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Con tents
Introduction
The old picture and the nevi
Free pragmatic processes
3. Alleged a r g ~ r ~ ~ eagainst
n t s 'T<:P: {I) Coir~rnunicatio~~
4. Alleged arhwrnerits agirist 'l'CPr ( 2 ) S?i.;tertiaticity
5 . 'TCP ra Mirulrialisrrr
6. Pre-propositional prragrl~atiis
7. T C P as a forri~of Cnntexttrdisrn
8. Defirurlg 'Radicd Contextsrdism"
y. Una~ticudatedco~tstituents
10. Overview and aclcnowtedgrients
I.

2.

r . Two types of' rxde

L. Serxin tic flexibility

3. Standing niemit~g11soicx\loil xxacnr~ing

4. Coi~nterexarnples
5 . Contest-dependence
6. Satr~ratiorrand modr~latirtn
7. Conipositiondity and nlodrrlatiun
8. Is Contextudistn :i threat to c.or~r~x~)itionditv?

Two dogmas
The intersectivity of relative arijecrives
. TjlCic12F. .rf Gf-iilt
crsc.
zzjc;<t;
>-cs
I.

2.

4. Colour adjectives: saturacioil or ~nodnlrction?

5. Gradable adjectives: modulariorl or saturation!
6. Absolute graclable adjectives
7. Coerced modulation: back to tlrt+irrtexuct.dvity issirc
8. Conclusion

1. 'i'n~tki
--cun~iirrorld
pr~g~~r~tics

1.Free

pr:igriwrrc processt:.;: two iriterpretatioris

3. X,og~cal6.x-11 rn rzicvanc.c theory
4. ilow rrlany systtbnis, m c i llow ciif$1;.rcnt?

. inuotiuc.tron

2. Q';enc.i-;aiilrdionversabond

rrnplic.atrt~res:mvo ( : o r ~ c e p t l ~ ) ~ ~ s
3. Fvoiir pragiri,rtics to ictiraritics
+. L%ragrn,lr;rciix~piicacrtrarso f s r r h - l o c u t i ( ~ ~~~L ;T ~S ?~ y
5. .I'c>c:ll. sp<?c*<:ll:tc-t!,?
6.F.~nhcbdiE~>J
Y I T ~ ~ ) ~ ~ ( J ~ I I * :md
. C * S ti-ee ennchnierit
7 . C:oi~clrisior>:ileikilr irrlplic:lt~lresor free rr~ricluxroart(or I>od~)?

o . P~eL11n111arics

z. jiillegi;tvd) c-oritcxL -slixfis ~ r nco~~iplert

serrueuces
4. Pretending thlit tiit' c:orrtcxt i s <di&erenthunr wi~,rtrt i s
.*. I'wo types ui'c.ontext a-c~d
two types of
contest .s!~rftriigpretence
-;. 19~rrspcsc~vr
jrorrrt z?s uttorarrie poiiir
0.SElrft:~I~le
mdt.~x~;rc;~ls

quotation
5 . irtterpreting quotatioils: the pragnatic view
6 . In ciefcknce of the pr~gnlaticview
7. (-:onclusion
.j. Mixed

8. Open Quotation Rev~sited

'The yt:agmtic view
Sub-clausal open quotation: a multi-ievel an:dysis
3. Interaction with ~e~liantic
content: (I) free eilrichnlevlt
4. Interaction with senlantic content: (2) t~otttext-S/U&
j. Building the context-shift into the rrrrlantics
6. Echoicity
7. Mixed quotation: the callcellability issue
8. Cancellation or dsambigtlation?
I.

2.

R tfireiri cs
lrz~kexof' ,V~lrnt>s
St.t!;elt Grdiih:

Introduction
I.

The old p i c t ~ ~ arlcr2

r e the rlcw

'Truth-Condlnonal Pragmatics, tire ~heoreticslfixmework ,~clvcrtneJnrrtV

ltlustrated 1x1 tl~isbook, ct'ilrds ~nconhast to (what 11.lc.dto be) the tradrtroi3si
i g\ tn~ant ~c tc~c o n
way of looklng at the ~ e r ~ ~ ~ ~ t ~ t ~ c r / p rd, ~
111
Accordmg to the oltl conccI7tlorl. hilc)wlcdge of tlie l~~l,vir,~c~--arliI
pamcula, selrlannc kliowledge or cevnaiztic cc~npe~elzc~~--e~i~~InJt:c
I,mguage
to ssl?~rra~v
tentencec of rhm lairgiiage X c-,
users to ascnbe trutlz-corld~tior~s
be sure, wIler~a sentence I \ (oiltr\t-\cn\~tlve(a\ rno\t \ C I I ~ C I I I ( - ~ \
~t onl\
carney tnjth co~iditloris'wrtl~rc\pcAit to cor~text'.$0knowleilge c"oC'tl^ieitrrltclit
~sretlu~redIn addrtiorz to XIloM/lcds;e oftlrc language But tktc ct>ntc\t at r"r\ur
lrlvolves or lly hmited aspects of the srtrl'rt-ton of utterance whcr jpe%ik\,wlle~r
where, to wllo~ii,a i d so ic>rth Giveri a cor*tex.ttllus unclerstood, ~ h niic\
c
oithe Lmguag~--for exantple r l ~ cmlc that ' I 9 retrn to the speaker --~uWI( c cu
deternxlne the tmth-cor~&t~oxld
ionh-rbution ofcontext senrrtive explessltrrrc
There a no need to apped, in ddditlon, to pr~kq~zat11
tompetcrrri
By 'pragmitlc colnpeten~e',1 ITII~,~JIthe dbrjlty to unitc'rrmclwhat the sl>eakcr
rrleans by h.ts or her unemice Ac C;nc e cnzpha~zccl,spe,~Ler'qnxcmng rs ,r
matter ofmtendons: what someorkc rlieani 1s W ~ I Ahe
C (11.she overdy u~tetrdq->r,
as Grice says, 'M-intends'---to get dcrofO\sCILI:C>U~~I
hl\ or her utterarrce <'oiritnut mtelrtloxrs the speaker are recoplred by the
nicatlon succeeds w1ie11 the k
hearer. Yrapatlc colnpetenrce I r needed to detennune W ~ I L ZM~~ cy)~akertiteu~tson
the basis of whut size ssizp; but wliat tlic spealiler Fays a supyused t o be ammornou~lydcterrnmed by the sernalxacs (wrth respect to context), lnespectlve of the
speaker's behe6 and uiterlnoxrs So the hx&t~o~~al
story goes
O n this conception, semantics ard pr:lgxriaacs arc: ursulated from tach
other. Pragnatlcs takes as Input the output of ccrnantics, but tlrvy do 1104
rmx, and 111parhcular, pragtnatrc proccs\es <it>not mtedere with the process

I ' i i i : i >Li; Mlc liii<F:Kivir I M[: NEW

S
This ntakes
(pi' ~ C ' I X L : I P~~ ~t ~>Cl l j p ( ~ ) ~ j t i ~O~~ ~ ~ ~ tLj Il L~t1-:llltk~-i'0~1~fiti~f11~.'
ollr:
ce,nstrrles
senlarktic
cc3mpetc:nci.
rlrrci
pl"g11latlC
cOIIlpetertCe
tkS
sc;gl";
hc.lc,n*ng tcr twc, distmc-t '~IOC~ULCS'.
SI:
Rmrarrr V3ot-!:rioes in her attempt to
tjt.iilrrj fjre rcldicic3nitlcc3nceptitrr) ( h r g 3004). Scrr~;~rrtic
competence beInngs to rllc P,lrrgl.iagr faculty, she says; it is an :isprct of our 'knowledge of
jmgLlagc'. I'r:rgrniatic competcrlce l't3s ~nort"
to do wit11 the so-called 'Theory of Mirrd', that ficulty in virtue o f w11icX1 hurllan subjects are able to
explnirr o t l ~people's
i~
behaviour- by ascnbirlg intentiol~sto them.
Tlac (>Ed pi(-ettru I huve just ricsc-ribetj-- -an essentially modul~zrpicture,
.ic.ct)a-ding to whicl~sen~uriticsand pcagn latics do not mix-has
stnrteti to
lose grip irr rccent years. Nrarly evch~bodyoo\ri;;itlaysackno\vledges tile fact
thde the rcft:rerrze of irldexicats and, more gt-rreralty, the semmtic value of
ctrrrrcxr -st-rrs~ljve r.xpressions culrrlot be drterrnined w itho~rtappealing to
firily-Aeilgrd pragxrr:~ticfi~stors(c.g. spr.akt;r's intentions). The serr~antic
value of a context-ct'lisitive exyressiorr varies from occurrence to occurrence, yet it ofien varies riot as a f~~nt:rrior.i
ofsorntx ol2jective leahire of the
contest hrrt 3s :I firnction of what the spenker r-rteiins. Pragi~iaticconipetcnci., therefirre, i c rcquired not otrly tt.? clt:rzrrr*inc: wliar the speaker nleans
m i the ii~isis
oi'kvhat she says, hrtr dso to determisie what is said, insofar as this
i s ~listiriitI'rtrrrr tlrc rne:aning of the serlterice type.
C:.rpl~"cleraivoritiers why sorrre tl-rersrisrs, inc.luding n~yself,n ~ a k ea fixss
'rborat rlirs isstic:

St>rric.,rutF~or.?~
rilakc :igreat (le;"latir oftht. cilstirrcttori beccveeri those indesicals that
i-ia~-e
p.ht?lr.scirwntJ.li-v,~!-\rr.icletenrlrried by

r l r c spe":Ll;ci-~s
intentions :md those t h a t are

iieicrr~~irieti
soieiv hy tile rittn-irrrerrt~tinaIi;iatures of"tE>ecc>iitcst ~Tutrer-arrce
(such
,IS tilt \pf:akcr, tirne, anti piace). . . . [Yet] ilo cribst;riitrve o r rven retriotely interestirig issue depcrids upon this distinction. jC:~ppeleirsuo?: 8 )

intleed

t17t'

alli\t~~~ct~ori
does xtot 11ixtter 111tu-hfro111.t techrr~c,ilpoult of mew,

irni c. one. c m iallow K'I~~AII's

~ t l g g t ~ t trid
o ~t~c'it
~ tlw spealrer'~Intenllon

(or tlir relr~drrtpr'lgrnJtx f ~ c t o r )2s tllc conte\ttral 111dex wwblch serves as

agrrirrent to
(I~rrdctertimctrc?rr, alosig\rcle the speaker and the hme,
pi~ace, and w~>x~cI
fc'rturcs of the cor~tcxt T o trx the reference of, for
ca;iuiplc", d c x r ~ t - r r ~ ~ r rorlc
~ ~ ~[ rI w
~ L I ~tdke
C
t l ~ t o~ C C O I I I I who
~
o r what the
G*

speaker ~tltencisto refer to, p s t as. to fix the refi.rellce of 'I9, one nlwir take
Into account w h o the cpe'lfi-er 1s f-locvever, f3rantioni pornts out, tills
ternptmg a s s ~ l n d a t ~ el~des
o ~ ? a very rrnport'lnt cftstrnctiorr'.
What I wcmt to call 'gerruine' se~rlanticindicrs are ft~atr~rcs
ol'lttterances tlrar call be
read off-without knowing anything d ~ u what
t
tlrr rttteuancr means. 'Titnc, place,
speaker, and possible world are propertirs of tokertings that can be seccled and
specified beiijre one alms one's attelltion to the content exprcssecl by tllose
tokeriings. . . . IThey] can be itrtenninccl ir~dependrntlvo f [the context-.sensitive
expressiun's~sem;iiltic value 2nd tlleii appealed to as input &om wllicfrl thc v;ilue
could then be computed by a character-firnction. OSrancioni zoo8: $8)

Arguably plragmlttrc t j c t o ~ ssuch a speaker's rekreutul rritcntlon\ d o r r o t

have tlus mdepel~denceproperty ,inti d o not qualrtj, as gentilne contest~tal
~ndlces1x1 thl\ sencz.l
Hut agatn, Cappelen nught ask, bvli): is the dl\tlnttiorr between thr two
types ofrndlces so important? r'here are scver,il reason\, but tlre ordy o11e
that matters here I\ thn. d we let cvhat tile speaker riiedns be orle of the
factors o n wlncki tmth-cond~t~onal
content ctcpertcis, that ~ i t e l t ut ~h ~ irtcrLt
vvt
tip the nlodzr/anty zaczil. We accept that prxgnat1z3 and \estlantics do mix In
fixing tmth-cctncirt~or~al
t orltenr -3 q ~ u t zt u n d ~ m e n t ~
( oncesslon
l
to the
oppctnetlt of rno~iulantv O f course, d o n e wmts. to marntciln a \ c n ~ a r ~ t ~ c s
pure of p~agmatlcintrtn~on,one cdn, but tllcrl ctne ~ I Jto
\ (orlstrire the godl
of sernanacl tliEerentIy tharl it 1s on the t ~ ~ ~ c t l t ~cctnccytion
oi~al
Pure
sernarrtlcs \wll rro longer dehver truth tondltiorr\, bnt ~t will cti~lrvtr,say,
corlditiorial truth contiitrons, o r sctleni~t,~,
o r ~har,~cters,
or .~vlldtevcr To
get fid-blown trtttli-conc3ltlondtor ontent, prdg~il,it~cj
~ 1 1 t17 e r ~ e ~ f e t f

a. Free pragri~aticprocesses
H o w far car1 we go in letting pr'lgmdtlcr inlpinge upon the ~,tctlt~orral
dolndrn of \elnnntic\VPrettv h r , 1 take rt (see m y L,~tcr~il
,%leairrrz!,r (aooq)).
Rut the trad~tlori~d
plcturc 1s still ~riff~rentlal,
A I I rtlo3t
~
tllcor~stsdo~l't\ ~ ~ to~ n t
go beyond the corlcesslon that pragndhcs and s.pe,iher'c Ine'lnlng I l a ~ Ae rctle
to pIay in as9igning values to irrdcxicJ$ 'tnd fiee vansiblei, in log~c,~l
fonn

see 'ilcran,it~ ( L O O I ~ ' :193 9,z,c)<) arid Sii,irnzc [fbrtlri olrlincr.

r i l l ii,r

ni<,rc

rlrit

>i'>xr

(That 15 the reason why I s a d t h ~the

t traditional corlcephon has 'ctarted to'
loce grip It ham't lo\t grip entirely-yet.)
On the currently dorniriar~tp~cture,prap~ahcscomes into play m die
determmatlo~lof trirth-~ondttioridcontent but dom so only when the sernantrc
d e 5 of the language pre~cnbeit (as when a11 indelncal demands a contextual
vdue) Innfar AS ~tplays a role m content detemvnatlon tlrerefore, pragrxlatlcs
IS tubordinated to renxxrtlcr. S e m a ~ ~marks
~ c s the phces where pra,matrcs n to
rntervene, it rets up 'slob' that pragnattrs is to f i . O n this view the only tmthconctttton~lrole oj. pragniaclcs correspolids to what I have called 'saturanon'
5atiir~(ionis a pragnlatlc procmc of cot~testudvalue-asslgmtxzent that 1s tnggcred {anti lllade obl~g~tory)
by s o n x t l ~ n gin the 5entence ~tself,nanlely the
For example, I_f
hngu~sncexpression to whxh a value is contextually 'fis~g~red.
the spelrker use\ J detnonstrative pronoun and says 'She xs cute', the hearer
rllust detemiuic ~111)
the speaker means bv 'shc' ln order to fix the utterance's
t r u t - t i content 'The exprcasion ~tself-a ~ t as
s a vmable in need of
contt.xtud mmctantiahot~ So pr&agnatrcscoxnc\ Into play, but it does so under
the g~ucbnce of the hrigltistlc nldtenal
1hiwe often dcrcr~bedratt~ratlona\ a 'bottom-up' process in the beme tliat it
I\ agnal ctnvtn. not ri)nte.ct-clnvm A 'top-down' or c oritelit-dnven proces5
ic 2 ~ ~ ' I ~ I I Zprocess
~ ~ I C wh1c11 IS 110ttnggercd by an e~upremon
in the senteiicc
hut ~ t k e ipLce tor purely p r ~ g r i ~re~ons-111
~ti~
order to u r ~ k esence of
what the spe~kert i saying Such processes I
refer to as '6ee' przipaac
processes free heiaure tiley are not n~andatedby the lin~unticrnatenal but
respond to wllolly pragxnatrc. cotislderat~ora. f-or exatnple, the pragnatlc
proce\\ though whrch ,tn r x p r e s s ~ oa~gtven
~
a non-fiteral (e.g. a metaphoncd
or nietonvli~~cai)
itrteq3rcLihou ~rcontext-dnven: we interpret an expression
t~on-hterallyui order to mnke sense of the speech act, not because t h s 1s
d ~ c ~ t beydthe hng11c;tic niaterrals 1x1 vutcle of the rule5 of the language
The doi~urlantvlew 1s that the only pragmatic process that can afftct
No 'top-down' or free pra=matlc
truth-co~id~tional
content n satur~t~on.
procef5 Carl affect t r u d ~ - ~ o n d ~ t i t - t u r ~processes
s ~ u c h can only affect what the
5peaker meam (but not what slre say?) Or, to put ~tm King's and Stmley's
. -..
tealunology there La11 only be 'y~ak-" pragmatic effects on truthcondltlorld content They define a weak pragrnatlc eEect as follows
-+

A weak pragn:rti~effect 0x1 what 1.i commt~rucated

by ail utterance is a case in whch
context (i~i~Iu<Lt~g
speaker lrjtenttons) determes mterpretatlon ofa lemcal Itern In

accord w'th the standing nzcrunir?,ydfthat lexical it(*m.A strong pragn~aticeNkct 01.1 what is
communicated is a contextual efi?-&C)II what is communicat~dthat i s not merely
prampaticin the weak sense. (King and StarlPey 2005: rig-15.; emphasis mine)

The vlew that ordy weak p r a p a t i c efl>cts clrrl aEec t what r\ s a d I c ~ l l

'Mimm&sm' (Kecm,rtl 1989, 1993, z o o ~ d ,3004) The ratron,ilc for thrr,
term is that the role of pragnatlcs l r r corlterit dctcni~inatrorru Acpr to A
mnlmurw ordy saturattorl is d o w e d "
Truth-Conci~ltloonalPrag~rrdtrcs1s thr* opposte mew, haced on tlrc reJccbe dYected
hon of Minlm~dism It says that tmth-tor1d1~1on.11content
not only by saturabon (as when an ~ndexrcalIS asslgrlect a contextual v ~ l u c )
but also byfrer pragmatic processes For exan~ple,a cerlterlcc like
(I) There 1s a llun In the mntddc of tllr piazza

h a several reacfings C)n one rea&rlg %ony1s gvea a noil-llterd mteqrctabon

and means soniethmg hke 'sstatue of a h o n Y O i diat re~cfing( I ) n-tay he true
even 6I~terdy,there 1s no hori iri tile ~~xildle
ofil-rrplarw (hut ordy iy atatue o f
a hon). The non-hteral rcndlrig of %horlhrguably results .from A p ~ ~ ~ ~ a t u . "
operattori of 'modulation' &,lt 1s I I O C~n~riidatr~l
by the lcx~c~.l
item 'ljlcon' I kcre
s no slot to be filled or anytiling of the rort The priygn'itlc. efiect tierr look\
lrke a strong prdgrriatlc e f i k t, yet ~t &&cis tnrth-condrbonal conterrt That rs
the sort of~exaniplekviuch nlotivates 'I njth-('onthtlond Prnginabc s
%%ether or not it 1s on tlic nghr track, 'Tnttt1-t:ontl1t1o11,d Pr,~grr-r,xat
s
i;hodd at least be cois~cieredA\ a tlaeoret~ca1 alternanvc to Mnurr~~ltrrrr
ura>~-tir
explomig. After all, ovlce pragiiatits is ,~llowedto plav role rrr the Aeter-trurr,t
non of truth-ct)nditlonal content, rt 1s \c)~~icwll,it
arbrtr'q to sol I~tmtsto aL\

In their influential Insen.qiiii~eSvnzunain C,ippeien and Lcpori: bot-row my term 'Mu~i~~mdisiir'

(and
~
tIu1-i I do. For ilrrn, a
the asoclated plmse 'n~mmialproposition') but tliry ilse it I I I C ) ~resmcnvely
nurunidist does not mereiy rule out \trting pragmatic c&e(:t.< on sernantio cctrrterlr, bur at tht* saint. hiale
mes to keep weak praglriatiz eii'ec~sto a cnlriinium (by dtnwng that sorr~resj>resslotrsger~erallyrrea~rd:is
context-sel~sttive are really contest-sens~tive).'This, f i i v me, IS :I I-atirt:~.specral----andpai?icuiariy &ZI~--;
form of @+~~r!rsrn: it 1s not llil~irimalisrnsrrr-rl)Iicrtcr.So. ii)r rxarriple, I coilcider Jnsorl Stanlev a.
mini~nalist,since he einphaticdly rejects stlorig j>rdgni;iUt.ei-Gets on tnrth-cont%tioi~aicorlteilt; but lie
is not a radical nurtlmalit ila Cappelen artd Xepore. for lie achowlrdges a lot ofconre.~t-scnsinvr~y
(of
the ottiev end of the
the 'sat~iration'variety). The sarne son of tcrartinol~,gcdd~llerenceis to he fo~ltid%it
spectrum: whoever accepts a good deal of context-sensruvfry (1.e. everybody riowa&ys) 1s a 'contexvualist' by Cappelen's and Lepore's standards. I-or rile a coniextwalist is someone who gcni?mlhn currtelrisensitivity (see Section 7 below). So Stanley is ncit a co~itextualistby itiy Lgtru, but he IS,ar.c.rrcd~ngto
Cappelen and Lepore. (What I call 'CC:ontextu:hsrn' they cd1 'Radical C:ontextudism'. Strunley,for theixi,
is a 'nioderate contextualist'.)

I N 1 RC)l)lU( T ION

- -

prdgma~tlcdIy~nfencd,the cluebtlorl anses, w f l ~ ts;lidrdalteeb that the hearer

be able to latch 0x1 to the exact sarxre serndrttlc v a i ~ ~1' se the ,pe,~ke~-2
qtlether the pragrnahc proces\ at stake is saturation or moduIatlor1 u
rn-levantas fir w t l ~ Issue
s
u concer?ied, so the 'm~posstbil~ty
of comll~inrca-eon' argument cannot be dduced m favour of Mirtrrnillsn~as aganst TCf'.'
Now, l ~ o wcan we account I;>rcontent sfrnnng in comrrinm~dt~on?
'Thxce
&tors seem to be e\pec~allyirnpo~td~lt.
First, spe,tker) and a~ktre\seej\h,~rc
that 'the mterperthe same psychoiogcd make up. In I,ttural Meuttrn<qI
cotrterlt. . . can be accoimted f'or on
sonal s t k h t y of trut11-cond~t~onal
rycholo~calrather thari hngulstrc grounds' (Kecanatr 2004: 152). And X
uoted Bolinger who notes that

5vla

eaken riot only share the ~ m r ecock but also sft,ue thc abdty to see tlie .;me
rsen~blancesbetweeti wh& thelr code already deugnates ard whit tttev worrld lrke ~t
deagnate, md so to xn&r tlie old tbnns rexh out to new nlea1mp rhat IS how
guage bre& h e of its ng&ty (33ollngtrr 1968 230)

Note that tho so called rrur'tcle of corrlsjlllrn~cahon1s sllrular to arrother rmrac

ulous a~lt~evenier~t,
well documented by psyt ilolog~rts:carlv word it%dr~i~r~g
tln~iout what the wot ck
(Clark r 993, Bloon~r?ooo).I t o w do l,u~gxagelean.~ers
they hear denote? l'hey have to rely on context arld pr<qqnatlcLictorr, even
C
to ri31y(rr~icetile regxl,tr
more thm the regular comiurucator does ~ C ordriig
mrrrunlcator a n at least rely on her mastery of the Imguage) kven tf dle
guagc learner 1s exphcltly taught a gven word N---the mother point\ to
sometlung and says 'ttbs sn Ltn N- -we know, srnie W~ctgen.itelnand Qzime,
that ax1 ostensive gesture IS mdefk~telyambiguous. What ~nake\~tnevc~thele\s

See Maitra ~ ~ 7 0120--8

7:
ibr a s~rnrtaryolnt. Note that one of S d r ~ ' early
s
xgitnents against t 7 C P
for the sane reason. In 'Context and I,og~cd:<inn'. Statdey obje~tsto 'ICY on the grou~idsthat ~t
cs trilth-col~rlitionallntcrprecauon s~rnlhrto 'the kind irrflnterpretation/ involved in iliterpreung
under tile table and taps 011 the stloulder' (Swniey zooo:396). However, Staniey ackr~owledgestliat
[context-rensiuve] element brings with it mles gownling wiiat context can and cannot assign to it,
yirg dtyrea qfiiwzty' (Stanley zooo: 336; elrqhasis mine). E'reumably, when the degree oCIarlty of
e ingulsucdly encoded constrant IS f1igi1 (.a~t1s for .x great deal of context-seus~tlve expresslorrs). thr
rc ofthe expression, hence the truth-co~ldit~ons
of the utterance containmg it, can be ckternnned
by appedilig ti, pragmat~cconlpetelrce and figunrlg out what the Intentlorn of the speaker mght be
see (Zbapter 6, Sect1011 I ) . Tius, u~ ~csc:lf,1s suificlent to niake the intexyretanorl of uttera~cessimilar to
hat of'kicks in~dertile c~ble(to some extent), e>en if we leave free pztgrnaric ynxesses aside. (I Tay: 'co
ome extent', hecause truth-conditlond intepretanotr 1s granul~ai-dnrcn.cvcn if ~t rlceth to rely on
g n a t ~ ccompetence. This jifferettce--betweer1 nurh-cond~nond 1~tCrpTeh?tlOIla r ~ Jthe Intrrpretan ofk~cksunder the t.ibie - mav be wliat S~znleyhas In lnlnd when he ol?lrcts to '1-CP.Set- Sectlrm 4
helclw lor a rcupimse tci the objection thus undcntuod.,

posslhle for the language lexner to latch on to the correct senlanbc value n not
a mracle but, p\ychologists telius, a ncb systenl of p~ycholo~cal
bases and tacit
assmpbou'S, w f ~ c hare amenable t o empmcal study. There a no reason why
the sdrne sort oi t l l u i ~\hould not dso be true in the other case.
Second key factor we keep nlonitonng each other's understand~ngof
what we me sAylng, makmg repairs when neLesTary, negotlatmg meanmg,
defen~eof the thes~sthat 'language use 1s
etc jree Clark 1996 for a s~~stalried
really a fbrm of joilit x t r o n ' ) As Ernesto Pernni pornts out In response to
Argument, the interacCappelen's s31id1epore's mirarle-of-coimi~u~iication
trve nAture of rnutud miderstmdlng 111 comniunlcation is what ensures
convergetic e and conterrt-sharing
C o r l ~ ~ ~ l t r ~ v c exl.ubits
a t ~ o n syitems ot rlegatrve and posltive feedback that help to
assure rrirrtual understartclulg Tha n the case of [the] acceptance cvcles proposed by
t-Ierbert C'l'trk x r t i LO-workers partlclpann tn a conversatron make efforts to
ecthh\h the n~trtuAbehef that hsteners have understood what 1s meant by the
speaker If ctie lrste~ierdoesrr't see what object 1s a m e d at by the speaker, ?he wrll
,
the speaker 1.i expected to propose a new presentation, untd the
~ndrcate~ t xtid
h\tencr gzve5 air ~ckr~owlccfgerrteiit
srgt, followed by a confsmatlonby the 5peaker
{Perrrn~ forthi o~iung)

1 be third bctor that 011ght to be ~r~entioned

1s the s~gnlficant.degree of
for r ~ u s ~ n d e r n nthat
g characten7es l-ium,m
vaguerreqs drxd toler;~r~ce
comrnulllwtlort Iri rn,lkmg that point, I am not 'biting the b~~llet'
and

" .lhe t~asrcprocess, wlr,clr may be called the Lzciepcancc ~yile,consists of a presentation plus ~ t verdict.
s
L.er x. y, arid s stand fix nouli phrdses or tllelr en~mdatiorrs.A presents x and then f3 evdua~es~ t I.f the
verdict is riot positive, ttien A or B rrhust rehsb~orrch:u presentation. That penon can offer: a repair x', an
expansrun y, or a replacen~mt1.The retishioned presentation, whether x', x+y, or r,is evaluated, and
io or]. Accepsptailcccycles apply iteratively, wltlr one repair, expansion, or replacement &er anolber, until
n noun phrase 1s rnunrdiy accepted. With that, A and B take clle process to be complete' (Clark and
Wilkes-Gibtx 1986: 24).
Elere is a11exarnple:
:I. . . . weU I w3s the only one odier than than the uhul tch the f-ords? lllt Mrs. Holmes Ford? Yorl
know uh=
= tire cellrst?
ti. Oh yes. She's she's the cellist.
A. Yes. Well she dnd her husband were there.
(Clark ad Wiikes-Gibhs, 1986: 5)
in t11rs dialobwe, the noun phrase 'the Fords' is introduced with a rising intonation, sf~owii~g
that A was
expectrrig an answer Srom B. As this answer doesn't come, A oKen the expanded noun phrase 'kfrs.
klolrtzes Ford', and then 'rife cellist', ulrtil B identities the referent, ~ t Ad confirms it.

accepting that conxiiumcatrotl Ir ~ n ~ p o s \ ~or

b ltcf i ~ co~lte'ilh
t
are not shared

rtottmthstar~ding,vdguc(Cappelen and Lepore zoo ja: 126-7) Appe~r~nce.r

ness and tolerance fix n~~wnzferrtarrd~rrgg
art. comp,xt.lble wrth the ~ d e athat
we do c o m u n l c a t e arid share content (ilecluirc~lty,we c,in use supervaluatiori techniques to define shared < orlterrgt whde allowug for sig~~lficanr:
divergences between speaker and hexer )

4. AUeged arglrnerits agair-rst '1'C:P:

(a)Systen~atic~v

The scconcl objectron to TCP 1s that It n-rakes s y s t ~ ~ ~ l as et l~<l ~ a n ~~~npo\lcs

slble. Elere is the argument:
In contrast to the contextual asslgrl:r~(~rrt~)fvalucjsto mdexicds, nloduhtion u not dnveri by the Ii~lgiisti~
rneamng uf bvords. Notllrng m the
lingulshc rneamng of the words who\c scn.ie 1s xnodulated tell$ us t h e
modul~tronought to take place Arlod~ilatro~l
takes place purely a\ a
rndtter of context, of ' p r ~ g m ~ ~ t ~\V~I,II.
t s ' , h v e s IC I$ the urgc to rri~ke
sense of what the speaker is uvlng SC)i ~ ~ t ) d u l a t ~ISoUnI I S ~ \ T P X I ~ L ~IfI Cwc
'illow ~t as a detenrunant of scinantrc content, we mmbe ~t ~rnpoii;rbieto
construct A systeix~~trc
theory trf Serrrantrc content.

I gr?untthe objector that mocjtllatron 1s ~tnivstematir.StlU, 1 t h u k rt Ir e;i\). to

rnCikeroom for it with~na ~ ~ r t c ~ l l\enmntl~,
at~c
" 1x1 gerler'il, nothi~rgpre
vents unsysteirlatic h c tors "i'ronr bt~rlgharldled svster~wtrcally,b y bcrrlg
assigned therr proper place 1x1 the tEizorv
As far as modulation 1s concrrncd, X kvtll show how to 'Iccourit Tor it
system~ttc~lly
;I, the very first chaptzi of this h ~ ) o h 111 a r^rlrtshrll 1 will
define a furtctroii rviod tahng ,IS arpjmertt an expression e and the rttrrtcxt r an
wlilch it occurs: the value of rnod is the part~c~llar
modulatron futu. trong t h ~ t
IS contex~rrdlysalrent/relevant/'appre~pr~dte
f i ~ x the ~nterprrtdtronof thdt
expression 111 that context (If rrt, rrloii~ilahonis co1ltextud)ly appropndte
and the expression receives 1t.sliterd ir~terpretano~~,
the value of mod wll be

'Acknowiedging rnoduiations as prrrnnry pragmauc procerscs isn't in conflict LVIEEL a(-ccphzig 3

central role ior cornpositional semantics', Papti and Pelierier nghrly say (2007: 50; O K )p. '$4, ~OWCVCI,
they wrongly ascribe to mne the contrary view). Like Pagin arid Pelletier, Westerr;dhi ( f o ~ ~ h c < > n ~ i ~ ~ &
sketches a compositional treatment urfmddatition.

~ ~ r i ~ o i 7) I iOiN(

Tr

In the same way, he clalrm, 'Evervorse loves Sdly' carrtnctt be usrd to egxess
the content oE'Evenione loves SaUv ale1 kus rnotlrer'
1 agree w ~ t hS~mleyt h ~ certxn
t
dxng (lon't lrappet~,that would hapyen if
modula~oxlwere totally uncor~srr~ilned.
13ut who cLlxned tlut ~i*c~cfuLnor~
was
totally uncortstr~~ned?j
Work ut tfxs ate2 precisely neecis to '~cicircuthe i\sue of
udlat 1s poss~bleand whiii- n rrot (strip one), ln order to amve ,kt suttahle
g e n e r ~ h ~ a a n(step
s two), wkl~'tltt wdl then be tnturrihex~tuporl praacrln~tlc
theory to denve (.itcp three) (Elbourne 2 ~ ~ 0ycp~oo)
8
5wdev's eff:~)rtsto
iden* '~mpossib~e
modtllatlons' Are d welcome corrtn~tuhonto the first ctep
Those eZfbru have ordy been t111lcUysurces\ful,rhouir;lt 1 dke Staxtlq 's t~vourexprcs\ the
~ texample
e
'Every Frenchnan w swtcd' ultnch, xcor&trg to h m , ~ ; m
~ 'Every
content of 'Lverv brenchmml ztz the cltrss 1s \erttecY, btit riot t h of
Frcnclulran or IJt~tt-hmarzI\ sedted' I don't thnk Swdey h* got thC &tit nght
I .mt not Erellcl~',I-tcconcede\
here. When t-iercule Pollot uys 'S~n~dyspeahmg,
he rc French, &]dm the Ltter use 'Frelich' mem\ rotrletlur-tg
tltatlc30se1yspec~,
lrke 'Fren~hor Nelgm' (see Hall zooS. 4 i t ) So 5t;tnley bw bcerl too qt11ck 111
ndmg out this sort of moctulntlon O n thr otl~er~ L L I I ~~iefrnciers
,
of I C:P sstlc 11 rc\
Elbourne (2003) and I-XnU (2008) 'igree wlth hirn th,tt 'kvervune k)ve\ Sallv'
c
ilssulrung
carmot express the contertt ofLf.,ver).onelove\ Sdly arltl h ~ mother'
that Stanley, Flbotlme m d 1-1,illJre ndit w~tl3re5pett to that c ~ ~ u ~ i rhe
p l rproper
,
thirlg to do s to explalil why the uttrraicc cannot have the reletevaxrt re'icil~rg
Stmley's sweeprng response s be~arlsettlere w xto ?LILA thmg a 'nlodnla- prAbmwtlc procesres', or 'stlong pr,gnwtlc effect\' ort sern,ltlhc
tion', free
content. Mternahve reprises, conslsteilt with 'Rzlr', h.we bren put: forw3sd
by E l b a ~ ~ i(who
i e proposes iiggmeral17~~~on
and thereby contributes to step z)
md by FI&. One may well remaul ~nicon\u~ced
bv these altert~at~ve
responscc.
but even IC o,ze rqects them, there rs a good leason to keep loolung h r
explai~tlonsinstead ot gcting dong w ~ t hS ~ a t i l ein~ d~srlzirsingthe whole
field of enquiry If, followmg Ctanley, oxte takes tlre 1,rtrt.r c ourse, it will not
be poss~bleto account for the dfieret~ccbetweein the two exa~~iple\
cited t ~ y
Stalley-the ' h e r t c h m ~ '~xluripleand the 'Sdly'exarlple. I l l kppropnaie
contexts, ~tn porsrble to underswnd '1-rertdlnwn' loosely, so ttrat Polrot coirnts
w French. Rut (rf Stanley, Elbourne, arxl Hall ale nght) there 1s rto way 111
whrch 'Everyone loves Sdly' can he understood ,as 'iSveryone love\ Sdlv and
i

One obv~c>us
camtra1ilt, irnplicit in my w n t l n p on the topic,
,rrnarltic types, just as adjunciron priserses \yiltaiil.lc type\.

IS

\h.lt mr>dul.ltit)riiht)uiil prrcerve

I~2---T-c-~~v~xmmnw~------

--- ----

his mother'. Wholesale rcjectlon of-mod~daaon,as advocated by Stanley, does

riot allow one to accoi~rt
&,r the contrast between the two types of case.

111

,tddltl~rlto the alleged arguments agamt TCP I have just discussed, there

w a postme argament 111 f a v ~ u of

r Mirrimahsm It n a conceptual argument

,uld c,m be put as fi)llows. What n sad 1\ what a lzlerally sad, and that-by
definitiorz- has to be determned by the conventrtons of the language.
1)ragnat"cscan enter the picture, provlded tts role 1s to asqign a contextrlal
value to a lexcal item ill a bottorn-up manner, that is, in accord with (and
txncler the gtnciar~ceo f ) the ~onventlonalmeamng of that context-senntrtve
Iten1 In contr.ist, strong prdgniatlc etfects achieved~norder to make sense of
the speech act w~thoutbeing llngulstlc&y inandated take us into the realm
of speaker's mc,lmng, away from llterjl meaning.
Insofar t l ~ argrrnent
s
&r M u l d s m IS based upon a certlln undentand1% 01 the pllrdce "tvhatn \ad'(or 'wlrdt a llteraliy sad'), one -cvon~ters
whether
TC'P and Miriuxr~lrsmmay not be verbal rather than
the q u . ~ ~ cbetween
I
substdrltive There 1s no doubt that one car1 dejirze 'what 1s said' in such a way
that or~lyweak pmgnntlc etfects c,ui affect wllat 1s satd. Ifwe do 50, f i n u n d Ism corrlcs ctut true by delklhon On suc h m understandmg, however, there ir
no s ~ b s t ~ m t ~
diqq-eement
ve
between Mrrlunal~srnand TC13. For TCP doe4
l dlonger holcl tliat what a
not tnr 'what 15 \ad'111 that ~ e ~ l s e -iti df ~ dit, c o ~ ~1x0
\nd tun be &ec ted bv strong prqrnatxc proce\\es
What the trutl-1-1ondrnonal pragrlatrst means by 'what n said' correscc~ntentof the u t t e r m ~ e .According
'~
to
ponds to the InflJrtlvt. tvz~th-~onrlztronul
?(A" the lntutt~vetrut11-condit~onsof an utterance are dected by frce
prag~naticproccs\e~ A\\umlng thls 1s true, thls does not prevent us from
defining ancttller notion of what 1s sad, contbrrning to Mlrumahsn~~,
as
uiggesteil above I n earller \;vribngs (Kecanat~1999, zoord, 2004) I used
i;ubscr~ptsto distirlgulclr tile two notion\, and I will do so here agaln Let
'wllat 15 \'~ld,,,,,' be the proposition expresjed by a11 utterance h e n strong
pragnlatrc eifects have beer) cllscounted, 111 accordance wlth MinlmJLsm,

'O

See my 'availability principle' (Kecanati 1989, 1993, 2004).

and let 'what is said,,,,' ~onesponiito the lrlturrive tmt11-cond~t~csns

of the
utterance According to TCI" whit IS s\a~d,,, may be xflected by top-cjown
I'ragnatic processes. '%IS 1s cornpatrble with Mm~malisraiunderrtixd the
claim that only weak pragnlatli et&ch car1 affect wwhat 1s .i;ud,,,.
Is the debate between TCP and M1ti11~jallsn-ifvierely vc~rbal,tl-reri? It
depends, There are severdl vanants .i,l M ~ n r n l ~ l ~one
s r ~of~ whrcl~
,
r\ ,I< rilallv
incon~pat~ble
w ~ t h'rC:P The drhate I-~ctwrenthat form crf i \ n ~ ~ l r n ~ , ~ l r~< in- r d
TCP is subrtatltive. and ~tis to tliat riebate that I intend to t nntnbirtc.
The first vanant of' Mi~rinlalrsxn 1 t all 'Strptilatrve M1nun~hsn.n' (SM~~l~mahsin).
It uses the al~xtmralr\tc omtr,rint as '1 cliterlun tor dcrllar~atrrlg
'what is bald' What is llterallv s a d rs dr,fmed, m acclvrd.unce wlth Mlrlrxnahsm,
as a truth-evduable ~ I O E ) O S I ~ I~YI_)~CCSCC/
U~~
by the utterance in vlrtrac of It.;
cor~ventlonalnxearung and tire corlitext but withotit the hclp of arrv ' t o p dowti' pragmatic pro~essSi~icet h ~ 1s
t 3. stlpulatit>ncont erntlig the usc of tkc
pl-irase 'what 1s literally saicl', tl~crcrs 110w a v to cl15agree with S-M*nrmahsr~~,
except on terminological q p u n d s S-M~rumahsrxlis vacuou\ly true We ( drr,
however, make ~tL' little l e s rtlpiii.ihve by aug~liex-itr~zg
rt w t h a n rxisrerrce
claim. The resillt~rigv x n , S*-h41ui1nallrrr1, al\o my\ tlie m~nmn~ri~st
rcjsii;r ramt
to define 'what is said'. but it J J & to the ~iefiri~tion
tile IOIIC)LLIIL~
clrl~nitlui
the nonon so detined has a rrrorlclnpn~extcris~on,t11,xt is. that therc r 5 ,iievci o i
rnearnng that 1s both n~irnmdant1 prc>yositiorul Accorclit~gto tlitc vrew a11
utterance does expess a cornpiecr. propo,~wori (hence c3creurlrnc.s a hncncllrr
horn pojssible world to truth-valr~c\)tn vlrnte of its coriveritlot~dlmcarung ad
the context but wthont the 11elp of any '~op-down'p ~ ~ g n , i tpro(
l ( C"\S
When S-Minimalam a strerlgtllened rrrto S*-Mmimahin~.non termnologcal disagreement beconlrs pos5ible. I~iclecdsome raiLc.~it o r l ~ ~ofs
Contextualis,.n deny t l ~ eexistence i-I,um wliicli ctlstmhanhcs S* N~ii~mxlism from S-Mm~xndlis~n'They hold that no proporition (.an he euyrr\setl b y
a natural language sentence w~ttloutthe lriterventlctn of top down prawiat
ic processes. (See below. S e ~ ~ c8 m
)
Though it conIficts w t h sonle h r m of C o n t e x ~ d i s n S*-Mmralrsm
~,
n
stdl compahble with TGP; for tire level of nleatm~git p o s ~ twhich
~,
satl~fksthe
m m & t constrmt by defir-iiaon, need irot be the scxmelevel of meanlry;: as
that w h c h concerns TCp, namely the ~nturhvctruth-conditions of the
utterance (what n sac$,J, hence there need be IIO cotkba~~l~tlt~rl
between
TCP's n o n m i m a h t ch,~rat-ten7ationof d z a t a said,, mulci 5*-Mmrrilnlanl
The mew accordulg to w h ~ c tfrrre
h
are two cy u d y Iegitullate r-rotlortsof '\clhas:

IN1 tiO1,Ut

I ION

15

The debate l>ro;vcen TCP mci f-Mir~~ni;rli\m

(hcrealier Minrmali\ni) docs
not merely be,lr upon the lntu~tlvetrutll-c ondlt~o~lal
contclat of lrttcmsice\.
It dso bears upor1 the proper cfi,lractenz,ttlctrl of top dtlwn prrlgnlatlc
processes (those which are respo~lsible-f;,r \trong pragrttatlc eff?cts) TCP
holds that such plttcesses may, m some c ~ ~rnt~rjere
s , unfh senzantrr comf)osztrun
~ i n dtake plarr loc~zlly Ninin~altsrni~~amt,llns
that wh,it 15 a r d r i llldepcntlerlt
of such processe\, whlch take place orlly dfter the truth c o n d l t ~ o n~onterxt
~l
of die utterdnce has been compo\itron,lJly detcrrnl~jcxi.
Accordlrlg to both MulunAl\rn m d TCP, '\what 1s s'11ci' 1s \upposed to be
the input, o r one of tlie Inputs, to tlie pl'lgnatic ~tlferencetlut enables an
mterpl-eter to d c t e m n e what the yeaker rilearrs (1.e what \he rncam by
savlrtg what she says) That n one of the job\ trulh-cond1t1oitn1 corltcnt 1s
supposed to do for us. The ~nferencein cluestion 15 'post propositron,d': it
preruppose\ the ~dentlficatlonof cvti,rt r \ said. \lrrce ~tuses ,nJ premlss thc
h c t that the speaker has sad what che has s a d (That I? one reason tvhy what
is said need? to be available to the I'tnguage uwrs ) C;nce,ln 'ccrrner\atlox~d
t
they ,Lre generated
~ q h c a t u r e \are
' clearly p o s t - p r o p o s ~ t i oi r i t h ~ sense.
through an ~riferencewhlch u\es as a prerrliss the fact t i r d t tire spcAer ha\
s'rld t h ~p.t For exmiple, if, in rcportlrig about d ti-lend who haijl~sthdti A car
accident, I say- 'Fle h,u a broken finger', I ttiereby rrnply that out friend 1s
sull alive, that he is not pardlysed, etc These \quantlty\~~rpl~c;itnres
cdrl be
tlenvecl througl> the follotmng type of irdfren"c:
T h c speaker hay5 that our fiend hx5 ,I t>rt>l\enfixigtzr, .uic1 \ ~ yonly
\
that,
If our &end liad anyttring more \er-lotts, the ipe,iker shoultl h,we sad so;
3 . 7 herefbre our frlend does riot Ii;l.ve dnyth~ngIttore ienorls tllan ,I
broken tinger (so lie 1s riot dead, pdralysed, ett .)
I

IIere, ur~cioubtedlv,the speaker7\llavlng sard what be h a >didis one ot the

prernlsces tlsed m denv~rlgtlic ~rnplrcatures
Now, on the uunrnla&st plcture, what n sac3 I\ only ;lffected by \aalr;lhon top
dowrl prwnahc procese, come rnto the plctrirc at the ulext
~vherl~ v get
c
horn what IS \ a d to what i s xneant In other wordy CdtLlr~ihOllIS pre-propos~
b o r ~ dor 'pnxnary' prapmti(. proce\\-~& pro( ei5 tll'zt cofltnbutes to dctenrrimrtg

'1 able 1 I. 1he nun~xnathstpicture

Sentence nieaning (character)

4-

pre-propositional pragr~tatics(saturation)
= what

the sentence says

i-

post-propositiortdprwatics (moclulation,ixnplicatures, etc.)

=

what tile speaker tueaxts

the propozitlotl expressed-wlille n~odulatlon,miphcat~ires,and the B e are all

port-prop~~"h~"jltod
((\ccond;vy') So we get the picture showri m Table 1.1
TC'P's m a n objcct~onto that picture 1s that 111 modubt~oncares, the
ortly tl~rrigthat can be i~iferreci$oballv Gom the speaker'? sayng that
p (wilere p 1s the h n i m a l propout~on' espresed by the utterance. for
exarriple the propos~tionthat there 1s a [reall hon in thc courtyard) 17 the fact
that the speaker does not rriean that. 1Vhat the speaker actually means cannot
be ~ i i f e r r ~&om
d the tjct that the spe'lker rc raying that p (paw 5orr~cext14
prcrrusses) 'She glob,~t-intlereiice~nechanlsrnwhich works m the case of
~oovers~~tlon~tl
iinplrcature.;, 4,s In (I)-(3) above, does not work here T o get
to w l i ~thc
t \pe;ikcr nledxis, there n no otlier opt1011but to backtrack, ,rpplt
local pragiiiatic fun<tioris to tlie literal sense of tile words (e.g map 'hon' t t r
'repre5exitatlon ofhoii'), and recalculate the nleanirig of the wllole m order
to deterr~iirrrA difTereilt propos~non,more appropnate as the content of the
speech act. Mod~rlatronprocesses thus construed are local, and that means
that they rnterkre wit11 semantlc composition, despite thelr 'top-down'
n,lture. l h e y take place I n the course of sei1iar1t1.t cornposltior~,so, for
them to t d e place, wmantic corrtposition does not have to be complete;
In other words, the nilr~rnAproposition (whcb n the output of semmtlc
cornpositlori when there is no pragrrtafic mterference) does not have to
be computed In the process of understandmg what the speaker means.'"
'l'tie top-down prqnatic pro( esses responsible for alodulation are pnmay

'
Z One rrug11t argue that the minimal proposition needs to be ronlputed in order to trigger the search
tor a different proposiuon if n rums out to be pragmatically umcceptable as candidate content of the
speech act (Bach 1994: 158). But I deny this (Recanati 1993: 265-6, zoo4: 33-4). Modulador~functions
may be sdicnt enough in context co come into operation directly, without tjrst considering the minimal
proposition, rejecting it and then backnachg (see Kecar~auiqggb).

pragnatlc processes, rather t f ~ m

~ e c n n d ~ procesres
sy
presuppo\lrlg the prior
~ d e n ~ c a t i oofnwhat 1s sad

7. TCP as a form of C:oxltextuaIisn

In the case of mdex~cals,the prol3<c"slt1ori"lcorttr~b~ttlcr~i
niadc by an eupre*,
SIOII depends upon the context and is nor iirlly deterrrxned by t l ~ ejcoii~textmdependent) nieaning wlllch the explesuon (type) possesse\ In virtue of the
senlatltli. rules of the latlgwagt- Conte~tunh~m
1s the phllosupl~rcalposaran
whlch gerieralizes that feature ti) \orchnnry>xpress~oris It holdb that, ln
general (1.e. not onlv rn the specrd caw of ~ndemcak),the propo\~honJ-l
contnbutlon of an esprecslc,rl is IIC)C:fully deterrr~rrreclbv the rrlc*ailanrt
rneanmg converltlonalv assoc~atcd~vlththe expressloft type 1711~depcrlds
upon the context
There are two (main) versions of C:ontextuahsm 'ICP 15 the wc,kLer of
the two It holds thdt the hngtiirc~cl n c ~ r i ~ nofgan (r)rdtrr~ry,
not)-ir~riexrc,d)
expresslor1 izecd p~ot he whdr the explrssron t oncribures to p r o ~ ~ o \ ~ t ~ c > n ~ l
corttent. Raci~calContextli,~li.irn(RC) Isolii\ that ~t ritnrritt hc w11,rt the
expresson contributes to propc,srt~onal(ontent. Although, rn thl\ boob,
I make a caw for 7 CP, 1 dr11 symp,itiretic al\o Lo thr stronger porihon, wh~c'l-r
1s the reason why I inentloii It here I '
TC:P and KC can be c11aracten~e-d
111t e r m of a certain d\u1n113rxcrrr whrch
they both reject ( t h o ~ ~ gfihx d~firelltre,L\om), 'itid whch ~ V Ccan call tilc
'Fregean assumption'((FA). 1 ct us as.;ttnie that uttcranres eup1er.i ]propo\rtlons' or 'tlioughts', arid that thrle propout~o~is/thuugt~t~
;Ire m,xrde out of,
or can he anallrsed mto, certam b t ~ ~ l d r blocks
~ r g oi cuxatlttlerlth, ro be icrlled
sensa. 'The standard assumption 111 tlie hceratrirc \teniIri.ing6-oiii Frege rs that

(FA) what an expression corrtr~butet,when rt rr used (together m t h

other expressloris) rrr rnjklng a ~onlpleteutterdnce, 1s the sense wlr~ch rt
Independently possesses m wrtxe of the coriventioris of the 1an~:ige

l 3 TCP and RC are both Instawres nf wh:~t Cappelerr atrd Lrpore cdl 'K~,~dical
Contextudisrr' (see
footnote 3 above). Irt Recanari (tyy3) arid Brziridrlihout (mozl>).the phrabe 'T~uL~I-.Coridi~ional
Pragxnatics' is used more broadly than I do here and serves as a cover tenrl for ~oncestrzalrsrposinnrls
swh as TCP and R C , without distinguishing bzorircrn ~ixem.

This yresiryposes that the C ~ I T Z Z ~ ~ Y ~ qftlrr

~ZOF~S
krrgti~get~ssaciuteexpressiorzs ivith
.ymrt;s.
tlri.; the 'Fregcaai przsrippo"stitrn7 (PP).Is FP tenable? RC, the
more ritdicni tri"thc two forms of C:oritextualisr~r,rejects it. TGI' accepts it
brrt still rcjccti, ttic Fregtr:tn asstinlptjoil
Tcr inti~tclute KC,, con\xdt.r the n m t 6-ecj~1rntlyused expressions, those
cvl~iclrcxlrrlrrc r, l ~ ~ gC1eg1-ec
li
of polysel~~v
'iXjj.l.it (lo eiiey mean? A number of
sc L-ioi,u\ bcxlrcswe therr tliearirrig 1s. sctrenlatnc arzcl lras t o be fleshed out on m y
piu t ~uLlci
t
iuze rlui \ug<est~t h ~ tperilsip\,
,
thcrr cunvcntional meArung is not
a tirilv fiut'ig(~lscriw Cnn we Argue tlrdt r&ey &re unrb;frlclu, between a
ntrrr~i-rero f i j r i t u r i t \rn,esi Tirat 15 rrot c)bvior~sbecause r t does not x e r n
t I ~ a thti-c
t
ILI LIICIY~TL'
hst ot S U L senbc\
~
a\~~~lahk,je
bur, rather, a cont~nuurnof
poss"ib1e senses to which onc can creatively add in arr opcn-ended manner.
-T'Fme is rrot to say t l u t the nlc:~rlil~gtri' srrclr a11 expression reci~lcesto an
,ibstr:rc.r sciicxn,n: tile rspressio~ris rxrrdoubrt:iily '11-so associated in memory
w~clic"oa~verrticirlalways (of- using it i n C C ) / I O C ~ T ~ O ~ with
S
(nmre or less)
t$etcr-rnr,natc~
senses. AU tliis--tile abstract s c l ~ e ~ or
~ r scherriata,
a
the callocatior.;, t1.o~seiises- ~rgu;iblygoes i r ~ t othe Iix~gtlisticrrieaning of the expres\ion, wlricPt st,trtj locthlng r'~t1sernztX\sy 0 1 1 such ,L vrcw, the rmlemnlg of an
c u p ~ c \ v o ndoc\ rrc~t have tire tight Ytcirrr~~it'to be w h x the expresslor1
i oncrrbeitc.\ t t r ~~ropo\itrc>nal
c oilterrt In orllr~\vord\, l l n ~ i ~ s t rnleanrng
c.
a ~ cliot \cr~\e\jrkltrtig11 they rrliiy IIIVOILC,rrltcr &Ira, \enses): tlle Fregcan
p~ri"strl~o~tlt"or~rrlet\t
therefore be rejec red 1 hdt I " ~ L ~ Sthe
O ( OIIC~LISIOZ~
one
can 191,rw from I'~rl~rl~uti'\
c ansrclteratiorrs reglrriirrrg r1atnr;rl k ~ n dterms arld
Icwic al wrriarrtit \ Inore ger1cr,3Ily At io~clrrrgto I'utndrrl ( I V ~ , ) , the contextsntiep,rriticrri inearl~irlgof r r m t nouns ri .r ~\ccco~'
ctPns1stlng o f a bunch of
c l rncrlil,
~
i r l c 111~irng "~CIII,~IICIC
IIIJTLC~'JTICI'1 'itereotype' whicli Itself

l ' l i e two v r c w oflt:xic;il scrnniltics X 1x:tve *just ~ ~ i e n t i o n enray

d cveU he
wrcrrrg, oi'rourse. When it corncs to lexc:;r.Lst~lrx;tx~tics,
nearly evrrytlrring is
1113 ilsr. gr:ibs. 'TIIJL,however. is pri:cisel?/ li;C:'s point. As theorists, we have
;in rdc'r \;6 l i l t "ir~ize\
&re,that I\, ~vlrdtWOI iP\ con tr~hutcwhen we speak W e
L~~ciw
anorc
,
or Itass, how to tilocicl t i l d t llut we k ~ ~ o \very
i \ r llttle about what
cvorii\ rX-rt~rrlwivt.slirearr xiid wt~it:
rt'ldt~~tl
~ I I C ~I\ Cbet\*'ee~rword meaning
,rrrcE c-clntrrbutihtl seilse I n mew o f tlre litruts of our knc,wledge, rt 15 reasonalAe tir grkc up rile slri~plr@~rbg
,l\sunlp&lonFI%e rriher~tedfrorn Frege, In
o r d t ~it Iv'i\t. t o \ ~ i i ~t r l ~ i h \~crr~~g~ >e tr~~s q ~ ~ III
t r that
~ t , 'Irea
~

As we have just cecn, the f regem asrtmlptlon presuppose\ that 11ngulf;tlc

m e a a a g are aemes, that 15, propos~non,alconstituents If we grvc up that
presuppOslttOn, tve are left with the ~ d e athat lexcal Ine,rrrmg plays sorne
role in deterrn~nlrlgthe \en\e whlc h IS an expression'\ c-ontnhutmn to the
thoright exprecsed Thrs idea car] he e-cpresd by \<iyIngthat thc sense of nn
expression 1s a fuac tion of the temcal rne,inlng of thdt expression and sorne
Gctor x, where 'x' 1s whatever, in attdlt~orlto lexical ~rlle;lnrxlg,15 needed to
d e t e m n e sense If, AS seems very hkely, 'x'~ n c h ~ dthe
e \ ~ o i f t m in
f which the
expression w tokerted (mil m p'lrtrct~iarthe most 1rnport;lnt ~xnorigc otitextual factors: what one is, taiklllg about), then wc get ,t tomr of (. 'or~textu'~li\n)
that 'generahzec ~ndexrtc~llty'That is RC.
How detnmentd wwotlld ;~ccept.inc-eof KC: thus underctood be to tile
project of systcrnAj.ltcsem'~rltics?Very Iirtle, 1 tllxnk tndesical~tydoes not
prevent us from systen~aticallymdpprrig serndrlric v,ilue\ tbr the pdrtr to
senlairtic vducs for the wholes ~n wl1icl1 they occur Tile only yu A11flcatlon
mduced by ~ n d e x ~ c a l 1s
~ tt11'
y rt the senaantlc kal~terfor tlre gats x-r~iynot be
gven In a context-irlclepencierit rruriner; they rndy not be cietenllined solely
ii,lrnework,
by the conventxons of7tIrehrlguage. Tl-nxc, In A tntth-the~rret~~
T-~erftence~
the theorem\ of one's semantic theory have to be ~o~tdztzorlill
wl~eneverthe rentellee at m u e contam rnctex~cnls(Burge 1974; Wcin~teirr
1974; F-hggnbotham 1988) Gcneralim~gindex~c~llcy,
a\ KC: does, \~mply
rnearlr that the theorems \mil altliizys be condl t~onalT-sentencec
In corltr&$tto KC, TCP, the rrlorc cor~serv~it~ve
posltlon, accepts that the
conventions oithe l,mgu,tge a\soc-late euprcsslons with senre\ It accept5 the
Fregean Presupposrnon 'TC'P rreverthele5s rgec ts the rrege'zn a\ummphori
that the senses wlr~ch'ire the meanlngs ot expreSsron\ ale ,tlso what tilese
espres\rons co,~tnbutewhen they are ured (togetller with otl-lerexprcssrons)
t exyresclorl may, but
in rnaklng a coniyletc utterance. TCP Iloldc t h ~ nil
, remc ~t ~~rdepcr~delitly
need not, contribute lt\ \erl\e--tll,tt 1s to s ~ y the
posres\es UI vlrtue of the c onverttlons of'tile Innguage, it I r r q ,iL\o contribute
an indetin~terltrrnber of otCicr senses resulting fio111 ~ n o d ~ ~ l a t loperations
on
(e g free ennchmenr, illetonyiillc transfer, scilse-extem~on,ctc ) applied t o
the proprietary sense 7 hi\ 1s 3 rbnn of Contestuailsnl, bec'~ri.;errroclulatlort
itself 1s corrtext-sensit~ve.whethc~or not modulation corrtes ~ n t o
play, ,rnd II
~t doe\, whlch modulation operatron take? place, is ,t matter of corttext It
Gtllows that what a11 expresson actudy contribute\ to t l ~ etlltxtght ex
s ~Iw,iv5 rrl'lrtei of'cortteut
pre\\ed by the IittcXr,rticeIn wl11clt ~t ot c ~ u ir

8. Llefinixlg 'IXadical CC=ontextualism7

In earlier wntmgs, 1 described Radtcal Contextuallsm as the view that
strong pragm~ticetfec-ts are cnrltminahle
Wlthvut pragridtrc Intrunons of the optional (top-down) vanety, no detemnate
propotrtlon wotdd hi. expressed (Recanati zoo4 96, see also Recarlati rgy; 239-60)

It w not enyy to makc serse of t11,tt characteri7ation, however. The very nohon
of A top-down prqp~atxcprocess of 'niodulahon' rests upon the ldea of
o p t ~ o i ~ ~ hInt vsdtur'itlon cases the pragnidtrc process of ~ ~ 1 1 assig~iment
ue
n
rn~mddtedbv tile expremon ur vlrtue of its s t a n h g meaning N o t so wlth
nt~odulat~orrorte r n ~ y ,but necd not, tliodulate the sense of an expression.
t.leytendrug ort the context. Iri contrast to saturanon, whicti 1s ln~posedbv tbe
senrutlc s (Ilv dre st~nclmgniedxung of context-rensitlve words), modulation
stLlj15 under i)ragn1ntic col~tr01.lt 'is apragmatzcully contuolled prdgmatic process,
rather thai A l i ~ ? q ~ t ~ t l ccotilrollrd
u~ly
pragnlahc process @ke saturatlon)' (1Xecanat1
~ 0 0 4I jG) I OW, then, could it be thdt moduiahon IS n1~1d2toni7Ifmodulat~on
1s rrct esrary to got A co~iipleteproposition, what difference 1s left between
snturation ~ n imoduhtiori;
I
An answer to that cluestiori was skctchcd rn Dtrect R<ferefzceand elaborated
In I21te~m1M P L ~ B ZIllere
~ Z ~ I~dncussed three radically contextuahst positions,
one of which (the '1)rapnatic (:ompoc;it~on' v ~ e w )1 descnbed as t?,llo.;vs.
111e Y r r ~ g r i ~C:ornposihort
~~ii
mew (PC) construes tl~epragmnc process ofmodui the tvordwho~e5en~e15
lntiort as optronal But it cotlstnles ~t a5 optlonal only tollll r a p e ~to
modtiluted Ifwt, < otx~clerriot word?In nolatlort, but the complex expressions in w h c l ~
they occ ur, we see t h t the pnnktry pragtnatlc processes o f niodulanon are not always
Lonungent and dnpe~~salrle,
but okea essenhd Even though the lxngulstic meamg of
a given word (or tire senuntic value that results from saturatlon) could be the expressed
smse, rhU the process of \emnmc composltlon, 1 e the puttlrlg together of that sense
wtth t h \rt?t2nhf
~
V ~ ~ I * h
T r nthpr P y r P c S i i > n S , r?~?nnt
r ) r n t - ~ tlnlpsc.
~ ~ I 7pprnpn3t~
acijust~ncnts~xkeplace \o as to nuke the paxt\ fit together within an appropnate wl~ole
On thts new worck have meamrigs whch could go cfirectly Into the mterpretatlon,
wxthout rnoddaho~i,but it IS the colnposition process that forces modulatlor~to take
pL~ce,or at leact mv~tesrt" oken the meamiw of indmdual words do not cohere by
thmlsdves, xid can he fined together only by urdergol~iga process of mutual
adjustnlent (Kecmatl ~ o o q138)

There 1s a sense In which modulatroi~is nec rsqnry, but that i\ not quite thib .;rrise la
whch saturation 1s With satura~onthere rs a st'nlanhc gap and ax1 ~IISLIUCLIOTIto fjll
the gap-both the gap and the Instnrcoon Iremg part of t l ~ eI i n ~ a ~nrean~t~g
lc
oi
the expression Wit11 modulatiori, therc need be no gap nnci there a i ~ c tlrkswucborr
to search for sorile contextud filler Skre exp~cssionmeans sornethrilg, a1u.i thxr
mean~ngcould go into the inleqret3bon- \O rnodu1~1t1011
1s opt~orral--bt~ttcr
determne 3 slutable semc for tonlplert exy-tresuons,we need to go bwond the
meaning of i~i&v~d~ial
words
creahvelv enr~rhor otherwise adjust wh<itw e are
given in vlrtue purely of. IIngmst~crneamlrg We nlust go hevond hrlgrrls~lc
meaning, w~thoutbe~ng11ngrrlstrcsUyrrrstrrts ted to do r o , d we nr e to rr~ikcsense
of the utterance. (Recariatr 2004 139)

On t h s view, rnodubcion, droug1:tl o p t ~ o l ~otten

d , tunlr out to be n~andatory
As M a r h s Egg puts ~ tthe
, proces of \err~<inac
corz\truc~oxl~ t i ~ I f - \ o r r ~ e t ~ n e s
generates a form of semntrc unclenpec~ficatlon w h t h caririot be tra~edto any
lemcal rterr~rri partrcufar soi-rie elc~zientwlmh o riot requlred 112 vlrtrxe ot the
lemcd semdncics of ,my expresuon In the renterrce stdl ha\ to h~ L O Y I L P \ ~ I U / ~ ~
provicfed m order to niake the rnteqjretatlorl of tlre wntencc cofrere I n 4uc h
Lacs, 'rernterpretatlon augments the sclriantlcc <>Caneupres";c)n wit11 r~itzble
estralcngulst.lc ~xzfomxinonti1;it btrfi.cn the gotentl,rllv confl~ctmg rn,xr-clrr~l
rn
the semantics of the expresuon' (Lgg 200, s ~ l )
Che u o n t a t u d prvvi\ron ot
the rrucslng element I\ a \trorrg pw~m~dtrt
ofl'ec t since it n not ,rcIucvcci rn
ac~ordancew t h the stand~ngrne,rrlnlg of ariv l e m c ~ litern, yet rt n uken
tnaiidatoy-wthout ~ t there
,
ivottld be some foml of senr'lriac ~~usmatclr
T h e problenl i s wlth the "otte~r''OOl-I' IS not "~1.cvavs' ICtl~cre<irem e s ,
however rare, rn which the rerltence rxpiesser a plnyosttlorr slrnplv rn vrrtsae
of the standrng nleanmg of wt)rd\ md tile context jhr~tw~tfrorrtconteut~rai
niodulatron), then the rlotron of a ~ x u ~ ~ r r rproyosltlori
ial
l a n o t iricc~hcrcnt
after all So tlie Pragnat~cCornporlrrorr view doer rtot wccecd 111 c\tablnl~
mg tlie ~t-tnchisrot~
that strong psaglrlatrc eKectf are rnelrnul:able
Thc other fomis of rad~calconrcxcnal~smI dcscnbed 1x1 I,tfertzl ,@IeantnLq,
n,mely the Wrong Forinat vretv (VVF), and M e d n ~ n gr lilnunatlv~vn(Mr),
are varlants of KC 1
' s 1 ltwe ciitrcnbed ~t 'above g v m g up the 'rregear~
presupposition, they hold that word- type\ are not assocl,iteii mrtth scrr\essenses have to be cotlstnicted 111 conteur pragtndt~c'~iIyIt 15 ikr CIZI",'~ZTII~V
of
mews that 1 now wish to recerve the Lbel 'Ra&cal Coiicextuahsnr' It 19,
however, rmsleading to drscnbc sucli views a\ h o l h n g tliat strong przrgnatrr
processes are ~nehmmable,for m RC', as 1 nleilcioned In li2terul ILlci~ri~u~q

22

CihAKi E
f i lLAi i-i) COiuil iT1ji.N 1%

(2004)~the C I ~ S ~ I ~ I L ~ I O between
II
\&tux-rtiorl ,tnd n~oclulat~on
conapser, and
wit11 11: rlhc dntinccron be.tweerl wc,th and srrcmg pragxnzltlcefikts.

7(l'lr~reL~IJLCIIic)rlct~ments'are drtitled il,y IQerry) m aspect^ or elements of the

irIterI?rcwtloxi trl. A \eriteuc r W ~ I die
L ~
not tbc 111teq>!-ct~t1011
ofmythmg In the
sentcrrc is
dxcy are corwtlhient.. of the rntcrl,retaQorz correspondmg to no

tElc \rxltencc berug ~nterpreteti" It tc customaxy to equate free

c*a,nif ~ ~ i c r/Ai tq)cA(-tr\ of'1110d~lla~o11)
to tllc ~'FTCIVISIOZIof 'unnrtlculated con?;hcuc.rra7rrx Pew':, scant. I l ~ aI \ not quite nght, bowcver.'Wodudnt~on
c,perdtc\ on tllc \er>sesof e\pressloris, s o , even tl~oughmocfulat~or~
is a j k e
~ u x g ~ ~ t u qa ps ,r that
~ c 1s I, proces;:, that xs not triggered by ~ m g i ~ s tnteaillng,
lc
r r l coal"tr,r\t rtr the iontextual ~ss~glnrrxrnt
of'v~iuesto mdemcals, stlli the senses
tia,it dec proviiicd ~hrckugllx~lo~lulatloxi
JJe not 'tl~~art~culated
constituents'
of tlic iritcrpirt,inorl, ttecd~xsetlzey < c > m i ~ i > ot~o ~\owie
ij
con\tlcuerit tn the
I
arc the rnod~~lated
sense)
scrrtciitc. ( v ~ rthe C X ~ I ~ S S I O IoI f W ~ U C ~CIICV
I l.iet-c, AT(" C M ~ O~ p e ~i t .isc
- i $11W~ICIX
we inlght \t~llbe wllllng to tdk of
uri,~rtrciil,tred~on\tltucnts.E-rrst, rnc>clul,rtlon rra'w operate at anv level, so
tlvesc rs, rr-r pnlr~ilde, pos~~I?il~ty
of ~ I O C ~ U ~ J ~ 'it
I Othe
I ~ topmost level as well.
J r i \ t '1s thc \cn,c:, of'cor-rshtuerzt exprcc.iiuri\ 111 the sentence may he modulated, tlre rcrrw of the ccorripltte srrlterlce rtjelf m.ty he nlodulated. 111
p.z~t~c"d~,ir,
it 1s p~ssrblcto 'tkreIy erlrrci12rrut only tilie sense crf a canstltuent,
but also tire scrisc of the globdl S C ' I I ~ ~ I I I Cctich 6ee ennchnient at the
topin(>\ticvel w u ~ l i dcorrcsyo~lcito the p ~ o \ r s ~ of
o r u~urticulated
~
constltuerm ('oxrsltic-r, 'swr eu'~srrple,the mctelrrcllogcal \entente 'It IS rasntng'. In
C:liap;prer 3, i: dr gue tfi'lt. the phce whrc In the mctcorolog~calevent concerns IS
~n asprct of. the ixitepretntlon oii' the scntenr e wllich IS not prov~declbv
'sdtiiliit~ng' 21) d ~ g l l ~ r l e plitce
l~t
I I ~tire lex~c~rl
iemantlcs of the weather
verb, but, ~ d t h e r ,tllt-o~~gh
tier ermt hri~c.txr There arc sever~loptions,
tllorrgh Fr-cr c~rrncX>~ncnt
rnay ~ ) p e r a ~
atethc" I C X I C . ~ lcvel, so that the vense
iI)II\CILU~'XXI, ~'il

'" i,&r iil~urycontmiporaw philosopircrs, icken-y construes the inirrprrtariot-1 of an utterance as a

.rtnrct urcd prt>pvsitirm' On tlits rtnrcruscd j)ropr)sitlotl ii:ur~c~v*>rk.
see King (2007). On 'uilart,cidatrd
con~uturiii.~',
rce lkcrxy (LOOO: 172-88 .trirl 2 . ~ 2 - h )
'" in t.driit:r wrrtiilgs,tC.fi.Ktrr,:t~~;rri( I V ~ ) JAC)UL).
,
I ~ l i dr oilti-ibute to the ~onfision,by cirscrib~n~
h e
cnn~ltiiieiie :L bri11 ( i f IIIOCIIIIIEIOII-3s the provfi~otrI ,f 'irrr:uricrri,itri!i cumtiturtirs'

--

riu

tcclr)ut r i t f N

~j

of' the verb 'to rain' is morl~~lated:

'rain' cotilc\ to riiean 'rean ~ t - l ' wlirre
,
'/'
Is the contcxtually provrded locatxon. ('Tila1 is die ' v a r ~ ~ dFurrctiorr'
tc
anYilyai
&&red tn Recallati 2002 and iurn.rnan;red below in C:l.wptei 3, @.3 )
h o t h e r optton 1s to treat the proc uss office enr~chrueiitas tdl\mg placc at
the topmost level: the verb contributes lts regilla semc, but the iilterpretatloa of the $obd sentence is e~lr~ched
through the provolotl of ,112 extr,l
conjunct m ttle sc ope of the event quaxrttfier
As I br~eflyrxlexztion m Chapter 3 , there 1s vet another option for 'It 1s
ra~ning',and ~tcorrespond to the second type ot'case tn .cvl~lchwe srr'xy be
wrUlng to talk of unxtlculated constituerzts. In l'er?pccctivi~l'17zj"lot<q/lt(2007), I
argue that the situation w ~ t hrespect to w h ~ c hthc rontellt of-dtl utterance 1s
evaluated-the 'circ~irrl+t.ance
of ev~1uation'--rer~iains un,rrtzcul,tted, =lid 1
advocate a liberal vlew of what counts ds the c~rcuinst~r~ce
of'evnlu~tioll.Xn
parh~ular,tlie placc w h ~ hc the nreteurologlcjl event ionc crns i n ~ ybe
l ~ ~the
n stdtc~~Ielit
treated zs (an dspect ot) the ~ ~ r c ~ ~ n ~ soft aenvcael ~ ~ a t fbr
'It a raining'. In thlr franiework, the lotatrorr of the ralnlrig event IS ail
unartlculated constituent of the irlterpretdtiori
In Prrspt.ctztla1 ?7zozi",,ul1t, I corqecture that otzly aspects of thc utu.inott of
evaluat~onremim ur~aalculated.I d~st~ngu~sh
between the cenr,ultlc-Iriterprctanon oftbe sentence wldi re5pect to context- -the loktorz, x I dl it -,mci the
Atlshn~dnpropo5lhon consrstlng of the lekton together with the situ,*tlon In
\vhich ~t~sto be evaluated (here, a cermn place w k c h the speaker tac~dyrefers
to). The situation 1s cor~textud.lydetenmned w~tltoutcorrespulicfing to anyl~
to that
thmg In the sentence whtxc content n to bc evaluateti w ~ t respect
situdtton. So unmculated corlshttlerlts there are, but they are not constituetits
of the lektc~n:they are conshtuents ofthe Aust~nlanproposzt~on.111contrast tct
the Austlman propos~non,che Iekfc7n1s 'fblly amctrlated'. 7 111s me,m\, basicnlly,
that I take ti-ee ennchrnerlt ('mti modulatton generally) to operate only loc,dly,
on the senses of\entenhal constttuents. Global or topmost modula~oa1s ruled
out: there 'Ire no unaa~culdtedconstituents in the lektor-all
u~r~mculated
conshtcrents belong to the sltudnon o f r v d u a ~ o n . ~ ~

'" Whde writing this, I realize &at I clon't have aproper argument to rule out topnlost rrrodrdatron;so
I should remain agriostsc ori this issue. 11rde'd sortle ofthe procrsses dnebrribeci tn the 1)orik :ls arnenablc to
a pragmatic treatment within TCP (e.g. exhausnfic;~tronor contcxt-shift) can certainly take piacc. at the
topnlost level. The arguments prr>vrded in A~specrival'licorrght a p n s t 'unanicul;rreJ ionstiturIir\ In dtc
Irktor,' are dl negatlvc. algunrerlts, dtte~npungto sliitw that the reason rriidufcdzt) i;rl for wsig~mpecern

- - -Because, 1x1 the I-'erq?eckvnl If'hcttr~ltt(2007) f%arnework,the lektotz is fully

ara~ulated,~th a beell cldrrned that ~t cannot be the same tfung as the r ~ c h
'what 1s said' ctf Ott7rnl Meantug (2004) Thus, In a d~scussionof Perspectival
7hot@t, Max Kolbel cla~nist 1 1 ~what 1 cdecf 'what is said' In my earher
book ~11o~ild
not be equated to the lekton, despite the Gct that Yekton' means
'wliat 1%sard' 112 Greek. The reason why the Irkton cainot be equated to
what is s a d is that, actording to 1i1y earher account, what is said is nonmmirnal-rt 15 affkcted by pnrnary pragnmatlc processes such as free ennchment--while, according to I)erspecttval Thotlght, the lekton Larinot contaln
any 'urlart~c~rlated
conrtltuerit' Whatever unamculated consatuents there
,%reare corlstlmerits of the ( omplete conterst, or Austinian proposition: they
3f-ear;pertsof the clrcurristance o-t evaiuation. So, Kolbel concludes, it seems
that my earlier 'what i\ said' sliould be equated to the Austman proposition
rather than to the lekton (Kolbel 2008).
Rut 1 marr1thni t h t tlie lekton of Pmspecttval Z%ozqht is the nc1z 'what is said'
of lzteral Mearzittq Whdt is sad is, indeed, affected by niodulatlon processes
such 1'5. fkce ennchrnent. Ths, however, 1s not a matter of providmg unartlculacd conshtuents, at le'zst rnso&r as rrlod~ilatloriuke5 place locally Through
free e~rrichtz~e~it,
we malie the contextud rneamng ofa lexlcd item or phrase
more speclfic t h ~ nits literal (convetl-t~onal)rneamng The output rense,
r e ~ ~ ~ ti-orn
l t ~ ltree
g e~mclnlent,is k r t x ulated, because ~tcorrespond?to sometlung ui the centrnce, r~ariielythe lcxi~alitem or phrase whose meamng has
beell rr~idemore speciiic SOthe lektott cart be &illy artrculated, w~thoutbeing
'rnu~mrdl'arrd tr~xirfectrtlby tl-ee pr,agmatxc processes In m y frafarnework,the
1i.kton 15 verv f;arti-on1 ri~~~imial,
imce mocluhtion (-an come into play at every
mge ~n the proc css of sctn~ntitcocilpocitlon from which it ongulates

- - - -

I o.

Overview and acknotvledgxr~ents

lhic book-& sequel to I,ltera.uE Menntny (zoo4)-consuts of vaious case

\tr~dicsintencied to Illtrstratc the TCP framework. Sorrie of the studies
lravc already appeared In pnnt and are reprinted here in revised forni. All
of tlren~give prick of place to 'modulation', a farnrly of pnrnary pragmatic
urlarhcuiated coristituena to the lektorr (rarller than
carry no weight.

LO

the situation of evaluation) are no good and should

processes that make it possible to ai$mt the rneaning of words dnd phrase5 Irz
response to conversatlond needs, by endow~ng&em wlth contextud senses
dishnet from thelr hteral meaxlings
The relevant nohons and the t h e o r e ~ c dframework are mtrotiuced rxl
Chapter I , which tnes to slio~vthat contextud inodt-ilatlon 1s comp,~t~ble
unth (a suitably weak fonll o f ) conlpos~trorlalrty (Some tlicoreti~dbackground on context-sensitivity 1s also to be found xn Chaptt~r6 ) Tllen cotne
two case sixidles
Chapter 2 deals n t h ad1ectlves, I argue t h a ~the apparent lack. oi irrtertrvec 1s an ~ l l ~ t s ~
due
o r to
~ con textual
sectivlty of c ertdn (predicatlve) ;~r?)ec
t ~ tr~ceahlcto n~odulat~on
vanatlons In sense, some of w h ~ c are
Chapter 3, which ha;, alre<icdy btcn mentlnr~ed, deals ~ 7 t hweatlrer
sentences. I criacize the mew that the> c x r y an arwnxent slot fix a ioc~uon,
and argue that the taclt reference to ,I lot atlnn which 15 tyyicd of \critences
like 'It is r m m g ' (aid w h i ~ hafi~ctstheir trut11-concfrt~onr) n, agalri, ,I
matter of pragmatics.
In Chapter 4,X pause to ~orlsrderaj/terui~tiveways of construing the T(,P
haalework, conesponding to wl~dt1 ~ d l e dthe syntactic and rile cerilmtri
1riterl)retahoil111Recan~tr(aam),and I nzentlon ari rritngLiirlg version of the
svntactic Interpretation which would riiakt &c~epr'ipsatsc pzoctLssei11ngtlrs
tic phenorrlena in a hv1y narrow scnct
Chapter j cleals with errzhtdded rmyhcatureb, a pl~cnornelionwtut 11 h,n
received a good deal of attenhon reccntiy and .ivhcll has let4 m,mv rc.iearclzerr to cast doubt on the tradlnors,tl cilvl\ion oflabour between wrliclrltlcs a n d
pragmatics I dwcuss the reldtior~between vanou\ porr~bleapilroac1z;c.ir t ) tire
phenomenon, including T C P
of
C h q t e r 6 lntrod~lcesthe ide,l of ~orrtexr\h~Ct The phcnorncl~a~rl
contest-sisili is of conceni to 1X,P becdr~sc,like rnodulntlori, it: intcrfi,res
locally with seinairhc conlposrtlorl and yel& strong pragrriatic eirects;
(irr partrcular,
Anlong these effects are certaln quorat~on'tl ~~henomeri~r
rn~xedcluotation) to whicl~Chapter5 7 and 8 arc dthvotecl Tl-tew pl-rerioniena. I argue, can be accounted h r liragnratrcallv, i r l terms ot lwtlr rcrntexlshfi and Gee enrichment
The research leadulg to tlus book has received filr~dlngfiom the Luropean Research Counc~lunder the European Corninun1t)i's Seventlr Frame.
work Programme (F1'7/zoo7-2at~) / LKG gra~itagreement no zac) 441CCC, and also from die Center ik)r the Study o-FMind in Ndmre (TSMN)

in 0 4 0 X mi mdebted to the cdrtoz\ of the- jourri*~Is,tncl volurnes In whlch

caaircr \wr\ro*rs af sonre of the c h a p ~ e ~prrvnou~ly
s
appe~redfor thelr
1x"rxlfissrorr to repnrrt thrrxl, to the rc-v.newer.; corrvrs~sc~onecfby Peter
Moanci&rr3062ot OAbrJ L f r r w e r ~ ~krcss
q
G3r t h e ~ ri o m l e n t s and suggesrtoxls, d a d ttr tlie many colle~~,rues
J X I ~f r ~ r n dwltli
~ whom I have been
lortiixi,iec rl~oiijilnto Inrer~c
t rrtirtitllly over thc y e m or1 the matters dealt
wntt~rrr tl^rr\ book. Kent Bach, I Tcrrrxarl CL1ppelen,Kobyri Carston, Gennaro
("lue~ckir;r, Xienoil tle Con~ulier,t'lllhppe I)c. Br~banter,Jkr6me I-Ioklc,
Pat11 1 gre, 1 5 ~ l,il-otrrtre,
1
Mar~i~ei
Cnar~ra-C'~ryrrrtera,
Ceurts, Lulsa

M'LJL~,
AtlPlr Mer-crer, Stephen Ne,tlc, C;ec>EN~\rnberg,
Peter P a p , Stefano
Plrdeli~,Plrrlrpire Sclrlexilrer. BcryCunlxlSpcctor. D m Sperber, Jason StanIcj, $owf Stern, Is~duraStol.~tlovic,C11.1,~desfravrs. Marcel Vu~llautne,Dag
Westcestal-d, 1 Icrrdre Wil\on, 'rnd 1' iiurex~ot11en who wlU furglve me for
tlyurg to Lc'rp the i ~ s of
t narxres re~soxr'al~ly
short. I&stbut not ledst, 1 ZITI
grarefbl tc:, the rxterrrhen of dle I cvcrl'rulnle rx~tcrrl~rtional
network "xploltntiorr ob ( "oritcxt lrl C:ommuxncatro~x',I t k c 1 by I Aurence Goldstc~n,for marly
prrod dr,c rrsilnris, rid tcj my collc,igue\ and studcxlts, both at Instlttit Jean
Nniod jP~rr5). i d Archi: (7t Rrxdrexw), i i ~ rilrrr
r
jrrptit 111 sen~ln'irs,is well AS
m ccrrrvex\,xnorr

Compositionality, Flexibility,
and Context-Dependence
r . Two types of rule
'The corrtpositionrdity idea is the idea that sei-t~airticir~terpretationproceeds
in two steps. Simple espressiorls are interpreted by means of Ic?x.ic~zlrulrr,
which assign rneanings to them directly. Com.plex expressions are interpreted by means of covrapositional rules, which assign meanins to them
i o the
n nleanings of ttreir pats.
indirectly. as a f ~ ~ ~ i c tof
For any sirnple expression a, tlle associated lcxicnl nile says that the
interpretation of a is a certain entity vn:

There w d be a many ruler of ttr~ssort as thcre ace sixnple exprc5sicsrLs (or,

rather, reading of s~rnpleexpressions1) In the language. Smce the number
of slrnplc expressions and the number of rcnd~rrgswl~rclt,In nmbrguouc
expres5ion h a are both finlte, it 15, in pnnc~ple,poss~blefor a fitlitc rnmd
to get to know the mearungs of dl simple expressrorss of' the Iatlpage
by learning zach of the lex~calrules that are assoc~atedw ~ t hthein ut
t h ~ sway.
The syntdx of natural language 1.; such that (because of recurav~ty)the
n u ~ d e ofconrplex
r
eqresslons is not fin~te:for any expression of whatever
con~plemtyit 1s always poss~bleto construct a more coxnples expressxotl. So
~twould not be powble for a fimte mmtl to get to know the nieatllng of dl1

For the puxpose~of applying rlle iotcrprrtatiun iunct~on,a n ambliguous exprrssictn a etld4)wed witfi
n reachrigs counts as several hornot~yrnorrsexpressio~lsnl, n:. . . . u,, r:~cl~
of ~vhicbis r t ~ t c ~ r c k " drnrxra
)y
ofa rille like (1).

of the lartguage, simple or complex, by learning that meaning

dlrectly If we only had rdes hke (I) to interpret a hrlguwt~cexpression,
n~rmberof tbeni, and we could not learn
there would have to be ail ~nf~illte
them So we need A ctlKerent type of nrle than ( I ) for intefpretlrlg complex

expressions

expression\

Just 35 tlle nu~nberof smiple expressions 1s fmte, the number of ways m

whch &\tinct expresslora can be put together so JS to yleld a complex expressloil of the I r n g ~ ~ 1s
~ fltute
g e In other bvorck, there is d f i t e riumber ofsynt;tchc
r~de,,tllrougl~:l?.v111ch
an t d i t e tlurtlber of conlplex eqress~onscan be generated The soluhon, hen, rs to p w each syn~ictrcnde tylth d cemanhc rule of a
new sort--a conipos~t~ondj.
nde A cornpouhond rule 1s somethmg hke

bvhere '*' \~%nds

fior at1 arbrtrary mode of combination The rule says that the
interprctdtron of the cornplex express~ona*P 1s the value of a certam
functron f when it t&es as argtrrnerrts the mterpretatlon of a and the
lnterpretdhorl of /3
A cornpos~t~orjd
rtile ~ ~ s o c ~ awith
t e s a paaiculdr wdv of combining two
expre\slons (A 3 r d /3 furiction whose arguriients arc tlie nleanmgs (mterpret,~t~trton\)
of u snd 8,~ n whose
d
value 17 the resultrng mearuiig (interpretatlour) for the corr~plexexpression a*/3 1h'mks to rules of this sort, ~t 17
possible to compute the meaning of m expresslon of whatever degree of
~omplexlt-von the basis of tlie rnelmrngs of its parts If the parts are slmple,
tlierr nlcdniilg l(u)arid L(P) will he glven drectly by lemcal rules such as (I)
If tlrz put\ are thern\elves complex, their iileanings will therrlselves be
de~~vxblc
via co~tipos~tional
rules such ~5 (2)
1x1 this GametvctrL, rrlterestmgly, the rnearnrig of a complex expresslon
only depend\ upon two things. the meari~iigsof its inlmediate constituents
(the wnpler expres\iori\ into whrch ~t cdn be an'tlysed), and the way they are
put together Nothing else c onnts 111pdrticular, the n~eaivngofan expressiori does not depend upon the medliings of other expressions that are not its
cctnstrtuent?,eveii if they occur iii the sarlie sentence or discourse Nor can
tlie nieariing of a glven expression deperrd upon the meaning of a more
complex elrpressron lri \vhlclt zt ocCLir) ds a constituent O r at least, this 1s
staridartily con\iderecl to be a consequerice of composit~onality In I+. composltlonal langtxage, we are told, the meaning of an expression depends
upon the n~eanlngsof itc parts, In a bottom-up fashion, but ~t does not

depend upon the rnearung o f t h e \v11ol~to whrck? ~tbelongs, nor upori the
rnemngs of the other p ~ m
of that s~mcrwhole '2"op-cfo-tv11' or "Xatcx,d'
rnfluences on akeanrrig are ruled out h y tile compoanonal pzclredure Vat,
accordrng to some author,, such r116ucncrs ale precisely cvlrat we observe

2.

