Weather predicates, binding, and radical contextualism

Paul Elbourne

doi:10.1111/mila.12314

Abstract

The implicit content indicating location associated with “raining” and other weather predicates is a definite description meaning “the location occupied by x,” where the individual variable “x” can be referential or bound. This position has deleterious consequences for certain varieties of radical contextualism.

Highlights

This article will introduce some novel examples involving “it's raining.” On this basis, I will argue that the implicit content associated with this phrase must be more complicated than a simple location, contrary to what most previous authors have claimed; and I will propose a simple, unified theory of this content
If the proposal in (6) is correct, pragmatic enrichment theories are incorrect, since the implicit content associated with weather predicates would be tightly constrained and stipulated in advance; it would not be constructed on the fly and subject only to general pragmatic constraints, as pragmatic enrichment theories contend
Since the proposal in (6) has the virtues enumerated at the end of the last section, I count this as a problem for pragmatic enrichment theories

Summary

| INTRODUCTION

This article will introduce some novel examples involving “it's raining.” On this basis, I will argue that the implicit content associated with this phrase must be more complicated than a simple location, contrary to what most previous authors have claimed; and I will propose a simple, unified theory of this content. In the case of (23a) the indefinite noun phrase in question is “a distant field” once more and the anaphoric device would be the implicit content associated with weather predicate; but no anaphoric connection is possible in this case. On that basis they can explain the lack of an anaphoric connection between the indefinite noun phrase and the anaphoric device in this case They will say that the lack of anaphora here follows from the basic observation made in the earliest modern discussions of donkey anaphora (Evans, 1977; Geach, 1962), namely that in sentences like (22) and (23c), since the pronoun is not in the scope of its apparent indefinite antecedent, it cannot be bound by it. The judgements about these examples are entirely consistent with the proposal in (6); they are predicted by the proposal in (6) conjoined with classical notions of scope and binding.

| Interim conclusion

| CONCLUSION