Skip to main content
Log in

Nominalizing Quantifiers

  • Published:
Journal of Philosophical Logic Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Quantified expressions in natural language generally are taken to act like quantifiers in logic, which either range over entities that need to satisfy or not satisfy the predicate in order for the sentence to be true or otherwise are substitutional quantifiers. I will argue that there is a philosophically rather important class of quantified expressions in English that act quite differently, a class that includes something, nothing, and several things. In addition to expressing quantification, such expressions act like nominalizations, introducing a new domain of objects that would not have been present in the semantic structure of the sentence otherwise. The entities those expressions introduce are of just the same sort as those that certain ordinary nominalizations refer to (such as John's wisdom or John's belief that S), namely they are tropes or entities related to tropes. Analysing certain quantifiers as nominalizing quantifiers will shed a new light on philosophical issues such as the status of properties and the nature of propositional attitudes.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

REFERENCES

  • Armstrong, D. (1978): Universals and Scientific Realism, Vols 1 and 2, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Asher, N. (1993): Reference to Abstract Objects, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bach, K. (1997): Do belief reports report beliefs? Pacific Philos. Quart. 78.

  • Bacon, J. (1988): For modal modelings, J. Philos. Logic 17.

  • Bacon, J. (1989): A single primitive trope relation, J. Philos. Logic 18.

  • Baker, M. (1988): Incorporation, Chicago University Press, Chicago.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bennett, J. (1988): Events and their Names, Clarendon Press, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, K. (1990): Abstract Particulars, Blackwell, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carlson, G. (1978): Reference to kinds in English, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusets, Amherst.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chierchia, G. (1984): Topics in the syntax and semantics of infinitivals and gerunds, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chierchia, G. (1998): Reference to kinds across languages, Natural Language Semantics 6(4).

  • Chomsky, N. (1981): Lectures on Government and Binding, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davidson, D. (1980a): The logical form of action sentences, in D. Davidson: Essays on Actions and Events. Originally in N. Rescher (ed.), The Logic of Decision and Action, Pittsburgh University Press, Pittsburgh.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davidson, D. (1980b): The individuation of events, in D. Davidson: Essays on Actions and Events. Originally in N. Rescher (ed.), The Logic of Decision and Action, Pittsburgh University Press, Pittsburgh.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fine, K. (1982): Acts, events and things, in W. Leinfellner et al. (eds.), Language and Ontology, Proceedings of the Eighth Wittgenstein Symposium, Hoelder-Pichler-Tempsky, Vienna.

  • Fine, K. (1999): Things and their parts, in Midwest Studies in Philosophy 23.

  • Frege, G. (1892): Funktion und Begriff, reprinted in G. Patzig (ed.), Funktion, Begriff, Bedeutung, Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Goettingen.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldman, A. (1970): A Theory of Human Action, Princeton University Press, Princeton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kim, J. (1976): Events as property exemplifications, in M. Brand and D. Walton (eds.), Action Theory, Reidel, Dordrecht, reprinted in S. Laurence and C. Macdonald (eds.).

    Google Scholar 

  • Laurence, S. and Macdonald, C. (eds.) (1998): Contemporary Readings in the Foundations of Metaphysics, Blackwell, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lombard, L. B. (1986): Events. A Metaphysical Study, Routledge/Kegan, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lombard, L. B. (1998): Ontologies of events, in S. Laurence and C. Macdonald (eds.).

  • Moltmann, F. (1997): Parts and Wholes in Semantics, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moltmann, F. (2002): Events as derived objects, in C. Beyssade et al. (eds.), Empirical Issues in Formal Syntax and Semantics 4, Presses Universitaires de Paris-Sorbonne, Paris.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moltmann, F. (2003): Propositional Attitudes without Propositions, Synt.

  • Prior, A. (1971): Objects of Thought, Clarendon Press, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Quine, W. V. O. (1960): Word and Object, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Russell, B. (1913): Theory of Knowledge, reprinted in 1993 by Routledge, London.

  • Russell, B. (1918): The philosophy of logical atomism, in B. Russell, Logic and Knowledge, Routledge, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schiffer, S. (1987): Remnants of Meaning, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simons, P. (1994): Particulars in particular clothing: Three trope theories of substance, Philosophy & Phenomenological Research bd54(3), reprinted in S. Laurence and C. Macdonald (eds.).

  • Soames, S. (1988): Direct reference, propositional attitudes, and semantic content, in N. Salmon and S. Soames (eds.), Propositional Attitudes, Oxford University Press.

  • Stalnaker, R. (1984): Inquiry, MIT Press, Cambride, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strawson, P. (1950): Truth, Aristotelian Society, suppl. vol. 24, reprinted in S. Blackburn and K. Simmons (eds.), Truth, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strawson, P. (1959): Individuals, Methuen, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strawson, P. (1987): Concepts and properties or predication and copulation, Philos. Quart. 37.

  • Vergnaud, J.-R. (1974): French relative clauses, Ph.D. dissertation, MIT, Cambridge, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wiggins, D. (1984): The sense and reference of predicates: A running repair to Frege's doctrine and a plea for the copula, Philos. Quart. 34.

  • Williams, D. C. (1953): On the elements of being, Review of Metaphysics 7.

  • Williams, E. (1983): Semantic vs. syntactic categories, Linguistics and Philosophy 5.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Moltmann, F. Nominalizing Quantifiers. Journal of Philosophical Logic 32, 445–481 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025649423579

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025649423579

Navigation