Propositional Attitude Verbs Research Articles

LOS VERBOS DE ACTITUD PROPOSICIONAL COMO ESTRATEGIAS EVIDENCIALES EN EL ESPAÑOL DE MEDELLÍN

Propositional attitude verbs express lexical evidentiality. This property may have nuances, which depend on whether these verbs, in their performative forms, are in parenthetical constructions, whether or not they omit the pronominal subject or if the pronominal subject is before the verb or postponed. Verbs with this meaning and their frequency of occurrence were described within the PRESEEA-Medellin corpus. Five verbs of propositional attitude were found: believe, think, imagine, assume and consider. Of these the most common are believe and think, and all these verbs are performed with omission and expression of pronominal subject (both before the verb or postponed), and they also appear in parenthetical constructions. These aspects have been described in other studies, but there are also some particular nuances in contrast to other research.

Against 'Long' Movement of the Superlative Operator

It is a matter of considerable debate whether degree operators are interpreted in their base position or in some higher position. Kennedy (1997) has shown that degree operators (e.g., the comparative operator) do not interact scopally with quantified expressions. On the other hand, Heim (1999) and Stateva (to appear) have presented evidence that the superlative operator (as in <it>the highest grade</it>) interacts scopally with intensional predicates. This paper argues that despite the fact that the superlative operator seems to interact scopally with intensional predicates, the facts receive a better account under an <it>in situ</it> analysis, rather than a movement analysis, of the operator. This point will be made by (a) looking at examples where a superlative expression is embedded under a propositional attitude verb, and focussing on readings which are neither <it>de re</it> (in the strict sense) nor <it>de dicto</it> (in the strict sense); and (b) examining negative superlatives (e.g., <it>the least high grade</it>) in extensional contexts. Our conclusion will be that Kennedy's claim that degree operator movement is highly restricted is correct.

Embedded finite complements, indexical shift, and binding in Tsez

This report documents grammatical patterns associated with Tsez finite clauses that combine with the quotative enclitic =ƛin. Based on the distributional properties of such finite clauses and their co-occurrence with different matrix verbs, I suggest that the marker =ƛin is structurally ambiguous between a genuine quotative marker, marking direct speech, and a complementizer, heading finite clauses. In the former function, =ƛin can be compared to English like, go or all. The quotative =ƛin does not impose restrictions on the word order of the embedded clause and is compatible with a large set of verbs, including but not limited to verbs of speaking, cognition, and propositional attitude predicates. As a complementizer heading finite clauses, the marker =ƛin appears on clauses that are strictly predicate-final and attaches directly to that predicate. When selected by propositional attitude verbs, the finite complement clause becomes the context in which the interpretation of pronouns can undergo indexical shift. The Tsez pattern of indexical shift is in many ways similar to patterns of indexical shift reported for other languages. However, the description of this pattern also adds a novel generalization to the growing body of knowledge about indexical shifts: in Tsez, the shifted interpretation is made obligatory if the embedded clause includes a long-distance reflexive. This usage is particularly striking given that the binder in the matrix clause and the bindee do not match in person.

On Necessity and Comparison

AbstractThe ability to compare possibilities and designate some as ‘better’ than others is a fundamental aspect of our use of modals and propositional attitude verbs. This article aims to support a proposal bySloman (1970) that certain modal expressions, in particular,ought, in fact have a more pronounced comparative backbone than others (e.g.must). The connection between ‘ought’ and ‘better’ is supported by linguistic data (some of it, on the lack of direct translations of weak necessity crosslinguistically, is new) and a proposal is advanced for modeling ideals in a way that makes room for non‐comparative, strong, priority‐type necessity.

Referential Opacity in Propositional Attitudes

This paper has attempted to show how referential opacity is licensed within the system of the mental spaces approach. Our analysis is motivated by the fact that we can capture referential opacity in Korean in terms of mental spaces and links between them within the mental spaces approach. One major point of propositional attitudes in Korean is that the embedded subject position with past tense induces only a de re reading, despite the well-known generalization that propositional attitudes are referentially opaque. We take this fact as support for the assumption that subject positions in the complement of propositional attitude verbs in Korean are transparent. Most importantly, we have discussed the cases of referential opacity in Korean propositional attitude sentences and proposed that they fall within the system of the mental spaces approach. No special devices are needed to account for referential opacity in Korean propositional attitude sentences. An interesting point with regard to a de re reading within the system of the mental spaces approach is that there is a referential link between the reality space (R) and the belief space (B). With respect to a de dicto reading, on the other hand, it is important to note that there is no referential link between the reality space (R) and the belief space (B). Finally, we have proposed in this paper that in Korean propositional attitude sentences pronouns induce interpretations that are looser than reflexives and pro yields interpretations that are looser than pronouns.

