Abstract
Sobel sequences have had a huge impact on the discussion of counterfactuals. They can be composed of conditionals and mere descriptions. What is especially puzzling about them is that they are often felicitously uttered when their reversal is not. Up to now, there is no unified explanation. The author examines two strategies. We might begin with conditionals and proceed to descriptions. Or we might begin with descriptions and proceed to conditionals. The author argues for the latter variant and outlines a universal theory of Sobel sequences in terms of presuppositional anaphora. One relevant result is that the phenomenon neither counts against nor in favor of the simplified standard account of counterfactuals à la Stalnaker-Lewis.
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Notes
- 1.
Lewis credits J. Howard Sobel with bringing these sequences to his attention.
- 2.
I feel uncertain about inserting “but.” Often it sounds better, but some authors avoid it. I disregard the distinction between subjunctive and counterfactual conditionals.
- 3.
Although the distinction between felicity and infelicity applies to utterances, I will sometimes loosely talk as if mere sentences were infelicitous.
- 4.
I am grateful to an anonymous referee for pointing out the possibility that an utterance of (1b)–(1a) may be felicitous when the speaker successfully conveys the intention that (1a) be read as “only the US.”
- 5.
Singular and plural definite descriptions, incomplete or not, presuppose that there is something to which they non-ambiguously refer (cf. von Heusinger 2006, 40). The difference is that singular descriptions come with a uniqueness presupposition.
- 6.
This sequence was used by Kai von Fintel to make a different point. I stick to his plural version, although there is a perfectly analogous singular version.
- 7.
There is a certain context-dependency: closeness is determined by spatial distance to some point of evaluation. But one could also vary the example (“the cheapest”).
- 8.
I assume that a 9+ earthquake is not ipso facto a 3 earthquake.
- 9.
I do not see a scope ambiguity in (9b) as in “Bernard thinks that Sophie is shorter than she is.” “Actually” tells us to keep fixed Sophie’s actual height in comparing it to a situation where her height is different.
- 10.
In the simplified standard account, all antecedent worlds which are closest to the evaluation world have to be consequent worlds for a counterfactual to be true. For a might-counterfactual to be true, some closest antecedent worlds have to be consequent worlds. (9b) is used to claim that all closest worlds where Sophie goes to the parade and is shorter than 1.70 m are worlds where she does not see Pedro. Moreover, (9b) is purported to raise to salience the epistemic possibility that some closest parade-going worlds are worlds where Sophie is shorter than 1.70 m. Since these are among the closest worlds where Sophie goes to the parade and is shorter than 1.70 m, from (9b) it follows that they are worlds where Sophie does not see Pedro. Thus, it is a salient epistemic possibility that some closest worlds where Sophie goes to the parade are worlds where she does not see Pedro (given that epistemic possibility is closed under deduction). This epistemic possibility makes (9a*) infelicitous to utter, because with conjunction conditionalization (9a*) entails that all closest parade-going worlds are worlds where Sophie does see Pedro.
- 11.
As we will see, the answer will need certain qualifications.
- 12.
There might be a felicitous reading of certain reverse sequences. For instance, a US citizen may say:
-
the president of Guatemala is in Washington;
-
but the president [of the USA] is in Camp David.
For some definite NP, there may be a particular referent which usually trumps any competitor in contextual salience.
-
- 13.
There is also a singular version, but I use the plural version to facilitate the comparison with (5b)–(5a′).
- 14.
This presupposes “salience spreading”: “an expression not only changes the most-accessible element of the set introduced, but also that of some relevant supersets of this set” (von Heusinger 2006, 45).
- 15.
Uli Sauerland (in conversation) has suggested that the Sobel phenomenon may have to do with a contextual standard of granularity. I think some cases of non-maximality can be interpreted along these lines. For instance, sometimes the windows example (12a)–(12b) may be interpreted as a case where we start from a loose way of counting open windows: it does not make a difference whether all windows are open or whether all windows minus those in the living room are open. (12b) forces us to proceed to a more fine-grained way of counting where the distinction becomes relevant. However, I doubt that the pattern fits all cases of non-maximality.
- 16.
Moreover, I have heard doubts that the P-600 effect is triggered by too many different things to support such a specific explanatory hypothesis.
- 17.
Cf. Schlenker (2004, 438–442) on the conditions of using then.
- 18.
It is tempting to consider a non-maximal reading (not all but a relevant proportion of closest antecedent worlds are consequent worlds), which parallels the non-maximal reading of the F are G. This possibility can be handled analogously to a non-maximal reading of the gas station sequence (5b)–(5a). The reverse sequence is infelicitous to utter because there are strong cues for binding the antecedent worlds where the USA throws its weapons into the sea that are relevant to evaluating (5a) to the antecedent worlds relevant to evaluating (5b). These cues are not countervailed by cues to the contrary. Thus, even in a non-maximal reading, there are sufficiently strong cues that the worlds relevant to evaluating (5b) are not exceptions among the worlds relevant to evaluating (5a).
- 19.
In a presentation at Barcelona Workshop 8 on conditionals, Barcelona, June 26–28, 2013. I select those of Nichols’s examples which I take to be convincing.
- 20.
If there is a non-maximal reading of conditionals, there is also the possibility that the (2b) worlds form exceptions among the (2a) worlds. Again non-maximal conditionals can be treated analogously to non-maximal descriptions.
- 21.
Something akin to Williams’s (2008) analysis can be obtained as a special case: in this case, the ordering distinguishes just two degrees of salience, the more salient worlds forming part of the context set and the less salient worlds not forming part of the context set.
- 22.
Perhaps (19b)–(19a) does not sound quite as catastrophic as (3b)–(3a′). And if the second if is stressed, it is perfectly fine. This can be explained by the possibility of purposively ruling out epistemic possibilities. (19b)–(19a) can be used to express your absolute certainty that Sophie did see Pedro. You first grant the possibility that she did not and then withdraw your acceptance.
- 23.
Acknowledgments to Amaia Garcia Odon, Manuel Križ, and Cory Nichols.
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Dhorn, D. (2017). Presuppositional Anaphora Is the Sobel Truth. In: Pistoia-Reda, S., Domaneschi, F. (eds) Linguistic and Psycholinguistic Approaches on Implicatures and Presuppositions. Palgrave Studies in Pragmatics, Language and Cognition. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50696-8_8
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