis predicts that no object of the sort created exists before the time of the creation. The other analysis says that the object (...) exists throughout the act of creation. I investigate three theories: Theory I says that no object of the sort created and which is caused by the very act of creation exists before the creation. In this theory, verbs of creation must embed a property. Theory II can regard the indefinite object of a creation verb as a quantifier and gives it wide scope with respect to the verb. The theory has to make sure that the objects quantified over exist only after the event. While Theory I and II start from the assumption that the extension of all nouns depend on time, Theory III says that Individual Level predicates do not depend on time. This ontology will enable us to treat verbs of creation as first order relations. The theory will entail that a picture does not mean the same as there is a picture. The paper discusses various approaches to the problem: Krifka, Parsons, Landman, Kratzer and Zucchi. (shrink)

This paper in revised form appears in Facta Philosophica 5:1 (2003) 49­75. It addresses some problems about intensional transitives raised by Moltmann and Zimmerman, corrects some oversights in my paper in The Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (S.V. for 2002), and adds new material on binary vs. tripartite construals of “relational/notional”, bridge inferences, weakening inferences, and the relevance problem. Its other sections are, like the PASS paper, concerned with the conjunctive force of disjunctive NP complements of intensional transitive verbs: “Smith (...) needs a good lawyer or a friendly judge” on its normal reading implies both “a good lawyer could help him” AND “a friendly judge could help him”. The reading on which “Smith needs a good lawyer or a friendly judge” is implied just by “Smith needs a good lawyer” (and so doesn’t imply a friendly judge could help him) is much less preferred, except when the disjunction is followed by a coda such as “and he doesn’t care which”. (shrink)

A unified theory is offered to account for three types of definite descriptions: with singular, plural, & mass predicates, & to provide an account for the word the in descriptions. It is noted that B. Russell's analysis ("On Denoting," Mind, 1905, 14, 479-493) failed to account for plural & mass descriptions. The proposed theory differs from Russell's only by the substitution of the notation (less than or equal to) for Russell's =. It is suggested that for every predicate G there (...) is an appropriate "part of" or "some of" relation on the extension of G. For singular predicates, (less than or equal to) becomes just the identity relation =. The predicate G is formulated as "the G" & analyzed with the formula ((schwa)x) (Gx . (Gy (includes) yy (less than or equal to) x)), which accounts for all cases of definite descriptions. It is suggested that the primary use of the is not to indicate uniqueness, but totality. C. Ornatowski. (shrink)

Hailed by the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society as "easy to use and a pleasure to read," this research monograph is recommended for students and professionals interested in model theory and definability theory. The sole prerequisite is a familiarity with the basics of logic, model theory, and set theory. 1974 edition.

This paper discusses the semantics of intensional transitive verbs such as 'need', 'want','recognize', 'find', and 'hire'. It proposes new linguistic criteria for intensionality and defends two semantic analyses for two different classes of intensional verbs. The paper also includes a systematic classification of intensional verbs according to the type of lexical meaning they involve.

This paper is concerned with the relationship between the semantics of specificational and predicational sentences and the Connectivity effects they display. It discusses the advantages and disadvantages of semantic and syntactic approaches to Connectivity (the ‘unconstrained-be theory’, the ‘question-in-disguise theory’, and the ‘unclefting theory’), concluding that a semantic theory of Connectivity is not only preferable, but necessary. The paper also discusses the implications of such a move regarding Binding phenomena (i.e., Principle A, B, and C effects): adopting a semantic theory (...) of Connectivity requires a theory of Binding which is different from the standard GB Binding Theory. (shrink)

This paper is part of a broader project whose aim is to present a coherent unified approach to natural language dialogue semantics using tools from type theory. Here we explore aspects of our approach which relate to situation theory and situation semantics. We first point out a relationship between type theory and the Austinian notion of truth. We then consider how records in type theory might be used to represent situations and how dependent record types can be used to model (...) constraints on situations. We then sketch treatments of attitude phenomena for which Barwise and Perry proposed situation semantic analyses (perception complements, belief, the Pierre puzzle) as well as two other intensional phenomena (intensional verbs and intentional identity). Finally we give a characterisation of the type theory used and a small illustrative fragment of English. (shrink)

Hecky is a strange character, a mixture between an elephant and a squirrel, but with distinctly human features, including the gifts of speaking (English) and painting, and some supernatural powers. He once painted an enormous brick bridge leading halfway across a canyon near where his archenemy lives. Hence the following sentence clearly expresses a truth.