The pragmatics of pronominal clitics and propositional attitudes

In this paper I have used pronominal clitics in Italian in combination with verbs of propositional attitude to shed light on opacity effects due to intru - sive pragmatics (at the level of free enrichments/explicatures). Certain problems discussed by Schiffer (2000) disappear completely, when the syntax, semantics and pragmatics of propositional clitics are discussed and such considerations are extended to propositional attitudes in general. In this paper, I add that a proposi- tional clause must be in an appositional relationship (resulting from free enrich- ment and, thus, not actually present in the syntax) with the that-clause embedded in verbs of propositional attitude. I consider the consequences of this position. One of the most cogent results of this paper is that pronominal clitics generally refer back to full propositions (if they refer to propositions at all) and not to mini- mal propositions. I take my own considerations on clitics to give support to inter - esting and important considerations on emergent presuppositions by Kecskes and Zhang (2009).

Hinges and Certainty. A Précis of Moore and Wittgenstein. Scepticism, Certainty and Common Sense

Is Wittgenstein really retracting his criticism of the Moorean use of “to know” and conceding that, after all, we do know that the Earth has existed for a very long time, and other “hinges”, as these propositions have become known in the literature? In my Moore and Wittgenstein. Scepticism, Certainty and Common Sense (Coliva 2010), I have argued that this isn’t the case. In this precis, while maintaining that view, I would like to insist more than I have done before on the characteristic duplicity of hinges – i.e. their retaining a descriptive content, while playing a normative function. In the book I have contended that, with respect to the role of hinges, Wittgenstein held the view that we don’t bear to them a genuinely epistemic relation, such that one could meaningfully claim to know them. I have also pointed out that he becomes more and more wary of describing that relation in other ways, e.g. as “assuming”, “believing” or “being certain”. For all verbs of propositional attitude suggest the idea that we may believe hinges because we have evidence for them, or that we assume them, but they may turn out to be false; or else, finally, that our certainty with respect to them is of a Philosophia (2013) 41:1–12 DOI 10.1007/s11406-012-9399-9

Précis of “The World in the Head”

The World in the Head (Cummins, 2010) is a collection of sixteen papers spanning over two decades. Six of them are co-authored with various colleagues.1 Three have not been previously published. All of them are papers in the philosophy of mind. More particularly, they are about representation and psychological explanation. All of these papers are colored by two convictions that, for me, amount to methodological constraints. The first is that the philosophy of mind should be a branch of the philosophy of science, where the sciences in question are psychology, neuroscience and biology, especially evolutionary biology. More particularly, the philosophy of mental representation should, first and last, account for the explanatory role representation plays in the sciences of the mind. The second constraint is really a consequence of the first. It is that neither the semantics of propositional attitude sentences, nor our “intuitions” concerning the application of mental terminology to various real or hypothetical situations, should constrain the science or our attempts to make sense of it. “Philosophers of mind,” I wrote in the Preface to The World in the Head, “come in many flavors, but a useful broad sort when thinking about the philosophy of mental representation is the distinction between philosophers of science, whose science was one of the mind sciences, and philosophers of language, whose interest in the verbs of propositional attitude led to an interest in the contents of beliefs” (p. v). I am deeply suspicious of the latter approach because it inevitably leads to what I call semantic poaching. There is a tempting line of argument running from the semantic analysis of sentences involving “mental” terminology to conclusions about the functional structure of the

Ghosts, Murderers, and the Semantics of Descriptions

AbstractIt is widely agreed that sentences containing a non‐denoting description embedded in the scope of a propositional attitude verb have true de dicto interpretations, and Russell's (1905) analysis of definite descriptions is often praised for its simple analysis of such cases, cf. e.g. Neale (1990). However, several people, incl. Elbourne (2005, 2009), Heim (1991), and Kripke (2005), have contested this by arguing that Russell's analysis yields incorrect predictions in non‐doxastic attitude contexts. Heim and Elbourne have subsequently argued that once certain facts about presupposition projection are fully appreciated, the Frege/Strawson analysis of definite descriptions has an explanatory advantage. In this paper, I argue that both Russell's analysis and the Frege/Strawson analysis face a serious problem when it comes to the interaction of attitude verbs and definite descriptions. I argue that the problem observed by Elbourne, Heim, and Kripke is much more general than standardly assumed and that a solution requires a revision of the semantics of definite and indefinite descriptions. I outline the conditions that are required to solve the problem and present an analysis couched in dynamic semantics which can provide a solution. I conclude by discussing some further issues related to propositional attitude verbs that complicate a fully general solution to the problem.

