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Demonstratives without rigidity or ambiguity (penultimate draft)

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An Erratum to this article was published on 29 October 2014

Abstract

Most philosophers recognize that applying the standard semantics for complex demonstratives to non-deictic instances results in truth conditions that are anomalous, at best. This fact has generated little concern, however, since most philosophers treat non-deictic demonstratives as marginal cases, and believe that they should be analyzed using a distinct semantic mechanism. In this paper, I argue that non-deictic demonstratives cannot be written off; they are widespread in English and foreign languages, and must be treated using the same semantic machinery that is applied to deictic instances.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, University of California, 314 Moses Hall #2390, Berkeley, CA, 94720-2390, USA

    Ethan Nowak

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  1. Ethan Nowak
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Correspondence to Ethan Nowak.

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Nowak, E. Demonstratives without rigidity or ambiguity (penultimate draft). Linguist and Philos 37, 409–436 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-014-9159-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-014-9159-3

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