In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey of the space of possible analyses of the phenomenon of quantifier domain restriction, together with a set of considerations which militate against all but our own proposal. Among the many accounts we consider and reject are the ‘explicit’ approach to quantifier domain restric‐tion discussed, for example, by Stephen Neale, and the pragmatic approach to quantifier domain restriction proposed by Kent Bach. Our hope is that the exhaustive discussion of this special case of (...) context‐dependence will provide guidelines for how to decide, for an arbitrary case of context‐dependent discourse, whether it should be treated syntactically, semantically, or pragmatically. (shrink)

Our first aim in this paper is to respond to four novel objections in Jason Stanley's ‘Context and Logical Form’. Taken together, those objections attempt to debunk our prior claims that one can perform a genuine speech act by using a sub‐sentential expression—where by ‘sub‐sentential expression’ we mean an ordinary word or phrase, not embedded in any larger syntactic structure. Our second aim is to make it plausible that, pace Stanley, there really are pragmatic determinants of the literal truth‐conditional content (...) of speech acts. We hope to achieve this second aim precisely by defending the genuineness of sub‐sentential speech acts. Given our two aims, it is necessary to highlight briefly their connection—which we do in the first part of the Introduction. Following that, we introduce Stanley's novel objections. This is the role of the second part of the Introduction. We offer our rebuttals in Section 2 (against ‘shorthand’) and Section 3 (against syntactic ellipsis, among other things). (shrink)

One of the most notable aspects of Fodor's work is that it articulates features not only of speculative cognitive architectures but also of current research in ...

Vernacularism is the view that logical forms are fundamentally assigned to natural language expressions, and are only derivatively assigned to anything else, e.g., propositions, mental representations, expressions of symbolic logic, etc. In this paper, we argue that Vernacularism is not as plausible as it first appears because of non-sentential speech. More specifically, there are argument-premises, meant by speakers of non-sentences, for which no natural language paraphrase is readily available in the language used by the speaker and the hearer. The speaker (...) can intend this proposition and the hearer can recover it (and its logical form). Since they cannot, by hypothesis, be doing this by using a sentence of their shared language, the proposition-meant has its logical form non-derivatively, which falsifies Vernacularism. We conclude the paper with a brief review of the debate on incomplete definite descriptions in which Vernacularism is assumed as a suppressed premise. (shrink)

I CATEGORIES AND PRINCIPLES ii Introductory Remarks The value of linguistics as a cognitive science lies largely in its potential for providing insights ...

This revised edition includes a new Preface outlining developments in Relevance Theory since 1986, discussing the more serious criticisms of the theory, and ...

A more extensive discussion of certain of the more technical notions appears in my paper "On Binding" (Chomsky,; henceforth, OB). ...

It is not the case--as is widely assumed--that only sentences can be used to make assertions: speakers can also make assertions by uttering ordinary words and phrases in isolation. That is the central claim of this dissertation. ;This claim is in conflict with certain familiar philosophical doctrines. In particular, we consider: Dummett's view that to assert just is to say an assertoric sentence under conventionally specified conditions; Gareth Evans' idea that, to say that P, it is at least required that (...) the words used express the thought that P ; Frege's so-called context principle, according to which words have meaning only in the context of a sentence; Russell's theory of definite descriptions. ;Having argued that the assertoric use of words and phrases is in conflict with these philosophical doctrines, we consider a defense of these views, to the effect that every assertoric utterance of an word or phrase in isolation is actually an utterance of an elliptical sentence. In Chapter Three, we consider the syntactic ellipsis hypothesis, according to which the utterances in question have sentential Syntactic Structures. In Chapter Four, we consider the semantic ellipsis hypothesis: the hypothesis that the expressions produced are not syntactic sentences, but nevertheless have illocutionary force and express propositions. We argue that neither of these ellipsis hypotheses offers a satisfactory account of the way speakers can and do use words and phrases in isolation. We conclude, therefore, that the defense fails and that speakers can make assertions using words and phrases in isolation. (shrink)