Sernantic Aexibilit y

A language eA11b1ts sewratztlcJc..czbtlztlt, rf tlltt follow~rtgc ondlt~ott15 \~trsi?rii

in that language, the inearling 05 a. W < X C ~ may vaiy honr o c t rrrrrncc to
occurrence, and ~tnidy vary, 111 p,irtlculrrr, 3%A filn~ttc~n
OI the other worik rt
cornbriies wltli Tlirougl~scmAritlc Het~b~lity,
tllc rnedltir-1g of exprcssrorr
may well depend upon the meatllrig of t l i t corriplex rrr w h ~ ~r tl occurs
r
(top
down influence), and ~t inay ASO depenc! tiport the mtdrnxtg of tint other
words that occur in the sarne complex (latcral mfluente).
O n e of the authors w h o has 111\1,tcrci thdt naturdj l ~ n g ~ i ~exh~bxt
ge~
semantic flexlblllty is Jonathan C oherr, r r l A scnes c t f paptxr\ rn which lrc
cntici7es mainstream ~pprt>clcI~v\
111 ~ ~ I I I ~ ~ L IIe
I C Sgive\ exarxrplcs lAe the
follo wlllg
III tile scnttxntr\
Consider 'drop'
(3) Most stitdents here h o p g ~ ~ g r ~ ~111p thcr~r
l i v find vear

(where 'drop' mems 'drop jtudylng'),

(4) Most students here drop grograpl-~viat tulcs

Iri

tlierr final vear

(where 'drop' ineans 'drop atte~~durg'),

(,) M o ~students
t
here d m p geographylectures rra&nga\5ig1meiltiul t l ~ efind
~r vex
(where 'drop'mea~ls'drop execut~ng')
(6) Most students here drop geogaplly lecnlrcu, re'td~ngass~plr~lt~r~ts
llbrani kes
m their h a 1 year
(where 'drop' rrream 'drop pavlrlp'). and 50 oil lndefiniteiy If wc a c c w t thar a
sentence can be as 1011g as we please, thcri rlrere seem7 n o ptedrctable end to the
vanety of expressions that we can put t~~eaim~@x~LIy
afier 'drop', so 3s to i~npubc~
a
serles of hfferent mearnns on the latter word (Cohe~lry86 227 8)
Accorhng to Coben, the verb %rop\takes o n a difikrent mear~rllgm edch of
(3) to (6),and one of the thing5 that deternr~nesthe rneamng ~ttdItier o n 1s the
noun phrase ~t cornblrles vat11

IFle iort t-ri tIrorg that constltxte. ccrrttlng the gx'is5 l r cluite dlil^erentfrom, e.g , the
ion ~ i j - t j l l lt11,it
l ~ (:~n$ritute'I
cotnng n kc oiicst v ~ vto bee tiuh is tct IrnaWle
wk~acconsntrrrc, cibt~v~ng
tile orckt to ( u l sorxletl-iing I f iorl8eone tells rile to cut
g ~ ' ~ s i 1 rrlriil otit &nuntistah ~t wirh ;f kx11/(", or i f 1 ilnl oiclered to cut the cake
2nd B rirn tn7crI T wldr 3 Idtvnrrto\ver, m e'xc /I c,rsc I wsjl have faded to obey the
ortier (Sts,nie rc)Xo '23 3 )

Ac-tor-clirig tc> Seadc,

sonlerhiog itiiferent---bas digerent satisFat-titm coriditiorls-----in ' C L I ~ the grass1 ;rl11Z1 it1 'ctlt the &e'; arld tllat is
hecaiisc: ttii: mcanirrg which the verb "cut' takes c'rn in a particular occurrerric depexltis, ~xtterili;l, upon what. i s said to bc. cut. Sirnihrly, tile verb
"iikt:' t:lki:s c j t ~.I tfiffer-cnt tncnrting i n (7)and (8):
' C L I ~ ' means

(7) 1ir likes rrry sister

(8) i-rr likes roastcti jrc>rk

The tint serrtcl1r.e tdks ; I ~ O L I C'afPet-tivt.' Lihrxy ~ I I Cthe

' ~ sci:onLf L L ~ O L I'culinary'
~
Fining. 'Ttrere is :rs I-rrtrchdifjfere~~ce
b e t ~ v e r the
r ~ two Pitrids of state as there is
bctwcc-rr dria processes ofcuait~girlvolvirig grass ~ i r i dcakes respectively.
'T'l~ccxasiipies 1 have given st) Eir :rlJ iiivolve cr, transitive verb the (exact)
nremirtg of wl~icl,ciepends upon the nt-rurr plrrase tlr:lt serves as its cornpier*>errt. Arr evr:rr nwrc i-irotitiitivc class ot'zsarx1p1t.s involves a4ectives the
((~xxct)rrreasring o f which deperrds rrg:ctrx the ~ O L ~tbcy
I I n~ociifir.
A good car
is n t r t good in exactly the s ~ ~ scrlse
u e jn which n goo~ih011se is; a piece of
Pugg:igi. is r r o c liglit 112 exactly tire siirne sense in which :i round is light: a big
uioirsc's \v:ry oi'iieirrg big differs, to sorrle cxtcrpt, lxrorr~the cv;~yin whicli a
big eXt.ph;~rrcis big, ;r pink grapefruit i s not pink rrl thc sartlt: way----under the
sLirneaspect --as a pink raincoat; :r ~;LSI-typist's way of being Gst is not the
s:mjc: as ,a ikst rurrrrer'r way ~ f t ) ~ iI;ist;
r ~ gn17d SO 0x1 ;rnd s o fbrtl,. In ;111 cases
tire. basic ~nlc,-ixling
of"ebca~tjec.tivcxis iXcslleJ out diti1srerttly arcorrlilig to the
no~111i t rrrirtiiiies.
Scnnarrcic- Heuibifity arlct compositiondicv. 16 1 have characterizeti them,
citbcxirttr he rrl~rr\rrillyexclusive propert-irs. As Jerry Fodar p ~ ~it,
ts
.-

I he cornrj)trsrtiibn;iiilyrliesis says that corrlplex repri.sentaQcrlis inherit their content

&on1srnipic. orre\, #lot via. t)f:~rs.u~ Z L tile
I ~ [Besrbilityl thesis says that the content of a
srrilple [rci~7rcs=ritrcr(~r,j
depertds (inter d i a l ) ( j iwliici-r
~
consl,les [representation] it's

--

C O M P 0 5 t T I C ) N A I 11 Y, F L b X l B l L i T Y , A N D

O N I t.X I -1)i-J'bNLU

NC'k

31

embedded In. CJearty, it can't bc that both are tnie. Something's gort,i givc. (1 odor
'003

06- 7)

So, ~ f w take
e r ~ ~ ~ t ulangizges
ral
to be colnpo\rt~t>nal,
tor the rc~sonc< i J d ~ ~ ~ e d
above, ~t seemi th'it we mu\t re-,ir*,~lv,ethe Aleged cx'xm plcs of seln'intlc
l~
fleulbllity, so 2s to make ttrcrr* cornpat~blewlth tire c o r n y o s l h o n ~ l the\%.
I will p u ~ \ i t ct h ~ line
t
below But we rriay also, follo.vvrng C:ol.len, give up
tire \tar~clard.'msulatronirt' approacli to senzailtrc coiriposltion auurne(l by
I-odor in favo~trof an alternatrve, 'rnteractronnt' approach:
According to the irls~tlationistaccount the meaning of-any one word that occurs 1x1
a particular senterlce is insulated against interference fruni the nle:iriiilg of any other
word in the satire sentence. O n this view the composition of;t sentence resembles
tile c-onsrructionof A wd1 fi.i.0111bricks of difirent siiapes. l'he result depends on the
properties of the parts anti the pattern of their combination. 1-3utj i l s i as each brick
has exacrly tlrc sarntxsl~apein every wall or part of 3 w& to wliicl, it is rrroveci. so
too each standard sense of a word or phrase is exactly the sarrtc iil cvery sentence or
part o i a sentence in which it oct:i)rs.. .
Intertictionisni r~rakesthe contradictory assertion: in come sentences in some
languages the meaning ot'a word in a sentence may be detcnnincr'i irt part by the
word's verbal corutcxt in that sentence. . . . O n tliis vicw tlie corrrposition o i a
sentencc is more like the construction of'a wall &on1 sand-bags of'ciifirrcnt kinds.
'Riough the size, stntcture, texture and ccx1tent.s of 3 sand-[rag restrict the mlge of
shapes it can take on, the actual shape it dopts in a p:krtjcnlar sitttat-ion clcpcnc;is to a
greater ctr lesser extent on the shapes adopted by otl~ersand--bag ii~
clle wall, and
tile same sand--bag111igl:llttake on a sornewi~atdifi'erent shape in anotl-lcrwall or i r l :x
~Sf&:ret~t
position it1 tlie sxne wad. (thhen r ySft: 223)
According to ('ohen (1986 A?(>), 'we callnot construct 'I 'lelriant~t\ h r m y
natur,tl 1mgunLred o u g tlre ranre lmes ar a semantics for n fornral sy5tern of
any currently farrrrliar ktrd Projects 11ke r)avldson7s o r Montagie', t'introt
succeed ' They cannot sut ceed pseclsely becaucr 'art~ficid Lnguagei, s,~tisf;r
a
1 imulatlonnt aCCouIit wherc.,ls rtntural lang~~agcr
recliilre a11 ~nterac-tlonlst
one' ( C o h e i ~1986 224).
Whatever Cohejl r n , w have had ni nrind 111 fils talk of ' ~ n t e r a ~ t ~ a i ~ ~ ~ t
~ei~r'rntlcs'it is not clear to nrc that we Ir,lve to depart frorrr the standard
c o n r p o ~ t i o ntrarlrework
~l
irdlented hoi11 Uavtdwn 2nd Montague if we are
to account for \ernmtlc flexrb~Ltv In thtj chapter, I wlll ilueitlon the
a ~ s u n ~ p t i ot uh ~ sem,mtlc
t
Aexrbillty

i\

mcoml>u~blewtth cornl)os~t~ortahty,

Fodor cla~msn~ the above p~rssage.1 thlnk it IS not. It 15 true that. m 3

ompo~itionallanguage, the 1~1eaningofa complex expression ordy depends
upoil the rmeanixlg of its irrunediate constituents and the way they are put
together: nothirig else counts. 'This seen= to rule out top-down and lateral
influences of the sort the interactionist describes, but, 1 will a r p e , it does
not really. When Fodor (2003: 9 6 7 ) writes, 'The cornpositionality thesis
says that con~plexreyresentatio~isinherit their content from simple ones, not
virr vetra', he overstates his case. It nxry well be that complex representations
inherit their cc:)ntertts hoot simple ones, irl a strictly bottom-up fashion,
while ul the samc7time sixllple representations l~avetheir contertts determined,
ill argue.
in part, by the complex expressiorrs in which they occur. O r so I w
I{ this is true. then a latlgrrage can exhibit both cornpositionality and
sert~anticflexibility.

3,

3. Standing mealling 21s occasion meaning

1x1 all the exanlples of setriai~ticflexibility I have given, it is possible and
tfesirable to draw a distirlctiort between the standing tneanirlg of the expression (verb or adjective) xi fired by t l ~ t :semar~ticconventior~sof the language, and tire amrsiorr rtzeaniug which the expression assumes on a particular
occurrence. Tllus 'cut' has a standing meaning in English, and that stmding
n~eanirlgis canie~fby all non-ictiornatic occurrences of the word; yet we
need riot deny that 'cut' takes on a different occasion meaning it3 'cut the
grass'aaxid in 'cut the cake'. Likewise for all the otller examples: in all cases
we can draw a distinction between standrtg meariirlg and occasion meanirtg. Note that the dist-irrction does not apply to tndy ambiguous expressions: in the case of, for example, 'bank', there is no standing meaning
which tlie word--type itselfcarries, whether it is taken irr the financial or in
rl;e other S ~ F S I _ L Rather,
.
here sw= disdnct wclr&-tjTe-, c;cll "r'h irs
own (standing) n~eaning.~

.' What ai3out 'pulysemous' expn-ssmns like 'Iigttt'? Here, I would argue, &ere is a standing nleanmg
whrzlr the word 'light' carries 111 tlie language, even d the vanous senses the word can take m vanous
cnv~rotnrietits("Iiglit sound', 'bght luggage', etc.) happen to be conventlctrlalized and sotnehow precornplied in the Lex~con.It ~votlidbe a mistake, in the case of 'light', to treat the multiplicity ofreadings a
a mulnpliuty of words (honlon>my).

The standlng nlearung a tf-tc "iremmg which the word (type) lras m
wolat~on, In vrrttre of the t c ,rverrtrons of L ~ Cl a ~ i g ~ ~ I~ktg co( CdSICI17
niexlmg 1.5 the rilearirllig lvhrih a11 ociurrence of the word t ~ k c )on LXI,I
particular linguistic context. 'What varies as 3 function of the other words iii
the sentence is the occasion nle~riing,nitt the standing ~llea~liltg.
DOCSthis
variation, and the cxisterice OF both top-ttowx~ and 1ater;rl ii-tflrrerrces on
occasion meaning, corrflicr with ~or~1positiox1:ility?
Arguabiy r l o ~ .
Corrsider the 'cut' exarrq3le. 7'11~word 'cut' has a certain n~earrirtgin the
language. It also takes or1 a ci-rtaiil otcasiorr inearling in t11r pfrrasr ' c u t tl~c'
grass'. I.et us assume, wit11 Searlc, tli~ittile rltcarlirrg of "cut the gr:ss' i s
sonletlung like M<)W 1-r.iri ~:RASS. Thus the oicasiorr rncaiiiirg of 'clrt' is the
sense MOW, and ~t tcrkcs 031 t i l l s oca-;isioti tncaning as ;1 rtsuit ot.'1~cer:~l/ropi h l ecor~~positriorrnlity,
brc:inise- down influences. But this is c o r ~ ~ ~ ~ a twitli
otie niay arg~ze-the occ;rsiorl oicanirlg oi"cur' is ~ ~ o t h i n
l xgi t an i~yjc-c.i
qfthc
rneurziq of tdzo contplcx verb-pizrnse "cut tlzc Rruss'. Now the ri~eaxui-r;i,of the
verb-phrase depends uporr the n~catiingofits various constituerrts, rnc.l~iiiity
the cttrttplcvrrrizt 'thegras'. ilerrcc it is xlcr surprise that the occasiort xncariirrg of
' C L I ~ ' ( ~ U L aspect
I
of the tnr:~~iing
o f the verb- phrae) dcper~dsupon ttrv
i~ieanirrgof tlie deterilliner p11r;rsc that conlpleres the vf:rl?, ,just as it ikpends
upon the (staiillingj t~rcanirxgof tllc itcrh i~seli;since Itotl~the verb : i r d its
conrplernent are ~:unstiruerrrsof ~ l r ewrh-plirase.
Following a suggestion \vliiclr Scarle traces t o Etf Keerian,' 1t.t us ascit~~le
that the s&nding rrleariing of "cut' is a hrrceiori from oljcct-s oi'cutdrjg (the
soas of things co11e certs: cakes, 9-ass, etc.) LO specific eutti~qjoperatioi~s
relevant to those ot3ject-s: nlowirrg, slicing, etc. Let trs assume, tilrchc~r.tl>:rt
the argument ~7fthe fuirction is deternli~ledby the granl~~~atic;ri
object of
'cut', and tlrat the value of' rlie i~~~ictiorz
(thc specific ctitting ol3cratiuri at
stake) is the occasion menrlinl; of' the verb in thc verk--phrase. Si1ri.c the
value of the furlctiorr depends both upon the funztiorl and its argclrnent, i t is
no surprise that the occasioxi nieartirii: OF 'cut' depends. m pan. upon the
object that is s i d to be cut. On this analysis tlre illearrir~gofthe ccjmplex "cut

According to Keenan's srr~csu~rii.

as riatrd Ivy Seirrlc, :just : I S . . . sonip nwrhenranc.ai h,nnii>rrr take
driil.rent inteqxetahons depending on wlrerher they t i k c acr ever1 or an odd ni~xnheras argurircnr. so the
word "cut" has M e r e n t mterprcratlans.. hut ihrsc difiprent interyrewaom art* <ietennoleii hy tlrr
hfferent argume~~b---grass,
hair, take, skin and ciorh.. . . O n ttrls accoirrlt r t IS rhe wnrd "coi", together
with clie literal ~iieaningof "pass", that drtormineb that it11 '"cut the grass" "cut" h a a difierent
mtrrprewtiot~fiom die literal nieaiung of ''cut''"'cut"rn nit thc cake"' (Searle rp8o: 2,z4)

i4

tlre i?;r~\\'iJepc.nld tq)ox"he (~t.milt11g)I I I C ' L ~ I I I ~ S ot I & part? u1 3 stnctly

bottaan, -tip nILtnner 7 he phr'w kcnt dllr gra.rc' rcprewxrts a certain process
(mowuig) opczrrmngon 3 ~ertarlrobject (the gr<a\) The \ern'lnh~contr~butlon of ttrc L erh 2 (lit' n liot directly the proc tcs of rr-rowmg but iornetlnng
more ,&,tl,tcr, nnrnclv a ~ ~ X I I C ~ I w
O IhI l c l ~tdkcr that p1oces.r as a vdue for a
gvcrx .rr gunlent (tErc WLSS) The cc3rlrplenrent 'the grass' contnt>utes both
the .ir gunlcrlt of tlte funcnon . u ~ dthe object the rnowxxig process operates
rnednlng clf'c u t q r\ not ntliEy tile rnearllng
ox1 Clo wll,rr I c ailed rllc occLt\~on
of rl-rc word 'cut', or1
anrlly\a. rt 15 ' ~ naspect of the rneanmg of the
c orrrplrx plr r.rsc, contr~birted
jointly by the verb "cut' ,u?d ~ t cornplernent.
s
7 h r later,ii/top dttwrr dependence of the occzr\lox~nrean~ngof 'cut' 0 x 1 the
rneLirrir)gof 'ihr" g~'i\'r'ii nothlng brrr a ude effect: of tllc con~poslt~orld,
bortom ""1; dependiericc oftlrc Ixle,mrrlg oftlic cc>rriylcx'cut the gr'iss' upon
tine (\t,srrc?irrlg) xricarrrrtg:, of its p.irt\
0 1 7 w,ii
~
of I - X C ~ I I I I I ~out the itiggt"\tt11~11,11y\2cxvc>~~ld
L)c to .isslgn the
1bIIowillg \i,i~iil;lr~p,
nwdning to ' ~ c i i t ' -

The occ;asiorl rrre:iiling is what wc. get \vl~ei*the garnrnaticd object of 'cut"
p~wV"d11:s
;1 V:LJUC
fiir the 11igfier ortier varix1)ie "S'. If the object of cuttir~gis
$:lidto be grass, we gct:

PIIIIS' c ~ i t 'me;lals c:ira. I N ,rrrh i\irnNNrrn or: GRASS wl-tert its object is a y such
l;utnsii (y), a n t i it x t i ~ ~ n(:~J.I.
~ i s I N . I . E ~ EM A N N ~ . ROF (:AKES L V ~ C I Iits object is 3
y sitcir tla;ri < : ~ i u (i y ) . If1 v ~ i i r soincones
r
t i ) cut rhe gms, I order 11irrr to cut
tile gr,iss in a specihi. rrl;rnricr, rrarrlely, in tire inatrner orlc cuts @ass (by
rl~ocvirlgi t ) . 'TIIF order will 11ot be satisfit-iect rf, as Searle imagines, my
ai"itlrt.ssett rushes out . i r ~ c ist;lt)s the lawn wit11 a h i ! ; .
?.
b lit- slurit: sort of dn:dysis applies to tlae other rsanlples. Consider 'big
I I I O ~ I S L ~ ;I
' : big IIIO~ISC is not big irt the same serrse i o wbic11 a big elepba~ttis;
Grr arr cle.ph;rrrrj~~sr
;L\ big as a hig o1c)use wcrrricl not: count as a big elephant.
Tbc occasicttl rrrraning o f 'big' clearly depetrcis tipon the noun it modifies.
But this car] kith ac.cotrrrced tor by asslxrriing t11at tllc cctnskxr;lntmearur~gof 'big'
~ c of' which is the c>cc:asicrri xlrealling of 'big'. .That
is a firrictio*~~ l v:rlt~r
i:onstar*? xlrc:rning cnrj be represet~tedas ar) oiler1 predicate, BIG F ~ J K L ~ N X,
\*.liere tile fizc Eligi1c.r onicr \;:triable statlds I<,rthe ;irgur.r~cnrt~ E t h fixnition;
c
rlut

the occaslort meamng will be the pr ecilcate we get whcrr the frce v,ln~hle1s
~ s s ~ g n eadp ~ m c u l a rvalue, wllich value wdl be ( i e t e m r ~ e dby tlre rloirn
wblcb the adjective modifies.
Standing vneunitig of "bg'
hx hx [X(X)v ) (BIG FOR AN S)(x)]
O n dxs sndysn the occas~orinieanmg of big' (e.g. B I ~ ,I O R A Morrir: ~ r %btg
t
morise'. oor 1rIG FOR mFIEIIWNI 111'big eleph,ult') 1s nothrng brrt .trJ aspect of the
(stardmg) nmeaung of the comnplcx n a ~ u ~ - p l j 'big
r a ~ ilio~tsc'or 'big rlepli~t~~t':

That exphins why, llhe the stnrlcl~ngnieanmg ofthe conrplck r~oun-phrci\c,

,
rhe ~ilein~rrg
tlie c>ccasronalmeanlng ot the adjtctlve tlzper~dc,III p ~ r tupon
of tlle rlorlil it modifies.

As usuAtl,time devxl a ~n the de~rlc,'~rlda lot of detark wotlld 1 i . t ~to~ be

provlded to rrlake t l ~ esuggested ~nalvsnworthv 0-1' $enoils c orl\~der~~tlon
(especially when ~t come\ to the verb-olgcct construchon) M l i t the rffoi-t
can be spated beeawe, evidently, the aridysli,does ilot work Fverl IC we f1.i the
lmguntlc envuourrt~ent(I e. the modified nottrr, or the object of the verb), the
occasiori meanmg of 'brg' or 'cut' rndv shll mry: thl\ silo\;\/\that the v,m~tron1s
not due merely to the hrig~~istlc
envuonnient, contm-y to what the a r ~ ~ l y i ~ \
t l d ofthe st~ndinglrre,mllig of 't~lg'anti
elalms Ifwe rn~nrtam2 f u ~ ~ ~ t i oan'dyuc
'( nt', drld represent tfm,~t
niemulg by rrle,mh of an operqrrcfic,rtc &rc: FORAN X
or 111 c u r 1N 1HL: WNFH
OF
a\\ugge\ted, we mufr a~kr~owledgr:
that the
e
contexr, but
value of the Gee variable is not fully dcternllned hy d ~ hngma~t
may be overndexi by exhrallrlgulstlc (or extr~serttennnl)~rrfonrl~~troti
i?erm and Krat~erglve the foUowing exarnplc to dlow that a sniall
elephant 1s not necessarily an e l e ~ l l ~ ~tirat
i i t is srrzall fix an elephdnt
Irrlag~~ie
we had iint ~ntroduceda ,ien,mo poprdated w ~ t t l army ot rtkonsten lrjse
K~ngKong We in~ghtthen have s,nd sorni~h~t~g
ithe 'j~riribodoc-sn't ha-ve ,I t lr'i~ice,
C I ~ I

i.

be's only a srn& elephant', and ths could have been tnie even lfjunibo were as large as
or even larger tlun most other eleph,mt\. (Helm and Klratzer 1998: 71)

tflis context the ~mphcltco~npansonclass for ' s m d ' a the class of

xlionstcrc of the relevatit sort, not the class of elephan~5.even lf the noun
w h u h ksxnall' modifies is 'elephant'. Tlia shows that the d o m a n o f the
f ~ ~ n c t l orsn not the clms of objects denoted by the niodlfied noun, but a
coiiipariwn class cleternuned by the context In central cases that corrlpanson cl~scWIU bc the class of objects denoted by the xnodified noun, but there
are other posslble cases in d i ~ ithis not
Searle also provides couilterexarnples to the analvs~s
111

It 1% easv ro uriagine cv~trxnrtances

111 wl~tch
'cut' m ' ~ uthe
t grass' \voilld have the sarne
~riteq>tc.ution
rt hns m 'cut the cake', evtm though none of the sernarttlc contents of
the word has clt~ugeciSuppose vou and I run a bod tmn where we sell smps of p u
Suppose I sav to you, 'Cut halt'an Acre of
turf to lreuple wlio want a Lzwn in a hurry
gr,r5s tctr du$cttst'oll~er',I nught meal rlot that you bhould m m u ~ tbut
, that vou shodd
$kt e It ~ n t o\ta~p:,as vou ~ o u l dcut a cake or a loaf ofbread (Searle 1980 224-5)

Y('lrttllc g~-AS)'
here doe\ not niem c u r l I r E GILA~SIN IISE MANNER OF GMSS,
AC ~t would ii~lderthe suggested analysls l h i s shows that the value of the
frtc vlrnable Irr tile open pred~cateczur rcrt: GRASS IN TZIE WNER OF S (or.
more str~~~l~tfonniarcily
perhaps, cur THE CJXASSIN MANNER wi) need not he
detcrnlineci by tlie hnguistic object of the verb. ~t is detenmned p r a p a t l cally ,ind may but need not correspoiid to tlie hnguistlc object of the verb.
Searle g v e s a parallel example 1n whlch 'cut the cake' would mean somethlrrg I~ki.M t ~ w
7 I ~ FCAKE
Slippose we run a bakery where due to our super yeast i;tran our cakes grow
upw,rrds url~ontrollably 'Keep cuttlrlg those cakes!', I shout to the foreman,
meaning rlot that he should sl~cethem up but that he should keep t n n m n g the
tops okf (Sedrle 1980: 224-5)

Similar counterexaniples can be constructed for all the cases of semantic

flexibility I have mentioned. 'l'hus, in an appropriate context, 'He likes niy
sister' alight be interpreted in the culinary sense o f 'like' (if the referent of
'he' is a cansiibal); or 'good car' in the sense of a car that is a good place to
inhabit (if the speaker is a lionieless person).
X coticlude that semantic flexibihty is ultimately a matter of contextdepmdence. T h e tinpistic context plays the role it does because it is a

prominent aspect of the context

wluch tlie expressron OGCLI~S,

but
nonhngulstsc aspects of the context are also relevant, a, the exa~n~>lrs
show
111

7'0deal w ~ t hmciex~calshnd other co~ltext-cen\lhvezxprciractr?\, w e need to

revlse, or rather enricll, the &arne*vork set up at the hcgnnrlig o f tl~rs
chapu r In s o n ~ ecases rile cor3tetrt of an expression t annot be assrgned
drrectly by ineans of a lcxrcd rule such as ( I ) , repeated helow-

The content of a context rensltlve exprecsion depends o n the context o t

utterance, SO wlrrat we need n a co~stcxt-.;er~sslt~ve
lexlcd rule such a$ (I*)

The constant nietuimg, or 'iil-tracter', of the espresnon cx. detcrrll~neca

functionjwh~ch,giver1 A iontext L, returns a certain conterrtAi-;ia, senzar~tl~
value for the eupresslon Tor exarrxple, the. character of 'I' xlrapi, the ccmtnht
of utterance to what Kaplan cal1s the Agent of tlie c-olltcut, n,~nlelythe
speaker. Sim~larly,the character of a deiisonirtrative d detemz~nc\A i~rnctron
which, gven a (nondefectrve) contest c, returns the object demonrtmtcdi
Intended by the user of tf in L a\ seniantlc vrllue In all such C,AC\, w e need
between 't b d ~ ~ c t cCIIICP
r * LO^
(something hke) the l < a p l a ~ Cfl~bn~tlon
~~t~
tmt'. The character i r the constaint rnearrillg of the expr-rcslon, rcpre\entrd
3s a function tronl Lonteuts to cctiitentf, ,lnd the content, rcprc\errted irm
(I*), 1s i!se value wlsrch the < haracter itcternrlnec giver1 iipartrt ular i orite:t.rt"

in acldiaon to ledc-d context-serainvity, we IIUV also rreed to imkz ruum for rnrsinartu,tiiil contextnlaps rile cunteru.5 oft-he parts to rlrc ct,nrcni
sensirivitv, 1.e. for cxes iri w h ~ c the
l ~ nrnclt\ oi con~binati~?ri
e
oi'ntrerance. Noun -noun conipotrind, in FEligiishprovide
ofthe whole only with respect to d ~ Lontexr
a pnma Iicie case of that son. Evcrr if we know what a burglar is aird what a rnyhrrnarr is, we don't yet
know, out of the blue, wh,~ta husdar rrightmarc is, ibr die value of the co~ripicxphrase %trrglar
nightmare' depends upon the conrest r n additLon to the concerrts of-its para. A burglar tiiglitrnare is a
~ g h t n m r ethat bears a cercairl rclat~onK to burglar;. Willat the selevmt relauor~R IS depends upon the
context and dle speaker's intentions. '1'0 keep tlurrgs sornple, I will ignore constri~cnondcontextsensitivity in what follows. See Weiskopf (2007) ii,r a treat'nlefirofcompoiuid nomirials ism tire spirit oC
the present chapter.

(I*), covering the cases which are

LilPCI
tllcasc whiclr xc riot context-se~~sitive.
we can use a sirrgle type of rule,
liarrlrly ( r *), by co~~siciering
.ihc -furlctiori,f'as constant w ~ ~ e r ~ e tile
v e r exprcs~ic.,rrn at isslic i s riot cor~text-sencitive.'Thus if 1no;xlls pfj in ;t contextitrdepcridcxrt rnaa~ncr,I(u}, -J(c) =: rrl, fC>r corltex~c.
If, A\ i \~rggi=c\rcd
JL tflt' cr~d
of Srction 4, srm'tntlc Nex1b1ht~7rc x rnatter of
coritr*xt-tl~~>~r~d~r~c
c, the d a t ~ ntlun
t
brtwcen iundtng lrlearrlrig ,md occa5ioj1 X I I ~ J I ~tu*lt~
I ) ~ out to be ,ipdrt~cuidlc '15e of the I\=.~planla~~
dlst~nctton
i>c*twcx%ii
c l r , ~ r ~ c t uantJ
r tzti~tcnt.C3rr tlus ~pprcrarh.we can still treat the
s ~ u l t l i u ti~xcnrlirrg
;
of an expressiori such as 1big"or 'cut' as fuxlctiorlal, as it
w:rs iri the prcvioris ,licvlrnt, Imt the argiilkrexlt oi'the htnction no loriger
c"orresporids ttr thr linguistic expression with which the expression at iss~le
cumk~ixics; rritl~cr,elze li:ncriot~takes thc conrext (or some spect of the
c.cj~rtcxt)as : ~ r g i i t l i r ~111
~ t .tho case of'ssrnall' or 'big', the argament to the
I-iin~.tiii.n)is a c:c?niparisor~class prtrvltleci: by the corttext. The standing
111e:iniargof " h i s ' c;krr still bc repmsenteci as BIG FOR AN X, but now 'X' wiU
bc ;issigrieii a val~rc.in c-ontest nluch as a clcrnonstrative or LL kee pronoun is
:\ssigilzd :I V;IILIC iri coiltext.
1 cc i t \ c,JX cElis iicrib ~ppxo.ith tl~eL ontcxtli-d theorv. 1 low ddterent a it from

irr\c rhi.or) sws tlut the occ ASIOII xne,irimg 1s not (really) the
x ~ p r~t e15we,
~ ~but~ ir~drer
~ ~ '~11
~ d F p C C t of the meanlng
id tllr inrxnpit*u phmw in wlrlc-h d l a t expresston occurs. Thus the
prec%sc,rtc HI<. E OR A MOIJsL rs nut corrrtrrbuted by tile word 'big' in
7)rg rarlorrsc' but by the ctltnpl~~x
phraw l?ig ntoux' ~tself.In ' b ~ g
I ~ O I I W C 'hg'iolltnb~~tes
I Z I ~t~ )K
~ AN rY and 'rnouse' ~ o t l t ~ ~ b uboth
tes
rlic v iliac
' X' . I P I ~ the prccil~~te
MOTI\L, I X L S I I C ~ I a way that the
6 oaiipit'~pllt i\t' ( ~ l l t n b ~ t~f iI C
~ O n j ~ ~ r l ~pred~cate
tlve
MOU\E & BIG
L
i
(1 .I\SUIZIC tli,~t. I C ~ ~ L L Irliodlfi~.~t~ori
V ~
I C ~rtteqrctedby
illr,lni id prrdlc Jte colyitnc tlon-we
CIhapter 2 Cbr a ctefen~eof thc
il'irtil rhae prci31c,ltr\ic ac$ectlve\ are Intersec tn-e ) 'nlc predicate src,
koxi. A M O r J s t hcrc is m aspect 01 j7311t o f the rncanlrtg of the complex
ptir ise %rg I I ~ O I ~ \ C 'dctenr~rrled
,
by the aleanllzgs of its vanous con~.tltucncs,tnclr~tlmgthc e,vpresslon with W~IJCIIthe achecave 'big'
conrbiarc:, in ttlc phrx~e

X ~ c a

~ I I Y , ~ X of
I ~ ;I ~ CI ~'t

e 7 he contextu,d theory sces the occ asrori nxemu~gas tile context ctepen-

dent content of the expres\ion, dctennvled by (I) tlie stdnmxig memrlg

(character) of the cxpre?\ion ,md (u) the context of utterar~tc liere the
prec3ic'lte BIG FOR A MOLJSL is truly c ontnbuted by tlrc ac$ec nve 'lj~g'in
' b ~ gmouse', but ~t1s contributed in ii context dependent Iixxnricr The
s ~ n d ~ niemmg
ng
or cli~tacterot 'hg'n J filnct~oi,nmppmg a contextually provded conipanson class to the property ofbelrlg b ~ bg r that class,
t h t is bigget than most member;;oftllc clds I hat property 1s the ( ontent
clas
wllrch the a+xtlve cames 111 context. Now ttie relevait c on~p~ulroxl
n a y be contevtually provldecl by Irt;quzstlr medns. The noun "rno~xse'
denotes the clms of nuce and nxaker that c h s hlgl~lysahent Unless an
or
altemanve Lorripanson class 1s made rriore sallerzt hy extr~hrrl;~ux\~c
ex trasententrd means (as rn the 1 31~nx-Kr~~tter
\cerl,~no),%la' m %brg
~ncxse'will be contcxtudly ~~~~~~~eted as contnbutlrrg the precficate BIG
I-OR A MCIIJSZ~Since 'xliouse' cclntnbutes M o r s r t and adjectlvd rnc~ci~ficatlon 1s ~xiterpretedby rneam of predicate t otiluiictlon, the coa~plcx
~ o u ' ei ~RIG
phrase 'big rnoure' contrtbutes the t orgunc hve pred~c~ate
FOR A MOrJSk

Ln this theom the content of the cort~plexphr~se15 a fi~nctlort of the contents

of it\ p,wts, ~ rai stnctly b~fttoni-upnlanriel, but thc conter~ioT tlir p,irt\ 15, or
may be, context-dependent, xnd the I~xi'$u~st~c
context rn whrch 'tn cxprec5ron occur? 1s an aqect o f the context whic11 m;ly ictfiuetlce its content
I ateral ~ n top-down
d
~rlAuerices.ire therefore posq~ble--the coiltent camed
by a partlc~~lar
eupresaon riuy depel~dupon the otlxer expcprersion., wltl~
which it co~t~bine\-but this 1s compatible wrtb the f ~ cthat
t the content of
the whole depends upon the contenu of ~ t parts
s
In J. stnctly bottom-up
rnanner: mdeid. on the plctllre I have sketc llecl, the content o f the wtlole
depends upon ttie ctxitents of its parts (and thcir mode o f cotnhmat~on)a t ~ d
rtoll.lzn<qelse

6. Saturation and modulation

Although ~t u on the right track, the contextual theory a rtdtecf almve
rufl'en horn a senow hnutatlon. It unduly rcstncts tlie ptienonxerion of
\ernantic Aes~bllrtyto a smdl range of eqre?r~onstlidt are ~nciexjcal-lrkeIn

~rlgis 'gappy' and stands in need of

contextud cornipletlon. Indexlcals need to be contextually assigned a
value, arid s o do under-specified expressions such as 'burglar rughtrnare'.
the intended relatton R needs to be contextually specrfied In all such cases
the standing nieaning of the express~onniay be represented as ~nvolvinga
kee v,tr~ableto tvluch a value must be contextually assi_gned, and the
express~oncarrlcs a definlte content only with respect to such a contextual
t
hlie 'srnall' fall into that category
asrlgnment It is pla~xsiblet h ~ ad~ectives
and rxtvolve covert refkrerrce to a cornpanson class or standard, but what
about 'cut7-)L>o we really want to say that the meaning of 'cut' ~nEnghsh is
gappy ,ind ~r~volvec
an irnphcit reference to a contextually gven manner of
cuttxilgi 1s the word 'cut' 111 1:nglish covealy mdexcal?
I do not t h n k ~t is I assume that the standma meanlng of 'cut' 1s
rornethlrlg like EFFECT A IINEAR SEPARAlION AFFFCIWG THC INTEGRITY OF
(SOME onj~cr)
BY MEANS OF AN EI3GED INSTRIJMENT. There 1s no hee vanable
here i o be sure, &liecontext may spec~ljra11 Torts of aspects of the cuthng
operatton and flesh it out iii vanous ways (ain the Searle examples), yet I
doubt t11at the l e s l r ~nmeaiung
l
of the exprecsior~converitionally singles out a
p,~m~ular
ii~rnension(a "manner of cuthng') such that the context mu5'
provlde a defimte v ~ l u eon that dimenuon
(3onslde1, a\ an analogy, the Rurnelhart example 1 discuss In L~terul
Vlttanzvg (1Xecat1,rtlmo4 73, 105-6)
19) I he poltcenlan btoppcct the car

We natur~llv~nterpretthis as rneanlng that the pohcenian stopped the car bv

dddreumg an appropriate \rgnal to the dnver, just AS tve ndturdy Interpret
'Jollli cut the c,~ke'xi nieamng that John sllceci ~ t As
. Rumelhart (1979 78)
pointr; out, however, a cl-rfferertt mterpretahon emerges if we lrnagme a
context irr which tlte polit enian i s the dnver of the car slxch a context
provldes for a totally different 'manner of stopping the car' on the police~nan'spart Do we want to say that the transittve verb 'stop' in Enghsh
tovertlv refers to a rrlanner of stopping which the context is to specify?
Of cotir\e not Trala~tive'$top7 means CAUSE TO STOP, and this can be
fleqhed out in aB 1~ort\o f ways, yet the fleshing-out procesa 1s drfferent
&on1 the \aturahtrn process mandated by indexlcals and other expressioris
whose starld~ngmeanlng 1s gappy and requlres contextual conlpletlon
Indeed we can construct a context in which (9) would mean that the

polsceman stopped the car trz some tvdry or othet, mdiEerendy No srrch opnor~
exlsts for mdexlcals or under-speclt~ed expressionc, which do not carry ;i
definlte content unless the free variable is ass~gneda defiir~tev ~ l u em context
(see Chapter 3, Sect~onI )
In the Rumelhart exaiqle the cantext suggests a parh<ular niariner crf
stopping on the agent's p a If the contextual suggestion is corzveyed by
linguishc means-& ~t is 1x1 (g), \vhere the phrase "the pohcenian' Ir what
evokes the trafic-regllatlon frame and thereby nidkes the relev.lnt inanner
of stopping cars dent-we luve a case of iern,inhc iles~bilitythe interpretanon of 'stop' a agected by the sil&]ectof tire verb That 11 is is ecrhhshtci
by the contrast between (9) and ( r o ) tvllen both are taken out of context
(lo) The driver stopped the car

So there is semanhc flexlblhty In there exa nples; yet I do not want to Lredt
transitsve -stop7as ~ n d e x i ~ord serlla~lticallyunder-spec~fied And the same
t h n g holds for 'cut' Abctract tlst3ugh rt rc, the lingusshc rrxemlng of these
verbs is not gappy in the way in which the meallng of an u l c i i e ~ i c dor
under-specified expression 1s
O f course, I may be wrong about "top' oi "cilt'E31tnt111y p a n t ii 1~10re
generd. I t l n k there may be scrndtlhc f~enbilityeven 1f the cxpreislon
whose occasion rrleanlng 1s al5ected b\ the iieighbour-~ngtvortls n not
dlld s e m d r ~ hullder~,~~~
context-serislhve in the way iym willc11 ~nr%t'xicdl~
specified expressionc are Conc~deranother ex.rrnple I c4iscuss 111 l i t e r d l
-lileunzng (Recanah zoo4 34 6)
( I I)

The c i t y IS asleep

Because of the apparent c'itegory vrolation (a c ~ t yis not the cort of thrng t l ~ t
sleeps) either 'asleep' mnust be ~rrteqreted1x1 a rnetaphoricd or extended
sense as meaning QUIEI'ANU SII(fCYr1NG LI1 rLL A< IlVIl'Y, or 'the cltyy~lasto be
ofthe clty Eltfier
Interpreted metonynucdly ac refemrrg to the rnh~brt~nts
way, how we interpret one exprrcsiorl depencls upon how we interpret the
hilt of course we do not want
other. Tfus a selnantlc flexibility onc c J~AIII,
to account for that type of example m tenns of context-seasitlvi~md the
character/content distmcaorr. Rather, we take tfirs case to znvolve A dcpxture from hteral meanmg, result~ilrgfrom some form of coercion Let us
assume that (11) is Interpreted by gvmg to 'asleep' the extended serrse c)trrFr
AND SHOWING LITTLE ACTIVITY. That IS not the literd sense of %sleepy The

ilreral scrr\ta of *;riirey7is A S I ~ L Y , and drcre 1s; nothmg mcy bout ~t (no
urilcx~c~d~
no free vx,trrable, etc.). 1x1 tlrrs partlc~llarcase, the proper
Ii~dJcm~
w,tu of ~ d i l i ~out
i ; the
~ ~ d~\t~nctioxx
betweerr standmg xneaung and occaslon
rneankrrg n iwr by I ~ ~ , U I of
S the d ~ s ~ r r c t n o
between
i~
the expression's
~Eldrnctesand m context-cieyuxsdent on tent, hut, rather, by Inearis of the
Jlstmc taoui bc.twc.t.xr the expression's niea~ix~rg
in tire language and the nonI~tihraE.5C117e rt takes o n ttrrough coerclorr m tfsr corktext at hand.
In I,zttml l/fi*ian~fiz~q
a~cielsewirerc 1 drew a systematic ci~stinctloribetween
~ W Otype3 of C O I I ~ C X ~proc
~ I ~es\ posihly &octrng trutts-corrcl~tions:the
(rxraltilatoxy} prot r\\ of '\atur~tion'througfr wl.trc1.1 mcle;ucds and hee van&les rxr loped Ccrnlt .ire ass1g11c.d a corrtextllal value, and the (optional)
prow\\ c>/ ' I I I O C ~ ~ I ~ ~thr0~1g11
~ I O ~ ' W ~ ~hI illc
C
nteallll~srYn of an expresson 1s
anaytped to ;t clr\txnct rneanlxlg ~ { E I ) ,whcrc :g'is a pragmatic hnctlon.
re\!& fi-orn the operahon
Met<iplrronc .rnd metonyrn~c'd ~nt-eq>retatroxls
of scrc h prag1:rrr;ieic- fuiichons, anti tllc drgurr-ient to the tu~rctlonnray be the
rne,rntlag of rrny r*pressiori, wllcther 01 rrcrt ~t rs 'contest-semihve' In the
\t,irltl,ir tl seriic- rn wlllt 11 ~ncicxrcalsand scli~~~rit~c
,diy under-\pet rf~edexpresSroxxs ,ins A r ~ o t h c rtype of pragmatic lurictro~l,u~volvedIn so-cnUeci 'Gee
OIX
'1 nioxe ?pec~fic
meanerirrclrrxient', ruqs the r-rtcanmg o f 311 ~ X ~ X ~ S S I to
arlg One w'iv o f ,at countlrlg for the *\top'
'cllt' ca\es wtruld be to argue
that the \tarrdxng rne.innsg 01 the verb (c"~\ristxo s l o p , EISFFCT A LINLAR
4EPARRI I( )N, id I r 1 li,~irltdrrsto~fd
111 ~ o r ~ t em
x ta nxore spccrfic sense, through
tikc proviuon of&prt~cularm'llmer ot \t<3pp111gor of ctlttmg O n &IS mew
the context rs rrideed what make\ the relevant xn~mnerof stopp~rlgor cuttsng
\,~bc.sxr arrd force\ I r rrlto the mterpretatrcrrr, but the contextu~lprocess at
r%ut ui rlnr geikrrdtion of t h ~ occA5ion
t
rlledrllxsg is rlot saturatlon, but
modnl,rtlcrrr Agakr*, 1 lruy be wroi~gabout "cut' and 'stop', but my point
y the sort of c~nte~xtual
rs rrlore ger-icr=dard ran he put ;u tallows- we m ~ get
~ \.vtz~~h
gves r-rse to the
rr~fluenre trrr the irlterI3retdtlon of a I C ? U CItern
cvext rf the exprewvn who\e ixiterprephex-~onlenonof selxlantlc fiexll~~lxty
v'lrles 1x1 tlm way 15 rrot rrldexrclrl or context-sensitive m
tatloll COIIC~Y~UAUJ~
thC iitarxclarclaerise Ifsernant~ctlcx~bli~t-y
1s to be accoullted for by appedlng
to contcxmd proicsse..,,'I\ 1 have suggested (Sect~ons), therc. is no rearon to
rcsmci tlrc type lot ctw~textu,rlproce\s at iss1.1~"to saturatlon. Modulation
play c x a i tlv tlic 5,uxle ole j u t AS the vnluc t or~textuallyassigned to an
rndex~calor free v tn'lble rxlay be xnf-luencctl by the Lmpntlc context, the
modulated v'ilue uhrcll ,i gvcrl expcessrun take\ ln contest map also be

irifiuenced by the linguistic et~vironment,that is, by the other words with

which. die expression combines, as in (9).

7. Cor~lyositio~~ality
and ~noclufation
Where doe, thrs leave Lrr with respect to the coxllposltsonalrtv ~s\rxe?if the
folegomg is conec t, we taunot nrairltalxt t h ~ the
t liledtling of .I coraplex
phrase a (wholly) determined by the mearimg\ ot I& pelr.rstsdncl their lnode of
c U I I ~ I I I O ~of
S the rrtlpcrcombmahon. As Searle polritt out, the ?atls6~ct1or1
ative Tenteni e 'Cur the gmssl' rrlay v,aay evcrj tl~('i~tgi:ll
the \t.xnctmg nle'mlrrp
and Kaplan1a1-1contents of ,111 the word\ m t h ~cextterlre
t
.ire fiacd, A well a\
their mode of conlblrldt~on So the lritelpret,~tlonot the cotnyleu- -1moL2r
as it detennme<cat15factlon conclrtions--15 r~otA f i i t l ( tlot~o f the 'rileal~~nji"i'
(in one of the jtandxd rervies. tbai.~ct-eror content) ot rts p ~ r t sand their
mock of ~ o l i ~ b i n a t ~ o r ~
to TWO posit~~tfi
At thn po~ntthere are twTom~1nopntms, conesp,l>~)ntI111g
1n the philosophy of language. Mmmthsx11 azd t,onteut~i,dvn for the 11irn1rnafist (in the sei~seof C:appelexi and I epore zoa>a),there n &rsliarp cil\tmc tron
between \enr&rrhc me.ming, incltui~ngKaplarlran \o~ite~rt',and speaker':,
n~e'rrung.Xnsohr AS rnodul'lt~on-hence \peakcr'\ nreax11ng -rrxter\ lxlto tllc
e ~ i tselx*anhc\
deterrninatlor~of sansfactlon ton&t~om,it e not i n ~ u ~ i ~ bup011
to account for ratisfactwn cortd~tinn~
and dle coxltent of ~peechaLts ]nore
generally the c o n ~ p o i ~ t i onmcllmery
t~~l
IS or11y supposed to (led1with sel~~intlc
rriearung. For the contextualrst, 0x1 the c o n m y , we should do oirr bect
to account for the illtulhve truth- and 5dtahctlon-concfitloro of utterance$,
to
arld to that eirect we rrlay have to hber,~lizethe notlor1 o f rric,m~ng/cox~te~~t
drstlnct~ort
the pomt o f b l u m g the scrn~rrrtlcs/pragrr~tlcs
The c o x n p o ~ t ~ oGamework
i~~l
a\ pre\rltted \o fir ordy make\ room for
those forms of relncmnc. flex~bil~ty
which m \ e fsorli (leu\ ,rl or Lollstruttiond) context-seni~t~v~ty
Since tlitqe are trot the only fctr~r~s:
of ~exnantlc
flex~bll~ty
we have to dccourtt h r , the nght thing to do, tt seems to me, 15 to
revise/ennch the frarneworli oxit e a p ~ r i in
, tile spir~tof the conteutudist
posstlon Examples like Searle7\dekat compo,laon~hty (I.)? sllo\?nrtg that
the interpretstion of the colnplex ts not ,I f i m c tlori of the xnrariing, of I &
parts and then mode ofcor~~blxl,t.tlon)
provded we tahr "tilemeanlxig? ofthe

-- 44 T

pam' In one of the standard sences (character or content). Why not, then,
take the mnear~mgsofthe parts to be the= modulated meamngs, and attempt to
prewrve cornpoc~rion&tym t h s manner?
Let u\ define d futi~tionrriod taking as argument an expresslor1 e and the
context c 1x1 which ~t occurs: the value of mod is the particular rnod~llaaon
funchon g that rs contextudly sahent/relevant/appropnate for the Interpretahon of that expresston i r i that context. For e d m p l e ,m (II), we can easlly
irnagne that the context c m wI11ih the expresslon 'the city' occurs renders a
c ertmn metoiiyrmc furlchon gjU trorri clues to their inhabitaxlts d e n t and
relc*,uit to the ~literpretatronof that expresslon With respect to such a
context we get:
mod ('the c~ty',c) = gjt3
rnod ('the c~ty"c) (I ('the city'),) = g,,,

(TEFECITY) = m~INHABITANTS OF

TEE CCflV

The suggestzon, then, n that we should take the niodulated ineanmg of an

exprewon u 111 ( ontext C, VIZ. ttlod (a, C) (1(a)J, ;IS the bullding block whlch
our cornpoc;itronalrrl,uil~neryrecjuires to dehver the correct interpretatlons
tor coniplcx expressions Accordmgly. we can keep the type of lexlcd rule
we 'tzave worked w t h so far, VIL
:.i*)

I(ajL- fbj

(where "f 15 the ctlaracter of exprrsslnn u )

but we must change the fonnat of conipo\itroriJI rules so as to inake room

lor ~ ~ ~ o c l u l ~ tInste~d
t o i i . of

cve slloulci use sonlet11jng llkr

Here'c" and 'cr" correspond to sub-parts of the context c in whrch the

corr.~plexexpression tl*p 1s used (I acsume that ifa complex expresslon a*/3
is used in 3 context C, e ~ c lof
i its constituents is used m a sub-part o f c , for
exanple u 111 c' and /3 in c2) The gs correspond to pragmatic modulation
tilnc.tlons which the context rnakes salient. If no modulation is contextually
'This StIggeShOn can be traced back to Sag (1981) (and to Nunberg's ideas, which Sag attempted to
formalize).

-C

O M P U S I I I O N A L I I Y , ELEXIBIX I 1 Y, & N i l

ONIEX I

UtPFNLjCNC I

45

appropnate and the expression receives ~ t Iiterd

s
tllteqretatlon, the value of
mod d be the tdenhty funct~on hterainess 1s treated as a spec~d~ca5c.01
(zero) niodulatlon. Thus understood, the foml~llasays that the trrterpretatlon (content) of a colnplex express.mn a*fi is a rirnct~onof the moclulated
meanings of ~ t paas
s
and the way they are put together (and t~othingeke)
on
their content
For sinzple expresslorls there Ir a clear d ~ s t ~ n c t ~between
I(a), detenxuned by lexlcal rules ruch as (I*) and then mutiulated meilr-r~ng
mod(n, c)(l(a),). What about complex exprescions such m n*/33 I>tre\ the
distlnctlon between content aid n~udulatedinearling apply to the111 as we112
O f course: a complex expres\lon e c,m be a coxlstltuent In ,I more complex
expresslon e+, and we need the nloiiuldted I-neanmg of r to rervc a:, a
b m l l n g block in constructing 3 coritent for e 4 W e must therefore geilerallre the rlotlon of modulated niednltrg to ,dl exprt.ssions 'Io reach the rlgtlt
level ofgenerakty, Pagn suggests that w e define a Fuxict~ono i rnodlxlatcd
interpretation M recursively Thn c'rn be clone as follows

Since the content I(?), of a conmplex exprtsssrorl(' = *((,, , r,) r\ A hinctrot~

of the modulated mean~ngsof ltac part\, r h l ~d e f r i ~ t ~ ooio niodnl~trdrncarr
lng e n d s the recurslve c l a ~

As before, * n a syntactic rnode of ~ o m b i ~ ~ ~ tdriil

i o f: ~is, tlie corlxposrtrorl
funchon of the ordinary sort concsponding to that xnodc of ioxurbrrratron
The recurslve clause says that the modulated ~ncanlrigot-a cornplex cxyrcssion results horn applylng a coxitexru&llyappropriate modul~il.tlonh n r tiorr
to the result of cornposing the nlotfulated rneanlng of- ~ t spart\ 50 the
distinctlor1 between content ,md rnothl~tedrncanln1g appher to cotnplex
of a ~ o ~ i i p l eexpressrout
x
1s a
expressions as well as to simple ones the cosite~~t
i;clcct.an ~f the madu!ztei! m e z ~ ~ x i ~p x t ~ ,id the x~i3di11zted~r,ecln~x?(*
t-,
of the expresslon results Groni n~odulatltlgthe content tlius dctervrr~rlecl
In t h s h e w o r k , do we rrafly aclzieve conipoatlon&ty' Nut m d ~ e
strong sense m whicli cr>mpositlonabtyn s~~ndardly
understood As we have
seen, the cotztent of a complex is a fiirlction of the rnodtila'clted rnPaveaTs of ~ t s

See Pagin and Prllener (2007: j(i-30) f i r ari el~boratiun.

C O M P O S I ? I O N A L I v I Y , FI FXIBIL I T Y , A N ! ) C O N T L X I - 1 ) t - P h N l ) b N C t :

47

'eeyu~vocatlorlthat can't be resolved", , ~ n dIL 'unctenrzinr[s) tlre conlposl tmnaliw of knghsh' (Fodor 2003. 99).
lnsohr ac I undererand the asgimrent, it doec not go throng11 Context~1,rl
rnoclulatzori provtdes fc)r yotentrally urrenctmg nle,inlng vdnALiorr, but never
lf
meaning vanatlor1 Me,zinng everltu.~lly
gves rlse to any n ~ t u ~unending
stabihzes, niak~ng~orrlpo\~tionality
possll,le, because the (Itngurst~cas well
extrahngp~\tlc)context, however blg, 1s 3way\ ftriite
The contextlt~lxitempliasrzec the unc.nding potential fix vJnatlon In
order to point out that the (modulated) nie,lnmg of-an expre,norl slw~ys
depends upon the context arltll cannot be fixed slnrply by cot~rplexlCytrigthe
expression and 'nmakmg everytfllng espllclt' Thui, the ~ontextu'~lr\t
giver
the followrr~gsort of exaniy3lc m cupport of tlte ~rredrrcrblycorltextr~d
~i~aracter
of tlle tnterprerahon process. Ijobn took ont h ~ key
s and opened
the door' is interpreted in u ~ c ha way that John 1s tl~iderstoodto Ii'lve
operied the door wtth the key: ttr~swe get through ~nc,dul,itionof 'open
the door' whlch 1s understood via the t ontexhid provtslon uf a specif c
manner of oyen~ngCdn we nrake that expl~cit111 the sentcrrce, so as to get
n d of the context-dependence? Not qulte If we say 'tie opened the door
w t h the key' the new rnatenal pves nre to new uriderdetern~~n~clee
l~ecauseit, too, can hr v,lnourly ritodulatrd. The key may tlave been used
as an axe to break the door open ac well a mserted into the keyhole (Sc,rrle
1993: 182) Artd if we make the way of rrrrng the key explicrt, filrtf~er
rniletemnac~eswril anse, and dlllerr~ltmeanli~g5\vrU errlerge tl~rough
rnodulatlon Iiowever, wlteli language rr actually used .irttX cctnlethlrli; 1s
.tad ~tI\
sad, there I< d cfefinitt context botli Intgux\ac and extraln~gt:urc;tit)
f i ~ ~ r tIri
e vlrtue of the context, tile vanow, espresslons used ln st get a
definite mewing No umtablhty 1s to be feared dnd, puilir Fodor, Conterrtu'
ahsnl is perfectly cornpat~blewtth the clelndnd~of'cc>rrt~>o\itr~ndl~ty

Since 3004 1 have had oppertunlbes to present tire rrrarrnds in thrs t.tlapter at co~~f>rences,
workshops, or colloquia in nlarvy places. lncludirig Gal-gnano, !'art. Montreal, Kingston, (Oxford,
Geneva, Lisbon, Stanibrd, Cadiz, St Andrews, I.und, .uld Stockholm. I an1 indebted to the organizers
c t i tltose events for lnvinng me. to those who atteilded for tflcir c~itc~t~orn
arld nl?lecttons, and to
W. tlinren, E. Maclrery, and hit. Wemlng, tlte editors of tile tiurtdbook 4 Ctmqositionaiity (Oxford
LJnlvenity Press), where thls chapter is dso due to qlyear. 1an1 especially gracefit1 to Gennal-o Cliierchia.
Peter P a p , Josl~Arnrstrorlg. Mariln Jonsson, and 1)ag Wzsterstihl fix coitrnlents 2nd ditcuss~onswhich
insp~recimi..

Adjectives: A Case Study

Two dognsas
In l~ghtof our ciiscuss~oriof.;eiiidr~tlcilexibrlity, w e should he suqxcrous of
some of the clairns that are qtal~dardiyn l d e aborxt ac?jc.ct~ves W;'lr,rt kdiows
a a pauage reflect~ngtextbook wisdorrr i n tlus area
There n a cr~lciaicfiKere1lce brtween "absc>Xutr' adjectives like npii m
(I)

There was a red book on tiir cdl)lr

and 'relnt~ve'dctjectlves l ~ k csmdl

(2)

111

There ur,x, a sinall eicpharlt ~nthe

LOO

Absolute adjecuves drcc~~be

propertre5 of ir~ii~vidtuls
indc~>cndc~~~dv
o t tl-ie Lonrri
bution of tlie h a d noun ILela~vr~djectwe\are ilependent on rlle xiorln the\
niocfify 'l'he set of red book e a st3bsc.t of t l ~ eset ofbooks, whlc1.1 wt: can find hc
takmg the intenechoxi of the set ofbook, m d the set of red ob~rcts
In the same way, the iet of small elephants is d w h e t of the \etok elgh-qnt~
But u&Le ul die case of 'led hoctL', wc tarir~otconstme tlvs \et fronr the
intersection of the set ofelepi~atitsatid the set of s n d ob~ect5Aftel all, 2 \rl~,xll
elephant IS st13 a rather b ~ oblect
g
Re1at;tve acl;lec txvcs do not drsc nbe propertics
ot the head noun (l)e Swart
of m&v~dualsmdependently of the co~itr~b~ibon
1998: 158-9)

In tlus passage two cla~msare made

r . 'SnxaU' is a relative ad~ectrve,ijepencient for its mteq3retation rlporl the
noun it modifies, whlle 'red' uri't
2. In contrast t o absolute a4echVes, relative adjectives hke ' s n d ' arc not
Intersectlve.

Wrdespreatl dxotigll they ,Ire, l7otl-r clalrn\ seeit1 to nre to be -tjlse I st'irt m t h
t ! 1.161rn
~
,~\x\iii.
11011 i r l t e r \ e i h v ~ ~
to]
, we b,lve ,icre,i~lydedt wit11 that
ni,iretwr r r r pa\slng In our prev1011s d ~ sLISSIOXI
(
ot'the \emantlcs of phr~nes
like \1nA1 o"l~p11~~11t'
J I I ~'Lxg mouse' (C IrL+ptrr
1, \cc tloxls 4->).
,a\l,\olrrtz ~tlject~vcs
lihc 'red" are w d LO be rtlterseitIve becduse somerblna2 14 (c # ) ,I red b ~ ~ af.'md
o k only l i l t rs red ~ n c ~i
l 15 a book: the set of red
h ~ o k br\ ~h e IIIICISC( ti011 ot'the set of'red thrtlgs and the set ofbooks. Let me
intr adrrc c \orn~.j i r o r ~ r t a i i d , ~ter~r~lrrology
)
that -cvrll be usefkl irt 'tpproach1119L ~ I I Sis\iie It1 1' 0111171exphr,t\c At3 < c>rlsl%trng;
oftwo terrris A and R,I s q
ellst there r* srnlirc,~fir~~ry
rii'one of-the terrns divriics ti-e estelalon ofthe other
terr-rr, tlldt I \ , ifff r h r e.;trrl\ion of the coozpieu plrrac APS is a subset of the
euterisiorn ok'tlrc* other tcrnr. 1Irere 15 lt~fl-subst~tzi~rry
rff the left tenn's (A's)
r\tcrr\ic>rr x i ~irvitletlby the otlrz-r temr 13, clrrti n~2~t-rtih.t~~rzozty
iti'B's esteri<,roxir t iiiviidcti bv iL Irr the for~rlertype clfc i-\c, lion1 x's beuig an AIZ ~t
EolTo'iv~tlr'ci: .I; ri, d r i A, tn thc Lttter type 05 r,tse, Ci-orn a'\ being a11 A13
r I
t i
15 CVak ~ntcrscifzz*~ry
15 the c,ue lo whlctl there IS both
k t t r n t l rrg1~riulaett~vity,l r r stacll \;v'~vtll,rc \onletflmg's belng an AN
ent,111\ botli c h r IL a ,111 A. ;tnd t h d t ~t I\ H Irlrer\ecr;rvrtyproper or strorzg
inrrr\i.(trzrlty 15 rlic c .i'ic In whlcI1 the ent,irImrnt goez both ways: something 15
in API rflrnd only r,f ~t r \ arl A , ~ n drr I S 'I 15 7 cr w i n up
(

le*i'i-srii~scrtivrey:A is the tern1 wl-rosc exterrsion is divided. trrference

p'.Itlcnr: A13 ;?. A
llightcuhstctivity: I$ i s the t.enn whostb ;.exrcnsitrn is divided. Inf'erence
p:itr;crr~:AX5 -2t3
We:A iiltcrsec.trvit~r= leit--suhset-t,ivie -1- rigtzt-suh.;ectivity. Inferer~cc
p2tt~1.11:A l l =
:.: A & 13
St.rorrg inressectivity: AB i*
A & 13

I t r\ c;i\y to iIicc h that, rrl sc,rricl<tritachectrve rlorrr*corrlbi~latronsstrcli a\ 'red

hook', t l l i ~ c1s 130th lthfi-subsix tivlty nlld nght subsrct~vrty.1here w left\rib~rctivrtv ~ C G ~ ~ L ,*
~ Sred
C " L>oob ts reti (A]%=/ A), .tnd there 1s ngliti u l r w i t r v r t v b c c ~ u s eJ red book IS 2 hcx~k(AN R)
iIn verb phraes, on
t l ~ cc~thrrh ~ ~tlierr
d , r\ u ~ ~left
l y sl~bscctiv~~),
tile exteI1'ilt)n of'cut the grass'
I\ pluper subscat o t r - l ~ c x cxtencrur? of 'cut'
Witlr ~c$ccat e4, nrtrrbcctlvlty n \d~dto Eul. l i t L ~ V Oty77e:, of case. Rel'ihve
,rcijeitatcrc cirsyl~vrr~:t-rt-rtt-sul-trecbvrty(A cmd t*le~~t~,u*t
kc ,ul elephmt) wthotrt
left-ztrbsccrivrry (A\ ~ i l d l Cl I C X ~ I I ~t\UrIjCo t ,I srndll dirarg) 13nv,ltrve .id~ectlves belong

Al.)Jl.i(.:'f'fVfi.S:

A (:ASM

STUDY

jl

to a class of adjC?ctlve\th2t chphy the oppoutc pattern. dlrre 15 left-sul>\echvic)

(a hke dollar ts f&e) vnthout ngllt-subsect~vity(a Ldse dollar 1s not a dollx)

3.

Tlle intercectivity of relative acljcctivcs

W e havc seen th,rt art adjective hke 'sa~all'1s context-setlsltrve; it rrreans

i
sornethlng lrbe SMALL FOR AN ,Y, wfrcrc the valrre of T ' tleperrcts u p o ~ the
context. S o the (occasional) rne,1111ng of 's~n;lll'ir liable tct bar): 111 cl~ffererlt
cclntelits the ac!jec~ve 'srnall' is understclod dlfirently and contnbtttes
cilffererlt predicates smufl,, ~nrull,, snzall,, etc Thr\ \uggc\t\ 31-1 ~ltenlat~ve
expldnat~orlot the ~rrfelentrdlbehaviour ot relat~veaiijectrves It I\ true t h ~ t
'a cnlall elephant i s strll a rather big object' ( I k Cvrrart 1998 159). he11ce n o t A
sniall ttl~ng,but that does not necerranly \how that rhc left-~uh\r.rt-rvrty
patteln (AB =+ A) n vloiated 'The pattern would be vlolated tf 'cnmll' were
unlvocdl and cll~dy!,
contr~buredthe sane prcdlc Ate A. Rut it n not and the
ll
ic not srn,iU' (or 'not ,I ?l?i,rll tllrng') choulci he
serrtence % ~ n ~ aelephant
andyccd as follows:
( 3 ) A s l n d , elephant 1s riot s n i ~ U ?

Ilere the ccn~irit~c

value of 'sma1llI' sh-rfts troxrr onc occurrence ctf the
djectrve to the next, I-recause two dlst~nctvrilltec arc contextually ;r\slg~:r.trd
to the vdnable. 'A sr*ld elephant 1s n o t snldl' Ineans that an elepir'u~tthat n
trtzcillfor urz elqlzant i s not snzall loniptlreri to orditzizry oblcltlc.
*T h,tt tlus expl~natronot the alleged farltire uf left-\t-\ub\cctivity I\ the
correct one can ekc11y he es~blzchelii f w e Leep the v,rlue of '\niaJl' cctltstant,
the left-s~xbsecxv~tyrnferenc-e pattern 1s scrtlsfied. a srrtall, eleyhartr 1s ~ndeerl.
small,, tllat is, irr~dlfor an elephant So there 1s no firlure oflcfi-sub?ectrv~~
llhc 'rrn~dl'are elrtcnectrve
<ifterdl,and no reAon to deny that ~tdject~ves
O f course the left-nrbset ttvitv rnferen~epattern IS cupe$~tellyvrolated,
hut such a suyerfic~aivloldhon does not counc &om ;t logcal poirtt of v ~ e w
Qu111e has insisted that
The trustworthiness of logical andysisaalld inference depends on our not gwing one
and the same expression ditferent intccpretarions 111 the course of tire reasoning.
Viohtion of t h s principle was known traditionally :stlic GdIacy <>feyuivocatiort.
(Cruine 1962: 42--3)

- -33- - ~ ^ ~ N . I . ~ E R ~ T * C
~W
~ W~ Z Y H EW
iiW
~ 5B J

In the argunient Goni 'A small elephant 1s not small' there is ecpvocatlon
(srilce t11e Intrqrctatlcln of 'small' shrfts), arid ~t a only because of that
eyurvocatlorz that the left-suh~ectlvltymn&rence pattern seems v~olated In
the s'trne p,k$sagr frorn Mrthnlts oflogic C>uine gives an analogous example of
the fiLl,~cy of equivocation
Tllr cwo conjunction\
(4) tie went to I'dwcdtuck and 1 went dong

( 5 ) f i e tverlt to \,rugatuck but

L did not go along

mav both be tnie, vet IC we tepresent them as of the fbnn 'p8q' and 'r8-q', ac
srerlts superiicrdly to fit the. caw, we come out innth an inconsister~t~ombinaaon
'p&q&l&-~l'Actursllv of course the 'I went dong' in (4) must he d~stingu~shed
koni the 'I went alorlg' wliose ncgatIor1 apprars In (s), tlie one is 'I went along to
I)~wcatuch'al~dthe other IS 'I\vent along to Saugaturk' When (4) and ( 5 ) are
t ornpirtect 111 rhis ~ ; ? ~ L J C ) Z they
I
can no longer be represented as related m the
rnatlrter of 'pKq' dnd r&-~q',but otdy in the manner of 'p&q' and 'r&-s', and
the apparent irlcot~s~\rency
drsappedn
llle faUacv of equlvocAtlon xnses when the lnterpretatlon of an amb~guotrs
expresstorr 1s 1t3lltlcnrc.d 1r1 vm7ingwavr by ~ m ~ c d i acontexts,
te
as 111 (15) arid (rti),
so that tiit: vxprec\irrrr t~ndcrgoes~1.rangrsof meaning w ~ t h i nthe hrriits of the
l r l S U C ~lairs rrv havt icl r~pphrcxse before pro~eedlnq ( Q U I ~1962
drgu~"1~1~'
P 42 3.
rlotdriotl drld cniplrasr~nurtel

li, according to (&me's rmtnrctlctm, we rephrase the sentence 'A small

elepl~antw not small' before s~ibmttlng~t to logcal analysis, we get (3), and
all appedr.rric cs of A vrc>l,rtrotlof the left-subsecnv~tymferertxnce patterns varusli.
irotvc'illy, Q u r n e hiimelf cctmnltted the fallacy 1n lus well-known dscus?~vnof the 'cC;lor$;~one'sentence. Fro111
(6) (;lorpone

WAS so- c d e d

becaure of lus size

Quine says thdt we cailtlot infer

(7) Barbarell] was so-called because of h ~ size
s

everr though Glorg~orie= Barbarelk. I agree. But Qume concludes that the
pnnc~pleof cubsbtut~v~ty
falls 111 such cases. Thls 1s fdlacious If we keep the
contrxtud vdue of 'so-called' constant, the Inference holds. The pnnc~ple
of subst~tut~vity
seems to be violated only because the sense of 'so-called'
sliifts Goxn (6) to (71, blocking the tnference, just as the sense of 'I went

along' s h f k &om (4) to ( 5 ) If we rephrase before proceed~ng,m accorcbmce

m t h Qurne's mstruchons, we find that '61orgorie waq ro-cdled, ;[ c died
Giorg~one]because of h ~ sw e ' tndeed e n ~ a l s'Harb,*reU~was so-~~llecl,
because of his srze', juct as 'Junzbo 1s a brnall, elephant' itidccd ent;l~is
'Jumbo is .imaU, [=Lsnidl for all elepllallt]' Wut 'Giorgone tvdr co-called,
because of his m e ' does not e n t d rs 'Barbarc111 WAS $0-called, [= caileil
Burbarellzl because of hls size', hut tberc i\no reawn why it ~ h o ~ i "l d
In Recanat1 (zoooil, zooob), I drew tile co?icluvctn tliat TC;iorg~~)tre\is
purdy
referentlal in (ti), appearartceb r ~ o t \ l ~ ? t t nbrig
t x ~ (5ee Kecarlatl zooo'~,r;ouish
for a defence of thzs clam) Lrlrewne, 1 conclude that relative ,~djectivesiclch
as 'small' are mtersechve, appe'rrmci-s to the contrary norv~.lth:hstandrng'
at
Below, 1 w~llargue that the fallaty oi equtvocahori xc alst, ~ v f ~ ,iccourln
b r the appeaa1ice.i of non-mterrcitlv~tyIn the caqe of pnvAtlve '~ctJectlver;
t with the second
(Sectlon 7). Before turnmg to that r\sue, however, L n ~ u rdeal
of the two dogmas I mcn~oried the clarnl tliat, urillke ddjectwes such ds
'small', lntersechve ddject~ve~
hkr "re~d" are nctt relahve, that 1s cut h that
t h e ~Interpretation
r
depends upon the noun they rnodllj.

3 . The relativity o f ultcncctive ndjectives

There n a sense irk which "led' i?
no le\s relat~vcth,iti ?\m,xll' For a "redbook' e
not red m m y old way: ~tI S red tn rlze spcczfir uiny zrl ~crhirkbooks (<nopprlscti to
Lars or newspapers) are red In tlm re\pvc t;, 'red hoolr' a like 'pmk grq>efmrtqor
1.i ,I grdpehnt that is pt~lh1?1.5ld~,
axrd A red per] r\ n
'red pen'. A puik gr~pefru~t
pen tvho5e ink IS red In those cilies tho predicate does rlot ~ p p I y.h?c>c'luteJybut rn
a specific way ,hat depends uporr the cjbje~tto which the ~olotrris arcrrbrtl
Tliese are, adrmttedly, radrer speci,rl calcs, but ever] orclrndry cases s~rclras "rcc
hoop or 'red bur& ittsplav <a srgndlc~ntmeAsure of relttt~vity,M ~ ~ I Chas
~ I betm
emphasized in the contextuaL~sthtcraare I'hus Rori Lallav wrrtrsTor 2 bird to be red (m the rror~rralc*rsul, ~t siiotild have most of the cttda~eot ~ t s
body red, though rlot its beak, leg, eves. and rrt'~ourse~ t liltler
s
orgdns Fnrther-

' Peter Pagin thinks I arrr uriijir to Quine, be~ause,he says "we can weU fitmi t l ~ curzboc'rl one-piacr
predicate " . . . was so-called because ofhis ss~e",where [tire] argalnent place 1s not transparent'. Birr X fid
to see how silch a prehcate can be both one-place and uriivc>cal.
See Kamp (1975), Heim and Kratzer (rgg8), arid Sz~b6(2001)for sinular concli~rrons.

Indefinite variety of tlnmgs, atuatrons and cxpencnc es, arid we nl'mage to

do that by 'ac%wtmg'the nieanlng ot wnrci~to the vdnety ot tlur~gs,znd
sltu,ztlons we talk about.
C r u c ~ dto the secoi~dposiclon is the ~de,iof modulation, for rnod~datlc,n
all ,r<lJe~trves,
irldeetf dl opext-~laslterrls W i ~ ~mekxlcihty
lc
potentially
1s a lexcd property of certixtn
or g'tppynes or senlmhc under-spe~~flcahon
expressions and nor others, the su\cgtlbrllty to n~odulatioriI \ U I I I V C ~ S ~t
~ ~15 '1
general feature of the way we use lmguage So to argue 61tx~1h e o b ~ e r v a t ~ ~ r t
I
t, to
~oncemlng'red' to the conclus~onthat all adjechves are relanve 15, I ~ eVec
treat the relahvlty of 'red' as a ~narufertatlonof~nodul,rtlon.I'he iswe, whether
or not d adjectwe~are relative, 1s thcrcfore Lqely ter~nlnoIogc,d All ,ic)ccaves are relative 111 the sense that, through filc)dul,it~on,the meanmg r t t XI
adjective can alwayc bo adjusted to the thmg being talked abotrt, but in more
restricted seme, otdy cermn adJechves are relahve 111 the way m wblch, sav,
'small' 1s What datmgmhes the adjective? that are telatxve 131 thCtllznozrr Fence
Is that tjzar ltrzgursts~menntng ltceg indexes thelr Irtterpret'rtloit to the~rcorite\t,
of inclesrcalrty/s,tm ratrctxt
through the rneclia~usn~
When ~t corm\ to 'red' and colour atilechve\, the \ub\tanh,il issue 15
therefore the foliowrng a the flexlbllity ot theqe acljecaves a mitter of s,~tur~htion or a matter of rnodulattori~'s/ab<j un;lrnb1gwt>11\1vtreats it a rllattcr trt
saturation, wfule Charles Travn-who, for decades. h a been mlng the euml
ple of colour predicates UI arguu~gfor Contextu&sil~- treat5 ~t a matter of
modulaclon For 7 raws what 1s true ofcolour adJcctives 'holds of 'my Engl~sh
pred~cate'(Travw 19'34. 172),it is a getled property ofthe ~lscof language For
S72h6, ~tis a lexlcal property ofthew adjectives wkrch doec not extend to other
concluuora
ad~ectrvesand (therefore) does not suppolt coi~tcxtrral~st

4. Colour adjectives: s;rturatio~ior n~odulation?

A c ~ o r d ~to
r ~Sg~ a b 6there
,
are many w~yysof bemg @ern, aid ax1 Ascriptiort
of greenneqs tacitly refers to one way or another 'The wdys 111 clue\tion
correspond to parts or aspects ot- the object belrig tdked about
There are at least two ways In wh~cf~
a11 dpple (-a11
be
1 grcert. from the c-tuts~cic,or
&OITL
the ~ n a d eIn the forn~ercasc, ~tcan be 11pe, In the l~tterit cannot 'l'herr ,ire at

--56- r ~ t t c m r m ~ e m m ~ x m
i t l~
~ ~m
t x %,iiok?
if

least three way5 m whch a book can be greerr due to havmg a green dust jacket, a
green cover, or green pages, Axld a corridor can be gee11 tn many way>.bav~ng
green WAILS,or green cetlmg, or green carpet, or green doors, etc. jln general] an
object 1% greert lfsorrie corltextudy c;pecfiabIe (and presumably sufficlendy large)
part of it n green (SzabG 2001: 137-8)
$zabb goei further and ~Llirnsthat a colour adjective such as 'geen' involves
a covert vm,lble to w h ~ c ha vdue murt be contextually assigned. Just as
'sniall' requlres conipletion by means of a corltextually prov~dedcompanson
class, a colour adjective require\ cornpleaon by means of a corltextuaUy
provlded part of the object Actually Szabb thlnks that colour adjectives
requ~reboth tho ont textual provision of some relevant part and of a
cotnpmson class, so for him dle 1og.lcd form of 'green' is
(Green (C, P)) x
where '(2 IS A van,tble standing for a cornpaason class a i d 'P\s a vanable
sta~idirlgfor a certar] part of the object
In contrast, the standard contextual~stposltlon regarding colotlr predicates i s tkut an adje~trvebke 'green' or 're~fdenotesa detenmnate property
or contriblxtes a d e t m n ~ n ~pred~cate.
~te
the pred~cateGWEN or HAVING lm
COLUIJR GIZ~FN Tliir is a complete predicate, riot something that stands In
need of contextual completion, hut m context the property that 1s ascnbecq n
rnade Inore specrfic through spec~ficat~on
of(1nter &a) the parts or dim :n\ion under vv111tl.1 tlte property ~ p p h e rto the object wUed &bout This
~rgaablvn a CXP ot 6ee enrichment, sirnilar to the 'cut' and 'stop' ex~rnples
dncru~edh o v e
J.
support to the contextu'The Lollo*vmg c on\ideratlon\ lend ~ I - I ~ Ifacie
d i ~ dppr~ac
t
h In ternis of modulahon.
It is not prr~narilythe sernaritlcs of the word 'red', but sonle extrrnslc
urage iac tor, naniely tizejart that tt is used lo predzcate ~orncthipagd u n object
posqanng r ~ i z ~ l t part$,
~ l e ~ that ~ n t r ~ ) d ~ i dn
c e s~ndetenn~nacy
~n need of
contevtual resolution I'flere 1s no pruticular reason why that uidcterrun,lcy h u l d be reflected in tlie seniaritiLs of the expression (though,
of course, rt might) Thrs make5 Szabit's account vulnerable to the
Gncean sort of objechon h p k e proposed to semantlc accounh of the
referena,~luse of definite descript~onci. There a no need, Kripke
polrited out, to endow referenha1 descnpt~onsw ~ t ha specla1 semantics

to account for their referenad use, for even ~fwe strck to tl-re rtarrdard,
Kussehan semaltlcs wl-uch tredts descnptlons as cp'xnhfren, we c,in
still account for their referenha1 use In pragrnatrt terms. ifwe rmdglle a
language m whzch descrip~onshave, by stlpulatlon, the R ~ ~ s s r l h a ~ ~
semantics, and mraglne such a la~igtlageto be used, ~t15 pretty clear chat
its descnptlons would Lome to senye '1 referenhid Sur~chonjust as
ord~nary descnptlons do. S i ~ d a r l y ,let 11% rm,Lgne 3 larrguage rn
whlch (bv ftipulation) 'red'rxlrans RED, where m,n 1%a ~ o q l e t preclr
r
t Imguag~"
1j used
cate. N o fiee v a n ~ b l e1s mvul\red But assunre t h ~this
to ascnbe the colour red to varioui, olyects, and that the objects rrr
question are complex and posress varrc,u+ parts or ~udicei,wl-rocc
colour need not be honioger~eo~~s
Tlle yilestlon \vlU anse, wEilc,Il
part of the object is relevant to the colour axnptlorr And the i orrtcxt
WIU often mswer the queshon implicitly, In \uch a way tl~ata 5rrnpXe
ascnptton, ' a ir red" will be mlderstuod as a\cnbirig rednev, to (2 wrth
respect to some contextu-illy 5,J ent part P So whether or not there 1s ,L
overt vandble, there ~7111be tjclt rekrence to the relevd~ltp ~ r t of
s the
object; it follows that pocrtrrlg 3, covert varrable to azcoutlt fbr he L ~ itC
reference in qttestlon ic s ~ ~ p e d - l tl~n omie~ wIi1ch
~
coi~lpllcate'athe
semantics without buving ui, anythlng " The clrrlple fict t h ~the
t torn1
ofwords 'a 1s red' 1s uled to a5inl)e redness to a under some corltcxtu
AIJrelevant pdrt or din-rerlsi~~~
P promdes no evidence that the x J j i ~ c
tlve 'red' Itself ~r~volves
A frec van,ible sra13d1ng for sorrle r ont cxtrrailv
relevmt part of the object So the onlv reason we have to dci rpt tlrr
mdexlcal~stmew asglled l.hl bv S ~ a h 6is that. I)v SO doing, we (a11 S ~ V C
the compositional &arriewolk in rr+ unrevised forn~(1 e \v~tlioiitnl0t1
ih
~llabon3 r d Gee pragmatic fimr tlcms) But this a a reclson n ~ l i ~Sr'dl?~)
cannot invoke m the pre\erlt debate without beggng rhc cltre\tlon
(s~ncehis opponent 1s a corrtextct-u&~t
mvukzilrlg ~modulatlon111 Cavclrrr i r k
a revlsion of the ~ t ~ n d a frarr~e*vork)
rd
(Ophonahty cntenon) Berng a top down, context-dnven process,
rnodulatlon takes plate in some contexts mt.1 not otl~elr, cvhtlr
saturation, being Iiiigu~strcdlynraliciated ill vmue of lcvical propcares
of the expression type, is bouncf to tale pkt e in all felleltous mrs of the

See Hall (zuc)X: 440) for a sirniiar poirit.

cxprcszion Mociul'ltroa 1s ognorlai, saturdtxon rq rnanclatory In the

c olcaux kbcr~ptlotlcase, 1s the ~ontzxru,ildetcmunatlon of the relevant
part(\) ~ridfidc~tory
or ol)tloxbdl? Ac- ord ding to the i ~ ~ d e x i c~t
~ ~isl ~ ~ t
n\,irrd,ltory bcc,au\e dlerc. n A free vnriable, anti frec vrt~~nbles
need to
bib ~ s s i g ~ v,iiuc\
~ r d or1 pam of. serraarltic in<-orr~pletencr\
(whatever the
c v n t r ~ t j Atcoading tc, the rorxtc~tu~~list,
the deterxrun~tlo*~
of the
reiev~rxtp a t is rcqulred lri come cor.itexts but not others; for what
irrdmcc.\ the rcqurrcrxserrt 1s (~rltcr,rIr.ij the c olxlplerztv of-the object to
wlri~hrlic iolotrr 1\ ,~scrrbcdd i d thc c ocx\lstence oi scvcr,d p ~ r t sor
suri;\ics tirxt ilt~ghtbc. drf-Cerentiycolourecl, rdther thdn s lex~calproprrtv o i rhc expresslori. To put the ~ p t ~ o ~ s ~cnterlorl
~ l i t y to use. we luve
to arnagmrc ,I c rat 11) mrb~chthe c ornplex~tyoi the entltv to L V ~ I Cthe
~
it-riour r\ ,~\cribeci1s 3ultably rcd~rcccl I'he c trntextual~stprec.tict\ that, m
s u i l ~A c,r$e, the preci~catzK r r > v,rU ~ppXy 'c~bsol~~tel\i'
to the object
wittrout 'txry iirrther s ~ ~ c c ~ f l c ~Irrsuf-ir
i t ~ o r ~35 OIIC c a r tell, th,a seenis to
hc t l cxce
~ " I f , rristeaci of "'l'hc. boob rr red', we say something llke
'hilagme ,L rcci \uri,~i
e' or 'I~rn~lgxr~c
.I reti \pot', tlrere 1s no need h
r the
( i)rlter\t to sptbci
i; Jrlv releb,irrt p,lrt o r C i i l l ~ t " ~ ~ofthe
\ ~ o t l cirl+>c-eor the
\pot cdki.cI ahour.
s Xir ,iriv c 4i\e, elre riiciexrcalrsr p r o p o d r\ ~rn~idecjuate
a\ ~tated,for thele
,Ire otkrc.~ ~irarrcr1rrorr3of ~ikdi.te~rrrtrrac
v wkut 11 the no ti or^ of 'part'
c arrnc >t prcsyrczrly 11;lxlcilo. Sce tlae 1 dlrav yirtrt'3tron ,~bove.bec~desthe
\devaxit paat' iwrr, there xc Aro tlrc riwr itbcjut ~vlletherthe c o l o ~ I\
~r
riat~rr,iE/trr~g~~l,~i/grntl~rle
or, o r 1 rhr contrnr)i, a-t~ticiaiand super'iddeli I'hlt clirner~slorz1s callerlt rn the I'ravn c-x~z~~ple
tvll~chS73b6
(list u \ \ i\ 111 \ C > I I I ~C O ~ ~ C Y ~1~di-t
S
XI I)c \ a d LO be greet1 oldy rf it 1s so
rr~turaly,rn other contexts rt 1s dcc epti"ule rf ~ l i zIedrs panted peen.
(Sz'rbO ah~r~ks
tlrzr vanatlon car1 bc ttdndlccl r n tenns of 'parts'. but I arll
e p i c A/ ) 01,
tc) take another 'Tr'rvxc exanxpic, what rridtters 117 certd~rl
i 3 ~ t " ' IS
r OW t i l e object tenrporanly ioak5, In other cuutext5 how ~t IS.
i r a ti nlcrn: e~ldtrnng
senre (r e how rt look\ ln ~ ? o r t $ z~~o~rl t d i t ~ o n ~ ) .
Max

buy\ A 1t.d 2nd red p,untixrg i-rc-rrn ,r cut-reirtiy popular abttmct painter He
0x1 the w ~ l o
l t - h b1.u h g h t room Willen he tllnr, on the blacWlg11t.

1i.tngs ut

i say \iniofzi

~li;

onc c,rri ~eli',

bcca~lsrthe ~ n d c ~ ~ c c~r lr il sdwlrv\
t
q p i e that the "an' vnnable m

tn\~i:+iIy,uiciicd a cot?textir;d v.riuz in \u<h a casc (11hn1ciy the only surf:~ce/pan uf the uiisiri~ctured

e>lgi:r.~1~11keci
.ri)c>iirl ( h i ilie

iitiiit

idiv oC,tp~pisrr~g
the ojruvndriv criLeSnon,sce Rec:tnati (aori4:

l o r - 2).

---

AI)JE(,L~L~~
A

ASL 5 1 LJI)Y

-jj)

the panting looks puqile 'Now ~ t ' qp~uple',he says. Did he trU the trtlthp
We can't tell. 111 coimnentmg on the effects ofbl.zck_lrglitsoo tlurrg, orlc xlzigttt
say (or utter) cvktat MAXLYd and say something true ('When I turn c31l thc I~glit,
tins rock dows green, that poster sparkles, the hra o r l my parits gl~lows,~ n tile
d
pant~ngIS pt~ple') But if the politt a that Max \enorisly bc*hcves that
~dtrrtvloletravs char~gethe color of tf-ung ('lt', red now, but exposrwe to
w1t11 a
tdtrav~oletmll turn rt purple '), then, assurfung that we are ilr~f~ng
~ ~ o r nred
~ aon
l red pG~mt~ng,
what M.LYsad IS, of~ourye,i;l~e(7 I , W ~1975 )I)
Onc e agaln we find that the ianle forni of w o r d 'the pA1nting rs purple'
can be used to sexy true thmgc in some context\ and f&e thing I n
others, even tllough the cond3tron ot the object ~ t l k e d'~ltotrtdcxs i ~ o t
chalge &om orte context to the next; yet t m t appeal to the pLkrbofthe
object does not seem to explain ar~vthlngIn t h s part~cularcase ( ~ n in
d
ir~definitelymarly other<, arguably)

5 . Cradable acijectives: nlociuPatio11 or saturation?

So far I hdve ~5sumedthat the ~nterpretat~on
of gGida171~
a4e( ~ I V C \s u ~ h'I\
'small' or 'tall' does ~nvolvethe Fatilratlon of '1 free v , ~ n , ~ bjstandlng
lr
for
cornparlion dass or standard of c o m p ~ r i ~ o nbut
) , tlldt too rs tleb~rable.(Sec
200ja for doubts about the ctandad mdysu.) What
Cappelen ~ n Leporc
d
reasctn 1s there to hold that tlxelr nieanlng IS gappy whde rhat of colour
ad~ectlveszs noti
Adjrcnves hke ' t d ' are a subclass of the class of graddle ddjt.ctlve\
Gradable adlectrves have a tlumber of vlterestlxlg piopeales (Kleln 1991
673-4) they &nkenlo&lrf-~ers
such as 'very'; they t y p ~ c d vcome In pam of
polar antonym (tall/short, young/old, brg/srriall); they enter into compxatrve constnlctrons (a<tall AS, taller thm, tallest) ,md, rnore f i l n d a ~ i ~ e n ~ l l j ,
~r~ipose
a1 ordenng on objects accorchrrg to whether they possess the
property to a greater or lesser extent 'To account for tttetr behavtctur, it a
corlmon to ascnbe two argunients to the pred~cateicorrmbuted by gr~ctable
adject~ves:besldes the object to whlch the predicate applies, there 1s the
degree to which that object possesses the property In 'a little happy', ' ~ c r v
happy', 'extremely happy' the degcee is located as low, high, or very hlgli on
the. scale of happmess (I e the ordered set of degrees along the happlnesc

**I

d ~ ~ i ~ e n s iIn
o ~comparatrves
i)
(John IS happ~erthan Sue) the degree 1s said to
be supenor to the degree--rfar~y--to ud~.~ch
S L In~happy
FoUovvlng a liumber of authors, let us assume that, arsoclated w ~ t ha
gadable ad~cctlve,&ere 1s a 'measure function' from objects to degrees on
tlie relevaxit scale The vduc of the tunchon for a certan object as argunlent
ir the degree to which that object:possesses the gradable property. Intuitwelv, jf 1 say tjotin lr b~ppy',1 say that there is a (nonzero) degree d on the scale
of happ~nessuch thdt % w ~ ~ ( J o h=r id.) 'Joh11 IS happy', therefore, means
'John rs happy to seine degee', and 'Johri n very happy' means that for sonie
d, ~ m ~ u ( J o I i =
n )d ,ind d n I.11gh on the scale 'John 1s happier than Sue' says
that, for \onie ptzsitlve d, LULAI'PY(JO~~) = d and for every d' 6 m e u ( S u e ) =
d' then d > d'
So fir I have not introduced any free vanable fbr a conipanson class or
standarc1 of Lonipanson. Indeed to say that sonreone a happy a not to \ay
tiidt he or \he IS lrappler thai average or happler than some contextual
st~ridard It rs jmt to say that the perron 1s happy to some (unspecified)
extent (Pragrna~cdly,of cotlrse, the degree of happiness wdl be speclfied at
least '8% betng slgr~fiiantenougli tct be worth riientionlng ) But what about
'all'; To 5ay t h ~ sorrzeone
t
1s tall 13 to say that he or she 1s taller than some
>t~indard,thdt 15,that tlre degree to w h ~ c hhe or she rs tail 1s greater than some
degee wrvlng ar the standard of conipan\on. Here, m contrast to the case of
"happy', it \eernc, that the positlve 'ritr~xiis coztettly covnparirtlve The evlderice
Ibr tlils 15 twofold t mt, ,ls we Iiave seen, wmeone can be tall wlth respe t to
a certaln courrpanc,on class (e g the class of zo-ve~rold bovs) but not wtli
respect to another (e g tall for a basketball player), this relativity makes sense
~f' d l ' IS understood as 'tdler than some contextually provided standard d,'
Set onti, h r n the f x t that A IS taller than B, it does not tbllow that A is tall
Again, tiirs nldkes ~ n \ ~f
c 'A a tall' 1s analysed as 'A IS taller than dC',since R's
s17e xilav be LVC~Ibelow R, ~ n A's
d size rnay be Internledlate between B's size
' l ~ dLf,
If we \A> tliat, i r ~the case of 'tall', the poqitlve form 1s covertly comparacive ~ r r dsl10~11~1
be dti~lv~ed
m terns ot the more bas~c'taller tlian', ~tseernls
between two senses tbr 'tall' and slnular
thdt we Inwt draw a dist~nct~on
yohn is lvapp~erthan Sue' entails that John is
(to some degree) but does riot entail that Sue is.
tiSue IS urdnppy, John is happier than she is. So we cannot analyse 'John i s happier tlmt~Sue' as 'for some
d, for soirle d', happy (John) = d & happy (Sue) = d' and d > d", for that would entail 'for some 8 happy
(Sue) = d" whiclr is our rendering of 'Sue is happy'.

adjectives. the sense tid, ~t takes 1x1 the ~)os~tivc

cor~stn~ctlolr
(yoha r i dl')
and the sense tull, ~t takes m the more hasic cornparatlve constx'~ict1onrr,
terns ofwhch the positlve colistnlctloxr n to be axraly\ed ('Johrt IS tallcr than
Bill'). The pnma ljcie diEererice betweerr the two 3eli5~ct d l l and lull, I\
wliat the fact I have already ~~ierrtroned
porrlts to: TVhile 'A 1s tlapplrr tlrarr
B' entails that A is happy (tcr corxle extent), % 1s ~ l l e than
r
B' does not e r r t ~ ~ l
that A is tall; For A may bc small (hence not tall) while st111beirri: faller than 13
'Vhat IS presumably due to the &silrlc~or~
bettveeri tcvo sensei 1x1 thr case of
'tall' (but not ~n the cJse of '11~qqy') 111 'A 1) taller than I)', 'tall' 1s takcrl m
the baslc sense ttill, ('A is tdll, to a hrghsr deg~eet h ~ nB')-- ir, what "A 15
t d e r than B' entails 1s that A rc LA,(~'121 to wrnc degree). Rrrt X AS t,ll19doer
not mean that A w tall,, ~t n1e~11sthat R ir tall, "
We can define the prlrn't Iac re cerlcc t d l , a, follocvi

To be tall,, tllereforc, is to have sot~ie(n011zer(3)degree ofherght L.,tcr~ven

ihort persons are tall, la that yemr Wllexi 1 qav "John15 tall', cnl c otzrqt 1 do
not rr1ea that he 15 tau, What t me~trl~s
that hrs degree ofhelgllt 1s \upmot
to some contextual standard (s,u), the average hrrght atllong 20-vear oliic)
I-lcre 'tall' is used u~the serotid wnrc, tiill,

where 'd,' is the contextual staardard

t
111 explxclt cornparaIntu~tlvely,the bxic mearlmg ,:(all, i z f-oilndr ~ o only
t~ves('John 1s txller tlran Bill') 1)ut ~ l s oln questions ('Flow tall n Jolrr~i',
meanulg: Wh-tch degree d 1s such thi~tI ~ ~ L G I (John)
IT
- d 7 ) and m expl~crt
statements ordegree ('Jot111 1s six feet tall') Neltller the qilestxon '1 fow td31 I\
John' nor the degree statenlent 'Ille IS srx feet t,d'
entail or presuppose that
John is tall. Thn 1s presumably due to the f i t t that 111 all ~he.iecnnstrrrcnorls,

" In his conm~ex~ts

on an earlier version oftlus chapter, I%a\d Egri expressecl c2isratistachon with ti-re
claim that 'John is happier than Sue' e n d s tlrat John is happy to some degret;. f f r g1;rvc-san emrxiyle in
wllich John is definitely unhappy bur 'still happier than those guys on the street', :md cottt:iuclo that there
i s no significant difference between 'i~appv'and 'titt31 ':in nritlter crcse does the cornyardtivr Qrin eritaii
the positive t o m . However, in tile case be cites one could respond by correcutig the speaker: 'you nrran,
he ic less rinhappy than they are'. EIilr ill pointrng ti) orrr nf two very shon penons, 1 say ' h a t one a
taller', it would be not only pedantic but strange {or humor~)us)to correct me by raymg: 'you i-rrea~r,
11e IS
less short'. (If you share Eg&'s inturtlons, rcphcr 21r3pp\i"/'unIu"~~~'
wit11 'sa(t'/'gayyl tliror~glmut.)

