The Partee Paradox

Abstract

The chapter explains the “Partee paradox” – the observation that the temperature is rising and the temperature is ninety does not entail ninety is rising – and the solution it received in formal semantics. It is shown that the predication in the temperature is rising takes an “individual concept” argument and involves an “intensional verb” of a kind; it states a change of the value of a time‐dependent function. Constructions known as “concealed questions” – for example know the price – are shown to be closely related. Partee's observation and the phenomenon of concealed questions are taken as the point of departure into taking a closer look at the three components of the constructions: intensional verbs, individual concept nouns, and the definite article. The construction provides a bridge to a general theory of types of noun and their interaction with definiteness. In addition, the particular class of functional nouns and concepts figures in the center of Barsalou's cognitive theory of concept modeling. Thus the understanding of the puzzle is connected to fundamental issues of semantics and cognition.