Abstract
This article provides a basic introduction to the de re/de dicto distinction – a familiar distinction within the philosophy of language, philosophical logic, and linguistics. Certain constructions – for example, ‘Jeremiah believes that the man in the watchtower is asleep’ and ‘It is possible that the man in the watchtower is asleep’ – arguably have two readings. There is a de re reading where the object – in our examples, the man in the watchtower – is semantically relevant. There is also a de dicto reading where the embedded sentence – in our examples ‘the man in the watchtower is asleep’ – is semantically relevant. The article discusses both structural and semantic analyses of this purported de re/de dicto ambiguity.
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More From: Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 14-Volume Set
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