62

CrKiii rAl;i E. A L g R E V E \ . h/lUt>t/~P\l

!<XU <)I< \ATUIL;\

't3U' t,ikc\ the seriit,

*]<)llll I',

~ 2 1 1 , wbrle

ION?

rt ukec the w z \ e ttrll, in the posltxve fi>rrrr

1~11'

\c:, tlrc p(751tlvc"GITXI~act\ .IS 2 ( crvcrt conlp*isatr\e Why is that so? Orre
possrblc c ~ j > l , i l ; i ' ~ t lmggestcd
i)~~,
by votl Stecl~ow(rgC)qj,rs thdt there 1s 3 null
cit~gjecrrtorl>i~ernrPO5 In 'J>tln is t.d1', whwe sern,lntlc contrlbutmn
~ c oirrlh
c
tor the srunlse tidl, cv'li~cl-tthe ad;)ett-ive takes lrr the poslttve conltrut n o r l i/ithl\ I \ nght, tile11 one rnny corgecrure that the lexlcal Itern 'tall'
hi, tE~cs , ,I IlI C~
~ A I~
I I I I~
,XU
~ ~
rl~ecorupardtr.ve (% 1r\ taller than B') d i d the
poutsve. tor111('A I\ tau') niter ,111, htrt thzt rl: rtrnlpo\es cvlth the cornpAranve
~norphenienr rrone case ancl the pltorrologcally null yos~tlvemorpheme m
IIIC trrller the scrrse tull, I \ the rewit: of corrrposlrlg the baslc sense of the
,idle( CI'SC"jwherl~rri t rs f i r l l , or \osr~et\tmgeke)'' wrrtl the sense ofthe poslhve
rrlorpk~crricb X I w e opt f o r ;1*1nr~alysls+*longtl~ctieI I I ~ ~we
~ , st111 have to
rspl,rin t i l e tl~iiercilte hetwecn 'h.~ppy'and "tall' c\liy does POS iriduce a
T ~ ~ T WI II I~I 'J, L X I I I ) ~I I I one c,ne but nctt i r l t h e iljtherj I. lcre we cannot but ~ppeal
to, tlrc Icar c,d prc )pertics of 'tdll' zjs 'Ir6ippyi to e ~ p l a ~tlre
r l ii~kGerence.
Ancjtircr rlicorc.tic,k) O ~ ~ I O I CVJIC~L
I,
t , ~cij
( w ~ t bthe pnina ficle &fikren~e
between the \err\c\ tialt, &indtull,, 1s to selcgate tlre recor~dseme to pr~glatrcs
h-c a ppivsng ( ;rrci-'s nniodlfieJ C )c can?" l<a./nr ' 3 he fbllowmg account
mggests it4e1f ' 1~ali',lctu,rlly ha\ (only) thc \erlsr ~ L J E I , To 5ny t11'1t romeone
I\ t.rli 14 to 5,1v (licer,ill.t) that r h ~ per\on
t
hm wnze posrtive ilegrec of height.
~ Z U Lof ccrrirsc, rlrn r\ ,tbrolttteIy unrrlkorrn,rt~cc,zlrlce ~verybody1s d l , . The

;W<ici. i i ~ r itiii\ri I, ,a (liiicirricc bctweerl 'tali' anii 'Jiurt' xri t l r t 5 r r g ~ r dWe

. canrrot say .John 1s three
trct r l r n k ; r r i l i if'fie .I& '/ IOW
s110st 15J01111',t11:tt entail?,o r ~ ) r e s ~ ~ ptll:ir
p o sbe~ ~is ~ h n r t1.2.
, shorter t h . ~ ~
.ivzragi.. I'l\,it d~flcrriicr1, pre*umrtlilg due t o the Let th.1~in the pair o i p u h r oppra,trs. 'shtm' is tlre
ni.irkcti terrii wliilr -t'~ii'1s tile iinrnarkzd one. 11 niryirt be tlro~rginthat IJUSIS ail there is to ttte (listlnctlon
beiweeil roil, J I I ~tall, it I$ well- biuwrr tl-~itrlrc u~~niarkrci
Lcnrr nC a pzllr of xutonyrrri ten& to be
piilyicri~i>iz~
a i i ( i can t.\I;i: cithct- the c(>rr.~plenrentzry
sense whrcil m tius i-ast corresponrl~to the upper
part ai' t i i c iiisgltt c,i.ale w i h 'si~on' correspondrny to the lower p:rrt- trr itre n e u n l sense that
i.orreiptxfiiii to tiic entire \(..zii,.
thit the riisrinctiot~herweer1 tbc two \rrtses t~dl,,md /nil2 goes beyond
tIi'at. it I S !lot t i ~ et o tFie i,iri rirat 't:ilt' is the unmarked tern1 of the pair and r x l u b ~ nthe well--known
i~dyscni\-.Ili(iec3, 11ic aLo need to .poiit u b a i t ~ertseli,r 'short>in 0rJr.r LJ r r u o w r ~ ji.)r
t co~nparirtivrc:for 'Rill is
cl-iovtcr~ l i ' ~ r ! f i ~doc\
h i ~ ' iiot entali rtist i31UI 1s shon. I te n ~ : ~di-rul/jy
y
be ~.r~tl~er
~ 1 1The
. conmst becween
iiie pOSlhVe b r r r ~,liid tilt. t.ornpardtivc fbrrr] ho/ds, ~vhethrrrjlr term at issue 1s the marked or the
urr111.trkri1rr~rnrhi;~
td'tiie 11ar.
\.2ccordrng to n10.i I!fig~u\tswho halve dc.veioperi iorrrpclrtrorid .rccounw ;tlorrg those lines, the
liasi< z r r i s e oi thr. ~ c i j ctvve
i
i? more I-maic tltxl tail,. "Tdl' denotes eiilrcr the measure tunction &om
cii)jem to ~lcp,rw~c,rr
!tie ireiylir zc;rSe, or a rrlauon iietwern inti~vidu:dsand degrees on th;lt scale. Degree
iiiorl)iroiog/ finc.litcliiig i'CIS) is wh.rt converts n~krtevcra wken to be tiic adjechvc's derlocano~~
into 3
[vropcriv o r individ~i.dsCln I \ ~ I \icrrcinlrrn vlew. tile exrstentrai qrar~aftc-arrcir~
over the degree asgurncnt is

xiot

p a t o,jthe

11351(

rnc:iii irig o/' I he n<?jecrive

n-r'lrrm of qumbty therefore leads us to systerrr'ittcal1y rirlclerstal~dthe

~ ~ ~ l q t ~ a l rstaternertt
tied
'John 1s tall' as meariirig not orily t h ~ he
t has conkc:
degree ot height, but that he ha\ sonie degree of hcrght quffic~eutlyom5tand1ng to be worth nrentronllig S~rnilarly.Spct her ,lnd VVil\ori pt~inted
out that dn utterance 11ke

It w~lltake us sonie

time

to go there

hter,*lly rnearls something quite triv~al tlidt the tnp wrll not be t r x i t a u t
aneotrs I%r,~grnatlcally,
however, tills 1s stengthmed so 3 5 to lr~njiethe
t wrll
st,rtement mfomianve: the utter.xnce 1s urrderstood ,kc \ay*)ililgt t ~ ~t
taLe 11s a siplfitatrt tlrne to go there
In t h ~ w,iy
s
we can attempt to exyl,~~n
the ,illegeJ d~ffcrenceI>tatwectl'tall'
~ n 'happy'
d
For not evelybocty I\ h p p y . Smne per\ons are unhappy 7'0 be
told that sorr-reonen happy (to some extent) 1s itlfonrl~tive;there no nced
fbr stiengtientrrg B l ~given
t
that dl the okyecti, In tire J o n i a ~ nofthe f - l f . 1 ~ ~ 1
fu'urlitlon helve height, to be toki that ,lo o b j e ~ lrt
t that ~las,sI\ t'ti!l I\ totally
unlnl'ornrat~ve5trengtherllng is requuect
A 1o11gt~trieago, Jerry Sddock put forwacJ a prLLglllattct1lec)ry nlong tliose
line\ to ~ c c o t ~for
~ i the
t polycemy of 'till'
Pile reason that Art!tur is lall so strongly indicates that Artltirr's hciglrt is at>ovcS~ryingorlly that Artlriir 11%
averagc [can] ht. tracetf to a cortversatio~r,dir-r~plicature.
height to solile extent is not a partic~ilarlyerllightrling contributio~?.In ;lhnost all
circiimstances, we would be 61rceci to search for a way ro m:ikc this trivid
observation re1ev;tnt. Tlic relevance cannot be sougi~tin the speakcr's desire to
corivey that Arthur's height is suq>risinglys1n;~llsince if that werc. tile c ~ s che coulti
(a~iiltbrrefctre shoulci) l~avesaid Arthur is slzort. So all that rem:uns is tilt- prt-stimption tirat the spraker nrieant to convey h i s feelings that Arrli~~r's
heiglkrt is urrusually
gc:zt. (Sadoclc 1981: 261n.)

Can we, In this way, ac count fkr the sense t(t11, by s ~ y l n gthdt ~t 1s a
rrlst'ir~cc of ~rtodul'~tlt>n?
,t~c~tgtlrenmg
of the bast( \en\e tczll,, hence
il-rzrc ,Ire A couple of prlmd iCie objeitions t o sue t~ a move Let us, see
whether they can be met.
On the piagnratzc story, nottr~ngpreterit\ 'Jotln 1s t,ll17 (wrtlr the literal
sense 'John ~c tall,') i'rorn being strengthened-- rendered rnore nifortn~txve-111 the opyo~~tt"
d~rectiotln i ~ dunderstood as ~ileaningt l ~ aJolln's
t
height 1s
surpnslngly low (rather than st~rpnurtglyh~gh).To rille out \ ~ l i han rritcrprc

-64-

~ .kt?*
~

W%s;.MiOmA"Floi.u
~
F
OR ~ A T ~ ~ R A T I O N ?

tation, Sadock invokes the existence of the word 'short': if what the speaker
meant was that John'r degree of height is surprisingly low (rather t h a ~
surpnsmgly h~gh),he should Ii,lve said that John 1s chort, since that is what
the word \,hurt' 1s for. For Sadock, 'tall' means tall, and acquires the sense tall,
pra~m~atically,
but 'short', being the marked term of the antonym par,
lexically codes for the seme dmrt,. In other words, Sadock's pra_grnatlc
story orily applies to the ~inrnarkedtern1 of the antonym par. But if we
want to generalize that story to all the ac-ijectlveswh~ch,in the posltive forn~,
intuit~v~.ly
irrvolvc 'i corirpar~sonto a contextudly provided standard, then
we must q p l y it to 'short' as well as to 't~ll'.(Indeed, as I mentmned in
hotnote 7, we also need a di\t~nctlonbetween two senses in the case of
'short': 'A is shorter d ~ alt3'~does not enwl that A l r short It only rneans that
A's degree of height 1s .irnaller than R'r. There 1s a.i rliuch difference between
the .iei~seslrorl, we tirid in 'John u shorter than B d ' and the sense short, we
find in tjol~r?1.5 short' AS &ere was between t d , and tail,.) Now, rf 'short'
hterally rnedtis slzort, ratlrer than sftort,, then we can no longer rule out the
unu~rlcotne\trenhshening of 'John is tall' by arguing that the speaker should
11,tve uwd the htcr,ll fimn 'John is short' instead, for thdt ~ r p ~ i ~makes
ent
sense ortiv d :)oh11 1\ short' hterallv mems that John 1s short,. If its literal
111eai11rlg19 as ~111n10rn1ativt'
as the literal meaning of 'John 1s taU' is supposed
to be, then the argttrncnt collapse.,
Let u\ *r.isrmle that thts problem can be solved. How would the
generalifed pragri"lrxtic story go in the case of 'short'? We have seen that
'A 1s rhorter than 13' doer not cnml that A is short. It only means th t A's
degree of her& 1s sndler than U's. IHere the ac)echve 'short' seems to
coritribute ($molt) the sane property as ' t d ' does in 'taller than', namely
the property of havirlg sonle degree of height. So perliaps we can say that
'~11'and 'short' are associnted vvltlii the same measure function from objects
to dcgrees on the he~ghtscale. O f course, there is significant diEerence:
mth 'short' the dzrttctzorz of the st d e (the ordenng relation) is reversed. ro
that the cornparatxve of supenonty 'more' (or '-er') means lower orz the scale
in the 'short' c'ue arid htyCter in the ' t d ' case. Given dl thts, the pragmatic
story mris as followr: 'John is short' literally means that he xs short,, and that
rneans that lie h a some degree of height. This is pragmancdly strengthened:
the degree to whlch he 1s short, 1s understood as 'niore' than normal or
expected. Because the direction of the scale is reversed, the comparative
rnorphenie 'more' rs trnderstood in the opposite direction than it IS in the

A I3j.E.cTiVGS:
V <;

*n

CASE S'l'iiljY

65

case of W: it now presents John's degree of height as lou~erthan rtor111alJ

expected. This gives m the sense sCtnrt,.
Note that the lexlcd er~codusgo f the dlrcctlon of tfrc ccalc solve\ the
problem we first ralsed. If the \peaker, througii ctrcrlgherr~tig,wanrccl to
conmunlcate that John's Itelght is ccruzparntlvely low (rather than cotnparatively high), he should 11ave saicl llohrr rs short' That does not htera1Lll-y
xnean that John is short, hut nevertheles., tunvcys that nleaning througls
strengthening. With 'John 15 t ~ l l ' ,streixghcnlng gves the wrong result,
gtven the dlrectlon of tlie scale So sol~~ctlxing
llke S~ctock'sargtmleiit goci
the pmgxlatrc- c t o t ~
through, even rf we general~~e
W ~ d about
t
the optiondt) cntrnvxl7 Eor d lo~lgtrlne 1 r1lougllrt thdt ~t
ruled out the moduia~onoptlon &I gr~~dabie
ad~ect~vcc
Irke "tall' Ii t i l e
baslc sense tall, was freely er~rlchedjitrertgl~enecl)~rltot(xJ1, in order t t r awke
the statenlent mfor~natxve,then rt oiqqCet a) he posithie to corzcrtrtii ti ionluxt w z
zi~htchno such rtettgtj~enrn~
IS vt7ytured jlxx,niir even nnrnmal v a l ~ ~
would
e
bc
mforniat~ve).BLI~-I thouglil~t-that I\ not poss~hle.:John 1\ t ~ l l I I C V ~ ~
n~eatlsthat Jolm IS tall to wnle cfcgree or otlter, t11xt IS to s q , t h ~ rIre h,14
sorne degree of height, evcn rf we Irxlag>rri. a ~ i c r r context
~t
111 wlut h not
everybody has height
I an1 no longer so sure Dan Sperber (rn dricucsron) I1.n ~oxlrctip wrth 2
cor~vrr~clng
exmiple: that of ,r ultlvrr\cXwrtklr both two-cl~mcncron'~l'and
three-dlmem~onalobjects, wilere r t would be naturdl to rcSer t o the theeJlrnenslonal objects &, the 'thtck' o \ ; l j c ~ ~TI'fricli91cre
s
nieau~iiorxsetl~mg
hke 'having some non-~erode'gree of tlllcL;rle.is' So I am no longer SO sure
what the verdict of the optronal~ty( r-lcmox~n ur tho case. I3e that a\ rt rrray,
the modula~onapproach s t d e s xttc as, 0x1t i l e whole. llot very plaucrblc It
says that we h a ~ cto strengtlnen 111 the case of 't,lll' because the ~~rmrm~xl
degree-of-helgl~t property 1s trivial arid rb scnption unlrrforn~atxveRrxt
what about 'expengive'? Some objech are Gee, hence tlney axe not expenclvc
to any depee--acqumng them ~rlvolve\rzo cost wlt,it,oevcr. So rt is xlut that
hrvial to be told that sornethrng IS c.vpeuiAtt?t*,, that n, thdt IS has a co\t St~ll,
I ~ Ithe sense expensaslvc7,(m_volvu~g
'tha is expensive' IS-always-undentt>od
3 hlgher cost than the contextual sta~~dard)
TI113 13 ltndccounted for, on the
pragmatic story.

Kt:rinedv riotcs tlrlit tlrc cascts ~rliii.11IIPVOIC,~

;L co~ltrxtunl
standard teird to be
the c;tst.s i n which the scale ;kt issur is 'open'. that is, hxs neither a minimnt~rn
nor lllaxbilltiilt (/e"gree(Ker~ne~iy
.xrtcl iblcN;~llyhooj; Kenrredy 2007)." I-Ie
otfi=r.c rile &>lltr-c\i~ng ggcner:iliz:rtic,n: vvivhcrr the scale i~ssttciated with an
;tc~ectivc. is (partly or t:ot;dly) closed, the positive form is typically under-stooil :is stlying t113i the s~~bject's
degree on thi: scale is at least as great as the
rninu.trrla1C)B. I I I ~ X ~ J I degree
I;~~
(2s the case xrray ire); wberr the scale is open, the
posflive fi>rrrr i s iliicdcr-stood as saying t h t the sutject's d o g e e 0x1 the scalc
i s at least ;rs gr:rrLrta s . . .S0311e cor1testu~1
sr;in&~rd.So context-sensitivity is
iinlceti I ( r ~lnt)oundecixlessof tire itssociatecl scale. That (for K e ~ ~ n e d y )
is cvl~err~ i x ccdifjkrcxrcc between 'l~.la~>py'
and ".call' comes Gom. 'Happy' is
aswciatcd with a ic\\r\iur-boundeci scalc (2s rlxr i'c1icit.y of 'absolutely/totally
rinl~~ppy'
skiows); sts rct say that sorlleone is happy is t o say that he or she has
solno. rrotwero ciegrre c,fltappitiess (or c-h:xr his/l~cv-degree of happiness is at
Fcasr w l;ri.,lt ;LS r:l;rr rninirnuxn tlegree o n tlrr sc;~lej.Kcrt 'tall' is associated
wit11 a11 opein ~ i l c ~: I ~ eisr crlo rt~iriinrtrnl(rxor~zeso)degree of height, nor is
tbicue ;r ari,rxiriirrrr~ticgree. Thc sc-ale is i~rtboalndeciat both ends.
ZCenirr~iy'stlet:riie(l discnssic>xlcorrvinc~ixlg1yestablislres that there are two
t y p t a s o f gradable ircijectives: rhose cllat arc relncive arlci context-depentfesrt
('sslrort', "srn:dl', 'expprsive'. etc.) nnci t.l.lcae tll;tt are absolute ('happy', 'wet',
ope^', 'ct.rr~pty'~
'srraigllt'). Wittrirl tht: class of'absolute gadattle acjicctives,
t-hc:rc; is I: tiarkher srlhctivision, cleprnding on whether the scale has :r maxir - r i r r r i ~ .Aai :idjcctivc whose nssociatc.~!
sc:iic 913s $1 I I ~ ; I S ~ ~ I I L o111y
~ ~ I L applies (in
tllc positrvr fi~rrri:"a is F ' ) to tltose objr:crs that :ire ~ i z ( ~ ~ i ~ f?
r ~ SO
~ i lto
l y be
i l ~ p p yi s to ht" h;~ppyto SOXIIC degce, hrrt to be rrrxpty is to be rn:tximdly
t:rnpty: ;iIr;ili:-c:rnpty contairler is not empty.
1 s a i d t h a t ari ;~pj?roachin terrrrs of' rrrodrrlat-iorr is n o t very plausible for
relative gradable actjectives, but lor absolute gradahle adjectives of ttre
'rnaxirnal' tvpe such :.it1 approach looks rr~oxcpronrising. Let us corrsider
kerrrpt-y'. Sirce "c-rrlpty' is a gratiable adjthctive (it accepts degree moclifiers
know r.hat .&ri .ici]ecu\rc X" 1s ass~(.~aicd
wit11.%
3 ~ 3 thrlt
1 ~ h.1~d r~~axinltim
&gee w h e ~ ~t
l makes
rncid~ii,the id~ectivc>
with 'absoil~tiiy'(itl~solzctclyrrrrpry, ,il?iciir~r~~ly
sfruiyht, absnilcicly ~ri~?iylas,
vs.
o b s i l l t i t e l y d ~ o r t ob~~ltdtely
I~.~~C~I(SILV)).W h ~ r ,tsi
l rll/leci~~e
J; IS sszot~saie~d
wlrb a sc'rie thai Etas J. minirnum
degree, it mkri iriin. to mo~ii+t i l t . polar arltunyili n'iih "ail~roiirti.ly'(sri~ct:ntg.it.ion reverses the scde
'~iitiiii.ilrr\ ,i!osvt*t hotcritit~dic'ile tipper- Iroiirttirii)
"~' r:

icrisr

tci

AI>jt

< r

i V 1 \. A C A \ E \ I U I ) Y

67

such ,-is 'very' ,lnd the coniparanve coitstruct~t.an),tl^icrc 15 ,in a\\oc~'xt~d

rrleasure htlctlon, EMPTY, rrlapplng objects of the rekevai~tsort (vrx. corltarn
ers) to the degrec to wh~cllthey are errlpty As wxth "short' ~trlcirelG1~ve
ac!ject~ve\, but m contr;rst to 'Il,lppy', we find that the t onlpdrat~vefc)rnl
cioes not entail the posttive torrn 'A is elnptler than U' docs riot ent,ul tll,~tA
n ernpty. So it seems, once again, t h ~ there
t
are two seascj, elrfpfy, (itelng
ernpty to some degree or li.lvtng Tome d e ~ ~ of
e eernpt~ne\~)
arid errzpty,
(being erzrpty sztripltnt~~v)111 contrst to relative acijccttves, ho.i;vever, there n
a r n ~ ~ degree
~ m ~onl the scale, c o r r e s p o ~ ~ d ~ton gthe expres\rorr 'ahsol~ltely
empty'; 2nd there 1s ari obviou\ llnk between the property of'betrlg cnlpty
cimplznter (e~npty,)and the property o f b e ~ n gabsolutely c~rlptyWhen wc \,ly
that 'A n enlptrer than 13' docs liot errtall that A 1\ crrilTty, ~vhdtwe 1r1earl r\
that it does n o t enhi1 that A a ~ h ~ o l ~ ~emptb.
tely
Given all thr\, wl'tich property does the adjective 'etrlpty' c'rpresbj If-wt
laulme that whatever property the adjective c*xpreuc\ rrlrlst be cvhat tieter
mines rts extension, ttlen we carirlot s q that the property Iri questior~1s the
property of be~rlgempty to sorrle degree or liavllzg wine degree of rrzrptlL ~ ~ PIS,Y ,dbsolzitely
nesc (cwipty,) For a t oritdiner tlut is not ernpty S ~ T ~ I ~ ~ I ti12t
emyty, doec not belong to the estenslon of 'empty' A haltltrx~ptyglas, IS
not ernpty ever1 though it has sollle degree of emptine\\, 4 0 ~t does rrot fall
wtt-nn the extensron of 'empty'.
As a matter offact, we know perfkctly well which property the acijccrive
'empty' exprecses. It 1s the property (tor '1 t uritalrrer) of inot t or1t;ltnlng
anything, of beirig devoid ofcontent\. 7 hat 1s hc>wwe define 'ectnpty' Note
t~
a p~upertywtrtch A (o1ltnini.r h,n or doe3 not
that this is a 1 a b ~ 0 1 1 iproperty,
anvth~ng50 the
hme E~therrt corltnlns something, or ~t doc\ not coxzt'xr~~
property wb1cE-1the ,rcfjective expreszes drld wh~ckrdeter~ixrtcsits extellsxctn
a not A property that adrri~tsof degrees. Plow, then, can we exp1arl-I the
grttdability of the adjecnve'r
Let LIC, grant that the adjective 'enttpty' eupxe\ws the property ot being
(abrolutely) empty So tlie pnni'xry sense o f 'empty' 1s ernply, Now we can
construct a scde the m,lxiinurn degree ot w h ~ c hcorresponds to thc property
to
In question. The me~isuref-uncnort r - n / I P n WIU thetk 111,ip corltai~~ers
degrees on that scde, depending oil the extent to wtlrcf~they apyrowmate
~mE>hfi"SS.Every degree on the fcak wlth the esceptlon of thtbrrl,lxirnllnl
clegree wrll be cucl~th,tt tvtrerl d corltalner rnnyc to that degree, the predicate
,
a (otlt,tincr ttrdt 15 not ~r~,t\i~rnallv
errtpty
'empty' does rlaf applv to ~ theiati\e

- -

7%7YFfSOLUTF

rs not erilpty \o the property whicl~acimrts of degrees, and which the

rneawrt: ttlnction measures, IS not the basic property of emptiness wluch
the 'idjective 'eenlpty' pnn~anlyexpresses, but a dlsnnct property that can be
defiried I ~ Iterrtls of ~ t the
. property of (as 1 sad) apro~rmntlvg~ ~ ~ p t t n e s - .
A half-eriipty g1:lnss possesses that property to a ineasurable extent. So it is

empty,
If tins is nglit then there are ltuo properties assoc~atedw t h an adjective
sucli ,IS 'el~~pty'rhere is the basic property of ernptlnesc, corresponding to
the pnlnary rerlse (ewtpty,) It 1s absolute and does not adnut of degrees In
tcriris of that property, however, we can define another predicate and
generate scde ~ i > r r e s p o n dto
~ ~the
g degrees to which thdt other predlcate
apphes The adlei tive 1s polysenious because in additlor1 to ~ t haslc
s
sense,
winch rs al>solute,it also takes A \econct, gradable sense that secondarv sense
is what we get 1vhzr2 the ildjecti~eukes degrce mod~fiersas in 'very enlph'
or the conil~araavctorlbtructiori 'eniptier than' 1x1 'very empty', the ad~ecdle basic predlcate which applres only to
tive 'emply' does riot contr~f~ute
enipty containers, b u ~a der~vedpredicate ~vhicliapphes to afl contaners
th,rt ~pp10~11natv
enzptmers to ronie extent
The scc ondary \en\e is ar~uablvdenved from the baslc seme AVI 'broadeiilng', w h ~ht i< A fonn of nlodtdation (the converse of strenghening)
Bro;tdtni~~g,
or rcrne exter~sic>r~,
is resporlsible for the rnetaphoncal understanding of 'asleep' in exaniple (rr) of Chapter I (p. qr) The exteiision ofa
pred~catethat liac tiridergone broadenmg a a ruperset of its orignal extensio~i(Carston r9(~7,zouz)I11 Chapter r s example (11) 'asleep' cxpres es the
property qurx-I A N I ) saowrivc, LITTLE ACTIVICY, a property which sleeping
people (or ar~lrnkls)do have but ~vhich1s also yo~sessedby many other
objects. 1x1 the case of kn~pty',broaderiing gves us the seme we have when
the word I\ used loosely and applies, say, to a theatre with only a handhi of
spectators, or to a glass of beer that only c ontans a few drops of liquid The
theatre or the g1:~d~s
are not literally enipty (of beer or of spectators) but they
are empty lo a loose, extended sense (Sperber and Wilson rgX6b)
L asenohn (1999) has formahzed the mtuitive idea of loose use through h ~ s
notlon of 'pragrna~ctido', and I wll follow h m here. The pragmatic halo
of an expression (relative to a @veil context) is a set of enaties of the same
logcd type as the denotatlori of the expression Each entity in the set is
undentood to di8t.r h a 1 the denotaaon orily in some respect that is
prajgmtically ignorable in the context Let us focus on the phrase 'emptv

theatre', assurmrtg that the word 'theat~e'rn t l ~ lphrase

t
I\ urldet \toad stslctly
and hterdly, so that the pragmatic hido of the conlplex phrasc only depends
upon the pragmatic halo of tlie aj,lectlve "nipty' The tfenotanon of rhc
phrase 'empty theatre' n dze \et of eltipry theatres (1 e theatre., mith rro
spectators) In the sort of context In whlctl one nz~glitdescribe theatre wrdi
only a handful of spectators as empty, the halo of 'einpty tlleatre\n a i e t
including, in addltion to the set of hter~llyerrzpry theatres. dze srt of tt~eatres
m t h only one spectator, the set oi tlzeatrer with only two spectatoa,
up
to a certain number n of spectators dny llilnlber of spectntors below n IS co
low that it is pragnlatic,illy ignor~hlem the context we mlag112r 'Thr
example dlustratec an iniportant feature of tire pragllatx 11sltr of d r r exprcs
t
he ordercd, either totilly or pxt~dJy,rn
sion according to Lasersohn: ' ~ may
buch a way that the deno~zaonfbrrr1c a n ~ t u r endpoint
~l
for the ordering'
(Lasersohn 1999: gab). I. et us ';ay that nrr object helorrg? to the exten\lorr of
'empty theatre' broadly urzderrtoud (in 2 context c), It a~ldonly ~frl: rr a
member of one of the rets In the halo of that expressrorl m L So a thcatre
e
of "er-ripty theatre' broadly understood,
w t h SLX spectators is ~nd ~ extenslotl
l yr l i l
even ~ f l1ts not In the extentslorr ol'enlpty thcatre' understood \ t r ~ ~ t ~
literally.
The secondarv property w'tlrcb "mpty' expresbes through broaden~r,g15,
1 sad, the property of apprttxlr~~atirzg
emptiness In cirritr,ist to the j3nrnarv
property of emptiness, it ,zdrmts of degrees. '17hu\ we can say that the t l ~ e ~ t r e
a 'very empty' tonight, or ' e m p t ~ e r ' t l ~ita iwxs
~ yertcrday T11r exten\ion of
the secondary property PruLpty, IS the ullrori of the \eh In the halo Kt rruy be
ordered because tlle halo itselfis orde~edhv the relat~onok c-lorerlers to the
denotahoii: the set of theatres with e x a ~ t one
l ~ spect'ttor 1, tlo\er to the
denorahon ( V ~ Z the set oftlzeatres w ~ t hno spectator) than the wt of tlle~trrs
with two spectators, and so fort11 So art object A possesses the pzopcrLy of
dpprommahng emptmesr to a h~gherdegree tharl anotlier ihject B IRA i b L
member of one of the sets in the ha30 and tIiat set n c-loser to the cler~o'iat~orr
B IS A n ~ e ~ l ~in
b etile
r izalo
of 'empty' than any set of-c;vli~ch.
It important to realize t11,lt the gradahlr seme i r k adjective\ lrkc 'cmptv',
though derived by means of s pr,lgliatic rneclltlrrlsnz @ro'~denrng-~form
o f modulahon), is neverthelesn part of rile convcntlonal nze'~r~ing
of the
adjective. It is notjust that the cjer~vatioliofthe gradable sense rc 't oerced"
by degree modifiers s ~ ~ as
c h"very' it 1%also converiho~iali;.ed an11 "precompiled in the lexcon' (as is <ad p
m a footnote about ,motl~rr

c aic of poh\r.aity) b

lras to be atRnowleclgecl1f we x e to accoLrnt For the

dri-It.~eria r bc*tweerr .il,sc>lute rrr,txlm;rl ,rcijc~t~vc$

fIkLe "wind', which are
gritd;rllie Ilc.iLrrnc tlrcv are cc>nvex~tioo,lilyAuor lared w ~ t bthe secondary
p ~ q w r t y tnd ';djrc tivrs Irkc "syber-rc&I7 w i i ~ c h,ire riot gadable (we cannot
\,tv 'vverv y9hm1~dj'w ~ l f ~ t )odct~ty
ut
-sche 1 'zwrstrl~n[got). j q ) , even though
thc.\i r o o i , l x l uridergtr broacferrttigrrt p'crt~c~rl-ir
~oalttxts.In the 6,unework
1 he yr
r\s ctfrnoc!ul.lt~ori 14 c O I I V C " ~ J ~ I C ) ~ ~11~1 ~s(3111e
* / C L (ayes and
a>~lai'r\,l a r d wn/hct~~t 15, the ,iClject~vrIS ~ U ~ ~ ? I ~ W I Il tOi L I S

I propo*,
ncrt

1 ?ihuiigEi rrrocl.iri,rtrc~rrrs optmo~rl,~t t d n bc coerceii, a t d tbdt IS what h~ppens

wcoliea~ C ~ C "iisc tlegrcae rrlodrficr'l rn c-onnect~r)riw ~ t haci,lcct~v~%
tlut are not
p r ~ n ~ ~9L~clarblc
nly
i I-lc degree mod~fietierreqmrcbsit g d a b l e sense to nrodifv.
W/ircw i h i x pnln,ilv krthe oi'ttlc dc~jcctlveb riot gradable, itre rnodllier can be
p u t t o c l or-k trlrlc Irv sirblectrrlg tlte pnnr"'in/~ I I toS moci~~lahor),
~ ~
50 as to get an
dp/yrty~i
i ~tt4v
gr,iiiahle :err\e 'I'hus Yi-rtxnclr' I \ not gr~tl~rldc,
brrt one cdrl maLe
i t gr~d~iirlc
~ I I T I P U1110dnl~tlf011.
~II
by taklrlg the ~~ijectwe
to express not the
~ - ~ ~ q vofrbruig
t v I rcrlih. but, for exY~~r1p1e,
the property ol-h,~v~i~g
the fe~tuies
type .illy ,asoc rdtetl wrttm I'retic 11 people 'I t i ~ property
t
'tdrritts of degree (the
triore I xcixc 11 tr,rtrirr.\ 011~
&A, thcr rrlore Y rcrrclr' orre 1s). Note that to be
rreric Ir rrl ellr s c c o n d ~ n
senre,
~ one doe^ not have to he Eren~hIn the pnrnary
\crl\e ( )ni3 117Xy, i t t i - c ~ . ~ ~ ~hep an
l e Amtancaal
,
,mil shU he 'veq French'.
A xxicrrc cirdrlr~trct ,lse> dlrc~r5sedby Kerrr~edy('ritrr Unger), 1s the phrase
'pretty str algXlt7 "Irer-ty' m
s a degree n~ucirt-re~,
sttrrrlar to the ixlter~s~fier
'very'.
it ( &~IIo i i h IIIOCLI~V I gr:l^d(iitble
~ d j e t t ~ vVVherx
e.
the .idJective it 1nodrtie41s a1

'" Accorciirry t i t licr~ven~sti.(rg74: 127), pcdyscmy u c~?rivcnrwri:ri~zeii

n~oduiauot~.
Indeed the same
ji,itit.i.irs of ~ ~ C I I V . I I U O I LCC
I
,it work 181 ~x~~tdu~attori
and (diachn>niraiiy)in polpse~ily(kgg2005: xiu). Thus
,in exanil~lrt i t piiiwsrn~vwhich Austrn borrow h n A ~n i t o ~ l eIS .ti the w n e tur~ea good illustration of
iiir,torr?;iiric 'trarlsicr , .4 third ibrin oi'mnciu1.itrori bzsrdes streridrtrri~rlg
. ~ n dliroaderung.
i'iierr :s L lnrnialy tr~rcleiirsense of 'iledtliy': the st-nw in wtlich '11e.iItlty' 1s used of 2 bcalt11~
hod\,
Ei is 'cozi~une-cias a pan' in the other two senses whxch xrvay be 5et out as 'productive of
hc:dtiry i x d i e c jliealrizy rxernsr] and "resulturg fi.onr a he:dthy irocly' [heulrizy tompfexionl. (Austul
197r.11)
I.vcn ti~uugli.i n pillvwrti~~us
cxprussiotls. the serrse tlut 1 1 shzerr denved hotrr a pnnlary serue throud,
tnt~diii~tio~i
1i.a i>t.ic coi~v~~ncion~i1i7edd
tire detrvauutl I(.it111 dive irr the r~xntisofthe Iairhwage rrsen, who
*tic JW:UTC thx t l i ~dRi11iti SCV~SCSof &C exprt5stc>zih r n ~n firxrrly. That &s~~nguislies
p u l y s e n ~&om
~
Iiortluriy~ri\

absolute adjective of the xnaxiriral type, 'pretty' torcrs the acljcctive to take
the secondary, gmdablc serlse. So, in 'pretty sst.raigi!7t7,'straight' has tllc
secoridary sense upproxinautirlg xtrukhtness. Nocv Ungcr (1975) lsas made the
fdlowing observation, which nlust be accourlted for. Consider (8) and (9):
(8) The rod IS pretty rtl-sight
(9) ?'he rod n straight

A\ expected, (8) does not erltarl (g)." 1 h e rexion why it doec not 1s obvto~rrIn
(9)'straight' is takcn in the pnmxy sence, wl-r~chrs the dcC~f;rldt.
But 111(8) the
inodder 'pretty' coerces the acijectlve Into la se~o~rdary
sexlce upprox~r~z~itzt?q
stta;q/ztrtes, Exaniple ( 8 ) does not entad (9) bccduse 1 rod c ~ r approrrnl'ite
i
str~~glltncu,
eten to a h ~ g hdegree, wrthorit bemg cictuLrlly\traght. linger's
c>bservatlongoeq beyond thxt, however What he note, 1s that (8) dctt~klly
entails the llqyirtron of (9). A rod that 1s pretty stralgl~t'~urirzof be rcrxlght (its
degce on the strarglitiiesc;scale earxrrot be ix~axm~tl)
T hrc suggests the follctwiilg constrau~tsfor m andyu? of 'prettv'. An ddlec Qve A ~11~)Cilfied
by 'pretty'
tntnt expresc J property I; that ~dmlt\of degree, dnd the corl~plesphr,~re
'prettv A' ascribes a Izyh but rzotzmuzmnl degrre of iL-ticus l 7
I'h~sinkes 'pretty' sri1111,tr to the \o-c~Lled'priv~t~vr*
ac?Jectltes \ueh as
'&Le7 111 'fake dollar' For (ro) dl\(>entculs the neg,ltlori of ( I I )
(ro) Ths 1s a b k e dollar
(11) 'flus 1s a dollar

Thls leads us back to the Issue 1 rarsed edrl~erabout alleged Sai1x1rc.sof rtghtcubsectrvity . In both 'pretty straight' and 'fake clollar', tlre tlght-subsec tlvlty
tnference schema Ai3 -+B seerns to be violdted
Whert left-subsectivity s~lperfic~dly
fails (as In A srn~llelcpfrarlc IS tlot
smJU') I haid thdt t h ~ s1s because the sense of the xdlectlve sh~fts

" Thls n m contrast to what we find lfirlstcad of 'strruglrt' we use a relativc grtt~lableadjective or an
absolute gradable adjrctlvc of 1l1e rmtlirnili type:
( i ) The rod i s pretty longwet
(ii) The rod is long/ wet

F-lere (I) elit~iis(ii)

' W o r e prec~sely:it ascnbes a high degree of F-ness, such that there exlsts ;u-2 eve11 lugher degree.
Tlzis entzils nonntavin~alitywitfmm presupposing that the relevailt scale has a n r ~ x i n ~ ~(This
u ~ > .primppoa~tionwould be ~n~welcomne,
since 'pretty' cart, modify r e t a ~ v egradxbie adjectives. as irt 'thc rod n
pretty long'.)

elephant,

not s m d ,

Because of the sh~ft,tlras is not a genume vlolatlon of the lefi-subsectlvity

ts~ferencecchern't AF3 + A Smldarly, in the Unger case, we find that nghtiubsectlv~tyonly wenis to be violated If we pay attention to the sense
which the adjettlve takes on each of ~ t soccurrences, we find that the
ctructure of the example ic as follows:

A rod t h ~ ist pretty stralght, is not stralght,

So tlie nght subsechvity ii6erence sclien~aAB =+ B is not violated elther. It
would be v~olatedonly d the sense of 'strarght' were constant 6-orn one
oLcurrerlce to the next; which it IS not.
Can we extend this idea to pnvative adjectives, as m (lo)? Tins n what
Barbara Partee (li>rtbcoming)has suggested. Accordmg to her, words like
'real' or 'like' divlde the estenslon of the head noun under a broadened
nlterprctatlon. Real arid counterfeit dollars are all 'dollars' In the extended
scilse That we rleed to xppe,d to a 'broad' sense of 'dollar' in certrun cases IS
z\t;lbl~shedby exdnlple like.
Is t h ~ sdoll~rieai or Gke!
(13) There x e uu tikv-dollx notes m &s box, two ,re red, md four are countert2lt.
(12)

tlere, V~rteep0111b out, 'dollar' canrlot take the smct sense; it must take an
extended scme. To be sure, the stnct sense 1s the primary sense, and it is the
as follows
defiult. So ( r r ) rr ~~ntlcrrtood
'Ibis is a dollar,

where A dollar, is ,I geliulne b~nknote.But m (10) the adjechve forces the sense
of tile noun to be broactened. It follows that the apparent hilure of nghtsubsectrvity exhib~tedby the example in (10)-(11) is, once +gun, an illuslori due
to a sh~tim the meaning of the ac3echve. If we make the shift exphcit, we get:
A counterkit dollnr, is not a dollar,

I'lie right-sub~ectrvityinference schema AU =+ B is no more vlohted here

S the 'pretty stralgl1t7case. Indeed, dwe keep the semantlc value
than ~tW ~ ~n
of 'dollar' constmt, the nght-subsectwe inf5rence holds:
A counterfeit dollar, is a doliar,

R!)JECI'IVES:

A C A S E SST'iii.iY

73

O n this account, alleged Eduses of boeb lee-sul~sectjvityand right-subsectivity rest o n an equivocation; arrd there is no reason to do~tbtthe iritersectivity of any of the adjectives tfsat carr occur in predicative position.

S. Conclusion
As I argued m Chapter I , sernastlc ile-irbllxty I\ coriipabble w r h compasrno~iahtyprov~dedcompositional~tydself- ~c ~~rzderstood
111 a suklicrentlv
flexible manner. The meaning o i tire whole rs a fixncho~lof the 1rleAiling
of the paas, but (I) the rtemulgt ofthe parts are thctr ocrduond mednmgr,
(11) the occasional rneanu~~.
of word? 1s ,iil>ctcd by context m a w,~)iw I ~ ~ c I L
goes beyond lndeslcallty and extends more or less ~rruversally,and ( l r l )
among the contextual factors which shape oecdslonal niezlnlng the lrngtrrrt~c
contest plays A central role. Thlr gves LIS A mechamsm t1:llrough whlct~d ~ e
meaning of the parts depends upon the rriear~lngof the whole and of tllc
other parts, In a wav that is nevertheless compaat~lew l t t ~coniposr~onahtv
'1 he t.rtltl>-condrtro~~i
oful utter
Adjective.; provlde a s t r ~ k ~ nexar~~ple
g
ance contairung an adjective niodsfi~~lg
a rloun depend upon the occamn,il
meanings of the ad~ectiveand r11r rlouxi, mdi the occasiori~lmeb~riingoteither, resulting from sacurat1ot.r ar~tliormociulatior~,depcnd5 upon dle
other words in the sentence the occasional nlc,xmrig of the ad~ecttvz
depends upon the noun (2%\\.ell ac orher clerrtei~trin the sentence, ulclh
rnezlxiliig afthe noun ltseif
as, for exantpie, degree asod~firrq),tlie o~c.141una1
depends upon the d d j e ~ h v tand
, so 012 arid c o forth
Ais lrrunedlate corlsecluence of that rrtterdctlorl is t h ~ tdle c\c-cas~r?n,rl
nleanmg of words 1s li~glilychihable one ~~~~~~~~~~~e of a no11 -,u~l\~~i,.rro~~\
e
nleming 1' s mother
espressron need not possesss ;she s z ~ i ~(oc-cxsronal)
occurrence of the expresaoxl rn tire senterrcc Urllers case 1s t,rkcn to track
~ I C ) ~ OLI difl'esenc occur
the vanom senses which a gveri C Y I _ ~ ~ ~ \dvurnef
rences, the shfi~b11xt-yofoccaslon,il trtcanir-ig gves the illusrou that there are
hrmts to the vahd~t):of standard patterili, of i~?t't.renceIn the c'rw o f
adjectives one gets the lrt~presslon tliat some &re not lrltersechve ever1
though they can occur rn predicatxvc posrrltrri That IS argudbly an rilusron,
due to the mistaken assumptior>that the t l u t ~ ~ - c o n d r t . ~c o n t~r ~ h r x t ~ofo ~ ~
non-ambiguous word niust be the canre on Any occtlrrence of the word rrr

the \c.rrti%rir c* Xt,ither t h , g~ ~~v eLIP the P ~ I S I L I ~that

I C a11 ad~ectlve'ithat can go
rai p~cdicativc*povaon are mtc~cect~vc,
1 suggest that we give up that
as\unlptrou ,rnJ srvne the rrirethodulo~yirn accordance with Qurxle's In~truttroll" ~ r nc licc Ling the v~lreiltyof an rr derrxrt e \illenla, ensure that all
oc c tirrrxlirs (it J g;r\wn wold *iretdkerr In the s,rn~eiense. m e n that I$ done,
the cv~cjcriccl.
for rwix intcrsectlvrty m~orrgprmia G ~ l predlcahve
e
adj~~tlv"~
1s xiu Eoi~gc-r( trrrxpclhng
A I,i*,t txarlrlde WIIL serve t o rlltrstrate tlre gctierdl pomt. Conslder a
,
A world-farnous
scerirano rrr wlalcfr john, '1 retlrcd ~ L I ~ L J I C Xbeconie
sclrrltIS1:dftcr 111sdl\r overy of X Y L . In tlus i c e n ~ n othe fofollowng proposl-

the as\rrrnptBorr 111'tt 'ret~red'n txitcrscctxve, (14) sho~ildbe analysed as

e i ~ u n q h s r r to
t "Jtrlrrr n r-et~red.u~dJoluris J brrtc her'. Tliat entads that Jolrn n
J. butt hcr Iri I o r l j i i r i c trcm wtlr ( I $ ) , 1701.111
IS rvtircJ 'in4 john w a butcher'
ent,~il\'J>hn 15 ri-tirrd 'mtl Johrl 14 ,I t x ~ t ~ h ta' r~ l dIofln 1s a sc~eritlst',a i d that
crit,rils rbcs 1,royositrorl whlclr, o r 1 the unteriectxvltv aswniptlon, 'Jolt11 n a
~iarr~taly
the propo\rtlorx t1ia.t John 1s rctrred and
rctlreii \CICII~Z"I' ex~7rtXs,e5,
chat he n 'i.icI~rrti\t 50, 011 the rriterscctivrty asstirllptron, (rq) and (rs) ought
to e r ~ r ~chl i41Jcrlrrl i s A butcher arrd tk~ttt1c. 1s a ret~red~ c ~ c n t ~
But
s t .nelther of
thew enra~lrncrrtrholds. l6ro~lr(14) 3 r d ( k i ) ~t doe\ not tallow thatJohn 1s a
butcher (he r\ no lortgcr one, th(>ughhe was), nor that he 1s a retired sclentlst
(11c I \ onIy .it the i.rcg;iran~ngof hi\ new c dreer) SIXIC~
tlfese erltalments do
not Iroid, \rrtntuii9 rs cc>nc~dercii
ai, noit tntersectrve Its nun-lntersectlv~qu
~ciountcclfor by ,inaly\~ngrl: AS ,r predicate n~odrfier(11ke 'fornler' or
a precbc dte OII ~t"iown right, tiespite the Gct that,
'p.ieudo7) r,rr ilcr rllan
unllhe ' ~ O ~ X P I C($II'.'p\t'~tlo',it (drl occtlr 111 " r e n ~ ~ i gpred~cative
ly
poslt~on
(tjohrn 1s retlrcl"i')
I hxve ~tE,errthas cx.tx~ll;\lebec,rusca ketxed' u ukcn cot1\1dered as a paraQgn
of nou ru-rwnect~v~cy
I vcn 1x1 that c&e, flowever, nort-mte~ect~vlty
rs drguably ,rrr xllirsrori strnirrlrng Gorn the" xrrearlmg \tu-fts wluch vaflouc t e r n
undergo Irr tkioe st~temer~ts.
m a t fouows IS a
(Yretarcd', .laid 'l~iirc~~cr')
pos51bic <~rrdysrs
along those lixlcs
F ~ n t ca>rr\rder
,
'tetucd' 111(14) 'rrtlrrd' a ur~clcr\toocl~n a more speclfic
wnse t h ~ nr r k Irrcral kcxrse 'Clrl5 ts an rnstdrit e trf strenghenixlg The hteral
011

cs

sell%?of ?retired' (retzred,) 1s F W t N C KF L 11~1I) 1ROM ONE'? J O B 7 I i ~sen%

t
car]
be nzade rnore s p e ~ i fby
~ ~spec~fvltlgthe 5017 m quebtlc?~~tn (14) ~t
~ix~derstood
thatjohn !tax retired fro~tii ~ ~ t f i h t ~ t h1oh~ ~d \pet
s 1l.i~-tlriderstnndrng
for ~t IS not
of 'retrred' in (rq) 15 an lnctaxlce ofnrotfu1~tror-r.not s~tu~dtioxi,
or r~rlplit~ t l v
rnanddtory. It I:, qulte poss~blcto use 'rctlred' wrtlloitt espl~c~tly
5peclfj.mg the job 1x1 cluestron, as 1x1 'John is retired' Even d 'retired' n
followed by 3. noun, tills n pou~ble,as 112
(16)

John a a rettred Frenchrrran

Pretty clearly, tha doe:, not mean tirat John fi.ir retired horn Fren~Iintanslttp,
hut only t h ~Ire
t 1s a I-renctrrnan who 111'~x retisect from 111s job. 'I lle same sort
e
because
of readlng is dva~I,iblefor (rq), even i f ~ 1st very hard to m ~ k s,iller~t
the ct~cngthenedI tadlng (rertwil, = KF I I H I I) IWOM B X I ( HI I ~ T < ) o c ) ) mtpctsec
t (14) 'rrft~recl'take? the ~pec~t-rc
selzse
~tscli-lnsuch a case. I colrclude t h ~ In
rettred, through rnodulat~on.So (14) S~OLIIJ
be ~ n ~ l y s easd
John is a retlred, butcher

Now 'butcher' ltcelf 1s undc~utooci11ere 111 'i 11ivdtil~1t~C1.

setlse b u l c / z ~ ? ~
through broadenmg. Solneone 1s a butt her, in th'tt sense, rtT thdt perjorr is
or t ~ ~ au butcller."
s
In thdt exteridect \elise, lrtitcher:, d~vlcieInto thore kvho are
still actlve and those who lzave retired I his n ,malogo~i\to the 'ilollar' c,ae
d~scussedby Partee A5s~liningsuch a11 ar~alyslsto be corrc-ct, the logcal
form of (14) a

FoHow~ngQuine's ~nstn~ctrons,
we slrould ctleck the val~drtyof inference
patterns .fterre.~hraslxig the selrterlce r o '1s tct track the various senses w h ~ c ha
given expresuon may take; so ~t ir tlre ~trzequxvocd(17)~
r ~ t h c rthan (14),
whlch we should use as input. Now when we cor-tsldrr(KT),a i l appe'lrances
~~
was sad to be rronof nor*-~ntersectrvityturn out to be I U L P , ~ 'Ret~red'
intersective bec'luse (14) and (IS) lack two erlt~ldrneut:,w11ich they should
Partee (fonht-oming) g i v t ~the following exarnple of a rloun wlrosr terrrpoml exter~sivnvanes
Colltextlli&y:
(GI) How many poets are there in Anherst?
(iv) How itlany poeu a-e huncd In Alnltcrcr
tn the first statcinent bur not In tlie irrond only I~vlrigpoets arc I" the extinslon of 'porrr'. S~mil.uly,the
extension of butcher, n thc ret of <urrrntburchers, b t ~that
i oi'burtlirr, is thc set uf ( urrcrrt orpiril ht~tcl~ers.

have if 'retrred' was intersect~ve.But are thece e n t h e n t s really mssing?

(14)~
analysed AS (IY),doe5 entall that John is a butcher,-so nght-subsectlvrty ir preserved. It seems to fail only because ofan equivocation which we
can make euplic~tas follows:
A retlred, butciler,

1c

not (or no Ionger) a butcher,

If we keep the sense of 'butcher' constant, the problern disappears.

What about the other inference (&om (14)and (I j) to 'Jofin is a retired
scientist')? it is also preserved, appearances notwithstanding: &om (14)analysed as (17)---and (I j) it follows that John is a retired, scientist, that is, a
scientist who bas retired froin butcherhood. It also follows that be is a
retired, scientist, that is, a scientist who has retired &om his (unspecified)
job. What does not follow is tliat he is a retired, scientist, that is, a scientist
who has rc.tired,from his job us a scientist. That reading of 'retired scientist'
(where the sense of 'retired' is strengthened by speciwng the relevant job as
being that which corresponds to the head noun) is the most salient one, so
we hzve the fkelirrg that it is what 'retired scientist' means; whence the
conclusion that ( ~ 4 ) - ( I S ) together do not entail that Jobn is a retired
scientist. But this is hllacious. There are different possible senses for the
phrase 'retired scientist', depending on wllich modulation processes take
place; but: the serae that is relevlrrit to evaluating the intersectivity of 'retired'
is cdefir~irelynot the most salient sense retired3 ~cientist.'~

o n g ~ nol'rlus <.liaptcrlsa plenary iccture on 'Context-sensrti~~ip:

the Case ofAdjectiv .'I gave
:n Llsbori r r l Augusr aoo.j fix the Vth European Corlgress of Arlalytic Philosophv, and a rela& talk on
'S.itur:nlon arid Modulv~ol~
In the [~lterpretahorlof Adjectives' I gave at the L,exlcal Pragmatics
conference in C:unlherland Lodge 111 Septerni>erzoos. I am indebted to the yanici~ancsat these meetmgs, and to the p~nrclpantsat the 2005-zoo6 Indexicality seminar at Il~stitlrtJeal-Nicod which w s
devoted to the salne toptc. 5ppec1:d thanks arc due to Chris Kennedy, who aroused rl~yinterest in dtis
Issue during ray vislt to Nortl~westenlIhdversity in 2004, to Darl Sperber who participated in both the
Lexical Pragmatics corrfererlr:e arrd the subseqtlerit ccnunar, and to Paul E g C and Peter Pagin for their
comrt~erltson a first drafi.

Weather Reports
In tlils chapter, f WLU exanune another type ofc-ase 111 which Get- praginatlc
proceses systeniatlcalky ai6et-ec-rrht tnrth corldlhond co~itnbut~ort
wllrcll
part~culnrlexical Item rn~l\er,or seenis t o mike. The lexical Items 1 w111 hc
conccnled with are 111iperso11,LJweather verbs crrcll a5 'ram' or "snow', anti
the aspect of their trutll-conctrt~ori,il cotrrrtbut~orlI tv11l ht
o n IS t l ~ e
alleged 'implicit argument' they n r t snld to cnxry I wxll argue tllat there IS,
in fact, no such ~mphcltargumerrt u~ thr Itts~cdlsen~diiticsot weather verbs,
and that the 111iphc1t reference LO a Io<at~oiit;>urld in bseattlcr reports
without an overt locatlo~talcompr>nCntIMS1' purely prAgnratlc I3,isrs
I

F
".

The unavailability of ?rnciehnite' reaciings

for implicit; argun~ents
I.

r . I hilefc.orolugzru1ytt'dzcate~ the stundizrrl vmv

The received mew about metcorologcal prec%cattcllrke 'rau~'I\ that they c , ~ m
an arprnent slot for a locattort whch LAXLX)
be filled erdier exphcitly Ity xrlea-i-,oi
an adverbial k\hrase, as ~n (I), ox ul-lpl~crtlyby A conteau,ally deterrxmetl
locatton, as m (2) T h s m e a r ~drat A locatlort has to be contextually prowded
when none is eqhcitiy menboned
i
t

(I) It's r a m p here/in Pans

(2) It's ram-.

More prec~sely,the standard mew asunle, that 'rnin', 111 the absex-tce of AII
exphcit location, denlarids that tile tontest ltrovide a ~pecifi~
locatron The
possibhty that the sentence 'It tn ~;unrxlg\ni~gfltexpress 3 2on~tzoit-tre~~e1;ntc~e
content is considered as ruled out Thls intri~ducesan intercstlrl-g ayrmlletiy

bc>tweerr~ i l inrplicit
c
:lrrd the explicit-;for-,on the side of the explicit, we find
rtvo sorts trf uses: the 'rielinice' c.>r>siitgui;rr' c;ws in which a particular
ia>c-ar~oiii s i,icxltionecl, as in ( I ) , : ~ r l t i thc. 'initeii~lite'or 'general' cx!es it1
whit-1-i t1)er.c is cjn;rnrii;c:xtion ot7crJocat:iori\, I r l (3a) and (3b):

T'lxere Arc tl~ltt-reritw:iys of irniilerneotir~gthe s~~nt-tnrct

view. Sonic theorists
lioEci t l u t irr logical f;)trri 'rairi' is associact.cI with a covert prorloilunal eler-rrerit ---3: lot2 tinti \~;1~-i~ible--~vl~ic11
~ 2 1 1elti~er/)ts s~tt~i~it'etf
by means of 311
overt loc;itive plnr;lse, or be lek -t:uns;~tur~tec?,
(irr w!~ich c a e the free vxiable
rcr.eive.:,'1 \pc.cific V ~ L fro111
I ~ the e..ctr;rli~tg~t~stic.
contest). One 111~1y31s~)treat
"ntirr' 1
' s ,I prt.dii.;itc eslrihiting ~~~ri~iilc~pc?i~t~zldinl)i:
tvIxn rlne Location is ex~licit,
~s irr ( I ) , clie prc:tiicate tikes ;r locatiot~nrgrrneitt; but wlirr-Iit is left implicit, as
rxi ( L } , the loc~txor~
ns ptut o f t l ~ ci.orlfexk ( r ; l t k r than p a t o f t h e content) and
kr,rir-i'Ci~ni~iorrs
:LS arr hrcltr~ic-;il:i t expresscLi;a ilctinite c.irrttcnt only with respect
tc, a context c-c"sltrct1on 3 p:lrt-iz~ilark~c;rtiori.i'This, in eil'etrt, amounts to
tlrc.:~tirrgkr;3irr7
;LS I pa-tirrze indc.xiiii1, in chc terrrnilloloh.). c-tf-lX ec;lnnti ;loo rc) .
If; like Staricy (;?ooo),wc take '~erirl'ro hc ,fisc\ci~t~ii
with a covert prcjnonlinjl
idcnierrt i r i Xogic:d ii>srrl,w e tvill iwt be sii~"yriscrtlbv tile asynnrjletrq. I mentiorlecl
3130e.e.F(>rp r o ~ i o ~C~~~O
have
i s t'lic. prol-rt:l.ty t l ~ i t itrltcrr
,
urlbowd, t h q nlust be
ioiitrxtrr-rib ,issigned ,i spccilic v~ilrre:'1 i c is kdl' c.311 never mean that sorrie
111de or other rs tali. 7'he view tIi;tt 'mili' is a part-time indexical also prcciicts
elre jsyrrzrnli*tly: fix i~iilcxicdstlu rcclnlrc ilr;ir tlic cotitext provide a specific valtre
hl-tile C ' E ~ I I C C ~ Y ~ ~rl:il.:1111~ter
I~LJ
011 whi~-11
~ I I C IS ~C I X I ~ I K ~value
C
tiepcricis.
I . i.

Ch

t iil'ndiy
~

qf iariplicir [aTztrvti'r?i.s

the explicit , u ~tile

i jrrrplicit whcrl it coriles to tile
.~v;rilab?elit):trf iiiciciirritc. reatlirtgr i s 3 vcry gcltcrnl plrcitctrt~enorl.If I say t11:~t
tlri: stool IS o r , the Icfi oT'tllr table, X dci not explicitly rtlentiorl the
perspcbitivc ('1s 1 wo~ridif 1 sirid '*I'hes t i ~ o iis on tile left of the table frorn
111)' pc.r~pr-"c~~vc~.'I),
b111 ,i
perspective flas to be ccmtextually provided. W-har
Bi~sto be ~~rovidcc;!
is 3 dt;finitc pcrsyertivc: riiy uttemnce c x r ~ ~ tmean
ot
that
tire stool is or)ti-rc i e f i of thc trthle fi-otrl sonlr pe~spectiveo r other. Yet if we
rri,lke {-Irepcuspecrivc explicit, tvc z;trr introduce this 'indefinite' reading:
'!'tact asyrulri1uil-y hctwcen

W ti\ 1 ! i k K I \ r ii0i\ I

7L)

noth~ngprevent, me froni sayu~g'The stool n on the left oi'tfle t ~ b l efrom

some perspective or other'.
In a justly fixrious paper, U,lrbar,r I'nrtec 'rrgued tltat lrriplicit vmable\, ltke
esphc~tvariables, run be hountf and cio llot need to he a\slg~ted\pecrfit values
(Partee lySg: see ~ l s oMitcfrell ry%7and Nunberg rygz) Iloes tlnn contrad~ct
l l a h d ~ t y re,rciings h r inlpli~itargimy clam r e g a r h ~ gtlie ~ ~ ~ ~ i ~ ~ a of'mdefuute
merits? I cto riot thlnk so Pastee bvas concen~edwrth c,ws lrhe (4)-(6), m wWh1c11
the expresslo11 caryrng the rnlpl~cltargunlertt occurs in 4' qu,altificd context
rnany arab countne5, Arnenca rc tl-ic-rneu-ry [of tIlo\r couritne\]
( 5 ) Wllerevcr I go, it ram\ [tlleru]
(6) Whenever secretdry ni-~de& rrust~ki.tlie others dlli not t_totlce[the ntt5takel
(4) For

In those cases, the bi~ideris e x p l l ~ ~even

t,
if tlie b~~iciee
ir
m~phclt
argument. The rnlplicit arprncnt is ovenly qtl'lnnfied. I3ut rxiy c1,lirrl regarding the unavtlrlablhty of indefinltc readings coneerris argu*xlel.rts that ,ire
'munphc~t'111 the (strong) wise that they are neltlzvr overtly tnrntzunril nor clvcrtly
ytrutltlficd. In (I) the location argurneut 15 tsvertly mentlorled (by means of
the phr,ue 'hcrc/ln Pan\') 111(3) and 0)tht. 1oi'~tionarguiment 15 cr~ertly
y~rantlfied(by Inearis of the phrase? '\oriie~vhe~e'.
'111 all n q o r cit~es',and
'wherever I go') In (L),however, tire l o c a ~ o nargtinreirt wliich the context
nor overtjy c ~ ~ ~ x i i t ~Accordlrrg
lied
to
provldes 1s nelther overtly rner~tior~ed.
the standard mew, no indefin~terendilig I\ possible t%r the implrcit location
argunlent m ( 2 ) .
In t l ~ uchaptel I will argue that the stand'ird viest IS nctlidlv rnl\taken, AIIC~
thdt a11 ~ndetinitereachng u a v ~ i l ~ bfl eo ~(2). f%ttt1 r n a ~ r ~ t dt ~l n~ implicit
t
arguments, when they exnt, caririot bt. given litdefinite rextmg, (What
I w d deny, therefore, is that 'ran' Larries art m-tphc~tloc atxorl ~rgurnent.)
Thus conslder the expression ' I t r o m e V l ~ e nthe I-rer\on wtrosr tlonle 1s rn
cluestlon 1s not cxphcxtly cpecitied, ~t a corttextually provrdrd qua lrl~plicit
argttinent Titius 'Jool~n1.i home' c,m mean that John i\ at john's home or that
and' hearer's) horne, dependlx~g
he 1q nt clie speaker" ((or rather: the ~pe~tker'c
on the context.' It is also pos.ilble for the implrcit argurncrtr to be overtly
bound, ~r in 'Evelybody's honle' on one reading, that means that for dl1 x,x

' As Polly Jdcobson po~ntrdutIr to me, ctle vaiue for the iznyiiclt argunlzot c.in only be either Jolm
(the prcfined reading, act:ording to her) or the purr corlsi'hng acthe y7eaker and the liearer. See F~llt~rorc(1997:(to-0) for ii~scossionof the ct,rrq)lcx L>eil~v~our
of 'home'.

- ---

8@

-&#-ISU N A Y A I & & ~ ~ R + ~ ~ M X U - ~ . ; READINGS

~T-E'
FOR IMPLiCiT ARGUMENTS

15 at X'S

borne Wiia 1s 1101pos5ible is to use 'John 1s home' to alelui that he is

at sonreotze or otller's Izon;~? S ~ t r u l d y'Jolm

,
is faraway' cannot mean that he

IS

far,rway l-i-ornsome place or other; the locatlon he is Graway fionr (typically

but not riec essanly the place of utterartce) mu5t be contextually spc cified
J

'lioo type-$o_fimpllnt syc;runzent2

Accord~ngto FiUniore (1969, rgS6), there are two sorts of irnphcit arguments, and the feature 1 have mentronecl (the unava~lab~fity
of indefir~ite
readings) ~1ia1acten~e.i
only one of them. the 'defm~te'intplicit argr~ments
1 he otlier categorv a that of 'ir~definite'implicxt argurnentr intransitive
'eat' is a case lri pourt it carries an mdefinite impllcit argument Thus 'John
1s edting' 1ne'ms t h ~be
t is eatlng sornetl~trzgor other
l here are rrllpl~c~t
~rgmlent5that dlow for both poss~blhtie, Relatiorla1
rlotxms siic k~ ;ts 'rnother', 'L~ther',and 'husband', in the absence of an expliclt
coniplen~ent,can be uncterstood e~therway In (7) the implicit argument of
'rnother' 15 ctefirlrte, wh~leln (8) ~t ir mdefirute.
(7)A baby s t ~ r t e t Icnii~lg 772~mother went to corrifort rt
(8) 'I he toyscurc*~ ~ t'UU
3 ofparerits
5
I n search of g~ilks.7'he motken were espec~allv
ilitervstrd ni edu~atronalgames

S~nularly,even though 'local' w often (Indeed, Jbvays) heated 4s requirlsig a

spec rfic trnpli~~t
argument wheri unbound, a\ ~t does in ( c ~ j ,it alro accepts
rndrfinlte reati~ngs,tu ul (10):'
I spent the >umijer vacatioti In N i ~ eand I enjoyed reahng
ocrwqtaper e v e r v d , ~ ~
( 1 o) Mary t ollecrs locd newspapers
(1))

e local

I do not mttxnd to deny the facts on whch F h o r e ' s disanctlon 15 basedthere are ~r~deed
two type5 of case, as he pomts out. But I use 'mphc~t
~ r f i u n ~ e111
t ~such
t ' a way that onlv one of the two types deserve$that name
My reason for so dorng w that, whenever an alleged mphcit argument can be
understood uidefui~tely,an altendhve malysls is avdable, whch cfispenses
w ~ t hinlphcit argrnients altogether. 'Thus l~itransltive'eat' arguably denotes a
propcq, whch we car] define by exlstentldly quantl@mg one argiment of the
I owe this obsewation to C)rin Percus, who gave a11 example like (to) in a &scussioxr dur~ngthe
zoo4 Milan Meeung orr coven variables.

two-place relatlon denoted by trdrlsitive 'eat'. That IS,in eEect, what Qn~rie'c
Der oper~tordoes (Cfuine 1960 239 31). applred to any n-place predrc ate, re
yel& a n-'-place predicate by exlstenhdiy qu,ma$ng the last xgunlent-rc>le

(Deu P) x, . . . xh.,-l iE tllere is sorrlething x,, suc:h that P;v, . . . :Y,

If '17' is a two-place predicate, hlie trarlc~t~vc
'eat', tller~'l)cr I)' will bc a
genume one-place p r e d ~ c ~ tdeilot~r~g
c,
a propertv rather thar~a relatrtrn O n
t h ~ mew,
s
uitransltlve 'e'lt' does ~ o deiiote
t
a r e l ~ a o nbetwceri the edter anti
an 'imphclt argument' (tile food).3 $mularly, rn thls frail~ework,"mother9
will be construed ac a polysetnous predic~tc,denotlng ettlz~rA two place
relation (whose cecond .irgumtr?t (-An bc exphc~tor ~ n i p l i c ~t?v
t ) a propert\
that can be defined by applying Q U I I IDPI
~ ' ~operator to the homo~~hr>nli
two-place pred~cate N o ~mplicrtargunlelrt rs involved oil the '[3ropc>rt\"
readmg. Likewise, 'local' i r i ( r o j wlll be treated ~b denoting A propertv on ,l
par with the propertlec expressed by "regtorral', \nahorixl', or 'ix~ternatxonai'

2.
L. 1 .

Implicit argu111~llts vs free e11Ticllni~eilt

'i'he ~ueatlirrvntzntxcltnpli2

As I have sad, 1 thvlk axi ~ n c k t i ~ mte~ret3tlcrn

~~tc
is , ~ v ~ ~ ~i o
l ~~Abrrrrrpie
le
mcteorologcal selltenre lAe (a), 221 ~riterpretat~on
whcli rn'lkes 11 ccjtr~valet~t
to 'It'r rairurlg somewhere' fn X < C C ~ ~ ( 2 0 0 2 ) 1 gdve the followmg exd~zlpXe
become extremelv rare 'arid nupoltnnt,
I can Irnagne 2 ~ l f l l d t l n t 111
l w h ~ lain
h
and ran detectors liave been d ~ s p ( ~ w
alldover tile tenttory (whatever the terrlton-possibly the vhole Earth) In the 111lagtled \cennno, each detr~rortnf:gel\
at1 damn bell in the Morutor~r~g
tinoin when 1t detects r a n There rs srxlglc
bell; the locahon of the tnggenng detector 1s mcbcated by a hght on 4 bo~rdrrr the
Monltonng Koorn After weeks of total drought, the bell evcntudllv angl rn thC

O f course, it is possible to ~ ~ l l r > that

w ~ intraisitive
n
'eat' denota a reiatlon betweerr the eatpr and
the food, the d s e r m c e between the ir~transitrvea i d the transitive use being that on the lnaarlritivr L I S ~ ,
the: second argument of the relation undergoes exrstential ge~~eralimtion.
But die 'property' ,mdysis has
an advantage over tlle 'existetltial generaIi~a;rr~on'
analysis: it correctly predicrs tlxat the eslsterttiai
quantifier a n only take narrow scope jsrslce it 1s birilt into the kxicd envy of the verb on it$ irrtransicixrr:
reading). On the 'existential genzrdizarlon' aoaiysm, the obligatory narrow scope of the existerltid
quantifier has to be stipulated. Sce Section 5.2 for snore on this Issue.

8.2

Ih\l?'r,ii:I? hfiC;Ub1Et4TS iS FREE- ENKICi-iMEi.j'ii

Moi~iccr~.rirg
lioiirli, i le:rring it, elre weatlicrmari on duty in the :~.cljacent
room shouts:
'le's runaiigi' 1 Lu iltt~rairc-ei s true, iifk i s ~'~nzing
(at. the drrrc. of ~ltternnce)in some
pkici. or orircr. (I.?ec.anrrti 2002: 317)

I t,rhc 11x1.. L ~ U J I I I ~ I Lto cdst doubt oil thc stand'~rt3k1e.v~.ficcord~ngto which

carlner, i n . ~ ~ g u t t l c ~ slot
t t t ibr A IOL'I~L~I)."1x1 the has15 of that type of'
I Iwvt. put ii,rward '1x1 .ilterriatlve p r o p o d regarchng 'ram'
coirr1ci~rr~.\itn1pIc~,
a i d other rlrctc.orologcd pred~c~ttcrThe g~rop(>s,il
112stwo s~des:
'1.,1111'

e (hi ilrc~<,crrl,rrrt~is~cfc,'ram' 15 tt-e,lteci 3s ,r

lerct-plnt e predicate (just as

"e,rt' 15 orrc phcc precbcate m d tr Anslave 'eat' a two-&?lace

pru"iic,rte) No loc,+tron,rrginterst rs rrn.otved rn the argun~entstructure
iriEr,irltrCaL cz

pr ctirc ,rtc
a ()i1 the p i ~ p ~ ~ d~ ct f, i'3 -proccss ot tree errrrcllnlerlt (otten) take? plarc,
r r i vlr tire o f G V ~ I I Lthe
~ ~ nle'til~tlgof arr rltter;ince irlvolving the 'ran'
p r ~ ~ ('itc
l l I\ rri,ide corltcwt~l~~Uy
nrore specrkic t h a l ~the renldntlc content
6t( l j l n ~ i l r ~ ~
I?vc ! rhe Ilterd 111~;1111ngo/-the S C I ~ ~ ~More
K~CC
precisely,
.
tlrrougl) tlidt: pro<esuof 6-ee exlr~chrrte~rt
t i l e rllcanlng oftlle utterance 1s
n1,1cich
rtlon ipec~fic,ever1 thotiglj tire sentence ttself ~nvolvesn o
( o b t ~ 01
r ( overt) reference to a yl,rce
of the

z..?.,Tj~ellir<qo t t l f h ~)rol)t).s~tE
~
WIlzri L fay that * I - : L ~ ' is 3 zero--place preciic.:atc, I do n o t mean to rule out a
I.~nvitistrr?ir,anarulysis, tllat is, an a11;ilysis ,licorc!ir~g ta wlticEt 'action verbs'
(as I );iviJson calls thein) take ;tn extra event- argurnent in addition to their
'ctanc/'lrii' arg:iirlrcXrrt.;. Wllat I nlenrt, r-:itlxr:r, is that nietcorolo@cai verbs take
no othzr iiv2rtninit lhrin {he event ~zcq~imcfzt.
And h-y this I do not meail tlut the
stai~dartlnt-gurricrits oi'tlle verb are not vt>trl/yargurrrents but are introduced
irldirectly ilr logicrc~l
ibrm via their relatiorls to the event arglinlent (the only
'irgrrrrient clrt verb really takes). This is the knzu-Llaviclsonian' analysis.
g~tcordirig
to whiili 3 sentence like 'Mary dar1c.e~'----whichI wiU pr-etenct
to bc rc.rmszless" -- has the fitllotvirrg lcrgicnl k>r-rrl:
~ L ) l ' c i i i i r ~tiic'rc
c.
Jrr L+,IVS ~>i'deicndirig
the s t a n i h d vrc-iv irr the i i c e o i such es.mrpIes. They Mnll be
iiiiroiiui ed. arid diu-riueil, III Sccnvns );A.
' Icsrres jiriwinixig to tens(. aiid aspect ~ 1 1 1he kept mdr: 1x1 this c.hapter. utiless they have a direct
bcanrig 4)n tlrc tiisclrssioii. So, firr cxnrriple, 1 will systctnaocaliy Ignore the sernantlc contnbation of tile
prtigressrve in I t 14 r.1111ir1g' (dnd Iwill often i g ~ ~ o r die
t : coritnhvrtri>noithe present tetlsc). Of course, a

w,illv ttroniilgii i.tli,rt to irivrsngste the scriisnncs oi'we.atiler ceritc:xiies \\rouid habe to t&e bott~tense
.iiid ~ $ / ) i (i i-i ti i ) .I(.( o i ~ r l l .~ ) L I (rrly d r ~ ~ b i t i o r1rii t l i i s ch3pie1-is (iei~iierateiviimicd.
---*,---

--

3r

[DANCING

(e) A

AC,PNI

(M'lry,

tv)]

Here, the agent, Mary, ts nttroduced rrrtilrectly, a\ heanrlg the rc!,it~ott'AC,ENY'

to die event e of danctng wh~chw the orily ~frrectargurncrit of'dcf,)nce'
(1 e the
ordy argument of the pred~cdtebun~c,~'
whrch the verb 'd,ulce' contnbures to
fia~~iewolk
1x1 whdt
logclil forn~) 1 wdl nlyself use thc neo Uavtdson~~ul
follo.ivs, b ~ when
~ t 1 say that 'r,lrn' n a ~cro-pLxepredrcatc., wl-tat I rrneatl 1s
not that tt hag no other dzrect drgumetrt thai the event .krgtxnent, vrti e that n
the ~ a for
e d l actlort verbr or1 the neo-l)avrdsonr~n nn~lyswWhat I rnem,
aztlmenf t r r die firsf plar r In contr,~stto 'dmce',
r'ktf~er,1s that it h x ?to '~tl~ntfa?d'
wlucfi has a st,uldard agent argLurrelit (rntrodnt eti rttdrrec tly 1x1 lopcd form, ,is
m the dbove repre\entntlon), 'r'un' has 110&gentor thel-tlc- -the pronoun "t' IS
A d~mxny
subject, with a s y r ~ t ~ ~role
c h c birt no \enlcLntic contrrbiltron (TesniGre
1959: 239-40) 'Ran' ir /era-place, whrfe intransltlve vertts Itkc 'cf'gr~cc',ire
one-place. transitwe verb5 lrke 'klbs' are bvo-place, and ditrx~srtlvevcrbs hkc
'gve' arle three -place.
Slnce 'ram' hru 7ero argurnent, on m y accotint, ~tdoes not ltnve '3 l o c ~ t ~ o n
argu~nent.That is not to deny that .\onre verbs 1l:ive 'I lacatron ,Lrgurnent.
'Arnve' IS a case ~n yomt. The logcal hrrxl of (tenscle\s) 701111 amve5' IS
sometlung hke:
3e

[ARKIVING

(e) A

A G ~ N(jolm,
~

(.) A

L0Cr);lION

(I, e)]

The locat~onof an x r ~ v a levent is the goal lacat~on--the dcstm3tlc>n--t>f

the nwnon whrc11 culnunates tn that evenr 711,~tloc,rtior~ need r t o t be
overtly specltied, but at le,lst tt mu\t be c o n t e x t ~ ~ ~untlentocld
~lly
' T ~ L I s 111
,
tile f'ullowmg ciialogue, A's secorrc-t Euternent 15 tnfel~c~tou\.
( 11) A: John has arrived.
R: Where has he a ~ n v e d l
A: *I Iuve no idea.

Tfnc is the bas~ctest I use for deterrrunrng whether there 1s an argtrrncnt slot
u~ the lex~calsenianttc~of a v r r h rf tltere w one, the slot has t o be (ille~i,

" There are spec~duses of.'rrrin' wl~erei t ukec .I cuniplernenr, as In 'it tarns catti atid clogs' (or 'rr, rams
liogs'). I an1 nor concenied w ~ t hchore uses here-- even tt>ougt~I w ~ l locca\ion?illy rnc11t1011thcnl s
e.uc~nipiec
whcri the s t ~ t t t ~
% i t t ~~ce~ i t ~ p l e ~
IS ir li oet ~wtiu
~ t 15 a i i s ~ c

whettier exphc.idy or contextually. (In the above logcal f o m , the slot is

reprc\ented b y the free variable I, to wluch a v:due must be co~~textually
assrgtled.)
In cootrayt to 'drr~ve',whlch cames an argument slot for a lot atlon,
'darrce' does [lot, as the following d~alogueshows.
(rz) A- Johri bas danced.
13: Where h'cs lie danced?
A: 1 llave no tdea.

'I'lre lotar1or1 of the ctanclng event rieed not be specified, expircltly or even
contextuallv 'io 'dance' does not carry an ,ugument slot for a location.
event 1s espf~cidyprov~ded,~t has the
Whet1 the l o c l t ~ o of
~ j the dat~c~rig
stmi\ of 'adjullct'. S L I ~ C Cit I\ semantic~~llv
optional
r $ I'i~llosophy, this way ofdrawing
As 1 Ieanlt from a re&ree for I , ~ t { y u t ~ t iurzd
the dl\t~nctior] 'iletwecrr arguments 3 r d adjuncts is due to the Prague school,
and spec~lic~Uy
to fanrirla Panevova {see Sg& rt al. 1986).~I have r~lyselfput
forward a sirxlilar test (which 1 call tlie 'Opt~onalltyCntenon') 111 order to
dl.itmguistt bcrweeri the corltcxtual plvvislon of An implicit argument arid
the pragmatic process o f 'tree eimchnieet'. Free ennchnient as I construe it
rs J pragndtl< process through fivh~c
h the actual Interprctatlon of 'm utteratrcc 1s lir.~dr ~ontexttiaIlyr11~)respecific than the l~teralnieaning of the
uttered sentence Whde iiidemcal resolution or the assigiirnent of contextual values to tree vanables 1s a 'bottorn up' process mnandatecf, by the
Imgutstxt matend, free ertncfviient IS a 'top-down' process ivhich IS not
mciridatedbv the lii~~wistic
matend-~t 1s not mandatory, horn a 111 yuistlc
polrrt o f view---but takes place for purely pragmatic reasons, that is, 1t order
to nuke sense ofwhat the speaker IS say~ngThe speaker utters a sentence
which Etas a ccrtaxt xneanlng, but, owlng to hee ennchment, the utterance is
undentood (md expected to be understood) In a more specific rense than its
hteral m e m x x y hcence\. The gap between .ientence rnedning and utterance
meanrng IS badged by world knowledge and contextud expectations For
exxnple, 'rabba' ill 'Mary hkes to wear rabbit' IS understood In the (specific)

' Actually Panenova's classificatiori is cornplex 2nd reiies on a double distinction: beetween free
adverbials/n~odifiersarid inner participma, and, within the clm ofmodifiefs, between those that are
'valeticy members' (a feature which 111;ikes them similar to inner paaicipana) and those that are not.
Vdency nierrihers themselves may be obligatory or optional with a particular lexical Item. See Panevova
(2001).

sense of rabbrt fur, even though 'rabblt'qylku nlas\ temz llterdly nxearls
somethmg more general Ilke fizbhzt .stti8 The recacork ~vlly'rabbit' UI 'Mary hkes
to wear rabbit' is mterpreted differentljr tharl ~t rs In, for es'inlple, 'Mary
hkes to eat rabbit' IS a matter ot world knowledge and contextual expectations. W e know that people eat rabbit rneat, whlle they use rabhrt fur
for thelr clothes, and we expect the spe'ilner to say plausible tbzngs
The h h a r k of the pragmatic plocess of Gree ennclzrrzcnt, on rxy aclcount, is that ~t 1s opaon,d it rnxy or may inot take place, depenrilng o n the
contest. Nothlng prevents rabbit', y r d i ~m~ccterm, from b e ~ n gintei-pr eted rn
the general sense rubbzt stuff("ttfterthe ,~ccident,there LVA\ r'xbbrt 1'11 over the
highway'). St&, In many context&,it ~ m l be
l 1nteq3reted mole S I ) ~ C I ~ I L Z I I I ~
owlng to free ennchlnent Sinularly lor \ddnce7. ar (12) shows, a 'dan~e'statement may be understood m A locat1or1-lilcleiinite rslarliler SLIU, a
locatlon for the event m,jy also he coi~textu;lllyprovided a\ plrt of the
Interpretation of the utterance, ac iri (13)
(13)

A: Was John present at the ball?

B: Yes. I-Ie danced 1111 rt~glit.

Here B's statement 'Fie danced ;ill night-' me,rns tl-i,~tJohndanc etl all rlrght at
the ball The contrAst betweerr (12)and (13) shu.cvs tllxt the iontextual
specification of the locat~onnfthe dltrrcnlg e3errt Ir option,il, ~ n thrs
d feature
provl\rt>rr t,t an
dlstmp~shest h ~ speclficatic)n
t
in (13) frorn tlte coi~textu,~l
lmpllclt argunlent. The context~ralprcrvl\lon of an rrz~pl~c~t
argtlnrent r i
urzand~ziltoryprocess, since ~t rs requirtad In \ilrtue of tlie cenrantlc\ OX rorne
expremon in the sentence.
Armed with these dlstmctiorls, let. i r i return to 'r,un' ar~rXri~eteorologcal
premcates. It ceer~~s
that "raiii' patterrlr with ' ~ r n v e 'and ~nvol\.e\A location
lt wtr~xldbe
argument. If someone tells me ' l t ' ~ralnmgkand I ask 'TVl~ere?~,
infelicltom for nzy conversational pdtt13er t ~ reply
)
'I have no ~cie,~'Thrc n
the intcllhve bass for the stas~dardV I ~ Wregarding 'ran' arid meteorologcah
ir not A\ rrrnple as t b ~ t .In the weathenriarl
predlcates. But the \ituatio~~
scenario, we can have tlie full~~tvrrig
ilr;tlogue

The 'rabbit' example is discussed by Nvmbcrg ,\rrd Zaenetr (r9g.z) who I>ort.uwit l b r r i Cilpesiakc:
and Briscoc (1992).

(14)
A (the cvi~;,tircnnaxi):Xt rs raining!
8:Wllcre?
A: 1 liave xlo rait:;t---let's check.

i prec ~sciv( onjrtut red the we\fathilnl~'~x~

cxd~riple1x1 ortier to show that,
~ p e,tr
y an ic.\ rrotw~th\t~nclrrrg,
the c c~rltextu~llv
spec~tledlocatron 1s not a
gcxniilnc rrripliclr cirgl:rmre~ltm dre 2-an' c,iw It 15 tlot A genutne zrnpl~clt
.~rgil~iie~it
IXTau\e, tf rt u)rrtJ, zt ii~cx~ld
huz~rTO be provldrd ltl every context,
iviiludarzq /hc, n)rrfr I! oftlze t~~e~ith(,ntzatl
cr~r~myle
(where no locatlox1 is actually
\ptxc~iied)Irr X<ci,lnatr zoo^) 1 used tile wtatllern~~in
example to argue that
the lot cktlon rjf salrl, .rvl-reu t ontextrially \peclfiecl, rs specified through a
pnx et".\
O ~ L I ~ I T X erlrtctrrnen
~ ~ ~ I C
t , 11 ptotr\j f1'ztit m z y take plilcc En conttectlon with
iiiry V L ~ L I Z I~ M ~ I T ( I ~i~hitf~ocuer.
IP
~ ~ ~ ~ l r i d' ~l ll ~l g~ t l(+I\
i e '111 (13)). and which casts
no dl\trr*~.
trve Ilgl-ltor1 the 4erllantlcs of ~neteurologickipredic'ites ns opposed
to othtr cvtXratprctirc ate5

Chic rriay objcc t t l ~ i tilere

t
i~ J d~l&rc.r;ic
c between "ram' dttd 'hnce' as far as
lcti P"LOXI\,Ire coriicrrxcd W itlr '&tnce', rt's ~ " K V to conle up with exa~~iples
In
vclricE~r l r r l a t mori doe\ not nl<ittc,rG~r~cl
rs lcfi ~insyec~hed.
N o so wit11 'ran':
~t L , ~ ~ cwork
" s to (onstruct an examplc lrbe the wedtherrnan e ~ a n i p l eT'lxs
.~
ilrilercnc w rrilrst bc dccocrr~tedfor
1 A ~ I P C 5~111,
1 xr*arrltalll,the slreer puss~bdrtyof the weatiien~ianexample
S~IC>W~ 111~1tthe yrovnron of,%
locatlori for tlie r'irrlrtig event is not mandatory
(scn~,irrt~c~~lly
trigg;crccl), but upt~c~nkl
(pragxn~trcallytriggered). If that is
ngPtr, tfrc-sxr thib cilrSti.rence. l)etween 'rrnlo'aild "\fatice' will ~ u e l fhave to be
e*pl.trxred o r r a prcrgl:r-rlatlc.It<rsls. S ~ t 1c an expian,ctiott can proceed ~ O I
tile fi>foElowi~rg
11xrc.s rn gener~l,we c are dt-ro~rt~~reteor
ologcal events to the
extent ~!r,rt wc* < dre dbout the locatrons wllcrc they take place. ?'he exrstence
01-3 ra~lnlng
e v ~ nJ tI P P S P (AS (oppwed to the esrstex1c.e of ,r r,Lmlng event nl such
uwd iuih LI: ~ I ~ I C1\ , tldrclly
)
ofsutiic~rrrtmtibrestto he woah mentionmg. 'Che
\amc thrrrg doc.r ]lor lroltl fez the otller typcr of cvcrlt. It rliay be mterestmg

ilic f a c t that ~t takes w ~ r 10

k L C ~ I I S L T U Ct.hc
~ weatliertli;li3 cxarxrplc su.ggests that, by invesung as ~nucti
work ill iire (.oiisLrtxction of' ~verrtiareriarios, one might prrlwp.i ctnnc up will> examples in wlucb
predrcatec ~viric!i (accorciir~~r
e c i me) do carry a covert rlgurr~rntx e IICVCTTI~~I~SS
g v e i l a11 indrfirute
iradiiig I~ii~:,t~l>jci.ii<>i~
wiii be cprllrd our i i i Sectxoxl o .:

I ~

to hear that Jobrl kissed Mary e v e ~

though we are not told wilere that event
I~appened
T o check that tlm explanatron n correct, we only have to Imdgne .I
meteorolog~calevent hkely to arouie o11e75interest qnite lxldrpe~~derit
of 1t.s
location. The prdgIlXhc account I favour pred~ctsthtt satelncut descnb
mg such a,event wodct not necessarily be tirxder>tood 'I\ lo( 'iaort specific.
The follow~ng1s an example.
(15) Ortce, m Antiquity, ~t rznrd blood. Since then, no 5ucli tluxlg ever
hjippened agar]

The precfict~or~
seems to be borne out. In (151, the statement ' ~ r'tlned
t
blood' 15 under$tood in a location-indefinite nianncr. (:ompare tfiris with art
'ordinary' type of example hke (16).
(16) Yesterday, it rallied

In contrast to ( I j), (16) will-typically-be Interpreted I n 2 loc.it~on-cpeclfic

rnanner But thls coi~trastc:m be n~aniy~~lated
by rx~~rrl~pttlatl~~g
the context,
a 1 d ~ dm tonshuctlng the weatherman example AH thi+ iugge\ts t h t
w'ilatevcr ~mphcitlocation-pec we flsrcl Irr 'ram7-\tatrlncnts 1s cf~le
to pragmanc factors

3. Four levels of analysis

3.1. 'lhc metaphysical lvvel

According to my proposal, the sentence 'It 1s ra~ning'rrieans soilretlungvery

snnple and vei close to the surfdce &at a rarn everit is oc c rtrnrig. No p l ~ c c
15 mentioned by the sentence as the place where thdt eveltt occurs <>I:
coune there rnust be such a place: ~ 1 event
1
call ordy occur at a particular
place (and A pna~cularm e ) This n a 111e~physic
a1 hct about events, tvhicb
holds wliether the event is a ralnlng event or a dartclng event or a krss~ng
event Those event-types d~EerIn xnmy re\pects, mci one of the\e d~fferences is reflected m the difference between the arguxnrnt stntchrres of tllc
e' 14 a onecorrespondrng pred~cates'ram' is a i.ero-place predicate, 'd~r~c
p l a ~ epred~cate,and 'kns' 1s a two-place preilicate. 7 he plxe anci tlrrle of the
described event do not autoniat~c,dlycount as argzments of the predlc~te,
J

oc irrrnrq; \ 11xj7lLtct~
r
1s L.LI\CII
tale ot by the ri1e~iplly51~5,
and. does not have
to J P ~ I I I P 111
" the \rt"iz~~nt~(
\.I1
Notr tllar wliat Nealc \.qs~ b o r l 'r,rru'
t
utru1c.l apply to 'd,ince2 ,owell, or to
JIIV otlicr i c t l o r t vt'rb It 'the iliiestron wlrcti~rrr t n r2112mg (now) prrnkt has no
awwra.bi.cari\i. rt rr r'ccat J gerkulne yue\tlon7,what alw~ltthe questtori wllether
M'rrv ri iiarrcix,g (rrow) puttkt2 Is dri\ a gelltllxie cluest~on'As In the other case,
we c ,lrr n~al.,cscrlw of the questlor1 orily ri w c xrrterprct ~t AS asiung whether
NXLV
I\ d = i ~ ~ r - ~
vrmz
r i g ~past~cnl~rrpl~cc,
t
or .~\kmi;:whether she tr tlmcing in
wrrrr ~LIJ.LC or otlat'r l>oes ~t follo\w tllat tllc rr.l,-tt~onexl?reueJ by 'dance'
rr~colvc*sarr ,rrgurixztlr role tor n lo~ahori:No, be( ailse, agan, the locatlon 1s
taken c x i : u f b y the mer;~pllvslcrI'vc~yrverlt ~ i h e place
s
sorne\vhere- ttzat I\
tlae r e A \ o x l wlrv ct r c'ni irlfkr % I x y daricrtl \orrr?cwilere7fronl Mary d ~ n t e d ' ,
cwrr ti-xowgb ' M ~ f vtiulccci' bays rlutllir~gA*i,o~rt
pIwe5 5trawrsoa rnade that
pomt to] c ~ ~ u IIIXI~Y
~ I c yenn go. I Ie wtotz
GI\

qu;~tltii-ien[c.g. 'ssoinewhere'j can be added t o . . .

sinrldlc :rscnprloi.is of iluxxlaii ,li:tior~switlrout ir~odificat~oii
of tmth-value rests on
i~otiriilgi ~ l o i t :ret.o,ltii~etlun trLrr g;i.sp ~ C t h t ger-xertri
"
coticept oi';rcrion. (Strawson
C ' h r yrabp oi- tiic JCC
th3t these

10'17: 74)

i nkv I)av~il\ori,Ztxa.vvsor~spe'ihs ot ' ~ c t r t r ~ aIlut

' I think the polnt extends

to c ~ c x l ai r i gericral I he 'ger~er'altomccpt' t r l ,111 event IS the con( ept- of

sojnc.tluxrg that )lappens, ~ n tvl-latirevrr
d
Ir,ippen\ Ilaypcxss at a place arid A
tlnjrc I bcii. rrx,ry bc dif-hcrrlties1x1 ~dentrtyrrigtlie tune or place olan event d
the t~nic.or ~>l,icer r l qrtestron h~pperlsto be corrrplex or disconnected. Wihat
i.s the C W C ~ tlmr ,tl~dpl~(-efor t i r r event ot cucunmavlgatlng the gjohe? 1s
re6\l!jy 1x1 everlij IS c o l l e c t ~ om~f ~
CVLXI~C
everzt-"What ' h u t the
Fr cxlc h li cvoltitiotr; All wit:, ol questlorn ,m\e In t-111> area, but I WIU not
p ~ u s cto < I)~ISICL~I. thct~l,as they 'rre rrrclcvarrt to the maul Iscue at stake
I'1kenairrav rho ht2 rr-iore p ~ o b l e r ~ l ~c&es
t r c lu \vhlc!a we use d ~ h ( P fverbs
1
to
talk ~ t ~ o ttrrixgj
ilt
tl-i~tate not rc~Uyevtants arid therehre 130 not saas& the
xuet,iphv\ic coilstr;n~?tson events. In \LIC II a ( ASC event tiilk 15 a n~ercJu~otrde
/ j

'

i iic i~irncrrnsoriing appixe~tcl tht.inl;lrrnct f r o n ~'Sue 1s 'I good (1:rnccr' to '1'ht:r.e IS a way 111 which

Sue IS g<m(d.t'oitan Siatx'i,i,:irir;ues that, to at courit Ibr 1111s~nt;.rrrrc', we t~cedto p o w o vnriable .R' fur a
'way ofherrig goil(i' irr tile Ic1~1c-al
fbrtn oFCSut-w a go:td d:rrlccr' (Srabb ~ o u l 132
: - 5 ) . B u t we don't need
iirch A v:inahit: rri log(..rl fi)m~,
'it Iri~stif'we t : i k ~.I<)gc-aJ &'rix?' in tile synt:rc:txc sense. -The :Jleged .way of
b e ~ n gg<)<~d'
it
presirrrr'~iii.r--taker) care ofby d-rr r ~ l r e p h y r i c sofgociciries and dues not have to fib=re
in tile se:.inaircrc
.. 5ec ('appc:lerr :anti I epore zooja (axtii Uorg ;rtioj) fix rciated points about the 5emaritlcs
iriet.ipii)sii iiiislrr~ctii~rr.wiri(,lr tliry iirli~>rnrxlatciyirverir\r

pavlcr: we tdk of soxiie thmgs that Are not events .as ifthey were event\, and
tbore tl-~mgs,mso*ar as they ,Ire not gerluine event\, ~ e e not
d h'tve a tlrne or
a location coorct~nate.1 wll ledve that Issue a i d e because 1 ~ ~ ~tkAS Oe ~ V ~ O L I S
that metcorolog~calevents are g e ~ ~ u events
~ n e j2
j .r.

