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- Paul Elbourne, Seminar in Semantics: Complex Demonstratives.This seminar will investigate the semantics of complex demonstratives, that is phrases like that dog with a blue collar and this table where this or that is followed by an NP. There has been much debate recently on the overall semantic shape of these items, with some theorists (e.g. Braun) claiming that they are directly referential in the sense of Kaplan, some (e.g. King) claiming that they are quantificational, some (e.g. Roberts) claiming that they are to be treated as definites in a dynamic semantics, and some (e.g. Elbourne) claiming that this and that are basically Fregean definite articles. Some of the discussion will involve presupposition and possible worlds semantics: does a sentence of the form That F is G (with speaker demonstration) express a proposition if the object demonstrated is not F ? and does the object demonstrated have to be F at an arbitrary world w in order for the proposition expressed by such a sentence to be true at w? Attention will also be paid to the nature of the proximal and distal features on this and that and their translation equivalents in other languages.In my reading list | Discuss this article | Edit | Categorize |My bibliography
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Until recently it was standard to think that all demonstratives are directly referential. This assumption has played important roles in work on perception, reference, mental content, and the nature of propositions. But Jeff King claims that demonstratives with a nominal complement (like ‘that dog’) are quantifiers, largely because there are cases in which the semantic value of such a “complex demonstrative” is not simply an object (2001). Although I agree with King that such cases preclude a directly referential, Kaplanian semantics (...)
This paper presents a semantic and pragmatic theory of complex demonstratives. According to this theory, the semantic content of a complex demonstrative, in a context, is simply an object, and the semantic content of a sentence that contains a complex demonstrative, in a context, is a singular proposition. This theory is defended from various objections to direct reference theories of complex demonstratives, including King's objection from quantification into complex demonstratives.
Complex demonstratives, expressions of the form 'That F', 'These Fs', etc., have traditionally been taken to be referring terms. Yet they exhibit many of the features of quantified noun phrases. This has led some philosophers to suggest that demonstrative determiners are a special kind of quantifier, which can be paraphrased using a context sensitive definite description. Both these views contain elements of the truth, though each is mistaken. We advance a novel account of the semantic form of complex demonstratives that (...)
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| | Other links: mind.oxfordjournals.org jstor.org | Scholar | More.. This paper presents a number of objections to Jeffrey King’s quantificational theory of complex demonstratives. Some of these objections have to do with modality, whereas others concern attitude ascriptions. Various possible replies are considered. The debate between quantificational theorists and direct reference theorists over complex demonstratives is compared with recent debates concerning definite descriptions.
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| Discuss this article | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: springerlink.com | Scholar | More..
| | Other links: springerlink.com | Scholar | More.. Complex demonstratives, expressions of the form ‘That F’, ‘These Fs’, etc., have traditionally been taken to be referring terms. Yet they exhibit many of the features of quantified noun phrases. For example, it is possible to quantify into and out of the nominal of a complex demonstrative, as in ‘All of the students in this room admire that man they are talking about’ and ‘That woman wearing the diamond pendant spent a fortune acquiring it.’ This has led some philosophers to (...)
Using a version of situation semantics, this article argues that bare and complex demonstratives are interpreted as individual concepts.
In “Complex Demonstratives: A Quantificational Account” (MIT Press 2001) (henceforth CD), I argued that complex demonstratives are quantifiers. Many philosophers had held that demonstratives, both simple and complex, are referring terms. Since the publication of CD various objections to the account of complex demonstratives I defended in it have been raised. In the present work, I lay out these objections and respond to them.
result from combining the determiners `this' or `that' with syntactically simple or complex common noun phrases such as `woman' or `woman who is taking her skis off'. Thus, `this woman', and `that woman who is taking her skis off' are complex demonstratives. There are also plural complex demonstratives such as `these skis' and `those snowboarders smoking by the gondola'. My book Complex Demonstratives: A Quantificational Account argues against what I call the direct reference account of complex demonstratives (henceforth DRCD) and (...)
Following Aristotle (who himself was following Parmenides), philosophers have appealed to the distributional reflexes of expressions in determining their semantic status, and ultimately, the nature of the extra-linguistic world. This methodology has been practiced throughout the history of philosophy; it was clarified and made popular by the likes of Zeno Vendler and J.L. Austin, and is realized today in the toolbox of linguistically minded philosophers. Studying the syntax of natural language was fueled by the belief that there is a conceptually (...)
In this paper, I present a new semantics for demonstratives. Now some may think that David Kaplan (1989a,b) has already given a more than satisfactory semantics for demonstratives, and that there is no need for a new one. But I argue below that Kaplan's theory fails to describe the linguistic meanings of 'that' and other true demonstratives. My argument for this conclusion has nothing to do with cognitive value, belief sentences, or other such contentious matters in semantics and the philosophy (...)
