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Minimalism on quotation? Critical review of Cappelen and Lepore’s language turned on itself

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Abstract

Research on quotation has mostly focussed in the past years on “mixed” or “open” quotation. In a recent book-length discussion of the topic, Cappelen and Lepore have abandon their previous Davidsonian allegiances, proposing a new view that they describe as minimalist, to a good extend on the basis of facts concerning mixed quotation. In this paper I critically review Cappelen and Lepore’s new minimalist proposals, briefly outlining my preferred Davidsonian view as a useful foil. I explore first their allegedly non-Davidsonian, anti-contextualist views about pure quotation, and then their new views on mixed quotation. I have complained in the first place that their proposals are not presented as perspicuously as they should be; and in the second place that, when we have a clearer picture of what appears to be the favoured account, the differences with their previous proposals and others already in the literature are not as great as they claim.

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Notes

  1. Most semanticists, following Kaplan (1989), think that there are philosophical problems with this mention of particulars in a semantic theory, and prefer a more abstract characterization in which the theory quantifies over types in context, as opposed to tokens. In previous work, I (1998) have argued that the alleged advantages of this are illusory, and the alleged problems non-existent. Although we should assume a relative abstract conception of tokens for semantic purposes, it is crucial that referents are determined through existential relations with particulars.

  2. I will henceforth use ‘quoted material’ to refer to what is inside the outermost quotation-marks—Barcelona in (2)—reserving ‘quotation’ for the whole constituted by it and the surrounding quotation-marks.

  3. Predelli (2008) provides a useful formalization of a demonstrative account. In part to deal with issues raised by Cappelen and Lepore (2007) that I will be discussing later, he argues for a distinction between the character and the meaning of quotation-marks, taken as demonstrative expressions, which I do not find required. Of course, the distinction is always there, in that character is a function—an abstract mathematical representation of a semantic property. However, to the extent that the function represents the semantic instruction whose default case has been described in the main text, I do not think the distinction is needed—in particular, as I argue below, it is not needed to deal with Cappelen and Lepore’s arguments.

  4. García-Carpintero (1994, p. 261) provides more examples; cf. also Cappelen and Lepore (2007, Chap. 7).

  5. See Cappelen and Lepore (1999, p. 742) and (2007, pp. 35–43), and García-Carpintero (2004).

  6. I understand that linguistic expressions are abstract entities, which might have, as it were, different physical embodiments. In this context, I am assuming that italicization and certain patterns of intonation are just two among the different devices for quotation, in addition to the many varieties of graphic marks that languages use (cf. Potts 2005b, Sect. 4). Perhaps this is a good point to note that in my view there is no non-theoretical way of telling what quotation is; it is for theoretical accounts of quotation to characterize the phenomenon. Of course, in pre-theoretical terms we can point to paradigm examples of the phenomenon we want to account for, such as (1) and (2), mentioning the pre-theoretical data that must be explained, including the facts we have already mentioned and those that will come out later, such as the “picturing” character of quotation.

  7. I do not assume that all semantic devices alternative to lexemes conform a natural class of their own. The only relevant class is that of expressions with a semantic role, be they lexemes or not.

  8. This is just my personal impression; they in fact do not acknowledge it.

  9. García-Carpintero (2004) provides a rejoinder that Gómez-Torrente (2001, p. 134) anticipates, although he (2005, p. 148) thinks that it puts the Davidsonian in a somewhat less attractive position vis-à-vis the Tarskian proposal he defends, about which I will say something later in the main text. The reply is that the intuitions on which the argument relies are not sensitive enough to the distinction between a properly linguistic expression, part of the expressive system of a particular natural language, and any old expressive resource, a mere sign; the quotation referred to by the grammatical subject of (5) is indeed such a sign, “referring” in an equally extended sense to ‘Socrates’. A theoretical account does not need to honor such intuitions; the only issue is whether, overall, it provides a better explanation of all relevant facts. (It is doubtful whether, as Gómez-Torrente’s rejoinder assumes, ceteris paribus an account would be better off if it captured this, in my view spurious, intuition, but ultimately that does not matter, because cetera are not paria in the full appraisal of the two accounts.) For reasons that I am rehearsing here, DO in my view fares better than its rivals, including Gómez-Torrente’s Tarskian account.

