Abstract
This paper argues for a different logical form for complex demonstratives, given that the quantificational account is correct. In itself that is controversial, but two aspects will be assumed. Firstly, there are arguments to believe that complex demonstratives have quantificational uses. Specifically, there are syntactic arguments. Secondly, a uniform semantics is preferable to a semantics of ambiguity. Given this, the proposed logical forms for complex demonstratives that are prevalent do not respect a fundamental property of quantifiers: permutation invariance. The reason for this is the attempt to retain, in the logical forms proposed, the strong intuitions of reference that uses of complex demonstratives display. The paper suggests that the directly referential intuitions surrounding complex demonstratives cannot be taken to be part of the semantics of the expression. There appears to be no need to do so, either. The paper defends the new logical form against various objections.
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Notes
The notion of hierarchy is usually, though not solely, expressed through the notion of c-command in linguistics. One characterization of c-command offered by Lasnik et al. (2005: 51) is “A c-commands B iff A does not dominate B and all nodes dominating A dominate B.” This definition is meant for a binary branching structure.
I am working with a conception of the mind as proposed by Noam Chomsky in various publications. In this conception, many aspects of the mind are “mental” in some rough sense of mental—intentions, desires, beliefs, etc.—but what is specifically human to the human mind is the language faculty. This faculty at least consists of the operation Merge which takes two lexical items, say X and Y and forms the new object Z. Chomsky’s idea is to merge the study of language within the general ambit of psychology and biology. Like any other theory of the mind within psychology and biology, Chomsky’s theories are open to revision and challenge. I think there is enough evidence for the fact that there is some innate component to language which is instrumental to language acquisition. This does not mean that there is anything called a lingua mentalis. The existence of any such thing is a matter of adducing further evidence and argument. Semanticists can continue their investigation without assuming any lingua mentalis. Whether they are to necessarily accept any such thing is an open question.
ACD, and the solution through QR, have been challenged and King’s use of ACD has also been challenged, the latter by Altshuler (2007). It will change the course of the article to defend both. It should be noted that QR is an independently robust phenomenon and its use in ACD is well-motivated. Syrett and Lidz (2009) give arguments for their relevance in child language acquisition.
In the conception of quantifiers that I am working with it is at least a pre-theoretic requirement that names are different from quantifiers. There are of course other conceptions of quantifiers like the Montogovian one where names are treated as quantifiers. My motives tend to be more influenced by philosophy of language in this paper rather than formal semantics or questions related to how far do first order quantifiers extend in their treatment of ordinary language quantifiers. Much of what is written in the paper follows from Russell’s idea that the “variable is fundamental” to our understanding the elements of thought. To look at complex demonstratives from the perspective of various theories of quantification—whether of Kamp, Heim or Keenan or Barwise and Cooper is outside the scope of this paper though I admit that it would be an instructive and valuable piece of research to do so.
I thank an anonymous reviewer for making me aware of this issue.
I thank an anonymous reviewer for this objection..
An anonymous reviewer has pointed out that, in contrast to English, Japanese has a three-way use of complex demonstratives and therefore may need more subscripts than just contextually salient or not contextually salient. Or it is possible that the notion of subscripting is not getting things right. Not knowing Japanese it would be incorrect of me to hazard a guess. It appears to me, given the evidence presented by the anonymous reviewer, that in Japanese there is an interplay going on between how rich the lexicon is in its features which are present for complex demonstratives and the subscripts that get attached later because of context. Thus, if one uses “Sono F” (that F within your orbit), then it seems to me that the lexicon records the fact that the demonstrative is used for something “within the orbit.” Here “within the orbit” may well be a feature of the demonstrative and later subscripts may be added, if necessary. Same for “Ano F” (that F outside your orbit). This suggests that languages of the world tend to differ on how rich the feature systems are for complex demonstratives. English appears poor in this respect, as it is in many others, for instance Case marking. I thank the anonymous reviewer for pointing out this remarkably interesting phenomenon in Japanese.
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Bhowmick, N. On the Quantified Account of Complex Demonstratives. J. Indian Counc. Philos. Res. 33, 451–463 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40961-016-0068-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40961-016-0068-4