Abstract
This essay argues that cases of apparently sub-sentential speech, such as Charles’ utterance of ‘a world famous topologist’ in the presence of a suitably salient woman, are unproblematic from the viewpoint of the Traditional View of meaning and truth-conditions. My argument is grounded on the distinction between different senses of ‘truth-conditions’ in double-index semantics, and on an understanding of semantic inputs as constraints on logical forms. Given these conceptual resources, I argue that an utterly traditional understanding of the relationships between meaning and truth yields the intuitively desired results.
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Predelli, S. Sub-sentential speech and the traditional view. Linguist and Philos 34, 571–588 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-012-9107-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-012-9107-z