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394Outline 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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373Attitudinal 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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766An 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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770Truth 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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754Number 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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745Act-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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622Chapter 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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210Chapter 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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282Chapter 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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365Objects 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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722Natural Language and its OntologyIn Alvin Goldman & Brian 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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392Abstract Objects and the Semantics of Natural LanguageOxford University Press. 2013.This book pursues the question of how and whether natural language allows for reference to abstract objects in a fully systematic way. By making full use of contemporary linguistic semantics, it presents a much greater range of linguistic generalizations than has previously been taken into consideration in philosophical discussions, and it argues for an ontological picture is very different from that generally taken for granted by philosophers and semanticists alike. Reference to abstract object…Read more
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156Unbound Anaphoric Pronouns: E-Type, Dynamic, and Structured-Propositions ApproachesSynthese 153 (2): 199-260. 2006.Unbound anaphoric pronouns or ‘E-type pronouns’ have presented notorious problems for semantic theory, leading to the development of dynamic semantics, where the primary function of a sentence is not considered that of expressing a proposition that may act as the object of propositional attitudes, but rather that of changing the current information state. The older, ‘E-type’ account of unbound anaphora leaves the traditional notion of proposition intact and takes the unbound anaphor to be replac…Read more
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644Plural Reference and Reference to a Plurality. Linguistic Facts and Semantic AnalysesIn Massimiliano Carrara, Alexandra Arapinis & Friederike Moltmann (eds.), Unity and Plurality. Logic, Philosophy, and Semantics, Oxford University Press. pp. 93-120. 2016.This paper defends 'plural reference', the view that definite plurals refer to several individuals at once, and it explores how the view can account for a range of phenomena that have been discussed in the linguistic literature.
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294Tropes, Bare Demonstratives, and Apparent Statements of IdentityNoûs 47 (2): 346-370. 2011.Philosophers who accept tropes generally agree that tropes act as the objects of reference of nominalizations of adjectives, such as 'Socrates’ wisdom' or 'the beauty of the landscape'. This paper argues that tropes play a further important role in the semantics of natural language, namely in the semantics of bare demonstratives like 'this' and 'that' in what in linguistics is called identificational sentences.
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172Presuppositions and Quantifier DomainsSynthese 149 (1): 179-224. 2006.In this paper, I will argue for a new account of presuppositions which is based on double indexing as well as minimal representational contexts providing antecedent material for anaphoric presuppositions, rather than notions of context defined in terms of the interlocutors’ pragmatic presuppositions or the information accumulated from the preceding discourse. This account applies in particular to new phenomena concerning the presupposition of quantifier domains. But it is also intended to be an …Read more
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2346Natural Language OntologyOxford Encyclopedia of Linguistics. 2017.The aim of natural language ontology is to uncover the ontological categories and structures that are implicit in the use of natural language, that is, that a speaker accepts when using a language. This article aims to clarify what exactly the subject matter of natural language ontology is, what sorts of linguistic data it should take into account, how natural language ontology relates to other branches of metaphysics, in what ways natural language ontology is important, and what may be distinc…Read more
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133Intensional verbs and quantifiersNatural Language Semantics 5 (1): 1-52. 1997.This paper discusses the semantics of intensional transitive verbs such as 'need', 'want','recognize', 'find', and 'hire'. It proposes new linguistic criteria for intensionality and defends two semantic analyses for two different classes of intensional verbs. The paper also includes a systematic classification of intensional verbs according to the type of lexical meaning they involve.
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331Various syntacticians have argued that coordinate structures involve a three-dimensional syntactic structure. This paper proposes an interpretation of three-dimensional syntactic structures in terms of plural reference and argues that such structures give further support for plural reference, the view that plural terms refer to several entities at once, rather than referring to a single plural individual.
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52In some recent developments of semantic theory, in particular certain versions of dynamic semantics, ‘internal’ contexts, that is, contexts defined in terms of the interlocutors’ pragmatic presuppositions or the information accumulated in the discourse have come to play a central role, replacing the notion of propositional content in favor of a notion of context change potential as the meaning of sentences. I will argue that there are a number of fundamental problems with this conception of sent…Read more
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467'Truth Predicates' in Natural LanguageIn José Martinez, Achourioti Dora & Galinon Henri (eds.), Unifying the Philosophy of Truth., Springer. pp. 57-83. 2015.This takes a closer look at the actual semantic behavior of apparent truth predicates in English and re-evaluates the way they could motivate particular philosophical views regarding the formal status of 'truth predicates' and their semantics. The paper distinguishes two types of 'truth predicates' and proposes semantic analyses that better reflect the linguistic facts. These analyses match particular independently motivated philosophical views.
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206On the Ontology of 'Cases'In N. Flaux, P. Haas, K. Paykin, V. Mostrov & F. Tayalati (eds.), "De la passion du sens en linguistique: hommages à Danièle Van de Velde", Les Presses Universitaires De Valenciennes. 2017.This paper gives an account of constructions with the noun 'case' based on truthmaking and argues that 'cases' form their own ontological category.
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153Reciprocals and Same/Different: Towards a Semantic AnalysisLinguistics and Philosophy 15 (4). 1992.
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835Situations, 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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169Nominalizing 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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509Intensional Relative Clauses and the Semantics of Variable ObjectsIn Manfred Krifka & Schenner Mathias (eds.), Reconstruction Effects in Relative Clauses, De Gruyter. 2018.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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124Generalizing 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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324Attitude 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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551Variable 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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703Quantification with Intentional and with Intensional VerbsIn Alessandro Torza (ed.), Quantifiers, Quantifiers, and Quantifiers, 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
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
PhD, 1992
La Terrasse, Rhone-Alpes, France
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Language |