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421Levels of Ontology and Natural Language: the Case of the Ontology of Parts and WholesIn James Miller (ed.), The Language of Ontology, Oxford University Press. 2021.It is common in contemporary metaphysics to distinguish two levels of ontology: the ontology of ordinary objects and the ontology of fundamental reality. This papers argues that natural language reflects not only the ontology of ordinary objects, but also a language-driven ontology, which is involved in the mass-count distinction and part-structure-sensitive semantic selection, as well as perhaps the light ontology of pleonastic entities. The paper recasts my older theory of situated part struct…Read more
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313Situations, alternatives, and the semantics of ‘cases’Linguistics and Philosophy 44 (1): 1-41. 2019.This paper argues that NPs with case as head noun stand for situations in their role as truthmakers within a sentential or epistemic case space. The paper develops a unified semantic analysis of case-constructions of the various sorts within a truthmaker-based version of alternative semantics.
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482Natural Language Ontology (Routledge Handbook of Metametaphysics)In Ricki Bliss & James Miller (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Metametaphysics, Routledge. pp. 325-338. 2020.This paper gives an outline of natural language ontology as a subdiscipline of both linguistics and philosophy. It argues that part of the constructional ontology reflected in natural language is in significant respects on a par with syntax (on the generative view).
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385Attitudinal Objects and PropositionsIn Chris Tillman & Adam Murray (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Propositions, Routledge. 2022.This paper defends the view that attitudinal objects such as claims, beliefs, judgments, and requests form an ontological category of its own sharply distinguished from that of events and states and that of propositions. Attitudinal objects play a central role in attitude reports and avoid the conceptual and empirical problems for propositions. Unlike the latter, attitudinal objects bear a particular connection to normativity. The paper will also discuss the syntactic basis of a semantics of att…Read more
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402Ontological Dependence, Spatial Location, and Part StructureIn Roberta Ferrario, Stefano Borgo, Laure Vieu & Claudio Masolo (eds.), Festschrift for Nicola Guarino, Ios Publications. 2019.This paper discusses attributively limited concrete objects such as disturbances (holes, folds, scratches etc), tropes, and attitudinal objects, which lack the sort of spatial location or part structures expected of them as concrete objects. The paper proposes an account in terms of (quasi-Fregean) abstraction, which has so far been applied only to abstract objects.
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824Abstract Objects and the Core-Periphery Distinction in the Ontological and the Conceptual Domain of Natural LanguageIn José Luis Falguera & Concha Martínez-Vida (eds.), Abstract Objects: For and Against., Springer. pp. 255-276. 2020.This paper elaborates distinctions between a core and a periphery in the ontological and the conceptual domain associated with natural language. The ontological core-periphery distinction is essential for natural language ontology and is the basis for the central thesis of my 2013 book Abstract Objects and the Semantics of Natural Language, namely that natural language permits reference to abstract objects in its periphery, but not its core.
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421Outline of an Object-Based Truthmaker Semantics for Modals and Propositional AttitudesIn Dirk Kindermann, Peter van Elswyk, Andy Egan & Cameron Domenico Kirk-Giannini (eds.), Unstructured Content, Oxford University Press. forthcoming.Against the background of standard possible-worlds semantics, this paper outlines a truthmaker approach to the semantics of attitude reports and modal sentences based on an ontology of attitudinal and modal objects.
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391Attitudinal Objects: their Ontology and Importance for Philosophy and Natural Language SemanticsIn Brian Brian & Christoph Schuringa (eds.), The Notion of Judgment: Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy, Routledge. pp. 180-201. 2019.This paper argues for the philosophical and semantic importance of attitudinal objects, entities such as judgments, claims, beliefs, demands, and desires, as an ontological category distinct from that of events and states and from that of propositions. The paper presents significant revisions and refinements of the notion of an attitudinal object as it was developed in my previous work.
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813An object‐based truthmaker semantics for modalsPhilosophical Issues 28 (1): 255-288. 2018.Possible worlds semantics faces a range of difficulties for at least certain types of modals, especially deontic modals with their distinction between heavy and light permissions and obligations. This paper outlines a new semantics of modals that aims to overcome some of those difficulties. The semantics is based on an a novel ontology of modal objects, entities like obligations, permissions, needs, as well as epistemic states, abilities, and essences. Moreover, it is based on truthmaking, in th…Read more
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829Truth Predicates, Truth Bearers, and their VariantsSynthese (Suppl 2): 1-28. 2018.This paper argues that truth predicates in natural language and their variants, predicates of correctness, satisfaction and validity, do not apply to propositions (not even with 'that'-clauses), but rather to a range of attitudinal and modal objects. As such natural language reflects a notion of truth that is primarily a normative notion of correctness constitutive of representational objects. The paper moreover argues that 'true' is part of a larger class of satisfaction predicates whose semant…Read more
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604Number words as number namesLinguistics and Philosophy 40 (4): 331-345. 2017.This paper criticizes the view that number words in argument position retain the meaning they have on an adjectival or determiner use, as argued by Hofweber :179–225, 2005) and Moltmann :499–534, 2013a, 2013b). In particular the paper re-evaluates syntactic evidence from German given in Moltmann to that effect.