The pru~i~zatir
level

In a c a e hke ' c h ~ e ' the

, 1ocdhr)n ofthe event tnay bc contextually undentood
ent
oftbe verb. T t i ~ t
even tkiough t h s IS not irnpo.iec1 by t l ~ ea r ~ ~ n ~structure
llappens whenever the location of the event s so relevmt to tllc convcrsatronal
purposes at h a d that ~t carmot be left out of the p~ctrire Tllus m (13) thc
cor~venahonalj~artr~en
nrc &mg about the bdl, md 111 that contest I)':,
utterance of 'Fie ct~nced n~ght'1~ 11ahlrdIy uildentood .IS sayi11j: t l ~Jolin
~t
heed all m&t at tlze bull. Ttlis 15 kee ennclinieiit tllere 15 tlo lulgu~stlcreference
to dle ball, whether overt ur covert, m the sentellce 7 Ie &11ccd a.U ruglt', yet the
y
to the b,d (dnd s urtclerstood as so referring).)."
speaker ~ c i d refen
I he pragmatic enncllrrlent refultlng from the tncrt refererice to A l o c ~ t ~ o n
can be reprecented AE; the contextual piovl\ion of an extra conjuncr, e g
r

'' One last issue worth corrs~dcniig1s the dstriictlon hetween evenu and states w~diilithe overall
category of eventualitlrs. s.ervlztnuitalt a d tliat the possesion of spano-temporal location m a gerrrral char:uteristic
of events, rather t,han a distlnct~vepropttav that son~eevents have and otliers lack; arid that was orie ofthe
reasons for not considering die locauon as autonratically pan of the ;ugunxrit stntcture of event verbs.
But what is true of events is not uue ofstatts. States need riot be Located in the sense in wbirh everm r~red
to be located So if we work with a unified rxegory of eventuality (as sortie peopie do, who use tlx
variable 'P' as an evetituahty variable rather than specifically as an event vanable) tltcn we irxy have a
reason for it~troducinglocatiors In the logical fonn of event sentrr~cea.A verb v denoung an event of
~ y p eCJ will be diyllnguislred Germ n verb v1 denoting 21 state of type Y' by the fact that the verb's
contributioi~is bound to be a located evmtuality only in the forn~ercase:
[ 3 f ?l
[ [ d l ]= Xe 1 @el

[[v]J = Xe

[TIME ( t ,

e) A 1.o~-ATION
(I, e) A @ e / J

In that sort of framework, we could roll represe~~t

the ditii-rence betweeri eveilt-verbs which, like 'amve'
or 'le:~ve',do carry an argument slot for a location. and tl~osewhicli do noc. For tliose wtuch do carry an
argument slot, we would sin~plyadd a conjunct ' 1 = 1". where 'y' is a 6ee variable to wluch A vdue must
be ~ontextualiyassigred (unless it is bound htglier up in the sentence). 'I'hus the lextcal errtry for 'amve'
would be:

h-Xy he [3t 31 ~

I M E
(t, t') A I,O(>YIION (I,

e) A

ARRIVING

(4A

AGENT (x, e) A

1 -- y ] ]

In this chapter, h o w m r , 1 assume tbat 'e' is specifically ;UI event variable, w the introductroxi of umws
arld places iri the Iogicd fomi of everit sentences n not necessary (udess they are conn~bi~ted
ai sotlit.
level other thdri the metaphysical)
' T h e r e are various ways of iiiipleinenung the idea of free erlnchnient .IS .ippiicd to such cases: see
below, Section 6. See also Gardent (zoos) for a fonlid analy.;a involvirrg a genrr:d '
r~ui~id~iy'.

TWUK ZWaT-OF-XmSTSL "-

(tile-ball, e), in the scope of the event quantifier." Thus enriched,

the 1ogxa.I for111 of 'I le danced all night' 1s somethrng 11ke'~

LOCAIION

(21)

3 ~3"
t [~'AYI (t) A

~ I M E(,t ,

e) A
(4-A I C ) L ~ ~ I O N(the-baH, eN

DAN< ING

(e) A

AGENT

(John, e) A

ALL-NIGHT

More pr~grxlahrenrrcliment 1s perh~pbneeded to account for the hct that the

a,refemng to a spec& penod ofttme.l6
past tense here ir understood &~cttc,~Uy,
The fc)llowing ex.alnple of tree ennchrneiit, due to Robyn C x s t o ~ i
(ry88). c m be handled s~inilarlythrough the addition of an extra conjunct
about location
(22) John went to Austria and (he) ran into Hans

In (z.~),the event of rutmmg into I k n s 1s understood as liavlng taken place

zui itzt\rna, srnceJoltn'5 move to Au5tr1a Izas just been mentioned SlmplrfSimg sornetvbat, the literal meaning of (32) can be represented as follows.
( 23)

3 e 3t /PA\]jt)

A ~ L M L(t, e) A GOING (e) A AGENT (John,e) A T O (Austna, e)] A

3e' 3t' [ ~ A \ T(t')

(1 lam, e')J

f l h E (t',

e') A

ENCOUNTERING

(el) A

5UBJ

(John, 6'') A

OBJ

That I\, there ic .I p,ist cvent e whlch rs a travel by John to Austria, and there
1s a p \ t e v e ~ e't wlilcll 15 xn encountenng of Hans by John (I gloss over
rubtle drstin~tlor~s
hxv~ngto do wltll the exact roles played by John and
I lam ~n the encoLlntenng event-hence the use of ' ~ u s ~ h n'OBJ'
d lnstead
of 'AGLN I ) , 'EXPLRILNCLR', or 'II-IEME')
Tliroi~ghfree ertricl~nient,two extra pietes ok l n f o m t i o n c n cerning
~
the tirlte nrtd locxtron of e' are I~udtmto the logcal forni FAst, lt IS
conteutuallv understood that Jolin ran 111to H ~ n safter going to Austna
More precisely, e, qua tehc event, lnvolveg a transition to a new state (here,
the st'lte s ofJohn" bbe~ngln Austna), and the tlrne t' ofJohn's nlnnlng Into
I lar~s1s ~tncterstood incl~~ded
in the tlme spar] of s I wdl represent t h s
piece of information by mearis of an extra conjunct L (t', 1.1(where ' L '
stantls tor tlie relation '1s zndlau'ed tn the tzme >pan of the state brozght about by')

' V ndternatrve represetitation will be introduced in $6.1.

1 lere as dsewhere 111 this chapter, I disregard tile contribution ofthe pedective (resp. iniperEective)
aspect. ft could be represented by us111gParsons' 'cui.' and 'IIOLD' predicates and substituting 'CUL (e, 1)'
or .HOLD (e, tj' for the aspectudy neutrd "I'IME (t, e)' iri the logical forms.
l 6 Tlius we could acid an extra conjunct ' t = x', as suggested in footnote 12 for a different type of case.

"

Second, e' IS understood ar takrrlg phce m Amtna, that is, in the ioc~tlorr
where John finds h~rnselfas a result o f e Tll~ssecond p e r e of lrri.orrl~atrt,n
budt Into the logical ibnn thrc3ugkl Gee ennchmexrt caxt also be repre\exited
by rrteans of another extra coquntt, I,OCA~ION
(Aurtn~,c'J The r n c ~ d ~ f l d
logcat form we get E therefore
(24)

3 e 3t [PAST( t ) A
A
A

TIME

3e' 3t1 [PAST( f l ) A

OBJ (Hans, d ) A L

( t , e)

GOING { P ) A A ( J N ~

TIM1 (it,
c')

I?

(John, P )

I-NCOIJNIERINC

(1") A

n)(Ai~\tna,c)
St1111

( J ~ h i iP')
,

it1. <y A LO(.A1ION (e', Austnn)]]

Jwt as I have done for (13) ~ r l d( L A ) , 1 d ~ \ n ~ r g u the

~ \ hhart* 1o~lritlS;rrntoC,i

statement B e 'It 1s ramulg' . v 1 ~125) bdow, 6-ntn ~ t vwc~d$rrf

s
kc;qlailforun ( 2 6 )

'

What u responsible for the &-tier encc between the bare logcal hrrn ( 2 0 and
the modfied logcal foi-m (26) r\ free ersr~cfmlencS~ncefree rnncbment 15
optlonal and coiltext-dnven, chert*wll be contexts in u ~ h l i hr l o rnod~flcatlon will be ~ntroduted dnd the llltuitrve truth-cond~nonsof' It r> ralnrng'
w ~ l lbe deternuled by ~ t sbare J o g t x l hrrn I'he weatherin~rlcontext is
arguably one such context Ih
3.;. Thc lex~cullevel and

1ltr7

phrtzsclli'~enterztitx1ictvl

Note that, m the part of ( 2 ; ) tl3'1t represents the bare loglc~ttor113 of tlre
secorld clause of (32). we find rnfc~rr~~,rt~on
about the tlnle of the encottartenng event el. Infi)m~atiollabout tllc locabon of P' 011ly Cotnes LEILO the
picture through pragniahc exx~chmerrt,but telnporal rnhrl,*t~orlrs dlrcdclv
present at the hteral level. Incieed, ,I\ x L,lngutsttts und l'/zalosophy reffree
pointed out, the hme 1s treated very rx1trcl-r llke the agqnt. Botll <irerrrtroduced into the logcal form v ~ thelr
i
rrlat~onsto the event argurrlerlt X)oes
this not rontr2tl1ct whnt 1 h3ve

~1141

stld

217011t

the hmt' r i o t herrrg

it,

argument, contrary to, for exviiplc, the agetit?

The distinction between bare logical fbmi and rric&~ed logical Ibnn will he ehbor~ted111 Chapter 4.
This is actually debatable. If, as srserai corr~nietltatorrluve pointed out, rain on Mars woilld tie
irrelevant to the truth of the wacl~emranutterarlcc, tlus stiggests t h a t ssonle fi)m~of ertnchn~rntokrs
l7

place in t h s exarnple as weU.

94.

i ( ri irc

c r vr a \ < )r- A N A t ?St\

It docbrl't, brt JLIW the hntC 1s ~ntrotlucedmto the J o g c d h n n through

tlic \exiraniut conmlslatlorz of the past tc115e li IS not irtlroduced t/lro.~tgh
the
ioirfral~iiiiotrOF thr lic.ril z ~ ~ While
l j
sorrle vert>i,nuy have a temporal A I ~ L X xalcupt, V C ~ P like
S
.(Imie' <>I- ' ~ L I I~rito'
~
do IIUC Illdeed the ilexrcal exrtry of
most vvrbz l a both tenrpordly 2nd lot ,rr-icrr~.rllyneutrdl The Afference
Arrwccn tlnw 'ilxil F(-tt aaorr iorrrc\ about ,it ti-re level of finite clauses:
ter~ipiir~l
ixrfi>rmat~arl
1s t<>ntrrl~~ttecl
by the tenses, so there 1s a ternpor~l
I T ~ U I I I ( , X I 111
~ C I ~ C~ e \ ~ ~ l tI(>@cLtl
i n g hrni, b c k w enrichment. In contrdst, a
IOICJL~V~
argtit~it~r~i.
1s i r ~ t r o ~ l t ~into
~ t ' dthe 1og~-a!
ibnn ot-a .;tztternent hke (13)
c>rlly thlro~~gir
tier errnchrricnt: i t doe., riot belong to the lrteral medning of
1 hc wrrreric c1 ( orrc iirde thit wc \11ould ~i~st~ngtllsh
ii)i~rIevei~the rnt~tapl-tys~cal
level,
, \yrlt'lg~n.>bc(I c. phris~sal~ n J / o rserrtent~~l)
level, and
the jex~cdl~ C V C ~thr
rile pktgxn.itlr level TI-rcre i i n o iert~por,rlor tcx-ntrbc argtrnlent In the lewcd
i , 'd'in~e' Still, \ U ~ vI c r k ~tcrioteevents, ,ind an event lms.
crltrv iiirr ~ c r l ~11l\c
I)c>tlw a rrrnc , i r d 3 Ioca~otlcoordtnatr at tlvc rrtet*aphys~callevel Furtherrrrorc, ~1nie4,ir ix
ixltrocftrc ed IIIKP the l o g ~ c hrnl
~ l at the selltea~allevel VIA
tire tclrw trf tlie verb thrr dntirlgual~rstirr3c.s frorri Lo~citlons,srrice tliere a
110 ( c ) u t ) t e l p ~t ~
i ) t ~ ~ K I S 1x1
L " the c p ~ t ~ , dolridtil
tl
IO C L ~ ~ O I I car^
S
be optionally
i r ~ t r c r c i ~eci
i c i x r t i ) the (bare) litg~c'dtoml at the \)int,lgmatrc level by Incnns of
i t l c ~ t l c\ $)rLt~c\,
or they can br ~ntrocirrcetlr l r to tho ir~~ocilfrecl)
logl~alf?)~rn
~t thc pr igl:rli,rtac Ict.c.1, via fret. crrarrclznler~t
Rcr-~trrrrrigto rriy rtiarxl po~rrt.I l~olcfc l ~ a s'rnrr~'1s lrke 'cinnce'. There 1s no
itrcii~atrr~
;nsgti~ilcxit1x1 t l lexrcai
~
critlry fbr tlrc verb '~.-trtl', whrrh can be
I i~prcrenrt~cj
i ~ r r ~ p ,I\
iy

Met'lphj ~ r 'tlly,
c
Ixowevcr, thcru's bourrtl to he 21 lcic,lt~ontb1 the event, and
pr,ii";m<tticrlly A c r , ,r iocat~onI\ most o-t the elirlc cctntextu,dy understood ~f
not e\l>irir~I)\pet rlic.cJ. The rtz5or.r. aig41~11,
11 tl-~itw e cale abotrt meteoroio#~c.mi isvuxrr\ Itr the extct~tth&t we t-,ire .~hoiltthe13 loc~tlorls.I nlay be
intihre~rtr'drir Flrar-lrng tliat it r,tlns fi-og\ ctr th,xt rr ralrrs blood, m whichever
plaice t h ~ h,rppen~
t
bbrtt fbr orclrn~ry1 ~ 1 or
~ r\rlom, i'rn rnterested in heanrlg
~ b o i l tit c~rrlyrf' ~t ioricernr sorrle p l , m tlrdt I'rxr inttre\ted m* I-lence a
"t'c r,ilrung' 1% uxllrkeiy j~rrllru we dev~st.a specral
ic>c~trun-ar-rdeiit~~te
( ontext, lrhr dle wc'atllcmlan \t-cr~..~r
10)

4. Rein terprcting tlf PC tveathermarl cx,t~rlplc

kven though the reference ro tlle b'tU is Irng~t~strcttlly
ulrart-ltulated In
exnr~~ple
( r j ) , it Akctc the tritLlltlve tr11tl.l-condltlonl conter-rt of the utterance That 15 wiry 1 talk of pragmatic e~trtchrnerrt'lather than ofCconvcrs~tiondl in~phc.ttule',5rrtc e the riotion of lnrpllcahlre 1s ofteri taken rn a ~l,trrow
sense wlvch e n t d s truth-concflt~onal ~rrelevarlcc Yet prxgrn,itlc ermchmerit has sornethirlg xrnportarit in coilitrlori wlth cor~versat~on~~l
rrnplicatlrre:
in both cases the aspects of rneanmg tll,tt relult fro111the pr~g~:lltatlfc
prttc ess
are optlonal Notlxrlg 111 the rentence ~tself-- nothing hqquuttr--req~iii es the
praginatlt ennciiinent to take pl'lce, hence ~t nay or ntay not take pl,tce,
e ~ l t from
cfepetrcl~ngon the coriteut In ti115 re,pcct prahm,lnl,ttii e ~ ~ r ~ c h l nCiifEr\
dncl fro111the z>slgrrtment of v~1tlt.sto tree v'in~bles/
tndcxic'tl rcsolr~t~orl
~ ~ r o n o r n r nt.lex~rents
d
Whcri ,t v,ilile I \ contcxtnally dss~gleclto arr rr~dex~cal
Jssignmexit
or a bee vari'lble 111 Ioglcdl fo~rn,the contextual piocc\r (-rCv,,~lx~e
zs tnggered bv son~ettluig
Itnpistlc. Since ~t ongnates In wrnc property ot'
r t ~ t &kc place, that
the expression type, the pragrrl'&tlcprocess m q ~ ~ e s t r oP Vrr ~
ts, ~ttaker place In every context In which the rexitent c 1s &l~citourIvilttered.
Tfus provrcics n\ with a tert For dec~drngwhetlrer ,i c oritextu'xlly ~-rrovlded
elctrient of utterdnce nlealilng results tforr~ prapntrc
enncklrncnt, or
whetl-rer ~t rejults troni 'snturatlon'", ttrdc is fio-oltl ii r-rr,ir~d,itorypro( esq of
contevtual assignment.
h < oftile place
1x1 tlie tale ot 'rain', we find that the contextual ~ p e c ~dttorl
of rairl r e d h korrr free erinchnlexlt, rather t h ~ nlion1 s,LtLtratron (a\ thc'
starldard view 1125 tt), because it 15 not ni'ind;~tory Irr the wc,itherrii,rri
ex~rtiyle,no ?lace of r a n 15 spec~fied Thi\ \hawc rlx~tri2eteorologiral
predic'~tes do Trot carry an arg~trnentslot for ,I location, contr,rry to the
rtandard view Thev no more carrv an argurrrent clot tor .i 1ocat1011tllarl
event predicates l ~ k e'dance' do. In all cases, a process of fi ee ertrlchrnerit
rlidy take place, EL tlrtue of w h ~ c hthe speaker tacltly referc to a particular
place as the place of the described evelit, b t ~ ttbls process 1s cr~tirclv
prAgmatlc and 15 therefore irrelevant to the selnantlcls of the event predicate
1 take the we~therrridnexanrple to cast tloubt on the stmdard view Sukt e
1 pubhslled ~ thowevel,
,
attempts hake been nlacic to account for ~twrthout
C reinterpretlllg the we,ttlrcr111,an
depart~rrg&on1 the latter. Two W A ~ of

exlunple lldve been suggested so as to avord my concl~lslonthat the locatlon

c t f rain n not lrnguutrcdy represented m sentences hke (2).19 Accordu-tg to
the f i t relnteryreLatror1, the weatherman example IS compatible w t h the
cla~rnthat 'rain7 I \ assoelated with 2 kee location vanable (or IS a part-time
irldewcjl whose content depends upon a contextually provlded locatron)
because, appearaxes nohvrsthstartding, a specific location contextually
provrdeil ever1 In thdt exaxiiple The second reinterpretation concedes that
the locatior~ctf rain n not specified in the weatheman example, but rejects
the conclm~ctnthat a is not Iingulstically represented. Rather, ~t holds that
there is mnqd~crtexistennal quantificat~onof the locatlon vanable.
4

Ku~t.2on f,urth

The fint re- ixtteqretdtlon has been put forward by L,ulsa Marti (2,006) and,
~ndependrntlyby Paul Elbourne (p.c.). They argue that, in the weathemtan
ex'irrtple, dre lot atloii varl~ble1s assigned the wl.lole terrztary as contextual
value. "t's ra~ning'therefore means something llke 'It's ralnlng on Ear&'.2o
Whoever puts t'orwxd such a proposal trust explan whv we get an
enisteril~cllleathng 'It 1s r,unirrg (somewhere) a n Earth'. Norrn~lly,when
we sky, for example, 'lt's raining in Pars', we mean son-teth~ngnearly
~ n ~ t v e r uthat
l it is ralrilrig over Pans (I e. at most sub-locanons in the Pans
are,^). But clearly, 1x1 the we at he,.:--^ example, tlre rentence 'It's rammg'
doe5 not riledn that it's raining over the Earth (1.e. nearly everywhere). The
weathe~n~ar~'\
LttLerartce orily means that it's rznlng sorn~~vhert
It IS not hard to find an esplalat~onSor &I\ fac t, however. One may argue
that the un~versalreadmg, though wiciespread m d poss~blystandard, i s not
lmguisnt dty rrrclrzciated but itself results fro~n
a pragrnatlc process-a pragnuuc
y.

Actrtally, four ways of reinterpreting the wcathennan exatnple have been suggested. The third
~ t"c ddpt&@tixbC
~
#iCC"tAit "fdic2 &a t i i a ~L5 sig&~&C.isidy
Metc2ti~ &.Oil1 the 2 C C " ~ i j i t
I have sketched; I defer &scussion of that alternative account until 56.2. The t ~urthreinterpretation, due
to Andrea lacotla, invokes a distinction between epistemological content and semantic content which I
mm unwiliirlg to accept I wiIl not diqcuss lacona's solution in this cllapter, but refer the interested reader
to his anide (lacona 2OU5).
"O Elbourne says he does not actualiy hold the view, but nierely pu-*
ward for consideration.
Besides Marti ar~dElbourne, otlter persorn have argued along the same Lines. The first to have done so in
prirtt ;ue Sandro Capone and Jason Stanley in their respective reviews of my Literal Meaning (Capone
zooj: 46, Stanley zoogb). Stephen Neale (zoo7) defends a similar position hut, like Perry, he refirams Crorn
positing an 'argurxrent place' or a fiee variable in logicd form and commits himself only to the existence
of an 'argument role' in the lexical semantics of 'rain' and other meteorological predicates.
lV

t C ~ s i t t i p ~ e L X ~~< , p
~i

process that does riot take place, for prmcipled reasons, nl the \v~dthel~ldn
example. The explanahon proceeds roughly ns follow5
I

2.

3
4

5.

6.

The sentence 'it rans at ? rs hterally true ~f 2nd oalv if rt ram\ at. some
sub-locahon I' of 1
In many cases, ~t 1s relevaxit to melrtlon r u n In coiincct~onwrth ,I
specific place I ordy 11'tbc sub -1ocatlorrs of 1 where rain actualilly orcucl
are representative7of 1.
If it rams over 1, then ralii occun at rliost sub locaaor15of- I, a i d th5; I\
sufficient to guarmtee represeotativrq
'The hearer assuxnes (ancl n e~pecteclto d~sulne)that the utteralce r\
relevant. hence m rllarrv caw:, he or shc wrll be led to as\nn\c that ~t
rams over 1
In some cases, however, o i ~ eo f the f~)llowxigt or~ct~tinx~s
lruv I.rc
sahsfied: it is relevant to inentior1 rail1 1x1 connection w ~ t hiorrre
locatron 1 even d the suh-loc'it~on>of 1 where ram actu~llyocc u n
are not representatrvc o f / , o r the .irib-locations rrt cluc\tlon re represerltatlve of I even ~flt doe\ not r ~ i nover. 1 If e~thero i these iorltlrt~oni,
is sattsfied tt will be relevdtlt to mention r.iin 111 corlnectloli wrth pYacc i
even though rt docs not rain over 1 I or cx~mplc.if I am rold t h a t 'rt \
rairxing Gags 111 Dostorrr', X tlo not (neceswnlvi tonclutfc t h ~ rt'c
t rarxbing f r o g ni most pots of- tile Morton Area It i z relevant exioragirll to
know that in some spot in the Bostoti area, ~ t ' sratrirng frop 2 i
In the weatherman exanlple, argt~ably,one of the defkattng condriiunr
1s satisfied, just as im the ralrzng frog exainple. For chat reawn, tlrc
pragrnatlc step frorri ex~sterltzdto u~~rversal
ir not taken

According ti, the propoi.cd explanation, the exrstentld (non\pec~fic)

read~ngof the weather~mx~
exnmple I< cornpattble 1~1ththe E ~ c tthat a
speclfic locatlor1 is contextually provided, for the specrfic l o c ~ t ~ or nnque\
t~on-the E,artli-1s the place of r a n only m the sense that ~t I I ~ C I U ~ C S (4s j:
sub-locahon) the place of ram I t turn5 out that tliere are two sensedor the
phrase 'the place of ran': in the n a t ~ o t trense,
~
the place of r a n is the place
which rain actuaUy fds; 111 the broad >enre,the place of r a n car1 be dcly piale

I owe the 'raitlmg frog' exanlple ti) I h n Sperk~er.(The sanle exairlpie has independently conie up
in discussions with Pranav hiand, Eric Swansorr, arrd Sarah Moss at MIT.) W k c h of'tlre two dcfeam~g
conditions obtains in such a case is an issue I will llot go into here

?r8

i.irifu I kiir-KF 2 iht* iHt- 'WFAf HFAMAh kXAWi.Ik

the narrc~~v-pLu
e-ot-ram .n a srrh- loc-~tlon.If ~t rams in some
piat e (iar tlrr irxrow sense) then (in the brad WIISC)~t ra111~111 ally place
ulc-lrr~\~ng
r t II it r x n i ~n Nexrc o (
'~ty (or rn sornc s~rbirrl)ofSMevlcoG ~ t v ) ,
thcaai 11rain<,ori I * ~ r t l T'lre
i
wesrlrern~~rr
ex,arrrpic. 15 t~onspecrfic(exr\teiltlal)
W I L ~ Ire\pect tc9 tlic rlarrow p l ~ c cof rain, bur it rrtxtertllelen contexttially
s~gecikicisthe p \ : ~ e
ol rail] ill the brwrel .sensc'.
C ~ this
I view tlri* lexical en0-y h,r the verb 'rraiir' is soil~ethinglike:
t h t e lzrc irrt'ic,\

ar~tl,:as the sul3scnpt itrciic:~tcs,the 1oc:itiorr re1:itiorl itself i s understood in the

irroad senscb' 3 r d axialyscd as fidlc>ws:

(Vt9 (Vl)

11 o c ;\r

(E,

(9 ri-f

31' ( r o c n ~ r o
( I f~, t) A 1' 2 1 ) )

the suli locat~onreldtxorr .lrrtE ' I O ( A I ~ O N ' iorresporlds to the

notron o i l o c n t ~ c r r r l i r ~ the wcatftermn ex~mplc,the
v ~ n a b l c7'i\ ,rssrgl~ccithe vdlue t " ~ r ~, h
i r ,d tire cvcrrt vnr~ablers ex~stcntially
cjtunti~fiei-l, \o thrlt (ciinreg<~rdrng
tcrlw :inti .r+pect OIIC~" d g a r l ) we get the
e x p ~ l e i rje a t i i ~ i g

wlirsc

'

15

( > R ~ ~ X I r\;rrro\c
,I~.

" 3 ~ININ( IN(^

(i")

roc

A ~ I O N , , (the

f 'trtll, c)j

t h t n,

3 e 3 S ~ i a n i ~ r r j (c)
c,
/

optll9ticr/

r c ~AI
t LON ( / I , e) A if

<--

the Earth j

tJc*r~alili'$

The icc oncl r eir~iurpri.tat~o~~

aylw~15to the f ~ t cthat, ,n tllc f'artec example\
\I-row, An rrarpirc 11 t an'ible L ~ I Zbc 't)our~(.ISint e thdt is 50, why not CAY that
the i r x z l d ~rri ~ 0 i d t 1 0 1 k v d t l ~ b k15 1>01111~1
by
c ~ ~ ~ t t " rq~tant~fter
~tld
In the
wcatlrt'rr~l~\lr
~ ' l d ! q ? k , t l l l ~g
j v m g rise ru the ~ndefinitereadlr~g! Why not
arl,dvse "t'i rg~rrlxrrg3,
m t h ~ example
t
A\ 'Tl~hercrs .r I ( x a t ~ o n
1 sucli that ~ t ' s
sarxnng a t I7)""
, t%~lmvxlc~-rrly,
wiry lot s,ry that tlrc ,~rgunrcnt-slotfor a
Iocaticlrr e\ t~lletlby trit%arlsof a c ovcrr rndtt-urlte ('sso~rrcwhere')?
The rcJ\c)n 1 t~xvcctfferetf for resistrng thlr sort of ,ul~dyusI\ that overt
va~7dlsics(e g proootrns) canrlut be coverrly hourzcl. 'Thus, ,is I polrited out,
"He rs tnII\ i,ini~otritcLGutthat \otneone
0t2lel 1s tall. Why should covert
v.tn.tblcs bch,ivc tliifcrently froin overt var~ablcsj

Afier preseutlng this argument In 'Unartlcu1,tred C:orircrtt~ex~ts',

I JII~ICI
pdted a posslble response. There are, one nugilt atgl:ue,two sort\ of var~&!tlc<.
those wblch (I~kepronouns) must be ~ontextu,~lly
,iu~gltecJa value wlien
unbound, and thaw w h ~ c h ,when unbouxid, cart t ~ t l ~ eber tonte'rttrnlly
e , h rlred
assigned 3 value or undergo existentrd closure. The v ~ r l ~ h lwhit
not be assigned a speclfic value but rnay unciergo existerrtxal closure I
dubbed 'opaond vmabler' T o actourit for tile weatfrierman example.
then, one only h a to tlaim t l l ~ tthe locatiort vanable belongs tto the
optional' t ategory
Thi5 response w ~ lbe
l convmcing only I the iategory of opt~onalvartahlc\
1s lr~deptjndentlyneeded, that IS, orlly 11 we car) tillci clear iiistnnt e5 ot the
category. It n temptlng t o argue at this poltit that rel,ihoi\dl noulrc hlie
a noth her' prec~stlycany such ,m optlorial va~l,ible;a \an,aI>le wtri~h,,I\
examples (7) arid (8) demonstrate, ~ a be
r ~
eitl~erbound by ,I covert eur\terz
tid cjuanhfiel or &\igned a definite vaille. Yet we cdnriot 30 .ugitr wittiout
t
c,f'\erlterlcc\
beggmg the yueshon, for what 1s at s;take a the c o n e ~analysrs
in which a putative inrpl~cltargumcrit 13 undetstc>ocias euatrrittally q~i,lntltred 'To jusnft- the analysis in ternis of oytlor~alv*inahle\ both ol'ex'i~~iplcs
hke (7)-(8) und of the weatlieman example, we r-tlust ti11t2 tnstarlt es of
opnonlrl vanables among the overl vanable-like elemet.lt\
Tlie orily candrdate 1 tart thiiih o i here 15 tellct. Accorct~rlgt o 1-''1rtee
(19731, tliere 1s a stnklng parallel between terism a i d pronourls, 't prt~allrl
that justlfies treating tense\ AS vLtnai)1es.Like pronouns, tcnses ftave dcict~c,
, ~ n a p l ~ (and
~ r ~bco ~ m duses In Partee's 6lnious es,lltrple, '1 dlcl not tLrrn otl'
the stove', the pa\t tense 1s urliterstood de~ctic~ l l vthe 5pt~~rkrl
~cker\to '1
\peclfic hnle in the pnst As Partee wntes,
,
When utteled, fbr Inbtance, halhvc~ydown thr t ~ l ~ ~ ~SpI I C~~ kI e\cntcLtIie
ciea~iy
I not C L J ~ I I
doe5 n o t xnean eltlirr that there eylsts some tune In the past d t W ~ I CI ~dl~f
off the stove 01 tkut theie emts no tnnr in tile past ar wh~ch I rurrtetl oti the stove"
The sentence cledrlv refers to a parbctllnr orlie (1)arrtcr ro73/zooq j ~ )
Pxtee provides other examples In w h ~ c hteriscf ,tte l~sec!,~lid~>l~ori~ally
01 a\
bound vanables. B L Iwhat
~
she fads to notlce 11-1Izei payer Ir that teriscs 11avea
reading w h c h pronouiis do not lave
T11e extra readsr~gI have r n mxrrd lr the very leading whrch I-'altce xlys is
~ ~ V
unllkeiy sn the context *he descr~bes111 .* d r f h ent corltext, ~ T C S U I ~ I ~the
t
off the stove' ~ o n j dt)c. givert ,t11 '~ridet~rlrte'
past tense renrcnce '1 did r ~ oturn

--

--

I 03 - & ~ F F R

P K F T I NT~ X T - V ~ ~ R M
XXAMPLE
N

or 'exlstent~al'mterpretatlon, rather than a deichc Interpretation One week

after the event reported by her utterance 'I did not turn offthe stove', Partee
~lirghthave told the story ar; follows 'Last week, I &d not turn oEthe stove
and I risked a serious accident' In this senter~cethe slniple p a t has an
existetitlal re,~dirrg the sentence says that there u an event e and a past hrne
t ,uclr that e w nry rtot-turnlrig-ogthe stove at tirne t, w h c h tlrne t rs located
within the tune-span tndic ated by the te~nporaladverbial 'lat week'. Even
though the serrterlce t oilta~ns,I reference to the tmre-span withrn whicli the
event talked about 15 said to occur, there 1s no deictlc reference to the nme
of the event Itself, cvhicli rernans ~ndefinite.?~
Tlvs 1s in contrast to Partee's
ongmal example, in w h i ~ h~t\ e e m that there 1s reference to the time of the
described evertt If that is right, artd ifParteelr axlalysxs oftenses a5 variables is
correct, tlit.11 teoipor~lv~nablesmay not only be as\lgncd specific values, a?
m Partee'., ongxi,rl euarnple, but may also undergo existennal closure, as xn
the revised verzlorr of the example.
1x1 the revised verslon of thc Partee exarnple, we need a temporal
,idverbla1 srlch as list week', referring to a penod m the past, because
wlthot~tsuch .I reference to the past we would have to rise dlc present
perkct to iotivev the cxtstential zlriterpretation In French, thm,0s are s ~ m pler w ~ t l i o ~~trt r vtt~niyoraladverbial, the pass^ nttrzpose can be gven either a
clei~ticor an exl\tcnt~,~l
~nteq)retation The same thing 1s true of the future,
both in t rerich and in English 'Tile sentence

nsay be uriderstctod in two ways: either the speaker is referring to some

specific hture time, niade salient in the context, and she says that she will go
to C:lzina at that time, or she is rxierely sayrng that there is a hrture tirile at
whicfi she will go to Cllina.
What matters to us is that the second, existential reading is not available
tvit!~pronowns. 2Tf-2 is h:rld' cannot mean that snmp n~2leor 0 t h i ~
s h3ld
~ 23
Uecause of that extra reading, if tenses are to be treated as variables (as Partee
1973 suggests), the variables in question must be &Eerent &om pronominal
I a n ~ ~ d e b t 10
e dPhshppe Sct~lelzherfor cfisctss~onof ttus type of exarnple
Paflee ( 1 9 7 3 / ~ 0 4jz) mcrltlons the existence of what she calls a 'nonspec~fic'de~cocuse oftenses,
1x1 LJOIIII went to a private ccllool', and she clans diat pronouns too have such a use ('They haven t
rnstdlled my telephone yet') So she mlght be tempted to deny the asymmetry tlxat I am pollltlng outchc m~gll~
atgue that the ailegrd e,astennal reacfings are all nonspec~ficd e ~ c t ~
uses
c
"L

Z3

W E A r I I F R REllC)IIII

\,

401

vanables. they must be opttonal vanables An optional vcmalde, when unbound, may be contextuallv x,sssg~eda specifi~value or undergo ex~stentlal
closure
We can, however, reject I-"rteee"s elmre dpproacb and maintarn that
tensed sentences-r
a t least, tile senterlcec xn the slmple p a t \he user as
exa~nples~~-quavatlfj,over trmes, even or1 the Aeged d e r c t ~rcahng. Tlxe
d e s c ~ rea&ng
c
arguably results fron~restnc ting the donlain of yri~ntificatjorr
'Iclidrr't turn off the
1n a manner that rnssrlvcs singular refkrencle '"'Thm
stove' means that, m tlre qet ofpast evelzts rnuliedi~telyfbllo\.vmg rny lact trse
of the stove, there 1s no tunnng oi3 ot thc itove by mc I11 thrs way wc
account for the coexrstent e of eslsterrtlal arztl of (alleged) deictlc uses rtrltlxottt
having to posit ophonal varrables
Which theory are we to ~ h o o s e lE~erytli~lig
being equal, we \t~oirld
prefer the most pamixnonlour theory, tllat I\, the theory that dotc rzot posrt
optsonal vanables (in add~tionto s ~ ~ n d a pronr.rrruna1
rd
elements) But everything may not be equal T h e a n s l ~ ~ of
s ~ teme
s
Ir a complex dfrjrr, ;md
Yartee's type of approach using van'ables IS gener,llty conrldered JS qulte
suc~essfkl,"~
it rnay be, tl-ierefi)re, t h ~ tcve shaU have to swallow opttonal
v~rrdblcsare ~ndepel~de~rtly
vanables in the package If so -11 opt~trr~~il
needed to account for terns then we rnav [eel f h e to use the111to accourrt
for the weatherman example
If we take t h s hne, the Iexrc~lentw &>I "tarn' wll be. again,

\l, he

[RAINING

(e) A

LocArroN

(1, rjj

but t h ~ stime the locatlon relac~orrwrll he undecitood irz the stdndarcii.

narrow sense (as the absen~eof subscript nl&< ate\) 0 1 1 t i l l s theorv, \vXl~t
n
I I bouxrd
~
happens in the u-athenrim esrtnrplr 1s that the l o ~ a t ~ ovemdble

" Thss qualification n needed in view {.if' cE~rfact that. as Schie~ihr~.

poirtted ixit tn rric, L:rcr~ch
'impahit' does not accept emsterlod rcadi~lgs.
This alternative analysis was &st 111~11tinned
by I'mre lrerseii(ser t'ooniote 3 113 her xy;i payrcr).
See Lasersohn (1999:537) for a more recent proposd riorrg those lines.
" d o t by Partee herself though. In Partee (rg8qb) she givcs up her earlier a~iaiysisand trcats he
tenses as establishing relations betweeti event tillre anci ref5rrrrcc tirne (as m Wolfg;atlg Kleiri's Kerchenbachian &mework). She not oiliy gives up the treatrt~rntoftenses 2s variables, but also refra~nsken>
positing reference-time vanables: die reference tulle, she polnts out, 'does not cnrrespo~~d
i~rutbnnlyto
any single constituent ofthe sentence' and it resists irluoductiori in a direct model-theorcnc mntcrpretntiorl of the syntax (Partee rg84b: 266).

I hrce T I ~ C drc
~ ~111I .~~I~lpetltlOll
"',
LO dCCOLlnl to1 the we&t~iernl&tl
example.
A<( or(ling to t f l ~fir\t theory, xlietcr~rc>log~lcal
pred~catesdo not czm- an
.irgurilcxrit dot for d l o c - ~ t ~ o(excepe
n
rrr the ger~er,~l
sense m wtzicli ever).
cvcxrrip ~ c t l ~ iC,trne\
~ t c SIIC-113 slot), it fOuowr\ that mrtearologpcal sentences
Ir Le " i t 14 T , I I E I I P I ~ ' i l e c ~not
]
be under\tood as ioc,it~ors-spec-~fic.
Puttmg tense
'iaii J \ ~ c t( 151dc, the iellldlttic c01itc1lt of (3)15 ~l1np1~:

j)o\~~L~lfity
of arl urdefixrrtu rcachng o f (z),
ai in the weatl~crcrrtra ely eq?ettcd. Ex~iliplc(2) 4ay4 that s ram event 1s taking
p1.iic. 'iritl rLilncver~t,hke m y event, IS b o ~ m to
~ i t,&e place somewhere.
I ierlc r_. "I>-'\ x a ~ i r n g "ts cqin~~dent
to ' h'5 rAxrlmg \orrlewhere",just as 'Mary 1s
t i a r c ln;< i s c c j u i v d e r l ~to M~,rry
IS da~lcmg
SU~IIC'LI.'~~"~~'.
I3crtj-i h a * \e'coxlcl mtl the third ttxeu~yIrx'arntam t h a t tneteorologcal
pn-d9r(-,~~(~
1liL.c ' z , I I ~ ' c J I T ~AII A P ~ U I I L Cdot
I ~ ~ Jbr n location:
() ~
t hi i ~
vit"'i.'i, tlii'

l i l ; i i ~c.i,iii~pic

.i:ril

f\( I 01IGLI$: LO the s t - ~ ~ ~thcory,

~ t t f mrlucl~n m Instance of the standard
wrw, tlie slot rnu\t be cor-rttbxtu,lUjrfilled WI th a specdc location; and a
kpcuif ii Itrcdhoti ir ~ndcedprcw~detl~n tllc. weathen-llan cxanple, namely
t i 1I
1 Ile taxrstent~~~l
tii,rce of thc w catbc~~nan
exanple 1s accounted
Gir iry rrrccrl)retrirg the locatlon rel,le-ion~ r tl-te
r broad sense.
e A i io r cling LO the tlnrd tlieory, t l ~ eargrrtnerlt slot need not be filled
i+rtIr
\ p ~ ~ l i loc~tion,
i(rt rn.ly bc bound by a covert cxlstential
cl~~iilrrl-rcr.
,rud that IS w l l ~ bitppen)
t
rtr the weatherinari exaniple.
IEow are we to ~d~uthc'lte
betm~centhe three tllisoncs?In this secbon, I argue
thdt both t l ~ \cc
c o t ~ xlld
3 the rbuld theory Llc e plwtrlerns. 'I'he tlxrrd theory does

nor rtrEc.

wit

r r ~ ~ b qwhich,
r,

,
I iC T ~ J U I

J.

matter of tact, does not emst, or 1s

h a d to get; cvtule the second theory weaker~sthe notion of 1ocatx)rt to the

s
to cfo.
porirt where ~tcan no longer do tlre jol) it w ~ ~r~tel~deti
j.2.

&~ziti~!~f
the tibird theory

Cor~siiierthe sentence:
(27) It is not raining

Can we run (A vanant of) the weatliermaa ex'tmple tvrtlr that sentence, so as
to get the foilow~ngreadlng: In sorne ylau or other, t t ' ~rtot rtazntut@ Let us try,
by adjustmg the o n ~ n a scenano
l
Inlagme a ~ l t u a t ~ o1x1r ~wh~chthe absence of rdln has becortre cxtreinelv
rare and mlportmt ( ~rasns
t
allrlost ecerywhere and everytmlej. nil over
the terntory detectors have been ciaposed, whlcl~trigger 'in alami bell in
the Mo111tonng Room cvben they detect the dt>\enceof ran 'l'here rs a
curglc bell, the locd~lonofthe tnggerrng tletector I\ irldlratect by 'ihght oti
a hoard In the Mon~torulgRoom. After wcekv of flood, rhe bell cvcntually ring m the M o n tonng
~
Room. HeAnn# it, the wedtherman otr duty
In the adjacent room shouts. 'It's not r<i~nmg~'
Can we say that the wedthemian's tlkter&rlce1s true ~fi;
1x1 some plat e or other, r t
a not rauang (at the tlme of utterance): I tlnd ~trather liazcl to t~ndentandthe
utterance that way, deyrte tlie colitext 'I'hc weatilernran ought to \,av sorneng
thrng hLe "'fhe rain has stopped' tlia could be uilderstood 3s a ~ e a r ~ ~that
the r a n has stopped somewhere Rut rt IS very h , ~ tcd3 s u g n to 'It's rtot rarr~ng'
the (w&scope) mdetunrte readmg-rrn~tch harder than rt w to unclmtand the
poutive sentence ~ndefmtely,as In the onpal weathernlan exm~ple
The unavai~=bil~ty
of the wlde-scope ~~rdefimte
reacting of (27),In contrx~tto the avallabdlq of rhe i~rdefintteredding 111 the ongi11'll cveatlremran
exanlple, rnust be ,tccounted ior. I wll argw that tlrc asynmetry n unexpected on the thsid theory, whale ~t 15 expectect on both the fint dnd the
second tl~eoty27
Accordmg to the first theory, 'It7\runlrrg' s~mplysays that a r~imingevent
is takmg place, and 'It's not raln~ng'say? tl~atit 1s not the case that a rdinlng
event a talilng place In both cases tile htrral rneaning of. the sentence can be
1 am indebted to Pcmav h a n d for suggcs:esung tltat way of test~ngthe theorits, and to Paul
t(1boumefor poznong o u t that the iecotrd theory l).c;se, tirc te\t, i.ontisry to what 1 it~~t~rrilv
tllought.

cnrlched through some klnd of tacit reference to a place; thus both 'It's
ra~ning'and 'It7\not rarnmg' can be understood as saylng that a 1s r m m g (or
not) in Berlin, if Berlln 1s the contextually understood location But the
tndefirute reading of the ongnal weathemian sentence does not result &om
such a process of enncl~ment,on the first theory: the indefinite reading IS
what we get when we doyz't ermch the rneamng of sentence but take lt at
face vdue (I e as rnemmg that there w a raintng event, penod) If we
\inul~slytake stllternent (27) at hce value, ~t says that there n no rain (i.e.
there 1s no r a n urtywhere). It does not mean that there 1s no raln somewhere.
Accormng ttt the second theory, the Earth 1s contextually asslgned to the
locahori vanable in the weatherlnm example. Presumably, thls also happens
In the neganve vanmt of the example; (27) is therefore analysed as saylng
that on Emh, IC n riot ralrnng. Is thls the unavadable readmg, and is the
second theory gurlty of prentctlng that readmg? No. Accordng to the
second theory, the Earth not understood as the narrow place of ram
(the location filled by ram) m the weatherman emnple, but as the broad
locabon, tvlrere the broad Iocatlon 1s defined as a locaaon that corrtarns the
narrow place of rain In the broad sense, to say that i t rams at a gven place E
n to snv that there IS a sub-location 'I of 1 w h ~ c hIS f i e d bv ran; and to say
that it doec not ram ( ~I ) t 15 to bay that there IS no sub-locat~on of 1 which IS
filled bv ram bcntence (27), ln the negahve vanant o f t h e wedtheman
exanple, 1s therehre ,~rralyrcd,w sdylng that on Earth, it IS not ralrtmg, ln the
ienre that titer<zc no ruztlirtg spot (1.c lt's not ralnmg a~inywhere).T o asslgn the
Cnrtti to the covelt lot atron varr,tble ul Eentenee (37) theretbre resu1t;s m a
readrng qulte drfftxrerrt from the unavailable reahng SornewI.tere on Earth, it's
not tnivzrng Being bu11t 11lto the lexttal entry for 'ram', the exlstentlal
quantlfler over (narrow) locahons takes narrow scope, whereas lt ukes
wlde scope on the ~~navallable
reachng.
In contr,ut, the thlrd theory h ~ trouble
s
accounting for the unavallablhty
of the lrrdefirirte rending of (27). According to that theory, 'ram' c m e s A
IOC atlon vnn~ble,\vhic11 IS opnonal and can be bound by 2 covert ex~stentlal
quantifier That ir wliat happens in the weatherman exanlple. In the
negatrvc vanant of tlie example, therefore, the exrstentral quantifier 1s
expected to interact wlth negation, In such a way that two readmgs ought
to he generated, depending on the scope of negation: tile sentence wdl
say eltl~erthat at some locatlon 1, there IS no ram, or that it 1s not the case

that, at some locanon I, there E, ram But the fmt seachg li not actually
~valabie.~~
To be sure, as Paul Elboiirrir 111\1\tedin 111s CuImnents on a11 3nc C S ~ O Tof
thu ch~pter,~t is not the Lase &at any scopal ordcnng of scope b e ~ n n g
elements 1s always possible I agree. Bur d some pdrtic~llarst ope urderrrlg
turns out to be mposslble, tfserc rruust I x an esplanatiorl &>rthat fact.
Whoever pos~tstwo scope-bearmg elements t.vh~cbturn out not to interact
owes us such an explandtion For eua~nl-rle,C:hierch~aand McConnell(&net notlce that 'there do not appear to be a ~ ~ l h ~ s t r trzsillhng
ie\
frorir
mteracaon of the negahve and tense tnoq~hemes~(C1nerclzla
md McCoiu~dlGlnet 1990: 2 3 2 ) . They oEer a tteIltdhVe euplmanon for that &ct: there
no ~nteracnonbetween tense and ncgdhori, hence no scope arxrbrgulty,
thev SAY, because the correspondtng syntact~celements (NE,(; and TN\)
are both parts of the INFL node, arrd 'the elerrrents of INrL are u r t e ~ m t e d
In a fmed order, w t h NEG always hmvlng mder scope tlrarr TNS'
(Chierchia and McConrleE-Cinet rr)r$o 232) Another ex.imple, C ~ O L Cto
our present concerns, regards the Lack of rnter<ictlonbetween rlegatlon 'inJ
event quantlficatlon: negitlon alw,ivs, or Ano5t al~jvayr,tdk-e\ wadel scope
than the dehult quartitlficat~oj~
over events '"Addressiilg thls ~sslre,P,~rsc>ns
wntes:

111 . C ; ~ m p ~ ~ i h ~Pmee
n ~ ~ tnotes
f , that mclefii~rcerrnplicit .&rgumenu,~f tieared 2s exisccninailv
quantified variables, are such that the eslstenti:~!qumnfier cur c~~liy
take Ilatlolv scope relxrivs ro any rrit~er
scope-beanris dement in the senterll-e (Rinee i gS~ai2ooq:roK-i)). As a i l axioriyrnois I .i"rf)rt:f&rc.cpwnred
one of LIIC argmnens XLtivour of a Lrxii:ri approachto
out, this fact was kni3wn since tlie iy7os (and I t w.1~
dlesed indetimte implicit argunlents). in a related veln. Bier\vach otti-red fire foiIo\ving rule iii the c.~.rrly
1980s: whenever a lexically spcc~fiedargmient 1s sy~~iactrc,~ilv
oniitted, i t is bound by an existeii~~al
q~~antlfier
whlch rakes varro\v scope ('Unspeciiied Argui~r~llt
Rde'---see Bicrwach 1982, igX<j:76).
" 4 %say 'almost always' because negaoon c ~ he
n inteqrrered n~predicate negaaon, ni whii.!~case, uf
course. it does not scope over the event cpantlfier. Ln rlw G)llow~t~g
example, dre second clause conrairn
a pronoun anaphorically (or quasi-anapl-lvricauy)rehrrlng to an event ~ntrtducedin the first ciause, a11d
&at event is die event ofrlot-doing sonlettlmg:
Brutus did riot greet me.

it

happened yesterthy.

In standard event renwntics, diat ex:~rriple,wirrch resenibles the dassicai "Unitus stalrbeed Ca~sar.It
happened at noon', should be anltlvsed in the wrlc wdv: ?here rs iz p u t aacntP ~uhichi j u r~t~rz-.~r<:i:tir<f and
whose agent i s Btutu.c. ' h l r rwnt r taok pt~ticyestmdrday. Another exairiple on tire Ealirr patrcrn mvolves
adverbial mo&ficaaon rather thzm event aiiapiiora:

With contenipc, Brutus did not greet nie.

Again, in standard event senlaritics, &at ougftt to be attalvwd AS: There IS an everit e siich thm e is a riongreeting, e 1s located at some orne t in the pact, e's %rut is Bmtus, and e is conturnpdiii (i.e. urvoives
contempt on the part of-its agent towar& is patient). Of course, not any old event that happens to not be a
greeting event will count as a non-greeting eveizt. To coirllt :~ra nori-&~eeu~~g
event, an evrnt rnusi Irave

Too

WHO 14. RII,C-I14

ii theri. i z 4 iicg,itlo~i111 the ccrltence, rt mubt have wrder scope than the defat~lt
c1t~u"i"iii;i atrori, tlxrr a I t c ~ ~ ~.ru5eutrnce
ie
Ilkti "Maru did not rurl' says that ~t 1s not
tlic ~2.rtiiiit t ! i t ~ rw~ a s a nlrltlrng wllow agent IC Marla; 11 the negatlon occurred
tlae t-leiault t j u a r ~ t t t ~ c a t ~rot nwould
,
irrdke the sentence say that there was an
~ns~de
e v r i i t nlix~hwd\ riot a runnlrlg wllose agent rs Mar~d,311d t h ~ would
s
be true even if
Mxi in d r i l r uil (Yanons zt)na r 9)

1 ,1117 r i o t

~nc x p j d n d t ~ ofor
~ ~the fact that negatmn and
c v e r ~ ci I ~ i d l * t i f i (<it~on
d ~ 1rtot keely Intvrdct The pdssage m;iy he read as a
starearlent c i i w l ~ I'rlrqor~s
t
takes to be a (I~rute)fact n u t ~tmay also be read a*;
pi~w~dtng
.L ~casonfor the lack ot ~fdno'uv-s(
ope renchng for negdtlon. 'The
nad,trn wotrici be thn (1) 'Mma rd11' aid 'MMi.nn
d ~ not
d rtut' are supposed to
%c, co~rtr,ic~rctorv,
but (11) if jrcgntrorl a ~ l devent quartt~iic~khon
can 6eely
irrtcr-act, tiilcr c. wlil be il reading ai-the negative rentenct. whlch will rnake IB
trutlt c o ~ ~ ~ l ; u ~w
t ~~!t)htl ch ~ ot f the ilosrtlve rerlteilcc That, ho-cvever, cdnnot
be the cxpianatron for the oblrgatu~ywide st. ope of negahon. when we say
tlrlit 'Man&r ari' and M n r ~ aci~dnot run' are supposed to be contracllctory,
wc irc d r c ~ d yexc1udir1g the pos\rlrhixty of J n'rnow-scope reading for
ncg'itroxl I.C,ithcr t h ~ naccountrng tor t h a r rxiiposs~l,rhcy, we are plesup~ w " " ,ICB IV"e~
t t h ~pntdtive ArgLiIIIeIlt C < L I>r
~
rrnproved rf \ve take the
sC:la~erc 1113. M~C,ox-ineil-C111ctpolnt &boutrlegatiori and tense for granted
Ihalrg~trcmu opri, over tense, tbcrr, if cve grve the event qu~nttlierx o p e
ovci xicgati(>rr,tiad- rerultrr~gwntersce ' R / t ~ l ~CaI I not
~ run' wdl say that there
is (rcn\elc\r) a n cvcXritwhlcb 1s IIOC an event loc ntecl m the past and conslstrng
~ 7M
f
~ Xnrnrxirig
U
I lrat IS obvruusly too tnvr'rl to be worth sbiyrng,or even
wor tf-r ckpr-e\irrrg
Wlrdrcvc* wc thiitk of these elcplataaorw. they ,*re (tentatlvr) explanahorxi.
My p m r ~ t ~~I tV C I S C ~that
Y
the lack of Interactton between two scope-bearing
rle~rrctrtsrecp~rrr~
sc)inr krrd ofexl)lan,zhon A propol7ent of the tlmd theory
otrght to prcrv~deiucEi an t l x p l r l ~ ~ ~ tirlnce
~ o l ~s/he
,
po\rts two scope-beanng
~ n dthc exlsterlhaj qualt&>er over loc~hons)between
elcrrrerks ,?.(rreg~t~c,ri,
wlrtc 11 tllcrr xs no rtrteractlon Urilesr ,r convlnclrig e s p l m a t ~ o IS
t ~promded.
tlie hrst m c i the ct'cc)nd theory fare better rhar the thzd theory bec-ausethey do
~xothave ~111s
proljlern
9urt'

this

1% 1rlte11ciet1
'1s

brio esjrcr t ~to~j?<,.iI grcerlrrg. ~ I L11terat~1.0

C
o n 11egativi events i s $carre. Set' Iliw,?nbotl~ar~1
zotx~:73-j
&)r J few rcrr~.~r-h
on thc ~ o ~ )s i

A post~bleeAxpl'inat~oii
for the la& of ~rrter'act~on
between the ex~sterlhcll
cjuxit~fiera i d negatlon ~nvcdvcrsk sr~iajlrcvtslorl of the tliu-d theorv. rherc 1s
x~oixiteractlorr, otre ~ m g h argue,
t
becau\c tl-tcre n lrr) euxrtentiil quaritrfier 1x1
die fint place StrU, in the spirit of tlic sccoild theory, we (an ri~aiilr~tcurr
&kt
sorneth~nghke exstentldl qualtliicahor~t k e s piace Instead of rdylng that the
trt the weathernun
locatlon vanhle 1\ bound by I' covelt exrsteritrcll qt~x~tlfier,
esaniple, we car1 say that the algur-t~entslot tar ,r lacation is tilled t7y xnems of a
covert pronoun oftlre rlglit sort AHtrtlperst-sonalpronoun, IAe French \on7, h a
exstentliil force, m d it n ch~acten/cd by the tjct tl-tat ~tcan orlly tilie rtAn-o\v
scope. (Thus ' O n tle roizne pas d lapoufe' can c~nlyrxlem th,tt it 1s 11ot the case tlidt
sorlieone is n n g n g at tlic door, on the lndefin~tcuse of 'on' It c,ulnot mean
t
that there ss someone who 1s not rlnglrrg ,it tlic- door ) If we Js\unle t h ~ die
xlrgument dot is filled by the (covert) conrtteqmt of st~ch ,z pronotrn m the
locatlon domam, we ,mount ior the tact h i t the negat~oncan only take wrclr
scope. (Of course, an ex~l'inatlonh c to~ be provided for tlir bellamour of
~riipenonalpronouns, brtt that IS a general p~ohlernthat canaot he bl,med
specrfically or1 the tllvd tl-reory )
Aga~nstthts vdnant of the thlrd theory, I ,rclvmce a rr~etliociol<>g(d
principle. for o b v l o ~ ~reasons
s
of pcllslmorly, one rhttnllt liewet. postt rol*crr
syrztactzc eltmefzts thctl (it7 tzo Certi~rttzcfuotk, ~iizle~c
there cue ~rrdepmtfetztsyntuctzc
gr(~undsjoryosrtlrrg tJzetri 30 In the 'ra111' cme, I cl,~rrrl,tire 'dIeged 1mpersor2al
pronoun doer no sernantlc work. f i e sheer exrsterrce of a ralnrng evellt
already entzls the existence of 2 locnt~ctnwlze~erh,~tevent t&cs place,
hence the acldinon of an inyersond pronoun starldlng for .t locatron coiltributes notlrl~ng31 O n e jbouJd therefixe refrarn front p o s ~ t ~ nsuch
g a covert
pronoun, ~~lrless
there are tndependent syntacttc redsons Lor so dorng
j.3. Aguinst the second thleorjt

Like the first theory, the second tltcorv lids no p r o b l e ~ with

~ i the negahve
venlon of the weathrnennan exarrrple What mdko ~t posslble to dccotrnt
for the t~n,iva~l~bdtty
of tlie wlde scope exi\teritlal rcad~ng,otl the secoslcl
tlieory, 15 tbc fact that the lociltlon rclation rs construed in tile hroad sense
30 An arlaiogous pnnc~plewas 1nvr:ked by Ir'tie
kleinr in o13c of lrcr icrtutes at Ecole norlrtde
sup6neure (Heinr zooj). See dao Jacobsvn (tc)<)o).
3' 11.1 contrast, the ~mpersonal
pronoim 'an' in Fren~11 'Ovr sonne' alicl? somcthlng to what 1s expressed
by the inqlcrsorlal fnnns 'il rorzne' or '<a conne' Clt's nngng'), nmlely tllr ~liipl~taiion
that the rllliyng
everit tws a human or h ~ m l a n.Ilk? .igetri.

The problem w ~ dthe

i second theory 1s that lt cannot both have ~ t cake
s and
eat rt. the ~ d e a&at 'ram' uivolves an argunient slot for a locauon no longer
pemrts one to &stingunh meteoroloacd predcaes &om other event premcates, when the notion of locatlon n mterpreted m the broad sense.
Accordmg to the standard view, w h c h the second theory n meant to
protect, nieteorological predxcate.; carry a r ~argument slot for a loca~on,as
pan of therr lexacd semanhcs, rather than sxrnply m virtue of the generd fact
that event? take place sometvhere. A contrast xs thus drawn between
meteorologid pred~cates, hke 'ran', and other event: predcates, like
'cld,mce' (Tdylor 2001. 53-4). Even though 'dance' is an event prelcate
md an event i s bound to happen at some locahon, 'dance' does not carry
an arpn'ent slot for a 1o~atlo11;
'ram' does. If we elaborate the standard vlew
in the nranner of the second theory, however, the contrast between 'ran'
m d 'dance' van~shes.For nothing prevents us &om analyslng 'dance' the
way we have dndysed 'rdrn', that is, as involvxng a covert reference to some
locatlon, possibly the Earth, understood the broad locanon of the dancing
event To say that M ~ r ydanced, on that analysis, is to say that there w (on
Earth) stme s~lbIocatlon I/ where she danced Thls captures the standad,
Io~atlonrndefixute resdlng of 'dance'. In other words, that defence of the
stanclard clew weakens ~t so niuch that the ongxnd intuinon ir lost. The
011g111al mtultl(>liWAS that 'rain' sentences mvolve some torn1 of reference to
some rpet 1f6c iocahon of ran, m the nuwow sense of 'locatlon' By conceding
tliat t h l ~need ni)t be the case, one accepts my point that the contrast
between "an' ,lnd 'dance' 1s 1ll founded. or at least exaggerated.
Pollv J a c o b ~ nhas objected to dils arg.mlent against the second tlleorv b t
~t1s too \IVC<~L
xt ~tavsthat the second tlleory opens tlie door to analysmg 'dance'
the w ~ y'sr,un3is dnalysed (1.e as ~ ~ v o l ~covert
~ r l g reference to a broad
loc~tionj--thereby losxng the dlshrlcbon which the theory is meant to protect;
but nohmg, she points out, woulcl legzitre t11c second theory to make t)us leap
Z msa Marti, who advocates the second theory, also hlls to see the force of the
xg~nietlt(I7 c ) Those reacnonr mdke me thmk that I should spell out the
argument a hale more, rn order at least to explain why I find it conipellmg.
The bds~crssue IS tllxs: r>o meteorologcal predicates (hke 'ram') pattern
w t h 'arnve', or do they pattern wlth "rice'? In the case of 'arnve', there 1s
a locabon slot m log~cdfomx; m the case of 'dance', there isn't. That 1s what
the contrast between (11) arid (rz), repeated below ar (28) and (29), is
supposed to show.

(28) A John has m v e d

B
A
(29) A
I3
A

Where has he arrived;

*I have no idea
John has danced
Whe~ehas he danced;
I have no idea

The standard view 1s that 'raln' yrttterxxs wltl* 'amve', not u r ~ t l l\Liarrcr3 I
cla~~rrr
that, appearances notw~thstand~ng,
the oppnslte IS true, and X offer t l ~ c
weatherman example as a coutlterex3niple to the stmdard view I'hc second
theory 1s meant to protect the \tanctdsd vrrw firon1 the countcrex~nlplr,arxl
1argue that ~tLids. It fads bzcau,e, ervt2 tf we tanc7ptthe secorld theory. we ianrlot
Inaintain that 'rain' patterns wltl? 'arnvr' rather tl~zti'dance', c>n the con
trary, we must accept nly vlew, that 'rain' pdttenls w t h 'datlr e'. not cvrtfi
'arnve' That 1s the point of 1uy aarguntt.xlr rllc point 1\ that the monii ~ht~ovy
cannot do the job zt ts trteant to do So X have nothing ~garnstthe re~orrdtheon:
per se-indeed, 1 am wtllirig to accept it rf there 15 ,my good resoil to do so
But that reason cannot be that, bv arceptlng tl.11~theory. w e protect tlic
standard view from the countcri~~altip1e- Ior that IS rtot tmt:
The s e ~ o n dtheorv savs tfut r n the Inglc al fixmi of (2) tllerc 1s a slot for
location, ul~dmtoodin the broad certst. Let'\ accept th1.r I et irc 'Lccept that,
puttlng tense and acpect c~slde,
the Itrgtcal t o i ~ nok ( 2 ) is
(30) 3 e [RAINING (c) A

WCATION~

(1, e)j

where 'I' IS a free vanable tt) tvhicli '1 vdue 1s cox~textudya ~ l g n e d1 ct ur

compare thls to the logml forn~ctf 'Johrr arnves' 111 the CJSC o f brnve',
what the ont text n ~ uprovide
~t
rs the nurrt7Lv locat~uriof tlie event, si:, rr wall
not do to anaiyse 'John arnves' along the hnec of
(31) 3~ [ARRIVING

(I?)

A A W N T (Jolm,

ThJs a ~ Q O
Lnd does n ~I~setj!i
t
rather, 1s something hke thn
--.ie&

(32) 3 e

[ARRIVING

(e) A

AGFNT

C)

(Johli, c") A

IOCArXONjj ( I ,
Xi16&C1k3r

IUCAIION

t2f

(1,

C)J

(23) XTfh~txx7f:

1x7

kilt,

t7)J

where 'locahon' is understoocl rn the orchnary, narrow sellre A spe,lher

uttenng Job arnves', thus an,ilysed, a res~tot~slble
l i ~ rthe contextual
assignment of a particular value to the &re variable 'I7, anti thrc a c t o ~ ~ n t s

W L A I H k K I( Ll'OR I 5

Ill

acknowledge the fac t ellat ~t 1%not nlanctatory to ill1 that slot by \pecrfymg
the It>cat.lor~of the event Either w ~ y the
, startdard vrew regardin, rrteteorological predicate., must be g v e n up rt rs not true that a loc~trorrh,lr to be
contextually provided when none 15 esphc~tlymentioned by a meteorotog~ c a sentence
l
'Kaln' a lust lllre 'dmce' rn thn respect. flre orrfy dllkrence
between meteorologcal predic~tesand other event pred~cate5 is p r ~ r n a t r ~
the locat~onofthe event IS often releva~ltwhen the event being dcscnbed 13
'i meteorological event, hence ~t 1s qulte typical to fmct taclt refererice to ,I
place m meteorologcal i~tter,ln~es-~?ioret y p ~ c dtlt,tn for other cvent
pred~cates.~~
Regarding the p r a p a t l c proces3 at issue when the i o c c ~ t ~ofthe
o n event 1s
tacitly lehrred to, I have not said nt~irllm d r r i this section 1 want to say
ntorc. 1et us start with what 1 a c t u d y sdrd Elrst, I \ a d that the pragrr_tat~c
prclcess rn q ~ ~ s t r oIrnan illstance of free ennchix~ent What cf1dractcn;res
tfee cnncltn-icnt, hke nlodulation ~n general, 1s that it rs optionnl kn c otttr.kst
drld free
to sahlir'rtlon (the contextual xslgnnrcrit of' valites to ~ridex~c,tl\
van,hIes), Gee enriclpnlent rrtay or nay not take pldce, ctepending c x r tile
context. 'That 1s the reason why I treat the sperrticat~onof ,L locattorl a\ arl
litstarice of ennchrnent for a place may cnr n u y not he co~ttcxtuallyspec1fieci, depentimg on the co~ttext--that 19 the lessoll of the wrath~,rrn,m
esarnple Second, I suggested that we corrsme the p r a p a t l c e11r1thrrlent
at lssue m our exanlples as the corrtextcial provlsjon ot an extra conjunct 1x1
the scope of the event quantifier. Now that co~~stru'il
IS not forced 11po1111s.
(r3l2) (the
W e may t h ~ n kof the pragrnatlc ernicim~t.xlt,it work 111 e~~11irple
'dance' caw)111 tc-nns of a co~ttestu,llrestnct~onon tile dornam c>fthe eve13t
cjuantlher, lather t h m m terrrw of an extra conjunct In the scope of theit
yuarrtlfier. Irtktead of analysing ( r j B ) as ( a r ) , rcpc,~ted below '1% (3j), we
could analyse ~t ar (36).
(35) 3 c

3t 1 1 ' ~ s ~(t)

TIME

(t, ) A

DAN< 1NG (t) A M,FN1

(Jcdin,1.1 A

hII-NI(Xl1

( r ) A ~~~~(the-ball,]

(36) ( 3 e g ) c A r l o N (the-bulL4) (3t) [ h s r (t) A

ACFNT

(Jolm, e) A

ar

(t,

tt)

A i3mcr~c;
(e) A

I - ~ r c a r(r)]

" I n Lialrig this ciiffcrci~ccto argue for the standdrd virw, C:orazza (aoo't: 7.7 -8) Talk to nuinta~rithe
disi-~ilctiorlbetween sernarlt~csarid pnpmztncs.

--

- -

TI?,

- h L T F I C N K T I P B ~ %S ~ i ~ ~

l'hus analysed (r3U) says that, among the evenh that took place at the ball, there
was a danclng event whose agent was John and \-vluch lasted all iught. What
is contextudly provldect here is not an extra con~ullctrn the scope of the
event quant~fier,but a restnct~onfbr that quantifier.
A slnular anily\is s&aighfortvardly apphes to the 'rram' case. Instead of
andysmg ( A ) a, (26), repeated below as (37), we would analy,e ~t as (38):
(37) 3e 3t [ P K E ~ L Nr (t) A rxm (t, e) A RAINING (e) A LOCATION (Parrs, ell
(38) (32 r o c a r i o ~(Parts, e)j 1st) [PRESENT
{ t ) A ILME (t, e) A RAWING (is)]

Here the taclt reference to a place 1s viewed as an instance of a familiw

phcnorncmon. rontextual dornam restnction 'It's rxning' hterally savs that
there 15 a ranlng event, but may be contextually understood as savlng that
that fake place at u certutn locatton. just AS
tliere ts ct~chan event arttong the e11eu.1~
'kverybody came' can be understood as saying that every member of ourgroup
carne O n tt~acon\trual, the reference to a place in weather sentences 1s a
by-product crt the contextu,il restnction of the event yuantlfier
i nlyl;elfhdvc nothing. ag31nst the contextual domain restnction account.
wl-lrch I take to be ,I varr'mt ofrrly proposal (~nsofaras ~t preserves the idea
t h ~ 'ra111'
t
Carrie5 110 ixiiphcit Iocatlon drgmtrlent) Deep down, that 1\ the
accocrrrt I favour I-or I hold, with Barwne, Kiat~er,and others, that every
utterance 15 evalu~tedagalnqt 2 'toptc situatiorl' which the utterance concerns ~ i l dthe context yrovlcfes (Recanah 1996, 2007). 111 simple cases, the
topic situation is what restricts the donlam of quant~ficat-lonSo the semant ~ cconterrt o f 'It n raining' 1s the proposition that there is a r m m g event,
but tfus 1s uncicrctood as a comnient about a parti~ularutuanon, for example
s
both contextual donlam relitricthe present 5ituatlon it1 Pan,. O n t h ~ vlew
tlon and the bcit reference to a l~catronin weather sentences are Jspecb of a
very generd phcno~nenorr,v i ~the tacit reference to a topic situation aganst
whlch the utterance is meant to be evaluated.
Re thnt a c it may, as coon as we construe the relevant form of ennchrnent
as related to contextulif dornaui restnction, we face a sigxificant challenge.
Quanhfier donrain restnchon, in general, can be understood rn two ways
(Kecanati 2004: 87-8, 12s) On one analysis, it is a matter of free ennchrnent W c (optiondly) make the meanlng of the sentence more speclfic by
rertnct~rtgthe domaln of quantificatlon, on pragrnatrc grounds O n t h ~ s
vicw, argued for by I(cjnt Bach (zooo), the l~teralreading of a quantificational sentence is the coritextually unrestricted readmg But contextual