Relative embeddings: a Circassian puzzle for the syntax/semantics interface

This paper documents and analyzes the pattern used in the Northwest Caucasian language Adyghe (Circassian) to express what the following five different constructions convey in other languages: headed and headless relative clauses, embedded declaratives, embedded polar interrogatives, and embedded constituent interrogatives. We argue that Adyghe encodes the meanings of all these embedded structures by means of the same syntactic construction, a relative clause. This pervasive use of relative clauses is possible due to mechanisms that are independently attested not just in Adyghe but also in more familiar languages like English. These mechanisms include concealed questions, polarity operators, and nominals such as fact and question that can connect propositional attitude verbs or interrogative verbs with embedded clauses. We suggest that this extensive use of relative clauses in Adyghe is triggered by the absence of non-relative complementizer. We further show that this use is facilitated by their morphological visibility: a relativizer realized as a prefix on the verb, verbal affixation, a rich system of applicative heads hosting indirect arguments, and the availability of a case marker suffixed to headless relatives. We conclude by discussing the implications of the Adyghe system for the general design of embedding and subordination in natural language.

The existence entailments of definite descriptions

Contrary to a claim made by Kaplan (Mind 114:933-1003, 2005) and Neale (Mind 114:809-871, 2005), the readings available to sentences containing definite descriptions embedded under propositional attitude verbs and conditionals do pose a significant problem for the Russellian theory of definite descriptions. The Fregean theory of descriptions, on the other hand, deals easily with the relevant data.

Notas sobre a semântica do sufixo -vel: a expressão da modalidade no PB

Este artigo investiga a semântica do sufixo ‘-vel’ no portuguêsbrasileiro. Mostramos que esse sufixo é ambíguo, podendoexpressar: uma propriedade inerente ao objeto, uma obrigaçãoou uma possibilidade. Uma descrição dessas classes serve deamparo para uma análise pormenorizada da expressão dapossibilidade, tendo em vista que o objetivo é entender amodalidade no PB. Adotando o modelo de Kratzer (1981; 1991),apresentado no artigo, mostramos que o sufixo não tem umaforça dada lexicalmente, mas ela é resultado da combinaçãocom o tipo semântico do verbo: verbos de atitude proposicionalgeram interpretação de dever, enquanto que verbos transitivosgeram possibilidade. Analisando esse último caso, verificamosque ele se combina apenas com base modal circunstancial, e afonte de ordenação é ou de normalidade (todos os casosencontrados no corpus do NURC) ou deôntica. Esses resultadosindicam que a interpretação do sufixo é menos dependente docontexto do que a dos modais plenos.

Temporal and propositional de se: evidence from Romanian subjunctive mood

The paper investigates the interpretation of the Romanian subjunctive B (subjB) mood when it is embedded under the propositional attitude verb crede (believe). SubjB is analyzed as a single package of three distinct presuppositions: temporal de se, dissociation and propositional de se. I show that subjB is the temporal analogue of null PRO in the individual domain: it allows only for a de se reading. Dissociation enables us to show that subjB always takes scope over a negation embedded in a belief report. Propositional de se derives this empirical generalization. The introduction of centered propositions (generalizing centered worlds), together with propositional de se, dissociation and the belief 'introspection' principles, derives the fact that subjB belief reports (unlike their indicative counterparts) are infelicitous with embedded probabil.

SENTENTIALISM AND BERKELEY'S MASTER ARGUMENT

Sententialism is the view that intensional positions in natural languages occur within clausal complements only. According to proponents of this view, intensional transitive verbs such as ‘want’, ‘seek’ or ‘resemble’ are actually propositional attitude verbs in disguise. I argue that ‘conceive’ (and a few other verbs) cannot fit this mould: conceiving‐of is not reducible to conceiving‐that. I offer a new diagnosis of where Berkeley's ‘master argument’ goes astray, analysing what is odd about saying that Hylas conceives a tree which is not conceived. A sententialist semantics cannot account for the absurdity in attitude ascriptions of this type: we need to acknowledge irreducibly non‐propositional (but none the less de dicto) conceiving.