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740Act-Based Conceptions of Propositional Content: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2017.Ever since Frege, propositions have played a central role in philosophy of language. Propositions are generally conceived as abstract objects that have truth conditions essentially and fulfill both the role of the meaning of sentences and of the objects or content of propositional attitudes. More recently, the abstract conception of propositions has given rise to serious dissatisfaction among a number of philosophers, who have instead proposed a conception of propositional content based on cogn…Read more
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660Chapter 5: Intensional Transitive Verbs and their 'Objects'In Abstract Objects and the Semantics of Natural Language, Oxford University Press. 2013.This chapter gives a truthmaker-based account of the semantics of 'reifying' quantifiers like 'something' when they act as complements of intensional transitive verbs ('need', 'look for'). It argues that such quantifiers range over 'variable satisfiers' of the attitudinal object described by the verb (e.g. the need or the search)
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225Chapter 6: Reifying TermsIn Abstract Objects and the Semantics of Natural Language, Oxford University Press. 2013.This chapter develops a semantics for 'reifying terms' of the sort 'the proposition that S', 'the fact that S', 'the property of being P', 'the number eight', 'the concept horse', 'the truth value true', 'the kind humane being'. This semantics is developed within the broader perspective of the ontology of natural language involving abstract objects only at its periphery, not its core.
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313Chapter 3: The Semantics of Special Quantifiers in Predicate PositionIn Abstract Objects and the Semantics of Natural Language, Oxford University Press. 2013.This chapter argues that special quantifiers such as 'something' when occurring in argument position are not ordinary or substitutional quantifiers; rather they have a reifying force introducing a domain of tropes or kinds of tropes to quantify over.
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395Objects and AttitudesOxford University Press. forthcoming.This is a prepublication version of my book Objects and Attitudes. The book develops a novel semantics of attitude reports, modal sentences, and quotation based on the view that sentences semantically act as predicates of various attitudinal and modal objects, entities like claims, requests, promises, obligations, and permissions, rather than standing for abstract propositions playing the role of objects. The approach develops truthmaker semantics for attitudinal and modal objects and has a wide…Read more
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755Natural Language and its OntologyIn Alvin I. Goldman & Brian P. McLaughlin (eds.), Metaphysics and Cognitive Science, Oxford University Press. pp. 206-232. 2019.This paper gives a characterization of the ontology implicit in natural language and the entities it involves, situates natural language ontology within metaphysics, and responds to Chomskys' dismissal of externalist semantics.
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155Reciprocals and Same/Different: Towards a Semantic AnalysisLinguistics and Philosophy 15 (4). 1992.
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868Situations, Alternatives, and the Semantics of 'Cases'Linguistics and Philosophy (1): 1-41. 2019.This paper presents a systematic semantic study of constructions with the noun 'case'. It argues that 'cases' are situations acting as truthmakers within a sentential or epistemic case space. It develops a truthmaker-based alternative semantics of 'case'-constructions, based on Fine's recent truthmaker semantics.