.*----

-1

1I

--

WFATI-1I.K R F I J O R l S

IT{

doman restriction rnay also be treated w all uibtajrce of saturatlon Manv

theonsts beheve that quaxztlfier phraws carry a dornatn variatde to whrcl~a
value must be contextually asngned. If- that 1s so, then treatmg the tacrt
(or by-product) of contextndl c l t o r ~ ~ ~ r r l
reference to a locatlon as an r~rst~trrce
restncbon would not be a trcatrrtent ra terms of fiee ennchnienr, but In
terms of saturatlon; and tlzls approacl~arguablv Leads us to sorilethmg v e q
close to the Marti-Elbourne view
Let us assume that quant~tierphr~yesare indeed assoc~atedw~tl-rdo~x-r~~n
vanables w h c h ~xiustbe contextually assigned valtles, a\ sortie cem,rlltrcr\ts
believe. O n t h s view the alleged rrnrestr~ctedreadmg-s tvheil 'every
body' a interpreted as medi-i~ngez1er)lbody u t tk~~.~il(~lt?
tgorld---results froxn
assigning the niaximal domain to the donlam vannblc. 50 that rzad~ng1, not
the 'literal' readlng m contrdst to the prap~~ltic-aUy
enncl~etl,rccrr~cted
rcadlngs- ~t 1s only the parhcular cjkre 111which the contextual rt'stncbori
turns out to be empty becduse the rl~asin~dl
doina~riis selecteii If wc take
this hne, what w& prevent us horrl savrlzg sonrethrng sinirlar m tlrc krsrri"
case? The tdcit refererice to a place wl~itliwe
111 typ~cdl
~~~eteorol~)glc~l
~
~jsig~unexlt
o f Cvalue
~
utterances wlU be ra~clto result from t h c~xitextl~al
a v,anable In logical f<xrn,narnelv tlie donraitl vanable w h ~ c hthe event
quantifier carrles. The dornaln vanable rs ,~rs~gme~l
the sct of c*vc~rztstlli~utnkf
plae at such urzd ~ 1 1 ~ 1Q2lo(atz(itt. Tho rxldeiilr~itectr esrstelrtld reading c.)bservrii
in the weathemian case w ~ l lthen he ~ccountedh r a\ follows In thr5
parbcular tax, die domarn variable 1s assigned fhr sut o_f event.; that hkr
pirice. . . aflywhere on Euvtlz
O f course, the suggestion that the c ovcrt ovetit qrlant~fier bei if carries ,1
covert domaiil vanable seem\ strange C h e is tempted to argue "thnt onlv
overt expressiorls can carry covert elerrients But we don't have to thublc trl
the contextual restriction of the event q~xantifierin ternic o f h t d ~ e r - ~ ) r d c r
covertness. If we hold, as seerrls reasonable, that whenever there n quan~ifacabon the context must provide a relevant ifomam. then we wdl .iay t h t
whenever covert event quarit~ficat~on
occurs, the context rtiust pmvlde a
domain of events over w h c h to
And that means not that the
covert clualltifier carnes a covert vanable, but merely dzdt the covert
quantifier that lias to t)e provided 111 the course oflnterpretmg the sentctrcc
is itself a restricted quantifier, where the restncbon depends upi>rl the
context. So tfie covert event quar~t~tier
1s a\soc~atedwtlt 3 vanable ~1otn3~11,
rather than with a d o m a n vanable 'I'lris makes no digerence to the present

argur'ricxrk l hc \\~eatlrclm,lnesdalp1e c'lrl snll be haridie~iby saylng that

c , 1s~the "rt of c\entj conesh e cltrr,larn t l u t 14 selected rn thrs partrc~~l~iir
pomhlrq to {lie rx1.x i i ~ n d 10c~it.ion.
l
f riictlt~arncciCXIC ,itLiatrc,tl tfreorctri vrzw, accord~ngto whrch c o n t e s h i ~ l
iic,rn,,iri rihstl-lcIron r\ by-pro<'Iu~t
o f L ~ C "trlc~trcfe'rcnce to A topic \ltxjatlon.
I >oe\ tiits parlrc rd.sr t ~ k ectm carlte~tualiiurrz,srn rcrtn~tronavoid tlle probicni I h ~ v ict l e t wr\ed tor rnv dicoiiirtj 0 1 1 I~ Y U ,UI;;UC:
~
that ~t d o a not, t'Or
tilt= fi~ilouxnp,rc'norn Evcri ~ f w hold,
e
1
' .5 1 (la, chat the toprc \rtuatlon Ir nut
r t p ~ \ e n r e di r i the wnlantlc cc7ntent of-the rrtter,mce, hrrt only come\ into
d i e pic ~ L ~ Ii~C ttl(- 'I IT( ~mi\t~llilce'
rcl'rtrvc to tvl1lcl-t the cor~tentIS ev,tluntetf,
\rill r t rs ,I net r e s a r y t onrcrtuent of the glollal, 'Austwl'~n' proposltton
e:*pi-c\\cii b\i the utterance, whlcb AUSCII)I.L~Z
proposlhC)il goes beyond
ser,r,i~rtlc- cc,ntc"rlt pnjpcr (the lektorr) and mct)vor,ite\ the contextudy
proviiivd \r~uxtiorl \ ~ t ~ c,Ietctplc \rtri,ltron hdzs to hc jrnnpz~it'ti in the course
ot'c"t iju,itli>gthe t i t t t ~ , ~ ~ ~ lt
c -IS
t ' .yos11hle tt) 1~1'1t11tainthdt, 111 certan \erne,
t i i t . L O I E ~ ~ ~ X ~L SL O
~ JV~ I ~ I01'
Q tlidt
~ ~ s~tri,thonI C i t r ~ ~ ~ tof
t e(mandatory)
r
satura
iron r,itI~crt i i ~ l oi t (i>l>tro~~al)
eni-lchni~ilt A I I if~ w e say t h t , then the
piciblcrrl isnic-, i n die \axlie terixl\ '3s J>cii,r c.
f o \urn lrp, ,nsoon ,awr treat the eorrtextirnl provlstotl of a place tn
W C ~ L ~ ~ I C \CIICI'XIC~Y
I
111 terrm of coiitext~a.i(cloma.irl re5tllctinri, we open the
door to Jrr Lirialv.il$of' r ontcxtl~ilpl.~ce\j>cc~/i(-,it~o~j
i l k teim-is of baturahon
r'1thc.r t b m crrxrchrr~ent Such arl ,u;lalysn contr,rdlctz rtmy own propoval and
iicnicr tl-ic opl;ivil,d ci~nra~tl'r
of pldce spe~lfic~rhon
O r r o lt seems.
P5ut dot,, ~t r c ~ l l y ;I en nut 40 sure Even ~l-'.v\re
t,~hethe t'trrt reference to '1
p h i t- rn v+r",ttircrscrr?i-.nte\ to be h y produc r o f ( ontc?ctn,rl tlorrlarrl restnction, JIXC~ \ $ ~ I I L I ~ L , I I ~ C * O ~
I I So~ n
J ~ \ ~ t( nonLext~r,~l
i~
cic>tn,irn rc\tnrtlon as ,m 111ztbrncibof S,itLIrdrioli, I t h ~ n brrly p ~ i l p o ~Ia\ l[lot c'Ict~p1y,~ffcctcd,appearances
irot~vil.hsr:lr~i!111&: I hat rc, \o fix tmo reawtns F~rrt,the (posslbiy empty)
rc\tn~boriirl tllc clorr1,un of the w e n t q ~ r ~ l n t ~ tha4
l c r to take plnce 11, izEl
c'iws, ~ I I ~ ~ " t the
l l c rprCcficdtc .lt ISSUC I\ ~ l l e t e ~ r o I ~ ) prehcate
g~nl
or ,my
iverii preclr~,lr~
(c g Q~nzc').\O wc czlrx nlaiiriLdlll that 'rd~n'pdttenls wtfl
'iian~c'(rather tllarr wlth 'nmvr') Second, the v6tn,ibfe to w h ~ c ha value

" 1 h1-i ic ~ctn:)llvki~batalrle,bccnt~sericrihillg In ihe sc.nlcnc.e swritk for the sltuahoil of evaluation.
i'ltc top,< sitiratrori rs t t n a r u c ~ ~ i ~cven
~ ~ c drt ,i t h a to be provided in order to y1e1d a complete Aust~nim
p r ~ ~ ~ ~ o s ~sxocii.,
i r i(orrtextu'tl
;
irrovlaon m neltlrer a lriaLtcr c>Zs~n~r:li
i o ~ nor
i t~i'cnnchtnent.In general, I
ttimk notltira bkr '\ilinratiori' and .erirr~,krtc~c.iil' only ,~pplyto iltc irkitin; they do not apply at the
:\ostini.~ii propocitiori !eve1

rrmt be contexhldlly ass~gnetl15 not a locatnotl vanxhie, but a tfonidin

Only ln certzn cdces, detennzrred on pragrri,itlc g~our~dr,
wrll
the contestxtal restnctlon of' the event cjumtlkrer take the form of the
to rrr,llntarn thnt
conte-ctnd spec~ficationof '3 ~ t l , ~ cIte rr tlterefjre ~~ossrl-tle
rneteorologxcd pre&cate\ do not Larry an arguruerlt slot for a location, or no
rimre carry such an argwlnent clot than other event pred~cdtestto Whenever
there IS tacit reference to a locdtion, ~t takes place for pragmatic reasorr\ ,xnd
casts no hght o n the semantics of meteorotoglca1 predicate\ T h ~ ist r~ry
polnt, and it rernaim.
I conclude that my proposal IS rtot threatened ~fwe
to an ~ccourrtIn
trnns of contextud domalri restncnon X wlll tllrrekx-e rel-1laln o f tc~,dly
ag~~ostic
abo~itthe two usues I helve ralied In thlr section

whettier the contextual \peclticatIon of,^ p l x e is berr construed ar the

tacit provlslon o f ail extra conjunct irt the rc ope ot the evcrlt cju~nttfler,
or as a by-product of the process of col~textirallvrestrl~tlngthe dorltarrl
of quan t~ficat~on;
whether contextilal domaln restncnon itielf is best constl-tled a ,111
msance of fiee ennci~mentor ar an inst'tnce of ratur,%tlon(or as
tlelther-see footnote 3 3 ) .

A$A referee put ~t when I subnrltted ,m dncestor of-till\ ~ h ~ i p tto

e rl d r r ~ I g t i ~ ~ t ~ ~ ~
(2nd Pi~llocoylsy,tt takes work to get a location-lndefirn~rrexcllllg fitr 'ral11'
the weatlienri~rlsceriano n a '~levrl-ivt o~istructed rce11;lno'Thts rases ,in
o b j e c t x ~ 'I~ have
~
heard n~ailvtlrl~esslnce the puhh( atlon of rny p q e r
'Unartlculatea Constltuerlts' (zoo?)
The objecholl lull\ a\ follow\ If whdt tr ,rt iscue rs the contrast between
'ralr-1' and ather predicatec whicll do carry '1 covert arg~tnient~ r t dtherefore
r ,fik for \cznle
cannot be given an mdefin~tereading, then rt I \ only f ~ t to
exernon of sirnllar cleverrless wltll respect to thern. Now ~f we do try 11,lrd
enough, then we can provide ~ndefirutcreadlngc tor those predicates wh1cl.1,
according to me, requ~rethe context~ialproklsron of 'I definlte ,irgument to
fill a slot set tip at the lexical level My bvounte example\- those whit h

34

not

Or, l f w e eschew talk ofvanahles for lie reasons nremoned al>t,ve: what is cnntex~u~liv
~itvvicled1s
vari~blei t ) ~ a n o ~but
l , a v.triahle dori~aui{or the e v r t i t q\lanirfirr.

t r i j- %3%fzSA'-fTvE?mmm

nccrwmr s

ticulated Conshtuents'- are 'not~ce'and

'fin~dl'.If l cay :fohn nobced', there must be sonietlrulg on textually salient
and identfiable such that ~ta that thing w l c h John 1s s a ~ dto have n o ~ c e d .
'I'ile wxitence ~ ~ n r be
~ ounderstood
t
in the indefin~tescrlse: John noticed
somrthirg or other (or so 1 clain~ed).h d the same thtng holds for 'finrstl':
yohn has fixrrshed' cannot be used to say that he has finished something or
other. Now, accttrding to the okgect~on,w e call get such 'indefirute' seadIngs if we try I-tard enough atld exert as much cleverness as I d ~ dm
cc~nstrlirtlngthe we~therrnatlscenano
1 he first person who raised that objechon wa\ llma Fra~ia,then a student
of Sxniiro Lucclu. She came up w ~ t hthe following sceximo for 'firush':
We are ill n factory. The i k t o produces
~
tinned food and is equipped with a
specid il~arhrrirthat carries out dl the activities concerned with the producnon.
'The spi~cialinraclG~reInanages hundreds of activities, from the preparation of the
fbod to the prilrtrng of the labels for the cans. In order to save time, all the activities
are cnrrie~iout in parallel. There is a mile that says that the hctory can't be closed
until tlic machine has finished at least one of i t s daily activities. Wher-1the 111achiue
finishea arr activity d bell rings. (Since the rnaclune does inany activities in pardel, it
IS possible that lalore than one activity is finished at the same time.) N C ~ W
irnagine
,
stirneorrr lieanrrg tile beU ring and uttering: 'Ok, the machine 1x1sfinished. You car1
s~vitctlit oEand go hot~xe'.1x1 this context [the sentexico 'the machine has finished']
rxtearls that tllc machine has finislied at least one ofits activities, but no activity in
particrtlar. (Frana 2002: 18-19)

A while later 1 received two add~tlorialscenarios horn Sarn Wheeler 111, a

ph~losopllerof language at tllc University of Connecticut:
Firlishinq:
"llherapists are monitoring a large group of patients suffering from Fred's
Syjyrlclrcro~lle,a yatho1ogm.l tendency to start projects and never complete
thern. A new drug, Completirx, is being tested. Patients are monitored by
pdc$uate students, who push a button every time a patient finishes a project.
'Patient #271 has finished,' says the researcher, looking at the comole. 7ohn
has fi.nislred7can mean 'John has finished something or other'.
Riottnnr

Another b n d o f psycholog~cddsorder, hyperconcentra~on,In which

pahents thirrking about niathernahcs far1 to regster shmulahons &om

their environment (a kind of mathemn,~t~cd

coma) Chce again, rewart Iners x e teshng a drug, Whauthahn, t h a t enhances ~ ~ o h c i nAg vanery ol
snmulattons are randornly ,~ppilet.ito a group of patients who llave becn
given Whatsthatm. In a iew pattents, neur,xl s1gi:llalsm&cate that they 11~1-ve
notlced. 'Patient #271 ha\ notlc ed 'Johii ha5 nohced' Eecnls to he able to
mcan 'John has notlcecl sornethtrig or other '
Flndy, a reieree for 1,zvgut~ttn tznd f-lhz/~)ropltyjoined the c h o ~ l
Consider a scenano w ~ t ha patierlt who h a beell In A \enn-coi~la,i~nda
technlcilu~1x1 mother roorn rs reacflr~gthe output of an EEt; or whatever
it is that rnesures bran actlvlcy In vdnouc are&\of the bram It secnls to
me that a trarned technx~anco~lldknow when braln ~ c t r m t ysignals
'nohcing', and sinLe for the \exllr-con.*a patrent, tlie tact that he" snotlclag
(somedling) is dl that's srnportmt, one nligllt inlagme the techmc~ari
being able to shout 'He'c not~cmgl'w~thoiitbeing in any y o s ~ ~ oton
know or say what ~t that tlic pahcnt n noticulg
One may finci the exan~plesmore 01 less convincing, but rt 1s not u ~ y
intentron to quibble. 1 concetie that, by exerting enor~ghclevernesc jai the
referee pi~ts~ t ) tt, IS poruble to conre up wit11 occurrences of 'fimzh' or
'notice' for which the xgumenr slot rs not filled with A spccrfic value
bourld Such oci urrenc e\ src
provided by the context, but IS exr~ter~t~al1v
nlargmal, however, and I th~iilithe\ can be handled bv saying tE~dtlrr ss~ch
Y ~ ~ ocCurs- the word5 ;ire t , ~ l \ e
ln~A~spec 1~11,ifcvli~~it
mrse
cases a I ' P I ~ N I Z Z ~ll!ft
In the ueurologtcal ex,.1111pLc.; provrcllerl by Wt~eelerand the reieree,
Instead ot gtving to 'notice' its st~tlJ;irijvxlue, ndmelv:

Ax Xy

l i e [N;)TIC,ING je) A AAGtNI jt, e) A TIIE.ME ( y , e)]

I think we grve it a dnfted value t~lXoredto the context, r~mtcly

AX Xe [gy [ N ~ T I C I M G ( P )

A A C L N T ( A , e) A T I ~ L M F(y, e)]]

The cfi~ftedv ~ l u eof hotlee' 1x3 tlmc example\, or of 'finlsh' In t11c other
examples, 1s easy to account tor it c m be obt,uned bv applying Quine's Iler
operator (or a close relat~ve)to the stancl~rdvalue. As I sad 1x1 %eectroil r 3
above, Der apphes to any n - p l ~ c epredlt ate and ylelds a n-l--plzice predrc,~te
t
of the ongnal predicate
by existentially yuarltlfylng the l ~argunlent-role
Uer conmbutes what, m ' U ~ i d t ~ c t ~ l a tC:ox~stltuellts~,
ed
1 caUed a vanddlc

ftirlc tron t11,it rrlcrr,i\e\ or detr eawr the acbcrty of a predicate.

wk.rlcl-r,ilke that ~ o i l h l b ~ i t cby
d I)fxr, dct sedsc the ad~crtyof the
prctlriatc. ii call (itrllo-cvir~gI c\r1rc21c) recesv-vc firnctions. The meaning >hilt
effec tcit I.iv Ilvu n ~ l vitsell bc c ,lllcti ,I rcciS\\lvr5I1itt
1x1 Ore c , n t ~ C ' c d ttoo,
'
I ~ ~ ~ v o thc
h c dI l ~ tqx.x-tltor
r
to st ount for the ,hilt
fioa.i~clrc t r ~ ~ n \ ~ t l " vthe
t v olntrdrlsrtrvc usc That h i t 1s leslcall~ed(conventiondJircd) 111 d l c cdse of lntrarlsttive 'cat9, but 1x1 the Lase of 'notice' and
'ki-lrnrsb' tire vex\ san-ic rries\ive sizlft t ; l i t be tnggctcd conteuttldly. I ikewrse,
\C)IIEC I ~ I ~ L O I I V E I I I 01
C rtietnphonr s h l h dre Iru~c-ahzed,but others aren't.
I,vc.a, 11104~ tlidt .ITC ICXICA~IZC~
rnust have \tnrtcd tIie~rt areer as purely
s the I rcrrclr IIII~LIIS.~ E r ~ ~ l Renverllste
le
orlce
cirntt u t ~ l dirlicanrtsg s t ~ ~ i iA\
put rt, pdrdphrnrrrg rile famous errlp*rrcl\t d ~ c t ~ i ~'rttrhi/
r i , c75t in irngttu quad nor1
p t ~ r )I;(L"YII
~ > 111 I I Y ( Z I I ( ~ I Z C ' So ii d ~ ) n ' t111nk
t
we h,rvc iinv tiorlble accounttng for
+pecr,ii w r r of "tlrr~\h' . r r d 'ttsot~ce's u ~ fCISi thore t h ~ occur
t
In the exarnples
abtrce, arid X \iorr91~lllnlithat thev tt~re~irex~
r l l y c larns tllat sdturatron of the
relevdrit 'crgrnrnexlt \lots 11s nr;rrrct~tory11% the case uf 'finish' and 'noace'.
Wiilxcu 1 IAV t l u t it'\ ~ l s d ~ ~ d(~~~~t tohthCl~i
qe r o p t ~ o ~ ~1an1cdt1
l ) tlut it I\ n ~ a d e
1>13lr~irc>rv
Plv rlac Iexical wrn,riltlcs of 'rrot~ic"' ~ ~ l 'fliusl't',
ci
thdt 1s. by t h e ~ r
O I I V ~ I ~ ~ I O
lnraisllig
~ ~ A ~ or ~t<ul(iard
~ e r ~ ~ ~vdhe
n t l c It is not my irrtention to
cieiiy that those Ic*~c,~l
ttrrrls C'LII , ~ l s obe g v e n nc)n\tand~rdsrmantlc vjlucs
rf tlar t ontcxt tr1gger.i A prapnatrc lirrlct~c-ir,tesnlt~ngm A rrieanrilg shlfi.
W3~le rr~arrdat<ln:
from the statldporrlt of the aaxrdard value rriay no longer
he 50 w h e n we c . i t l ~ f 1i 0 L' non\tandard vdtrt, ( 0 1 1 metlrling shil'w ln general,
\ec Nurrberg ,in(\A,iciiert 1992, Niinberg SO,, IGrtee 1098 343--51.)
Once I have 1x1 lde t h s t oricess~ol\,htrweve~, I hdve to answer the crucial
( h j c c t ~ owk~y
~ ~ 1101 \dy the 5'1nic thlrlg 'about 'ltq\ r c a ~ ~ i ~ nWhy
g ' 3 not say that
It is ~rl;irlJ,rtor
y to !?I-ovrde a vduc fh\r tlte locatlon parameter, unless a
I ~ C ~ S S I ~drrft.
J C oc cur\ ,raid 'r'un' cc-tntnbutcs tlsc
pred~cateDer (WIN)
ratl-rer tildri rlrc 5tatidarrci prcd~c.itetcnr~; 1x1 vicw of the pos\lt)rllty of such
ule,arrzrig .ihrhs, the \we~tl~errl~ai
r ~ ~ u i l p docr
l e iiot force u5 ro g v c up the
stL~ndart4
-clew,
cortling to w h ~ht 'rxrn' carr~es,m argument slot for a
iocairtrc~t~ tie weatii~errn'~~~
example c,jrl be handletl by s,lying t h ~ t In
, that
qxud (ontext, 'r rrreartlng sltlfr t&cj place atid ' r m ' does not ~arunryI&
standard v,riut
I agree t t ~ t thrr
t ic. J pctsslble triove to nlake -a poss~blctlleow to tlold. So
1 graat tlrdr two d i ccxirxts of tlie weatklex-n~anexample m ternzs of free
ys'rgnr'ittc ~ I O cC s ~ ~ ~111i coXXIpetitluti
i c
( ) r 1 ~JCC ot111tI\ ~neo~llpatlhle
w~th

frrr~ctrorr a
F.~laittrim\

WPA J i l k t i K F V O K I C

Xi<)

the stmclnrd view It r'iys that the lot atlon-\pecrfl~rc,*ci~xlg>

:!,of'lt'sr,~inmg'
result from a process ofenr~chmrnt,cvhlch &es place moft oftlle tlnle hut
riot dways (as the weatherman example shows) The other ~ccourrtrs
compatible xwtb the standard view. It says that the ktcatioo-lridefifimte
readmp of 'it's ra~niaig'(e.g. the weatherman c~,rxnple)rt.sult frorri ;L free
pragrnatlc proces5 of xneaxllng shlft, 1x3 v~rtueof wtvch 'ran' contnbnres tlre
preCIIcate Der (RAJN) rather than IWN to the (mod~fied)log.~c'df o l n ~of tire
serltence
I l ~ two
e cvr-tipetmg accounts have \orrrethng In conrmon In both cases
we ac t otlnt for the lntultive truth-condltlox,~ of a r,irkge of euarr~ple,by
dppeahng to free pragmatic processes that 1 1 1 ~ 1tllre
~
barc 1ogc.d Ion11of the
l n g c d form. 'I bus the first dcc ount appr'ih to fret'
cexitencc to ~ t modified
\
enrlchn~entto go fro111
<

3~3 t

[PRESENI

(t) A ~ I M L( t , e) A RAINING((')I

3f 3t [ P R ~ S F (Nf ) TA

TIM)

( t , C) A

IIAININC; (I,) A rOCAI1ON

(l'arI\,

~11

or possibly to
(~P:SO<:ATION

(Paris, e)) (31)~ P R E ~ E N(t)

I A

~ I M F( I ,

iz)

A RAININ(,

(?)I

other accourit apped5 to a recessive &in(tltrn (correrl)ondulg to C)ume7s

Drr operator) to t&e us frorn the <allegetistandard denot'ihol~of 'r,i~rz',v r ~

A1 he

{RAINING

(e) A

LOCATION

(i, L')]

to its alleged nonstanciard denotation m the context of the weattrerman

scendno, v17.

he (31[ X ~ ~ I N I N G (e) A

LOCATION

(E, e))]

Everr though one Account, but not the othex, 1s ior~ip~tll?le

wrtilr the
standard view regarding meteorolog~calp ~ e d ~ c ~ i6-olna
t e j , general methodJ
very siurr~l'lr Both ,ice cpt thc
olugcal pomt of vlew the t ~ v oX C C O U I ~ ~3re
emstence of what f<mg dnd kinley (2005) cd1 'jtror~gpragrndttc cf3ectf7,
that IS, effects of context on truth cond~tionsthat are 11ot tnggere~lby the
or free variables In iteed of contextual
I i n p ~ \ t ~niatenal
c
(e g by ~ndex~cals
S i ~ c hprdgxtidtlr efjrects are
v~lues)but are pragmatic through ~ t through
~ d

responshble for the d~fkrencebetween wtr~atI called the bare logcal form of
an utterance arid it^ pra@mtically modified lopcal fornl---a &fference
which has been a recurnng therne in t h s chapter and to which 1 will return
in Chapter 4.

1 have jrlsr coriceded that the weatherman example could be accounted for
in ttXnrxof vmadic silifi, and that such an account w o d d be compatible

with the sta~~Ct$Td

view regxdmg meteorologcal pred~cates But t h s suggests, wrorigly, titat an accourit in ten%=of vanad~cshift n an alternative to
an account m terms of fiee e~mchment
Actually there are ttvo disanct issues One issue concerns the directlon of
a n a l y ~ z ~Whrch reading of meteorolog7cal verbs n the bare, hteral reading
the locatrorz-specific reading or the uncornrnon locauon-mdetirute reading
~llu\tratedby the weatheman example? O n the recessive account, the literal
readng 1s the lo~atron-specificrealng, and the other readng results from a
free pragmatlc process ofrecessive shsft, through which the verb is assigned a
nonstanddrd sem;rntic value Il'liis w just lske the neurological uses of'notlce'
111 the above exan~plcs On the kee-enncbment account I have orxttined,
the terb does not rdny a Iocatlon slot OD I ~ Sliteral re'idrng, and it 1s only
tllrougb the pr,lgrnanc process of fiee erlnchrlle~ltt h ~at locaaon is contextu;rlly 5pciitit.d tor the meteorologcal event So the direction of praginatrc
I\ reversed But this irsue pertaining to the drrect~onof analysis 1s
~ndlv\~s
itlstrnct from, Indeed orthogonal to, another Issue, whrch concerns the
17ragvrzutzc nleihtlnrrvn tat stake or the tools to be used in the analysis T11us ~t
I\ possitrtle to b u ~ l dan account that takes tile loca~on-lessreading a baic
;rrd the locat~onspeilfic reaciirig as pragnatlcally denved, wrh~leappedlng
to the nutrorl of vdnddic qhift to account for the pragmatlc denvatlon of the
latter from the hnrler Suclz an account would be a parac~ilarunplernei~tatlon of the free errnclinlent account I h ~ v eoutlmed, rather thdn a coinpen tor
Vanadl~shifts can be erther recessive (1 e adicity-decreasiiig) 01 eupansive (adicity-mcreasi~~)
7'hus we can introduce a vanadic operator, h c ,
that dddc a locdtion argument-role to the argurnent structure of the lnput
predzcatc If we take the t3asic argument structure of the predicate RAIN not
will c m y such
to carry such an argument role, then the predicate Loc (RAIN)

an argument role. The variadic 5fufi esected by LLTCwill take txs frfrani the.
detzotation of 'rain', viz.
he

[RAINING

(e) 1

to its slzifted denotation under 'Lo(.'.viz.

Xi Xe

[RAINING (e) A LOUTION

(I!, r)]

Is t h s what we want? Not yulte The ord1i1a-v ures of 'It is rannng' tacrtly
~ isuch
~ l t tacit referenccvoo
refer to a specrtic place, and &we w,igrt to L ~ c ~ ofor
pragmatic grounds, we have to sorrlehow incorporate rt mto the nteatirng
shlft The relevant shlfi must do two tlzmg\. (1) add rui arpument role to the
argument structure of the input pred~catc,and (11) fill that role with 3
speclfic value provided hv the context Thn titxal role is cliar~cten\t~o
ok
adverbial and prepositional phrases on McCorrnell (;inet\ accr ouilt
(McConneU-Ginet 1982). So d I sdy that it 1s raining irr E'aans, the phs<~s,rse
'in Pans' does two thngr add a locatlion dmrc~isroa,and specify ,1 ~ a l t i z
(Panr) on that dr~nenszon That can ALSO be done ~niphcitlj,ttuough coatextual clues In such cases the pragxlittl( process wh1~I1enncbes thc b m c
rnean~rigof the yredlcate by specikrng tlie location of the evertt ( 3 x 1 be
represented as a vanadic shrfi accon~yalltedby tlie spc~lficatlorioi a ( nntexma1 value tbr t l ~ eadded argumer-rt iolr In "Uomt~c~ilateci
C:onrncuunrs3
have, to that effect, decorated the PAX operrltor with a \ub"rr~pr
~orrespond~ng
to the contest~~ally
prc,v~.iledlocanon
[[~.ocI~,, (RAIN)]] = he { I W ~ N ~ N(e)
G A XOCAilON (Pans, e)]

V e see that. through that sort of meanlrlg slldt, uTecarr erinch the logxrnl
form of an utteraxe thmugh die provlclon c>f &XI ~rnphcjtlocatiorl fot the
dercnbed event Far from belng an dtern~tlveto the hee eil~ichl~lrxlr
account, a rneaiiing, stllft along those lirles c ollstlcutrs an impletrienwoon
of the Gree enrichment ar count.
~lilcernat~vt.
to
Thls mplementaaon o t h e r ennchrnrlit ( ' ~ 1be reen a\
tlie standard, Perry-style r~i~plei~ientat~on
In remx\ of hunamculatcd onstltucnts'. According to Perry arid ills followers, un~irnct~lated
colishtuents
defeat what Perry calls the pnnc~plcof "homomorph~crepreserit~bon'
(Perry 1986/2ooo: 174) and Cmnni~nsthe panc~plcof 'full arhculatton"

statriixent is iirily articiilatcd, whcn each item that it uses

gciicr,mrc thc content of thc sctltcncc (cacli "input' to the cornpositsorl nrles fbr
serntrmces oi'rlrat kixrtl) is itsclf thc coilccrlt of'svrr~eexpressloll within the sentence.
For rxnir~ple,it is piansrble that ~1 use of tht- sencrncc ?<ex is now scratcllitrg' is fully
~aiculaccd.'l'irt. prcn17c)sition esprt:sweii rs gt.rier:tted tiorrs R.es, the property of
\c.u:rrciini~g,anti tile trrnc. of the st.rternrtrrt. Anti f i x each of these builtiii~gblocks'
ofc-lri: yrojrrisitror~,there is ;ur cxpresslon 1x1 ihr seirtence with that building block as
rts c-viltrrit ( ' ~ K C Y ' *' ~ i ~ r ~ t ~ h l2nd
n g ''now').
.
A priric.aplc of c-o~tipositioxralicy
satisfies
clie c oilstll.;flilC of'fi11I :ii-tlcti13tiol1ifit erlt~i1sthat cve1-y stcrtcnrent it i-onccn~sis fully

' i ~ l ~ l ; I X l t I~C~~S I I I I I Ct/13t

S
2

to

a ~ ~ i c i r l a c ~((:rrirurrlxis
il.
rc)yt:

10)

A scxlteircc s ~ i i as
l ~'It's rai~iixrg'(siritl while t'lc-itly referrirlg to 3 particular
loc;rtiou, r-g. laat-is) is said to vio1;itc firif :rrtici~lationbec:iust%the propositjot1
that i t cxprersvs in coxrtext involves ,ip:-articular p1;icc to which r~otbingi11
r l ~ rccxrreracc. corresyronds. 'l'be place tacitly rvfkrrccl to i s an '~~narticulatcci
i:c>rrstit~itsnt'of the propositiorl zox~textuallyc:xprcssed by the sentence, since
llotl~irlgi x i d-re serlterice specifically starltls f i x it, But on the variadic-shift
t h e n i s no violatioll of f~illarticulation.
irtiplerricaitrxtiori offrcc. t~nricllt~ielrt,
WI-r,rt e i i v prc.q>osztion c:oxltains is efic pro~xrtyof c:iiriing--in-I'afis (or t l ~ e
property of E~eixig-a--raining-cvcnt--ili"Itiris). ;tad tilere is an expression in
the selitcrlce wit11 chiit property as i-ontclir, rr;xxxleiy the verb 'rain' wtzich is
assigrr cd that crirrt.hetl cotlterlr: 11sa resrilt of r.hc y r:igmatic shift.
Ofcorrrse, r;hc property ufbeing-a-rairring--cveilc-111-Paxis
car1 be analysed
into the silrrpler properties ofbeixig a rainirrg evcxlr and t a h n g place in Paris,
bill. that iivc:xs not lalakc Pxis a constitueric of-the proposition, in violation of
full ;irtic.aiP,itiori; li,r i f t h a t wtxe the case, tlrerr 7R.c~
is sc.ratchirrg7would not
be firliy ;rrttculatet.feitlrcr, colrtraxy to w l ~C~r itr ~ ~ r n i asslimes.
ns
The property
ofsiratclrix~gcnri icself'lte ar~alysedinto 3 nirrnber of simpler properties, like
the property o f t l s i ~ olke's
~ g claws; a t d these is ncitltirig in tlre sentexice "Rex is
sciatclrirrg' tlcat syrcificaUy starids fix the chws. Ilocs it r-ilcrke Rex's claws an
rmanictabixts_.cic.orrstitcrcrlto f t h t j~fiq~(fiittic>~l
cxprcsscid by 'Rex is scratching'?
Obvitr~rslynaot. I f i t did, hardly any statcnrvnr bvorild be fi&y articulated.
Ar thi. orld crl'Sccdoti 6.1 1 said that the coxrrcxtttal specification of a place
rrrny E-)ra,onstnreti either as the tacit provisior~of' an extra col~junctin the
scope c\k'the twerit ijilantiticr, or as LL 'I>y--produ~t
~f the process of coxltextually rrst~<i.tixrg
rkre d o ~ r a i nof ci~iantificacion(or of contextu;rlly specifiivtg the
circ~ia~ntane,r
of e v ~ d ~ i ~ i t i a1x1
r ~ )the
. prcsrilt sectir~rlI have suggested a
pzrticrrlar isrrpicnrer~tarion o f dtc forrncr aptioli. 'X'l~rextra coqjunct is

~ntroduced in the scope ofthe event quaritltier by lexrco-pragriant m e n \ i t

is because, rrk context, the verb 'r'iin' corrics to mean nlirz-tn-l'drrs that tltc
locatlon of the ralrilng event ends up bemg \pet rfied and part of the uttermce's truth-concfitions Since the locat~orrgets 5pec1fied as part of the
contextual meaning of cl partlculal lexical Itern, the pnxlcrplz of dl artrcu1~tlon IS not molated.
I fowever, it may be that the best a~ialysu17 the situ~tlontlxeoret~canalysn,
for whlch the locatlon of ram is prov~ded111 the course of specifvmg tlte
srtuatron wlth respect to whcfr the ntterance I\ lxlearlt to he evalri,ued O n
that alternatwc accourit it niakes sense to say that ttlc plat e IS an tlrtctrtlcul,~tcd
constituent of the (Austiman) proposltlon expressed by the utter,uxe
According to the Austmra~laccount sketc lied In Sectlon 6 r , ,mtl elabo
rated m Kecar~atl(zoo7), the place of r a n 15 an aspect of the coplc slttlation,
'md the topic situation 1s not art~cul~ted
by anything in tire wntence, nor I\ i t
part of the content that 1s evaluated wltli respect to thdt sitil'mon. No place
n nienhoned 1x1 the content, which is sil~iplythe proposltlon that. there 1s a
rairllrlg event, but thclt content IS evalrtdtccl with rebpzct to 2 pa-t~cular
sttuattorl (tnvolv~nga partrcular place L'kns) ard the Lrtterdr)ce, theretote.
IS true if and only ~fthere IS a ranlng event in Panr 1hc global, A u x ~ n i ~ s r
proposition ulvolveq a particular pkce, but the content w111ch( ' ~ l o n ~ ~the
ide
ntuation) is a consntucnt in that Aust~ruanpropo.ilaon does not lnvolve A
place. In thls framework the principle of full arttculat~otrholds w t h respect
to the content irr the narrow sense, that rs, that w l ~ ~ I\c hevnluatcd dgaln,t the
contextually prov~dcdsltuatlon 1he content in qucst~onis fully artic dared,
what 1s not fi~llyarticrilated is the Aushnlan proposltlon rtself, 5vnce the
situation coniporient In it ts not articulated.
If, In ttte "~1x1' case, there are two optlons avadahle, In other rases dn
account b,tsed on contextud donlam restriction and/or toprc cltuatlon
would be hr-fetched. In 5uch cases the nat~rralarlalysls 1s iu terrrx of 'tn
extra conjunct in the scope of the event quant~fierLet us look at one cuch
I have advoc'tted
case, 112 order to motivate the type of mn~ple~~ierrtat~oxl
Conslder the well-known example

I have eaten
Suppose tills e said to dechne an ukvitatloii to d~nncr.The utterance then
ineans that the speaker has eaten (1) dznner (n) that evelung (Wrlson and

hperber 2,002: 607-12). If the speaker has eaten a couple of peanuts, or if she
h a eaten tlree days before, that would not be sufficient to rnake what she
has ~ a r d(~nttutively)true In tluis context So there IS impllcit reference both
to the tcriipor,~luiterval dunng whlch the e a m g event h a taken place (vrz.
the evenrng or1 w h c h the utterance is made) and to the therne of the eatlrig
tverrt (vi, ciiniler). Now the lmphclt rekrence to the hrne mterval can
plauubly be handled in tenrrs of contextual dornan restnchon, but the
tmplrc~rrefererice to tlue type of thuig eaten (a regular drnner rather than a
few peanut" IS nsorc naturdly eoristr~tedas iritroducing all extra conjunct m
tile scope of the everit yuanuntlfier. The utterance can therefore be gven the
followmg analys~s
(3r:Ti~f~-EVENING
(eu (34 [PAST(4
speaker, ci) A ~ E E E M E(dinner, ell

A 'I'IME (e, t) A EATING (e) A AGENT

(the

L>oes this rrtean tludt the therne of the eatlng event is an unart~culated
conchtuent of the proposition, in vrolatlon of h l l arhcula~on?The appeal
to ur1,irtuulatetl const~htertts\trikes me as impla~~sible
and unnecessary m
such a case The rnrplicir reference to the type of thmg eaten 1s best arlalysed
111 tern15 of a mean~rigshifi nlaklrig the sense of 'eat' more specific than it
literally rz If the hearer s~lys,111 tlre same context, 'I have not eaten' and the
he,lrer replre, Yt,ut voli have-1 \aw you eating a peanut', the speaker wlI
respond ' I bar I\ Trot wliat I call eattrg', and he wlll be nght. In this context
'eat' irlearus eat iitnner, just as, in certain contexts, 'to dnnk' means to d n ~ t k
cll~ohol Agan, th~sIS toi~ventlonalrzed.at least in the 'dnnk' case; but what
has got ronvenoonaltaed Is a rnearurtg slid' that 111ahes the sense conveyed
by tlur expresslor1 more specific than the literal sense. Rather than ray that a
new constituent has been contributed to the tnterpretatlon without
cctrrespor-ldingto aiiyth~ngin the sentence, in violahon of fi1U diculahon,
rt is rrlore satr\fjctory to ray that tlue word 'eat' in this context has acquved a
specific cert\e whlctl niakes i t e q ~ ~ ~ v a lto
e n'eat
t d~nt~er'.

One ot nly goals 111 t h s chapter has been to cast doubt upon the standard
view regarding rr~eteorologcalpredicates, and to argue for an alternative

analys~s.Even though I have done my best, 1 have to admjt that thc l\sue rs
far from settled. 1 have argued aga:nln\ta defence of the stand,krtl mew ka\ecl
on optional variables (Secoon j 2 ) , but cl~eeviilence I have adduced rs not
decnive. The rnarn difficulty I luve rased for t h a t ctefence rs tlxrt there IS (SO
betwren negation
far) no convlnclng explartabon fbr the lack of ~nt~ractton
arid the alleged emstentid quant~fier,but ~t may well be that such ax1
explanation u forthcormrig ALSO, Irr Secbort 6 2 , I have cant cded that,
pend~ngfiner-grained test5 h r Iltcr,drre'i\. ,111 aczoLlnt ot' the we:~therrn'~n
example In terms of a recesuvr ,!lift wwtiks as smootl~ly,LS rrly kavoured
account in t e r m ofhee ennchrnenr Tli~rr\ a significant Loncessloa srnc c an
account based o n the idea of-rrcesuvc. sl~lft~vouldbe colnpatlble cvlcll tlae
standard v ~ c w
My main goal, however, h,rz bccri tcr rr\e t f r ~ rcase \tndy (like thC c*lce
study in Chapter z)to support TCl' a\ ;I gcrie1~~1
~riethociologrcalposrtlon I
t h ~ n kthls goal has beer1 AC ~ I C V ~ Lfix
~ , tlze dccorrnt b a d orr tlic d e a uf
recessive shtfi would SUPPOII TC:P ju\t as much SI, tile account In terns o f
free enr~chmentThat a wl-tv I taie rl~cp o ~ s ~ b ~(ofsuch
bty
an ar ~oillll:bjr;j~t
heartedl)
At several potnts irr the chapter I h ~ v edracvn a dist~n~trori
b ~ t w e i thc
~l
'bare' logcal forni ctf nn utteraclcc aad thc 'i~iud~tied'
logtal lon~rt l ~ ~ r t
results from procesjes of rrludirlatlort Irr the next c-haptcr, X ivill offier
some clxiiication for bod1 tths p,rxt~ciilardlit~rrctron2nd the f C P bdrxtc
work more gener&y.15

31 This chapter is an expanded vzrs~onof rriy paper 'kt is r&irilng(somewhrrc.'), Lirzyuzstza arid
I%ilosophy 30, 2007: 123-46 (itseKa sequel to my "Un:~rtlculatetlcortstituertts', Lirguist~rsand I-"hiiijsopizy
25, 2002: 299-345) Or rather: it is the L.GP paper which is a triircii reduced venlori of an e;rrlier
manuscript, which consisted of Chapter 3 and an ancestor to Cllapcer 4. Tire nianlacnpt 1x1 tjitmtlon
benefitted watly from the c o m e n u of a reCerec on ari even earlier dr&.

4
Pragmatics and Logical Form
I

. Tnl th-conditional! prag~i~atics

Tnrtir-contlr~ondpr;tg~~atlcs
(TCP) 1\ the vrew that the eftects of context on
trvtth-ronditloriai content need not be rrzce;;hle to the Irngiist~crn<~terldl~rl
the
~itterectsentence Some e l k ts of-<orrteAt on mith condltlonnl corlterlt are due
to the hngu~stir111atcnd (e g. to contest- sensltrve word, or rnorphex~reswltrcll
trigger tllr search for contextual values), btit otliers recult 6<1rri 'top-clown'
e
rlraterizl den-tandc
pr,Lglnatlc protl-e.;se\ tbdt t k e phcc not bec'~used ~ itrlgilistlc
cncodcd in the
~ tbut
, hecawe the utter mce's c orlterlt n not tjltldr~llyor -cvl~olly
or elahoratlot1 m crrder
uttered 5entenc c, whose mearung reclulres ddjl*strr~e~lt
~ t the speaker's utter'ince.
to determine an ddrru,slble c o n t c ~&r
The extra step reciu~redto get 6orn tollventtorla1 me,xjrng to ad~i~lsslble
c ~ n t ~ rproper,
lt
content a l~suallvtre,~tedas external to truth-condlt~or~d
becar.;e n-uth concilt~onalcontent proper 1%suppowi to he unafl2ctcd by
p r a g ~ n ~ ~concldera~ons
ttc
t r r z l ~ s swch cor~sider'rtlom,ire forced upon the mtcrItself Now, m I wcl Irk the Irrt7octuct~or1,we
pretcr by the h~iguntlcill'~ten,~l
cdn cl~drdcterrre,inotion of l l ~ c r dtl-ctrrtent suc-h that Itteral coritent is, by
defirrztlon, ~rrdcpendentof-pragnuti~
conslderatton<(unle\s w c h con\~der;it~orlr
t
~t comes to the rntuzfzz~p
,ire -emposedb\ the Irngui\tlc rnclter~dtltself), b ~ lwhen
tiuth-con&tlons of .m uttetxnce, f CP: holds that they renitt, In pxt, from
p m g r n ~ t ~processe5
c
that <irenor triggered hy the h~lgulcticnwtend. Assitnung
that scilxinacs I \ to J C ~ount for tlle r ~ ~ t u i h vtruth-cortdit~ora
e
o f . ~ ~ t t e ~ ~ n~tc e s ,
must rrl,~keroom tor 'hce' (pragrldhc,r~yconrrolletf) pr,igrn*thc processw,j~ist:
s, rt rndc5 room fix h~rguisticdlycosttrolled pragrnatlc processes tn order to
secure contextudl valrler for the context S C I I S I ~ I Velemertts
~
111 die ienteilce.
Free pragmrtic processe, take as inprtt the Illearling whlcfi IS the reinantic
mterpretation of sctrric exprejr-tor~and yield ~5 output the nlodulJ.ted rnem1119tltat ~ v d undergo
l
ser-rzdrrtlc corllposrllori 1~1ththr rnedr ~ m g sof the other

m the sentence In other words, the compos~t~on

rules deters~lrrietllc v~ltxeof a con~iplexexpression on the basls of the pragt~tatzcally
modz~latedvdues of tile parts, a c ~ o r d ~ n
togformula (F)

expressions

In that tonl~uln'f st,?nd\ for the interpretation tunctxon, 'tz^P' stands fbr a
c onlp1e.u exytrcsc~orzforrned from the parts 'a' and ", and the '2's are free
lltglier-order v,rn,rbles rdngng over available praplatxc functions (~ncludlng
rdentlty, w h ~ hpves US the 'hterG;17cae).' The formula says that the
e~
nAP1s a function of the pragmatic valuec
senimtlr vdue of 'I c o n ~ p l pluase
ofthe p ~ mwhere
,
the 'pragniatic values' m quegtlon are what we get when
we subject the 11teralwrrrantxc values of the parts to prqgi2atic modrilation.
Pragtn~ticmctdul~t~on
covers optional processes such as Gee enrichment,
Ioosexting. rnetitnvrrnc transfer, etc. processe\ which (arguably) affect the
rntrxltive t~utli-cond~tionsbut w h ~ c htake place fur pragmdtxc reasons,
without I,elrig triggered by the I m p i s t ~ cinatenal ln an obhgatory manner.
Orte way Oiutrden~tl~%ng
tlic formula IS to cay that setnanttc ro~~zpocttton
itself zr LE ~ ~ ~ r ~ t r ~ t - d ~ p ~ n d m
e ~the
l t pcotirce
~ t t c ~ofdenving
s~
the semantlc value
ot ,I c ornpicxx expression, one optlonallv modulates the semmtic valuez of
the parts, .ifid it ts tlze col~textwhich ctetemi~neswhlch pragmat~cfi~nction.
rf any, c cttxiei intct p1,ky arid v~eldsthe modulated v;rlue that undergoes
serllantic compo5itlnn 'f h a corresponcis to the mew ~vhlch,In my book
lrrenzl n/l<~untn<q,
I called 'Prapiat~cConipo~itlon'.~
Another, even more
radtt al w ~ of
y understandliig tlie formula conespor~dsto a wew put tbrward
b y Grnnaro C~lnercl-ndIn cotx~ectlonwith scalar implr~atures(Chlcrchia
2004) O n C'lucrchla's plcture, the InterpreQt-ron 'function' n no longer a
fu~lctxonbrrt a relatxoli Adaptlng Chlerchla's idea, we could say that each
expresuort denotes a set of admtsslble values the came Itnguistlc form
receives arn ~ndefintenurrzber of dstinct, alternative denotations, depending
on tyfi~ch~ p t i o r ~prqpatlc
al
processes (wl~lcb'$s distinct &om ~dentlty)
come into play 'Chus 'hger', in the nght context, comes to rnean REPKESEN1A1ION OF I I G ~ R , 'stiagllt' conies to mean menoxImTrNG STRAIGHTNESS,

' I am indebted to (;enn~roCllierchia and Peter P M n for discussion ofthe over& picture which I
an,preserrtlog here. (For details, see Chapter I , Sectlon 7.)
Recarlat~(2004: 138-40). See Jackendoff (1997: 47-67 and 2002: 387-94) for a sknilx notion oi'
'enriched compositiori.

and so on and so forth. Those niodulated iriear~lnparc the bu~lctiargbioc ks

out of w h ~ c hthe meaning of ~ornplexpbraser llkc '\tone hon' or 'prettv
~ i g is
stratght' are budt A stone hori n not a {real) Iron, ~ i i ds o n ~ ~ t h ithat
pretty straght IS not (redly) stralgtlt That suggests that in tlloce phrases, the
words 'Iron' and 'straigllt'get a r~iodulatedvalue, cllstsnct from tlielr stariclnrd
semnhc value.
: rmport3nt to re,d~zetl~xtthe van
Whichever construd we favctnr, ~ r 1s
ables over pragnanc finct~on\thdt occur In fonilula (F) are there only rrr the
theonst's metalanguage They are not iiupposed to be present at nny level of'
s y ~ i t ~ cstructure
ti~
sn the object-larlguage ' T h ~rs,
t indeed, what dctincs tice
pragrnam processec. they are not triggered b y a t.;rr~ableni the syntax, or
anythng of the sort, but take place to1 purely prngmatlc reasons -sn orciclx
to adjust the corlverlbonal riieanlng of the urords to the utuatrorl at. fidnti
Even though they have an lirlp~ct011 troth c ~)t1~3ltl~>~1al
content, thev Are a
matter of tise, not a rriatter of conventlond xlreatllrlg
'The clalrn ~vbschT'CP ~nakesregxdxag the role of Gee pr;lgxnatrc
processes 111 the detenn~natlorlof ttrtlrltivr tr~~tll-i
on<i~tiur~,~l
content 1s art
enlpu~calconjecture about natural l a ~ i g u ~ gC)ther
t~
phliosop1,eri ot larr
p a g e (Stanley 2000. SrabO 2000. Klrrg and St,rl-rley 2005) have n i d c the
opposite conlecture, Inore ln l u ~ ewltft tradit~or~al
ways of tlilnbng about
A&\~III~~>meanmg arid truth-conditrons Since ~ t .give\ up t h o x tlddit~oti~d
tsons, TCP sounds revolutionary, and there are theonstc (e g IYretlelil
zoo~a)who are suspicsou$ of ~t because tkev take ~t ti3 threater~the vex?
enterpnsc of seniantlcs 7hss 5eems to me gros\lv euaggeratcd TCP nixv
cornplscate the task of sernantsi.i but cerrait~lvdoes not mike it nnpossihle
13e that as it may, I vvrll wiirtrne TCP ~ r rwhdt ti~llows,arid cvrU onlv bz
concerned w t h IS-uescoacernrrig 18proper mterpretntlon What cxac t l b
does TCP say? How are \we to 1mder\t,~11d
free pragmatic processes7

2.

Free pragmatic processes: two interpretations

Although variables for pragrnatlc ftirrtnctio~~s

nre confined to the metalan
p a g e and are not syntact~cauyprojected, st111 lhere are two possrble wiry, of
loohng at the role played by fiee pragmatic processes. C)nc con\tn~alrs
'syr~tact~c'
and the other one 1s 'sesi~a~~t~c
'(Recarl~jti2002. 339-43, 5c,lnlry

i t r

loci.;tr

$ t.iX

IWAhir\rl4i iC, iJRri;CM,is55F%-i Wt> ih ibKfiKE I R TIOi\cS

237)

I st,rrt wlth the serrt,nnac c-ctnsrnldl, wbrch I have titken for

preserltatlon oCvlCI"
A xrprescni.~trorr15 n s y r ~ t , ~ohjet
~ ~ cr- J. wqlrcnce of syrnhol\ in 'iome
r ( l ~ ~ t - \ ~ ' i i t ~ i t ~ systeilr
o ~ ) . i l : (povirhly tlrc "l,rrig~i,tge
o f tilought' I the representatmrl at *\sue r i Lt ~ I C I I L ~ repre5elildt101l)
II
C>II the renlanuc constmA,
< t r r r , y o g to ft~miula
(F) ,iltove, the t>utput oC&ee pragxnatlcpproces\es
rs not i .rc.prstc.rit,itrcrn but a "~ritposxbcin', t h ~ I\t '1 rernarltlc object. If the
.cvtr~c!6pri\po\rtitrrr' \otrnd%t o o rcpreser~tatron,~l,
we call simply talk of the
rsttcralri t i, (irrt~rrtrve)t r u t h - ~ o i ~ d ~ t r'IoS n ~berxrg the output of semmtrcopragrn,rtic prcxewrig dong the h e r , trf io~rrlula(F) However wc call it,
the O L I ~ ~ L111
I I . qrrzshon is the (rntutnvc) rlltcrprctattorr of the trtterance, and
r t dc.lwtfi"i>iqwn two thmgs 112 a~fd1t1011
t t 1 tllc se~llcl~rtl~Ides ofthe langpge:
rile loq.rcirl fotrrt of the sentence 5ervci .ls rrlprlr to the iritcrpretation process,
\IL 1111~
~ I I C praqmtlt~( C~)YIICXICieter~lll~les
i30ih the (lelJld1ltlLvalues of c ~ n t e x t jcrrsrircc cxjri-.~.\\iotl\ in lagcal fort11 ,rl-rd the pragInat1c klnchons whlch
optrorr~lhc orrlr nlto play 1x1 clcrrvrng the ierrr,i~.it~c
\ALE of the \;ciholt.
frcrrn rhc (pn\srblv rrrodul'lted) scniantic t ;lltie\ of tlre parti
811 ( I ~ x I I L * E I I ~ o Igerlerdtlve
,)IV
Jrrigtri~trc\,dic Eog~calfomr o f a sentence, or
1 I', i\ \ralid,lrJlv t orlsttued a\ a level t r f syritdi at represent<ltron that 1s the
pro17~1 lllpiit I O 6
~
~~ i ~ ~t e q >
~ ~ e~
t , At
r ~' itlirtt
o ~~~level,
~ nrrportant
t
~
~logcnl
propcrtlC\ trf ~ h r "\crlterice SLICII ,~fltherclrltlve COPC o f q~~antlfiers
and
rrraphoric dcpcx~dcrrctesarc forr-rially drsyl.ryc~l,Irr S U C ~3 way that that
1rvci of 5\ rrt'jctrc xcprcsentt.-ttrot,i,rn bc sv;vctematicaliy mapped to logcal
Ion~-iui,iewlircl.1 c .y)turc t l ~ eirlierentrdl ptrrex~eralot tlie senterrce (hence the
rlLrrrrcb "Iog~:rc
ii iorrxl' fbr tlinr Ievcl of \yrrtat trc rc13rescntation). Tlie coexl\tent i- r)i w r l t . i c tit strut turcs oi"i cert,irn \art .lrlti the lopcal repie\ent,lt~ons
;i~soi~,itc(l
w ltli tlwill under t l ~ rheati~ng"log~:rcrilii~ms'creates .L potentla1
rrnltigtriiy, wlirch d brcrch1,r anti McC'c~rrirell-(;rnct propow tto avoid by
tlriiirlg~u"'t~~rrj:
thc I O ~ C J I I'oriri qrtu syrlt,tcLi~ ttrrrcttlrc (L F) korn the logcai
~OXIIIII'I'I II irr.lp\ to (if )
Now t l u c b ytopi>\rtrori whrcil rs tE*e outyrrt oi. sern~ritlco-pra-ratlc proi c\sirig r t ~ t ~ Edt,terrrliric\
l
a 'logrc nl iirrri~'tor tlrt- uttcran~e,that t s a certaln
irrf2rericral prolile w l ~ l the
t utterance* rlit;nls ant1 w11at it I$ enta~ledby, ~n
(/Ir1ucLoftbe [)fopo\lt'lorl~t ~ritirrt~velj
cxprzscs Thckt'iogcnl i-onn' too can
be rcprc\c.rrtcd :~t ,I forrrrrila In ,I logic,~lraicrrlus--pourbIv the sarlle calculu\
~s t l ~ fsoni
~ t w i l r c h !js are c f r a ~ ~1 io tmt'rj?, o?iltthe c~rldogy,
I wlll u'ie 'Ef*' AS
~ I - , I P I L C 4' ( 0~ t i 1 111 l i l y

an abbrevl,~norifor the modified loge a1 torri-r rh,rt resr~ltsfmrn {ern'lntlcopragmatic plocessmg. dird wkrch correspoirci\ to the Iltter<tnte's n ~ t i ~ ~ t ~ v e
tnitll- corld~tlorr\(,ls oppowd to 1t5 rn111in1,llor hterd trrttll-i ortdl trorzs, that
w vvh~twe get if wc snbrnlt 1 to ceni,tntlc- mterprctatlon wit)~orrtm y
recourse to Gee praginaQc proce55es)
011
the s e w t l c c-onst-ntd,the m o d ~ t ~ elogical
d
fornl * 1s only a prrcpic uous represen~~tlon,
rn a well-behaved log~cal1angudge, of the rtttcrar~cc's
Lntuitrve tnr th-(-on&hons, w h ~ c hti uth-cond~irtroui\ result trolls lrktel~-tretlng
wlt1-1fonnula (I") above. 1 call tlus ( o a r t n ~ d
die uttermce's I E m a~cord~uice
than 'syntactic' because free p~,~grriatlcproce~eccoxxtc into
' s e ~ m n t '~rather
c
play purely ar a matter of ~riterpretationThey tit, rrot give nse to .I fur the1 level
o f r e p r o c n t ~ t ~ oinn <iddltlorito the syntactic represrnktlctri\ (I Fs) whlch \cr\e
jr*s are not '\ern,~ntlc
as Input to the ~nterpreutionprocers In part~cul~~r,
\errrarrirtrcs
representattons' lrl the object-language In t f le tmcjlnon ol'reierent~~rl
(ds opposed to rrmslahon.tl sernmurhcs), Inteq7retanoil prot eel$\ b y rn'lpprng
representattons (e g LFs) to wolldlj cntihzs or cornplexe\ ctf' \rith, n t ~ tby
rnapplng them to firrther reprereritattorlc
I now turn to the 'syntactic' Interpretntlon, fivortred by rele.v.lnce theorists and nrost rere'rrchers m pragnahcs 'The startlrtg point a the snnre. there
15 a level of ryritat t ~ creprecentahtlfri--1,F-that
Incorporate\ 'wirate~rr
featutes of \cntcnces \tmcturc ( I ) enter directly into the cein.mtic Interpre
ly
bv propertie\ of sentence
tatlon ot-sentent es, and ( 3 )x e ~ t n ~ tdetemllrlccl
t ~l'ronl
c the
gdrnmdr' (Chomsky 1976: 30j) VVllnt dlsti11l;ulshes the s y ~ ~tie
serrlaritic constlual 1s tire l i ~ l l o w ~ ncla~itl,
g
also m ~ d by
c Gl1t>ni4.y. Keprereprfcc,tztiztrr7tr( 'whx h r-rray
sentatlorn at 1.E; itre rt1,ippi.d to rrztlrf el~ihorc~tp
lnbolve belief: expectations and so on m ;1Cidit1011 t o propert1e5 of I I
deterrrllned by grgrdrrsrttatical rule' (zhid ) These, addihollgrdl I epresentatrorlr
,ire the rnocirfieti loggrcal tttrrris (2/'*s) o n tile sy~s~a.hc
construal T h u ~rcle.vance theorists t,ihe pragn:nlatlc processlrig to operdte on reprcsent,ltlons, and
to ouptrtfrrrther rr.r,reLentatlc>rr>The representation operated orr is the u t tcrdnce's 'logcd fornl', as dehvereil by the llnguistrc ntodulc 1 hc rcpr c\cn
tat~onwli~chresults from pragmatic proccsGng 1s the t-rioclttied log1:lcalturrn
(If*), sy~rtacticallyconctrued. Sperber arid Wrlson (1086d) cdl it the utterance's 'pro~-tosit~orial
Corm'.
Is the synacbc con\trual corrslsteilt w ~ t brefercntldl semdrltlc%or doe5 ~t
appro'ich to serliant~csi7 111s I\ nrt
n e c e ~ s a ngo
l ~ togethe1 w ~ t h'1 tramlatiot~~l
trrtrrcstllrg arlit tr~ckvt s c ~ ~Kottvu
c
(:,\r\ton \12'gge\ts tjiut rrlc.v,it~ct~
tl-rcttrv 15

-----

T-JJ

- FfLE3? IXAGfiZKf 1

0 YAT?ONS
~
l

inconsistent with truth-con&tlond senianhcs but thnks t h s 1s acceptable

clrrce 'work In other frameworks shows. . . that givuig an account of natural

ldnpage :ertrtant~csin tern of Jconceptual representahons] is very inuch a
live optlox1 (see K a t ~1972, Jdckendoff 1983, 1990)' (Canton 3002: 8-0).
Llke Sperber anti Wilson, she opts for a translational approach, where
\emantics map\ \yntr*ct~crepresentations to conceptud representahons
( w h c h can thcrt be modliied o r 'developed' tlwougl~p r a p a b c processmg).
I wlll discuss the relevance-theosehc vlew m some detarl below (Sectlon 3),
but for now I want to defend the follow~ngclaim: the syntachc construal of
TCP, by it!\elg 1s rtot Inconsistent with the project of pvmg a truth-theoretic
(= referentral) qelnaltics for naturd h g u a g e .
I-ollc)wrrg the rtlajonnr view in seimntics, let us assume that semantlc
l~lteqretatlon15 referentla1 rather than translationd: it maps representations
to ztlhat tltcy reprcxnt, rather than rnapplng them to further representanons.
2'111, 1s 111 contrast to the 'tramlational" or 'copihve' view, accordirig to
which serxyantrcs maps syntactic representations to 'semantic representations' con~rruc;.clAS pxtial or schematic mental representations. Stdl, nodung
prnlctt/r a ~n~fh-iarrdltr~?t~al
cpirtantic~stfio~nbr~nglt~g
t~tentalrepresentat~o~ts
tnto the
pzcture Incteed, 1he 'log~cklfonrls' which undergo .semxntic Interpretation in
the tiuth-theorctlc &antework can themselves be constrned as mental representatiorts As Chierc-hid wntes
The hypothesrs of a log~clcalfonn onto w111ch [s~~fface]
syntactic structure 1s mapped
fits well with tkt' idea that we are endowed with a language of thought, as our ma111

tor 5tontlg and retrnevtrlg ~nfi,rmatson,reasomng, and so on The reason

metflu~z~
wtlv thlc 1s so ss fl~rlyapparent Ennplr~calfeature5 of langxages lead hngu~ststo
detect tile rxlctenLe of a covert level of representation w ~ t hthe properties that the
proponat' c)f the Language of ttiought hypotl~es~s
have argued for on the bas15 of
111de1)enderttconudrrat~onsIt 1s h@y temptlng to \peculate that logcal fonn
at-tually ts the lalipage {ofthought. (Chiercbza 1y9y c-ci)

On this mew, win-u~h

h,s the xnent ot umphcity, logical forms are conceptual
representation\, yet conceptual representiitions that arc stnctly detemuned
by the gnnxnlar (and a.; such belong to the language system). They belong
both to the hnplstic system and to the conceptual system, and serve as
lm interlbce between the two systerns. This view 1s conustent with m u stream referential semantics because such representation.; are construed as
the tnput to selr~anticinterpretahon, m the truth-theoretlc sense, rather than

P R A G M A T I C S A N D 1OC;ICAX

FOIIM

13;

rts output, as 111translatio~idlicognltiveremantlcs (where senlantic s rs uld to

map syntactic structures to concrptud represexltahons)

In t h s kamework pragmatic processulg rnay be allowed to "laborate' the
l o g c d forms, qua conceptud represenutlonc, mto &rtlier conceptual representations. Indeed, Irf*s can be construed as nieritd representananc re\ultmg
&om pragmatic operations on lfs Thu ~c the sytitactic consrrud of Gee
pragmatic processes: they are keen a, raiappmg the r~ientalrrpresentatlc)rr\
associated wrth sentences in vrrtue of tl.ierr gralmlat~cdpropertre.; o~~ro
h a h e r mental reprecentmons resulting 11-1 part fronr prdgaattc proresslrrg

3. Logcal form in relevar~cetheory

Relevance theonsts think the project of gvmg a trucln-coriditro~drenlan
t ~ c for
s natural lmguage 1s doomed tc3 fa~lrrre,and they ~usumea tranclatioridl
~tl~
is vlcwed as (part QJ ) J
senlantzcs i la Jerry Katr. S e i ~ z a ~1xzterI)retatrorr
'decodmg' process, tlirough which (;~r)tact_l~
representatlolls are svsteniatlcdly rrlapped to senlanhc reprerentatictra. Tho\e semantic rcpre\rntdtions,
resulting from decodmg, are what Sperber ,~ndWrlso~icall 'log,vl~alf0rn1s7
rhey are conceptual structures cvid~logcd propertie\ (hence thev c,~n
undergo logcal opera~ons),but they are hstlnct ii-orn thoirghtr in thrrr
they Are not 'complete' and trrxth-rval~xable The logrclal forms tllai: ,we
~ssociatedwlth centencec AS thew Inearilerg .are partid (g~ppy)nwntt,"l
rcpresentahons They are cotnpar;rtllc to ( a ~ dcan be reprew~ted I>v
rneanc of) prccficate cdculu\ forxnui,le contarrllng free vanables ( p l ~ nlnrtruchons on how to fill the vanables) "
Rccorchng t c relevance tl~eory,pragmatic procesririg take4 u\ fro111 the
gappy mentd tlepresentahons dsrociated wrth sentences 111 vrrtue of the
semantlc rules of the lanpage to fully fledged nlental represriltntlorlc,
~iantelvthe thoughts whlcl1 the corxtext~r&zedutteraricer expres*~Those
thoughts are semant~c,~lly
conlplrte-trrrth evalluaable- ,tnd constrcute tlre
'propontlond forms' of the utterarrcer w k c h express then1 Frce prdbqxlancprocesses operate along the way 111 tlze cour5e ot'tvh~tSporber a i d Wikorl
call the 'development'aof the logrcal hml, va11xec are &signed to variables In

See Cantor1 J ~ O O L :bu) for an rxanrple.

10git ,I] form, i>utc~~nc!interzt

or. looserti~~g
t d ~ pe i a ~ e,is well. The whole
~ y ~ l t ~ t111
. t the
~ c fouowlng senw. xr operates on representations and
y~clii\b.\rrthcx rel)rc\crrtatlons But OIIIV t h mput
~
rcpresentatlolz IS 'Iingti~strc ' P Ixc output rtxpre\elrtatlorl i c n ruientol rcproentdtloil, correspoi~dzngto
the iontv\tu;r/ IntciT)rt'tatxolX of'tbe uklcrailre It r\ ;l rerttence, but ,I \elite~?ce
i r i i h c iat~ig~tcigc
oi tbottght
O r i tlir 1C I vicw, loglc=ilCc)rrns, the outptrt v f l ~ n g u ~ sJecodlng,
t~c
belong
to elu: I;lr?g~ragc\vseibrrr (they 'Ire the 'ssenlar~t~c
re[)resentations7 of translatlolr'il \errlxutrc s) b i ~ they
t
Are 'dso con<eptua2 they are partial or schematrc
ccrucej~tri~l
xejlre\rnt'rtlorls. So logrcd loall 1s the ~rlterfacebetween the
1axrgii.igravstcrli ,srlcl dlc tlloug11t system, o n tluwvrew, a\ ~tw oil ( ' h l e r c l n ~ ' ~
W h t , then, I\ L ~ dityererlcc
C
between C:lrlc rc krra'\ vlew &ridthe relev'mcer171

~ I O N ~ S 15
S

tP~co~c:trcii c w j

O n c wpcxh IJP ci~fferclrcc1.i th'rt 5perber arid Wllsori take l o g ~ aforms

l
to
\ wtire output of ietndntrc inteqrct'rtroll ( ~ nthe translaborlal sense), whde
( ir.renhr;i r,ide\ thein ro he the lrlptrt to serlzal~t~c
ltlterpretatlon (ul the
t i r x t l i the(11 eric wnic) I c ,>I1 thrs .I \iql.icr i l c 131' ( I I ~ ~ ~ ~\)el-ause
c I I c ~there 15 n o
ro,>fi c c > r ~ f l r i i licre,
:
i l r l c tLtwo ciif-ier~\~xt
~~t)rii)n\
~ f ' \ e r l u n t ~lnterpretat~oii
(
are
;it i;i,~hcNtr~I-ringpri>verit\ J tbeon\t fiorrr Xlold~rtg&at lo,srcal films are
boih i l l e c*uljbulo f wrli'rtrtlc Iriterpreratrurr r r i a frnt sense, anti the mput to
~ i ; i i ~ ~ nIIILC"LJ)TC~,LTIOII
ti(
111 a scc011d smsC Robyn C d r ~ t o n
iras xketclrcd such
dl1 i c lIlllelll( 'ti VXeW

'l'iri:: ~~~xSXt"oxAjiu
I>et'.xrexpressi:J ofitxn in rhe relevarrt-e-theoretic literature in taUc
of ?WC) types ~ / ' s ~ " ~ ~ i a ~ i t(1)
i c sR' : ~r~lli&~tiu~i:%/
Ling~~istic
semantics, which could be
desirrhed i r r sc'ieerrzcnti of' the f&nn iliit.' pni3am i= t:rtcodc:s) 'ijk', where 'a&' is a
public-larigirage ibrrrr .irlcf. 'ilk' is a Mentaiesc lorn1 (most likely an incomplete,
sclzrinratic Mc%r~rde*;c
fi ~rrnj;( 2 ) a 'red' ~ e ~ ~ m ~ which
t i c s , eqilicates the relation
betweerr triir rnent-il rcpresentatiom anti chiit which they represent (so it must be
' ~ i r s ~ i ~ r c , t ~ ~ t i o((:ILXP~L)II
i i ~ i i ~ ) . L(>OZ: 58)
But tllcrC rs '1 tiec'pcr cilifi!rence, arid rs tone erm the proper ~riputto 'real'
rrldrristreali geilerahve hnguist~cs
\exil,intri s or?(:hit.rchw'.; plctlrre, as
I l i c u r r yvrler'illy, chr \ogle ,rl forim Arc d h-del of cyntdchc repiexntahon wht~h
rs ri~tii/lf~~{tjfy
~ n f t ' r p r ~ i r i(ITX
l ~ l ~the se115e of leal, truth-theoretic senranacs)
J ogu *lB forrtrr ,Ire both syrlt'tcrlc r epre\etltanorrr delrvereci by the language
ivsrrrn trnil' c o r t ~rptu'd reprcsen~t\or,\that c a n be setnanhcaUy evduated
clr~orltiio\k~~trrdticrrr}
I'liey are rrI>rerrnrdcrun\ endowed with 'a l o g c d

syntax aappropnate fbr recurs~velystatlag the tiuth-corrcl~t~ons

of ,isentence'
(fiomstelri rc)yg ),- Now thls 15 sonlvthmg which relevance theonst5 dt:, not
accept. For relevarice theonst?, the lu;lp;ul,trc repre5erit;ltlons which the
linguwtlc module delivers are too indetem~inateto be the Input to selnaritlc
tvaluatlon pro~edure5.I'hey rnust ttrst be elaborated pragnat"c"uy 1x1 other
word$, the two a,pects whlch go together in the malnstreanl notion of
logtcd tolm (bang deternvrleci by gr-alinzar, being ,ern'tr~ticaUyevaluable)
arc d~sjomedin relevance theory. what the granu~la~
dehver-i (the logteal
f o m ~in the xexlse of relevance theory) 15 not (yet) ccmantically cvalttahle
Apparently, [odor holds the same vrcw. Ile ixlsrytc that what gets (ompct\itlonally mtctrpretcd by mean? of rec ur\ive truth-theoretlc proc eclures rs liot
what 15 deterrruned s t n ~ t l yby the gram3i:rr but the nlod~fieciIoglc a1 form
wfrictt. l a a syntactic representahon in the la~~guage
of thotight, aud w h ~ 1s
~ h
aEected by pragmatic procesce5 and world knowledge (Podor zoo1 12-13)
At tllis point, one ililght tlilnk that even ttlls 'deeper' diff;-rerlcc IS
terrmllologlcal Netther ~eferentidlvalues nor tnrth-values can be ass~gned
to llngtllstlc forins ~ridcpendentof context That tuut 11 1s (or should be)
~
of \enttxntc-~vpes,
grhnted "o~everybody So 1tlgl:lcal fcmns, q z properher
are not truth-ev~luable They are incornrtlete anct 'ggrtyy' It tirat 1s what
relevance theonsts nleari when they say that logical 6)mrns callnot be g v e n a
'real' 5emalitiLs (arid t h ~ sIS cleally purl of whxt they mean), tlzetz tllere 1s n o
confl~ctwith the tnith-concbt~onal mew, contrary to cvllat they assul.rte.
From the star~dpointof trutli-conditlo~lalscrnaritics, logical fonrls are sernanhcdly ~nterpretablrordy 1n the followiog senre they can be dsslgned
cusrgrimt7nts cfvulmr~sto tts context-~erzslttzte
truth-condrttons relattve to yarkz~~~lav
elenrents Rut they cannot be as5igne~2~ibsolutetnlth-c orldlhons (~ndependent of context) So, there 1s a sense in whlch they art, not sernantl~dl)
mterpretable, hut there is also A (weaker) sense 1x1 wluch they are
StrU, the diragreement between truth-c ox~&trorialselnarltlcs and releva~rce
theory is not merely terrtimologcal. Relevance theonstr (hhe other TC'P
tlleonsts such as Kent Bachj deny that l o g c d toma 'ire sexliarlt~callyintert n the weak semzsu What they c d serna~axlbcunder -dctenrurlacy
pretable
goes 1,eyostd itidexcahty. For them, 1og1c;il properties hke cjuaitrtler smpe
and maphonc deperrdencies are not f i e d at tlie level of IogcdJ form (qtatl
dehvered by the graxl~lrtar),but only at the hrther conceptual level of
'propositional form'. Ruth Kernpson cor~lucksthat:

fix. truth-theoretically) interpreted.

Natural lanpage expressions are provided an interpretation by processes of grammar orily in the sertse that they are associated with some construct in a system of
representations which is said to constitute the language of thought. . . . This system
o f representations onto which natural language objects are mapped is iaelf a
sernariticdllly transparent system, with a recursively definable truth-theoretic semantics fix all expressions of tile system, a principle of compositiondity applying strictly
to iietennirie the se~rranticproperties of all complex constituents on the basis of
their parts. It is in this Lantguage-of-thought system that inference is definable, not in
:my natural-language gramrliar. (Kempson 1993: 72-3)
Kempson sornetinles makes tllis point by saying that I,F (as trachtionally conceived) is not a naturd-languqe smcture but a language-of-thought structure.
The mapping fkorn (sudace) syntiictic structures to LF is therefbre not part of
the varn~ma--dtho~lghit is constrained by the grammar. MI LF-bddmg
processes, she says, must be construed as f~lterso n the pragmatic process of
constructing a hlly specxfied propositional representation (a pragmatic process
that may well ir~volvefiee pragmatic processes as sub-components).

4. How rnany systerns, and bow ciiEerent?

knee they are rrot strictly ctetenmned by the grammar, mocbfied lo,vicd forrns
do not belong to the languqe system, but to a drgerent 'system of represenration', a Chon~ckyputs ~t the conceptud system {Fodor'c 'language of
thought') Now Jackendo5 e ~ n p h ~ > ithe
~ e rht.tooyer~ettybetween the two
ivstcrnc oirepresentatlon Acc o r d u ~ gto Jackendoff, the language system and
the conceytnaj system do not ~ntersectin the m y suggesred by the m m t w a r n
'logcd ltoni~'~ d e aRatlier, the two systems are d~gorned,and adchhonal 'rules
ot ~onrebp<pondence'are needed to bndge the g ~ pbetween the syntxtlc
strilcturcs oflanguage arid syntactic representaaons GI the language of thought
( Jackendoff 1 9 3~I ) So there is no reason why w e should expect any level of
h n g u s t l c representahon to &splay the logcal properties (hke quanhfier scope)
w h ~ c hchClracten7econc eptual representaaons (seeJackendoff z o o z 270).
Other theorists have denied the alleged heterogeneity For Chierclua, as
we have seen, l o g ~ c ~fonris
d
are ulreudy representaaons in the lmguage of
thougltnt-they are conceptud representahons Logcal f o m are conceptual
represerltahons that r e stnctly deterrmned by the grammar (and as such

belong to the language systeni), but as conceptual represent;iaons they iarz

also be elaborated or modified througl~non-llngx=lllsacconsrderatlons The
bare l o ~ c afonn
l
of a sentence 1s a conceptud represeritaaor~that 1s deterrmned gtnctly by the grammar, wll~lethe nlodliied l o g ~ aforrn
l
a a ccmcep
tud representahon -cvhlch has been chapecl, .m part. by extrahngirstic facton
such as world knowledge and context~lalexpectations
The T<T view seenss to me mtei~nediatebetwccn tile two posrtlorrr Lrkr
Chierch~a,relevance theonsts view logic," lorrns as the ulte&c e betweerr
language arid thought. they are (p'irtld) conceptu~lrepreserltatlolls chat nrr
detenmned solely by the hngi;t*age5ystenl. But these logcal &mns ;Ire not
endowed w t h the detenn~natenecsof hnlly-fledged concept~ralrepre\exlta
tions. They lack Important logcal propertie5 that LVIU only be detemrzried at
a further Level of conceptual elaboranon (the levei of propositiond forms)
and, h r that reason, they cannot be gwen a truth-theoretic i11terlsrecahol.i-"
There is yet another pos~tion.So Gr 1 have arrunied that there are twc,
distlnct systems the language system and the concepnlal system Accctrtjmg
to some phdosophers, however, there I\ a stglt~4yrtern (e g G'~rrutl.rer\
1996; Ludlow 1999: 1644)) Thought 11 nothi~lghut 'inner speech', or at
least, it, 15 underpinned by the I~~igwfit~c
system, ~vhicliprovlcle5 tlsr stnictures h r the a m c d a t ~ o nof tliouglits If that is so. then we c~1.naccount L r
modified l o g c d fonns without appenlrng to a sr~oiidsvstern In ~ ~ ~ l l d l i z tt)
orl
the language system. If a $enten(e rs rrttered a n d a\signe~t,in ctrnteut, A
nio&fied logical form resr_~ltiiig
ficfrri the operatloti ot free pr,lgnt,ktrc plo
cesses, there are actually two wtitencei; at: pl,iy What I have cdlled tile

' Even within the '1i;UrLcmam generative trad~donthere are authors who think that r:ertaiii iogxcal
properties relevant to semnnc interpretatidrl are not fixed by tlie syrit= at LF and trlust tberefi>rehe
dealt witli at the 'conceptual' level. Tiins the L1: which May ( I 983) ascnhes a j a srrlcencc llke "'Wkr.~t dtd
everyone bring!" is interpretivdy anlbiguous with ritlier iju:mtifier mpable of beanng wide rcupc'
(I-Iorristein 1995: 20). This is noticeable, for that i~arplx~c
that 'Mav (1985) drops the requlrnnenc tt~ai
j
sentences be disambipated at LF' (ibid.). So tirere is a connnnnm [of positiorxs: if we dcfi11e 1-F ~ vthat
level of granunatical representntlon that incorpornres wl~areverfeatures at' sentences irnrctilre enter
directly Into the semanuc interpretation of selrterices. the question anses as to tiow tnucli prrrlry~~at~ci
conceptud elaboration n needed to get to $, the logicd fonriuiae which are ir~putto the rmch-theoretic
machinery which delivers trurh-coricltions. One possibie aliswer (favoured by reszarchen in the
mainstream ndjtion) is: none-LF directly maps to II; witliout any p~gnatlc/conccpnralpi.octxsing.
As we have just seen, someone like Mav tias to admt ttlar some pmginanciconceptual pmcessixig 1s
rieeded in some cases, e.g. to disanibiguate the LF in order to get die pir-list reading k>r'What did
everyone bring?'. Relevance theorists (and 'TCls-tt~eoost.; more generally) think a lot of plsagi~anci'
conceptual processing is needed. (For more or1 ambiguous or tinderspecified logcal forns, see trail
Deemter and Peters (1996); see also Egg ((2005: 65--8) and the references thereiri.)

rnodrhcd logrt ,d iorrrr 1s In fact the jbxe) logt al fonrr of mother sentence,
ilrat wBrrt h Iran\ thrclugh the \peatcer%sandlor the Interpreter's mrrd.
Ihcra: are two powlble ver\lon\ trf rbrs -\new Clnr of tl~eni1s rather
F~irulzar,i t C J P I ' 1 ~~ O L I IXI
~ I the
~
wnclngs ot td-reur~stssuch s Jeny Katz,
I<rrit H,lclr, ~ r ~ "stt.pl.ierr
t i
Nelrli. The IcLacl~rlgr d e ~I\ this Sentences have
Irter,~t ir-rtcryrrtat~oas,but they t-,tzl 4140 b r uteci to convey sornrth~ng
iiiflercxrt lrorr~(c g rriorc detcrrrlitl.lte than) tllerr s t n c tly l~teralmterpretas sentence they uttcr
tlcrlr Wilrcn t h t L w ~ ~ c ~ I s , prdgllX,lhc I?iroce'rcil7gm ~ p the
to 101~1(*
orhex srntcrlizl th'rt was riot uttorctl hrrt mlglzt have been. Let uc call
thr wntrxrc c tlr.rr w a xtu3Uy utteted s, 2nd tile other sentence s,. 'The
nlotl~hrdiog1:rlalfortrr ofthe utterdncs rs the (bare) logcal fixn-r of^,.^ T ~ I1sS
how 1 untler\r*lud Bach's nohurr of 'eexpan\ron9 (B:~cll 1987, (ti. 4; Dacb
rgt, I;) OXI13,~h's VICW the se~ltemes 011~titters are oken elhptlc~lltor rnore
c orlap~ltaxherrtetrc e\ one 1 2 ~ 5111 rrund, I r l thc rrctx~hnguisti~,
\ellarsun sense of
keUtptla '11' 6> I-or exar-rlple, 1 can \ay * I llerc rs A, I(lotl 1x1 tfee xmddle of the
p r a t r ~ uitl
' mean that there rc 'i \Iritr*e rt,bJtcist7nlitiyu 210n In the rruddle of the
I ) I A / / < ~ I - f i i h ~ I I T C X C L II~ltcrI)retcillotl
~~
ilete171l1nt""rthe utter~nce'smod~fied
log( al torrli, 2nd that i'r acrrr,\lly tllr logx ,rl lorrxi of ,i rnore complex
WIIL~I)LI~ t11,2t wd\ not 11tterecI, but \\ids rrrxlrrrnk; tlrrouph my m n d ('7'here
is rc statuv xcprc\cr,trxlg a lictn ~n the middt~
ofthe p ~ a r ~ a 'O
j . n 13a~h'smew,
h e fr cr pragmdtlc proces'i of "expamron' rrwp a ;cic*t~rd-l~npage
sentence
\, ttr ariutllrr n~tr1ral-l,trrguagc~
rcrrtence s, by adthrtg elenlents to s,
' f i e crtller pusrble uitell>xtatlon of the mew rs less farmliar, but ~t has
recently i-bunti,idvocates tn the Ilnguissrr~ax~d~yf~~losoplucal
cornmurut-y.It
goes like this 111tlhe t elevarit tx,rr,rplec, tlrere 'ire, ~nctcecl,two sentences c , and
42, tvhcrr
( 01 ~ C - Y I I ~ C ~
toI ~the
C ~ Sartud lutcvretatiori of the ixttervlce; but ~t1s a
n2tsr;ike tc-, rlurik r t l ~ ls,: 15 uttered, wizrle a a only rrrentay tokerred. What 1s
uttcred .I< ttiilly 15 s,f Ort thi\ view the t w o it"rrtencc\s, a ~ s,dare yhondicully
ir~ldtst~nguahiaijlt.,
bzc,ttrw &at dr%ererztr,ite~therlr are otdy cuvevt elzvrlenh m
the logic ,rl for-rr? of\,, w h ~ c bare tr~rs'rlrzgIrk dlr Log~calform of s, 'lhece covert
rlcnlcx~tsnr~~ri-tcsr
tllerttselvtv m the sernrsntl~r?tterl,reklaon ar~dreveal that
the ~ltttxredwntenc e rs ,s not 5, O r r tttrc p~cturt-, co-cdled 4tr011g PrapIaatlC
&CFC~(tl\ (the cliec ts trf fi-ce pragnatlc gr~ccs\cx)are nnotlmg but the effects of
Pi, KI~J
puts it, 'Ow utteranir rrich;uningiif':i icntcriic S cut hi*i:xi,ressed 3s the gzuzmiliti~alm a m g
oC arioiirzr sellien,nce 5" (lidrr 1~177:19).
"311 i i i e ~eiiancrri\t:libe ot 'telhprrcal', sir Ncale (LMIO: 286 -7) See dso Eibonrilc'~cotluTients on
I"..lr":de's ,Ipptna.ln l r l i:,ibounic (roo#)

\rmlultlcdlly ulterpretrxig covert elcrxiextb ~n1ogca.itorr~i50, 111 a scrise, there

no &ee pngndtlc process In mother senst., however, there ,ire such
processes, but they rnu5t be retie.icribed arrd at countctl to1 1x1 tcri~lsof the
6ce generatron of pragniatic vanaIil,lesI n the svntclx
T<&ethe senter1c.e 'There 1s a liort ni the rnldclle of the pfaz~d'agairi, anti
assume tllat as a re5~1ltot'(what 1 t&e to be) art apt~orialyrocless o f ~tlod~tlation, the word 'Lon' liere 1s uilder\tood a\ it IS rn tlse pllr~se'stone Ison'.
Then, atcordlng to the vlew ~inderdlscti\sioll, \vl~,ltI t,ike to be tfse
modified logcal b r m ot'the sentence r i its logical folni, ,uid what I c.lU Its
bare logtcd foms 15 not its Iogi~ali'orrr~a t all. st 15 the loi?;scalforrr~of the
drstmct, lioniophonous sentence '7 liere is .r 11011 In the rxitdde of the pla?r;a7
\vhltIl memc that there i c a real hon it1 thC mitiifle ot the ptazra Whit
aucgedly c~i\tmgu~sties
the two sentence\ is the oct urrenc c m the first one,
but not rn tlsr \econd one, of a covert, optzctna1 elerrlerlt, for chxample a
tovert metoiiyrmc. operator (01 \vh~itcvt.~
accotrr~trfor the ~ I I O J ~ Iof~ ~ L I O I ~
'lion' in this context) I he element 1x1 questloit 112s the iollom~tgproper-tie\.
I\

It 13 ~ovcrt--tl.~at
1s wlsy there is no srrpt.rf~cldldifiercrtc e between tlic
two sentences
z It 1s optional. hence ~t s\ dway, powble tor wh'lt loc~h\supertic idly
hke the same serrtcrlce ucjt to cdrry thdt covert elclut'rlt ~ncitherclore
not to have the nteancig that re\ultr train the addition c3f that element.
i

Elements that have those propertie, I dl 'covert optlonals'. By gc,s~t~iig

the
exrsterlce of s~tchelelrleists 111 the laligu,lge, orie can account fix thc et&cts
of free pragt~i~tlc
processes while claiilt~ngthat they 'Ire not prafjlnabr
rntcr~rct~trion
applied to
procesws at aU,but regular protessef of ~rnl~intic
covert elemem. Such a mew liah been p ~ fo'orward
~ t
by IJur\,~Marti (2oo6),
byJo\ef Sten1 (zooo, zoo6), and by X'olly J'icobsor~(aooc) /
As an exanlple, tahe metaphor, dncusrcd by Stern An exprexss1ou I?
interpreted tnetapboncdly, aclcord11lg to Stern, ~t and only rf a covert
'Mthat'-operator apphcs to that exprcseon --a I rrntcst -sensltrve operator
sernantlc s. The 'Mehat' operator
i'or whch Stem supphes a ICapl,ln-i~lsp~~ed
1s opaonal: wl~erzever~t occurs, l t 1s also polclblc to build a sentence
One may alao lnierpret in tills hght the 'rvntacnc' Z I I ~ ~ S 01
I S sc:Lj.lr i ~ ~ ~ p l i c a t[)tit
~ ~ rforwaril
es
by
Danny Fox and h ~ coilaboraton.
s
011 llrat ,inAyrls cca1.u nnplrcat~~res
result Crvnr the Cet: insr~~ic.ioa
uf a
covert eA&ustivity operator Exxh witil a Inrnnlng akii? to tlrat of 'only'. See FOXand I-Inckl (2006: 543).
Fox (1007),
Cl~rrchia,Fox. ;uld S p e ~ r o r(filrthccrniing).

--

mdisanp~shable &om the metaphoncal sentence but wlth a dsfferent

rneanirlg (slnce the altea~atsveseiitence does not carry the 'Mthat'-operator
that a responcible -fbr the rnetaphoncal interpretat~on) Stern suggests that
the same sort of ~ C C O L I Kwljl
I ~ work for metonymy. Slrmlxly, Luisa Marti, m
her dl\cussron ctf rny vlewc, pos~tscovert optnonals t o account for all the
Lases for whir h I ~ p p e a lto fiee e n n c h e r i t . Whenever I invoke a fiee
pragmatic, furictron that makes the nieanlng of a11 expression more specfir,
Marti poslt~ cobert varsable g which 1s assigned, in context, that very
f;ilctlon AS I ~ S\ernantlc interpretahon. O n that p ~ c t u r ethe alleged cfigerence
bemeen kee ennclmient and saturaaon IS smply a drfference between two
mpes of covert elenients. those wluch, IIke the g variable in quesaon, are
o p t ~ o and
d can be o m t t e d m t h o u t m&ng the sentence u n g r m a t i c a l o r
ottiemwse devrant, 'and those which cannot be omtted. In 'John is short', a
ccrvert vanable ( h r a conlpanson class o r whatever serves as imphcit parameter) n also rnvolved but it ss not ophonal: whenever what looks superficially like the seritence 'John a short' rs uttered, the coven element has to be
there But the covert elerrrents thdt account for metaphors, metonynues,
tree enncturrent, etc are charactenzed by therr opt~onahty.They may be
generated 1st the syntax but they need not be As Marti wntes:
The imcial d~fferarircbetween the t v ~ oproposals res~desin what bears the responsibrlrt-u tor opttorid~ty Iii Retanatx's svstem, that is the respons~bihtyof the
pragunltro, o i the properties of the context ot utterance In the system proposed
here, the pragmcltrcs has the rarne responsibd~tvit has in the interpretatron of
pronourrs, and only that That 15, gven a vanable in the svntax/at LI-, there has
ro be a vmable-wstplmerit, volrich ot Lourse depends on the context of utterance,
that j~roviddesvnirie\ tor thrs van,ible But the pragriiaucs does not trigger anything
m elre sense ok Rcc,~nat~,
tliere 15 no process ot 6ee e~incbment.Whether la]
variable 1s gelrerated m the syntax or iiot is lef? coniplete1y bee.. . The system
tnes out chfferent der~vanorts,and only those that comply wth all the pnnc~plesof
g a m m r , rn~luchrlgGncean pnn~ipfe\,are successful (Marti zoo6 14p.jo)

Elow itre we to ,iscount for the Ji"dkrence bettveen covert optianals and
otlier covert elenlents lacking tile optnond~tyfeature? Marti insists that there
1s o111y one sort of covert vanable the cfifference between the two types of
case (alleged 'ssat~lratlon'cares and alleged 'modulation' cases) is smply that
Wheri dtey are genmted, they must be semantically interpreted and, if they are free variables, they
must be assigned a cantest~ralvalue. What is optio~iatis their generation, not their interpretation.

V R A G M A l l C I A N ] ) L O G I C A l TOKM

141

someth~igm the sentence imposes the presence of the covert vanable ul

some cases (e.g 'short' docs) wl~ilem other i ascs the prwence o f the covert
element 1s not lmposed by ar~ytl~mg
m the seritexlce and could be oxnrtted
w~tboutumigrammati~alityIn cormilrtitlng on 'a firs drdft of Marti's paper,
Polly Jacobron suggested that coven optionals are notlur~gbut (overt t z t d J ~ r t ~ t \
It 1s of the essence of adjuncts to be optxmnd, she salci, slmlce their type IS aJa
In contrast, standard saturatiorl v~rsablesf l l a r ~karguaient plxe and cannot
be omitted wthout ungaiimat~c~ b t y(MA&2006. 146-7)
Whatever we thlrik of the line purcued by Marti, Jacobson, and Stern, 1
thlnk it lias to be counted as another- -,xdnilttedy deflatioriarrr---syi~tactri
corzstrual of free p r a p a n c processes Ifre m a n dlfirence wlth the othtr
two syntactic accounts 1s that ot~erythmtq13 rinw done tvithtn tlzc iur;qnuagr.syrtem
on t111s account, what I cdl prci@l3hc 1110d~latiot1
t;lkes place through {I) the
free generatior1 of xddltrional element^ xn thy (covert) syntzc, 2nd (11) the
semanhc interpretanon of thobe elerrlrxlts alorig Lqnufiar he.; Tho resulting
blew sounds diarnetr~caJlyoppoied to TCP, but the appearaxes nlav be
deceptive. As far as 1 can tell, the only .;uhstarrtld ciift;rence tliere 1s l9etween
t level of avrrtactrc
that account and the other svlttac tlr accolints n t h ~ the
representatiori to \vliich the addrtronal elerneritc belorig rernan, wlthrru the
conkkies ofthe language system (rxther tkrarr i r ~ ~ u l c ~ sh~fi
n g a to the ion( rptual system). Wlut this d~tin
r ~ l c eexac tiv dtt-1ounts to--tvliat ~ t scuri\cquences are-remans to be cteten~unctf""

' In a rdated vein, Jacobson shows tltat quatlriiier dixmist rrcltriction (a phenorncr~onwhich Bach
(2000) treau as an irAimceof 'expansion') can he lccourrtcd for ur t c m of coven: reluttve i - l d i ~ ~&rely
':
"very girY can be eitl~cr:
adjoined to the nouns (Jacobson ~ o o j )-(bus
.
(contextuaUy unresrtlaed rradsng)
every & girl]
or:
(contextrrd?y rrstrizted rrduilng)
every jN *I kcPRO!]
Contextual donam restriction on tlus account is a illalter of crtntexnidy assigtiing a vdue to a siieni
variable 'PRO', standing for a relative rlause. T>iEcrent rt%uictions('every girl i r ~the room', 'every girl
urho's got an A'. ..) correspond to different a%ii$l~inenu
nfvalrte to titat varkble, whiie the unresmcted
reading correspon& to the case in which rio variable is generated. As always with coven opdoxrals, the
assignr~~ent
is obligatory; what is opuorwl i s the p ~ ~ e r a a oofnthe variable.
'"This chapter was originally the last sectiorl of (the long versiori of) my ydper 7t i s ra~nirrg
(somewhere)'. After a short version of the paper, o u m t ~ s ~ ~ o ~rougfdy
~ d i n g to the tint iralf appeared in
Linguistic and I-'hilosophy, I used the last section as a basrs for my concribunott to Expikit Gorctmrrni~iltiun:
Xobyn Carston's Prag~natics(E.Ro~neroand B. Soria e d ~ )'This
. chapter is a sliglrtly mnodiiifid vetvivti clf'rny
paper for that volume. I am indebted to Philippe Schlenker f c ~ rconlrnertts on a first

Embedded Implicatures

C:onversational implicatx~resare a species of pragrtlatic irr~plicatior~;'

they are
implications of an act of 'saying'. 'The speaker's saying dlat 21 i~x~plics
that q
( p e n the presuniptio~ithat he or she respects the rlorrxls of conversatiorr
Crice's 'rriaxims'---or the overarching 'Cooperative l'rinciple'). 170r exanrple, the speaker's saying that some st~rdentscame, together with the prei~iss
that s/he n well-informed arid tnci to be ,I\ mforrriatxve as possrble, r r ~ ~ p l ~ e s
that nut all students c a n e . (If all \t~ldenbhati come, the spedlicr ought to
have said so.) Insofar a\ the speakel overtly lnterlds the heartr to recover
tllo,e pragniatlc ~ r r ~ p l ~ c a n oofn stile speech act, they are pdrt of vvl~atthe
spc'lker rrlealis, thotigll nut part ofwllat tlte sentent e rne,mj In thts w,iy we
can accoul~tfhr certa111 J S P C C ~ S t>f utterance rrreanlng w~thrrlpragniatlcs,
wltho~ttburctenlrlg semantlc theory.
Conversat~oll~l
~ntpllcattiresthus understood have two Iniportant fea
txres. Flrst, they recult frorli an 1nt2rence Now 'lrikreuce' car1 be used m
two w;tys: the broad and the narrow serl\e 111 the \tnct, xl,irlow scllse,
contx'ztlan. whoever nrakes .ul
~ni?rences satisfy what I call the ava~l~~hritty
t jutlgen~enthe or she amvcs
iriference (111tLlt r i m o w sense) IS uuure t h ~ tlne
at is mfereirtlany b a e d upon s o n ~ eprtvro~lrjrldgcnrent. No S L I C ~ I~ o x ~ d ~ t ~ o n
apphes to 1nf2ren~cs111 tile broad xnse Imagrte \orneorie hcxnng the
doorbell, and corrung to helleve, on that hasrs, that there 1s .ionleone at
the door. T h ~ example
s
irivolvec both a
n trifercnce In the broad sense mcl 'an
~r~fcrence
ut the r u n ow serzse Identlljrir~gthe souxid one h e m as that of the
c ognrttve
e
scientists tell 11s;
doorbell arguably involves an '~nfkrerice',rw \ o ~ x ~
but the subject 15 not a w x e t h ~ that
t 1%so T11e avarlabll~tyc onditlorl 15 not

though the sut3ect's irrference that there

