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19Modified Numerals and Split Disjunction: The First-Order CaseJournal of Logic, Language and Information 32 (4): 539-567. 2023.We present a number of puzzles arising for the interpretation of modified numerals. Following Büring and others we assume that the main difference between comparative and superlative modifiers is that only the latter convey disjunctive meanings. We further argue that the inference patterns triggered by disjunction and superlative modifiers are hard to capture in existing semantic and pragmatic analyses of these phenomena (neo-Gricean or grammatical alike), and we propose a novel account of these…Read more
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338Epistemic Modals in Hypothetical ReasoningErkenntnis 88 (8): 3551-3581. 2023.Data involving epistemic modals suggest that some classically valid argument forms, such as _reductio_, are invalid in natural language reasoning as they lead to modal collapses. We adduce further data showing that the classical argument forms governing the existential quantifier are similarly defective, as they lead to a _de re–de dicto_ collapse. We observe a similar problem for disjunction. But if the classical argument forms for negation, disjunction and existential quantification are invali…Read more
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Logic, Language, and Meaning: Selected Papers From the Seventeenth Amsterdam Colloquium (edited book)Springer. 2010.
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15Knowing-Who in Quantified Epistemic LogicIn Hans van Ditmarsch & Gabriel Sandu (eds.), Jaakko Hintikka on Knowledge and Game Theoretical Semantics, Springer. pp. 109-129. 2018.This article proposes an account of knowing-who constructions within a generalisation of Hintikka’s quantified epistemic logic employing the notion of a conceptual cover Aloni PhD thesis [1]. The proposed logical system captures the inherent context-sensitivity of knowing-wh constructions Boër and Lycan, as well as expresses non-trivial cases of so-called concealed questions Heim. Assuming that quantifying into epistemic contexts and knowing-who are linked in the way Hintikka had proposed, the c…Read more
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Logic, Language, and Meaning: Selected Papers from the 17th Amsterdam Colloquium (edited book)Springer. 2010.
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23The Cambridge Handbook of Formal Semantics (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2016.Formal semantics - the scientific study of meaning in natural language - is one of the most fundamental and long-established areas of linguistics. This Handbook offers a comprehensive, yet compact guide to the field, bringing together research from a wide range of world-leading experts. Chapters include coverage of the historical context and foundation of contemporary formal semantics, a survey of the variety of formal/logical approaches to linguistic meaning and an overview of the major areas o…Read more
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171A formal treatment of the pragmatics of questions and attitudesLinguistics and Philosophy 28 (5). 2005.This article discusses pragmatic aspects of our interpretation of intensional constructions like questions and prepositional attitude reports. In the first part, it argues that our evaluation of these constructions may vary relative to the identification methods operative in the context of use. This insight is then given a precise formalization in a possible world semantics. In the second part, an account of actual evaluations of questions and attitudes is proposed in the framework of bi-directi…Read more
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14The Cambridge Handbook of Formal Semantics (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2016.Formal semantics - the scientific study of meaning in natural language - is one of the most fundamental and long-established areas of linguistics. This Handbook offers a comprehensive, yet compact guide to the field, bringing together research from a wide range of world-leading experts. Chapters include coverage of the historical context and foundation of contemporary formal semantics, a survey of the variety of formal/logical approaches to linguistic meaning and an overview of the major areas o…Read more
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132Free choice, modals, and imperativesNatural Language Semantics 15 (1): 65-94. 2007.The article proposes an analysis of imperatives and possibility and necessity statements that (i) explains their differences with respect to the licensing of free choice any and (ii) accounts for the related phenomena of free choice disjunction in imperatives, permissions, and statements. Any and or are analyzed as operators introducing sets of alternative propositions. Free choice licensing operators are treated as quantifiers over these sets. In this way their interpretation can be sensitive t…Read more
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74Knowing Who: How Perspectives and Contexts InteractIn Franck Lihoreau & Manuel Rebuschi (eds.), Epistemology, Context, and Formalism, Springer Verlag. 2014.
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216Alternative questions and knowledge attributionsPhilosophical Quarterly 60 (238): 1-27. 2010.We discuss the 'problem of convergent knowledge', an argument presented by J. Schaffer in favour of contextualism about knowledge attributions, and against the idea that knowledge- wh can be simply reduced to knowledge of the proposition answering the question. Schaffer's argument centrally involves alternative questions of the form 'whether A or B'. We propose an analysis of these on which the problem of convergent knowledge does not arise. While alternative questions can contextually restrict …Read more
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175Individual Concepts in Modal Predicate LogicJournal of Philosophical Logic 34 (1): 1-64. 2005.The article deals with the interpretation of propositional attitudes in the framework of modal predicate logic. The first part discusses the classical puzzles arising from the interplay between propositional attitudes, quantifiers and the notion of identity. After comparing different reactions to these puzzles it argues in favor of an analysis in which evaluations of de re attitudes may vary relative to the ways of identifying objects used in the context of use. The second part of the article gi…Read more
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57The 2007 edition of the Amsterdam Colloquium is the Sixteenth in a series which started in 1976. Originally, the Amsterdam Colloquium was an initiative of the Department of Philosophy of the University of Amsterdam. Since 1984 the Colloquium is organized by the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC) of the University of Amsterdam.
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85Concealed questions under coverGrazer Philosophische Studien 77 (1): 191-216. 2008.Our evaluation of questions and knowledge attributions may vary relative to the way in which the relevant objects are identified. In the first part, the article proposes a theory that represents different methods of trans-world identification and is able to account for their impact on interpretation. In the second part, the same theory is used to account for the meaning of concealed questions. On the proposed account, the interpretation of a concealed question results from the application of a t…Read more
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131Interpreting concealed questionsLinguistics and Philosophy 34 (5): 443-478. 2011.Concealed questions are determiner phrases that are naturally paraphrased as embedded questions (e.g., John knows the capital of Italy ≈ John knows what the capital of Italy is). This paper offers a novel account of the interpretation of concealed questions, which assumes that an entity-denoting expression α may be type-shifted into an expression ?z.P(α), where P is a contextually determined property, and z ranges over a contextually determined domain of individual concepts. Different resolution…Read more
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56(1) Somebody arrived late. (Guess who?/Namely Mary) a. Conventional meaning: Somebody arrived late b. Ignorance implicature: The speaker doesn’t know who..
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143Knowing whether A or BSynthese 190 (14): 2595-2621. 2013.The paper examines the logic and semantics of knowledge attributions of the form “s knows whether A or B”. We analyze these constructions in an epistemic logic with alternative questions, and propose an account of the context-sensitivity of the corresponding sentences and of their presuppositions.
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