Abstract
In this paper, we defend that demonstratives are expressions of joint attention. Though this idea is not exactly new in the philosophical or linguistic literature, we argue here that their proponents have not yet shown how to incorporate these observations into more traditional theories of demonstratives. Our purpose is then to attempt to fill this gap. We argue that coordinated attentional activities are better integrated into a full account of demonstratives as meta-pragmatic information. Our claim is twofold. First, we claim that pragmatically presupposing salience is a fundamental aspect of using demonstratives (predicted by their semantics and meta-semantics). Secondly, we hold that the pragmatics of demonstrating can only be properly understood in relation to meta-pragmatic conditions that have to do with joint attention. We use tests of truth-value gap as evidence for our claim. Our proposal provides us with a complete view of what speakers do and presuppose when engaging in acts of demonstrative reference through language.
Highlights
Asserting and presupposing are two things that speakers do
This will lead us to a pragmatic analysis of demonstratives, where salience will be proposed as a presupposition in the Fregean-Strawsonian sense
We conclude that Requisite A is a pragmatic presupposition, associated with items B to D that arises in the context of an enrichment of the traditional semantic and pragmatic analysis with meta-levels, that are compatible with a description of demonstrative designation and grammatical profile such as the one we presented in this paper
Summary
Asserting and presupposing are two things that speakers do. This assumption was at the heart of prominent theories of assertion since the 1950s. When we talk of visual presentations as reference-fixing mechanisms, we cannot consider the speaker in isolation but must take into account the hearer’s perspective – after all, it is not enough that the object is salient to the speaker – it needs to be salient to the hearer as well This will lead us to a pragmatic analysis of demonstratives, where salience will be proposed as a presupposition in the Fregean-Strawsonian sense. We will argue that complementing it with a meta-pragmatic analysis is a beneficial move that permits the identification of requisites for successful uses of demonstratives that are absent from merely pragmatic approaches This metapragmatic analysis lays out conditions that need to be met for the presupposition of salience to be true and involve coordinated activities of joint attention. We hope to show that such an addition unveils new topics and possibilities of treatment of demonstrative reference, making a strong case for its inclusion in a full account of demonstratives
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