rs \orneone ~t the door 1s sporltaneous and unreflective, stlll ~tis 'ava~lable'to
the subject, who Lr~owt,that the basis for his or herjudgement IS the fact that
the doctrhell 1s rmgng T h ~ is
s an irrferencc in the narrow sense, one that
takes pl,lce ~t the person~lrather than rnerely at the sub-penonal level
. Inferences in the nxrow sense
Cor~verratroiid~mphcatures,I take ~ tare
the subject hiows that 111s or her jtidgernent relatrve to what tlie speaker
I \ babeti upoil sorrte mdependent judgement regarding what the
rti~pl~es
speaker ~ r y s To take a standard exanlple: rt, wlien asked whether I can
cook, X reply 'I air1 Prctic h', my utterance conversatlondly ~niphcatcsthat I
can cook, ar~dwhoever u~iderst,inds~tis aware that what I ~rnply(that I can
,
IS, whoever tiillv
cook) %ii,Uows fiorn' what I say or niv savlng of ~ t that
IS
said.
ofwhat
IS
imphed, and of
utider\tands the ritterance is aware of what
the ~riferentr~d
connectron betwceri what is rtnphed and (the say~ngof) what
rs sdlc3
1'kre second feat~~re
of convenatrond miplrcatures I want to draw atterrtton
to is tile
post-proposrtrond character of miphcattlres. Imnphcatures are
generated vi,r ax1 ulferencc whov z r p t t , the ha dzat r-It~speaker ha ,aid ihut
p I Ietlc e tio iniplrcature c m he c omputed uriless \omethmg h a been said.
I
no irnph~aturecan be computed at
some propositmil expresred In ~ A tlcular,
a \ilk) locutionam level We luve to compute tlie tmth-con&tions first. so as
to
nbe ,I defui~tecontent to the rpeakcr's speecti act, before we can mfer
anvthrng firon1 that 'ipeech act
Gnce's theory of conversational iniphc~~tures
has eryoyed a tremendous
success \iriLe 11e first put ~thrward 111 tlre 1960s; but an iniportant change has
oc~nrreci,~ruriatedby Gnce hiniself The notion of lrnplicature has been
extended to case\ ul whlch rieltiler avaslab&ty nor global~ty1s present
Those are, indeed, the cases that xnatter most to semantrcs
C:onsider the followmg exaniples
(I)
(2)

15tU and Jane got nlxned and had marly chldren

fJ1U &lidJane have three cldcfren

Sentence (I) urlphes that BrU and Jane got named before h a m g the chddren.
T h s ts ~tarld~wdly
accounted for by saylng that the speaker IS expected to respect
the m ~ ofmrnmiier,
~
whrcll enjoins one to be orderly and, in repomng

LMBE.I>I)TI> IRIPI I c A - i L r l l L r ,

145

events, to report then1 in the order xn wlnch they o~ciurred Givm that
assulxiption, tlie speaker's saymg (I) unpiles dlat the rrimlage took place behre
unpfies that U d arttiJane have at
the bmh ofthe chddren. Senterrce (a) 51,lr~idxIy
most three chlidren, for dthey h,id more tlrarl three chddren the speaker ought
to have sad so (in m e of the nr&xml of quarlhty w h i ~ hhe IS 1,resrrnred to
respect) So both the upper-bounded reaclrng of the tlurnerd m (a) arld the
temporal readulg of the con;lrrncnon ur jr) ale qud tr, result &oil1 exl~tcErrrrg
the core nleanlnp of the wntence with a corrvers~honalimnpllcaturr fhrs rs a
typical use of the nohon of corxvexr~t;ior\,ilm~phcdturrur coritciavorai-i
&scusaons. m a t I find stnhng. Ino\vever, n tlie lack of the twtt fedhtrrs I
menaoned earher. First. tile dncourri- p m ~ i l p mx ~e not ,wale tls'rt the
alleged mlplr~~tule
1s slot p x t ofliteraX ctrrlterlt, the av,lrlal7ktv cotlclitron n
not .jatisfied, m contrast to ivh,it happenc rri rXie 'Ia111 Frenc11' type of iJie
Seconct, tlle deged unpiicatute.-iseem to wcur loc'dly They fjfl w~tlrixrthe
scope of operators, AS us tlre follo~vmge~~~rrlple\
( 3 ) Bill and J m e have three or b u r cillXdrrr~
(4) Every father-fkzb happv ~f 1115 ciauqhter grrs niarneil and gv's birth to a child
much lebx ~f'sheglves birth to .i clzilii 3 n c i get5 aiarneri

In (3) the nun~erslsare given tlie upper-buurrdeci readirig (txtutly t!trcts of

txactl~~_fotarj,
but this can tlardlv be Jerrved ~t~ferei~t~allv
&om tIlr speaLer"~
sqing (3) in the mlmnial sense (at ledst r i l v c ~or at lcusi (out) T11c 9trcngthen
rather t h ~ n
mg xems to occur locally, w~thlnthe scope of d~~junctlorr,
giob~llyAnd In (4,the tern17orJ suggestloll IS lrltegral to the antecederrt ol
the condltlonal pr'i~~s
contrasts w1tl-r the nornrzl beh~vlourof ~mpbcat~~rcr,
whlch do not fall w ~ t b mthe sctrpe o f operaton hecaiise 111ey arxse at. d ~ e
speech act level. not at tlse level of sub-locut~ortarvconstituents
Faced wlth th~sabnorrnd beh~vlour,one has to make room firr a special
class of 1lnpLicatures (or pseudo-~lr~~~lri<~tures)
vvkllch are intulhvely indrct.tngunbable 60x11sernarlnc content md can arise locallv.j Some rheonsr?,
rmljlzcature ~ c s
have appealed to the xlotiovi of a 'generxlr~edkonver\at~ond

There 1s an dterriatrve analysis, which does nor rest on rriarrter-l~asedtntpticahlres but o n rhe fict
that tile tense features rliust be cotltextualiy assigned teurpord vduw. (And there are other dternauve
andysrs in the sanie vein.)
' I assume that the two properties go together. ilut tt~ui s only a conjecnrre. In tlus chapter, however.
1 am concerned mainly with the second property (locality),

11;ixiiXie silt-li i<fic:s.

Clrttlcrs t1~1ve
appralcti to the ~Jistiactiorlbetwcen genuine

ilripliii-;stuces, wlriclr arc disririct h r a r and 3ddPtiori31 to what is said, and

what Kerrt 1-LiciFi h ~ cnlletl
s
2conversaticrnai Irrrplicitr~res',that is things that
than ixrlplied by the act ofsaying it." My
.lire "irnplii-itin wlrnt is said' r,~t.lrcr,urn 111 tliis cl-i:ij)tcr is t o t..orr~pare these (and otl-tcr) approaches to the
prolrlenr r;iised Iry what I will healcefi>rrh call "rnbedded implicatures':
scc:rrxirig irrrplic:at~rrcvt h t arise loc-ally, d r a sub-krcutionnry Level, without
rcsiilzing ~ronrrliar irrferetlce in thc narrow sense.

sortie c.c~r~verslrtioxr;il
itriplicatr~rzs,Ire 'gener:ilized', that is,
they tlo riot arise 'in v i i l ~ xof special features ofthe c:ontcxt7,but. are nonn:tlly
cnrr-icti i ) y sdyirag :r i.c.rtair~rfzing or- type of-dlirlg. The irnylicature arises 'in the
;thselic.c c>f'!jpc:i-i~lc-ir-c.~~ri~stant-es'.
lie s;+ys( C k e 1j1Rc): 37). The h c t that, in a
rr,lr-rative, ,ic.i>rrJiiirc(lorisuch ns 'They got x n ; ~ ~ :cL Id~ Chad
~
manv clzildrer~'is
iritc>rp~etcil
as mrin-wirrg tlie trrrrpord ilorcdcr of'tlle reported events is seen by
( ' -r'i .r . ,;$. .,
rsr ritirig liom a gencr;rlized cotivcrsatiorlab irrrplicature: such a11
irr~~plic,ituri
i 4 lic)~-ni.dly
ciu-ri~dhy 211 evtbnt--rt.portirlgcor~jnnctiveutterance
ccrci-r :rs (1).
l'irc iil"e:t t h t \ o ~ n ei~llplic:it~xres gelieraiized goes some way toward
erlrieiirilx*gwily, in such exes, tile :tv:4ilabiliey zclindit.ion is not satisfied. As
I c v i i ~ x o rputt"
i
i t , gciier~lizccic.orivers~tio~i;d
irllp1ic:lturt.s are ']hard to distiui ;ttniitlli(: content of'lir~gnisticcspressions, beczuse [they are]
giiis11 i l - o ~the
r o t i t i ~ ~ c I.y~ s \ ~ o c ~with
~ c c 1i1lgujst-i~
~
~ X ~ T C S S ~ O Iin
I S aU ordin;~ly contexts'
(1 c-viiicoal 1983: 127). *This cs1)lr;uu"lioari s n t r t witl'rout its prublenis, hut Let
It p a ~ i n 3 " 1
i,cirxsider !low, ilsil~gthe noric?~~
o f a gex~cralizeciconversation;ll
iixiidic.:icuri., wc, c-,iri acrourtt (or tire secirrrc"of.'the two hcts noted above: the
iict il~u
tire aliegccJ 11np1ic:iturec ; arise
~ at a. scih--se*~rerrtial
level, as in (4).
Ac-c-ortEirlg to Mirc:hi:li Green, the ccrrr~rectiori is straightf&rward----a
gcric:raiizcd i~nl~lic;ltrrrt.
is ipso cri~hediiahle:

Act trrtling ttr (;r^si.c,

8ldlicE1 (x90.$) I r l rciuvari< 2-iiieurrtrc tennirioiogy ((Spei'iwr . t r d Wilson rg8hu; Carrtorr z o o ) , sizcll
1h111qA I ~~ a ! I~) kw
d ~ r l ~ p h c -coristittzctkts
~t
I > ( t h - ~t:.xplz~~at~~re'
r.ttiw t h r k ~ i ~ ~ p l i c a t t ~ r e s .

If assertiorl of a sentence S conveys the iltlplicatu~sltl;m p with nca~ly-l\/inivcrs:cl

ur~tierstoodto hc
repulxity, then when S is en~beddetithe content that is E~SIIZ~IY
enibecidcd for semantic pttrposrr i s the proposition (S & p). ((Greer* ~g<ji;:77)

But wlry I\ that s o exactly? W l ~ v1s a geucr'~lrred~rnplrsatxtre--or nt leact,

o r ~ et h ~ 15t 'rscacly un~vers,ll'-*uppo\cd to be e~nl~eclciable?
II,~~
Generah~ed~onvenationalltlipl~eat~ires
art st111 C O I I V ~ ~ S S ~ C I O11npI1catures, for CIILC.7 0 ( n l c illate an rmpllcnture, cvhetlter gel~erallredor pdrtlc~~larized,
'1s to c'dculate wliat hac to be slippoced irt order to prewrve the
suppoution that the Coopcrnri~el k n c ~ p l ei r b e ~ n gobierved' ( C h t e sg89.
39-30) The unphcatures are interred t ~ o r nthe \pealrcr7s xsymg that p ~ n t l
itx ('aopernt~vr 13rlll(-~p1e'rht, O J L ~ V
the presumpnou that he w obsc~v~rtg
c3rilfference het~vzcrrgelrerahred anel. particu1,anred m ~ p lattires
~r
Ire.; 111 the
fic)nr
amouiit of contextual rnfolrnntlon rrcecietl to tlenvc tlie r~rspl~cature
i11e lnCerence
the \pealrcr's 5peecl.i act When an irnpl~tattxre rs gener'il~~ed,
goes through '~ndeperkclentlyof larforrn,ttlon ibout yartrt rll,ir corltext\ of
utterani e' We brrow thnt, zn grttcral, \orrsconu who sdys t h ~pt respcc ts the
Cooperatrve Pnric~yleordy ii q- , ~ n dtherefore we car1 ~ n f e rt11,lt q f'ronr hi,
saylng that p. w l t h o ~ ~J I t~ L V I I I ~ to rely 011 specihc inft>rr~tatiortabo~stthe
c ontest of utterance. Thu, understood t t i c h notloll o f a gcnrrahzed convergerm , d ~ ~ ermplrtf
satlorial miphiatnre (henc etorth to bc c al1ct.l .t 'C(;r~cc~m'
ail ~mpl~catnte
IS rr-tore or lei$ getler~h7ed
cature or (;GI) IS a graded r~ot~orl:
(or yartlculnnzec-1)depenci~ngoil die ; t n > o ~ ~cti~nfonnatxon
nt
regarcixng the
But tile
context of the utterance t l l ~ rct r1ecess'lr-y to derive the ~niphc,~mre.
mech,inr\n~of tlie den vat tor^ 1s tire rdn~cin dl1 case\: the ~ n l p h ~ a t ~ iare
res
~nfeuredfroill the pefirrxihllc c of rhe lo( 11tl011al-yact (I e trorrt tlse spe,iber's
saylng that p), g v e n the prcsunlphon t h t [-re1s ohservmg the C'oo~tcrative
Prlrtcrple. (See Car4to11 3002. I I 1 , a t i d the hter,lture cited tliereln )
In thls Gr~ceantrantework, I~o\vevcr,we a n n o t accolrllt for sub-se1rte11~ o ~ ~ d l , I I ~the praqianc unphc ~ h o r i sof ;r
ha1 case:, If c ~ n v e r s ~ ~ tirnplrcatitres
speech act, they cannot al-tse at 2 sirh-locut-ronary level. TIxs pomt was ntade
most expl~cidyby I3ucrot. In the tatc 1960s I3ucrot haif lndcyer~derltly
come up wrtb a theory of ~ n i p h c a t ~ ~ very
r e s \~mnd,rr to (:n~e'\ (I3ucrot
rg6g), and 111 the early 1970s Ire got rnvolved 111 an ~n-deptlr study of
senlarltic \tales (e.g. Ruirot 1973, ch 1 3 ) E-lowcver, contrary to I Iolrr
,md Fauconnrer, who wcrc exylol-mg the snn~eremtory, he artd 111s codens
author, Anrc ornbre, r eslsted the ctrnlghttonvard appllcat~oncrfGr~cea;lr~

348

G ~ F ~ P K !&a11
P ~ E c,GmLm-Amm*Wt7t~

I~RES: r WCY

c t>Nt;EiFTIcfi%

ro scalar pllcno~llenaT h e alleged scafx ~rnplicatures,tliey xguecf, cannot

be genuine ~n~plicatures
because they fill witlun the scope oflog.lcal operas
five or SIX chddren', the numerals take tile uppertors In 'Jolirl t ~ either
hounded re~dlrtg('John Iias elther e x a ~ t l y j i v eor ~xuctlyszx chrldren') rather
than the rrim~malrea&ng ('Jolin has nt leustjzre or at Eruct six cliddren'), but
thzs ~ ~ r m ober :due to ~n ~rnpllcaturesmce the lniplicature In quectlon would
tall wlthlrt tlie scope of the logcal connectwe 'either
or'. T h ~ saccording
,
to Anscornbre .and Durrot, 15 ~mposslble, in virtue presumably of the
foU(7wlng dr@llTleIlt
(a) Converidt~orral~nlphcaturesare p r a p a h c consequencec of all act of
sdyuig soriletlllng
(b) Art <rct of wymg sonieth~ngcan be perfornled only by means of a
coiripletc tittcrarzce, not by rnealis of an unasserted clause such as a
ciirjun~tor the antecedent of a condltlonal
can be generated at the sub-locutlonary level.
(c) I Lcnce, no lllipl~cat~rre
A d~sjuiictor the
1 e at tlte lcvel of 2x1 ~inasertedclause such
ante<eclertt of I ondtt~ctndl
(d) l it s'3v that an ~rnphcature6x11s ~ v ~ t hthe
i n scope of a Iog~caloperator
is to ~ d vt l i ~ ~t
t 1s gerter'ited at the iub-locutlonary level, vlz. at the
level of tlre dnuse on cvh~clithe logcal operator operates
(e) Ilence, no inlplicature car1 fall w~thlnthe $cope of a lopeal operator
It fbllows that in exantplec lllce ( 3 ) and (4,
the alleged iniplicatures responslble for the tetnpor~lreading of the coryunctlori or for the upper-bounded
read~ngof the rit~lileralsAre not genuine irnphcatures, for they are not
rnferreci frorn the speder" sperch act but are corlshtutive of the proposition
that is the rontexlt of that act
At t h s pnmt, how eve^, we niay be tempted to ch'lxlge the frdmework m d
alter the charactensatton of gerierAzed conversaaonal uiiphcatures. From
<;nce7sidea that genenlrzed mphcatures arise m the absence ofspecla1 cucumstance$, tllere IS but a sliort step to the ~oncluslonthat they are gepzernted 'by
d<f;IuEt', 1.e. bltndly, us soon u? the relwantform ofwords 1s enrounteved. Accordmg to
I-Iorn, Ga~ctur,and especially Lemson, who took that step, generAzed mphcatxtres nse d&ncrlt ~ ~ ~ p l x ~(DI).
~ t uthey
r t ~ are generated autornahcally (mthout
See their collectiort of papers (Amcombre and Ilucrot 1983), and especially their reply to
Fauconriier (1976),Ansconbrr md Ilucrot (1978), reprinted therein.

mference). They belong to die ' x r i r c r o i ~ ~ - ~ p ~ a ~ c hthan

a t h etor the "rrucrc7prapatxc'level, m Robin CanipbelYc t q o l o m :
A rnacroprag~naticprocess is one constltutrd by a seq~lericeof explrcrt inferences
governed by pnnclples ofratioild cooperdaorz A imcroprawatlc pmcesh develops
a,! a crypnc [= unconsc~ous]and heurrs~cprocedure wluch partidly reph~essome
rnacropragnlatxc process arid wlllch dV6r.rltsro a 111 the event of breakdown
(Campbell r g 8 r lor)

Ceneral~zedconter~ationalimplrczlnrrcs, this tlnder\tood, drc no longel

mfened 6orn the speaker's saying that p together w t h tile presnnlptrolm
that tlie Cooperative Prvzclyle IS helr~gobserved. They arlse rl-rmngh a
different rnechmarn. they a e generated by dchult whel, tlie relevar~t
or extrahnguistic trigger 1s encountered, utllr.c~stlrxnetl~mgm tile ling~iist~c
hngmstlc context blocks tbe gcnrr;rtron and %defeat\' the ~ n ~ p l i c a k ~ r r
O n thls view generahzed convcr5atrond lrmpllc~tures ire rloc rxlerelv
generalzed, they are also c o l i v c ~ ~ t ~ o nthey
~ e dare ussoctdfed tozth ccrkirrll
btzguistzc zteurt-7 s e r m g ds tnggerc fix the autornatrc procers of rrr~pi~canarc.
geiieration. That general~red~ ~ ~ i p l l ~ d trend
x ~ r tto
" \ becoxne cor~vent~onal~reti
in t h ~ way
s
seems natural The corrvenrrorls 'xcsociatlng hngp~strctnnxrs witla
Dl argu.lbly belorig to the cdtegory oi 'ccorlventlnns of use'. a toppcaed tc)
stralgfitfonvard 'rneanlng conveot~ons'(Sedrle 1975, Mcnrg*~n1078) ?Shcv
are sl~nriarto the convelltlon\ rn xlrtae of wtxlch a n lrrstmce c,E rhe construct~on'Can vou VP;' is rexdrly 1oterj3rett.d ar a request, even though
hterally ~t n '1 yuesnon The cleriv,it~onof the 1ndlrt.c t cpecch d ~ ofrequest
t
&on1 tlie dlrect speech xct ofclue\tlorr ii b,rsed tipor1 ratlon~lrtyr trmiderahons o f the Gr~cealicort, hut the rrlfer erlr e 1s stiort c~rcu~teci
as A reiull 01
g e n e r ~ l ~ r a t ~anci,
o n conventrorz~li~atm
(B~cliZ I I E~^L,zrnait~
~
r079)
ripatnoxi ofDI to 'sm~d~r&zed"
or 'd~cjrtLcvlnson has expl~atlyresirted
c~rcurted'impltcatures The latter rely oo ~o11ipressrorlby precedezit and mse
horn rotlhmzAQon, he polnts c)ut, wide deGult irrlphcaturts 'are gmcranvc,
dnven by general he~xnshcs nrtcX are not dependent upon rc>um7atlonV
(levmson moo 14) ?'h~\contrast ru1a-v pelhaps be interpreteiti A fo~\ourc
Cons~derscalar implrcatures (the p~racfrpnc.se of Dl). They are hrggered
by a spec& forrr~of words only hecatlsc (I) that forrn ofwords (e g 'sonlt.') rs
convent~ondlyrecohm7ed ~r he long^^^ to a rcale (e.g tile scale <sonic, mrsr,
dl>), and (11)there ~5 a rule tliat &ternmie~,for every p a r <S, z> cotisishng of a
scale S and an Itern i belonpg to that scde, h e L>Iassociated \vith 1 In the cast: ob

i > < > t#ENIW%.iI / l 1 ) t <7hVkR\Ali<tNf\!IiW-VN

Aj OtZL\:

i Wt.J < < I N <1 p i l O N \

iPrcia-c rrr ~ l r ~IXIX~IIC

~ i i 'xn~res,' ~ r g ~ ~ ~the
l > lmtplu
y,
.Lture a d~rectlyassoci~tedbmth
.i pamc lcur itrrnn oli wort% thc>ugh rroutx~x~~t'~orl,
\vxd~ocrtthere beurg my d e
Pi-crnr wlut h t81e corivcnt~otlda\focl,ttltrri Now\ iet 11s a s s i ~ t ~that
e tit13 lr~akes
kcaise x-rd1s wlut I C ~ V I L I S OII,~s
I ~ 111 r~l~rld.
1be5131te tlur &aged c11Eerenc e between
$boa ( i r c l ~ i t ~I Ud I I . F ) ~ C , ~ ,~11~7dL ~1)1,
~ S Lev~?l";ori
d ~ k x l o d e d g ethdt
~ both belong
rci AIL ~ n t ~ n ~ l t ' ~
IWCT
i ~ , betwee~i
~te
w n t e ~ ~n~c*,filil~g
~t"
ant1 bpe~ker'smezmg:
Accorciii-ig to the st;xrid;rrif line (rxlorr often presupposed than justified) therc are just

two kcek to rt riii:ory o f cortrx1~11r1ic.atior1:

a icvei of scnt.cnce-meaning (to be
c ~ p l i i c ~ ~ by
t e dtinc t-iieo~yo f grailulr'lr in t i l e large sense) atid a level c a i speakerrrleaniirg (to bc: esjrlicatetl by ;i theory of prahmratics, perhaps cerrtrdy e~nployiizg
Grit-e's iitrtioit of r~leaoing~,,,).
. . . Sjteakrr -irrrrrriiirg, or ixl~rr;u~ce-token-xneairirig,
will b>r rliatter oKthc actud rioixce ox. orrcr-off'iniirences rrlade in actt~alcoatests
by di-rij,d rccipic:iits with ,111 of tiierr r-rc-Xi yaxd(:rrIaricies. Tirris vicw, although
~ : ; t r ~ ~ u w ~xs" siirely
o u " ' , rriadecirratc., 111t3ec.dpc1tcrrt~;illypernicious, becarrse it undercstir~r:itissclxe ri~ir(~l,~r-ity,
recrrrrerice, ,tnd systexrradcicy of rnany kinds of pragmatic
niiibrrxit-es.Wh;rt i t umrt-s is a tl.rird laycr . . . of iyste~iiaticpragmatic inference based
vioi 0x1 tlirct-t io ~ ~ l p ~ i t ~L Ll t~ iO~I I~pe3ker-iiitt.litiorili
~C i s
hut r;itlrcr on gecteral ctxpecta-t~oiisabout how iaxigr~agt:i s rrorrrl:rily I I S ~ (1
~ .CVIIIS(JII .moo: 7 2 )

I hc.third idvcr i~rvcdci s cor.avelinor L\ of use, ul vnR1r of wixch ceficul form of

wotd\, IOI OIIC T ~ J S O I or
I .mother, conic to Iw jdeikas~biy).~hst,~r,rtcct
\.nth ceaun
rrleaxlirlp trver .rrlc! dhtrvc dre meaxnng ,?hatire encoded at the h
t level.
I o \alrri LI~', w c I I ~ U Stll~tw
~
~i
I ~ I S ~ L I I I L ~ I XUI CI I~ T ' V ~ C ~ two sore-of generalued
ilrrpiac atrare\ ( i r r c earl generalired rmplrc.lrraxes (<;<;I) azc strll conversiinon;rl
lin11-illi , ~ ~ P I ~ C & L I Y
ASI C
1)ncrot
~,
arid otlren jc g ('ohen 1971) pointed out, they
C~IIIIIOC~ i - .it1 the
~
su1~-~cnte~it1al
level I Pef,xult rxnphcamce~(111) Are convention'div ,n\ot wtetl w ~ t cc-rtdiir
f~
Irrlgurstlc fimns, \ervmg as triggers. Smce
iliey amse , t ~ i t o ~ ~~l al lt ~
ylatllcr
t
th,m tllroilgh ( ; P I C ~ ~ I Ircasc)r~lng,they can be
rnrhcdtied
r X ~ cdifkescrlce bcc~nicenL)1 ,rxlti (;<;I rs n t r t rrrc~elythe fact that UI are
( tanvc*risiorrsillv
~*s\oc
rGkredwith c ert'rln forms trl wol-cls GC;I thernselvcc rriay
gCt cr1r1ver1tic9xr,~lrlrcl,
wrtho~itc e'1~111gt o be coavri~~trc>tial
rmpl~catmresm
" iirc:r\rse [)I-iiieorists such as Lrvirrson use ttir Grit can k-itirl .C;er~erahzzdGonversdtiunal Irnpllr ~ t i i r r ' ,iht- rivi.ii)ti of
i s crx~urnnly
iliistAeniy) liscnbetl LO (;me. Tltus B:1rt Geurts cvntes:
'C;nrrx'i. icid-a \<.ems i o have hem iliat rf s convemtiorrd i n ~ p i h - d ~ d
r e oi:run u&rz enough in the
preseiiie oiari raxpreuioii i t , tlieli the irrrplrcatr~rrwill icio~ei-iowhecor-rw conve~~tionully
msociated with
u ~tsell' (Geiirts i:>!>X: u i 0).Note tl1:rt the C;nit,~iti rirraon of generalized c.oriversatio~~d
inlpiicature n
Irnmtirit: t o rhr t n t i c i r z i (;i.iirts acidri-~srsto tlrt: xiui~ciiioC1)1 and its ow irr iiic tbrvry ofst-dnri.

the stnct, Gncearl sense. At a certan pornt, however, they wdl rnev~~.rbiy
become DI. T h e trarislhori &urn GCI to UI ~ i k c cpl'ice wllrn, 1' s a result of
convent1onali7ahon, a getierdrzed miphc,ittrre lows the property o f ' ~ n o r l detachabrl~ty'w h ~ c hG r ~ c cuse\ to char,tctrn7e iorivcrs'~tloudlu~lplrcature\
(;lice
Wheri say~nga certazrr tli~agcanes a convcn;lt*o~ldu~~phc,~ture,
d a m , ~tIS not poss114e to fin<+
another way of sdylng the s.iltle t l ~ u ~ -~aot21er
gform of words, with the same content -cvluch does riot
( a n y the lrnphcature. r b s i s nordetdchab~l~tyNow the existence ofl~nguntlitnggcCnfox
an inlphcature does not, by ztself; precnlrrdc 1t5beu~grrc>l~de~lc
tl.ihlc If%\\ertmga
d~sj~~nctive
proposltloct <-antest l ~ egmerxl~ediri.ly,hcatuc that thc .ipe.tlrer a
not 111 a p o s ~ t ~ otonwparately Assert my of the ~ % ~ L L I ) Ct~hS ~
, 1111p11c
t
dturr ~ 7 1 be
1
caned whchever h n n of words a ?elected to ey?re$sthe iiiqunc-tlve propoyr
oftlie ~rt~pl~wture.
tlon m yuestlori. even & as t l ~ cresult of tlic :;ereerLdz~at~on
s
the word 'or', whch a our pnlndsy IneLns for eq3resstug d~yurlctron,t l ~ come
to be llssoc~atedw t b the ~rnphcatrrrea i d ~ c t 2s
s A 'ttnggcr' firr It.. SnU. onre iz
certutre degree ofront~rrztzo~zul~ziitzon
has h e e ~rmlzrd, A new po\\~lditvw~ll,mse 'I he
\n~plt~ature'wtll tend to be rout~~lely
ge~rer~ted
even 1r1 c orrfiprations m
wklrch ~ c could
,
not reiult fi-orn a globid iilnterence i1'1 Gncc J Ir,lt I \ flow subscntenhd tmphcstures can be acc oua~trdfor, ~n tire revncd ka~neworkWhdt
starts hfe as a gerierahzed ~xnpl~c,rture
bec~)lr~es
c ~ ~ ~ v ~ ~ i t ~ oand
~ ~ataBl celmn
t/ed,
point IS mggered even m contexts ul wknch ~t could not t>e gc:~eratetf w A ~ I
mrphcature vla the Gnccan ppoqt-propos~tlotrdn r e c h ~ ~ r tAt
n . tEu5 porxit cve n o
longer l-rave a GGI, b i ~at DI, chdracten~edby the los\ ofthe nonde~cl.~ab~htv~tv
feature. For consider the 'tmplrt ature' ~tanccs m hnguisuc cc'lnteut (sily, at
the sub-sententral level) where it couM not 1.i~gencr~tedma tbc C'J ~ C C , U I
mechatusm. In s~icha context ~t mses only bec aise there rr t crnvenboo
assoclatmg it t~ the f o ~ mof war& that happens to be. used. Were a not for
i\ triggered by a rertars
the coxiventloli ofnse m nrtue of w h ~ c hthe n~ll>lrcature
form of words, ~twould not be generated, In such a context. It follcrws t l ~ ~tnt ,
such a context, the 'mn~phc~turc'c'ul be detx hed by cll,z~grrlgthe foml of
words ttrat
It is no loirger 'nondctdd~able'

Nondetachability charactemes corrversational linplicatures k~urtlirre 1s an exr.cptn~n:the ~xclplicntures which arise from the "maxim of maruler' are dctacl~~blr.
V s Gazda notes, 'to r e d off irn--glkatures C1.e. clcfiult lnrplicaturusl f ~ o t ntllc terrlaxltic ~ntrrpret.t-tion of the sentence (i.e. the proposrtlon it expresses) would be m~possiblc,rtrlce miriv chii;.rent
sentences can express a glven proposition and 1-ruxiy crT tbcse will not rwntain rht- scalar llent atid tllus
riot carry tile im-plicature' ((.;az&r ry,/y: j t i ~ .

One might object that dehult impiicatures, thus understood, are nothing
other than Grice's conventional irnpllcatures. But that is not so. What
distinguislles cor~versationalinlplicatures fiom conve~itionalinlplicatures,
according to Crice, are the two properties of noridetachabllity and cancellability. A conversationd implicature can always be denied, cancelled or
defeated, wllile this is not the case for conventional implicatures arid other
aspects of serxlantic content. Since default conversational implicatures are
still carlcellable (defeasible), they remain distinct fiorn coliventiond implitliey do not possess a high degree of nondetachability.
catnres, even ttlo~~gli

3. From pragnatics to seniantics

U\mg the notion of 'default unphcature' the hivo observahons we started from
can be accounted for The detbult linplicatures are not conscrously avdable
because they result from a 'cryphc and heunsttc procedure', not fiorri a
riiacropragrntrc uiGrence conducted at the personal level; and tliey can arise
locAly beca~itethey are not generated through a global inference usmg as
prerru\s tlie Kxci t h t the speaker h a sad that p, I>utAre automahcally triggered
bv c ertatn e.iprr.\siom d u m g the oilltrre processing of the utterance
In re~elttwork, several .jemaslticlsts-most prominentIy Fred Landman
(aooo) and C;enri'iro Chlerch~a((.-004)-have endorsed the rlotjon of a
JeK~ultr~11pIic~~t~rre
(as opposed to die clx,ucal, Cncean i~otionof an
rrnpllcuure) Thev l-rave put forward detailed proposal\ regdr~lingthe paradigm cn\e ctal,u rrz~plicature\ Both Chltrchia and Lanclrlian reject what
Landsnarl caUs 'the C;rice~n Root'. the idea that the scalar operation that
u t the grammar, wlzere the
denvcs the ilplrcattrre operatemon the o ~ ~ t p of
output of thc g a n ~ r ~ iisa rthe proposltron expres\ed by the ~ornpleteuttcrance fristead, they hold that the default ~mpllcature(or at least, the "ore' of
thc ~mplicatllre)\s derlved at the edrlrest level in the grammatical denvatton
ot the sentence ciscerteci where an appropriate .icale 15 av'tdable' (Landmm
2000 379) As Ch~crch~a
p~ltsit, 'rr~~pIIcat~~res
are not computed u j e r trtithcondrttonr ot (root) sentellies havt, been figured out, they are computed
plxae by phrase ui tandem with tr~ith-cond~horis
(or whatever coniposit~onal
senantics computes)' (Ch~ercha2004. 40) Thcy are 'mtroduced locally and

projected upwards m a way that rmrron the sta~idarclserllanhc recur\lor~'

(ibzd.)
In Landman's fkriework, a rri~rrrer~~l
(or driy otlrer scalx term) rs a "cdar
trigger', that is, rt is associated w t h a scde of altcrna~lvesthat 1.1 exploited rrl
generating default irnphcatures. The imphcaturer (or rather, therr " ~ o r c 'are
)
budt fro111 that scale, as soon
~oc\zble rn the grurrirrzntzral ilcnvtrtlon oj drc
,entenre, by negatmg the ]tern\ orr the scale that art rtror~ger ( 'oxlvdcr, Ccw
example, sentence (ga)
(ja)

Bill believes that there were fiwr boys at the party.

We first denve the inlyhc'iturc-ctrre (.ic)

sentence (jb):

dt

the levd of the e~nbcdtfed

(jb) There were h u r buys at the p w t y

(jc) There weren't nlore than G~rrboys 3 t the party

From there on, while coaiposrt~ondlybtrllctrrlg up the nrearlu~gof tlrc

complex sentet~ce(ga), we budd up ,mult,meously its amplrcdturc frcm
the mxnplrcature-core (jc), iidlowmg the semdtltlr composrtlort of (ra)
Thus, &om the level where the core oi' the ~r~ipllc~tllre
IS derrved, cvr
success~velybudd u p the follo~dlrigi)ai~\
that there were four boys at t"n emty
that there weren't more than fiwr boy\ at the party

believe that there were four I>OY\ at the party

believe that there weren't rncxc tbdn htrr boys at the p~rr.)i
Bill believes that there were ii)~lrboy.; at the party
Bill behevec that therc wcrcri't nlore tl1~11four boys at the party
The last sentence couesponcis to a deflatllt rnlpilcature of (ja) r-liar cdnrrot be
generated in the clasnc'+l, (incearl karncworl; W e cannot gerzerate the
scalar mlphcature 'Bill belleve, that there tveren't more thdn 1;)~trboys ,it

The ~ d e tliat
a xliphca~resmay be cor~rp~ited
at tile ptrm~dirvrl nukes 1tshrrt expirclt appearance un
Com&er 1984 663-4 (see also p 089)

tE~c{ ' ~ r t y ' I)

\c,iiu

I I C S , ~ ~ IAI prece
~~

of miirrxn,ltrc>~~
stronger than (j'l) on some

I txe C . J G X ~ihiilg
C
11oLtIs for (oA), wb1~X-Y:by delrl~ilt.~~npjlc
&re\(Gb):

As I;lnrciroiarr poirl tri a x r t , tk~cgiobaI tnetlrc)tl le:rils m rocv vile re in a case like
i l l i s . Wc i : i l l r i c > t gexicratc ( b l ~by
) rregatix~g'3 piece ol'irlfornlation stronger
X O X I Is(:dc.
~
'1'0 LICI'OLIII6. h r t h e SC~J;II-iir~plicature(612) we rnust
tlxari (Oa)
give r i p i h c ' ( ; E ~ C I I , I I I K.oot' 2nd ;LSS~IIIIC"t1111t the (.ore of the il-uplicature is
iierivcd bqjijrrr t i i c iiriivc~s:s:llqti:rr~til.irrc.orrles irrto play. At m e:irly level in
the c:c>nlposition:tI p r o ~ ~ we
s s clerive the pair
x,, b.isseid tirxec g r l s

x,, kicsc~ixior r r iorcqthan three. girls

At: ,r iiihseyucrrt st;ige of the tlcnvaciolr e~ci'yyiwy i s ir~trod~ced
and we get:
(oa) For every boy x,,: s,, kissed three girls
(d)For every boy x,,: x,, kissc(.i1 1 0 t i~*oi.i'ti,alx threc girls

C 'Kc-orrncA,
t11c itiiplic.;ct.trrast h ~ gcx~cr.;rtccl
~s
by the ctrr~rputatiorldsystem of'
grLinmir,r;ir.rcri.i,riti i ~ ~ ~ j ) i i m t ~they
~ r ec.311
s;
defe:;~;ut:Jor c ~ ~ ~ c e lby
le~
311l ,sorts
ot'nie:iris.
Iar C:hls-.rc:lii,n7s fklllle~Ork,sc'ihr tcr~xls;ilnd the L . O I I ~ ~ ~expressior~s
CX
tht
coritrial tlrrrrr :Ire b~ssociaied
with two rnc;u111>gs:the pl;iin rrrcanirig of the
expresson", wtlicli is 1-orllputed in thc rxsud way, at-td its strcnrgtl~ened
(irp~~er--.b~>~ari~luiE}
rlic:uiing whit-li iricorpor;t~cstbc scalar implicature. By
tlvil~nir,rhc stn:~igrher~cti
rllcaning is !>reli*rr-eai;
but the irnplicatures tnay he
carrc:ciic.cl by c i ~ ciirlgr~isticor csrralingrristir context, in kvhicl~case one falls
bac-L 0 1 1 rbc pPairi rrrearling. As irr Id~rr~llrr~an's
kL;rilrc.\vork, the scalar i~r~plic.atlri'i:s, gi-r~c-r~ttetl
by ncg:ttixtg t l ~ citerrrs stroriger on the associated scale (or
rather, the" \we;~.iLcst o f tllosc itcrxis), i1.r-ibnrltoail;rtic-lrlly iritroducecf by the
c-unrg>ratatioriLiisysterrl of g)-;ulllll;ir,a ~ l t their
i
iniroductio~kcakes place as
soon :IS possitrit akkr a sz&r t e n i t enters the cur'ill?ut,rtic,n. As c-ontpositiori
p r o ~ ~ ~ dXIOWTVC*~,
is,
the i i ~ ~ p l i c : ~that
t ~ ~have
e s \leer* locajly irttroduced can
be filtcrecl out. 'l'flr origtrality of l:lxierrhia's position lies in his suggestion
that :;caiar irnplic.:ltlrres arc riot ordy gerickratcd lry rielartlt, bur are also
r~inoa~c,c/
hy dlgtiuiii in ctxrtairl lillg~iistic.i-o~ltcxts..l'he (.ontexts ill question
:ire tlrosc rEi:ia- I;nric.rrnrrier origin;rily c-X~;rractc~ized
: ~ s 'cbntailnient reversing':

negative sentetrces, ariteccdeitts of c orldlt~oxlnls,drill atore gencr'rlly duwn-

ward er-ttarllxtg envrronxnents. In \ucli euvlrorrixlellt\ he ltla~urnearnxtg

~
(w~tlroutthe ~niplrcature) become\ infi,nrtatroxrally strorrger t i ~ a r the
l ~ inl~ilg
strengthened rneanirtg (wrth the u-tiplicnture), \o that r i l a ~ l l t ~ ~ ~tltc
phcatu~ewould lead to a weaken~ngof rnforinatron Ltxiterrt I'he ~iefault
generatmn and-sernoval of sc~l'u~mpircatures therefore moucs, wlthln
grarrunar, the Grscealr search fbr trrmmal mfi,mzattvene\\ W e nt'iy perhaps
t h k of the Gncean pat-proposltiond rriectiarnsn~as hemg ttte evolu~oxlwklrch Chrert 111a clc\ci~t~es
It a as
ary source of tlrc granunat~cal~~~ecliarr~srn
if a pragrnatlc rnecha~usnllzad been irtc orporated lrito tEtc deagr~of grdrrlrndr
to mahe ~tmore eificrerit."'
bverl though 11 presumably cvolved from n yragm,rtlc nxzc h,mlsnn itlvolvlog the Grlcean rtraxm of quantity, tire cielult generation of sc J a r 1mp11111 the hll-blooctctl seuse. ,is hotll
catLires IS not ttsck a pragtnatr~n~ecl~ldnr\~n
Idandmartarrd Chlerchi,~mahc clear, ~t belongs to the cox~t~~~tt,rtion.iI
system
of garrrt~~ar.
In t l ~ arespect Chlerchla's mci I aritlrrr#rxr'sprc)po.i,rls are unrrldr
to that put forward byJon,ttllan C o h e i ~ln his c ~ s l yx,s'iult on (;nc c Shortly
dftt"r (;rice dehvered the W1111;lxn J,rrnc\ I cc trrrta, ('ollen ~ n a ~ ~ ; . ehis
ti
'Conversntional l--lyytotlxcs~s\ctn the grouncfs that IC c'ii~not account for
embedded ~mnplic,tturec;and he ofiijred h ~ own
s
' S ~ r ~ ~ i a n tFiypotl~er~s'
~cal
as a vlahle alterriatlve (Coheir 1971). 'l'hc Conversat~orb,llt Iypothesls says
that the rrnplr~aturesassctclated wrth tlre log~calcorinct tlvcs result hoxn a
convcnahond~~tifcrence,\vEtde Cohcxt'j alterriative 'Serrlarltlcal Flypothesw' says tliey are part of the mearung of the cotlnectlves (',ohen WAS swellaware of Gnce's c ntenon, Mod~fiedOccaxn'c K a ~ o rwluckt
,
cay$ tlrdt semes
should not be multlplled wrthout rlccc\slty. Btlt he ttiolrdit i t was posslble
to accribe ~~rlgie,
unequivo~dtlrleanlng to the log~calconnectives, by
treatlng certaxn aspect? of that nngle rneanlng as carrccllable I'lrus ttutb
Chce and Colzert ascnhe a sxlide xneanlng to the connc~tlves,m cox~tornl~cy
to Modifird Occ,~rn's Kamr According to Gnce, that medxlrng can be
contextually erln~hecias a testlit of a praglil'ztlc ~nferencc,, ~ c t o r d u ~tog
out a ciefeas~l~le
aspect of
Cohen, ~t caxr be ~mpovenshecdby c~~ncelliiig

'" Levmson si%cidatw that such a mnt:chail~srn wa\ 1ndct:ti rlerdcd t c ~ovtxonie \&at he calls the
'encoding bottleneck'. 'The ,actual process of piloneat art~culauon',lic says, '1s a bottlenec:k III 3 system
that can otherw~senin about four tinles ijster' (Lcv~rr~on
2000: 6). 'I'ht: SC)~ULIOIIto the bottleneck is this:
'tinid a way to piggyback lr~enningo n top of-the riir;~ning'[zhid.)

hierclza as putting forward an

ac~ountwhich, ltke Cohen's, 1s based on the acceptance of defeasrble smantic
features Such arl account IS sernantlc, riot pragnahc
At this pollit ~t is wort11 reflecting on what, rn the overall process of
zriterpretlng an utterance, drsmpishes the mechaiums or processes that are
'pragnahc' from those tliat are 'sserriaitic'.
A pxadrg11atrc~.1ly
pragmatrc process or mechanism such ds the Gncean
possesses the following
generation of (clasncd) conversatronal r~nplican~res
tedtures
o

It appeals to extrdmgmst~cinforxnat~on-facts regarding the s~tuatlonof

utterance or the ortgolng conversation, background knowledge, etc
It rs 'top down\at?ther than 'bottom up', that rs, it is not tnggered by
something hrigmst~c-sonie aspect of the lmgmst-tc sign~lberng processed -but takes place m order to make sense of the cornmunicatfve
act perfc)metl by the speaker {Note that thrs contrast a not the same as
the prevrouz one h process rmy Invoke ex~alm~rstlc-contextudrnfontiatron wh~lebeing hri~rst~cally
tr~ggeredm a typicdly bottomup r r ~ ~ n n cIndemcal
r
resolution 1s a c a e u~ point. the procesq of
corltext~xalivas\igmiig a value to dn indemcd I\ tnggered by the
m the sentence, yet extrallnglllstlc rnforoccurrexrce of &at ~ndes~cal
mahon 1s cleaxly and cruci,dly irivolved )
It r j globdl r~tlilert l i a ~
locd, 1 e ,~tn not pdrt ofthe stepmse process of
cornposl~lortdlydetemnlng a sernanrlc. ~rlterpretatlontbr the senterice, but take3 place afier the global interpretation of the sentence
has been c dc~~ldted
It I\ trancpxrent (%v,~rl,ible')to tlie users ofthe lanwge because it n a
matter of 'spe,~ker'snieatung', and speaker's meamng IS essentldy overt
~n die iense glcfised by Gr~cemd 111s followers. the corivenatronal
prot,%oiints r r w t be consciously aware of what the speaker means,
vvhrle tliev t1et.d riot be cctnsc~ouslyaware of the gramrriat~cdmeanrng
oi tlie C ' X ~ ~ ~ S S I Oused,
I Z S nor of the processes through whch the memng
or the whole n deterrmned on the basrs of the meamngs of the parts
The output rt delivers ennches the Interpretation of the utterance rn an
optror~dlnimrier, thnt 1s. there are contexts m w h c h the s i n e form of
words would carry t l ~ eplam, unennched mterpretation.

The default generation of sc,d,lr mipltcacures described by C:li~rrchlad l ~ l

Landrnan (the 'DCSY', for short) possesce\ clnly the last of. tltzre featur cr,
Tbts 1s not suffic~entto nialce ~t a prag11iatic process Ex&alixiguxst~cr&rrnation plays no role--~t only comes Into play to defeat the deg~ultinlphcature or to reinstate ~t (to 'freeze' ~ t )m cdse of deGult rerxrov,d "
DGSI 1s clearly bottorri up ~t n tnggerecl by the occurrence o f s c x ! ~renns
~
m the sentence. It takes plate locdlly arid .;nb-personally ,t\ p,~rto f t11e
the (default) truth-cont%t~oinof he
composit~ondprocesc of deten~l~nlrlg
sentence Those fedtures, and espec~nllvthe fact that a IS l~ng~~?lr\tic.illcr
triggered and autoniatic (context ~lldeperldent),put the L)(';hI ccjuarcly on
the semantic s~de,despite the optional jdcfea5lhle) ~ h a r ~ ~oft ethr
r o~lltput
In t h ~ regard
r
the DGSI 15 a b ~lt~ h ethe process of i ~ ~ d e x i cresolut~c>ra
~il
That
process too pocseses onlv orre out oi LEI^ five teatures whit h c I I J L ' ~te1-17~
~~
paradigm~trcallypragnians: processes A\ we Iiavc. z~oticed111 pdssrng, the
process of lndelilcal resolut~ona hng~i~st~cally
tr~ggered(bottom up) I t tskrs
place locally and sub-personally m the denvatiori of the \entetice9\ truth
corid~tions.It 1s nldnddtorv rather rharl optional (I e we h t ~ vto~arsrgrr 3
contextual value to the mdex~cal,xn vlrhri' oZ the rrder ofthe I,~i~gra~gc~)
I hc
only thing that 1s prapiatlc llere u the fact that contextual, extrdilmgtrr\tni
infon~iatloois appealed to u l abcrgIinlg 'a valrtc LO an rndcxrc,il
'Table 5.1 s u m a n y e s the sn~~ilant-res
&indto~ltrd'it:,l)etwee~~
the L ~ X Z C '
processes we tisve bee11 t3Ikllig ,.;bout the C;rlcc,txl post p x o p < ~ s ~ t ~ c ) ~ ~ ~ l
fiche

Table 5.1. The similarities and corltrast-s between t l ~ eGricem post-"-propnsitiorilxl>~~d

mecharism, the default calcdatio1.l of scdar irnpl~cattrres,arid irldexlcal resolrrtron
"-

GPM

Extralinguistic
infonnauoo?

Availabiiitv!

yes

Ya

l'ersirrrd- Levcl

Global!

'Top-

Optional?

down?
Yes

ye\

ve9

" This ought to be q~ialitied.In Cbierchia's accomlr the extrAnpistic corrtrxt ertters the picture ax
an earlier level: the relevant alremativer are 3 corriezru~llysprafird iubsc.t of the alternauvcs induced by
lexical scales.But this is only an addition to or rclinmerzt 0x1 a l):~sicrnecllstlism &at is islot &t~ciairient:~Uy
context-sensitive (the way, e.g., irldexicd rclsolunon is). ltliiependerit of context, &re langtlage syscenr
gives us both the (lexical) scales and the meails for xeneratitlg detjult imphcahires h r r l the scales. We we
that system in a colltext-sensitive manner by ignoring ccrwi~raltenratives and focusrng on otht.r\.

rxrc-t hdri~srri (( AWivl)

ta?t

(1 X 3 \ 1 ) ,

trnstmeii ns ~?ar,rilrg~l,~t~cally
prtlgmatlc, the. default
LGarldrllz*md C h e r c b ~ ~ l

SC.II,IL i~npi~catllrc\
desctrbrd b j
" U t dI I I L ~ C ~ ~ L ' rc501~1t1011
L~
(IR)

t ~ i ~ i t r c r r (r 3 i

4. I%rclgr~m~~rac
irxlplicatit>n\of 4~ll'r-locutlonaryacts?
i",vcn choirgh ri-ir c.Xassica1 Griccan ;~ppro:tchcsrlnot I-randlc t.rnbedded impEic":~tiircs,c v h k thr semantic. :rypro;tc.lr citxr, trrw rrray still itttelnpt to
acx:trunc iibr rIlervr i x j pragrl~atic(rvhcr t h r l in a st~mailtic.)franie.cvork; by
givirrg try corrre ,~spc.ct:of dre Cinze'rn picturt~. For example, one may
ccmstrirc: the r.c.Irv;rr~iIrr~plicaturcsas j>rlip;~il;iticirrlplicatiol~sof sornethillg
ot1rc.r tl.r,irr ;i st:irrd- d o n e speecl-r a c t .
ILci-;iii tinc ,ixrti (;rii.c type ot';irgtltncrlt prit ii,r.\v:ird hy botli l>ucrot 2nd
Cokrcr-I:
(.a)

4 :orrvcrsatioii,ll in~plicaturesare pr'q<wiatic cc,rrseiluellces of arr act of

s,rylrxg sc rroctl~ir~g.
(b) A n irc-t of i;,iyirlg sorsscttlirrg c,in 1-w pc~r-fc>n~rcd
orlly by nleails o f a
ccinr~dctcbiittcr,rrlce, riot by rrieans of 2x1 uriasscrtecf clause S Z I C ~2s a
ijlsjurict or clie drlrecedent of a condition:d.
(c) 1-1t-rlce.,no iirrplrc-aturecar1 be gear xvrzltecl :it tPlc sub--Eoc\ltiorl31?iti1:level,
r.e. ;it t l ~ cIcvel of' a n ur~assertt.ticb;rtsst. suc.11 as 'L di:jurlct o r the
'rriiccedrait oi',r iortditiori,il.

(I) hy givirrg J xvc.,iker il~tcrpretatit,ilof the notion of'

'"i;iylng9.0 1 1 T ~ J C i~iie~~~rct:itjort,
( ) l i c a 's:I~s' (tbottgh o ~ i e
clues riot 'assert')
strn,cthixri: by u~tc.rir~g
a disjt~rlctor tllr :rniecc~dentof a corrditionnl, and
t i n t : ' s:i\;ixlg tvlldt C I I I ~says rn:ry carry c-orlvc"rs;itiorialirltp1icature.s. Alterriativc*iy, i C tint, $tic-hs to the strctlrg ititcrpr-etatiori cii- tlic notion of 'saying',
:I<-e:onirrrg
1 0 W I I I C ~one floes riot "say' ,irrythiiig by ~ l t t e r i a~ disj;_turict
~g
or the
aa~tec-i:derrtoi'a corrilltion;tl----if; thereli)rr, crne accepts (b)---&elk orle may
rqjcc-k (,I) :rrrci clirjirr tl.rat conversati0~~1
irr~pjicaturcsneed riot be praprrtic
~niidicatiorssof";iri ;rcr of siiyir!y (i11 tlti: strong sense) hilt ruay also be
pr.~grri:itici~irpllc;itlorisof an act of \represerrtixrg' or- "lescr-ibing'--1vhere
rcprescrxtir~gor ciescribir~gare things ttlr;~t wn I)c riorle by rrrearrs of an
iin:lsscrtrd ciauce ~ c l asi a cli!jjtruct or t h e .rntec:edrnt of ;L coi~diti~~rlnl.
I t rs p m ~ \ . ~ti(i ~rqci-t
li~

T h e llne I llave juft de\crrhed (rejecting (.L)or (b), cieprmci~xlgo n the

lnteqretdtion t l i ~ is
t grven of tile not1011 o f 'saylr~g')1s basically that taben by
Italp11 W,~lE\er111 LII\ reply t o ('ohen'\ crltrcl\rrl o i ( ; r ~ t .(W,dkt.r 1 ~ 7 5 ) .
W ~ l h e drgries
r
t h ~ the
t wn,~<sertcci,irltec edent of a coridrtloxuli5 u t v e ~ t h e l e z ~
uttered whcii the conci~tiorralI \ utteristl, and 'in t~x~yl~c~atllre,
he \ays, is 3.
pragrmtlc ~ ~ l ~ p l l c , t o
tf~ drt
o n tltteranc e .ict- -not IW es\arrly of a full bbclcted
~ l i o c u t l o r i ~ ~o r veberl locut~ortarya<t l i e cvntcs
['l'hc (-:onversational t iyp~)tl~esisJ
holds that by a pa-ticul-ir utterance or1 a p;trticul;tr
occasion the spe:tker (-:\il
coirvey rlrurt. than Iris utter;tncc strictly nrc;ms tlirortgh
relying on a gcller:d recognition oi'<;nie's Co-c~perarivcI'rinc~ple. It i s tklcrefore
concerneil wit11 litterances, whetller- tiley col~stit~tte
self-standing cpcerh acts or
nor; an utteralncr o i a suborciiriate clause, as in the :rnrrcedent oi;l cc>ndition:~i,i s still
an Litterar1c.e. m d tirerefore I X I c~ ~~i i v e y~o~rvcrsatiorl;iU~
ITIOfC" t'liari it 1iter:illv
rrrcal:s. I t rny corlvcy, fitr example, a fi~rtl-icrcontlrtion on wlliclt the zoxiseiptcr~t
is to be take-n c o drpcriti. (Walker 1975: 151)
Consider (:ctheir's origirral example:
(7) fi tile old Klr~ghas (died of A i-icdrt ,rrt'kck 'uici
tllerr l or71 wdl be qrnte cot~terrt

;
I

Krpubltc ha\ t-ict.11det l.~recl,

It involve\ ~m rtllpll~'iture t ~ te11'1por'iI

f
orele~5t'trid~rtDy ,~cconlltedibr- by
;~ppealrngto the sub-max~inof orcte~lrnec\,lxrt oile th,rt, 111 tlrr\ p'brtic-ular
exanlple, ,%n\e\ioi'rllv at the Level of tlte ,ultecedent of tlie condit~orral
(Torn wiU be contcrtt, or) (:ollcrt'\ st enilno, c>nly ~f the King tlit~dhejt~rea
fXeptrb11~wa\ ticclarcci ) If W,llker I\ nght, tl~li,\IlouicJ rlot h e a prohlcrn
Tile I I I J X I I E ~of i)rcierIil~e\~
arg~,lltly cic~rl'~nd\
t t ~ t 1,11 r e p r e \ r r ~ t l r ~ogr d e
s i n b i n g \eyuences of events ( w h e t h c ~'l~scrtivelvo r riot), orte refr,itn\ ti-on1
reprecentlng tLorn ti? 3 dl1fererlt cjrdc.1 thxn the order rn w l i ~ ch rhe \peaher
wants the ,tcirecwe t o tlirrlh o i tilent '1s h,~vingtaker1 pldce (vvi~ctherthc
addres\ce'a 'tlirtthing' le\elf 15 a \ \ c ~ t i v ct'rl~nktt~g
o r niere clttertarn~~ig)if
the spe.&cr wants the dddre\see to tlunk of A ,xs 11.1~111gtaken p b c c hc4?)rr U,
h e should. tty vlstue of the maxim, fl,trne h ~ descrrptlon
s
Irr such '3 wav tii,rt
the replesentatlon of A precedes the rcpresenratloii of I I , that IS, In sucl-t rl
w ~ that,
y
t t i the ~ J I S L O U T \ ~ , A IS ~lztrod~l(-ed
beiore 23. In tllrs way tiit speaker
\pdres the hearer unnece\sar)i efforts Now tlir, c orlstrrtlnt 15 a cc~ri\trd~nt
or1
h o w tei-tiporaliy orclered event\ are repre\er~tc.d or cleccr~becl; '1nt-l \rich
represerllatlctlr/des~ript~orl
oT\eyuerlces of event5 lrray sitrely t,the place 111

the arrtecedent of conditionals, or in unasserted clauses nlore generally.

Thiu 111 (7)the axltecedciit contams a descnption of two events. the
King's death, and the declar~tloaof a Kepubhc. The speaker does not nssert
that tf~oseeverits took place: he speaks conditionally. But the everits are
noiietheless described, and the sub-maxm of orderliness therefore applies.
In V I ~ U Pof the prerumphon that the speaker respects the m&xIms, h ~ s
descnb~ngthe two eveiits In a certam order suggests that, when m a h g
the ,uppo\itlorr c(rrresp(>nd~l~g
to the antecedent of the con&tional. the
hexer IS to tllirik of t l l o ~events ds having taken place m that order (Or at
least, tlnis sugges;tron wr11 be conveyed if tile tenkporal order of the events 1s
communicatioxtdy relevnnt.) Uttenng the mtecedcrit therefore cames a
conversatrrox~ali r n p h ~ ~ t uwhrch
rc
erlncfles the content of the supposition
the hearer is 11ivitcdto rrlbe, the ~mphcatureprov~des,as Wrrlker puts ~ t'a,
further cooht~onon wblch the corisequent is to be taken to depend'. Or
cons~dera bel~etreport such as 'Paul beheves that the King has died and that
a K e p ~ ~ b has
l ~ cbeen declared'. The speaker's describing the two events in
tlut order SuggesLs that, a( tording to Panl, they took place m that order
I he speabcr docs not assert that they took place in that order (riot even that
tl~cvtook place). be reports Paul', beliefs Shll, his describirlg the events in a
cert~rr~
order rn repcrrtlng Paul's behefi carries an imphcature relatlve to the
tcrnpordl o~dcnugof the events In F'atll's belie&
In thi\ way, cvrth little e&rt (111 order to m&e the proposal more
precise), we cat1 account for *ionie of the problemat~ccases. But i t is not
Lertdltl that the \trdtegy I h,we outhned (foflowmg Walker) can be
geuerrilized 'rrtd accourit for dl the cases. In particular, it is unclear flow it
worllci apply to sc alar mlpl~cat~irec
The scalar reasonmg appeals to the Idea
thu the speaker respects the n l m n i of quanhty, that is, giveb as much
as poss~bte;now ~t n f a from obvro~lsthat the notion
(relevnnt) ~nfom~atroxt
of 'glvlrig ixkbmlatlon' c,an be i~~vorced
horn that of assertmg (or &om
s d a n~)t?on~).
as the strategy requlre5.
In sorne cases, adrnlttedly, the strategy can be ~nvokedin deahng m t h
dleged scalar ~~nphcatures.
For example, when the scalar term receives focal
stress, the irriplxc.lture rrtay be construed as ans~ngas a pragmahc irnphcatlon
i ~ oof
t the act of ascertlng or gvmg mfomatlon, but of the sub-locutlonary
act of stress~tga partzctrlar word (something that may happeii in an embedded
clause). By putting a heal stress on a word, one ~mphesthat the alternatives
salient contrast set do not apply, that is, that
to that word lri a context-t~aUy

the result of substituting them for the word beanrrg focal stress would rxot be
acceptable.12If tlie word is a scalar term, the sailerlt alternatives will typrcallv
be the items on the associated scale, or perhnps the ~temson the upper pm
of the associated scale. The re~ulttrlgrmpl~rdturewdt therefore luob v e n
much hke a scalar ~mplicature,even 11: the rrrecharricm through WXIICJI 11: 1s
generated is quite dlgerent." Be that as ~tmay, the strategy I have desc nbed,
followmg w,&er, unprob~eri~dt~ca~~y
applres to scdar unphcatures onlv rn
that son of case. It is unclear tbat ~t can acconnt fbr the cnries rn w111sh 3
scdar imphcature 1s in the $cope of an operator wthout the sca1~rword
belng ctre~sed.

5 . 'Local' speech acts?

Alternatively, we can mantain tbat c onv~n,tt~on;il
uripllrature, a e pragmahc implications of a full-blooded speech act, while rejectlrrg the ~ l , ~ r n i
that no such speech act is performed by urtcbnnga d~yunctor the arltrccdexxt
of a conditional On th:s vlew the sex~~entr~lj
pdrts of a ~ o n ~ p l sentt,xrc.tb
ex
,ire
used to perfon11 speech acts of clmr own Just 2s rile coxrrplex serrterric 15
built up horn its parts, tftt- speech act rt serves to p e h n r r 1s 2140 h u d ~LIP
from the local speech acts \s~l~icl.x
the srntent~,liyarn of' the iorr~ple\
sentence are used to perfun11
The best example of tlrat sort oi ilrovc n prov~cledby tfiv cpeech act
theorehc malyses of corrd1t:on~l.iput forliv;trd 111 the early ~970s(cec e g
Ducrot 1972, Mdckie r973). Accordmg to these ,in,zlyres, a cuizcf~aor~d
sentence 'If P, then Q' may be coxi\trued 2s servmg to perform a cornpic*~
speech act conslstlag oftwo locd speech acts a ilnt speech dct wvl~erebyrlze
speaker makes a qupposlhon. 2nd a second speech act whereby, III the scope
of that suppositton, the spedker assem sonleth~rtg I'he first speech act xc
n p r C n m ? ~ A by azer,fig 'If
I?', axid tlle second59eecll act bY ~tt-mlsr:C, t""""
h
Y""'"""'""
1

consequent In the context created by the fint speech act. In tlus frarrlewulk,

" Ths is a simplification. The expressIan ux thcc~sneed riot he the word actudy bearing scr-essbut
rnay be a larger constituent contain~ligit.
I think the inlplicatures generated by putnng h c a i srrcss on a -word--wlrether scdar or riot-- -arc.
best heated as convenrional implicatures.

16~2 ' i <)<;,8,;

' spi2jz4.'+1~ c ; l $

ncxhlng pri-vcrrts rlre firsr speech act, pedbrmed by rrreering the antecedent,
fronri c-;irayirlgcc>rlvursation:d inlphiicanlrcs oftlie star~cla-dsort.
-l'lr~s str;iicgy 114: chat ivllich llatj Ireen used by Stalniiker to solve the
~vojccricsrr pn4"btcnr fix prcsirpposicit>r.rs witl~irl a pr:rgnracic Frameivork
(%,if u;ki:x r 974:sc:c ,iisc, Kartt~~rirtt
1974). Consider a corijunctivc statement
'P aalii Q', wkierc- ( 2 prew~oe"". Rlr-horrgl~titc g>resrtppositiorrsof the
~ ? ; ~;we
t s norarznily irrhel-ited hy tlic whole, thcre art. cases in which the
ctmlpica scritexlc-c 'I\:lncl Q' cvJII riot prrsrtpposc, 1<--- h ; , r esarllple if P itself
e~xt;lilsVi (K:rrtta~rc:rr 1973). I Iwv can we account tbr that hct? St:d~l;lker
i . ~ f j b tni i t " fi,IEowrng c.splanatic>x~.
Tlrcb spe;rki.r who says '1' arrd Q'-first ~zsserts
I\c*rtd tlirn 1i5:s:scrrx(0.1:or (.Jtc:, IJresupptrsc.R is irr ~t tc:, be assertyable only in a
contc'st i r r wllicll 1% is assirsnvd to hoW. Ntsw tlrc speaker's asserting
tJ cla;lrrj:cs the context by atltling Ptro the conlrriur] grornrd, in snc-h a way
char thc coxisecjixcriirs of I>, irlcllidixlg I<, wJi themselves be part of the
ccrrrlarroii grcrtrrld wlreri tile cortsecjrrcrrt, Q,i s nttt'sr(l. I t fol'ol/owsthat 'P and
(2' \\ill i>r:isscri:ri-iie riot urdy iri cz>ntcxrsin wlriclr I?, is antcc.edently assun~ed
i o hoici, 1711t l r l :illy (.011tt"xt (silic-tx the prcsuppctsioai rionnn.Uy camed by (;! is
\ir~tcrxi:rliy' s;irrsfiec.i hy the tirst sur!jirxli~t in tlrc corrlplex sentence 'F' aarlcl Q'):
irci1t.c -1":uitl 6>', corrmry to 'Q', rdoes n o t presup17c~ethat R (i.e. it is not
';asacrt:~biccrariy III CcrrlLCxts in svhich R 'is :r?;sirrrrccl to irold').
StdJli,ik~r~ , " ~ vthe
c s same expl;i~latiorrk?)r coritiitii.i~~al
sentences irr which a
. i ~ ~ > ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ofthc
x s k i cconseyuunt
rz~n
is irltc.rrially s,:~tistioiiby tile antecredetlt, as
in 'H"li'r~irr-i.
EXXS A king, the king of Fraa~~tis bait!'. X ierc too he describes the
cliscoeirsc: a?;irlvolvllig two s p e t ~ l acts:
l
a first s p ~ ~ ( i1c.t
: h ~ f ' s ~ l p p ~ ) s j and
tio~~,
PI act of asscrtiori ptv-firrnted irt thc tcrril)or:Iry ct.rtItcTlt creattd by the first
1
be cxrcniictl to disjunctions
speech :;it t. /'hcS:II~I~"so1-1:oI'31iaIysis ~ ~ 1 1e;~siiy
sircii ; i s '1iitiie.r I.r:rrx.c.: i s a Kepulilic, or tlre XCrrig oTL:mnc-e is so shy tl~atone
never \ecs h i ~ nin p?h1ic3.
Wc c-cruiii ciiJ4apt this ai~alysist(.i o u r r~xaxtrjriesinivolving embedded irtrpiicaturci. 1:,rc-ccE wid) a ~lifijcilltc:ise S U C ~ I2s 'Jotl~t
1'1;~sfive or six children',
wlrere rPrc i~vtritiy-iniplicattirrs Edi \vit11i~1tlic scope of' tile di?junctjor~,we
rriay rergrie tiiar, jrrsl :is '[I" :inti (2' i:orrsists oftwo such-cssive assertions in tile
St~1r~;xlicnri~irr
Iiarilework, ' P or (2' also cc,i>sists o i L ~ Z I Osticcessive assertions.
The ciiffercrace hctwccn 'P and (2' anti '.Por Q' is that the first sequence of
.tssertitrr~sis coxyuni:.trve, while t11e secc~ndseqtrcrrc-e is disjunctive. 3'0 say
t1t;lt ;r sccjxrerrcc. of ttvc., assertions is disjur-rcrive is to s;~ythat the second
. ; first, ; ~ r l c lis prvsentc-cl ;is hoidirlg just irl case the first
,tsrertioil c l ~ ~ ; f i i i i etlrcs

EMUI:.I)l)EI)

IMl'LlCA'I'Ullt-S

163

assrrtiori turns out. to be fabe. '1' or (2' tE~erelorelllearls sornethirig like: 'I>;
but if not-P, then Q'.
It is ensy to check that, ort sad] ;m analysis, wi, c:rr~ 1i;lntIle etnbe~!iiiezl
irnplicatures. The speaker first asserts that Jolrn II;~s five ct~ilclrerr,thereby
conveyrllg the ~nrphcaturethat he has no Ini>ret h ~ nfive l;hen, hy \,~y~rrg;
'Or he hac six', he zset-ts tliat, lfJohn does rrot tl'ive ex,lc tly five chddrerr, Ire
bas slx (thereby corrveylrtl; the ~ m p h ~ a t t t r'110
e lliore t l m ux')
'The problem wit11 tli~sarial.lyu\ w tltat it blur\ '8x1 lntuttlve cintlnctiorr
between a disjur~ctivesequence of assertions, hence6jrth tc) be called :i
"disjunctive assertion', and the assertion of a diqunction; a cJistirtrtion
analogous to that between a conmtionrrl ssertiorl (e.g. 'If you are hungry
~
As a r ~
there are cookies in the sideboard') and the sssertiott o t ' ; corldiLiol~al.
ewmple of disj~rncriveassertiox~,consider:
J o h n has tive children. O r he has six.
John has five children; or he has six.
John has five chiliireil, or six.
I-Icre, clc,rrly, first assertion to rile c'tfei-t tltat JOAII ~ , L Sfive ih~idreilis
followed by a second Acsertion, intro~lluc~d
by 'or'. 'Or' rrtdlc,cte\ that the
second assertloll is an alter~~~ittve
to the lint assertroir. 'Tiin, C'ornuher
sngge5teci (1982 88- go), can be cached out by repre\cnt~rrgthe content o f
tire cecor~dassertion d~ a c~ridltio~ial
wh~w
mtt-c ederit 15 tllc rregntlorr oFtE~e
first 'istertlon (1.e the negatlon of what ~taueit\) '*Si, h r \o good 13ut when
I s,ty 'John has five or XI\ chlldr~rl',~t (toes not iectii rtidr 1 h r r Ascrt that
c 1 ~ 1 5SIX.
John I-ian five ch~ldrenand tlren a w r t that rrr the appo\ltc t L ~ sIlc
This ex'unple Ir tnosr naturdly ~lnderstuod'1s the Ilsserhotl t r C ;I (\iisgle)
tfisjunctivc prt-rposition--a re~idirlgwl~ichcar1 be ~n:ttle explicit by llsir~g
'either. . . o r . . . ': 'EitherJohn bas five drildren or hc has six'. 'This (azlrmt 1)e
interpreted as a disjunction of assertions; h r the speaker a t n o yc-iirtt :merts
. ~ vely start, the pr-oposition that Johrr 11;~s
that John has five children: f r o ~ lthe
Gve ctlildrerl is preserrted as one of the disjtincts, only the tlisjunction bei~rl;
frotlr
asserted. Yet this does not prevertt the e~nbecldedrxai fly rrt~pllcdt~rre
arising.

'4
Com~~ller's
strggmon inriccms cliqunnctwc (or, as lie put tt, 'd\e~-~i~~tirvve')
q~w.~tlo,zr.but l i i \ propos~i
easliv ~cnc~r~il~zrs,
lie hlniseif points clut (C:oniciIicr rt18:: <iq 101)

1x1 responw to thls abjecaon, one nvght grant the Intuitive dlstinctlon
between a digunct~veascernon and the assemon of a &sjunction (or between a conditional aser-tlon and the assertion of a conchtlonal), whde
holdu~gthat diyunct~ons,l ~ k ecotldltlonals, can thenaelves be analysed 1x1
speech-ac t thrt)retlc terms It a true that, when we aswrt a disjunction, w e
do not separately ascert either the disjuncts. But the consequent of a
concf~tlori;llis not r ~ n l l yasserted e~ther,and that fact does not rule out a
speech-act-theoret~t andysrs accordxng to whlcl.1 the consequent 1s locally
asserted, that 1s. as.s\erted111 the local context set up by the suppositron of the
arite~edentThe I;;une sort ofanalysw in tenils of local speech acts and local
contexts rn~ghtbe ~ t t e l ~ i p t efor
d d l s j ~ ~ i c t ~ oan sd, for complex utterances
generall~
13ut tlm w~lltlot do 1.t we treat atly ofthe d~qtlnctsm 'FltherJohrr has five
chrldrerl ctr he 11'~sSIX' AS locally acserted, J.S suggected, then it is clear dlat the
riobon of iocd asserttori we use is 11ot tlir full-blooded speech-act-tl~eoret~c
notioir of assertion, but A sexmntlc surrogate T h ~ s1s son~ethulgthat has
been itldependently noted in conriect~on~ v i t hthe Stalnakenan dnalvsis of
rond~tionds I he Dut rot arid Mdckre, Stalilaker 2nd hls hllowers say that
wheli wc 'rssert a c ondltio~~al,
we assert tile consequent in the local context
created bv uttcrrrig the a~ltecedelitAs L a n h i a n eenlphas~zed.however, the
'local tonteut' In tvlllctl ttldt d~sertlolltakes place is not d real context
7 he context nt wlvc h we evalurtte tlie assertton ofthe consequerlce 1s not the actual
speeih context, hut a context wiuch denves from the actual speech context b\
xd&tlg the mtecederit rhrs context rs rdled die loccif ~onttxt But of course the
l the local coiltext, and the local context tsn't an actual
cotlseyuent t~n'tu s ~ r t e r m
7hr pre.iuppoution\that denve from the actrral aqseruon of the
speech context
serrcence In rhz rtctud speech context are chxactenred in t e r n of what the parts of
that ';mteoce t~ottlifprewppose dthey tueur asserted m a local context
The local
context n derived from the actual speech context, followxng the semantlc composztron of the sentence l'hr\ mean.; that the nohon of local context 1s a _oramvnattral
liotrron (LaxlJrr~u~
2000 237)

I,ax~drrnritllen goes on to stress the diEer-ence between the pragmatic notion

of context st~r~dardly
used in implicature theory, and the grammatical
notion of local context used in presupposition theory:

"

l'hc emphasis in d ~ sentence

s
is inine (FR)

Whde presupposition theory has been rcga;~lrcied

\incr the r,trly severlnes as bit\rc ally
a theory of local context, the notson has been dl but rgnp;nored 1n ~ r n p h ~ a t u r c :
theory . . The reason IS, I thnk, tint uril~keIbr presupposiDntls, there i s a coi~seii
sus that rmplzcatures are dmved dzrritlyjorur tlzc rlctulrl spetth ~ituatlort I f locd context IS
relevant for ~mpllcature well, t l u mean\ rhar we cannot, follow~~ig
tile Gnceal
Root, let the theory of co-operatlve m(i)matlorr exchange denve thern from the
actual assemon of the sentence in the a t h d context It nlcans that we have to let
the grammar denve thern from nnplrcature', that would he der~vikdiflt5 pxts were
asserted m a local context, vvlilch itselt. IC dzxned &om the actual context Collotlr~ng
the semnantsc compostson (1,andman ~ o o o237)

I conclude that, suitably weakened r o as to avoici die conf;s~onbetween A

&sjunctlve (or con&tlonal) assertion and the assertion of a &?juiicttor~(or
con&tional), the alleged speech-act-dleoret~canalyus 1nz;plredby S t h ~ k e r
collapses lnto a semanac anxlyw of tl-rc \art advocated by <:h~erch~a
,lnd
Landinan It is not a genume dtcrrkatrve to that sort of andyas

6. En~beddedimplicatures and free e~~nchrxzcr~c

A last strateby is available to the thetrrist who \want$ to reslst the semdntrcr
zation of embedded mplicarurc\ I t relxcr on ttie clisnrtctlorr be&-een
pnrnary and secondxy prngrnat~cprocesses (Rrcanat~1989, ry93, rsuoxd,
2004). Secondary pragrlat3c procei.;e\ ate posr-proposlt~orlnli2rcntc-s a la
Gnce: In lnterpretulg 311 utteraxe, what 1s trnphed, m the lrltultlve senxi, IS
inferentially denvcd horn the ipeaher'i, s,lylng what $/he s ~ y (in
s ,a way that
sansfies the avallabihty condition) In contrast, prtniary prai,mlatic procevscs
are pragmatic processes at work 111 the ven, deterrnlnatlor~ofwlrat I \ r ~ r d
For example, we need to assign rndich-lc*d~and other context-srnsrtuve
expressions a contextual valite m order to fix tmtll-concflt~crr-ral Goriterlt
T h u contextual process of v J u e as\lgirnent, w h ~ c hI call "a~uratlon', 19
~rreduciblypragmatic. consider~tionssclat~veto what the speaker uie,uls
plav a crucid role In that process Shll, ~tcoirmbute\ to the cleten~~rn~tlon
ot
the utterance's semanac (tmt11-co~zdiaor~d)
conterit, hence ~t counts AS a
'pnrnary' pragmatic process.
In contrast to secondbuy pragn'itlc processes, p n m q pr*itgmatic
processes operate locally rather than globdly, ulJ they do not satisfy the
availability con&txon. In these respects tlrrey are lrke the dehult gcneratlorr

P M t l f Xj111 11 [MI"!I < A L i l R I . 4

157

back), but the property w111ch the expression actu'rlly contributes to the
truth conditton5 m this utterance 1s i ~ o ta property of cais but 'mother,
qrrternatrc aUy related property, rrtlrnely the propelt): A car owner has whet1
fns or lter car ha\ the f o m ~ e property
r
In co~itnstto \aturatxort. the proces\ oi preci~~ate
transfer n ne~ther
, nn Iittcrailce stlclr as '1 arxi
maildatory 12or bottom up. It rnay looh as ~ f ~n
parked out back', that prc-tcess nttrst take p l ~ e,
c becarrse there 1s a l~rt,
"u1st1c
mlsnlatch between tire predicate (which denctte? a property of- cars) ,md
what ~t 1s applted to (,i person) B L I such
~
nrlslnatch 1s not neces\'try fitr
predicate transfer Just w, througll transhr, "1 he ltan s'andwlch left cvrtttout
pdylng' IS uU"entoocj as saynig 4orxethlng about the ctistoiiler who ordered
the smd\vich, " f i e hnln cdndwlch sttnks' can be $0 ~inderit.ood,m n. ~uitablr
context, even though the propclty of s t ~ r ~ k ~poterttldly
ng
;ipplles to smd\v~chesas well as to customen.'* 'Tire proce\s ot tlansfer xr not a l~r~pt~stically
corztrolled but a pragnratrcally controlled pragmdtic process it I\ not tug~~rzgjlmctlf--someacpect
tlie ~mgulzhcstgi~albung
geled by sonreth~r~g
,~ct
g3rot e>\ed-but takcs pldc e In order to mahe \crtsc o f the c ornniur~~cat~ve
perf'ornled by the spe~kerMoreover, ~t lr oljt~)x~"ltlzere,ire C O I I ~ C X ~IY~ I
wltlclr the sdltie t o n r ~ofwords \vould c a ry the plam Interl,ret,rtiorr, w l t l l o ~ ~ t
tramfer In some contexts, 'Fhe h ~ r nsmclw~thstulks' t*iUc\ bout the
sarrdwrch, r n other contexts, through tmnsfcr, rt tdlks abo~ltthe cu.;tomcr
W l ~ e t l ~or
e r not predicate transfer t'lker pkcc 1s A wholly pragrnatlc rnattcr
It IS not \on~ethulgt l i ~ ISt dlctatec! by h n p ~ s t l cconventzora
Even though the pragnianc process of preci~eate traxi\&r 1s optronal
(rather than manc.larory) and top down (rather ttlarl bottorn up). it still
takes place locally and ~nterfereswxth the proceTs of \ernantlc con~pos~tton
In artother cla.\ic example, 'There 19 a Lon 111 the courtyard', ' l r o n ' a r ~be
tlnderstood, throug11 transkr, 111 the repre\enkxt~oonlsrxne the thulg that 1s
s a d to be In the t o~rrtyard1s riot a (real) hon but 3 reprtrs~nfatton (more
spec lf~cdly,a statue) o j lion Now c onsider "I here is 2 stoxie lion tn the
courtyard' What w sad to be tn;lde of stone here? (:le,ziy, rt 17 tlle statue,
rather than the llon whlch the statue reprewnts 7'111s ririlplc fact shows that
the process of represent~tlunaltransfer murt hke pl'rce befart, the cornpcl\ltlorl rule assocrated with the noctn-~~oun comtructroxl applres to the

'"I :un indebted to I3ar1Sperbrx ius tbls example. The ongrtal h m .s:~t~dwiclt
cxan~pieis, of course,
N ~111t1erg.s.

-- -

%S

- -

- - -

hMBEI>DEIl IMPLPLT<'ATUIC\ AN11 FREE

ERRICHMLNT

seniantrc valuec of the nouw 'stone' and 'l~on'.'~

If predicate transfer apphed
globally, aker the g a n m a t ~ c d ytnggcred corrrposxtlon rules have appked,
the ~nterpret-atronwe would get for the noun-phrase 'a stone hori' would be
sometlslilg hke: a rcpraentatzon of(a lzon t h t L mu& $stone). But the correct
mterpretabon Ir (a rqrecentatzon of u lion) that 1s made of stone. We must
therefore g~veup the Cncean ~ d e athat pragnratic processes operate globally
on the output of t11c garmar.18
Acrordlng to TCP, just as indewcal exprevlom are standardly asqigned
two level\ ofsern&~ti~
vdue ( " ~ h a c t e rarid
' 'content'), we ~riustdwonigu~htwo
levels of serrlarttic values for orcfinary, nomdelncal expressiom. Semantics
asi1gn5 lemcd values to iirriple expressions; pragmatic5 then optiondy comes
mto play to detem~ulethe comyositiunal vulcca which thore exprBsions assume
111 the iingugunt~rand extrdusgueuc context 1x1 which they occur. Compositiorial value\, not lexical values, are what undergo semmhc corrlposrtion. In
other words, the cotiipoclaon rules detenmne tlie value of the whole on the
bllris of the pqmuttr~illyrietemtvted conrposrtronal values of the parts.
Prehcatc tran.if.erIS only one among a f m d y of pragmanc processes that
h ~ v ethe properties 1 have I~sted:they are pragnatrcally controlled (top
dowri) rather than ~inguichca~ly
coritrolled (bottom up), they x e optional
rather than rnarctdatow, ar~dthey take place locally, thereby interacting tvlth
the compocit~onddetenr~lilntlonof truth-conditional content. This famdy
a.i opposed to saturation
ofpnnlary pragm1,itlc prc3ces~es1 call 'modul~t~on',
(Rccanatl mod) Modu1,ition takes as input the ~ n e a n ~ nofgsome e~xpresslon
[whether urnpie or complex) and realms as output a pragmatically denved
nlearring serving a a\ orr-rpu41tioaal v'ilue.
Air~otigdle proce\ses of modulaaon that a&ct the trutis-condrt~ons of
~ d
is fi-ee enrichn~ent,'~
1x1 virtue of
trtternnccs, the most typl~al~ r pervmrve
w111ch an exprctrcssion is contextually gven a n~orespec~ficinterpretation
than it lrterally eiscodes Through free enrichment an expression takes a
" Note that ltiis conipnsit~ctnrule itrelf 1s context-sens~trve(I'artee 1984: 294---5).The denotatioz~of
riie compouri~lresults fiom ln~ersccti~~g
the (literal, or praplatically derived) denota~onof tile head
noun with the set of objects &at bear a certain relation K to the (literid, or pngmaticaliy derived)
denotatnon ot'tbe modify~ngnoun. T'iimt relatior1 can only be contextually determined. In 'stone lion',
1K ' is typically assrgrxed the relation bein2 made 6 but in less access~blecontexts a different relation will be
~qstgnedto the variable.
' See Sg (1981)AIJJackendoff (1!)97: $5 and 6 5 4 ) tor simdar poomts.
'" fit the pragmatics literature this process is J o called 'narrowing', 'strengthening', or 'expansion'.
(There we a couple of other labels as welt.)

prapatscally denved denotaaon that is a subset of the irutlal derlotatxon

(Carston 1997). Thus, to take a clasrrc exaniple I hdve dready ~rrleilha~led
(dacussed by Nunberg and Zaeneti 1992). we undentand the ~.n,bstenn
'rabblt', w h c h hterdy means something llke rubbti .stgiJ ac tlaeaning rubhrtJtdr
In 'She wears rabbit' and rtzhbzt mrut 1x1 "She eatr rabbit'. Or, to take
example discussed by Searle and arralyced u~Chapter 3, we rxncfer\.l;znd the
word 'cut' differently m 'c~itthe gr:r,uskalidul 'cut the cake'
Though the occurrence of dlc word 'cur' I\ htera! 1n Potli] utterances , and
though she word 1s not anzbtgroui, rt drtc-nn~nesd1Eermt sets oftruth ~i)nti~nons
h r the dtfferent sentences The ion of tlz~ngthat constitutes cuttnng the grm a
quite dttTerent Gom, e g ,the sort of thmg that consatUte\ cutting a cake One wdv
to see &s n to iniagne what constlmtt>$trheyrng the order to ~ t t riomuthr~rg11
iomeone tells me to cut the grass and 1 rurh imt arici \tab it wth a knrfc, or xi I an
ordered to cut the cake and I run over ~tw t h a hwnrrxnwer, in cat h ca\e I \vrU I3ave
Wed to obev the order That r\ xior what the speaker meant by his lrtridl and
serious utterance ofthe sentence jcie,ule rg80 222-1)
Both 'cut' a d 'rabb~t' are gverr cor~textually spcc~fic intc.vret,itron\
through f;ee ermchment. Of course, the hngni~ticcontext play\ arr ob.vrous
role here, but tiee enrichment reratdrrlr a romteatually-drr.vcn (top down)
and o p ~ o n a process.
l
Nottnng prevent\ 'cut' in ' C Z X ~tlie gas\"fronl
helrrg
contextually Interpreted m the scnsr crf s l t i ~rnio rtrtp3, or 'rr,rbb1t9rn '5he
wears rabblt' horn being i n t e ~ r e t e din dle senre ot' rabbit rncaf And notlirng
prevents the rneaixng of erdlel esproslorz &orn rerriaiiiilig conteu~ually
ail over the
pla~rland unennched ('Aiker the accrdexrt, tltert w ~ rahh~t
s
hgfrway'). These proyernes, wtlich tree rrlncllmcnt sh~reswrth the other
arc. not exi~ibitedby yrocesber
pragrnatlc processes in the mori~tLtrorrfa~zm~ily,
of the saturatlo3 faliuly {~ndex~cal
~esolucron,etc ). We n l u ~ ttherefore
complete orlr table and n i d e room for niod.tJation alongs~dethe three
type.; of process we have already de\cnbcd (the C n r r m pozt-proporrtrcrnd
s , r'3tura~orl)
rnecl.~anum,the default genelatlon of s c ~ l a ri m p h ~ ~ t u r e2nd
Once we acknowledge the pn111~ryp";1.g111at1c pwi-e\ses 01: n~o($ujCal,lt~on
(Table 5.2), a new approach to errlbccided mlpficat~iresbecomes dva~lable.
( a\e of lfee e~incl~merit,
whereby the
V e can consme &em a a partic~~I,x
strengthened Tlus Ir,
n i e a m g of, for example, scalar term:, n ct>~itextx~aUy
mdeed, the view w h c h r m i y advocates of T m t - n o Pmpatrcs
(e.g. Bach 1994; Rezu~deirbout2oo2u) acnctually hold. They take die dieged

I'aiAe j . Atitlrrig
~
iiloaiulatioxl
-- .- -

Perso~~:xl
lzvcl
infixi~l~atr~r~
Avaaability?
?
Extral~rrgiiist~c
- .

(.in<c's post-

-.-

y cs

ycs

yes

no

-.
.

(;lobal?
-.-

'fap-down?
- .-

-.
.-. ..

Optional?

- ...

yes

yes

yes

rr o
-

ves

v es

- .-

~>Tc>~~>sIL~<>I?'+!
niecli,irrisiii

Motl~rl.itxc,ii

.-

- -

inrplii-atlirc\ to be Yirrrplicltnrcs', &:it is, asprcts ofthe proposition expressed

whicEr ;ire provrtlrtl by Cccly erlnc-hixlgor cxp;uxclifi@the literal meaning of
the <icritcrrc-a>.
' l ' h ~fi1c.t that the alleged ir~~~>\icrctrrrcs
fir11 widlin the scopc oC
operacon is i:tkcrr t o be the Iitxlir~stest showing that they are not really
ct>ilvcrs:itiora;ii i r r ~ p l ~ c a t ~L~~ Cr rI -s~ V C Cthrough
~
trbw C;ricean rnecfiar~istn,but
jlragn7;itic c.onrstitrients ot'.cvll;ltis s;iid (Rccanat i r o X t j : r r a---14,1993: 269-74:
C:arston 2oo.t: I y x -7,roof).

7..
Cclnc-In\ r on: dehult irnylacatures or free enrichment

(or both)?
Wc P-r~vc5ccbra dr,u il-icre ,ire (at Icd~t)t w o VXA~SLC dpproat hes to embedded
x~~iyhcaturt~zierr2,itlhc ~ppr0<1<11
UI teniis of-defdult ~rnphc~~tures,
and a
pragmltlc s j p p i c "l~" 1111 tcrrnc of fi-ee crlnclrrrxle~lt.Wlttcfi one I\ to he
prckixrcd; Kdi, I a i r IIOL sure tlut wc rc,rlly h,rvc to choose. 7-0 corsclude
LIIIF ~Luptrr,I ~ 1 1 ,lrgtie
1
th,rt the t w o vrcivc w e have discussed do not
i~ecr\\,anly\ t , i x ~ l rrr corrlpetrtron to C ~ 11Cother
It r\ rruc. th~tiiiotlr cl?eonc\ providc ,rn a( c o u n t of enlbcclded mphc~tures
bodr rrrAc roofrl for process of stre~lgttserungt h ~1st optional arid takes pl<xce
lordly It I\ trtic also tItLitthey o&r corii-hcat~g
chamt taatlons of the process
xrr clutb\tii>r~Ac cordrng to (me tlieory, thdt pmccs\ rs context-mdependetlt
d l i d ~ C ~ U Tto
I :!ht"
~ c o m p t l t ~ l t l ~ rsy-strrn
ld
ofl;~x~inrrn,cr
ALCor&11# to the other

tlleory, ~tw a luUy p ~ a g n ~ tc ~ontext-Jnveii

c,
prstceis. Stdl, I thlrtf, tilere n 1 1 0
ciowimght ~il~oinp.itib&ty
behvee~f,
these appro'u hes, .qq-wxra~~ccs
x~otw~th
standing 'They are mcct~t~pafible
only ~f we auui-rletliat there Ir ,I srny$e process
~t suke. But we carrrlot p r e q y p t e t h ~that
t 1s so, koj, it\ we shd1 we, that 15 one
ot the yuestlon~,kt I ~ ~ ~ LrnI Cthe cleb,~te
strengthening is l~rrgursttcally triggered
DGSI-theonsts argue t h ~ s~dldr
t
and context indeyerldellt B ~ i the
t default ~~ltylic,itures
they po\lt uzn be
defe'ited, 111 a \uitable c or~teut( ~they
t couldn't, they wonldu't be cnnver\dtiorral ~mpl~c~ltures)
I-ronl the poiut of vlew of D(l;\l tlneory, the extcilmguist~ccontext plays a role ~t l c a t In the fixutlorl of tire mipl~c.ittire--a
cosltextual proccc\ w l ~ l c hdctermrilcs whether or not the deGrllt lnipl~ca
~ ~not tlley
tur es are defeated or (rn the event of def.irllt rex~lctval)w l ~ e t l . ior
are 'frozen' 'rnd mnrntalr~eddespite the do\vnward erttnlrng operator. It
i-i)llows that tlrerc arc two proce\ses 'it work In the intcrprctatlon of scalar
theory O n e conlponerrt
~niphcatures,311d two c o ~ i ~ p o t ~it1e ~the
~ t overall
s
belongs to sernant1c5 ~tc oncems the def~ultgeneratlor1 of ~~npltcaturrsI he
other con~pot~eilt
1s pragln,ltlc anci c oricenls tvllut htz~?pt.rrrto thu dt*l;rzlltr udtctz
the wntorzie u z i t t e t ~ dzn tt teal /cwlcst krtc-e thrrt are ~ L V Oiompollents, AIIJ
two proces\e\ jo~rltlyat work 1i1 the 1rlterprct.ltion of scalar utterdrices, r t
may be that the tw(3 c ~ n t ~ ~ t~lhr' ~ rg: ~ c t c r ~ / aof'
t l o'ttie'
~ ~ \ lo(1'1 proce\\ of
optlortal strerigthenlng 1 have mentic~rlcdare ui fact nonc onfl~ctingch,tractenzat~ons of two d~itinctprocesses It ntay be thlt there rs both a
hngu~sticall\jtnggereti, context independent prates of dehult gcneratiorr
of ycrtentzul ~mplic'mlre\,'tnd a prapi,xtlc process of free e n n c l i n ~ ~ un t h g
2s prtlal lnput the o ~ ~ t pof
t ~the
t prea~otrspro<e u md lead~rlgto the ~rcrll(ii
strcnghening o f the nieattlrig of tlie scalar tern1
O f course, one need not Accept the existence of default unplsc<ttures 1n
the first place. OIK m < ~ deny
y
thelr e ~ ~ s t c n cand
e actourit fbr ernbedded
tn~plicntu~es
.iolelv ul terms of flee enr~ctlirient Grantthd, one 13ecd not
accept the eqstence 05 free erinchmcnt eltfler But nothwg preve~ina
theonst from acceptlrtg both default ~mpbcaturesand free ennt lxnent--. l>ottonl,tilere &retwo dlranct quest1oil.i II- we provide
that n nly p ~ i n tAt
~ s ,h v e a solution to die
a posltlve answer to either of the two q u c s t ~ o ~we
problexn of eritbedded mrplicatures. Anyone who @ v e a poutlve answer to
orie questLon may therefore safely give a rlegatsve answer to the other. But
e
quest~on.In
he or she does not have to p v e a negat~veanswer to d ~ other
otllcr word\, thc two issue\ ,ile (to soirie extcrrt) ortllogo11'11

37.3

- <~3P+ttrJiC).id"

-~Ei%+t5k+
~~T~

O k FREE EbRICWMENT (OA BOTH)?

fthe two orthogonal lgsues concerns defaults Are there default

pragriratli values (e.g. default scalar tmplicatures) whose calculahon w part of
the coliiputattonal system of language? Follomng suggestions by Ga~dar
answer
e
to this
and I,emnson, I. andmall ar1d Chierchta provlde an a ~ i r m a t ~ v
quest~oil Sperl~erand Wilson, t h e ~ rfollowers and a few other researchers
(e.g Geurts 1998) promde a negatlve answer. The second issue concerns
pragniatics, arid more specifically the context-dnven, optional processes of
nloduldbon Are such procesres p n m ~ r y I.10
l they operate on the tneanings
of the parts h e h e the rnearimg ot the whole is ~alculated?Do they take
place lorally so as to affect sernantlc composlhon? Advocates of TruthCortditiond prap&~trcsprovide ui &rnlahve answer to thrs question.
Defenden of the standard, Gnceai ptcture g v e a negahve answer: prag~xuticprocesses are essenhdy global and post-propos~t~onal,
they say. Untriggered and mandatory (as saturation is), they do
less they are ltngu~r~cally
not <&ect truth-conditiortal content.
T o say that the two Issues are orthogonal 1s to say that there are four
pocsible positsons, depending on one'b ,inswer to these yueshons. Let me
revlew e a ~ l of
i these pontlons in turn
The first posihon, N N (for 'No-No'), accepts netther default pragmanc
values nor pnmary pragrnatx proc eaes over arid beyond saturation. It sticks
to a ciasucal conception ot-both serllallttc content (whicli does not Include a
itck6n~hle
layer) arid prapiattcs (which does not mterkre wtth serrlantsc
cornposltlon) How, tf one takes such a position, car1 one account fbr
enxbeiided implicaturesi One has to say that they do not really exist.
Thuc. ~ c c o r d ~ ntog King and Suliley, who dehnd the clxcrtcal view,
(&rig 2nd Stanlev 2005, ~ectionV).
embedded tmpl~caturerarc an rll~ls~on
Constder the followiiig exarrlple.
( 8 ) Eating some of the cake is better t k n ectixlg aU of i t

1 Iere a scalar mpkc ature seeins to ennch the left-hand-slde of t l ~ 'better

e
than'
relahon. (It rs better to eat some-but-not-all of the cake than to eat dl of tt )
Tfl~sIS a tvpical casc of e~~ibedded
~niphcatme.Krng and Sunley thlnk such
examples can be analyred rn terns merely of:saturation A staternelit of the
form 'Better P than Q' is true, they say, lfand only If-the most suntlar worlds
In whch the lek-lt'xtid-side (P) holds are preferable (XI some contextually
deterrrlined sense) to die most sulvlar worlds in whxh the nght-hand-side (Q)
holds. T o be evaluated, such a statement requlres the contextual prowlon of a

speclftc slnulanty relahon between w ~ r l i kIli'hrs,

. ~ ~ they t h u ~ kn, an rrrsLTrlce o-t
saturahon. So they offer the tbllowmg alidysr5, cvhch disper~seskvrttl ernbed
ded unpl~cat~rra.
In (8) the word 'some' c~lrveysI ~ Shterd content (crt least
some), not ~b5trengthened nleztmg (snrne but rzot all), but focnrsmg 'sso~~rc'
Xe~ds
the interpreter to choose a s l n u l ~ nrelatlon
~
such that tire most ~ulular
P-worlds are worlds ~nwkic11 tzot all the cake 11s been eaten In this way the
truth-cond~t~ons
of the utterancc are ~Eectedm d'some' had beer1 g v m the
upper-bounded readmg (even chouglr rt has not) They conc lrrde

By focussing the relevant word, orxc a&ects the choice of the sitirilarrq relation
between worlds that is relevant lor t i l e tnrtll-corlditiorrs of dre 71,ette-f-than'
construction in that context. So ttic trrtth-condidom of these: c-omtructions are
affected by scalar facts, but itrdrpendrntly of processes such as expliratrrrc o r
irrlplicature 'iiltrusion'. Nor does the sc;~ia-finicln~~ation
"etrrich' the serrrantic
content. Rather, the truth-conditinrw oi' 'better-.ttian\sentrncrs are sensitive ro
the choice of a similarity relation I>etweeriworliis, a~zdfocru aEects the choice of
that relation. (King and Stardev 2oo-j: 152--3)
Kmg ,md Stanley deal c.vltlt the ~r*lphraturesenibrddrd la1 the a r ~ t uriierlb
i
ok
conciiaonalb iri tile sanle way, by exploiting tile ont test-dependence of h e
slndanty relahon In tcnns of wblcll ionifrtional\ ase starrct&rc#y,kn,dy\cd ""
It1 replv to K111g and Stanley, Ict rrle note, ku~st,that Ioc,ll streu drm not
seem to be necessary to get the LIc~I~ccJ. eEe<t 111 French At l e ~ 1~car1
t sa\
(9) Meux vaut manger un peu de g;iteau que le g5teau tout eniler

Even though the words 'un pet,' tfo not b w r focal stress, stdl a contra%11s~r,xdc.
(by xntjans of the comparative ccrx.lstnlctlon itsell-) betweerr 'uit pcu de 3att>att9
(sonie of the cake) o n the left-hand side and Vcgitcrlu totkt enttc+J(all trl: the cake)
o n the nght-hand s ~ d e . N
~ ?o w sllcln a curltract xnakes sense only r4 w e strenghen 'un peu' so to get the upper-bounded redd~ng.T h e not1011 of ' ~ n ~ ~ h n g
sense' that comes into pl:~yhere n pr<wIzatrc~n the &Hest pos5lrMe senw (the
2') In this respect, the 'better--tlrari' ro~~strucnon
is similar to conifitionds, wllicX1 dso s v c nw to
embedded iniplicatwes.
Z1 G d a r is the tirst theorist to have attenipted to esplJin away the einbediied irnphcatnrcsooi'cohenconditionals by appealing to the contest-sensinve sernatraGs of cond~tlonalseiitences in the S d m k e r
Lewis h n e w o r k . See Gazdar (1979: 70). At the very end rrftlle same book, howcver, Gu&r seenls to
revert to the view that there are genuine embedded ~xllpiic:aturesin cxan~pleslike (7)-(8).
" In my original paper (Kecanan 2no3), 1 had used ur ur~srresscdvers~onof e ~ ~ s r i p(8)
i e to make rriy
