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That-clauses and propositional anaphors

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Abstract

This paper argues that that-clauses do not reference propositions because they are not intersubstitutible with other expressions that do reference propositions. In particular, that-clauses are shown to not be intersubstitutible with propositional anaphors like so. The substitution failures are further argued to support a semantics on which that-clauses are predicates.

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Notes

  1. Throughout the paper, I use refer and cognate terms loosely. A reader bothered by my loose usage should feel free to read and hear designate in the sense of King (2002) instead. I also avoid framing the paper as being about whether that-clauses are singular terms. For reasons I give in van Elswyk (forthcoming), contemporary accounts of singular termhood are deficient in that they are not cross-categorial in their application.

  2. For relevant discussion, consult Dolby (2009), Trueman (2012, 2018), and Nebel (2019).

  3. This is simplified characterization of how anaphora to propositions is licensed. I proceed simply because the central argument of this paper does not turn on any details of licensing. See Snider (2017) for the most detailed discussion to date.

  4. Among others, see Kiparsky and Kiparsky (1970), Cushing (1972), Cornish (1992), Needham (2012), Sailor (2012), Krifka (2013), Moulton (2015), Snider (2017), and van Elswyk (2019, forthcoming).

  5. A referee suggests that so being of a different semantic type than its antecedent is a reason to doubt that it references a proposition. But note the recruited anaphors also have to have a different semantic type than their antecedents. This difference is not limited to postverbal embeddings like (4b) either. A declaratives like That / it is true is also felicitous reply to (4a). These are referring instances of the pronouns, and what goes for the pronouns goes for so.

  6. A referee notes that the pronoun him cannot replace Giannis in a postnominal position. For example, The athelete Giannis is grammatical whereas the athlete him is not. They suggest that this substitution failure does not count against names being referential. Accordingly, they wonder why postnominal substitutions failures with that-clauses should. First, I disagree that their substitution failures do not count against names being referential. At the very least, it is data to explain, and its explanation might require us to give up traditional assumptions about names and pronouns. For example, if names are predicates (Fara 2015) and pronouns are determiners (Elbourne 2005, 2013), the name/pronoun substitutions failures are explained. Second, the name/pronoun data is not sufficiently similar. The syntax of The athlete Giannis may be that of a close nominal appositive (Keizer 2007). If it is, we should also consider variants like Giannis the athlete. But substitution with variants does preserve grammaticality. Suppose we are selecting teammates for a pick-up game of basketball. I might point to an interested person and say I choose him the athlete. What I have said is grammatical, especially if there is comma-intonation between the pronoun and description. The postnominal data with that-clauses cannot be similarly improved.

  7. I am indebted to a referee for raising this objection.

  8. Corpus data provides further support. The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) contains 72 instances of the fragment That seems so (Davies 2008-present). The so is a degree modifier of an adjective like scary or unnatural in every instance.

  9. Though I will not develop substitution failures with factives as an additional strike against that-clauses being referential, it should be noted that extant explanations of the failures favor a predicativist semantics for that-clauses. For example, Kastner (2015) proposes that factives exclusively take DP complements. That-clauses after factives are then headed by covert determiners. As evidence for his proposal, Kastner (2015, 173) cites the contrast in grammaticality between sentences like (26) and (27). Given that so is a CP, his proposal predicts the infelicity of (27). Unlike a referential view, a predicativist semantics smoothly applies to that-clauses headed by determiners. See my treatment of sentential subjects below and Moulton (2017) for relevant discussion.

  10. See Kratzer (2006), Arsenijevic (2009), Moulton (2009, 2015, 2017), and Moltmann (2018).

  11. de Cuba (2017) tackles this problem by analyzing postnominal that-clauses as close nominal appositives. I suspect such an approach is the most promising for those wanting to extend the referential view of that-clauses to postnominal clauses. Nevertheless, the inability to be intersubstitutible with so is still a problem for a referentialist view of that-clauses. See fn.7 for related discussion.

  12. The explanation just provided also resolves a tension a referee noted between the proposal of Nebel (2019) that hope occurs with for and so being an anaphor. Evidence for Nebel’s proposal is that hopes for appears with that-clauses in rearranged sentences like That Giannis will be named MVP is what Aaron hopes for. However, so is ungrammatical in the rearranged sentence as So is what Aaron hopes for shows. Therein lies the tension. But the that-clause in the rearranged sentence is a sentential subject. So cannot therefore appear with hopes for because it is a referring term as opposed to a predicate that can attached to a covert DP.

  13. I thank a referee for encouraging me to discuss this licensing difference.

  14. I’m indebted to Joshua Spencer for helpful conversation, and to a referee for extensive feedback that greatly improved this paper.

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    Peter van Elswyk

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van Elswyk, P. That-clauses and propositional anaphors. Philos Stud 177, 2861–2875 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-019-01343-8

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