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177Nominalizing quantifiersJournal of Philosophical Logic 32 (5): 445-481. 2003.Quantified expressions in natural language generally are taken to act like quantifiers in logic, which either range over entities that need to satisfy or not satisfy the predicate in order for the sentence to be true or otherwise are substitutional quantifiers. I will argue that there is a philosophically rather important class of quantified expressions in English that act quite differently, a class that includes something, nothing, and several things. In addition to expressing quantification, s…Read more
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539Intensional Relative Clauses and the Semantics of Variable ObjectsIn Manfred Krifka & Schenner Mathias (eds.), Reconstruction Effects in Relative Clauses, De Gruyter Akademie Forschung. 2019.NPs with intensional relative clauses such as 'the book John needs to write' pose a significant challenge for semantic theory. Such NPs act like referential terms, yet they do not stand for a particular actual object. This paper will develop a semantic analysis of such NPs on the basis of the notion of a variable object. The analysis avoids a range of difficulties that a more standard analysis based on the notion of an individual concept would face. Most importantly, unlike the latter, the propo…Read more
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146Generalizing Detached Self-Reference and the Semantics of Generic OneMind and Language 25 (4): 440-473. 2010.In this paper I will give an analysis of what I call ‘generalizing detached self-reference’ within a general account of reference to the first person. With generalizing detached self-reference an agent attributes properties to a range of individuals by putting himself into their shoes, or simulating them. I will show that generalizing detached self-reference plays an important role in the semantics of natural language, in particular in the English generic one and in what syntacticians call arbit…Read more
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282Attitude Reports, Cognitive Products, and Attitudinal Objects: A Response to G. Felappi On Product‐Based Accounts of AttitudesThought: A Journal of Philosophy 6 (1): 3-12. 2017.In a range of recent and not so recent work, I have developed a novel semantics of attitude reports on which the notion of an attitudinal object or cognitive product takes center stage, that is, entities such as thoughts claims and decisions. The purpose of this note is to give a brief summary of this account against the background of the standard semantics of attitude reports and to show that the various sorts of criticism that Felappi recently advanced against it are mistaken.
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580Variable Objects and TruthmakingIn Mircea Dumitru (ed.), Metaphysics, Meaning, and Modality: Themes From Kit Fine, Oxford University Press. 2020.This paper will focus on a philosophically significant construction whose semantics brings together two important notions in Kit Fine’s philosophy, the notion of truthmaking and the notion of a variable embodiment, or its extension, namely what I call a ‘variable object’. This is the construction of definite NPs like 'the number of people that can fit into the bus', 'the book John needs to write', and 'the gifted mathematician John claims to be'. Such NPs are analysed as standing for variable ob…Read more
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742Quantification with Intentional and with Intensional VerbsIn Alessandro Torza (ed.), Quantifiers, Quantifiers, and Quantifiers. Themes in Logic, Metaphysics, and Language. (Synthese Library vol. 373), Springer. 2015.The question whether natural language permits quantification over intentional objects as the ‘nonexistent’ objects of thought is the topic of a major philosophical controversy, as is the status of intentional objects as such. This paper will argue that natural language does reflect a particular notion of intentional object and in particular that certain types of natural language constructions (generally disregarded in the philosophical literature) cannot be analysed without positing intentional …Read more
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677Two kinds of universals and two kinds of collectionsLinguistics and Philosophy 27 (6). 2004.This paper argues for an ontological distinction between two kinds of universals, 'kinds of tropes' such as 'wisdom' and properties such as 'the property of being wise'. It argues that the distinction is parallel to that between two kinds of collections, pluralities such as 'the students' and collective objects such as 'the class'. The paper argues for the priortity of distributive readings with pluralities on the basis of predicates of extent or shape, such 'large' or 'long'.
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365Propositional attitudes without propositionsSynthese 135 (1). 2003.The most common account of attitude reports is the relational analysis according towhich an attitude verb taking that-clause complements expresses a two-placerelation between agents and propositions and the that-clause acts as an expressionwhose function is to provide the propositional argument. I will argue that a closerexamination of a broader range of linguistic facts raises serious problems for thisanalysis and instead favours a Russellian `multiple relations analysis' (which hasgenerally be…Read more
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1259Nominalizations: The Case of Nominalizations of Modal PredicatesIn Lisa Matthewson, Cécile Meier, Hotze Rullman & Thomas Ede Zimmermann (eds.), Blackwell Companion to Semantics, Wiley. 2020.Nominalizations of modal predicates have received little, if any, attention in the semantic or philosophical literature. This paper will argue that nominalizations of modal predicates require recognizing a novel ontological category of modal objects and it will outline a new semantics of modals based on modal objects.
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126Measure adverbialsLinguistics and Philosophy 14 (6). 1991.This papers argues that the apparent constraint of adverbials like 'for two hours' (or 'throughout the house') should not be viewed as a restriction to telic events or event predicates, but should be explained entirely in terms of the quantificational status of such adverials, acting as quantifiers over (contextually individuated) parts of a time interval (or spatial region).
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425Coordination and ComparativesDissertation, MIT. 1992.This thesis explores the syntax and semantics of coordinate structures on the basis of three-dimensional syntactic structures. In particular it gives an analysis of sentences of the sort 'a man came and a woman left who knew each other well' on the basis of implicit coordination of NPs, made available within three-dimensionional syntactic structures..
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
PhD, 1992
La Terrasse, Rhone-Alpes, France
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Language |