The Problem of Puzzling Pairs

Let a be a singular term designating an agent, V be a propositional attitude verb (like 'believes,' 'desires,' or 'hopes'), n and m be co referring proper names, and u and u' be utterances of (la) and (ib), respectively, below. (la) [a V that n is F1 (Ib) [a V that m is Fl

A Metalogical Theory of Natural Language Semantics

We develop a framework for natural language semantics which handles intensionality via metalogical constructions and deals with degree truth values in an integrated way. We take an axiomatic set theory, ZF, as the foundation for semantic representations, but we make ZF a metalanguage for part of itself by embedding a language L within ZF which is basically a copy of the part of ZF consisting of set expressions. This metalogical set-up is used for handling propositional attitude verbs (limited to believe in this paper). We define a truth function T which determines the truth value τ(p, T) of an L-proposition p with respect to a theory T. Theories are sets of L-propositions with associated truth values, and can be viewed as a (much more well-defined) replacement for possible worlds. We develop a mechanism for defining belief worlds as theories. We simultaneously develop two different versions of our system - a Boolean version where the set Ω of truth values is {0,1}, and a degree-truth version where Ω is the interval [0,1] of real numbers. We use degrees of truth in handling a broad class of semantic predicates that we call base-focus predicates, which include generalized quantifiers as well as many adverb and adjective senses and certain discourse-level predicates.

Embedded Tense and Universal Grammar

Languages that allows a vacuous past tense morpheme in complement clauses of attitude verbs are referred to as SOT (sequence-of-tense) languages, and languages that do not are referred to as non-SOT languages. This squib observes that quite generally, if in a given language the present tense morpheme obligatorily refers to the utterance time in present-under-past sentences, that language allows a vacuous past. The author shows that in order to account for this correlation, any theory of SOT has to be supplemented with a principle of Universal Grammar that requires every well-formed matrix sentence to be embeddable under a propositional attitude verb. He calls this principle the Embeddability Principle

Is the meta-language really natural?

Abstract 1. On the status of the primitives It is interesting and surely non-coincidental that the semantic primitives proposed by NSM researchers include some of the most hotly-debated topics in the formal semantics literature. There is a large body of formal semantic research (too large to be cited here) on each of the following NSM primitives: indexical pronouns such as I and you, demonstratives like this, quantifiers such as something, all, many, and one, modals like can, propositional attitude verbs like know and think, adjectives such as good and bad, the predicates have and (there) is, the connectives because, when, and if. Other proposed primitives such as before, after, the same, like, and kind (of) have also been the subject of discussion and debate. Indeed, there may not be a single proposed semantic primitive which fails to strike formal semanticists as extremely complex. Thus, it is difficult for us to accept the NSM claim that primitives such as i, you, someone, this, think, and want are ‘simple words’ and that they are ‘intuitively comprehensible and self-explanatory’ (Durst, p. 2).

Complex Demonstratives: A Quantificational Account

Since the late 1970s, the orthodox view of complex 'that' phrases (e.g., 'that woman eating a granola bar') has been that they are contextually sensitive devices of direct reference. In Complex Demonstratives, Jeffrey King challenges that orthodoxy, showing that quantificational accounts not only are as effective as direct reference accounts but also handle a wider range of data. After providing arguments against direct reference accounts of 'that' phrases and developing a quantificational theory of them, King looks at the interaction of 'that' phrases with modal operators, negation, and verbs of propositional attitude. He argues for evidence of scope interaction between 'that' phrases and other scoped elements. King also addresses semantic properties of 'that' and other determiners, and the possibility of extending the semantics of 'that' phrases to 'that' as a syntactically simple demonstrative. Finally, he argues against what he calls ambiguity approaches, theories that hold that the various uses of 'that' phrases cannot be treated by a single semantical theory.

Indexicality, binding, anaphora and a priori truth

Indexicals are linguistic expressions whose meaning remains stable while their reference shifts from utterance to utterance. Paradigmatic cases in English are ‘I’, ‘here’, and ‘now’. Recently, a number of authors have argued that various constructions in our language harbour hidden indexicals. We say ‘hidden’ because these indexicals are unpronounced, even though they are alleged to be real linguistic components. Constructions taken by some authors to be associated, or to ‘cohabit’, with hidden indexicals include: definite descriptions and quantifiers more generally (hidden indexical refers to a domain – Davies (1981), Westerstahl (1985), Higginbotham (1988), Stanley and Williamson (1995)), propositional attitude verbs (hidden indexical refers to a mode of presentation – Richard (1990)), comparative adjectives (hidden indexical refers to comparison classes – Partee (1989), Kamp (1975), Ludlow (1989)). An interesting recent addition is the view that all nouns are associated with a hidden indexical referring to a domain restriction (Stanley and Szabo (2000), Stanley (2002)).1 We are sceptical of such posits, first, because evidence typically proffered to support their existence is better accounted for, we believe, in other ways;2 and secondly, because each alleged case familiar to us is flawed, or so we will argue. We begin by concentrating on a recent, influential argument for hidden indexicals – the so-called Argument from Binding. We present a reductio of it. We then present two requirements any indexical – hidden or otherwise – should satisfy, illustrating how various alleged ANALYSIS 62.4 OCTOBER 2002