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Relational Semantics and Domain Semantics for Epistemic Modals

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Abstract

The standard account of modal expressions in natural language analyzes them as quantifiers over a set of possible worlds determined by the evaluation world and an accessibility relation. A number of authors have recently argued for an alternative account according to which modals are analyzed as quantifying over a domain of possible worlds that is specified directly in the points of evaluation. But the new approach only handles the data motivating it if it is supplemented with a non-standard account of attitude verbs and conditionals. It can be shown the the relational account handles the same data equally well if it too is supplemented with a non-standard account of such expressions.

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Notes

  1. See, for example, [17–19].

  2. Domain semantics was first discussed (though not under that name) in [21], which was available in unpublished form in 2006; see [34, n. 10]. See also [15, 16], and [22]. Domain semantics is closely related to certain dynamic semantic theories; see [1, 32, 33].

  3. It is worth noting that the infelicity of, e.g., (1) does not seem to depend on the order of the two conjuncts. Sentence (3) also appears to be infelicitous:

    1. (3)

      Suppose that it might not be raining and it is raining.

  4. For discussion, see [4, 6–10, 12, 21, 29, 31, 35], and [22], among others.

  5. For an overview of, and references to, these debates, see [22, Ch. 10].

  6. Yalcin makes a similar point in a discussion of what he calls the diagonal view, a view consistent with his compositional semantics [34, 1011].

  7. Dorr and Hawthorne appear to assume that domain semantics, for example, must be given some sort of relative or expressivist interpretation [5, 871, 878].

  8. Though see [5, 906] for some interesting observations about the difference between uses of suppose in imperatives and uses in attitude reports.

  9. In addition to failing to predict the infelicity of (9), this proposal has the odd prediction that if the presupposition of (13) is satisfied at a point of evaluation e, then (13) will be true at e just in case (14) is true at e:

    1. (13)

      John supposed that it might be raining.

    2. (14)

      It might be raining.

  10. Although I am using ϕ as a variable over declarative English sentences in general, I will often assume (for the sake of simplicity) that when ϕ appears embedded under might that it is a simple, context-invariant sentence. This allows us to speak simply of a ‘ ϕ-world’.

  11. This semantics for the indicative conditional is closer to the semantics presented in [22, 270] than it is to the one presented in [34, 998]. Yalcin’s semantics presumes that there is a unique maximal ϕ-subset of i at c, which isn’t always the case ([16, 136]; [5, n. 4]).

  12. Thanks to Jeremy Goodman for raising an objection along these lines.

  13. For relevant discussion, see [24, 25, 27, 28], and [36].

  14. The variable assignment \(g[r \mapsto {S_{x}^{w}}]\) is the variable assignment just like g with the possible exception that \(g[r \mapsto {S_{x}^{w}}]\) maps r to \({S_{x}^{w}}\).

  15. I should also note that I have not attempted to answer various objections to domain semantics which might also constitute objections to the proposed version of relational semantics. For some important objections, see [5, 23], and [30]. It may be that, in light of these objections, the correct theory of these matters takes a rather different shape than either of the theories considered here.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, Tufts University, Medford, USA

    Dilip Ninan

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For helpful discussions of these issues, thanks to Kai von Fintel and Jeremy Goodman. For written comments on earlier drafts of this material, thanks to Matt Mandelkern, Sarah Moss, Seth Yalcin, and to two anonymous referees for the Journal of Philosophical Logic.

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Ninan, D. Relational Semantics and Domain Semantics for Epistemic Modals. J Philos Logic 47, 1–16 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10992-016-9414-x

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