point, but Geurts (zoog: 73n) ha? respotlded that focal stre%is obligatory in Englist~1x1 ewxnplcs like (8).
T o be o n tbe safe side, I now use a French cxmlplc..

i74

t ,( i!Vc;t,Li>lr Xv: kpi:kAUk, k--lbtPkK;A i-tff<Eb <>t< 1314Ll!~P,bWt< ~ ~ X + I V ~1'P ,((

N>kBC.7 KH)?

"top dowxr' scnsr): die process of s.ire~lgthenirigcalics place not because it is

iingtintrcdliy iri,uid,itt:d, but in order to marlrtr serlse oi'rile speaker's cortxrnurGc:itivcb ,icr. liiarg , i t i d Stxrliey hide t h i s Gcr by tising, olrly examples in which
silrr\c iitrrrla! i k : i t u r t x ofthe lirzg~iisticsign;ti (vix. the use ofrtrcal $tress)drjves the
str-cxigtlii:rrr~~g
pn>ci:is. X3irt this fi::ttt~re is n o t es5c"riti:ii t(:, the erbt~l.u_ilple.
King arrtZ Stciriltcy ;irg~rethat, in this pnr~icul:irt":lse, the strel~gthening
ci1bc.t c-ari bc :ic.hicvctl intlirei-ily by r~lsriipirlirtin!;tile sirililarity rehtion
irrvoked by t/7c 'I>e~ttci"-tlx;inf
c(-)t~stl~lctielli.,
~ - 3 t l l t:hnu
t~
i ~ clirectly
y
enriching
t h t x roie:"trrrnrg of "sc?rlre'. (;r:ir,tetl;
b11t tk~i";s, o i $ ~ t;ij?;;lirz,
.~
a fe;~tiir~
o f the
i.x:irrlpic t l ~ ; i ris ,rc~ciiis~rrtaI
;irltI irrrleva~~t
to the isstit*. Wr w
i
l
l have es:lctly
the sararc: sr~-cngt~~t~xiix~i$
e t k t u~iliciltt'vrr iclrrstruifiotr wc IUSC, CIS long as it
invoivcs a c-trntrast ht-tween ' s o ~ n t " ;;lnd ' ~ l l ' .-X'i1;11 wilt he SO, in particular,
ivc'n jf tire njnilnrchoft irl qr~r:~tic)n
t S o e riot itzsjoke (1 sirniltlrily reliltion betwecn
iin~rldc.For cx:irlrplc wc. Irl;ry s;ty:
jotitr

,st<: w r i i c of-h ~ hcake

hut. j i r l ~stt! ail oi'his

&-iercthe scr~lnri.~~riihxare~it
of 'ssorrie' takes pi;~('ewitltin the tirst conjunct, in
tire scrspt. ol'"but7,yi:r i t
be espl:iincti ,icvay irr terrlls of some process
of'satrrrnriorl LEI,~I ~ ~ ~ ~ I ~ p e ntakes
d e ~plac-c
~ t l yitr xntcq>reting rilis cortstrucr roo.("There is :i proc-rss ofs:lturstioax at work iir the irrtcri,ret:ition of'hut',
h i i t 1 tad<.I r ttr bcs irrclcv~ritt o the 11llttter a t st:ikt:.)
7'0c.traic-luck., the cveak~~css
of-tlrcN N position is rll:it it offi.rs no g e l ~ c r d
account r>t'enituciitlrd in~plic:~~tnres.
I t orrly gives LIS s;~t~~r~tiorl-bnsed
at~alyses
iirr- pariic.rrlar i z w s - - nrllrlyses wlilt91 c-ar~x-rcrt i w g:cni.ralizcd becarrsc they
~.xpEoic~~i.c.e.~Jcilrai
k-;.dturcstrt't.hc ciocs i r i clrrestitrri.
- 1 % ~ I I V X C positit~liis the Y N ('Yes - - No7) VIC'W,
w11it.b p ~ ) > ictehult
t~
i~irpiic,rtriresbirt sticks to a ~13ssi~;lrt
~011ceptii)iio f ' l ) r : { j - ; : : ~ ~:is~ ;~)pcr;ltiilg
~ti~~
on
rlre OIILJ)LII ol'thc g;r*lXrtrIl;tr. 1
this ti) I x ri:i?ii*r-c:11i,i's position. ?'his tmlay
cou~icipar:nt3o?ric:rE, ur1c.c tlrcrse wtlo, like C:hicr.i-hi~,posit defliult itnplicnttrrcs cxl~fic.irlyrgccr r i - r t h 'C;riccali !toot.' ,~alcII~oltFinsrc;rti th;it 'pr;t,vrll;ltic
conlpiaa~ion"sariti g;r-;Lrrlrrlar driverl ones arc ""irltersper-sCtl"' (Chierchia
~ood.:40). Xhor rlrc pragrostic computntiurra that are said to interfere with
sem;ultic colripositicln are not gCnuiae 1>1-;1g11iati(.
yrocesses---the sort of
p ~ q y u ~ t prcxL'ess
ic
that 'T(-:l' talks thol lit. Wfmt I->C;S1thcc~r-istshold is th;~t
rherc ns, i n the gwvrruntrr, a ~mrecilanisli~
t b ~ tc-:~icrrl;~tt~s
ciefaltlt iniplicat~rres.
"That nlcibanisrri operates locrtlly. Rut it is riot a gerl~iir~e
111:1g1:1ntic rnectrilnrsni: it Is coriresr- ~ric.lcpc:ntient;irrd bcltrrrgs tc) the ii~igrristicsystem. 11s Etr

E . i ~ t i t r k ) ~ ~ E IIVIPI
l!
ILAI

ut<E\

171

as genuine prdgrri.ltlcs 1s coricemed, a 1IGSI tl~eorntnl,iy well as\unie ,I

conservative conceptltm ofpragrnatlcs & operahrly on t t ~ c
output ovgranr
niar (where 'gr'ruirnar' now rnrludrs the 1)C;SI ~rsecfr~irntn~)
Accordrng t o Cliierchl,l, ~ v h e na defdrllt inlpl~cattlrethtlt ~ I ; L <bee11 ,,rttovl~nt~cdly
factored m m cdlculatlng the tmtfi-coridttroxz\ of tlie \erttence I\
felt cor~textuallyInapproynare, some backtr.lcking take\ p l , ~e anti tile 1mphcature rs cancelled. 'Tli~sc'ln only fr'ippen glob~lly---aim the detiult
tmth-conditions of the utterance Iiave beer1 t i p r e d out As Chlerchr'~
wntes, 'ccanellat~on,rmcturit\ to a slrnple kmd of backtracking' ((:t~rerthia
of
2004 66) The speaker computes the dchnit rrneamng (truth-i-ordstto~~\)
~ n context with the \eritencc thus interpreted,
the \entente, ~ n c r e ~ l i e rthe
and d that Lils, b'lcktr.~cksand get\ nil of some cicCxult ~rlipllcat~trc.
st>2 s to
get a nrore acceptable lnterpretaholr ( h t dteniatrve pr oceclrire rc to c-hnnge
the context through acconrrnoctdt~orl-see below )
O n the YN vww, tfte plrenorrlenori o f embedded ~rnplrc~ture\
I \ ,kc
counted for entlrely In tenxi\ of defa~llt3Only defkllt ullpl~tnturcs; a n be
enibed~iedxr-id drlct locally; nortce rmplrcat~rrc~
ca~inot,h r the pragnl'ttlc
meclia~usmwblch yreid\ them is cl,rsc;~cal,tllclt n, giot)~llst.Tills view 14
eilipmcdly testable It d l be p n n u hcle dlrproved, ifwc c ~ find
n n c'ue in
wtiich an mnlphcaturc whlc h rcst_llt\front a frilly-fledged prdgn~nbcproces, LS
embedded. Tor ex'irnple, let us conslder caes in bvh~th\ ( m e tleOult
s
~uppre5sedbecatlie tt occut\ in a downward
~mpilcaturewluch h ~ been
critnil~ngcnvrronrilent is corltcxtually rem\tatcd ('froreri') 111such c,ise\ rt
~ tgr'tmrn'ar (siltc r it Li~s
cledr th,lt the 11npI1cztureIS .illnerlt fro111 the o u t p ~of
het.11 supprefsed) itr procrlce 111 the a c t u ~InteTrztatron
l
of rlle utter,uicc I\
entirely clue to the yragrnatic. process cvhlch override\ the def2tllt rernoval It"
that pragmatic orocess c,u! onlv he g l o t ~dntI
~ l po\t propofit~onal,,n t12r YN
view holds, the ~rliplic~trrre
111 yue\tlon cnrlnot be errrbeddetf Br~ttt i c not
ts embedded (:l~icrchla
d~fflcultto firid c,lse\ 111 wh~cl-Ia nonce ~~~rplscature
hriricelf gxves the followung es'~mple:
(lo) It wa\ a' two courbe 111e'il Z311t everyone wl-10 shpped tile frnt ar tile Tec orrd
cause enjoyed a nlure, fctr he wasn't too till to appxtscrdtc'it

The diquacnorl ('skipped tile firct or the second course') occurc in a

cvlilch
do\vnwarci erttx~lingertvlronrlrertt here, 5 0 the scalar rmplrc~tt~re
rrormally gven nse to the exclusive retldrrig ot' 'cor' rs suppressed 1x1 tlre
dehult InterpreMttorl ctehbereii bv tl-te i o~riputatlon,d\ysteni of gran~nla,

176

---

ONCI riCION' llI5FALII T IMP1 ICATIJlLhS OR FREE E - ~ I C Z - ( ~(OR

W BOTH)?
-

---

therefore, 'our' taker the inclusrve ~nterpretat~on."~

S d , the context IS such
that only the exclus~vetnterpretatlon makes sense. As Cluerchla says, 'we
don't mean to sn~ludem o n g the most satisfied customers, people who
shppecl both couner' (Cluercl~la2004. so). 'The renwved lalpltcature a
ttierdore ~onteutu~dly
re~nstated T h ~ is
s a genulne pragmabc process, one
chat, according to the UN view, cartnot take place locally Yet, as Chiercha
notice\, the scalar rxnphcature wft~chrest~ltsrn the exclusive reading of
the itrsjunctiort 111 (ro) cannot be accounted for by the glob~lmethod
7'1-le rtxipllcarure we would get by the globrrl method would be sornethng
llkc 'Not everyone who shpped the first and the second cotme enjoyed the
nleal ~ ~ i o r e ''!/'l~h ~IT~not at dl -,hat we want. Chlerchia concludes that
We
'c~sesIike (10) reern to ~onstrtutet'urther evlclence agamst globahsl~~
seen1 to bc in preselxce here of an et~ibeddedx d a r 1ip11tature' (Ch~erch~a
3004. j ~ )Itlcofar ' ~ 3the miphcature in question is not prodrtced by the
compu~~tronal
systerrl of pimxiar but by a cuuy-fledged prapnahc mechamsm, tllw type ot example seeins to show that the YN mew cannot be nght.
Yet Chier~lh~a
cticks to the clnssrcal vsew iuf the relatlorl betmeen gmiftar axtd (genuule) przgmatlcs, so Ile hns to deny that there 1s an enlbedded
111 (lo), appear,mcer notwltilstandirxg To that effrct be uses the
in~pl~cature
e ~ we can account tor tile
\zme stratep <asKlrxg and Stanlet. anti a r g ~ that
strengd~eningetlect ~t~directly,
by tnanlpulatlng the dorn.un of the yuantil-ier tllrough accontmoctatlon
I'he n~teq~erawrt~r
of (LO)rryiures a doman of people who don't shp both courses.
Thi\ yields the 5ame elleft that we would obtain by rtot removtng the locally added
nnplir dtrtre (i;ltlcrchia 2004. 60)
Chlerchia .ilso 'ippejls to &at strategy to handle the scal~rimphcatures that are
emt7eddc.d in t l ~ eatltecederit of cond~honals(smce the antecederlts of con&tioxids ,ire downward e n t a h g envzonments m w h c h scalar lnlplicatures are
rznioved bv default) 'Thus he a~lalvscsIdemson's exanlple (11) e-mctlv as
fhzdar or Kmg ar~dStanley would
'Thus ln a standard example like 'Every studen1 wlio wrote a squib or rnaclr a dassroorn
preentauon got extra. cretiit', ttre d&ult interpretatioi~of the disjunction is clearly inclusive.
24 'The global metltod corlsists in fint replacing the scalar term by the weakest of its stronger
:dternallves, arrtl theti tregating the restilt. ?'he (only) stronger alternative to 'the first or the second
course' is 'the fint ar~dthe second coune', so the 'global' implicature of 'Every orte who skipped the first
or the second course er!joyed the meal more' ougt~tto be 'Not everyone who skipped the first and the
second course enjoyed the meal t~iore'.
"J

(11) IfJolvl has two cars, the thlrd orre parked oitn~demust be sorneboilv elscr"s
'Here too', Cherchia says.
we want to restrict our collsiderabon to re& of worlds fkon* wfiicli people wrth
Inore than two cars we excluded 'TEle eflect of tlnr ac conuzlodat~o~,
1%the same as
the computdtion of an mlplrc,iture Dirt d we are ctght, tllr rneci~anrsni~hrou_&
which this happens i s very &&rent fro111 h o w oori~x~lly
hiplicntctres cornc about.
In (11) the implicatuie is not adtled in LocaUy. It is ~cconx~rrlodated
at seine point to
avoid a near contradiction. (Chierr:hia 2004: 67)

The last two pos~tlonsare NU atid Y Y NY 1s the vrew supportecl b\

relevance thconsts. Deirdre Widson ha, perh,rps heen the first Irugtllst ro noocr
the importance of embedded ~mplrtaturcss t;u,lmple\ hke (8) ((I), \vhrrli
pardel the Cohen-coi~d~t~onali,
arc: orrgu,tliy due tcr her (Wilsorz 1075 r , I )
InsoGr a<they result 6oxn a ~ > r a ~ m ~ a rproc
r c ess, enxl>eddedimphcatnlre\ sl.ro\~
that such procetses can take place locally ,rnd ,&ect tnitl~-corx&h~~>+---~
tlrrxnc
central to relevance theorv From rl-ic verv bcgi~lxvi~ng,
relev~ncc. theorb ha$
n~adt:roo111 f o pnrnary
~
pragxnanc jrrorcssec \uch as free enncl~rnent,m i tesms
of w l c f i enibeddcd mrnphcatxlres C ~ K he
I
' ~ i c o u n t ~fbr
d On the other hand
relevance theonst$ have t~e.ccrrbeen Il~ypy-vi l t l ~the rlotlon ofdeLtult p r ~ g r l ~ , ~ t ic value They take the alleged \ileiaultsY to be not v'ilrtef cdcubred I?) tlnc
hnguage faculty mdependcx~t01 context, but p r w s a c valtle5 that ,uc. cleterm n e d (m the usual, context-se*1\ItIve way) 111 the mact: e~s1l.ydcr curl)le
contercts that come to rnil~ctwhen ntr q>ec*fic~oritextis otherwise pro\qiieci
For exanple, one niight argue that the p h r ~ s e'ccu the gmu' I-rsrs a deiarrlt
readtng (in wh~ch'cut' is understc>od m the spec~ficsense ol mm\ --~n
ennched re~drngw1ucl-t can be contexardy overnden and w1ncl.i s p l ~ n pto
rmnd d e n the phrase I S produced 'nut o f the b l ~ ~ eKelev,irrce
'
theornsts
would reply that, when the words "cut the grass'are uttered out of tile blue,
a \tereotyplc al scrnano lr evoked wlrr~c-h
1s. U \ P ~
.I\ t nnteu-t (tle-r;llli c n r l t c ~we
~,
riught say) and with respect to whrch thc ~iiean~ng
of "cut' ntay undergo free
enrichment, thereby yleldmg the alleged dchllt readmg. The rnccbmsln at
work in prodwing that rca&txg 1%exactly the sane as (arrd 1s no Irs contextsensitive than) the mechanim at work ul producirig &' context-specfic ren&ng
such as slt~e~hegrnsstrzto strip 1x1 otie ofScarle3 t'm~ytcenanos ."S Accorc111~to
'2

See the quotation &om Scarie

1x1

Cizater r. Section 4, p. 35.

rchi~hvnric-ethec~rrsts,the sarne thirlg goes fix scahr irn.piicatures: the rneclranisrn

t113~is r e ~ ~ p ~ ~ i sibr
i bthe
l c aUegeSi.c''dc&ult i~l~plicatiires'
is mactly tlie sarrle as the
r-ricth,iriwxrt l l ~ is
t rcspnnsi13le 6)r context- spczitic:, norrce irnplic-atures.
Strrlic work i s rreetlcri orr tllc part of r e l e ~ ~ tfle(>i-ists
~ ~ ~ c zif they want to
cul~ctnr~n~
dlerr.
t e cEarm. For then: is a sigxritic:rnt diiik-ence betweer1 the
iiei;iiiit re'ldrarg o t ' ' c - ~ ~the
t gr;~ss', ~ r l Jthe deC~liltreading o f an utterance of
the fisrrnr "If -i' or ( 2 , dten I t ' . i::!lierc!ria cites ysyc.l-rologica1experime~~tr
by
P4ovc.i-l, n ( I / . (2003)~cst;~tflishi~~g
that tri'tlw two inferences tflat f'ofiow, the
first one rs irvcrwi~clririslgiyat-ceptccl, wl~ile.the icconci one is rejected:

'P'hosc expcrirricrits sttern to confirm that, by dcj;l~ilt:, '(IT' is interpreted

I I I C ~ U S ~ V Ein
" ~EIIC
~
~ritc~(:cderi
t o/3 c~ftlditio~l:*l,
but CIYCL\IS~ vely in ;I simple
sti3tcllicrit like tErc coxrcliision of (r213). This h c t c-aliriot easily be acco~lrrted
fix irr t?rrlii of s~txeiit)rl)i~
scrrr;rrios. I"ls C:hcrclrin writcs:
Wii~;i(i s i i i t e r ~ s i i n ghere 1s that w e :Ire de,~lirigW I C ;~hstr,tit
~
syllogistic ii-arnes wit11
lrbttc*r \'arr:rbichs, .iviirre r l i ~trnly 'rr;rl' warc8.: are or ' ~ n t l$. . . tlzcjn. i- l e ~ t i c
tile rc:levant
c i k c t i ; l r 1 n o t bibI I I ~ J I I C LCCI
Y ~aliyti1irri.:like scriprs, &i.,rlii
ica~c-d
or world krlowledge oE
~ i i y
kiriti. I t rritrsr be iiuv to the rneaiiing oi*ti,c: rrrlly ' I C ; ~ . ~ C ~ I I Lthitt
S occur in the
expcr~n~~c"nc:"i
rnGirchri:d.(( :i~ie~-ciii;t2004; 0 3 )

tunx to t l i c 3 U U L I C W , wh~il'iIIA IICVCS betarn ruplic~tivdefended in the

i i i ~ r ~ r t i i r'"
e 1 ?;iAcYN, WY poslh two r n e ~ I ~ ~ ~ n ~o\ n
l lcr :\znwnt~c
~,.
(the nGSl)
.ind dlc. otll4:r pr.kgrli.lrrc, but the pragnt,itit lncc hai-rr\rlrri, t,rket~to be pnnixy
r itltrer i ~ k , l r l sci o r n t l ' ~ n / i t rrrtcr,Lzts wrdt the prore%\\o i - s c n ~ ~ ~ (r ornposrhon,
tt~c
rnther th,~rrt q~cr,ilrrlgor) it?o~itptlt -1i)xrlahc bcnre of t h ~ sp c x ~ t ~ o nlet, us
30

\tcjrhi.ri ie\insocr, tlic 1t::iding aivocate of Jeliuit pra$<rna~lcvniiic5, i s .&so ,m ;dvocate ctF'rnttb-

(Coiid~t~ozi.d
ilr*ig~~iii:it~ii
(he 'a-septs frei: t.nrirhrrlrnt, pr,qgnntlt~intnisrun. i.tl-.),so ire is (i pc>renunlbuyer
t o r d i e Y Y vrcw

consrder the proceulrig nlodei outline~fm Eiecu~at~

(rc)c)5h) and Tee lrlow
CherchlG3's~deas~ o u l dbe accormnod,ited w~th311
\UCR 3 fr,inlework
In that p,y,er 1 drgued tkiat the three coirtestu~~i
procews ot clr\.~nsbrgua
tlon, s'ztaratlon, and alodu1,rtion have the followrng c hdracten\tlc\ In common In all c,tces there .uc seveial ~~zrl~izcd~ztei
for the st,itus of corr~pos~ttt>n,d
t c c>nvnlue (the compoc~eionalvalue of an expre\s~on-tokenberrlg w k ~ ~t
trlbutcs to the lnterpret'lnon of thc sentcnte-tttlieil wl~ere~t occur\) In
~tr\'imbrguatio~~
the carldlcldtes ,ire the di\t~nctme,irlings of the ar~~bigtio~rs
expression In \aturatlon the c'it.ldid,ltes &rethe v'lnous th~ngcwhlt lr ca11 be
ass~gned,tn contest, to the lingmrtic elerrlent m r~eeclof 4drtlrntiort; h r
ex'nnplr, d~Eerentreferents/antecedents can be ,~i\rgnedto the pronoun
ye~terd~tv;
I . L ~trad jn\t
'l-te\m the hscourse 'Johr~w'is arre\tec?hy a pof~cctn~~tl
stolerr a wallet' 111 modulation the c,mJi~Lates&re (1) t l t r lexrcal value
encoded by the word, and (11) pragnatlcallv denvect vxlsluer thdt are freely
$:enerate"iy ndppiyr rrg vanous prngnlatrc tilnchctrls to the Ic\li 21 v,ilue 113 ail
plc
(rncludtng,
caws, the cdnctidates receive ;tcttv,tt~oilhonl ~ n ~ i l t ~ \ou~ce\
but not restrlc ted to. Ilngu~st~c.
sotlrccs), and the csndidatc that ~ v i r l s(that
whrcll '~ctuallygoes Into the IntcrpreQtlon 2nd ,aruirle\ the status of on^
porit~ondvalue) is thrrt whlcll gets the hlghe\t '~ctivat~oti
when thc pro<e\s
of activation rpreadlng .;tablh/es
The in~portantpotnt, h r cxir ple\ent purposes, rc that the nctlvnborl ~ v h ha ~
candidate ttltxrlrdtel~recelves conies fro111 severxl \oilrce\ One source of
,ictivnhon u 1111g~:111stl~
For example, it IS well-kirown that M. t~eltdn anib~giuouc,
\
nleanlrqy,, ilc)\vever c ot~ttutu~dly
irr,tppro~x-~,ltc~,
are
word 1.; uaeted, ~ tdntulct
Llutornaticallyacttv,ited This \~rnplyI T I C ~ I I \ thdt P,XI t 0 5 the activdtlon cvhi~ha
gven nlednmg receive\ collies frorn thc tact t h ~ the
t W O I ~tlidt C I I C O ~ C Fthat
ASO CC)IIIC\ trorll other jotrrcc\, of
rne,iruilg i1as ~ W I Iuttered. A~tlv~ihori
coune, and rf 1x0 actrvatlon conles fi-01x1 other sources the nic~nrag111 que\txoxl
I\ deact~vatcdand loset, the comnpeution O r ~oncrder
r~iodisl~t*on
thc lcxlc d
vA11e a autorxlaacAy achvdtetl, 'wd i t ir tliro~tghthe I e x ~ c vdtie
~l
tl-rdt the
other carrd~daterzre acccs\ert and call ther~lselvesget ~ctrvated 13ut wlxtch
val~leactn,illy gets Into the 1nterprel;tnon and be~onlesthe t umporit~onal
value depends upon the aitivatlon level reac hrd Av the vanou\ candldatc\
~l
when a11 sources ofacttv~lt~or~
h ~ v been
e
taken mto account. 7 he l e x ~ cv,dtle
will get 111tothe mterpletahon only i f ~trecelves rrlotigh acttvatitxi from other
sources to stay at the top of tile acbvatlon rarlkng
111 tli~s11g11t we t ,UI we tire 1 )<is1 <L'I cio~rigtwo tltrnt?" Frnt, ir jx-ovr~ie\
I

-1

"

T BOTH)?
rBi? (;C%~Ciii5itnV BWA7&-i-WEATwRES O R - F F ~ ~ F W R I C R M N(OR

he p l m n~eanmgs)Second, it is a @nguistic)source of achvahori for

the ~dn&&tes----itcontributes a cemm degree of achvation to therri dong the
luies of the Cherclna algontlm: the strengthexled value of scdaJirs
gets a h~gher
degree of actlvahon unlesc 2 downward erltarhng operator u encountered, m
which case the rmkzkrlig n reversed and the p h value gets a higher rankutg O r
perhaps, we sbottld construe the strengthened readlags as gettmg a hlgher
actlvatlon thm the plan re~dlng3,and the downwxd entahng operators as
deactivating the strengtheried meamgs of the scalars m the~rscope, so as to
reverse the rrilttd ranhg."' Whatever the details, the grammar w~llbe a
hriigu~stlcsource of JcbVabon for both the plan rnearung and the strengthened
rriemzng Hut thn 1s onlv one source ofactlva~on,as m the other cases. O n the
%idcontextual hctorc jou~tlycontribute acbvaover211 plcture, L~~~imidtieal
trot1 to the candidates, 111 5url1 a wav that a sc~larterm 111 the scope of a
ito~vn\n~,ird
e r ~ t ~ ~coperator
l ~ i l g m y be ~sslgnedthe strengthened meanmg ~fthe
~ontextudactivatloxi of that nlearung IS higlier than the deactlv~tlonresultmg
fiol?l default removal C>nthis 'conmlon currency model', we don't have to
construe the ov~rncl~ng
of deLu1ts 1
' s an lnstaiice ot backtrackmg or an)ithmg
of-the sort. 0 1 1 the YY view, defaults are overnden locjuy, just as referents and
rrtcle-acal vdue\ ,Ire aqs~gnedloc ally '"

'rltls follriula~iorris not quite sat~sfactorybeca~seit dues not take the 'Hip-flop' effect Into account.
What downward errtadirlg operators nlust dv 1s reverse the rariking previously esttblished berweetl plazn
mcmirig azid rbengthelled me;mlrig. Thls :rmounts to deactivating the strengthened meanirlgs o11lv In
certxn cctses.
l'hu cliapter was conginally published (under the same titlej as an a t i d e in Wzilu.<upkiculPcrspctivr.s
17, 2003: z y y . - ~ j ~1. am ~ a t e i i l lto Robv11 Carston, Gennaro Chierchia, lferlo'lt de Comulier, Ira
Noveck, Ben~arnlnSpector, &n Sperber, and Deirdre Wilson for discussloris, conmients; or bibliopapbi:al help. Sllrce the paper was published, a lot of work h a been done on tl~zstopic, in two
dirc-ctioin. First, therc liave been attenlpts to defcnd the Gricean, globalist approach, by showing that
(s~litablyrtlodified or mricheti) rt can account for the data; see, ul panicular, Sauerland (zoo.+),Spector
(2003; ~ u t i o )van
,
lloolj and Schulz (2004), KusseU (zoo6), and Geurtr (zooc), 2010). Second, on the
loc&t side, l)ariny Fox and his allies (including Ghierclua and Spector) have developed an inhentiat,
.>
......
y i ~.u t,,dppu*~li
....
~i~
wiiidi &LCW~~-L&
h i si,d& k i p L ~ ~ t i . iby~ ?psit"ig
~
A ':0\-~5<
c ~ h ~ " ~ G "ptiALui
~&y
to "only' (see Fox ~oog,zoo7;Cixierchia 2 0 6 : Cherchia, Fox, and Spector forthcoming). From the
TCP point of view, two things are worth noting in coriliection with these developments: (1) The
staunchest defender of the neo-<;ricean, globalist approach, namely Bart Gems, acknowledges the
existence of a class ofcac;es which can only be Iiantiled locally via modulation (which he refers to as
'recotistrid and characterizes as 'a local pragnatic process'). In the case of scalar terms, reconshud
'results in a special kind of meaning sk&, in that the lexical meaning of an expression is narrowed down;
e.g.. . . the lexical n~eaningd t u a m i s restncted to "warn1 but not hot"' (Geurts 2009: 74; see also Geum
2010 38.sj. (2) The covert exhaustivity operator posited by Fox et al. looks strikingly similar LO the 'covert
optionals' mentioned in Chapter 4 (see note 7, p. 139): so I m i not sure the 'syntactic' approach rs redly
an rrlterr~ativeto TCI'. See nly renlarks on covert optionals, pp. 139-41.

6
Indexicality and Context-Shift

1.1.

Indexici~lityand setlzuntic uniieu-spec$cufior?

Indexlcals m the ctnct sense are expres\loris who\e senlantac value \y\tenrclt
~callydepends upon the context ol utter,mce, and whose llng~usticnaeanlng
somehow encodes this dependenr y upon the context of uttcrarrcc 7hus
I do not count as ~ndexicalIn the stnct ievtse those exprenionc vvllo4e
sernantlc value depend\ upon the r orrtext alerely because they are icrurnntjcally under-5pe~lfiedand &nct~onAS i-ree rr'~n,i>Iesto whlclr a v a l ~ ~I ~eI L L S be
~
contextuallv asugned. Whenever an exprescxm n i irltfexxcal rrr the stnct
cense, ~ t sIlngiistrc rnclmrrrig e r r c t > r l c ~tclken-re.)ltrxfv~
i
nrlt whrclrr tcllr us
how, Eor each partitul~rtoken o-l the cxyreulon, we call detrnninc tlre
content carr~edbv that: token AS A filnctlori 01 the Lirrunrrtatlcec of utterance.' Thus the melmnirqz, of
rs the nrle that token ofthai word refen to
the producer ofthat tokt.11, the me,inlng oiktoday' i\ the n ~ l et l u t ,itoken of
that word refers to tile day on wlllcil the toke11 IS prodnceci, tile rrredrrung of
'we' 15 a rule that a token of tlrat word refel$ to A g o ~ l t )that corxtarr~,the
speaker, and yo on and so forth
Note that itit being iridexlcal En the stinct seriic doec rrot prevent an
expression from also berng rerndllhc,dly under-sl~ec~fiedThus '\t?rc9I* lroth
"I'

I Such exprcnlons nlay themselves be ci~ristruedAS fiee variables, d o n e w-isi~es,

but then a tokenreflexive presupposiholl constraining the ~.onccxruaiassignment of value to the var~ablehas to be

associated wlth them. On this view wl~atdriarrguisbes irrdexrclrls from tlie ocher expresssons corisnzred
as free variables is the natnre of the prrsup~)osiiiori,~s.cociateciwith them. T l ~ ecspresslon counts as
rndexicai (in the stnct sense) o11ly if the presupposxion ii token-reflexive. Of course tins rs a terznmoiogcal snpulatiori regarding the use of 'i~~~ci~xicai';
but the rrilpotcant polnt is that we r~eecito draw a
distincuon between two types of indexicals-m-the-i>rcrad-sense: iridexicak in the stnct serrse (tokenreflexives) and se~nanticallyunder-specified rxpressiors.

~ndc.\rc,rl (tire crlcodeci rule tc tokcrt-rrf1eur.s~)and ~ ~ ~ ~spe~ified

t i e r (the
"group' whaiti n\ the r-eferc-ut of 'we' IUXO~
IIXII(~I~C!V determuled by the

" T tlcb,~ti.wtrlt h wurtls art- i~rciex~i

a1 (tokerl-rcNes~ve)arid
11: ,I I I I , L ~ ~ Lof
v\rhiilr are rrrereiy corrtext--sertsitive. Strn~tapc%rrple,for example, iiold that
thin-i\ 1x""non"1-~""lounslike ' ~ I c;111(1
'
' S ~ IC' are i~ i ( i e x i ~ ; to
i ;t h e ~treat
. ~ tlzern as
free v;iii:rlilirs rrssoci;rteci with ;I rlvn tokcxi - r c f k x i v c ~~resugposition
(to the
~ I l i : ~that
t illeir. scri~;rnticvalue has to bi: :I rrralc or fkrriale irrctividud, as the
id\e may ire) 1 will trot go lrxo this debate X-ieli, I or cierr~on~tr~tives
too,
t11c1-carc" two tiptioils, b u t I cvill assuzrlc. the i ~ r d e x i c d,111aiysis. according to
\vhltrkl 1.1rc~ l ~ c ~ a n o
i nf g3 delxi~>~i"rtrative
like 'this' or 'this car' encodes a
t o k r ~ yX.I:~~C'XIVC"rule jscc S e c t i ~ t1.2).
~

I ..?.

' I 7ri: role

O ~ LS"~ C L J ~ C itltct1liot1.s
'~'.~

W h c c i ~ :jrl
r ~ cbxpresslt.rxris indcxii-aI or rnc:r-cly c.orrtest--sensitive.it.s coritent
dcpcbaicli uporr s i l i ~ i l ekdtiirr o f the i.r)ntext oC'rrtlcrarxce. Merely contextserrsi~ivrcxprcssiorrs arc stlctl t1131 their c:orlicrlt ~11lih17'111y
depends upon tlzv
ipetikcr's iirtrtzlioll (or ;it lust, tire iritentir,xr \?rhich it is reasonable, in the
conrcxt, to as~.rii,cr o the spe;~ker).'X'llus wlrcrr I use x; gcrlitivt as in "Jolin's
car-', 1 rtrikr to tiic c:ir that I)c:~xs'1 ccrt~irlrelation I\" tojolrn, whicll relation is
detc-s~xilrrcdira ctrrrtcxl; as a furtctioxr of-the spe~ker'sintentions. In contrast.
irldexrc;l"iqyressii~rls are stich t11;rt alrc>ircorrtcal iri (txdz ctse dr.ycrt~lslipon cr
ciirsi,oncrtc.d Ji~crt~tnr(!/ ilzr tatztc7.xt qf t,ittenzni.P. ' I 'hilt fkat.~lrewhich, following
Nirr-rlrerg, I c-all the ' i t ~ t ~ e xspecified
' , ~ ~ by ttrt. token-reflexive rille associated wit11 tire irttlcxical. For- the first person pronourls 'I' a ~ i d'we' the
incicx i s circa pcrsor-r protlrrcinp dtc ntterancc. I k r 'you' ir is the addressee.
For thc tc.r-isrs ~ x i c iteinporal adverbs like 'today" ."tornorrow', etc., it is the
einre ciCuttcratu:e. 1x1 i.:ich case, the rcfercllcc oi.tilt ir~dexjc;ilis determined
:w J. firrictiorr uf'tire c o n t e x t ~ ~index."
d

' '1 hi3 is rit)t to l

~ t.~~rfi~scti
t ~
with the use of'indrx' to rrkr to i i i c r iriunismxcr of evnluauor~(see 52.2).
Q~iordxtig
t o Nunixrg ((rgyj),~rrdcxicds'ricodc tiirec types cor~nfonriaaon:'tii.sctic' ~nfbrt~mtion
rtbiative ~otlir iniXi'h. 'dc:iinpiwer' ~nfonnatroclreiauvi: to thc rciircrit, :u~cim(iint1aaor1prrtaining to the
relauaii bet-iveen rncics .urid rtfcxent. 'Thus 'tottrorrow tnkes rtrt: time. of ilttcraisc ;ls tndex (de~ctic
rrlibt-nuiiorr).i t t,Ar, &v
~-~tPrent
(~Iescs~ptwe
~ t ~ ini~itio~i),
i x
and ~t alsu t ~ ~ c o dtlte
e s snfornrntioti that
rile 1-efiwniiiuirieih~tc+vfbllow~(lie &iy t-~)~~crlli~in~:
t i i t * index

'I wo specla1 cases are worth ctnc ussing . ~ tthls polrtt X n-st, wllcri , ~ n
1s both indexlcd a i d \ealaiitlcJlly nr~der-sl3ccrtieti(as 'WL' 15) ~t.;
corltcnt depend\ both 11po11 the des~giiated~ n d e xund the speaker'\ Illtentloris. Thus, as we have seen, the \ernant~cvalue o f 'we' a a group ~ox,L~irl~ng
tlze sprakerar~~ong
rts riienlbers. Eiere the speaker 1s thc ~ x l (so
d ~
'we'
~ 11,is tht
t Aso need the speaLcr'\ interlticttl$to ftx the relevant
same index as '1') b ~ lwe
group whlcli rs not f~rUydeterrruned, but merely c orrstwlrred, by t'ric. hngursexpression

t ~ cmcanlng of 'we' In contrast, the rneartlng of '1' or 'tctrnorro.iiv' Lull)

detenlvlies the content ofthe word a? a fitnctlon ofthe Index o ~ iec I tie rrrctex
17 contert-tuaIly identified, the refetent IS eo zpfo rdentified
Another mterestlng case rs tbxt of demonstr~tlveslike 'rhls' or 'tins car' If
we treat tlieur as rndemc'il expresuon.i, as I Jrn tlorrig here, 'ivl~atwlll be tl-lc
contestud index? l he lide ex liere rs s~ndardlyc orlsideretl to br the tiemonrtrtztitni. that IS, the ent~tyto wlurh the speaker Ll\lng the derilor~s~r~~tlve
c t~
~ w s
the hearer's attentlcln by means of a polntlrtg gesture or by arry otlier tileans
7 here 15 ,in ongolng debate regardmg the cletenuins~t~on
oi the ctetrlor~str~ltun1 ~t\elf15 it deterx~~ilied
by the ywaker's Intentron\, or 15 ~t ttetcr~ntrledI n
object~vet j ~ t o r sSUCII AS w111ch entity of the relevai>tw r t tir\t lntctsects tht
str~ighth11e errrAnatrng horn the speaker's po~ntlngt~ttgrr?' I he '~~ltteltt~orr
15s' tale the index to Ite whit the 5peaker den~orntratcs.
ttut IS the elktrtv suclr
that the spealer m,skes rn,inlfest to the hearer hw or hcr iritention to brntg t c
to the he'uer's atterttion by rile'ins of thc hezer's recogrutiort oc tlllr
Intenrron (where 'thrs' rctieuively refers to the whole, c otttplex tntentlon,
as m standard (;nceaxl ,ln,tlyses) O n tills mew, the speaker'$ cfer~~on\tratrve
mterltlorl 13 the cn~cl,daspect of the context on which the refelerlce 05 a
tlernonsnative depends--1t 1s fconstltut~veof) the 11idc.s
'flie situatlert n comyhcated by tlie fact that den~onstr,rtl.iic\too are \tArnnntlc& under spetrfrcd 1n their own tnshroa. Accorctlr~gto Nunberg, the
rebtton between the ~ n d e xand the referent I\ not Irr~gilrst~c,~~~y
\peclfied in
the crtx odenronshatlve\ (cosltrary to w h ~h~ypens
t
wltll pure r~~dex~cals
lrbt'I' or '~OITIO~EOW').
It1 derxlonstmte my c'rr keys whlle snyrng ttr tfic valet "Tlils
1s parked out back', the demonstratum (~nctex)n the cet of keys, nccc>rctirtgto
Altcmanveiy, orie
eqLsxt".the ~ndexwit11 the iierrivtistr;ited pla(e (111 such a way t l ~ d t'this car'
re&n to the car a? the iniiicated plare) (Lyons 1973; l\rt.;mati .zoq:302). lx7 wliat r0llows I assxit~icthe
startdard position.
See Kaplatr (rg89h: 582 QO), Keimrr (19")), Bxlr (~y(tz),Koher??,(rvy7), Slegel (LO(IL). MOIIXIL
(2008). Inter alra.

Nunbcrg, brtt tile referent is the car to which the demonstratedkeys belong. In
other cases, perliaps, the referent wdl be the ixrdex, and the relatxon wiil be that
of-rdentrcy So we need the speedier's rntentlons to ftu the relation because ~t15
sen~~ail~cally
under-specrfred, but we dso need the speaker's dernonstratrve
lntelihon since ~tis corvhtutive of the rndex In the fmt place (at least d the
lrltertnorltsts are r1g11t) T h s suggests that the speaker's rntentlorzs are playng
two roles here they ,we both d ~ feature
e
of the context whch the rneamng of
the denror-rstr,lhve(I e the ~\sociatedtoken-reSfexve rule) mv~testhe hearer to
corzil~ierrri order to Jetenintle the vdue of the dernonstratrve as a f u n ~ n o nof
the ~rdex,ar~dthey art: what rnakes ~t possrble to overconle the underspecificanon of the token -reAewve rule, whcb its& involves somethng 1lke
a free relat-ron v,mable On thrs pr~turethe nlearung of a demonstrative n the
rule h a t the demonitruttve r&rs to the enhay thut bear5 relatlun K to what the speaker zs
Jemanstratzng The \pealier7r'sintennons are requured both to deternvne what the
\pe;ikcr is demo~istratxng(rndex),arnd to d e t e m n e the relevant relatlon R such
that the referent 1s the object, or an object, which bears R to the index. (Ifthe
referent rs ' ~ n object
'
bearmg K to the rndex rather t h i 'the' object beanng R
to tbe mdex, therl the speaker's lntenhom wlll also be needed to srngle out tire
rclevsnt object )
3 1&e context illtrtti.runcr
So far 1 have talked of Yeatures of the context', includmg arnorlg such features
both the spesker? intentlorn and 1nore obje~bve,wpeLts of the situat~o~i
of
utlermue wcfi ,is who \peaks, when, wilere, and so forth Now what 1s a
'conte~t'iFor a srtuanort to courit as a context, an uttermce rliust take place m
t
must be an agent u 2nd a language LAsuch
that sxtuabon T ' h t rne,rrb t l i ~tilere
t h t a utterc an expression e of I., thereby performing, or attemptmg to
perf:i,m~,what Austirt cdls ,I 'loc~rtlonasyact', ,in act wtuch requxes on the
pax of tllc agent certaul behe&and mtentlons A context, In that \ense, IS not
an ab\tratt obje~t- a ceyumrc of features-as Icaplaruan 'contexts' are. It I\ a
c oncrrte stustion wrth a pafircular ind~vid~~ai
111 ~t endowed t v ~ tcornplex
l~
nlentd \ute\ (e.g beliefs a ~ mterrtlons).
d
'Inlpn~per\ontextc m Kaplan's
ccme--e g context5 in w h l ~ hthe '*gent d o e not exst at the m e of the
t ontext--arc obviously ruled out, but so are 'proper' Kaplanr~ncontexts In
which no utterance n made or no language emits or tlie agent IS unable to
thurk or talk SaU, nothing prevents us from analytically extracnng a set of
1

'features' that all contexa rnust possesc, or -t).ornhshng the featrue of cor1tex.t~
(the 'm&ces7)on wluch the refereli~eof mdexcal expre.ssionsdepend (whether or not such features are necessary features of contexa)
s
1s t h ~ofa)rztc.xt-shtfi
t
The issue I am spedcalty mterested r n 111 t h ~ chpter
Slnce the semanhc value of an indexxcd depends upon the contee, rhrfilr~gtlre
context results m s M m g the value ot the rndexcal Rut to what extent ri i t
possible to slift the context? Does the Larguage itself-provrde Inexis fol d c ~ n g
so! 15 not the contextgiven to us pre-s"r~'~fiacdlly'
A\ we sh~llsee, the arrncxver
to these questions depends both upox1 the rclev,mt feat~treof the context
some are more sluftable t1ia.n oo~cers--,urd ,rko on ttze nature of die ihrh My
m n top~c
In the chapter mll be tile vmetles of-contest-shrft ,mcl the rlzr outy
o f d r a m g ctlst~nctions
between them Xrr the tiela two cli~ptenvvc wll look a1
5orne quotabonal phenoniena \which xguablj~rest on context -shdt

3.

(Alleged) cotitext-slrzifis in corliples senterlces

Let us first consider a group of c a w that have beet-1 tfzc I'ocus oC rrlmrlh
attenhon in the hnguishc hteraturre the rLses In wlilch dn ~rlcfeucai<q-tpe,~rs
to be hound Ach~aUvthere are two sorts ctt caws that one ought: to
dicnnguish: tlie t-lelrn caces aid Ihe IJmec cdses "
I--Ieini's ongnal exan~plew , ~ s "C)nl\ I cl~dn q horrreworb', Irut ttolLo\v~rrg
RuUnla~m(2004) I will charrge the eumq3lc \o ~s to de,rl w t l r t l ~ chrit
person pronoun 'I' rather d ~ r nthe posl;e\slve "rrrv'.
{ra) Only I got a questlor1 I ~~riderstcnocl
(rb) I got a questrori I understood; ar~ilso &d John

Lke ( ~ b )(la)
, has two readnlg O n one of the bvo r e ~ d ~ r i the
g , cecorid
occunence of'17works 1k.e 3. b ~ u r l dban,tl?lc (311tlie reahig 111qurstiors, (re$
savs that 1am the only x sut h tliat x gut J ipre\aon x tmderstood (t )rr rl-reother
l r u got a cjuestron I undelrtocrd )
redmg, (ra) says that I m i the ordy .x s ~ ~ cdlat
Srdarly, on tlie so-called 'sloppy' reddurg of (ib), the first ( onjunct says that

),

$
B

The fonner were introduced by Irerrc I-leim i n class rrotcs in rite early rggoc (see refera-nces in
Rullrnam (2004) or Schlenker (fofthcomind); the latter are discussed in I'xtecl: (1989).

How, tlxen, car1 we account for the fxct tbxt in e ~ c lex'~1111~le

t
the ~x~dexlcal
a bouridl In the case of(r3, one may argue that the <ecolldo( ctureilce o f '1'

1s a dumnzy rndexlc'd, just as ' ~ t ~n

' '~t'sr'i~n~rrg'
I\ a dt~n~xny
subjcc t Jlir;t as A
ciurnrny subject has to be used In Engl~shfix syrxt,itt~~
Irdsolls, the d~trirriry
mdexcal 'I' lras to be wed fbr xnorpttologpcal le'isoryi (bet-,*usethexe llrttct be
'agreerlient' m gcrzder, nunher and person betweer1 xn cmaphortc pronourl
and xts antecedent) f ronl a semarrtlc pomt of mew, the secolld occtrl~rnce
of 'I' 1s he\c construed AS a bourld v:tn~ble, ur1fizortt tllt token jeflexivc
presupposrtton t l r ~ tcharac terues tile gerlutrie lrrciexxcnl
(5ce Schlei~her
forthcon1ing and the refererrces dlereiu.)
'The case of (3) is different. Here we do have a gerruine installee of the
indexicnl 'we', but, I would argue, no coiltext sliifi is required to account fbr
the fact that it is bound. The value of the indexical depenrls LIPOII a fe:rture oi
the cot~tcstof uttertmce (the index, n;mtely tlxe speakcr) but ilzt~l.fi;atnrc.stays
S~I!$S i ~ 1
thix qt~antific(i(-onstuntcrvefz thortgj~the value cfthe indewicrd xysti~~?fotim~/y
tiotzal exatr~plu:all the groups in the course of'v311ies of the I>OIIXI~indexical
corltaln the speaker (the spexker of the context) '15 r?i~er-nl>er.
as well ;uJolirl
'\
A) who vnnth\frctt~lC ~ S C
tt) CI\C.50 we t ,m
and a third person ( J o ~ I ~friend
n ~ ~ n t a that
r n tliere is L. ~zngleont text ot utter,rrtcc here (the ont text tn wh~ch
( 2 ) 1s uttered) suclt th.a the value ofthe indexical at 'my polnr 111 ~ t roulr\c
s
of
vdues 1s a function of one partrcular fkatrtre of tliczl (ontrxt. kor tllere to be a
context-shztl, there would have to be at least two contexts, and the contextu d index (1.e. the feature of the context of utterance on whiclr the value of
the indexlid depends) wotdd ltself have to be shlfted.
'II'

2 2.

(~t~~d@~~r(~nce-sh!fL
vs co~teat-shift

Accordulg to 3avrd Levas, tt is often the case that 'the tr~lttiof a wntexice ux 2
context depends upon die tn~thof some relxted sentcrice kvhel~sc>mefeatur e of
the o n p a l context 1s shftfd' (Inwis rySo/rggli 27) '[bat ~5 so because om
langugudge conwls se~ltenhdoperaton w t h the foglowlrrg j)ropcrty the truth of
m y c ~ r ~ p l eselrtexlce
x
Op conx~htlgof such hn opeleitot 0 apltheci to \oxntb
serltence p a system~trcallyrelated to the mtll of p when \ornc fgature of the
o t ~ ~ pcontext
al
(the contcxt m whch ttle conxplex sentence 0
1
3 LS uttered) fras
been slxfied ul a ~ oc r h ~ec\ylth the rules govenisng O I erstpord, spatlal, <md
nmdd operators have tlre property 1r1 cluestton: the tl-utli of ;illy conlplex
sentence Op corrslstlng of a temporak spatlal, or modal operator 0 apphcd to

come sentencep ir systerruucdy rel~tedto the truth ofp when the mle, place, or
world of the o n p d context has been sMted. Thus 'There Iuve beer1 dogs'
t been the case ht/there are dogs') a true now If
jcvkrci.~L ewa pmtu as: ' ~ hm
'there arc;dog,\s true at sonre hnle before now; "onlewhere the sun is s h g '
is true here d'the sun n shlmg' is true somewhere; and so on and so Cod.
I thlrrk ~t woul(i br quite nlirleaduig to tdk of context-stz$ In connection
with the pbenonlenoa drctussed by Lewls. Saymg w l ~ ywdl hopeftlily shed
sr>tnc11ght on the relevant notion of context-shfi.
I,ewrs descnbei A ieature-s11ihlng process that takes place in the course of
evaluat~rigthe caniplex sentence Op: startxlg from the lrutxdl sltuatlon s ~n
wh~chthe complex centence itself is being evaluated, and \vhich Lews
ecjl.iatesto the context of utterance, we shift some feature of s and evaluate
the embedded sentence p with respect to the distinct situation s' resulting
ho~mithe shifi induced by 0. Now, as I said above, a genuine context-shift
~ ~
input context (the context before the shift) and
requires t t contexts-the
the output context (the context afier the shift). But the situation s' resulting
from the shifi is not a context; nor does Lewis claim that it is one. The
output sltuatrort need not possess any of the constltuhve properties of a
~t need not contan a speaker, An utterance, nor a language.'
LC)IICCY~.
There 1s another reason for d e ~ ~ y rthat
r ~ gthe shift here is a genuir~econtext
ihlfi. Nctt only 15 the output slhxabon s' riot d contest: contrary to Lew~s,
1 tfo n c ~ tllir~k
t
the Input srtuation s--that ul whlcln the complex sentence Op
itselfis ev,ilnated--lid, to or can be equated with the 'contest' of Op. 1 grant
t t ~ dt corltext aIwav\ includes '1 trme, A place, arid A world feature (slmply

Oi'cource, it, rnay posses such features: nothing prevents the sentence p In the scope csfd~eoperator
ttortt descnbmg a sirttaat)rr in which sot~teonesay.; sornetIGng. Thus in the sentence 'Son~edzy,someone
wdl \tanJ up and say comrthmg' the operator 'soznteday' (or more explicitly: "someday it will be the ca.e
that') cakes rts to a s211iled slnratiot~s' which is located in the future, and which--if the sentence is atre--h;~pperisat he a simanon ofurteralce: a situation in which sonleone says sorr~ething.Even in that sort of.
case, however, the output situation cannot serve to fix the value of the indexxcds that occur in the
sentence p which is to be evaluated wid1 respect to that sittuation. The vdues ofthe indexicals that occur
in the en~beddedsentence p are fixed by the context m which the cornpiex sentence Op is uttered. Thus
soirieooe will stand up and say something about the clothes f am
:i'thr complex rc~lterlceis 'S~o~nehy,
wertnng today', the values d t h e lndexicals 'I'and 'today' (as well as that of the present progressive) will
uot be determmed by the features of the future situation in wbicli someone stan& up and says something.
'I' will not refer to the person ~ i speaks
~ oin that situation, and 'today' will not ref& to the day of diat
ntuatiorr; nor wiU rlre present progressive refer to the time o f t h t situation (even though the cime ofthe
ongind utuaoon has been shifted). Rather, '1' wiU refer to the speaker in the origlnal context of
utterance (that uul which the con~plexsentence ic uttered), and 'today' and the present tense wiU have
their values determined as a fiinction of tile time of drat same context.

INIII?X ICAl.X'l'3' A N D G O N T E X l . ~ ~ S IF'T

I/

189

because any uttermce 1s bound to tdke place somewhere, at a pmcular

tune, m d in a pmcular world) X dso p a n t that a ten~poral,.;patxal, or snodxl
operator 0 sh~ftsthe tune, place, or world of the 1n1b,d sl&tahorl 5 in vvhrch
the complex sentence O2p 11s b c u ~ gevaluated, arrd thereby detemllxres the
(distinct) situation s' 1n whicl~the sentence p ~t operates on has to Ile
evaluated in the course of evalu3611g ( J p What I deny I\ that the lxlrrrd
situation s in which the cornples sentence 1s evaluatecl has to be identified
w t h the crtrltext m which that ( ornplex mitence 1s uttered 'tnd 1nteq3rctcd
Or, to put it another \.vnj I tleny t h ~ tthe time, place, 2nd world
w t h respect to wlvch the complex sc-ntcrrce 1s evaluate& -the tltue, plat c ,
and world whsch the operator \vcterrratrca_llvsh~fts -1s the m l e , pXxe, and
world of the context ot rttrermcr It need riot be there 15 a pnncri3lcJ
d~fferencebetween, say, the place o i ttre context of utterance, and dle place
with respect to whicls the uttered ientclrlce 1s evalllateci
Take 'It is raning'. T o e v a l ~ i ~that
r e sexitence we need A pldce, but that
need not be the pldce of the context (I c the place where 'It 1% raulrx-ng' rs
uttered). It nlav be any p l x e w h i ~ hthe spedlier 11scnnetitly c o r ~ s t d r r arid
~~r~
taUmg about Si~mlarly,the tune ;rnd would wrth respect to \n/h~chwe
evaluate a sentence need not bt the tune d i d w0r1d at the corite*r 111
which that sentence 1s uttered rlr~srs undoubtc~dlvtile rnosl conrrrlun
and the sirnplest case, but t h ~ \~c onlb J particular c ~ s cneverthele\i, l i l o
place, tune, ~ n world
d
with respecno wllrch we t!~dlldtl),L \ezitence x e
features of tlze situutrorz tulked libour i r t utterrn'g thut serafetzcf, and thc altnatlun
talked about need not be itfentlc~lto the \ittratson of utterance
The point I have just made w quite tentdtive f-or I ddrrut that the theorv 1.r
sunpler ifwe car1 Identify the r i i i t l ~situnholk
~
and the context ofnttrratlce, a\
Lew~sdoes. k i d in the c,ise OK f e t ~ ~ p o rlocations
d
(in contrast to . ~ p a t ~ d
locations) it 15 tenTtxng to say t l ~ i,tt ]>recenttelrse setitence--wluch I take to
be counterpart of 'It is raning' rn the tenxpor;rl order-descnbes 1' \rt.txalon
at the brne of utterance. rather tIiax1 any ";lrnat~onsemurg a5 refererice hnre
(though see Secbon 5.3 for tlre oirposrte mew). Be tfsat as xt may, even ~fwe
accept Lewis's polnt rega&np the mput \ituatlori arsd equate xt to the
context, I would resist tahng the shrfi he iiescr~besas 2 context shift,
because the output situation is not a torrtext but, as he h i m e l l puts rt,
only the 'mdex' or (as Kapla~ipub i t ) the ctntrrrzstunre of wuluut~orrtor the
embedded sentence. For that reaon, 1 wt>nld classify the sort o f s h ~ fI.,ew~\
i
talks about as a curcumtmce-sh~ftratlier t11u a context-shift

l ' l r t . corxic~xt~r~ij
I'caiures wl-riclh rrxay be slrihed by :rxl operntor are few h
trrir~rbtbn-, I,r\siis s a y : i>esiiles tl~t:tinle, 197t pincc, and the world of the
ctrnrcsxt, Irc r?irc.xrric~raI Iw 'stnndnrcis of precisiorr' ;is the fourth (and ultimate)
sf~iti,abici;*,itrirc of tdlc c.orltcxt irl wlut hcs acirrrits is a "short list'. NOWthe
starrdacc$s .c>Spr.cc-isiori
Jrit the only case 0x1 1,twis'i; list in which it seems that
sonietlrrng i:kc ;I gelriiir~econtext sh;f
r t OCCE~TS.
e d\ititlie t11~11we mrt. wirb a ( cintcXat1x1 wIuc11 certain stmdards of
precisio~i3rc I n i iLrrc.c -say, Ioosibstarrd:rriis. 111 s~icha context 'Ilcxagond' is
irjterjrsi.teil Foost*iy :irit-i tr111yapplies to France. (llr a context. 111which stricter
st~rrd;rrcl';01. prccisac~ri;ire in ibrce, 'Ilexagorr:lE' tlt>es not appLy to France).
Now, hv i r s i r r g : ~c.xj>rt"ssio~l
~~
like 'strjctjy speakirrg7.one ~ u ~ ~ ~ s ~ c oirk
n tzuhiclz
clxt
ioosi. .c icindiirtr"?(~j"'prcti.siotitrrc irz .f;~rcc,inrv u corili':xt ~ i i t k rstricter st'znd~zrds.As a
resrrbl:, '""C;fic-el;: spe.;ihin~g, ' m r ~ i ci s riot hexngor-ial'7s tnle even under low
\ta~lJ:~rtis
of' prccrsiori if]' '"1:mnc:e is r i o t htxagonni" is b x e uncier stticter
st:rilvi;irtis' (I cwis rciXo/rc)c,S: 27). This Iotrks like {.heC>L~ICP.
c;ises f l l ~ ~ ~ t i o n e d
i ~ vB.CWIS,
but therc is an iinportarit ~31Akrcriie:in this case, tlie stritted
citti'ii ion t o \\lhic-li the operator "sric tly spc*ikirlg' t:ikes us (tlle o u p u t
i ; i t r l ; l ~ ~ t rs ~i )i ( 1 0 ~ silii:ili+
:IS :i ctxitext. c r f trttera~lc-e.The cvords tllat ColIow
' ~ t ~ i c : t l >~pc~kirig,'
~
t.rviv ttttered in ;i cczntcst tlut differs bonl tlre original
context iri tDi,it sonic fcxlrrrrc. of thta origin;rl cantext has been shifted: wt,
wrrteij wit11 i o r i t c x t in wliirll loost" s~ancJar<is
ol'prCcisiotl were in force,
'irlii wir1~11113 EPI
~ ' O I ~ I - C with
X~
stricter ctarrclarck. LVc may constnre the
si~r~ri;irii.;
of'pri-c-isiori :LS 3.~111sr7ec-tof"the / c ~ Y ~ ~ p~ozk~ec~in~n <
thec contcxt: i r ~
tho fir\(.I - O I I L C X ~the I-rrrgir:lgc s p o h i ~
is loost., in tire stbc-c>rldcontext it is strict.
O n t h i s c oi)si:rii;ri, t11c tvorcis tilar ;ire rrncrec?l :ricer 'strricr.ly speakirrgq are
ir~terpretecl:ici-ordirigto tl?c ~-ulesoi-the: strict l a n g ~ ~ ; til~lcforce
,
in the siliftttcd
ctrnteui. 1'111srs dxr:~logoilstrt wl~;itlraytl>e~ls
ill rile fi,ilo\uing exanlplc:
{bt'i,

1 fvre woa stax wit11 .i corrre'ct in wltic-h S;,r~$?;l~sl~

is spoken, hut, after the
p l r x x "'as tbc L;rcrrch say' (:and t>cc;suseof it), tlie ldii~gti~tge
feature of tlke
cuiirext sblifi.; l'ri~rrr I:nglish to Frenc-11."-Flus is J gerliiirle co~ltext-shift.
V / si( i i i i ( . o ~ i i t > i i i i it o lrir ti~i."in~~g~i~ge'
.dirii>n!: t i i e feaiure~
of a context (aiongsidc the nnle, tire place,
lie ipeakcr, r.ti.,). E cio io f i ~ iLWO rc:rlsorls: firs(, I - ~ C A C(if
I Sm
~ y co~x~~n~t~xlezlr
to ' r ~ d ~ s t inq~tioil
c'
of
( . i > i i t ( ' ~ t ac iiecc~blxiivirivoiwrrig soriiconc: who uses a i i n g i a i a t i c cxprc*s!on tu say soz~ietirir~g
(sr.3);
><.I voci. iiecrrr\e i i.EiiiiL cjrrot~~cioxinl
dcvii:cs bavc tire power E O sllifi the CCIIIIZX~ dnd, ~n p ~ ~ i c u l dLO
r,
s I t ~ ( tthe l ~ r ~ g ~ ~f .i &t g~ ct t i wt b f - f l ) t r ontext (50.3). &~o-L.
t h s 111 < : l ~ . t p ~ < - r \ztn~l8.
i

I" j Slzt(tln2 'inliritionitl'

fc~ztz~rt'i(I/ tiz~ranieat

Acc orclrrrg to I etzils. tllerixAre \cmlltrhl r?ulrcfor s h ~ f i l the

~ ~ g~ s p ef(of the context
of words hke 'heu<y,on~l'
depe~-id\.ri,rrrlely thCrtdind,xd\
or) whrcll the ( or~ter~t
of I?wciclon "mctly \pe&ing' 1s governed by tlre brirlantlc I L I I that
~ 1t sll~i't,
the st;lnd,~ril-ofprecrctori feature of the ~orxtext(]nit l ~ k ctrsod,~l.~rtcltenryord
oper'rton .Ire gocerne~thy the sem<tntrcrille tltat they sh~Ctthe worki or irrw of
evdu,itlon) U L Itill\
~ con~t"1ltlon'il14texpI;~l>at~on
( ~uzbe t lt,tllcnged, ;uld J
p~agmatir~ c ount
c
oI the context sfnfi ftrov~dcleci~latr,rtl
7 be prag111'1tlc A' C O L I I X1~hkvr in I I U I I ~r~ht%E
ort ,t dl\bnctlol~f b'fve ,dre,itly
dhlded to l~ctween1x0 cortJ of contextu'd teattcre $onre fc~turc\of thr
conteut es\et~twllydcpenct upon the ~pt,tkci'sintentic~m. rtrus wllonz the
A ctenlo~s\tratrvc,
\pe,tber rc ,t~iJressiiig,or to ~vildtfie IS refernrrg wllcrl Irt~
or how 111s word\ :ue to be t'lkelt (scnctly or loosely, say), ,111 ti115 to a lxge
~ ~ \pc&er's lrlteritloiir Wherl ~ 1 ,~\pe(
1
t O/ tile ~orltext
extent depends u l x ) tflic
clepertilc upon the spe~her'sirlttbritlc)rrirx tll~cw.ty, 11. rc poss~blet o 5hlh th,u
feature of the co~itextilnrplv by ~ n a b ~ n::one'
g s intention to c t o \o sukl-trcrently
I O'um. ts u l ~ ahappen5
t
w~tlt'strrc tly \pe,rkirli;' By It\lrig i h , ~ t
e x p l ~ c ~7;h1\,
t
exprecsion one ~rtdlcate\one's mteritlon to \pe,lk strt~tly111 the hrt o f drsc-o11rc;e
that follows bspressrrrg that nit en trot^ I r eriorr gh to ac tu,xlly dctet-n~inchow
one's words c>uglrtto he t'ibcn, fix the followtrig ue,xsoil how the spedcr's
thc \peaktrr's
wor& arc to be t d e n 15 an aspect ill ~vtiattire cpc,rkzr niedn\, <~rrd
t11at is by lettir~gtlie hearer krtow
rncatnng works by gcttirtg rtseifrccog~i~et~,
what the spcaker'i cctintl~ultlc,rtlcelntentrons arc CIie speaker'\ co~rtrnunic-l
tlve lrltelltlon5 11,ive the cii~tirrct~v~
property tlrnt tflcir rcc og~lltl(>rt
1edci~to, 01
po~gblyco~~ctrtute\,
t h c ~ i~rltllmcrit,
r
,u many autltor5 111 t t l c x (;nc c,in tradrt~on
hme c;uggesteJ (sce o g U ~ c hanti 1 I,lntlslt 1979) So, tct rrl,xlic John m y
,~dckessee,I have slntply to ~ m k ileae
t l r ~ itt I\ Ixrn 1 mtetld to ~clcirrsr 'n-iuc
I may cay, 'Yo~I,Jo11~1 ', or I rlidy looh .it ll~rx~
cvlz~le\ye,xkxrig, or tne
whatever 111t%,lxuare kwdable for nr'1k1ng my riltentiori \uNiclerrdy ri>~~uii'st
of the c orltext Irr-i,~gxneI start
111tlus wav f rnay e'zsrly siltti tlre addrccsee I-e<~ttire
by addre,ilng a crowci A t some point In rr-ty chscot~r\et n ~ i slufi
y the 'tddres\ee
i~
on, 1 <rrnad&cs,~ng
feitt~lreot the context by nlaklng cvplrcrt that, f ~ o r now
Jotu-t Tlu\ 1s st~zularto the h i t m stand,lrds of prectqlorl dexr~bcdby I e w s ,
,snd 111 both Lass what nr<ikrsit pos\iMe to shrfi the (ontext tr not it sctuantrc
rule a\rrgrung 2 \pecittc cuntc'ct-shli-tjtotcntr,~lto wme e.'cpresnon, but 5nrrply

-- - -

the fact that orie is rnahng one's mtentxon mmdest, in an area where the
speaker's iitteiltroxB 'ire the cnrciLilf a c t ~ r . ~
W11en an aspect of the context does riot depend upon the speaker's
e
fact, one s ~ n ~ pcannot
ly
shft thdt
rrttemion, hut tr &xed by ~ o r x ~objective
feature o f tlre context by rnakmg exphcit one's lntentlon to do so. Who the
sj-teakcr15 or when the utterance takes place 1s an objectwe fact independent
ofthe speiLer79rxitentlons. Such features of the context of utterance cannot
be chlfted at w ~ l l7 hu\ the word 'I', In the i ~ i o u tof
l ~S, will of riecessity refer
to 5 , who hdppens to be the speaker, even ifthe speaker mtends to refer to
Napoltoii, anti nlakcs rizanifest his tntentlori to do so @ ~ r m s e2nd Pern
1983 148) 1h a 15 dlB%rentk o n ~3 demonstrat~vehke 'that country' whose
reierence ~rgu'lblydepends upon what the speaker intends to refer to. Here
tlre relevant ,Icpecr ot. c orrtext-the speaker's reference-is up to the speaker
a i d can tte t ~ x e dby him at will ('tfldt country, I mean France. . . '). The
t~
his words 'tlr~tcountry' refer to; but the speaker
speaker car1 s t i ~ ? t i l < awhat
t anltot rtlpulate t h ~Xt I S the speaker, or that t is the time of utterance. T h s 1s
stnrply not ln 111s power

3. Prctc~~ciirlg
that the context IS difikrent
fioin w11,xt ~t is
-3 1 .

Irn~zgti?arycontexls

1 have just ~ardtlut 0i11y feature, of the context wluch dre 'up to the speaker'
c m be \hrfietl tty exyressmg one's ~rtterltlonto do so. The other features of the

ln thi, lrght we ~ ; r nreconsider an eext~~ple

of k n y a g e shift briefly &cussed by Stdnaker in
. Stalnaker's example is the fanirltar riddle: 'If you call a hone's tail a leg,
'Assert~on'(Stalnaker ~ g y y Xu).
trow many legs does a hone have?' There are two possible interpreeations, one of which i s more sattent
.,.
m:tttdiezi~ i e ~ & i gikic spekcL&S
iiie iieate~t" hi%hc A si~aaticiiLi wiii~ii.I
u k a t tits OGLC,.
<.?ti
hone's tail is called a leg, arid asks how m y legs a h a m 11%in such a hypothetical situation. As Sdnaker
says, calling a tail a leg does not change the nun~berof legs a hone has, so the answer has to be '4'. This
rcading is nonsalierrt precisely because the antecedent is irrelevant to the consequent, in such a way that
the questlnn (thus in~erpreted)hardy rrlakes sense. O n the other reading, the speaker asks the hearer to
make a tcnlporary assm~~ption,
to the effect chat the language feature of the context is changed as far as
the interpretation of 'leg' 1s concerned. The qoesuon that follows ('how many legs does a horse bve?) IS
meant to be mcerpreted in the shiited coritext, in wkrch horse tails count as legs. The correct answer is
now '5'. What maks the context sbifi possible here is slrr~plythe fact tlut the speaker's Intention In
askmng the hearer to assunre that horse's tails are called legs is taken to be an intention to sh& the context
cur the rnterpretation of'thc qtrestion that foUows.

context are p e n as a m t t e r of objective hct a i d cannot be \ h k e d l'l-ru\ the

speaker has no way, m spekuig, to 5sl1ft the reference of'l', or of 'today'
This conc~uslonn ~ u s tbe qualified, however The objechve featirres of
the context of utterance are i~idced'ggrvexr' and, to that extent, they cmnot
be shlfted. But what the speaker can do rs pvctend that thp ~ont("xtu dgercfit
fvom what tt is. If the pretence IS mutually nran~test,st w1l1be part of what the
speaker meaiis that the sentence rs uttered 111 a context chffi-rent ii-or11 t11c
actual context c. In such a slhlation a Coiltext shlfi does occur- tl~ere,ire twco
contexts, the actual context c In wh1~11
the sentence 15 prodnc ed, and drc
pretend Loxitext L' in which the ut'irrance present\ stself as being producetl
Such a dual contest situahorz, b,i\ccS on prettSnce, 1s very cornmoil ul tXxr
literarv realm. Thus a novelnt ca1 wnte
It's been titree years slnce we lrlt tlre Earth A couple of weens direr the
Last Day, we lost track of the other syace,t~lp\ 1 \tdl don't know what
happened to my twln brother I lcnr).. If- be w &ve, he probably thrnbi; I
died in the collision
Let's Imagine t h t thls 15 the tmt paragr~plio i ,iaiovt.1 LYlll,&t rc the c ontext
for those sentence\? Clearly, tcvo sorts of 't coritext' dre relevant her(%rrrsr,
there ii the actual coiltext ofutterancz tire novrlnt wr~resthose sentence JT
the begltnlng of ticr novel. But that 15 not the "corltext' 111 the o r d ~ ~ i a r \
seme, that is, what deterrru~re\the refercxrr e of txtdexicr,il\. 'I 111" word 'I",
arr
the t h r d sentence, does not dei~otcthe yrrsor~x~I;io,~n the act11~1ccontcxt,
issues the sentence (the ~ ~ o v e l l srdther,
~ ) , it purports to derrote a ( harsctcr trsi
the novel: the narrator, d ~ s t n ~ ~ w ~ &oxxi
s h r r itile ac t~ialauthor 1x1 ,r perfcc-tl\
good sense, then, the context for t11ose sentence5 1s not the act~ralcurltext,
but an imagnwjT context Iri that iirnagnary ont text, the speaker n orr btrard
a spaceshp, he or she has a 1 x 1 1 1 brother called 'Ilenry', there l u r been ,r
colhuon, etc.'"
As Ducrot pornted out many y e m ago, w c need sosnethmg Bske the
author/narrator drstinctiori to deal 'tv1t11 a nuniber cnf~asesof lanptdge rrw m
which the actrtal utterer I S not the person wlloin the utterance ~tselfpresencs
as the speaker; and we need sr~ndard~rt~iictloris
for the otl~crfeat~lreso f t l ~ c
context (Ducrot 1980: 35-6, 1984 193 - 2 0 3 ) A s~sn$e rase oi that \ort
involves a spokespenon readulg a speech ior someone else, says the Presrtlexlt
lo

T h ~ exmiple
s
and the paragraph .bout ~t are btrmcved krom Kec,~nat~
(.&oooirr7x)

functioi~,that of referring t o the spe<iker But the spe,lkcr 1s not 13111. To be

sure, ~t is 13111 who utters 'I'm ted L I wrtlt
~
all tlus' rrt the courw of repctrtlng
John'\ speech. But Irt trtterlng tlur scrlterlcc Bdl Ir overdy pbylrz(i:ft)hni ~ l u r f :
he tempornnly pretends drat he 1s John at the tlrrre of the ~cportetlcpeccl-i,
((:l,srE, anci
and utters the sentence 'I'm fed up wrth all tl-11s' c~cc.or<lnlgly
C;enlg 1990). The prerence n con5htrttive of the Illcaning of the utt;erancct,
which presents ~tselfas uttered by Jolt11 at tlt'it tlrxlcL. ?'lilr rr enc>ughto c onfcr
,
to the tlrne of t11c reported speccb dlc
to John ttre status of " ~ p c d e r 'at-id
status of 'tl~tieof utterance*. In this fi-,irrrework we (-XI rrlairlrain that, ul tllt,
quoted sentence, 'I' referers to the spe,lkcr, n:ilnely-lohn, ,r~idthe prerent tcilsc
refers t o the tmie of utterdnce Serltence (3) thcrehre diy~ldyr,t contest
chlfi: the complex serlterlce 1s rnterpl etcd ag,lrn\t a contest 1x1 wlrich 8111,the
uttrrcr, IS the spc;rLer a ~ i dt* the dct~,tlLII*LC of'utrcr'~rltc, 1)ut the cltrated
tt
to a stlrfrctl
niaten,il witfi~r~
the cctmylex cerltetlc.e 15 interpreted ~ v ~ trespect
d tirnc of ~itteraiic~~
15 wrne t1111e
context m whrch John I S tile speaker ~ n tlie
t \uch that t t*, ~larnelythe tlnie of tllr reported speech acr.
Thhn approac-h to quotatson and dlrcct speech h ~ beer]
s
punued by a
n ~ ~ r r ~of
b cauthors,
r
to wtlorn I refer the ~litcre\teifrcadcr (see In p,nt~tul;vr
Clark and (;ern% 1990; <:lark royf~;l?\er,ln,ttr 2 0 0 1 4 rcpnxitcd below ds
C'h'ipte~ 7) Before c l o m g t i l l s sujn-cectlotl atld turnlrlg to .I related nwr, let
Interest to lmgutsts
ine mention ,I type of exaniple of poterrt~~ll
(4)

'1'111g a n g to scc tlic dean', John sari, ~ r l t lie

i drct

Note, first, the ust of tile parenrhetlc-a1 'johrl sad. Accogdiilg to Dcrloit de
1978 85-91 p'~rct'"~tIletlc,rl
~l,tusc\\IIC 11 a\ 'Jolirt r ~ i ( i '
C'ornul~er(<:or~~ulicr
(or, with charaiteristl( tnvcrsion. ' ~ t r dJollrt')
be ~ ~ s eonly
d rf tllr
q ~ o t ~ ~ t ~ o ~are
~ tappended
fre;
to i c ail autonitino~ispie( c of nurruc1-y Tllur
m (4) the quotatlo11 'I'nr going to sec thc ~fe;rn'1s ctflered 2% plctuie or
replrca of the reported uttcr,mce, '1 p i ~ t u r eW L L O \ ~ re1,lt1011 to the CIi~p1ctcc.1
t ortenrrvely prodtrc~tlgthat
target 1s I nlph~itly'~scerted'by rhe vem f ~ c c>f
pleLe of rnn~uc-ry Slr~cethe deprchve reldtlo~lto the ta-get 15 part o f the
nre'mlng of the quotatlcri~ piece of lnlniirry, tt cannot he cieu~edw~tl-to~lt
mconsisten~y.Thu5, ('orrr~~herpomt\ out, we cannot sav
d rdy/d~ti110 s ~ fohn.
y
*'I'm gomg to see the dean', John d ~ not
'The other intereamg thing In tlln example tr tlw 'znd he clr~I'. 1111s 15
ell~pticala r d sliows that rlre e11dc.d nl,itcrt~l('we tile tlt.,~~,')
I n e~ctr~ally

--

396 F R T m m I N G T T E m F T E - m W I S I3TWElC&NI FKUW V H R I

Ir fS

availal)le for copymg. 'Tlzis avzulabhty lends some support to the idea that
the cluoted rnatend 1s used, and not merely mennorred, in the quoted
sentence. We ~otrldi~ardlysay:
?"seethe dean' rr a verb-phrase; and Jolin did.
3.3. lZe~orrledunessa'qes

A well-known example possibly anrexlable to treatment in terms of contestsl11fi 1\

(5) f

,UJI

not here riou

recorclcd on Art an\wemlg rrla~lllne By 'now' the speaker refers to a time

lntev tlran the niortlelrt of utterance, rramely the tlme when someone will
listerl LC) the rerordett rriessage 1his type of ex~mpleraises a pnnla facie
d~&cultyfirr the ~ r p wthdt 'now' 1% an iiidemcd, referring tu the tinie of
utterutte (or, rliore accurately, to a tlme mtesval including the time of
uttcrdncej 7 hat vtew 13 iiideed corttrovers~nl,as we s h d see (Sections 3.15 z below), but the cXiiXi~ultv1 arrz trow talli~ngabout 1s not speclfi~to 'now '
we c a 1 ac111evc exdctlv tile \ame egect with the u\e of "today'. ~fwe Irnaglnc
that the q7eakc.r wrote 'I am not here todav' the day before the day re-fcned
to by 'today' and left the note on 111s office door
7 c) hatidle thl\ type ot exaniple we have at least three opnons (Recanati
rgyjirj hrqt c~ptmnwe car1 appeal to the notion of a chzft trt point qf vzav or
d ~ z ~ t5k$
i c In ~cstalrt,niode5 of conunurucat~or~
(deferential comrnunlcatron
rri so111e langunges, ~vritteilcornniunication in niany others) one may \hift
the kie~ct ~ centre'ffor
c
indelv~cds&om tlie utterance point to the reception
point. I hus itr 1,atrii correspondence one fzact to use the past tense to refer to
the bme of wnting We find sotnethmg s i d a r in the use of the past tense to
refer to the utterar-tt-e nrne m recorded messages ( ~ nFrtmch we say t h m g
ilke 'ycf'2i;r"'EJ1:
w z e tu
YV"*'
"'""' jtlC . . ', ndvyg &e Lvr"25J&'t) Note that suc]2
shfts riiay be possible o~dym the spec~dmode of cornurncation at issue In
the riom~ijlmode the lmgwage may well forbid that sort of shift (See
Fdl~nore1997: 122 on deicc*~shifts in Tha~.)So the fvst opclon consists in
acknourledgzry the possibhty of deicnc shlfts in certain modes of communication, In a stlpulat~vemanner and wrthout otherwise modi+ing the sernantrcs of rndexlcjls
m

&YO

1NUSEXIC A l I T Y A N D C O N T E S I'-\lilFT

197

Second optlon: we can reft~rmuiatethe token-reArsrve rule govenll~lg

the use of indexcals so as to allow a certitur &erdorn In the ulterpretabori of
the rule 1x1 cases of delayed comrnunlcahon I'or exaniple we can refijrrnulate the rule for 'now' as the rille &at "now' refen to the time at whlcIII the
message is delivered. In a norrnd sltuatlon of (face to face) conlmtunt atrorr
t a atuahon of delayed
the tlme of dehvery 1s the tune of utterance H ~ i In
communicat~on,the notlon of 'dehvery' become\ vague ,md equlvocd Ls
tl-ie message dehvered when kt's issued or when it's rece~ved?Both mterpretations are legtlmate. It follow5 that 'IIOW' can reter e~therto the ame of
utterance or to the hme of recephon (2nd 'ttod&y;ly",
either to the d,ry of
utterance or the day of recephon), dependmg on the spe~ker'smtentlc>nsI'
The thurd ophon menhoned ul Kecaxlatr ( L C ) ~ S I Ii~ivolves
)
the noQon o i
context-shhgpretence I used earher in thrs sechori. To handle chlfied rr.irs of
temporal indexlcals m recorded nreTwge\ one iliay argue that the speaker
pretends that the utterance takes place at the m l e at wixch it is received
T h s last ophon rams an ~mmedrnteproblem when ~t conlec to example\
11ke (s), for what the speaker of (5) says ought to he-fulse on tlre rnterrdcrl
mterpretatlo~i.If, in the pretence, the spedker of (5) 1s rupposed to br \aying
what he is saylng (or vvntmg) at the time at which tile hearer 1s recevrng the
t
message, then the speaker ought: ro be rrr the place of-utterance at t h ~tinre,
contrary to w h ~ he
t n saying. Iiowever, in '3 paper about tluosc r#\ue\,
Stefano Predelh argue\ that the dlirjcultv c,tn he avorcfed. He cl~im\that
an utterance such as (5) n mterpreted with respect to a11 zrngroper contmt Irr
which the agent of the context is ntot located 111 the p l ~ c eof. the zorrce~rat
the time of the context in the world trf t11t context (Predelli t99X 410)
Schlenker also says that we need rr~~pr~g>er
contexts to hruitile certaari ~ ~ 1 s t . ~
of contest-shift, :nvolmng the hictorrt a1 present (Cchlenker 3004 208 9,5ce
also Schlenker 2003: 7311) This mow seem\ to tlie unwel~onre,Irr mew of
the 'reahstlc' ~iotior~
of co~itextI ~(lvocdteb~11,I thlrrk the general approaclr
pretcric e ought
to recorded utterances based on the rdea of co~ltext-sh~fhng
to be pursued, and its corlseqrrencer explored, for the sort of ~hdUow
pretence l t posits a cornrrio11pl~~e
,md info~111~lot o f - o ~talk
r 111 (;1tuC110115
1
of delayed conlrnun~cahon Thus, rri a rrcordecl message rrieaat to he
hstened to only after his death, a b~lhorrt~alre
may say" One problenr wth tlxr soluuorl rs diar n &>&not exrend easily to cases oi cier~ncsY111.t in
'deferential language', as m tire W ~ u h na g u q c of Memco nierruoned by Pdlmore (1097 122)

I slrr hrillc,rxrr6~rre; ~ r p ~ a bpret~t13\

ly
to bc spr,rlnng f'rom the grave; kt IS m t h
t c y ~ c dt o rLki,lt lilr,aS?;xnary ~orttexttlut the iitrer<irrtr n n ~ e a r ~
tot be interpuet:tl t ) r I c b u l i r i t c r tEsc h~llotrvraigcexaamrplc, arr,+seJ in Recmatl (xyg(u).

C)ric.c;i;Gilrl, this is ;i sitt~:itiotlofcjelaye~iC L ) I I I I I X I I I I ~ C ~ the

~ ; ~ spe-lker
:
is writing

h i s n"sponschtc! thc ivrrcr in &oxit ofllinr r~~uc-h

bcl-lrre thr ;~cldresseecan read the
ri>sysa>r1sc
in q'ii(~licili~.
Still, tile two C C I X ~ ~ L I I I Carc
I C ; it1 tItr present tense, alld ifwe
cLrlic :;crio~ldyrhiai d c ~
tXc1t die present tenst: re ten to the tinze of~merancc,tlus
sugg.:sts tPl,rt d>c iittcrxncr is nzcalrt to be ir~tc-~rct-ed
~vitlsrespect to an
11ii;ig4ri~uy
colit(*xt i r i wllich the ac.t oCcc>n*rrrr~~nic;ition
is ir~stantaneousratlier
r9i;trr dclayeal. X l i other words, elre writer speaks as if he w s talking to the
;~ckdn.sscein 3 xrorri-ial, face--to-fikc cori~rnrrnica~ori
situatiorl.'"

4. 'I wo types o f colttext and two types o f

cont~hxt-finxft111gprctellcc.
A P I O Ltcann
~~
hillcrwerig
(ir)

trl. I

oxrtext-sh~ftmgpretentc

1%.rt

Johri r o liiii: Okdy, 1 atn stlipid 'IJICI j: Jor1't

vou ask. irie for advice, then?

work ~n examples like the

U I I I ~ C ~ S ~the
~ Xinattrr.
L ~

Why do

S Bcri~,yrcsr~rxa'~bli/,Jol-iu a et horxrg B~li's ~ v oikr - ~ C L ~ I J ~exaggerdt~ng

C
tlrcrri 111 rhc far\z pkrr of the utcer~nc-c l " l ~ c :rctllencc '1 Irn s t ~ l p ~~dn t i
1 tlo~a't ora~ticrit,rxrdclac rruttt.r' n 110t asserted hy John, rrctt eveti 111 A
corlce\\ivcb nl'uirlc-r What tllc scnterlcc c\prcuc\ 1s stmlettzlrrg t f i ~ John
t
put\ i n r tlii ~ ~ i o i iof11ls
t l ~ ,itlcire\see, BIL~It rs Bdl wkto IS supposcci to t h ~ n kor
u y t l ~ iJoliri
t
itlmpd ~ t z ddoes not tt~(jfc~-st,~r~d
the ~ ~ ~ d t and
t e r ,h ~ SO
s s;l)iing
oi ciri~Arrrgpstrvrdc\ Johrl w t h a reams Ior ~rLlrlgthe questlor1 ~ r the
i

'*
.tt

As i PUII"

i~C>IllI~

~n ?Ke~.ixlat.i(rr~yya).the

C M ~

0131 :ird

third iipiiolis

C:UI

be integmted wlthlri a ~niiled

1 N I > k X l C A L 1 1 l' A N I J

O N I F X I -1,1111 1

IQ'j

secorrd part of tlie Litter'mcc: 'Why clo you .ak me for , ~ d v ~ ctherr'?
c,
In k
nutshell, the f i i ~ part
t
of the rtttermce drrylnys Bill', cr~\crtton, m ax] etlrort
manner Irl saying what he says, John 1s glaylr~gBill's p,rrt
We m y descnbe t h ~ rort
t of case by \ayrng t h ~ the
t sp~%aker
eugagcr ui a
fomiofpreterrce and acsunlrs M~il'l'spoint ofvlew-puts I~itr~self~r~
Bdl's ~iroes.
t
by drrec t
But note how d~Ecrenttlus cart ofpretenc e 1s 6-0111 t h ~dustrated
speech reports such as (3). In (6) the tndesical 'I7 reten to Johrr, not to the
1s he~rrg
exprerwd or ~ c n l n ~ e(13111)
d Brll hiriself, rfhe were
persoxi whose c ~ e w
stupid ad I dott't
to express the vtew In cjuestion, would r ~ o ts.iy 'I
uncierrtrind the matrer'. but 'You are stupid arrd do n o t uxidcnt,u~dthe narter'
So Jo1u1 does riot pretend that Bill rs uticrtr:q the sentcrrc e, 111 thl\ ex.u~lple(as
opposed to the previous onc.) It bllows tIr~ltI31111snot .the \peakcr7,that 1% the
c
John, the actu,il utterer, 1s tlre
person who a presented ,w.uttemig t l ~ sentence
speaker in t h ~ sexarnple ShU ,r ton11 of pretence I\ ~t cvorli, for Joirn, c y z ~
cpeaker, does not express hn own yolnt ot mew hue- that ofB111
A s~rrularphenonzelioi~occurs In Irony. In Irony the speaker rdyi some'
tlilng cmthout actuallv acscnulg w h ~ she
t sdys or 'rn,ikt's ~5 lf ~ C Is s ~ (<;nee
1989). The point o f viem exprcsscci by the trttcrdrtce t s not t l ~ oC
t the
speaker, but that of m o t l ~ e r(.lctudd or potential) agctrt wlmrn tlie cpe,.tker
dtternpb to ndlcule by dl\playxng her vlew lrt a c ontcxt Irk wh1cl.r ~t n lrlicly
to seeill dramat~callylnappr oprizte (Sperber and Wtlwn tgX r . 308- ro) I-or
example, just die1 having silo wn great IngenuI ty Irr solvmg tlre clrfiicult
prot)lcrn at halid, John can say tto NIU: 'Rernernber, I nrn stupld and I don't
uxlderstand the matter'. 111 sayrng t h ~ sJohn attempts to ncircr~leBdl. he
expressec hls vlew (the view BIU 1s s~lpyosedto have volcetl at Jn c"~rhcr
poult irl the co~lver\atron)at a tlme w11en lt IS pretty dear that dlat view
ilrdrnat~cdyc ~ n f l ~ cwith
t s the facts By showrngr how inept the vlew is,
glveii the clrctrrnst;.?rices,the speaker oken rxlaslages to convcy the opposite
of tfrxt mew--but thst IS not cfefirutlve of Irony ~t 15 nlerely a ltkely
conwqvrence of the basic rnecharnsni, involv~ng'pretence' (Clark and
Cerng 1984) or 'ecbo~crnent~on'(Sperber and Wllsolt 1931)
I ct LIS ttse the label -displayed asuertion' fix the type of case L h,rve
rllustrated- the cses In whtch the utterer does not pretend that surrrcone
else Ir tlttenng the .iet~terrcebut where, nevertheleu, a hrnt ofpletence ts at
work because the speaker expreusec the vlew of sonleone else rattler t l ~ d hr ~~ s
ow11 In such cases, lswehave seer), the reference of 'I' does not rhifi. In (5),
2' refen to JC~~III,
wh<)tittel) the belitetlce, rather th'ir~to Bill, wl>oacmew rc

-- --

- 200

TWO TYPES OF C
-

0 m
---

UF CcYMm-I-SI;IiMIP.IG liltETEhC&

being exprecsed. Tenses also take thezr nomnal, unsbifted values in such
s
with Bdl, several months
cases. 30 iln,igIle John is reporting h ~ exchange
later -Lec m say:
(7) We kept d ~ s p a r a p g
my conrnbuaons I was stup~d,I cfid not understand the
m t t e r Fie wctdd be better off if I stopped help~ng. ---I wasn't discour-

aged, axid 1 manqed to solvc rhe problern

in (7) we kind scnteiices cvluch express Jolui's point of view ('he kept
drsparzprlg my contnbutrom', 'I wasn't dacouraged, and I managed to solve
the problern') 311d ~enteiice~
whch express Bill's point ofvrew ('I was stupld, I
did iiot underctatrd the niatter', 'he would be better ofEd1 stopped helpmg').
Eve11En the latter, however, the pronouns and the tenses take features of the
dctildl c o r ~ t ~of
x tutterance as ~ncirces:the referent of 'I' (the speaker) is John,
the referent of'ltle' 1s BiU, and tlle m e of the exchange between John and Bdl
1s prese~ltedAS past, that is, as anterior to the &meof utterance of (7). All t h s
suggem &at the context of utterance does not shdt in this type of case
Still, we cannot str.iightforwardty conclude that no context-shft takes
pl,*ce,for thcre x t = plenty of iridex~cals(e.g the demonsbahvcs, 'today' and
'tornorrow', 'lrere' and 'now') whose value 1s hkely to shlft when they occur
1x1 a dlspl~yed,nscrt~onl'lin sort of chit2 i s very conirnon In 'free ind~rect
speech' {A form of dnplayed assertion to be found In certdln hterary nmat~ve,) Whdt fc)Llinvs1s a made up example(8) T h e butler c m t e back wrtki the arlswer Tomorrow, Ladv f3. wctuld see nle
wtch plez~nre,brtt she w~ too btrsv now

I et us x,\irrrtc (8) t\ uttered In A context c, wlth John as speaker and t* as

t n c ot utterance Ifie first person pronoun 'me' 111 (8) refers to John, and
the past teuwtto a rtnic antenor to t*, as expected. But 'tomorrow' rekrs to
the dav bllowing thc day of dle reported speech act, rather than to the day
follo\v~agthe dGiyor1 wllich (8) IS uttered. Smirlarly, 'now' refers to the trme
of the reported speech act, not to the hrne of ~ltterdnce
4

1 ~ ) ~ ~ i t t o t tvs
u r y~llo~~itiifnu~y
context

Sctdeder say, rhat what shlfts 1x1 s~ic11cases n not the context of utterance but
the ont text i f f tlioyqlzt (Scl~lenker2004) Even though John 1s the speaker (the
agent of the conteAxtof utterance), dte thnker (the agent of the context of

-INUbXILALITY A N D CONTEXT-\HI1 1

201

thought) 1s B&, and a s~mrlardntvlcaon r;ur be nude wr& respect to the otlrer
katures of the context- the tune of tllought i s cbstt~rcth r n t l ~ etrme of
utterance, erc In our example, hotvever, DrU rteed not really tllmk, or ]lave
thought, the thought that 1s In cluecho~"to the effect that John a stt~prciand
does not understand the ~natter)Wr car unagple that IS111 was mssrlc.ere, and
perhaps overtly so, when he sad, or nriphec-l, that Jolio was stlrprd mil
lncornpetent SOUJohn can use (7) to de\cnbe tlie sltuatlori So tire not1011
of 'contest of thought' 15 not quite appropriate Of course, there. ,*re nrarily
t
cases m wlvch a 3entence m fiee m&rec t speech picture\ a tkotght a ~ rather
than a speech act. Rut in aU caces the act 011 ifispky 1s an ace of nss~rt.ionor
judgmtent or more broadly an eqression of ~ t t ~ c u d (whether
c'~
sincere or
msincere, pubhc or pnvate). The act of a\crtion is precisely w h t tlre cpe,rkcr
does not perform when she cays that p iron~cAly,rather, she play\ scr~neone
else's part and rntnzza an act ofas\ealon 3~con~phsliedby that person \he doer
so not by pretendmg that that penoil rs speaking-rk that were the c&e, '1'
would refer to that persoti irncier the pretence-but by herseKenctonmg the
~I~~Y
hncttotl of speaker and sdylng h a t p, whde G) riot tak1~19~ ~ T J > O X I C Iji)r
what ~c being sad, and (u) uiiphatlv a s ~ n b ~diat
~ r gresporarl>~l~w
LO sortlcorie
else, namely the person whose a ~ott ,rssernon 1s bang rnrrrucbecl
I conclude that the ctistmt-trcjn we need 1s a d1.itinckiot-1between the
loct~ttonary context (the context c d uttzlarice, wllvre dgent 1\ John), and
the zllo~utlontr~yp on text (the context o i ,wcertion, whore zgerxc 1s R111) I"
In the tradihonal fiarxiework of s p e e ~ hact theory, rl~ere1s no rormr tor
such a ~ I S ~ I I ~ C ~ ~ An
O I S .illocntronary ,*ct rs taken ro be perlonncd 233
pertbnnmg a locu~lonaryact (Aust~ri1 ~ 7 ~in) .s ~ i hc a w a y that thcre r i a
angle context, and two poss~b~l~tler
E,ltExe~the agerit of-tlir locutlonaw a c i
(the spe&er) pertornis tlie ~llocutionanact (e g \errou\ly ,rcsem the proposltlon he 1s expressing) or he doe., not If he doe\, the speaker Ir the agent of
the assertton. the tune ofspeech I \ tile tlme of tlre mscrtiozi, arid co ora icr
there 1s a s~nglecontext, and two acts (the locutrorrarv a ~ and
t tlrr I ~ ~ O C L I
aonary act) pedornled 111 that co~itext-If the speaker doe., riot perlorrt~the
docuaonary act, then, dga~n,there r\ 'I sti~glecontext, but t h i s trrr~ethere rr, a
smgle act performed in that context the 1ocutlo1r;rryact

" Among the rxpreviioIls of attimile' I ~ n i l u d erxprrssiox~\ni affecti~camhidm (a? in rrilLrn anorrs
CUISSS,
etc )
speech a<ts
" I use 'dlocutron' In an extended sense t<r cover Il~ouehtACB 4s well

the 1n1l1re5\10n that the scene descrrhect 1s presexitly Ll.y)pcrrlrrg before therrl
Acc orchng to Schlcrrker, that e13.2~t 1s a~lueveclby shiftl~lgthe I ontext of
t by jpcaklng ac ~fthe ,rct of \pcccI~w,is srmult~rieouswrtll
utterance, t h ~ I\.
thc sc erle deccribed.
(9) Fifty yea]-s ago to tllis day, oil J:u~rrary2 2 , 1944, the C;C-X.II~;~~IS
: ~ t t ~Vercors
ck

\chlcnker ionclucles that the ln\tor~calprewnt tc the ' ~ l n n o rratage' of free

indlrec t ycec h I11 tree indirect \pee( h only the '( onteut of thought' shrtts,
In such a ivay thdt the ternes- -whose v~iuesiieyerrcf upoil tfie context of
utterance-keep
t h r nonnal v d ~ l e 1~11, the 111~tt)ric~~l
PresrIit, only (the
\111Its, s o the v h e s of-the tentrcs
tune featwe of) the 'context ot ntte~a~lce'
of the otlier 1nctexlcal.i(~nclrrcf~rig
t~rnt.dvcrblak such A\
,hrft, brrr the vd*ii~e\
'fifty years go') rcrrlzllrl un\l~ifte<i5cltlct1lter suggc.\tr; tt.l,lt, ~n tirrcc t speeclt
leport, ~s 1x1 (3) above, repeated below, both cor~tcxtsshift
(3) . . . and rlletl Joiin said, 'I'III fed r ~ p~ v i t l l211 rliis!' A I I ~Ile wdke~1avvay

I agree wttlt Sclrierrlier t l i ~ tthe two context\ (the I o c utrctxs~ry2nd the

11loilttlor-iaiy corlteut. 111 rsly fr'xrr~eworL)car1 h i l tardepeilciexltly, a11d 'tlsc,
that they i,rn s h ~ f~urtultctneon~ly,
i
111 dtrert sprccll reports Cjther carec rn
whscfi the tcvo i ontexts slmultclr~eouslvd l i f t CAII easily bc tr.ll,~grlcd.1 or
~~i
I clncur\ed above 111
exalnple, one inn put tlre example o f d l ~ p l d y&isscrtton
the histoncd present, as Irt the fo1le)wrrig il~alilople ('1 he pasrage\ In the
bwtoncd pre5rist Are 111 1tahc5 u41tl~the d~\pLyedasscrtrorls ,rrc prmted ut
bold type 'The ~ ~ l e v a rpassage.,
it
rnvolvlng cl~spt;ryedAssertron (2nd the
hl\toncjl present are la., bold italics )
(lo) - W ~ Ah'rppenecf
L
rhen;
- Noth-ltg 6c)r a tveek U ~ t ortr
t d ~ t y I, m e t hun ~ t zit bar I/K, talk, atul hr kctys
dzy7~"~~::u;q
tny ~ontnbtltron5 I a t n stupid, I do nut uttderstrr~zdthe matter. He
wurtld be better df iJ I stoyyed helyirzg
'Iliis ifld ttot ~ b x o u t a g e~rsc,
howe~er

I he dlffererlcr between tlus c o l t of case (d~sphyedaswrtion w1tl.1 ln\toncal

present) and < a\e of d~rect speec 11 repolt like (3) 1s that the pronoma cfo
not shlfi thew vdues 'I' itdl refers to tlrr litterer rn (xu), wl111crrt (3) '1' refers
to the person -~vtloscspeech 1s reported. This if due to the Lrc t tltae 1x1 (xo), ~5
1r1 (9) ( t l ~ e
other es,rnlple t r l t11e I~rstctnca1 prercnt), the only t c a t ~ ~ or ef t h e
~ r twhat
context of utteranic that \ h ~ t t \~r the tlnw fe'itt~rc Its c o ~ r t r ~ to

- -

-- - - -

--

happens rrt direct speech reports, the speaker m the shified context is the
sarne person 35 the utterer In the achla.1 coritext.

5. Perspective point vs utterance point

j . 1.

,.IIle'qcd context-shytt, involving 'fiere' and 'nou~'

In his paper 'Utter~nce,Interpre~tion,and the L o g c of1ndexicals7(Predelh

1998), lo wluch lie thscu\ses recorded-message examples, Stefano Predelh
gives further example\ rn which 'now' arid 'here' are used m a way which
seerns to motate the token-reflexwe constraint
(11)

(12)

fn the simtlrlrr ot 1829, Aloysia Lange, ntte Weber, vlsits Mary Novello in
Aloysia, the once celebrated singer, nozo an
her hotel roorrl m Vlerina
old ladv of slxty-\even gt5es Marv the lnlpresslon of a broke11 wonian
larller~txngher kte
If an cntrre ne~ghbortioodcould q&
as an outdoor museum, the Mount
Wahrnggton d~cmctwould probably clurge aclmtruon Here,just northwest of
downtown, are several p~cture-hookexpressions of desert culture ~ v ~ t l xan
few block\

As Predelh points out,

'now' In rllc passage o n A1oysl.i refers ne~therto the hnie of encod~ng(when the
book was wntten) nor lo the tlrrie of decodirlg (when I read it), and 'here' i n [tlte
other pasrage] p~ckrup rterther the author's honxe nor tlhe locahorl of the reader.
(Predellr 1998 407)

The orily Lxv;til,ihle~olueionIn such cases seem\ t o be to appeal to the notion

of context-stllfi Incfeed, ifwe look at the f m t exaniple, we notir e the use of
the 'hl~toricalpresent' which, on Schlenker's analysis, involves a context
shift. If; through loc ntroriary p r e t e n ~ e the
, tmie of the context of utterance
