Shifty Attitudes: Indexical Shift Versus Perspectival Anaphora

Abstract

In cases of indexical shift, so-called indexical pronouns like I, you, here, and now refer to the speaker, addressee, location, and time of some context other than the utterance context. In cases of perspectival anaphora, an anaphor tracks the perspective of some individual other than the utterance speaker [or addressee(s)]. Thus, both phenomena involve referential obviation of a pronoun or anaphor from the utterance context. Such obviation also occurs under strikingly similar grammatical conditions—for instance, in the scope of an attitude predicate (e.g., say, think, perceive). In this review, I introduce the core properties of both phenomena and show that they actually stand in a subset–superset relation. The availability of indexical shift in a given environment entails that of perspectival anaphora, but not vice-versa. I describe a plausible way to make sense of these insights within a unified model of attitude shift, which in turn helps chart out clear avenues for future research.