  10. I guess that the other part of their motivation lies in the “syntactic chameleonism” that their treatment of mixed quotations ascribes to quotations, which I will discuss in the next section.

  11. I do not intend to suggest that Cappelen and Lepore ignore this or are worried about it; on the contrary, I am sure they are well aware of it. Also, the treatment of the “syntactic chameleonism” to be discussed in the next section might require that “quotable items” in general, including pictures, also have all kinds of syntactic categories.

  12. Cp. the response to Cappelen and Lepore provided by Predelli (2008, p. 566) on behalf of the version of the demonstrative account that he formalizes there.

  13. Remember that what counts as an instance of QS depends on which theory of quotational expressions we appeal to; more about this in what follows.

  14. A perceptive referee pointed out that Cappelen and Lepore could reject the suggestion that their proposal is a merely verbal variant of contextualism “because no contextual speaker’s intentions are involved in semantic interpretation according to their theory, and this would seem to be key.” It is of course difficult to determine when two accounts are just notational variants, and I better disclaim any such suggestion. My point is that their idiosyncratic use of ‘expression’ is essential to distinguish their proposal from contextualism—so that they can preserve the truth of QS, compatibly with accepting true instances of (4); but that a mere idiosyncratic use does not alleviate the problems, but merely forces a redescription of them: where the contextualist has false instances of QS, depending on the referential intentions of the speaker, they have false pseudo-instances, depending on the “pre-semantic” intentions of the speaker concerning the identity of the expressions they use.

  15. Cappelen and Lepore prefer to put aside the discussion of scare quotes (LTOI, pp. 16–17).

  16. The view I would defend is very close to those advanced by (in addition to the already mentioned Predelli (2003), Geurts and Maier (2005), Gómez-Torrente (2005) and Potts (2007), particularly the latter. Gómez-Torrente is very careful and merely suggests a view along the lines of the one I propose, while Geurts and Maier advocate a presuppositional account; I would defend that the quotational contents in mixed quotations are conventional implicatures and not presuppositions—but Gómez-Torrente’s nuanced attitude is advisable in this area, where the kinds at stake are not very “natural”, to say the least.

  17. Of course, presuppositions can also be informative in some contexts, as in the classic example: ‘I cannot go with you, I have to pick up my sister at the airport’. However, I assume that this is a pragmatic phenomenon: the speaker relies on the hearer to “accommodate” him; cf. von Fintel (2008). Conventional implicatures may provide new information without relying on accommodation processes; it is only that this potentially new information is somehow ancillary, subordinate or otherwise secondary to the content of the main speech act, as witnessed by the “projectibility” data.

  18. See Predelli’s (2003, pp. 16–17) for elaboration. Cf. also Gómez-Torrente (2005). I am not assuming a narrow notion of context, on which it consists of more or less objective features such as the speaker, the place and time of the speech, etc. I doubt that such a notion is adequate even to understand how pure indexicals such as ‘here’, ‘now’ or even ‘I’ work. I have in mind a wider notion, on which the communicative intentions of the speaker are a crucial part.

  19. Gómez-Torrente (2005, pp. 136–137) defends a similar claim.

  20. Braun (2005, Sects. 1–5) provides an excellent discussion.

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Acknowledgments

Financial support for my work was provided by the DGI, Spanish Government, research project FFI2010-16049 and Consolider-Ingenio project CSD2009-00056; through the award ICREA Academia for excellence in research, 2008, funded by the Generalitat de Catalunya; and by the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme FP7/20072013 under grant agreement no. 238128. Thanks to José Luis Prades and an anonymous referee for helpful discussion of some topics in this review, and to Michael Maudsley for the grammatical revision.

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García-Carpintero, M. Minimalism on quotation? Critical review of Cappelen and Lepore’s language turned on itself . Philos Stud 161, 207–225 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-011-9730-5

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