1s shified and made ctrr~tetriporarywrth tlie described scene- lf therefore
cve pretend that the scene described is presently happening--~t is natural to
use 'now' to refer to the tlme ofthe scene.l5 Sinnlarly, in the other example,

" Natural, but incoilristent with Scltienker's claim regarding 'now': according to him, 'now' is
coritrolled by ttre context of thought. not by the context of utterance. (At the end of 54.2, however, I
suggested drat the indexicak which shift in &ee indirect speech can be controUed eitlier by the
locutio~iaqor by the illocutionary correext.)

the speaker speaks as if he was m tile place hc FI &ing about (~>oss~bl)

rn the
company of the addressee) 'Che place rs spdttaUy present~fiedby the use of
'here' just as, 111 the other example, the eveat IS temporally prescntrfrcd b\
the use of 'now' (and the present)
Yet it a important to reahze th,~tsl~xrrrlaruse.\ of 'rrrow' cart occur cvcrr rr,
the absence of the hlrtoncal present 7'11u\ we rnay rc-plat e the prcc;eilt terrse
In PredeUl's example by the past tei~setl~roudioutwltltout any probler~r
(13) In the sumner oflS29, Moysia Lauge, nee Weber, vrcltrd Mary Nokello ui
her hotel room 111 V ~ e n n a Alovsra, the ttrlc-e celebrated ailgiX:c.r,
now ao
old ladv of sLy-uty-\eveli gave Maw the Implc\\lon o f a brokcn wcnnral

larneritlng her tat?

The whole scene is reported wrng the 17;nrt terne, wlllch \mggc\ts t h ~ the
t
locutioriary context, or at least tlie t11~1e
fe<~ture
01 that L O I ~ ~ ~ X
I:, Lnot
. \hiked
in contrast to what happens m (1 1) StlU, low" r\ ~tsed E-iow are cvc to
eqla1r1 this f ~ tic
find o((-iinei~ct)sof
i
lr~dlrcctq3cecIh \ve
Orie may argue tltat ~ r G-ee
'now' in cu~yunrtior1 with the past tense, refer-rrrxg to whdt W ~ the
S prescttt
ce x i
at the time 1x1 the p a t when the repor tccl epzsodc. took place S c n t r ~ ~ (8)
an example. But it would be a 113ritakcto cur~rlcieran ex,rrnple Irbc. ( r 3 ) '4% ,211
Instance of tree indirect spcecl~ Maw Novello need riot have rliought ot
Aloys~aas '(now) an old lady of s ~ x t yseven' t h ~ qu.sl~fit
t
atlor1 rnay iefle~c
entirely the p a n t ofvlew oftbe wntrr, r~tlrertlun the yolnr of view oforis"
of the characters (Mary Novello) Ti w c un~ier\tandthe pasage rn tlrts wa) ,
as rzot an mstarlce of 6-ee ~n&rectspeec tr, "uotv' ctlll rrtakec sense rl h ~ usc
s 06.
'now' therefore rases a ~ ~ g ~ i ~ challenge
f i ~ d ~ l t'ur
t the view we hdvc drvriopped so far: for in this sentence, o t ~tlie suggested mte.1-pre~tt-tonthere
seems to be no locutlorlary context \I-rtft (as sfiown by the belrdv~ourof dre
tenses), and there seerns to he no rllocutronary cor~tests11ift erttler (as showr~
by the hct that the p a n t of view rs that of the rimator dl along)
There is another problem with tliose alleged examples of corltcxt slldt
involvirig "ere' arid 'rlovv' In liree ~r~direct
speech, a coiltext-sluft rc
operative so that orie can, for exa~nple,trse 'tomorrow7 to refer to the day
followurg the reported scene (rather than the day follow~xlgthe report) One
can hxdly find such shrfted uses ol koriiorrow' o u b ~ d every specific hteraq
settmgs. But-according to Marccl VulUaume (p c .)-- *&egedly.iirifted ules
of 'here' and 'now' such as those m { ~ r )arid (12) can he found all over the
n l ~ c p2nd this dsvnunetrv tnilst bt. acc-oltrlted for

2,iir"r

iJE.:i<4iLi:c i'iLJk iitiiiV!"j-i'VS -;liiti'i:KANck i-c riN E

To :it-count for the asynrtnetly hrttf?oci: 'today'

,[rid 'ixow' it1 terrrls of

jlliCt.~bility),wC\ltiiIe h o r ~ o ~ i n ntlic
g fact
i113il j i 3 ) ~ P ~ V ~ ~rV) ~
C *, ~
S th
the
c r historii-:11 ~ C S C I I Lxior trri, indirect spt~ech,we
rar;iy i.trrisit-ier ,lir altcrr>:rtivi, ;tppru;ii.h to cllc ;rili.getily shifird tlscs of'llere'
a r d 'xiciw'. ( h i tfiis .ippro,ic.h, tlre rciev;uxr; uses ok"llerc7 anti 'rtow' <.lonot
rcaliy irivajlvc: i.c?tibext-sbifi, whecht~rlocrrtio~xsa-yor illoctltic>nar)i.

tkiesr potf:nrial slrilL:lb13;tv (

1 +~:UC"III
~

GL

I
L

.Tlic rixasor-i why cve iixl cotilpriled to say th;rt the iorit.est sllifis i r i ( 7 3 ) is
i / l , r t "artrcv' rcali~n.ct o a tinrr wlticir i s clearly rrot &kc (actu:d) ti111eof utterance.
~pprcxich which I/ tllillk oh(iulil bc cxpIorclct consists in
.l'lac .~lri-r.arati-vc~
g c b t r i a ~ gI-iidc d tl-ic x c S c ~ ititar 'r~ow'i s : r ~ i ~i~il~xit.;tl,
rviirrr-ing to the time o f
ilitc:nlrici* (c>rt
o J t i n w iriterval irrc-itrciin+;;:eki.i r r i i r of rattcr:~nce).W e should
rather th111L trf i t as ,I ~~crspecti\~al>referrirr~:
t o a l i ,rrbitmr?; refcrerlce tirrze
tl-e,itc:d ;is :i pa".i~xcti"vcpoint. Karnp ;irril i<i.yle atiopt precisely this npF)I.O:ICI x ~o"r'i:~ircEs
' I I O ~'.
~ l",
-l',iLt. t h y ! i n i y t i c ) i Britiivtni~~z
or ariy siirrii;rr i i > r p u s . C::heck all occurrcbiricso f 'IPCV-C* aaiif 'rxcrw'. M m y will kbc pi--inr\afLic-ic. c ouriteres~nlplesto rhe
( i t i i i l a l e l ~ ~ 78icrr'
ir
~ e l ~ rto
- s tile place ofrrttcr,inc.cb ,tr.~rj%ow' to the tirrxe of
urrer:iiicc. 117 pd~-ti~.iiI;ir,,is ~)oi~lte;I
o~1"I.lil /< CC:IXI;IT~ (2001 bj, -here' atten
~-cxili-r.;t o ,r ldla-i. I ditirlct hoin tile ~ J : I C C O~'UI~C'I.,IIICC coiltexts ill -,\-hictl a
~-o~lti.;ii;tIS dr:iwl~ bccween 1 :irrtl strn-ri. crrhcs pl:lcc col~sidcrecias rriore
rcriroie iiir oiic r-i.,i\ox~or :ri~trtlrer.SiarrilarEy fix '~niocv': it otter] refkrs to a
a r r r r c (pcbr-iod. tiriic:- ~rrtc"r-\~;d)
irir.lui!ir~g C ~ rrrorrrcrit
C
of' utterarice iri
ctrnlit*xrs Ini ~vdiii~h
rhrr trrrie ~t reft.rs to st:irltis iir r.trrltr,rst to :tr~othrr,nzore
ciist;riit i i r r i c . ' l ' l ~ i csxrggcsts tlltrt 'liurc' and '~riirvv' havt. readirlg that is rc&tive
r.;ttl~c\r
rBr;iii :ihsol~iti".
O r 1 t h a t re;rtiing "l~ere'
(contrasts with 'thcre', alld 'rloiv'
~vltlu'tBlt"11~.Wi~t:iicol~sidct-i~~g
t\\rt3 tinlcs, 01.~ C V O I~I;Ic~s,
if one is tllought of
:is c'iorcr 11r:ur t 1 1 trrlrcr,
~
cvr <.artrt.it.r to tlac- cloccr clot" :is \now' or 'ht>rt7--at
Sab3hi in ~C"X.L'IIII C J S ~ S . T ~ L I
XISt h e ;i\)ovr t.x;irrrplc L V ~ ; I I : is relev31it i s the
cork!-r.isr: 'Aic~ysiai,t b ~
OI?CL, celcbnlrcd srliger, trout ~ r r l t ) l ~ I lady of sixtyicvcri . . . ' In I-%rrdclii's Mount W;lsltir~g~<-irl
ciistri-4c.i- t"xan~plc,n place is

I*
i'hw :iij:iiz th.ti iiw con~stu'~int
O I I ttie nAierr.nt.c
u~\I(,w'i, i l ~ i th'it
r
i l i i cii.sc,crrhc.d cventudity rriust
&fi,rri'ipwitit i/ic iiti<:i;iiiie timc, liut t l u r 11 rxiii"i overI.qi h i t 1 1 t ~ / ) . ithey
i
c.dl the "ienlpiird prrspecnve
~ > O I I I ~(K.iiiip
'
.ii~ii
i<i.ytt. 11103 (o, 0 )

recen-ed to a< 'here' prerurnably i r l contrakt to tire other p1,lces that wcrc
prevlotrsly rtreritloriecl in the g u d e before that one c,+riieto the fhre,
On t h ~ svletv, the con\tr.~lnt c>rt the reference of 'here' ;inti 'now' IS
cvedkcr tljar~the m n < b r d rildruical a~~aly.its
suggest3 The p14icr or hrne
referred to silould be close ('pro.rmia17) b t ~ 1x1
t a ceme whlcli need riot be
,~hsolutebut may dso be rel,ttlve, as 111 tllc forego~rlge.r'~rnplec The pl'ice of
pur ex~rllen~r;
they have
utterar~cearid the tlllle of utrer'lnce l m e t h ~ feature
s
tt 'absolutely' Wllenever we engage ln lrleiital snnulatton arld pretend that
sorne place or trine 1%the place or time of utter.lnce, the phce or trrrle in
yuestlon thereby acqulrcs the relevant feati~reof- promm,ihty, si)solutcly
tlrlderrtood. Hut my place or trme, ~f ~t r\ c h e r t h ~ nsonre other pl,ic-e or
tune In ~1relevalit contra\t p a r , cxrl be refimect to by 'here' or 'now'. I t w ~ l l
he 'close' 111 a relative sense, a r ~ 3titat 1s enctugli. For eurnple, we can
contr~sttwo tlnler, c q one rn~llri~n
years d g ~
&rid twro hrrndred ur~llrorr
yexs ago 111tbdt context, if iert'lin a5pectunl comtrarrrrs ,ire s'~n.;fieif,~twill
be poss~bleto refer to the fbrnler tirlie as 'now':
(i4) 7'wo huridreti ttiiilion years ago, sl~cll~r-rilsnch was (c-)r:ltatl beer>)tEle L.asc.
Now the situation w:rs corr~plrtelydiffkrerit.

At tills point ~t rnav be ciouhted that the n e w analvns we 'lrnve at is a

getlulrle dtern.ltrve to ttre mcfexit ai ~n'aly~irWh,it Joes 'cclme' rnedn, ifnut
'close to us', that I\, claw to the cpe.iLer (or, perhaps, to the hearer)? Is Itor
the p~osrnr,rlrtyconstr,ilrit a toke11 rtflex~vecori\trturni?
t
to analyse yros1111al1c)r ~n tiiiis niarrner C:onstder thc
13ut we do t ~ o have
well known corltla\t betwcen 'cor~lcx'ant1 'go' Lt I \ oitert t'iben to be part of
the tne'rriiilg of 'come' that die klrget place (tlie de\tmat~ctri)rrlu\t be wllere
the spe~E-erI.;, hut thir is r ~ o tclrl~tcnght. 0 1 l e docs tiot want to tlede as
S.~CLI,IIor tiev~ant.in utterance of '1 wrll conle to your party' lri whrt h tht.
Ile,-rer's point of vlew prcdom~n;itos (Tltir notton of corztext-shirt IS tnvl,lh7ed ~ f w apply
e
~t here ) Nor w11l ~t be ruffitierlt to s,ly tl~at"corne' dcr~otcc
a nlovernent toward tlir pl'jce where the \pcaker or the Izearer 1s. fijr therc
are cases In whit-11 the point of vlew ~lnposedby the use of'corne' 1s that of
an arbitr~rycharscter O n e st~ouldrdtller say 'c orne' tleriotes a moveirtent
to ,I place w h ~ c h1s proxtrndlti~the sense of 'close to the perrpectlvt: ponlt'
The perspettrve polilt in cluestloll rleeil not coincide wrth what Austitl tr~ed
to ~ ~ tlle
1 1'tltterance point', that 1s the locatlcln of ttle spcalicr/hearer W e
h'~ve such Aex~bil~ty
in vnrtltig tilt. ptrspc.cti\e ploirlt 111 speech t l ~ itt 1.;

208

PERSPYCTIWPOTW V S m m B TOImT

better to treat the perspectlve point as an mdependent parameter, dstlnct

6-om the parameten relevant to the evaluahon ofindexllcals
h n d Idem.; gves the followmg example of a s h f t in perspectlve point
involving tlie verb "orno'
When the beggars c'me to town, the nch folk went to the shore. But
soon the beggars came after them, so they went home.
The penpectivc point IS first Located rn town, but in the second sentence the
perspecave pornt h a fbllo~vedthe rich folk out of town It 15, therefore,
thelr perspectlve diat 1s expressed in this two-sentence p'lssage. As 1,ems
polt~tsout, 'in tlnrd-person rtarrative, whether fact or fiction, the chosen
point ofrefereri~enay have r-rottur-rgto do w ~ t hthe cpeaker's or the hearer's
location' (1,ewrs 1983 243). Slmtlarly, the out of 'pros~mdlty'that u
~nvolved1x1 the analvus of the paxs 'here'/'there' arid 'now7/'then' (arid
possibly khls'/'that'j may be undentood as closeness to the perspective
pornt, rather than as ~Iosexlessto the utteraxice pornt Closeness to the
utterartcr polrrt 1% ot~lva specla1 case, that in which the utterance point
point coinclde
and the ~terspe.i-t~vc
-$

7?ztp
yer~prctzva~
5 y \ten$

1 hdve just cic\c nbed J. possible position regardrrrg the senlantlcs of 'here and

'now'--one that explain5 tlicrr problen~aticuses (as Jn (11)-(14) above)

withctut po51ting A context-sh~fiBut the fact? turn out to be vastly more
complex th'l,tn tile poslhon wggestr. Even though apparently shifted uses
of 'here' cucll as (12) Are more cotnn~onthari slufted uses of 'today' or
konrorrow', strll 'here' IS fir fiorz flexrble 1n terms of the values it can talie
For exartiple, as P i h o r e points out (1997. 83), 'here' d3Eers fiom 'come" in
that 'tiere' cannot earlly refer to the place where the hearer is (unless the
speaker IS also there) Thus we cannot say 'I'll con~ehere'. Tlus clearly
COilflJLt: Wltll the FrpaPeL~Y&
t:eat:l:eng
of 'here7. PUqother rezsol> r , ~ t
constnie 'here' as a perspectwal is that one cannot say thirigs such as
(JS)

When I c a m Inck to Ronie &r niy svrt-month stay m Tokyo, I greatly

enjoyed the food one could fmd *herdthere

Sentence (15) w mfehwtous when 'here' refers to Rome even thoug11,as the
use of 'corne' indrcates, Rome IS close to the perspective point, in the

l N D E X I C A 1 17 X A N D ClON I E X T-SIHIFT

209

relative sense (1.c. closer than 'Tokyo) " MI thn ~ g g e s t that

s we mav rreeci
to treat 'here' as an indemcal atter all. A~xd&IS mneatls that exmlyles Irk-r (12)
will have to be handled by saynrg that, m \uch uses, the speaker pretends tn
be located at the very place of whrch he is spedkrrtg, thereby gelleratlrxg a
spatlal versxon of the present~fi~dtxo~~
e$32ct
US~~
In h*s ciet;uled
Even 'come' cannot be treated d~U I T I ; U ~ I ~ I ~ I Opersprctlvd.
study of the toplc, FlUrnore concludes tix~t'come' I.ia two d~rtuictuses, whlcln
should he given two mstvrct seI1Laltlc tre:~ttnerlts (313 otle use "conlc\rs a
r
mdexlcal \vhch denotes a c%splacernentto rtrc place where either the spr&er
or the hearer 1s at either utterance trrrlc or rcii-rence tlnle.'" O n ths 11w thvre
can be an mtrasentennd shig of die contrxhrd p'naxleter (spe.rker/l~t-arcx,
utterance ixme/reference &me) hc>rr3one occiilreni e of '~(xlle'tc) the I X ~ X
On another use, lllustratcd by the ZX.cvx\; uxunplc. "come' is a penpectwd
O n that use no mtrasenteritl~lshlft of.perspective n possible. One canrlot s;i~
*After John canie to RrU's tlouse, Bob and WIU together cmre ovrx to
Mary's house.
What about 'n(xv'? Insofir JS I c,tn tell, therc zc 110 dcclrrvr oi-)jcctrorr ccr
treatmg that adverb as a perspecttval r~tllcrt l ~ man mdcxlcd (at least 011 soxr~u
u\es) Since, by dolng so, we cdn ~ L C C ) L L I1I0~2 e~'istlples11he ( X 3) OX (1 41, IOI
w h c h no exp1,matxon IS] tennrs ot corrtcxt-shtii: n rradllv dvarl~hlr,I reriatl.cdt
rt h,u perspectlvnl uses
conclude thdt 'now' 1s a perspc~t~val,
or A t led\t,
Be that a:, ~t Iriay, illy p o ~ ~1%i t lot that t h l ~or that expre~\lons l l ~ u l dhc
treated as a perspect~val,but ratl~ertlla~the qtdotzt~n may antc, lor &xi)
expresslon that 1s stmdarclly Treated as an indexscd, wliett~erit n not, 111
fact, a pe~spectival My suggestion 1s t h ~ tthere is, m the lang~~ige,
perspectival system, by vsrtue of M~XIIGI~,
when a scene 1s dc~cnbcct.r t IS
described &om a certaln pollit of vlr\v----a point of v ~ e wwh.1~11need not be
that of anyone in the atuatlon of utterdace 7 1 perrpect~vdl
~
system rs
d~shnctfrom the i n d e x i d swtexn. bv vrrtrle oi wblch the reference of
certam expressions is a ti~ncnono f tearules of the situation of utteralce
Tredtlng an expression as a perryechvd rdtber than
irldexlcal has ctrnsequences for the alleged inrtances of co~rtext-shlfi If 'ul expresslon e a

" This example is due to Pl&ppe

Schienkcr @.c.)

" "Thissort of pretence was pewaswe in n i ~ r e ~ e e n t h - - c et~ovrls.

r ~ t ~ i ~See Vuillaiitne (xyr)~)for nn rndepth study.
" By 'reference tinie' FrUmore means tile time of the ciesrribed eventuality.

per\ptSitrv,rI r'itl-rer ~ h , i ~,iri

t tr~tlcxic~d,
tllvrr we cio n o t need to post a
( oriieut s f r r i ~
w < , I L L O I * I I ~fix \ I \ c ~ \IV!IIC~
L ~ I ~the relev,tnt perspec tlve pomt 1s
ijistirict fits~ir the ilttrr;rncc point.?')
la) i l l i s i'r:rrirc.wtrrk, tlic cjtrestiori ;triscs \zrhetllcr rhr terrses tl~ernselvesare
intii~xic:iirrr- rrlercly ~rerspzctiv:rl.Schlerlkcr's nn,~lysiiiofthe historicd present
p w u q ~ - " p ) i c ~ r lrZic
i d t prclscnt r\ xntlexrt dl m c l rcxfers to the time of the contest.
Tl7c 'pk-t"wnti/~<
~ C X O X Ieffec
'
t rc cxyl.iinrd a\ toliovv~:T h e speaker preterltls
tiiar c i r c x rrt1c.r r x l c c. act takes ~ I . L C '1C1 thy \~anie
t ~ ~ i%LCI
( itlie descnheci event, he
cbicrcttrrcb prcxeer i t i s i.ir~Jgtvej tile hcarcr ttrv feeling) to be wtxleu yo the
event ,is ~t trriibitjs. 'rrentir~gthe pr-i:scnt tcrrsc riot as an indexical properly
speaking bur: :is .I i perspec-tid' worlld i ~ l a k e;in :Ijtert>ntive an;llysis of the
hibiorii-,3l pre'ic~it~~ossiI71r.~~
CC)tl tll:-i(: analysis, we deny tirat the preser~tis
ttrlcxi rci-lrsivc :ii*t-l rcfi21-sto the cin-ic oi-'u~enince,anti krold instead that it
reilm t r ~ ,irihitr,lr-y 'refbrer~cetirrrc' scrvirrg as perspective point. That
rc~~~:rcxii-i.
tirrlc typii.,iily is but riei.ti 1101 hc rhc tiar-re o f ~itterartce.(Similarly,
the J11t~1re
will rc.'li"rt o ,1 tiine pos*iCt-t(irt t r tlic" rcafercnce Ti~ne,and the past to ;i
tinit: ,uilcrros c<> tlse rrtkrertce rline.) X r i s rri:ikes i t ~-rosslble
to ilse the present
icr e:llk ,iboi:t a past rvent, ifthe refkrelrct: ~ ~ P I is
D Cset to t l ~ time
r
ofthe event.
Tkrc ~ ~ ~ w n " r i l - i c cf-fCcr
~ r ~ i mi s no\v cxp1ainr:tl by thcs h c t that the evtnt is
vit.w~\:~tI
fi0111 ,i I C I I P I P O C ; ~
v;~rlt;igg~
~
poilit whir11 1s that of the event itself.

Ii

'" it iii,iy /x. ~1i.u i h z ji~isp~i:t~v~:k

i y ~ i i . l ie~' r ~ ) l v ~iiiI.<ttw
iii~
iiidt,xicaf syste~n. IJriitorytxc~Ilyillc
pera,pc"~vc ~x~n""tu1~"itElr:
i~ttt~rdr~ce
p01111 c O~CICICIC. I )C'VI:*LIOLIS( i ~ r l ithe prototypi, t h . IS,
~ cases In wiuctr

i h c v tic, iioi a o~iit.iiii.,i i i ~ y1 ~ expl~ui~erl

.
iirni.hriinli .Aiy irr t t ~ t i i sofcontext-shift. One can project or~eself
ci\i.'i \kii)c:,. I L ~ I I Caiiopt
U
c h i p ~ n p e c t O~ ~~SeO I I I(it.her
~
'tgeni. But wbdt may have started ss
~ i' ~
l v t e i ~ t c di t's t (>I' (IIC IIII/~.XIC.LL
wstcrn has ~r>:nai,iy \~ibiiizcd AS ;ui ii~tiepeildent jyqreni: the
[~efipt.""n.ii 4v~ttciir.As a reiial:, tllc~cis riottrirrg rpi.ci~1(ir devi,trit &bout, 2.g., the use of 'now' to
1c.fi.s ti) L t i i i ~ iri
r r l l ~
just, no rwe"do appeal LO pI;i+;[nl*tIcY I I C C ~ I ~ I ~ I SS IIII~CS~a contt:st--shiking to rlccottt~t
liir s w c i i us<,\ 111iorltrasi. ilrerc is atimrc.tcii\iiy u~rneittrngsprciai al>outirhirrg ' r t r i i a ~or
~ .tornorrow' to refer
to a dav rn tire F)ASI.
" i n i < c t , l ~ i , ; r ijxou>a),
i
i qkvtt ht:d suclr An 'dterrrat~vr~
an:~iysis,tizseii or! the idea th~uthe present tense
rs ts:~i~por,"liriirhil\t,ii' "rnt r ii~ctt1 iii~couer~:i?tliat hiit. J I I ~ ~ S Ih.id
S
~ ~ C C ~niicipzted
II
by H C Z I ~ Z W
~ C~ I, O
fre,its the p~e\iwt:i\, 118 et1Y.t t , p ~ m p e ( , r ~ \(t3chai.~r6e
~d
t y q . +!-, 8).
r i i t i ! ,uiriroirr

1:
b

I N I ) k X I ( A1 1 I V AYL)

ONTLX I

'ill11 1

311

alla-tlre adctrerser leatu~eot tlie context, the l ~ n p i , ~

f%.ititilre
e
ofthe ctlntext
(~nchtdnl~,:the stctndrtrd\ of prcc~\lott),or the tienroustrat<~Other feature\ of
the context car, he \h~ftctlthrough pretence f.ollo\nnng.r ntlrxtl7cr of;i~itllors;,I
h ~ v ed~\t~ng~~isl-iecl
bvo wpes of c ctr~text5lt1tttng p retent c 7 Ire fir\t type of
context-{hifbng pretence
illriatr'itecf by dlrecr speech rtLports, rercrrdcclt
utterance5 (on orie ~rialysi~),
tile hl\torrcal prescltt (ag~111,or] cxle an,rlysz\),
2nd the prescxl~ijiir~g
uses ot 'here' whit 11 are the spaall counterpart (>fthr
prctcxlcc 1s rlht~tratcdhv
l~rstt>ncaI
plesent 'Ihe secorid tvpe ot cor~text-\h~iilng
v'inous iorts of (ilsplayeti 'Isceraon (nonq~lotationalechots, Irorly, frec rrldrrrct
speeclr) md, .ig~rn,b y direct (peech report< rrtsofar 2%they involvt. the two
types of ski& c r r ~ ~ u l t a n e oThe
~ y f?fi,urthtype of case I \ tllat of eylres\lc,n\
w h c h ax not redly ~ndexcnl,hut penpec tlvid, a11d W ~ O S Pshifiy hehaviow
rases 1 1 0 pxticuliir problcrn. In rhl5 ategory I h'tve plac-ed rhe ,dvert>'now',
,ind the verb "conic' 111 o11e of its u\c\, 1 I~avcaL\o I I ~ ~ I I ~ I C )RI Ip~~Cs ~\ ~ l ) l e
tl-eatrnent of t l ~ English
e
t.enses ;is perspectival rzther tll;srt incjexic;il.
T
' 11e ynestioi~xises wt~etherdl tl-ris con~plc:xity is neeticd. M;lyhc this is too
'jut drlztthcr possim~ic-11arid sonre category car1 be i%srrsisscdas strperf.J~~ous."
bility b &:kt tlis is stiU not enough. Ir~cleedthere is a rlcttiorl of cotltcxr;-shifithat
has tleen prorrnrtent 1x1the rertanthtcrature c-trt indtmc.,l)~tyand wlllch 111,lvcnot
dealt ' ~ v ~ tyet.
l l To m d e room for rr, ~t\earl\ that wt. need ii ftiiii ~~ltcgot-y
6 z. S/~r(tiiblerrzdt>c.xlcrzisin attrtltde r p r t ~

Twenty ye.m ago, A~lcieric)~~

and Kecrun pornted ottt that In sortPe larrguagcs
tile trldeulc<~lc
occrtmng 1r1 the emheiidect portlot1 of a reimrt wxi have tlmr
t the
vdues detertll~rleiiriot by t l ~ econtext of nttttr,triic of tlrc ~ e p o r tt r ~ i by
cotjteut d t b e reported Lrtter,%ncc(Antier\orr arid I<c,et~an 1985: 260, 3 0 1 ) .
A \111ul,irotxer rmon bvtu rcpovteci by E+rtec (rcjS4 and rg89), ailti crecirted to
F m a ~ o Bac
~ t 11 In Alntrar~c,Partce notes, 'tl~efint petron prorlotrrt { c An he]
used as a logophonc pronoun ccrreferentialw ~ t hthe \rrltject of ,L velb of\avrrtg
" ~'A Pled
Monsrcx\', \.lthlerrkc* h a
or beltevtng' (1?1ltee 2mq.1378 n ~ ) . In
used tlm arid reLtted Gt ts to rrloavate a tlrastlc revxrrorr to the \~*tn.lttard,
(c) S~hlcnkcr,
Kaplanldr-,approach to u~deslcals(Schlenker 2003) Arct~rtiii~g

?Z it car) indrccl be argued t h ~ ttir

t 'pmprctive pomt' (on whrcll tile remantic vdue of persyct-uais
de~)alds)itself is an 'i~itentlond~
feature ofrt~econtext, a~rcl,LS suctl can be rlufteci at wlll.
'' Panee points out d i ~ rlrr
t I<~go:ophon~
ilse o f Amharic 'I' inakcz ~i.i~tiriiaxto C~.utaiir&'iytuaiincircator 'hr**' ili:~ritt,LOO<&:17711.1 3 ) .

the value of art indexical depends upon tlte context, but rf the mdemcal is
embedded 111a report the relevant contest need not be the context of utterance
Or
ofthe x epon but may be the context ofthe reported utterance or
at least, come ~ridex~cds-those w h ~ Schlenker
h
calls 'shfiable mdex~cals',for
exmplc the Russtan prfient tmre-dow for thus poss~bhty,wWe other
rrldex~cals('nnllltnx~ r t d e x r c ~can
' ) only be evaluated wlth rerrpect to the actual
corrtext of utterance. Schlenker argues that logophonc pronouns belong to a
thrcl category of xndemcals that can only be evaluated wrth respect to the
context of tilt&rrported utterarice/thou&t
I,ct 11s assurne that the typologjsts are nght and &at, m some languages.
the rrldcs~cds(or some of them) are sh~fiabletn speech or thought reports.
Are there slufiablc ~ x ~ d e x l in
~ dEnglr~lr
s
or French? Scblerdcer savs that there
are, while %plan fmously cldtrned that there are not: embedded In .i
report, Kaplai arped, our fjnullar lndextcaIs autornatlcally scope out, in
srrch way t h ~ they
t
can only be Interpreted wtt11 respect to the contest of
utterall1e of the report (KapI~n19890. 510).
hi sup1i01-t of 111s drsenwng vrew, Scblenker grves as exarnples ter~~pord
,~dverbialssurh ar 'TWO davs ago' or (French) 'Ja~2sJe~txjorirs' If, ISC week,
John s a d to rrle 'I w a sick
~ two days ago', 1 car1 report h s utterance as follows
(16)

1 ast wrrii, John told

ltir

that he h.td been sick two &vs ago

1Irre the indexlc a1 "two days ago' n evaluated wlth re$pect to the context of

the reported speech ,ii.t.z5T1xs 1s riot posd~lelf we replace 'two days ago' by
'tlie &y before yesterday'
(17) L,xst week, John

told me tl.i,~the had been s ~ c kthe day before ye~terday

I11 contra5t to 'two days ago', die phrase 'the day before yesterday' cdn only
be evaluated with respect to the context of the actual speech act. Schlenker
coticlucles that 'two days ago7 IS a shfiable indexical, wli~le'the day before
yesterday' irllrents the ~rm'tllftablhtyof the matnx mdemcal 'yerterdq'. But

2+iri a Kapianian Fwnework, this suggests that phrases like 3ohn said that' are, in effect, contextshifung opetacon ('morrstsn', m Kaphr's techilical sense). dufang the context for the evaluation of the
indexicals In their scope. One cozlserluence of this analysis, anphasized in Anand and Nevins (2004) and
Anand (zoo/)), is that all the indexicals in the scope of such a phrase ought to 'shift together'.
" Mmy speaken of Er~$isf.i tand in particular, Robert Swlnaker) do not accept this interpretation of
( 1 6 ) .But some! do, apparently.

to so conclude one must first rule our the eventuahty that 'two days ago"
al shrfis
m g h t be a perspecoval rather th,m an mdemcal. A s h i f ~ b l e~ndexlc.
only m speech or thought repom, w h ~ ka penpecnv,il may be cvaltrated
vvlth respect to any s&ent penpeccrve pomt, even if tho perspective i n
yuesnon is not that of a person whose speech or thought I \ being reported
T o rule out the possrbllrty that "wo days ago' might be a per.ipect~vab,
Schlenker argues that (18) below rs 'tdegraded', while it ought to b t perfectly
acceptable ~f'two days ago' were a persl,ecrrval (Schlenker ~ o o 65)
j
(18) I nict John lact week. 'Two days ago he wa"rich.

But the reason why (IS) rs degai-ied nzw have to do with the ~ h o r c eot
tense, which arguably atZects tile selcct~ortofthe temporal perspvcbve pornt.
The following seenis to nie (more) acceptable
(19) I met Jolm last January. Two years sgo be had been very sick, but nriiw he

looked much better.

In (19) the temporal perspective point, referred to by 'now" 1s set t o tlzc
tlme of the January meetmg. '3svu v e m ag0' refers to J. tune two yean
before that meetmg, a (one rrrsglrt cupect d'tvj-o yean ago' n a perspec taval
rather than an indexcal.
Schlenker hinlself co~isrders~11rfact\ rnvolvmg 'two days ago' ac ic\i clear
thm the facts regarding French 'dcluvi3 deux joz.rtc7,but ttrerc &realso ~ X ~ I X L ~ J P S
in which 'dans deux jntirs' seems to work hke a perspechval r ~ t h e rthari a
sh~kableindexical. Scldenker's case tor tlre exrstellce oish~ft,~ble
~rrduwcals
m Enghsh or French is therefore not tullv corrvmi~ng.
t believe that a better c'ise can be nsa~iiefhr Scl-rlenker'scl~srn,bdsed r,n ti-re
En&sh verb 'cqme'. In 'Pragnrtr~cs.mii the L)e\criptsoxl of I)lscorrrsr' drrcl
elsewhere, Fillmore argues that kcorne' 1s dxl exception to the generabraaon
that Enghsh indexcals are not \hlftab1e In rcported speech
In

;
l

sentence hke

izo) 1Ze u s k d her to cornc' si hli p'irty

the word come can he undentood as the word EIE W O L L I ~h ~ v eused, not
necessdy the word I would use d r h n were not an rns~tnceofreported speech
To show that dlls IS so, we can luxtayore to
lait: selitencc one m ~vft~clr
the
cho~ceof come or g o mu\t be 111tde 60111 the pomt of view oftllr speaker of the
outer sentence

SE1li:'I APIX b XNI)bXX('AIS

214

( 2i

j J le 'lskcd her t(i c0112f1 10 his party. Ski(*stticl that $ 1 2 ~~ u o ~ ~hztt

l d ,it1 the end she decided
'

(E:illn~orel \lN I : f 50)

bt, ssrre, t1.o f a ~ -that

t
'come' xwry bc i~ltcrl~rcteri
froni the point ofview
of the pcrcorr wlic,sc speech or ~fiolighti s bc-irrg reported is not sufticierlt to
s l ~ v wt l ~ ~rtl i:b :r sll~fiat~lc
indexical. 1C t.hc pr-ohlcm with ' O N O days ago7was
that t h i s cxp-cssion rimy be ,r perspeitivai, or h,ive pcrsyectival uses, w e
clt.:rsiy Oci: rlrc sarire problerrl wit:fr \-or~~r',
wknosc penpt.ctiva1 rlat.ure is tvellcstnlriisheci. &Zl.lt \VC have seer] that. ' c o i l l e y i s , in fact, hoih ;LIT inciexicnt 2nd n
pcr?iyrci.tivrui.Ac~cortEingto E'illn~ore(xc,q:j,
'ccori~e'h;~sa: perspectival use in
tllird.-pcrsol, riarrauvcs, but c.>tlrerwisr i t is arr ix~dcxicd,governetl by n
tokihn-T~"J~;L%XIVC
CLEP~". 'l'lle cluestiorl tlist ~rnscs,tiiercfbre. is ~vllethcr'come'
i s ;in ixrilixic-a1 or. perl7cctival iii shiiieti tiscs of ~ h type
c illristrated by (20).
'7'hi.s ci~~cstciurizdrr be dcc-itltd, I>ec::luse Fillrxic.)re. I r a devised a test for
distirrgaiisl.iirlg the persyrctivd uses c ~'cuanc'
f
f i o n ~its indexical tlsrs.
'I'ht. test, whic-h P I>a\~e
alrc3dy rrrentioxicd, irrvolvcs the possil>ility (or
E~11possSii-rility)tlf ilit~aselltenti;l1shifts. 1n ttiird-j>erso*irl;lnative, tliere car1 be
only oric pc"'q~ectnrt~
point ir, ;r i;ivetn szntcncc. '1-hris we carinor say
'I'tr

"Rlior

Jtriix~ic,rrllo rep

I3ril's lac~u~e,
Jolial arid Bril together c,mlc over to

M3rv'i l ~ o l ~ ~ > e
011

thc orhrx Ir,rnd wc can s ~ (or1

p the 'irrilcxrcal' w e of come)

li you i orrxe ttr ice

KIC

tolt)orrC)w, 1'11

L O I I ~ Ct o

see you ~ i f t ~ r - t o n ~ o n o w

Now, i f - w e apply t h i s test to uttcx~rlc-esin wlnckr 'collkeys ir~teyreted&om

the ptriart ofview c.aftfle penon ~ ~ 1 speech
0 ~ 6
01-tilollg1:lit is rrf?ortecl. we see
tiixrc- irirrasur~tetiri;ilsllifis are possible. Wc cxrr say things like:

John cold hfi~;dly

that he wviild to~xzcto scc Ilrr tlie ricxt day, unless h e
~ ~PIACC I d t t ~111
~ tlir wculi,
pefecnecl to ~ o n t oi itis
Insofir- ;is this is right, we <:anconcluclr: that the sirified rise of 'come' in
use: \vlicrice it Ibllows thnt 'conie' is a
rrporteii spccc:b is the in~~exici!
shifklAe irrcicxicJ.
(i.,j.

Coralr.xl-slagis in mixed

tjuoi~ifi~kfi

'The rc;illy Jifkicult cl~restiox~

is drat oCtht* relatitm between the sort, of-shift
that c-lranli.ic.nizt
sl,ilt:ablc
r
indcsicals iri ;ir-titricle reprorts and the context-shifts

ment~onedearlier rn thn chapter. I 11ave ssld that cfrrect \pet.ch reports

at~g
(qur~tatlotrs)c m be arrxlysed as mvoirnng 2 6>1111of c o ~ r r e ~ t - " r ~ l fg)rc
term N o w i t m;ty be that, when ari rndexlcal sh~tisin report, a5 I r l the
A d l a n c exanrplehscil\cussed by Sc Idenker, the \,irtie form of currteut-sh~ltIng pretence operate\; 111wl-nch c ~ s the
c repons 1x1 ytlejtlon ,Ire 'i mrxtulc of
~ndlrectspcecll report 2nd clurtt,ltion 76
S u i h rnlxtures are riot unlteard of A good (-led t r ~ sbeen written ,rt>ctut
the pher~omenuriof 'nuxed quotabon' 111 tlle recent phtlosoplr~cdlL~ter~i~urc
(1979)
The standard exatriple rs J)civ~dst)r~'\
(22)

Quine said tlzat quotation 'lus a certaln a~~ot~xdons

f5;rtltri.'

1'111\ lr a mlxtirre of ind~lcct

\peech repoit . ~ r dlrcct
d
cjuot'ltlori (her~cethe
phrase 'mixed cfuotat~on',courcd by Cappelen dxrd 1,epore 111 their 1097
nrt~cle).In Kecanatl ( ~ o o r areprinted
,
below w ~ t hrnoc!rl~rat~oxaa\ Chapter
7),1 argue thdt EI ln~xedquota tloxt the speaker t i m , in reportutg the ( orltertt
of an utteiance, the very words that xniere uied by the speaker o f the onginal
utterance, and bv rtressrng thole word\ (by ~inl?tavingt h t ~ nu, J I I o5tel.r\ive
(hat thore arc tlit very wcrrd\ tr\ecl by tlii.
manner) mabcs ~t rxr~r~~fcst
ascnbee. In other trnnc, tire speakcr rcports the uttsr.xrlcc ttsitrg ~nrllrect
speech 1n thc u s u d t~i,uirizt,alrd st the sailre tlrrle XmrnIC\ tilt" \pedkt-r 01- the
ongnal utteranc c b y octextclvely ilclng h1.i ow11 welch Ori tlm vrcw ( 2 2 )
.in.dysed 2s follows: the speaker cupres\e\ the propoc~tiotlthat C&ilnc .;ad
tfi<ltctuotdtlon h'n ,L certalrl anorrzalous feature, and at h e \arnt. tirlie I ~ ~ I ~ I I I C ' ~
Qmme's use of tile words '1)~sa ( ertain *ulorrraloir\ feattlrc' 'I'll~sn sl~sx~lar
to
w h ~ we
t find in tire fbllow~ngexamples, whcrc, 1x1 rlie course of tepon111g
the ascnbee's speech act, the speaker n m l c s tlrm or her hy pt~rctstng#lnd/or
prollouncrng the complement sentence In a certan~way

( 2 3 ) 'Po wl~icltMr Bailey modestly replied titat hc hopcd hc knolovveci ~ v o t

o'clock i r wos in @nerd. pickens, kfilrtirr ~ ~ ~ z ~ z x l cited

e z ~ i in
t , Clark 2nd
Gerrig rc)c)o: ,791)
(24.) L!tze vieifleji.mmc. . . virzt at4 seuil rt me dtmllnda yrrr'. cjttc j'vaulais, d'mne voiu
trafnantc ~f hagneusc. (13arbe)i cl7AureviUy,l.'Ert,.orceli:e)

"" Were this so, Schlenker's a~tertlptcdrefurarton niK;kplan would fall. For Kaylarr's cialr~tts n o t that
mdexlcals cannot be sbified, biit that they canrlot be shifted 'wiiholtt cneakirig 1n 3 yuor:kuon cievrcr'
(K.rplan ryKga: 5 I I i.

Mere the cpeakcr reports the aqcnbee's tdk, using indrrect speech m the
~ The speaker
n o m d way, and at the same nme shows >vhat that talk w 3 lrke.
mght slrrrrlarly gesture n r a certan way to m c the a~nbee'sown gestures.
In (23) and (241, arguably, the language feature of the context shifts
through the pretence tlie speaker does not nierely use the ascnhee's own
words, he u\es the d\cnbee's own language and rrranner of speakmg In
Chapter 7 1 d~scrxtsother exarnplcs of nuxed quotation in which the
language fe~tureof the context sltifis.
(25)

Paul says hc's due to present his work in the 'paper session'

(26) Jarnes says that '(Qtrine' wants to speak to us

(27) N i c o l d believes tlrar his father is a 'philtosopher'

In

( 2 s ) and

(26) the expremon wlthin tlie quotatior1 rmrks

IS

not used m t h

its standard n~eari~lig,

but 1~1ththe Inemlmg it has for the person whose use zs

being ehozrnlly ~1rntrIuted In ( 2 5 ) the speaker does not use the word 'paper' in
its nornlal \ence, that IS, in the sense ~t has ln academic English (where it
nreans urticle), but in ille seme it has m Paul's idiolect (where rt means what
'~mster'nx3.1~
111 at nderntc Englnh) 1he sarne thing holds for tlie proper
refen to Quine, but in (26) it 15
name 'Qulrle' I n (26)that name ~~ormallv
urcci ~ronicxllyl r t he sense it has m jan~es'idiolect, wl-iere it refen to Tim
McPI~erson{wl~orrtJ~rnesnzlstakes for (Jume). So (zj) expresws the propuvs he's due to present his work in what he calls the 'paper
o,itlon t h ~I'CLII~
t
d expresses the proposihon that
res\lon'. rwniely the poster session, ~ n (26)
he call\ '(,)uine', riarnely McPher\on, wants to
Jlrne5 say\ that the rrlifiv~cit~d
bpe~kto us Lxarrlplc (27),borrowed horn Gappelerl and Lepore (r(~c)7),is
rltore co~riplexIn a x rib~rign certain belief-to the five-vear old N~cola,the
spe<il\eruser '3 word &oxn Nlcola'r idiolect That word does not e m t rn
English, cvcn tliough ~t 15 etvrnologcdy denved liolrl the English word
'phtlosophei'. Example (27) purports to express the proposlt~onthat Nicola
bel~eves.1113 fatl~erhas the property he (Nicola) assocrate., with the word
'plultosopher', whatever that proper@ may be 27

WItrle in (25) m d (26) we krlo~vwhat the relevant words mean in the relevant idiolects, in (27)it's
hxd to say exactly what tile sense of 'plriltosopherr'in Nicnla's idiolect is. %'hat makes this example
complex (and interesrtng) is the kct chat both Nicola's own use and the speaker's echoic use can be said
to be 'deferenrid' in their own ways. Nicola defers to rnature speaken of Enghsh irt his use of what he
cakes to be an Englisll word, wl~ilethe speaker of (27) defers to Nicola's own use which he mimics.

Just as the language feature of the context can be shrfied 111 the cornce of
n w r u ~ l r i gthe ascnbee, other tkatr*re, of the context c'in also he ~lnlfircd
The follo~mngexa~npleco111es from Cappelen arid 1,elrore ( 1 997 429)
(28) Mr Greenbpan sad he a g e d vat11 Labor Sccr etary K B. Kelch 'on quite a lot
ofh g s ' . 1 her accord on thir mue, he 5ard, hits prctved 'q~~itc"
A strrpnse to
both of us'

The word 'us' here refers to M r C;reensparl anci Mr R e ~ c h It

. does nor refel
to a group including the speaker of izS) The first person prctiioun '~1.i' nrr
(28) is interpreted \nth respect to the 5blftecl. ioritext of the reported iyccch
episode. In that context. the speakel rs Mr C;reen\p~n himself (rather than
the person who reports IS utterarrt e), so '11s' refers to a grotip ~rrclu&ng
Greenspm rather than to a g o u p rraclrrdrrlg t l ~ ereporter
The Greenspan example comes &om the New York Emes In thr same
newspqer I h v e found other ex~xnple.i,where the context-shrh aN?cts the
reference of an indexicd What hllowc n an exa~npleirivolvirrg the flrsrperson pronoun:
(zy) Lev1 Foster, in hct, n the grea grc<~t
gr.~nclfatherot Gov Mlke I ostct ul
Loulu,ira, who s a d recerrtly orr a ra&o progr~rdnr t b ~ itt rlirouici be 'news to
nie' daxivone ul t u b farnily had owned .;ldves

The first percon pr0110~11'rneY~n (29) rcferb LC) the ~\cnbcc,Mikc rorter,
rather than to tbe ascnber- --the speaker of (29)
Here we find an intere~tiiigdlklercrrce betwerri cvliat is pennlisibLe m the
ianguage of Engl~slr-cpeakrrlgnrwspJyerc drltl ~vhat1\ permisable Iri the
language of Erench-spe~k~ngrrewspdperc The r o n v e n t ~ o ngovernrng
~
mxed quotation 111 newrpapzr-wntirrg turn out io be di8'cre11t in tile two
language~/culturts. In French, the wde;\rc,il\ are not dlowed to shrft 'tn
vruxed cluot;ltlon. Ex'unples ( 2 8 ) a d (29) wollld have to be rephrased d i
folfows to comply with tlre French conventlorkc
(28') Mr Cleenspm sad he A & T C ~wldr
~
Libor Sec I etary R H Kerch 'onqultr a Lor
ot tllmngs' Theu: acc nrd on rlii\ rime, he sad, 11'~\proced 'qtute a siirplrv to

both of then^] ' .

(29') Lev1 Foster, In fact, is the geat-peat-gandfather of Gov Mike Fmter ol
Louisiana, who said recenrlv oil a r ~ d r op r o p a l that it woiljd be 'xlt"\v\ TO
[h~rn]'f anyone 113 lus Cjaidv 1i;lil owlled $laves

Wc cxrr say ciclic~rt l ~ t I:rcr~c:h

t
iradexicnls are riot slzift:~blein rnisccl cluo-t;t-iarigii,rgi. oi~xre.ivsp:cpe~-s,
cir ( c i ~ u i ~ d ~ n that
r l y jthat iarlguage sets
lirraits tcr the axlixing of tlisecc aritl intiirccc spc.ccir: the only fe;tture of the
c o r i t c h t ~11atc a n sllilt i r l rrlixcd c~trotatic>rri s tiic; 1:1rrguagefeature.'"
l i r Ilg.lir or'ti~is
dlikrerlit. Lwtwecrl lirlgiislr :rtrcl X:rcnc-h we might consider
tllr p)~""SEk-irlit\/t l i ~ tS O X I I ~t;'lrrg~idj_:~"ii;)r .;"x;il~lpk
"unhasic----(lo not even
iir-xw ,I slx;ix'p tiistixlition between irrclirc.c-t spccxch wports nrlci direct qilotation, .illi$l ,I(.CC~PICOIL~CT;(.stliiis in I ~ J ~ ~ X I : . I TIIIST:*XICCS
~C'(I
of inclisc'ct reports.
t
P
l
i
4
kiypotliesis,
d
~
wcstirX
)
necci
,I
'
f
i
f
d
~
catcgony',
that of stlikable
Unloier
IIIC~~XJ(.;LIS?
O r diws the phc~loxncnorlciisccxrsscci I)y Scl->lunhcrreduce to that
of'rniscd i j L i o t G i t x o r i , I.rerlt:c, ~itinr~tteiy,
tc> ilic tbnrr uf contest-shitting
p w ' t - n l i ~h~~nikrtl
abo~tl:in cor~~lc*c-tiorl
wit11 ciirt:i-t spccc:li reports?
I L~eircvc\r/c ilo rrCc.cf the kiltlr z;iccgory, I?c.caiisc (:ultl to the extent that) in
oric ~ r r dthc. r'iaruc E,~aigrr;ige,riot aU iridc:\-ic.als I?el~avc
i r l the same way. 'Thus ~ I I
K irssi;rar. Si.11ic.11ker cidirris, the prcscxrt t c ~ i3s ;I~ slliftahl~ir1dexica1, but the
f i r s t pcrxori i i r r guLrr is not. A distinit~c.inbi"t\v~"enthe iangu:rges wllich
~ l ~ a i l '1~ ~t I ~J I~- (p~i r~ ~ i s i ht:t
o i \'vc!t~l
~
inc1irt:ct rt:por~5 ~ r direc-t
~ d cj~tc>t;itio~l
and
tion irl tiac

tllc. l~~lp~iiaj_rc"s
whl('/i CJC) tic~tis t t ~ ~ r ~ . t i1101
)ri%
"r\lfIicii~rit;{vitki respect to give11
larlgtr:ig,:sb,wc: riccti t o c!.s:s:lmv 1' tita-thcr tiisurrrc.iiosi 'r)ct~recntht. irziie..l?c,zlswixich
ctui 6 , l i i f i . iri i~iiirri%c.r
iliscunr~eaxrci t.i?o~ecvllic,ir c.;ixrrlr>t. Moreover,

tlre hct that

06 Of ;rclizl\ iic\vs.jrapc.r-s) does nor ewily aUow
I:rc:iirh (or r:itlli:r, tile J~iiig~~:tgc
~ 1 i~idcxic-;ds
7 ~
( t i ihitt in rtiixetl ijuocacior~ C;PII IPC iiii~dto
lispr rove the
Ilypodicsis t8a;lt t l ~ cp,licr~cltrrer~c>nof 'sd~ifkirlcilkcIcxicals' reduces to that of
nrixeii iltrotatiorr. a;Sic%rethis liypoda":si~ig;hr, cl).crc r ~ u d ito
t be no s h i f ~ b l r
ir~tiex~c,ds
in I'rcbrich. B u t thisre is at least oxit*: fix wb;it I have saicl of the
IE~~glish
ve~rl~
'c orric-' applics to !'av.~~clt
" v c ~ ~ i ir t' .&>!Lowsthat the shiftability of
Pnilc.xia,als I ~ attitutle
I
reports ciocs not TC"(ILICC
t o the possibility of shifting the
i-orltcxt r r l rxiixarci ijiiotation. '['his iiocc xirrt il'ie:)li i h , ~ilit'
t two phenoxnena ;ue
11 r.rrck>t
cad. \rco\*vt.-vt.r.'I'l~cex;it.r ri-.lation r liLithsjttls bctwc.cn them is a crucial
:rrrd c I i t f i t : ~ ~iIpt t ~ s t i o n ,\vl,ich iirtl~rework oirgh to ailth-ess.l"
' V I ' l r i \ *Jxoiilii bra( / i ~ 3 h f 1 t ~Eve11
ci.
in /:S'IIC~I I I C W S ~ + ~ I \ , ~t IS ptaz~bieto f ~ n doccilrrerlcrc of silifird
xndtsxiz.ris \vitbiii ijict)r.ii.ivli\. So rlrr i1ifi;~rcnic Irerw.r<.ii I'iiglnii .md i7rencir rceins to he n matter of
tkgi'"
LV

I'llr. ongirl <)f!lit\ i.1i:ipic.r i s '3

tdk

1 ~ ; w . tii tire i i.irvnd-MI X -ilronri ~vorl\Fhr>pon 'Index~cnls.

spe~.ciiXLS .ind I ~ ~ o ~ h o(Iihirih~~ilge,

lv'
iMA. 3.1)No>t"~nI>i.r
;0(,4) jlohert Sr,iln&er was tny respondent.
".;in<-et i i e i i iiwrc lid**hwii iriticlt work on i n ~ i c x i t , i imil
~ i ~ciiirioxt-\iiift
~
orr the p r t ot'senrantic~sa.(For a
s i i i iTr,y,w e '.,i lilenkcr kwtlii c ~ i n i r ~ gAriarrci
.)
\ h ~ f i ~ t i dI e~ I ~ ~ C :A
X I '111cl 1311xg~d
<jl6i>tdtIOZl

(2000). iir

p~rttcu1.11,e r p l ~xti l i dirci~\iesthe relation between

Open Quotation
r . fritroduction
Philosoplncal works on quotation generally ;tttrlltpt to ailswer some ofthe
fbllocving, basic questions:

What is the reSerence of'a qtiotatiotl? IS it 2 lil~g~~istic

o~pressio11;IS
such, or a bmte shape? Is it a type or a token? Is it possible to cpiote
meanings or contctxlh as well as t'orrns of w-ords?
Whdt doc\ the relcr~~ng
in '1 qrrot~tlon;1\ it the quoted matt.ri~li t d f
which (self) ref'ers? Is ~t the complcl e\prc\slc-tn, c orr\i\tlng of t11,rt
rnateri~l~ i i t fthe ~luotci,which rc-fvis to the quoted r~laten,d?O r 1s it
the quotatloll ~narl\\whlcll do ~ l tf~e
l rekri-111;: by tl~ertl+elvc+'
Wlr~teverplays the role of slngulr term, what wrt of-,I vx,gui~rtcnm 15
it! Is ~tdk.111 to a detixllte clescrryt~on,or to J gcxlultle vogul,u terx~lt?If
the latter, shouid ~t be amrtulated to a nanre, or to a tlemo~rctlat~vc~

?he.ie, and other yltcchoizs in the \aole vein, 'irr Intcreitlng mci wo1tf1
'trc J( ceptable) U t ~ clrcy
t
anjwenrig (to the extent that their yresiippont~ort~
Loncern only a part~ci~lar
type of quotat~on,wilicl-11 call ?lo\cd quotation'
I he otllez rnzm type, 'open quotatlctn', rs ~gnorod,and tins xteglcct lead5
n of reach.
to bad t h e o n ~ ~ n Not
g . only 15 J general tlteoq~of q u o t ~ t ~ oout
the ipecrtic phellonlenor~ of closed quotatioil ltself carrrtot he ~'roperlv
undcrctood d tt 15 not appropriately \~tu'*tediv~thintl~c.Eitrrd to wlrir h it
belorrgs.
Most ttleonsts are dlrnly aware thdt here Are exotlc vanctles of quot.rtior1,
1s Jn esarnple But thw
not encon~passedby their theones. Start (1l~ot111g'
take this ft,n;lt of quot~t~oxl
to be iiindanrontdlly ditferclrt froln w h ~ they
t
arc

lryrng to deal w l d ~so

, &&relit that it 1s misleading, they think, to call lt by
the same name. "Thus ~tIS a wdespread practlce among phdosophers to
deem 'cjuotrt~on~mrks\arnblbwous, and to attempt at &sanzbrguataon by
usrng bstlnct ryn~bolsfor (closed) quotauon 1n the stnct sense, and for 'scxe
quotmg' This suggests that the two f o r m do not really belorig to the same
kind I,et us cdl this suggestton the Homonymy Thens. It is imphcit m
many ph11ocophica-l itlscusuons of quotatlon, but nowhere n an argument
expllcldy addu~cdm I C favour.
~
Nor is a svsternatic cornpanson between
(closed) quotahon and, for exdnple, scare quohng anywhere urrdemkento my bowledge--m pl-tdosophtcal stu&e.s of quotanon.
111 recer~tyean, undoubtedy, some progress hw been made. Tbls is
manly due to tllr influence of Davsdson's iconoclasnc vlews of the matter
(C>avrAon 1979) In their paper 'Vanenes of Quotatron' (1997) Cappelen
dnd 1,epore 111\ist that any theory of cluotatlon should account for the
phenonle~~or~
of 'nuxed quotat~ors' rllustrated by Davldson's firnous
example
(I)

(2une say\ &at cfuotjltron ' . . . has a certain anomalous feature'

I w1L1myselfctft'er an ~~ialysis
of rilrxecj. quotatlon m ttus chapter It n, I w ~ l l
argue, an lr~rtanceof open quotatlon For lack of a disnnction betcveerr open
drld closed yuotahon, L)avldson, Cappelen and Lepore, and other recent
tfieorlrts \who h,rve attempted to deal with it have been unable to prok~de
\ansf~ctoryaccounts But tc was a good t h n g to broaden the scope of
ph~lctsophlc,tl iiisctia~onsof quotation by focusmg on that phenomenon--tile t - t ~of 311 iceberg, m mv vlew
(_)ix-edie dirtrrlcnon between open and closed quotanon has been i2ra.cvn
dad properly apprec~~rted,
~t 1s temptmg to consider that only closed quotation is relevant to semantics Open quotabon is more a rnatter of pragmaclcs.
it is a matter of w Isat people d o w ~ t hwords, rather than a matter of content
and truth roncfitionc In t h ~ sway one can provlde the beg~m-tngof a
just~ficjlt~o~~
for the negect of open yuotatlon m current semantic theonzirlg Tllere is sortte truth in ttus view. yet mmed quotatior1 1s interesting
precl\ely because zt shows that thmgs are not so ssrnple M~xedquotanon,
I will arbwe, provsdes pnIne evrdence In hvour of the pomt of view
defended UI tbls book, tlrat pragmatics affects tnrth-cond~tions.

2.
2

Quotations as pictures

r i>lsptuylfzg itnd d~mouz~trat~tq

In quotation, as several arzthors enrl~h't.irzetlj( :hnstc-nsetl 1967, Searle rpriy,

$4.1;Read 1 9 ~ 7 )the
, quoted rriatct~al1s disltluyed or pre~ented That ~i~crar~s
that a token 1s produced and the attellhon ofthe audience rr drawn m that
token. To be sure, tvhenever one r'lys sometlimg, one produces (token.; of)
words, with the lntenboit that the aud~er~cc
pcrcelve tl~enl.Yet one does
not normdllv intend the addressee to pay roriscrouc dtteXlhUIl to the words
oiie utters. In hnguishc cornm~lnitat10~1,the ~vordsare automatlcaliv processed, and audience attentlor1 i\dr'awil to what one says rather thd11 to the
means by which one r'lvs ~t Wfren word.; are mentioned, liowcves, tXre
t?redttttrt Itself is brought to the Icrre&orrr of rrttentlon: thc words are da
played, exhibited Thls 1s a form 01. ostcn~sion,as L3:~vidsurr and ot11e.n
pointed out, but it d~ffers&om ordrnary o\temrtrn m one re\pe~L tlic
of' the dct OF ostel~drngr t
osterlded token docs not exist ~rictcpe~~der~tlv
Wlien I polrlt to a bird, the btrd e\clc;tTiricte~>ertderttof u-ry p o ~ ~ l t l ni?;)4rat
g
when I mention a word, the osrexlcled token 15 produced- rt corrlr\ into
being-throug1~ the verv act of O S ~ P ~ I S I V(tsplav
~
At tliis point the yuestlon drrses wrkat exac tlv IS displ,cveclV oLex-rs or
types? The proper answer to that question 15 both D'ivitfson cavs that tire
quotation niarks 'help refer to .a shape [a type] by pomtrng out somctbnng
that has it' [a token of the type1 (Davrdson 1979 90) Thn ~orrldbe
between incleu.dx~drekcrent
understood m the hght of Ntinberg's dr\~ix~ctiort
(Nunberg 1993) W ~ e n e v e rour pornts to soa>ethmg, Nunberg S J ~ S
distmc~onshould be drawn between drat wl~rcli1.i pointecf tcr (the mdr.c),
and that whlch 1s rekrred to tbrouglr that pomtrng. Even ~isorx~ehanes
they
happen to ~osncide,tiley do riot always do so Thm, hattdmg m y c ar key to
an attendant at A pdrkitig lot, I Isray 5 , ~ y'7'ba is parked o ~backy
~ t the rndex w
'.t" 1--.-L
*L_
u r c h f i y , ~ i l iCuzIcut
i
13 ulc- L.*L Oi t 11147 PulEii to a pdir af \~I<JCS ( ~ I ~ c A )
utter, 'Those are no longer 11n fjshlo~r' In ro dorng I may well refer LO t ? ~
slcoes that are ofthut type rather tLxan to that part~culatpalr of shoes Clmilurly,
one nug-ht ague, the quoter pomb to a token (index) and thereby destgnates a type (referent). For reaons tlut w d l become apparent, however, X do
not want to bnng the lloaotl of referer~ce111to the picture at &n stage
between the token w h ~ rsh dzrf~layed
Rather, I suggest that we &stixt_~~sh
and what jr (thereby) &naorn&u&d W t ~the
t speaker ultm~ztelycdls aaei~tloxl
^ -

thn*tlrspl,;;vrci coke11 itselfin ;dl its cing~il:lr?rybut ccrtain properties of

it., that rs, strrnir type w k c h it ia~stnrlti,~tcs.'
-1'Eic cl,iarn? r$r,4t cjuc~t:rtiorr i s ;a rxllittc'r cat' \ i c m i ~ x ~ s t r : t ga type can be
iili~len~ooij
111, two WAYS. ik%:lt i s C C ) I I ~ I I ~ O t
Io
E t>t>thixlterpretarions is the
a>stCnsIvc I~:LIIITC.:ot'(.j~~o~:~tioll:
the (Jellloll~tra
ted type is exhil~itedby &splaying
a rokerl o/"didtvpc. S~)XIIC
irlicrpri't tlris iri ten-rn o i r e f k r e n ~For
~ . I>avi&on, as
wc hravc seen, trv denrorrstratc a type is t o rct'c'r to i t by tlisplayirlg a token ofit. In
Sectiorr ;, I \viii cridci/c Ilt~vTclsorl'scor~t-eritior)
tilac rile yuc~trrtiorrmarks have a
rekrrirrg ii~nctiorn,kin to that ctf n ciex-nons~r:itive.The othcr interpretation,
w/iii;11 1 :~<Jt)pt,
i~
IXIOSI ~ ) m r ~ ~ iin
~ tJ~c
lt:~
~17tli.igs
~t
oOI'CIIC.psychol~gistHerb Clark
(C:l:ra-k & u i c i C;e.n-ig r9c;ro; Clark. xc)ydj. Ia] cc~ztr:s\ti o 1)aviclsoa. Clark tlses
"denroaatr~tc""ri i t s cvcayifay serisc oi'"'illtritr-;xtc. hy cxc~npkficatio~~"'
(Clark
:rrid (;c.rrig rci:)o: 704 in.). In tllat. serrse, (:lark. ;mtlti Ger-rig say, 'you can
ilcri~trrrstr;itc,itcrrrris serve, n ti-ie~ld'sLirrip, trr tl-ic nlt)venlcnt o f a pend~rlunr'
(B.:lar& ariti (;i.rng a()Oo: '764).To 110 SO yotri Pnust yorrrself produce 'in i~istmce
e~i'tbesccr..i:e, rl.ie l i t r i p , or the r~~ovenlerlt.
111 ijr.icrt,lr;ion, wll:lt we cieriic>nstrateis
2 piece oi.vcr-l~ai
I>ckxaviorrr- iiw a y ofspeakialg. Wc alcrrlonstnltc it by producrrlg ari i t rztallc-ih (pi' that hehavic>kir,that i.by sye,ibirrg irl tlkc r-devant way."
T l r u ~ ~ o ~ t ~ "ofthi'
. t i " siiispl:rycd toketi tvliich the. cirrotcr ~~111s
attention to
rrc,r~friot Ile jrrirciy iirrg~tisticpropertic~s----thesort ol'propcrties which are
c.irilstittrtlvc OF li~igdiiitictypes (word-types ,11-1(1si:~~rer~cc-types).
AS Clark
poirxis trrrt, wc do rrot rrreroly derrronstr;tt<:tlrc .cvarrds, ixrt we also 'depict all
rnarrrlc'r of' spcccla chrrr:rctcristi(.s -speed, gender, age, dialect, accent,
io i s raari

' (:.ippc:i,i~ .iiici i ~ : p o r ~( d" f r r ditlcrerit iiiierpicr:tl,ilon ui I)ai.icisorr's 17.w.3ge ( J U O C ~ U O I I maukr,

1 ),iv~d\tiiiuvs. 'IicIp i c k to .I +li.y~clxy poirrc-in$;o u t \i~nii.tiio~g
ti-31 11,s
11. . . . f'lre \inguiar ten11 is clte
r n . ~ ~ k\\11)(
\ , 11 t~i&v
bi" re,ad A S .'~IIL*t;xpr~ssion'I cokt~i
of '.vit~ct*I\ !here"' (!>.~VI&\~XI
1979: 90).
qiiot~jt~ot~
I'.ippcieii .irrd i cpoie r.iki iiii\ .it ihcc v'riur 31111 ( ~ o ~ i ( . I ~
thrit
i J ci j i i o t d t ~ ~ inl:irks
ii
dre 'dtlfiliite dcscripnons
c o r r t a r r i ~ i ~ ! deriiori\ii,iirvcc'
;
"the derrwitsrr~iivc~
f ~ r ks
i ("it ttirc rokcir wit111riLIIZ q~~ot.%~iori
IILAT~': and the
(iclinirc. rlr.ci i rpiioir ii?ltorr.\ , i r ~exprc',sroti, r.e., a str,rpc o r J pattern, rnst.urnated by tire tirn)orrstra~ed
tohen' (( -ippt.icr~ .iriii L cbjii>rc. x007: -(;q). Ail~airgiipiiisii>ii-.iiiis rnierprct'aticrri uf'l)aviiisoi~'s prssage is
riot rn3xi(1:itiii \ 1'11~prii,ri~veccjulvaieir~c.I-ecwceil the q:iotaui,rr n~,ir.Ls~ t i dilic dcscnpuve pllrase .the
Cxpreul(1i1'1 :.o/\r"il
ofrrl./ll~/%iiere' 1 ,in be corlsiriicti rrrore ioo!,t'iv, o n tile pdltc.nI of tlrat benveea, r;zy,
tiic pn)nour<'E' a r i r i i l l ? dis(-rrpnon 'the Irrociiicc.r cd~h!s iittes,mcc'
t i ~ tas
t i t may, 1 drri not cr)~lcerrred
W ) L / I F ) J V I ( ~ S ( > ~CXC#C\II
I I . I ~ I i i i tiiis paper. I I I ~ C I I I I ( I I I C ( I~ ) r l v i d s o i i ' ~p.sbri~:e(itrly b e ~ ~ u 1stliirlk
e
i t poirlts in
iirr riglit iiirccirfil~
Accorciiiij? to (.-dppeie~i(1' i.),
the evi:rycby scnsc ui"d~rrronwi:ire' urily corrccrns evenu or acnorls:
Y o n <ierr~r>115tr3~e
Iinw t o iitr :~orneri~isig,
or how sornrrbrog iisppeirs or Bappt-ned. You can't (in this
ierise) iicitionst~:iiid i i ~ p l i l e(tiiouglr you can dcriiclnstratr h o w to r:di x i apple).' 'This rnay he ngbt, b ~ t t
the TCS~.IICIIOI~111 ( j 1 3 i ' " ~ i ~ ~ r~i ~ r t l e v d1~0 lI tI I ~ ~ I I ~ U S C111
S .wIlrtt COJI<ILNS
1 will use 'ift.r~l~>nstraie'
11% such a
\.C.EIthdt t ~ i iiiri
c dt:i~iou\tr:~tr
r i r ~ t t type oCtl~i11gTo de~~i(instr:ite
ari apple, lri the relevarlt seme. 1s to
t l t e ',3{5!7ks tylw 1-,y ii1\p1~3yi11*,$: toht~xiof t11,at type
ill~i\tr~it-.

t f i ' i l N t ~ i i t YAi ' i ' i ( ) N

2Jj

dnlnkermess, lisping, anger, slrrpl-ise, har, st~~pi(iity-,

I~esitax~cy,
~OCVCT'
(Clark ~996:175). Nor art. the 'derrloaetr:~tr,tIproperties cor~tirxedto the
r ~ l e a r ~ i _:as
~lg
redm of 'shapes'. Any aspect of spcec-11 call t)e CIer~~o~istr:ttt:tj,
well as tbrtn. Thus tiit sentenc-e

ian be wed to report a ~ ~ ~ i t t e r111

a ~Itcd~&l,
c e p~ov~cfec(
the I t ' t f i ~ r i5erlteuce hncl a
rneamng s~ltlicret~tly
51nnlsr to that of the 1-ng1:lnh \cntencc We're going to
close exly ton~ght'(\yerL)tlr 'xiel W~lsor~
1986'1-2 2 8 ) W~LIC
the clcrro~~str~~tor
rephcLtte\here 1s only tilt rrle,m~ngof the reported uttcr,irlc e, riot the lt,llra~i
wording (whlcl-,thr xdtlre\\et. woulcl perh,lp\ n o r ~~ttc-Ler\tar~d)
As t h ~ ses~rnple\how\, not ,111 tlir prol.>ertx\ ~li,l~~lt'C~ted
by the dlsp1ayc.d
token are constltuti.ve of the deltion\tratetl type Marly proycrtlrs of the
and tllir\t be drs~rris\ed(C:l,.~rl\:
cinplayect token are at CIC~CIILJI o r lrrelcv'i~~t
&ridGrrng xc)cjo. 768-9 &inti774 '(1 ) In ( 2 ) rile pt o1)erty ot being an hlg11'111
o ~ l l ythe irtedrnng 01'tlle senientence 15 rrrclevant to the cie~~~onitr~ciuli.
tence matters. (711e denlct~~str,ttetl
type. in tl~atex,t~liple,t a11 be reprc5ented
~z
,u the f:ngI:ll\ll
xs the clas, of sericer*rcs tvh~th h,rve tile \ L i ~ t me,urlrlg
\entertee, wltlc-ht.vcr Lngtage they belorlg t o ) 0 3 1 tht ott~cxrhar~cf,there
Jsr propertie\ ~vhlc-"n'ire corlrtrttltlve of the ticrnorr\tratcd typz but: tvlr~t-ii
are not dchl,~lly'rnarl~kstetl',irl the seme t l i ~ orle
t
c-aalrtotle'nd t'ircrn ofi't11e
tohen !]as thcxe ~ I - O ~ ~ I - C I
daplaved token O n e re~lrzest h t the ci~\pl'~vt.d
cmly whet1 onc redue\ t h ~ ~t
t is (~rrte~kdcci
as) 3 ~oLe11o f the rcle\iant Type.'

'Iliis iz tiic c . 111~/>.~rticl~i,~r

&)I.\orr~eot the pnjpvi-tic\ lira1 aii. coi1ititutlve ot'lin,quiiiic types. Iri
rcprrscnt.rhie
"Types 2nd tokens iir lingui\ti,.s', Syiv'ilrl I3rornbi.rgi.1-\&ystirit 'tliere rs a st:t \if dm~ci~stons,
.a y t ~ e s t t " ~1x1
a , whi* 1) t~c11won1 type will finti a lo( atio~i,.t)rtf s.~cli t l ~ d leac.11 word is fully udivrtiua~c.d
bv the pos~ti~xi
11 O C C I I ~ I C Si l l tlidt spdci.' ( L ~ T C ) ~ I ~ ~
1989:
) L ~ $1).
I ~ Cfixa~riple~
IOCWC~I
C / I ) C S L ~ O ~ ~ S arc.H o w rn.iny ry1JaiAes does ttte word fi:or~t*~~n?
W h ~ ist IS unticrlgil~greprescixatioir?
o Wi~aa
t its sur&~icreprestiita~ic~riZ
e What is the onset of its iirst svll~l~ie;
e Wl~at1.: ~ t algurrleni
s
stritcrure?
e
e

Similariy, 'there IS .I set of'qne,t,o~rs to whit ti e.ii11 \crltolze type h e m an .uIsc\,er. .irrd whost arraweiz
frdiy uulividuatr sentence tvprs' (ibid.). i:oi rx~i;rpie:

How n u n y words doe.$ it I - O ~ L ~ I I ?

What is the ritat~nxverh?
e VVllar 1s the 1) -struct~~rc?
What is the S- strucurrc?
Wlrlch p h r ~ t creceiver what t11err1,~trcrole fro111 wiiii:ti prcci~c.~tt,'

~ ~

Identie~ngthe demorlstsated type is therefore like ident~fyingthe referent

rn an act ofdemonrtrat~vereference: it 1s a .Fully-fledged process of mterpretanon, possibly lrtvolvrng a11 assessment of the speaker's conmurucahve
intexlt~onz

z 2. 7&c taqet(c) o j quofallon

T o aridyse the InterpretatIan process which underhes our ord~naryunderstanding of yuotntiotls, tve need niore d u n tmo entitles-the &splayed
token, and the properne5 of the displayed token to whch the speaker
intends t o draw tile hearer'., ,ittentlor1 More often than not, the properties
111 question .ire demonstr.~tcdheiliuse they are properties ofsornething which
one ,rttzrnpts to cleylct through the drmonstratlon. Let us call that thing the
"target' In
(3)

Axld the11 Greta G a r b sa~ct,'l want to be alonef'

a roken ot the sexitcnce 'I war~tto be alone' IS d~splayed.It n interided to

deptct (ni~rruc,cirnrrl~te)the target of quotat~on Garbo's utterance. T l ~ e
depli ttorl is citected tl-rrough properties shared bv the &splayed token and
tile tdrgct The spe4ikcrtflerebre does three th~ngsat the sane time he
iflcplayr a tokcn, ctcnionitratn certan propemes of that token (a type), and
thercbv depir rs tlxe wrget
The target itself nlay be e~thera token or a type. When the target 1s a
token, I t 1s deprctcd by cJlsplayrrig another token of the same type Wherr the
target 15 a type, IC werm that we have only two entrties: the &splayed token
e l ~ l dthe type wki~clrit Instanhate\ But that need not be the case. The
dettzorz~tratcdtype n such that the d~splayedtoken 1s (by defimnon) a token
of that type Wrrt orre may attempt to deplct a certa~ntype (target) by
&splayng a toketi which 1s tzot of that type. Conslder the followmg example

When a token i s cisplayed ccmm que\nons are nmned~atelyanswerable (by mpectltlg the token)
Ottter? can bc ansuered only tfthe token o itlenut~edds a token of the relevant type For example, in 'Put
1s a tlrrer-letter word', the quoted word pirt' wean the number of 18syUables on ~ t sleeves,
s
but a
Y U C S h O I l concernmy ~ t argument
s
%trutcure can be answewd only rf the type ofthe &played token IS
rdentrfted

* Unt e %an, rl~epropwtm 111question need riot be hnguistlc propemm, and the demonstrated type
need riot be a brigulsnc type As Clark potnts out, 'manv demonstration5comb~nes~ghtsand SOUR&,
as
when George denionstrates Greta Garbo's "I want to be alone" In a Swedish accent whde clutetung I s
anns to isn chest in a C~arboesquepose' (Clark 1996 175)

of non-hnguistsc dernonstrabon (C,lasli 1996 r 72 -4). 1 ca1 de~nonst~ate

to a
&lend how niy sister Ehzabeth dnilks te,r To that efEect I tio sometlirng
which resembles my sister's d n r h n g tea 1 holct an rmagnary saucer n? rn\
hand, lift it to my lips In a certarn way, ctc T h ~ t ~ ~my
t ddemonctratroz~,
l
rrlr
fixend 'has a partial experience ot &at rt lvoidd be like to see F:hzabeth
herselfdruihrig ted' (Clark 1996 174) IHere tlir target of my derr~onstrat~orl
undoubtedh a my stster's way ot d n n h n g tea. That 1s a typo of aczlori
mvolv~ng(I) a pamcula agent my slcter Ehzal?eth, (11) the two-pbce
relatlon 'dnnkntg', (111) a type of beverage (tea) fillu~gtlre second arsurxrent
role ot the relation, (iv) certaln gesture\, clraracteactlc of Ebzabeth wlien she
dnnks tea, etc. Particulx irrlsslan~~s
ot th,rt achon-type will ~rlvt)lvcspei rfic
(temporal and spatid) locahons AS nsveQ m yarticiular *rnt&>ncei
ot the type 01.
beverage ment~oned~ r (111)
i
Titus Eli~abcth~s
J r ~ n h ~ rai gcertatn cup of tea ai.
a Lertan piace at a certsin tinle will corrxit AS an irlstdnce of the art.1011-typc
'Eli~abethdnnking tea' (ED 1 , h r short) Now wlien I cle~nonstrarclknu
Ehzabeth dnnks tea, I do not proclut e d t i ~nrtllrlceof E117'. .fixthe dctlon 1
produce ~nvolvesriel tiler Ehzahech nr )r tecx, cilrce I ,*m the agcrit
the c r r p
I hold is ~ ~ n a g n s r It
y hllows r h ~ rthe actton-type EL)T c~ranorbe the
demonstrated type The dcmon\trated type, rattier, Ir I I O W E11~jlbetl-r
dniiks ted. a certam patteln o f bodtlv i?Ioverllents, wirlcll rs xnstnxrtratecl
i but alio bv nivseli cvhc11X prctend
not only bv Elizabeth wllerl \he d t ~ r l kted
to hh a saucer to my bps m a I ertrllrl wav That act~ctli-typeI\ \uperordrrlate
to EDT m the sense that every llistnnce of I:U r 1s a150 ax1 rn\t,rrr~eof that
achon-type Let us call it Hcul. 711r action wtlich I procluce, durrng tile
demonstration, 1s dso an Instant e of X
hcxlcu ElEIjTcall count A'S the
ciernonstrated type. But the target, w h ~ It ~ritendto tfepict, 15 another, mure
speclfic type, namely EDT. And there 'ire vanants of the example r n \?r)vch
the target of the demoni;tration w~llbe even more specific- n o t a type, [ r a t 4
pmcular episode of tea-dnnkmg bekl~vrottron the part of Eltzabettl
I said above that there hfien' 15 2 target xliihlcb the de1r1oric;trator rntclrcls
to depict. 'Tbr Lrrlphes that, iri sonle cases at leait, no such target can be
found. In 'Cut is a three-letter word', there n no txrget over arrd bevond the
cil,ylay~nga token oflt f l i ~ rs
s 1x1
word-type 'cat' whsch IS denlonstratcd
contrat to (3), where the speaker's s , ~ i n
r*r~demonstratlilg
,
the words 'I ww,mt
to be alone', is to prcture C;arbo9s srrttemnce
At this point, a caveat is In order rlrc sinlple fact that (3) 5dys somc,tbrng
about a partlclllar speech eprscxie (C;~rbo\ utterance tl) is not sitBiclexrt to

(Srtch an ii1terpretatior.i wortlci be tbrced L I ~ O I IUS ifthe spcakt:~was, AS 111

Clark's exrul~pfecited in footnote 4, ntil~tickir>g
C;arlx)'s gestrrres arxl accent.
This could rzot be :in irrstnncc of flat rner~tic.)r~.)
So we see clearly, with this
exarl-iple, that the: (internd) target ~:ceclriot be iclenticnl t o tlte utter-;kl,cr
\vct/b~chthe speaker rs reporting ctr attenrptrng to c l r a ~ a c t e r ~(cxtenr,d
~e
r r i onlbo
target). Pirrt, there need not be a n ~ n t e r n dhrget for the iluotat~t~n
rt'ctir, even though, I r r (1rd120 r e c t ~ i ,there ~llcvays1s An extert~alt'rrget. \ccortd, ~f
there 1s an ~r~terndl
target (sonietll~ngtlrat the cluot,ttton ~tself15 uricfentoi,c3
as echoing), it ueed not be the uttelmc-e wl~lclrtire ipc,ihc~lc, reporting or
atter~iptlngto charncten~e.
The echoic ~11'zr;t~ter
of A c1it(~tah011
I \ 0bv10us tvfie11 the \pcakc,r eugnges
ln overt rnltlvcry I have just rnen~orlecf(:l~rk'sexample In which '(<;c.orge
ciemonst~atesGretd Garho'c, "1 want to be done," rrt .r \ w c d ~ \ haccertt
whrle cl~ttcflrnghls anxr to hn ( he\t in a C~arboe\clilepow' (('1,irA t y o n
175). In tllar exaniple. the echo]( cI-i,ir,rtter ortlle cjtlc>tatit)rl1s nlacie n~anrfefc\t
by the cpeakes'c gestures, but alro by the drscontruutty irltrctd~rctciby
tlie change of tone and accent 113 speahig the elrioted wort% fhe w n e
sort of eftect c,in bc schreved r i l wnttcn yeec tt by ~yl,t>gr3pllrc,rl~rlcdrls
(Corntdler 1978: 79- 80). C:onsidcr. for exarriplc, the ioilowltig vnnmt
of ( 3 ) .
(3'1) A11d tlrell Garb(-,~tlc3:

-I want to be Atlone'
f Iere the typograph~cd sepLiratlorl of the cluot,itlon t r o ~ r jthe piehtory
words 'Garbo said' \riggem tlut tire ipc6tkcr u t ~ r ~ i 'Ir gwmt to bt. d l o n e '
i\ nllrnlchng Carbo, playrng her p x t In\of,lr ,is this IS c itr~veycd,ttle~cwill
<,
t11,trl d\,cr tb, tll'rt ( ;nr lw's
be an ~nconsisfency~t the spcLlker~ t c u ~ cr,rther

utterance
(ja*)

21

was of the clemon\tratecl type

?And then Carbo chd 1rt)t u v

-I want to hz alorttJ

Tht. precxtory word\ rrow cor~rrad~ct

sornethlrtg cct~~veyrd tile cluotat~orl,
g v e n its ecllo~cchacracter.J ~ t ras
t the word.. '(hrt-to said', 111 (3,~).are to '10111c
~ t r\ ,tlre,idy tinplic ~t111
extent supeduotls md s~nrplymake lllorc e s p l ~ cwhat
the quotat1011rtseIf yucr piece of rrunucr-y, ttie ~vords"Garbo d~cinot \a?', 111

(3a*), are ~nconipatiblewith what the quotation itseKsuggests in virtue ofits

echolc ~haracter.~
As (lornuher polxited out ul the paper from wluch these observnt~onsare
borrowed (C~ornulier1978: 85-y), and w h ~ c hI cited in Chapter 6, parenthetlcal clauses such as 'he said' can be used only ifthe quotation they are
appended to 1s an autonornous piece of mmicry. Thus 1n
Get oxit before I punch your nose, he said
tlie quotatlo" l r an atltonoaious piece of rmmrcry, whose r d a ~ o nto the
depicted target n ~xrrphcrtly'asserted' by the very Gct of ostensively producing a plece of rtiixmcry. S i n ~ the
e dep~cnverelatlon to the target IS part of the
rne,irilng of the qilotatlox~p i i t prece of mirrucry, lt cannot be denled w ~ t h o ~ i t
mcoxlnstency 'l'l~uswe cannot senslblv utter
*Get out behre I punch your nose, he did not

3. (2uotations as singular tenns

1

Open vs ~Eoccdquotarton

\uppore 11ry fnc~idje'm does cornething (sav, bnng us a bottle of wne)

her clumsy behaviour. In so
rather clumuly I n.to~kher by rn~rn~cking
domg, do I refer to her behav~our?I anl reluctant to say so. 7'0 be sure, I call
the attention of niy a~idierlceto that behavrour and possibly convey somethrrig aborrt it There 1s no doubt that I thereby non-naturally mean
\omett.~irig(f;nce 1957) Yet the 'mode of meanmg' at play here IS utterly
d~fferentfrorrz hnwwtic rneanlng. Not only are the means used to convey
the nlessage nou-lirigua~c (I don't say anythng-I do something); the
conveyed message itself I:, not proposittonAy articulated 1n the way it IS

(3a*) can be made acceptable by changing the interpretation. As I pointed out above, we c m
ir~terprettlie speaker a rnirnicking Carbo's ucuaf utteratice of 'I want to be done' while saying that this
tinge she did not say it. That is sidgtcient to remove the inconsistency; for what is inconsistent with the
proposition expressed by (3a*) is nor the echoic character of the quotation, conveyed by the typographleal Layout, but, more specifically, the assumption that it is Garbo's utterance u which the speaker is
rnlmicki~tg.
' 1reniember reding the same observation in sonic early piece of work by Tanya Reinhart, which I
have been unable to locate.

O P E N (>LJO I A'I I O N

929

when hngulsclc conununica~ontakes place lt 1s even msleadiag to u\e the

s a l e term "message' in both cA\ec, @sen the heterogeneity of the re.;pecrlve
modes of meanmg.
What the cornmumcator puts fonvard In the above example IS sornefhing
llke a yzcture. Now picture\ n~eanur a way quite different fro~nthe way 111
which utterances mean. Uttzrancec \xv, p~ctures\how The diEerenr;e
between symbohc amculation and icolirc tiisply is rlotoriously hard. to
pin down, and I do not liltend to contribute to that field of shrcly here
But I want to reltnct the notlol~ofsefcrence to the llngiatlc redm
mmicklng someone's behavrour r, rrot eo ~psoreferring to that belia
vrour. That 1s true even ifthe urger: of the de~~w)nstrahon
1s \omeonc'c ~perliul
hehavlour. Suppose Jean sad romlethrrig uUy, and I want to rriock her hv
namcking her slUy talk A d o p ~ n gher ge4tures m d manner of speech,
1 reproduce the sentence sfie'sj~lrtuttered Am I refe'emng to her utterarrcc'
No more than I was rekmng to her hel.r,~vlourUI the previous exanrple
I am picturing her speech and, throu$ that picture, conveying somet~rmg
about it. I show how silly her speech vva5 That 1s nut the rarne thing as:; sayztzg
that her speech was 51Uy No referelice rakes place beca~awrcfereilcr, 2s
Aushn put it, is an ancdlanr act (Arrctm 1975 97). a ionlponcnc 0 C the
complex act of saylng soniethmg &out. 4omethii1y; -and nothing 1s sad isr
this pxt~cularcze.
Of course, rekrencta ~ a 1
take place r12 i~(lditio~ttct the drrrlonstr~tron
While p~ctunngJean's hehav~our,I r r 1 q say sorneth~ngaborrt i t O r ,
~rnmediatelyafter the den~onstmnon,X rrtay utter7 'That wac ciurr~s+,
wasn't it?' I-lere, undoubtecilv, I reier to tlie dctnorrstrated bellamour Ilre
demonstratlon provrdev the "muiic o f preselr~;~tron'
of the rekcrent, herrr c
determlnec the contextu,zl "sense' ofthe 13er110n~trdtxvc.
Rut i t I \ the d~11non
strative, not the demonstratlon, wllrc h rel'cn 'The denionsrra~c,rr ~hows
wllrc irr
what the demonstrative refers to Were it not for the den~oi~str~hve,
belongs to the hnpistic realm, therc worrld be no rekrerice but a mere
d~splay
.
The sarrle tlurrg holds. once <tgarn,ior the spec 1,&1cJse In whlcll thr txgct.
of the dernonstr<~tlori
1s hngursr~c X i the French teacher S,IY\.

This is a stipulation, not a substantive pcrirrt.. I want m corlfine 'refer' to cia of iarap~soc
reference-reference by means oi'a si~~g~riar
tern,. No sir~bdarcernr, rio rekrence (in that sense).

A quotatiou wlliill is not clostaci is (as one rrligflt expect) open.' l'trc
iol-ituast between opeti and closed quot.atiot1 is illustrated by the fc>llowing
pair of sentences:
(7) Stop thatJohn! 'Nobody likes me', 'I ;rill r~lis~raide'
. . . l.)orr'r: yoti think you
exagger-atea bit?
(8) John keeps crying and saying 'Nohocty likes me'.

'
'I a n ~~~-iser,~ble'
IS C11~pL,iye11for
In (7) '1 token of 'Nobody hko ~ n c arad
de~iiomtratrvepurpows, but ~t1s riot used AS 2 C I I I ~ L I ~tenn,
JU
m cootr,rst to c\it~at
die
h,~ppensIn (8), w-iiere tfte cluotaaon serves a s u ~ p l a tra r n to cor~~plete
sentence 'John keeps crymg and ~iyurg_-_'.Sciltertt c (7),
tl~ere&tore,15 An
m~t.lxlceofopen yuotahon, cvhde (8) a dn irnt,irtce of c lo\t'tj. c]rrotLlhon
To sum u p follow~rlgClark, 1 lioltl tlrdt yuotatlons u c Itngurstlt tlcrtloll
s t r ~ t ~ o nWhat
s.
the 'quotdtion ni,tsLs' c onvetrt~olialiyuldic,rtr I r t wrltlrig i s
rile f ~t cthat the entlosed niaten,rl 1s ihsplaycd for dernort\rr~t~ve
purposes
rather tSia13 u\cd ln tlie nornral wu)i. But ncitlier the tirsjd.rycd mAter-rnl nor
thr deii-ionstrnted type (let ~ f o n etl~c.t q c t ofthe denloristratto~t)I., referrcci
to, unless the quotatiorl I-tapprm to lie 'clo~cd',tlut 15, ~trllc\s~t q111re1the
granuut~caltur~cttonof a angular terrrl w ~ t h r nJ \critetlc c 1x1 wh1cl-1~t fills ,I
slot. When that is the case, the cjuot'itton tr~il\iorn~ecl
rrrto a .irrlguIar tern?
,rccjuue~ refere~rtdv ~ l ~ iRecause
c.
the dernolrstr~tioxlac qulres a referr~ltl~l
value in such c a m , moct theon\ts hdve jlrrnped to the ~ o n ~ l u s i ot nh ~ t
cluotatlons 111 genera1 refer to what the): p~cturc..But that 15 not true. Orxi):
closed quotatrolls refer Opcri cp~otdt~oris
merely plcture
GI\

In quotation. &ether open or c lojed, two nkodes of rrlcanlng 'ire sun~itta~

purgx)"ss
neously dt p l q The *riatendl whiich I\ d~spiaycdf o cfexnoilrtr,~tlve
h,is 3. c e ~ u l nhnplsnc medt~ing l'he de~11@n\txdtt01l
~ l f ol f d ~inedritng. ~t

*I'lus should be qudlfted in vtew ot'the fact tlt:it a ciemotattation may be rcctuitcrl not unly ;a a
sr~tgulnrti:nn, but dso as, say, a comrnoir nout~.(1 ant grateful to Dick Carter for remitling nit. of tlus
fact.) Such cases art. left aside in tlus chapter, bur if they were akctl illti>cocrsi~irrat~on
olle would tmvr
ck~aractezeopen quotation by the lack of any form of 11ngt11sticsecrwtntent.
'' Eveti though open quotatiortr are geiicrdly rchorc. ;uzti ~ r ~ t x lofllnc
c a srrcrrtti>tl;xe ~ y p ~ ~cI(>secl,
d l y one
11s &at rnennwa, on the orlc hand; open v$ c1ost:d
?liouid nor co~lhtethe two distinctions (6:cirnic qU<>Llhons
quotaaorls on the other band). h
s C:larEs C;& exampie $lows, clclscri cjuotanvr1s can he ccho~c.SlrntIarl3-.
closed (.lc In
tl~oughIca obvtously, it seems that there are caxs of {tat mt:ntion tlrnt are open nth(-r titn~~
dctinruor~ssut:ft ;IS:A 61t111gi1c'is a peliud ofiirtmcttn drryr). Mow on thrs in Clwptt-r 8

prcmres somethag AI; I pomted out 111 Sechon 3 r , the two fonns of
meaning are utterly diEerent-tl~ey belong to dist;mct redms
In lox xed quotat~on,die slhxatlon rs even more comphcated Instead of two
levels of irzeanlng (the 111ig~tlsticnxanlng of the d~qplayedtoken, and the
picton'~1meaning of tlze detnonstrahon) there are three The ebrrd level of
mearlzrlg conies Into play when the denlonstrat~onis h ~ ~ p ~ s h c arecruited
lly
and acsL1rne.i the rolc of a singu1,tr tern withzn a sentence (the 'merttlonmg
senter~ce',a\ 1 wll hencefirth call ~ t )I,ike the clrsplayed matenal, the
\entente in LVIIIL~ the denlonstrat~ontill5 the positlon of a noun-phrase
has a hngulrtl~rneat~rng;and tlie dernoristratlon itseK, insof& as it 1s a
conshtuent of t h ~ t.ientence, contributes to that meanmg @au singular
tenn, therefore, the demonstrat~onacquires a hngulstic meaamg, distinct
both from its level 2 pictonal meanirlg and from the hnguist~cmeaning of
the displayed matend That Imguistlc meaning which the demonstration
acyulres at level 1 II; a referential value.
Tu sort tlimg out I wggest that we dlstmwlsh the dernonstrahon itself,
whch picture\ wlthout referring, and the demonstrat~on-qua-syn~ctlcdvrecnnted, wluch refers 1 wLU use the following notahon the Greek letter '6)'
wlll stand ribr the c3ispIqed token, 'Dern' d stand for the demorutratton
&at token; and '[DernlN,' vvlU stand for the
accomphshed by ii~splz~lrlg
ijua syr~tac~caUy
recrutted. The nleailng of both 8 and
den~onstrat~ort
[Der~i]~,.
11, h g r a t ~ t whule
.
the meamng of Den1 belong to the pictorial
vxiety
To ~Uitstratethe three levelc, let us consitlex exanlple (3) once again:
(3) Arid then Garbo sad 3 want to be alonc'

The Enghsli sentent e 'I want to be alone', which h a J. certan memmg

(level r), 1s &splayed for ciemonstrat~vepurposes. The demonstration ltself
" I agree &at ' d c p ~ c ~ ost:enls
n
to be very complex', as a referee for Mind wrote, b~ttnot (or not
rrecrssartlyj cl~attr IS 'certa~~lly
tior su~~ply
a matter oCreseniblance'. There is no reason wily resentblance
~tselicouldnot he soniettnrrg coniplex and subtle. Tile referee points out that 'one mght depict the fact
that sorr~cctneIS speaktny 111 bls rrative lanywzge which is &reign to one by speaking one's own language
wrth a iore~gzlaccent'. Brit it IS tiot ohvious to Ine that something like rcseniblance in relevant respects is
not operanve In such a c:~qe.Nor an1 I convinced by Cappelen's objection that, since 'there is no
iarereshng sense III wlnch writie~ilangwage ptctures or resenlbles spoken language', one 'cannot appeal
to sil~rilaritygo exphln cl~econnection' between displays of written tokens and spoken utterances sewing
targets (persorial cot-rur~unlcatlon).
Resemblances seem to nte to be involved in such cases. Be that as it
may, as 1 said in $3.1, I intend ti>rely on our intuitive understanding ofthe contrast between saying and
p~cturing,wirhout providing an analysis of tile contrast.

O P E N t)IIC>TATIC)N

233

carries meanmg- it p~ctonaliyrepresents what Garbo sad (level 3) A5 it 1s

lingu~stxallyrecnl~tedand arsuines the Eunctlon of a ssngulx term 1.n dre
acquires a level 3 rneallrrlg qua
rnent~onlngsentence, the dernonstra~or~
smgular term, the derno~lbtr,itmtirefers nlwh as a ndme or a dernoristrat~ve
would
A fundamental property of clo5ec'i quotatron which nlust be mentioned at
this polnt is the semantrc tnertrd of the quoted rmtendl, ni~nlfected&rough
several features For exarilple, it does not matter whether or not the yrloted
matenal makes \ense on its own In the nietal~ng~iistic
f3ranle 'John snrd
""' I can insert a meaningless string \vithor-rt thereby rertcienug tile
sentence meaningless. The inserted nratenal can even be ungamn~,~trcalmdeed, as (6) shows, it rieecf 11ot be l~ngu~shc
rnatenjl at all." L ~ t l r e r
feature w h ~ c hprovldes evlderlce of the sernannc inertla of quoted words rc
the irrelevance of the (irztm~rsrc)g,t~~lrnaticdi
fi~nct~on
of the c%sy1,yei3
matenal to the function of the qr*ot,ltlon wlthill the nielrtioning sentence
Thus even lf what n chsplayect 15 rtsclt A sentence, ,t\ 111yoha1 sad "kt"\late7'',
or an adjective, ar m 'Jolul \a1c3 "haXd" ', thc quotation firl?chortsas a 51ngular
tenn tvlthlll the rnenhonlrrg sentroc e
Struck by that senlanhc Ineraa, rrlarly theon\& have derlrcci that the
displayed words actually o u u r , yraa sktrrik, m tile qxlctt;ttlurl, or that they
occur with their norrnd Inednlr3gs :!,onre have trcdted tpot,ihons ar, r ~ ~ ~ r r t s
whose internal cornplex~ty
rrc3 serimhc s~gnificlirlce I'hc *vorch
displayed vvlthsn CjuOtdhOn marks "fulfil the sa,lrrie fut'urrctton A\ the letters
and complexes ofsuccessive letters 111 s111gleworrk', Tdr\ki s ~ y i"hence
,
thev
can possess no i~ldependeiit~liedriing'('Iarsh 1933 rgg) O n t h ~ sar~lvsn,
the meaning of the whole cluot'at~or~
doe\ ricrt depend upon the rnedrunL%of
its parts, s l n a chose parts ;Ire orll~lfi~1grncnt5 of the ndmc and \ (ourit for no
niore than serifS or syllablei' (Qume r g r r 26) Others, more plausrbly, I-L,IVC
rndintaned that the displayed words occ rrr m the quotation, wlnle ascnbmg
them a new, autonyrrlous nleallrllg 1x1 thn context (Canlap 1937 I 56) But ~f
we look at operz quotation, ~t 17 c ~ 5 vto cctnvln~coiirselve\ that the dlsplaved
words not only occur but ,dso c a m tllerr ~iorrnalrilearllrrgs In (7)rlie
Tlrc dr&r
seiiterlce 'I m i ~nwerahle'ohiously keeps its norind ~~leal-~lng
ence with ai or&nary use of that sertteilce 1s sin~plythat the quoter engages
' Z To use an example &om Searlc (rqhr) 76),
an ornjrhoiogst nay say. 'The soulid n ~ a d rhv the
', and what cor~~pletes
the centerice 1s a sound, not a Lngttirttc expreslon
Cahfomra Jay 1s

isr J tcrraii ~>l'pl,b)r-;icti~~g:

the cpoter sirn~~kitrs
the person whose speech he is
I-cpol-tins,nn1i.h ,is aar actor sirnulatzs tlir character whose part he is playinrg.'.VOr iorlsitlcs ehc Ii~llowingciiantple:
'l'lre story -teller c"1e;iredhis ttrrozt and srartecl tilk-trlg. Qnce upon a time,
tEichrc- w;u a be;iumiPrl pri~lcrssnsnled Rra1x:'ila. Six loved snakes and
atw;i)is h a t i a i o ~ r p i coi'pytkrons ~rruur-rclher.. . . '

l ' h e disccxirss. ,rs ;i whole is, in past, about sn;ikcs arrtl 'kbout. a princess rialled
Ara/rc.il;i. It is also, arid primarily, about ;Istory-teller teHing a story. Indeed it
m aboiat :I story-teller teUing a story about sridkrs and a princess named
ArattciE,i. 'l'tlc rrrcariliirg of tllc sc-rntexlces wiririn tlte quotation marks is
obviously r~:lt*v;alil:to the rlli*;*~~illg
of thr whole disco-~rrse,to urhich it
urrtloi.d~ti.<iiyc.c)rrtnbritc.s.
In the: s;inic wiry iri which tlrc ilcrcltcd ~nnturiaIis sctr~ar~tically
active in the
cs,rmpie oC crlrrrx~ cjiioration I I2;ivc J L I given,
~~
it cat1 be recoplzed as
scxrr;irrdr.aiiy active i t , a closeci van:rnt oftlrat cx;ur~pLe:

'X'II~~seciu-y -tt"llt"rc-lenrecftiis tllscdac arid sixrti: Y Orrtre ripon ;r iinle, ttlerc was
l x x ~ r i t i t i i lprirti.tbss l ~ a ~ l fAr;rbeli;l,
ed
bvl-io itrveci srinkcs 2nd alw:rys had a
ctrsrpir of pyclitrns ,rrcjtlxlci her. . . '

dbout J sto~ytellcrleUxng ,L \tory dbolrt Pnncess

A~abell't 'rran-l hvmr srx~kes.C:ledrly, the a,lca,uring ok the quotect rn~tenal1s
relc.vxr~rto rbe ri-ie'rrirrrg c,f'tl~ec v h o i c s I,et u\chercforc stick to the v ~ e wthat
tliercx ,ire three li-vcl\ of n~eznlngrrr ,I closed qrri>r;itlon,inlliddtrz~the level i
nncanrrrg of tFlc \iwpl,wecl ~II~~~c"TI'I\WWrh~
,t tlic j~heiiomenon of sen1'1ntlc
inertrii il.iows r\ only ~111%:111 i lewd qtrcrc&rtron,the l a n g ~ ~ s rneanlng
t~c
of'
tirr dz\pl,ivctl nrdlienCd
(level I ) rcrn,krrrs sei;.regiiteJjr~junthe I~ngintlcmealling
oi tire wtiterrt c- r r i L V I I I L ~ the del~~otlstratic)~~
wrvc? ,LS .-Lsillgj~1~r
ten11
(level 3) Ni,Intc.gralirorrof d ~ ii>t-nrer
e
Into tht- i.ltter (110 "enlantic conipi>srtrorl') tdAesphi, e 11. ~j t h a t rrnrglrt vv).ucli u e xrlilrt nr>w try to spell out.
11jc4t jraeirb ol tc.\r

~ C X F I\

'' 'I'liu id i i serve :is rile basis (i)r :I general a( corrrit ot qirotatwri .IS s~mulatiun.Src Wier~bicka(~974)I )i~crot(xvi;.r), Clark and ( kxng (199~3).Stkc11 ,an a( count grxs a Lciiig way towad expininir~gXVIIV 'I., irr
*xarnples klir (71, does not iefex iu rht. i>crsiri?w h o (jut9~c.i.bur to the quoteti pt-rson--ar,ii also w11" the
~wo~~s~ouon~il
;\i<-~ntrrir
d t l i e ,rcntcnt e (even iviih I . ~ * s ~toc c~~ l preieird
~ e i.trrltexr) IS riot senousl~asserted.
Acciinilrig rri t)errclrc Wrlsc~xi,hocvcver, a11 :u-i.i)urit in ternis of pretence Laxinot handle cases of fiat
iuc:rxion

(WI~SO
>t>oi))
~

'To k~colintFor the \rrnantli segreg,ltlon of tile d~spl.lryt-drt~,ttcn.il,I)av~dson

i j m a ~ s l ysuggested thit that m a t e n ~ 15
l not part ot the rncotlon1tlg sentent c
smterrc e, w h ~ c hcontams a
at ,ili, serlidnt~caliy~t lrcs outside the n~erttictn~ng
d e n i o ~ l s t s a t ~(the
v ~ quotxtlon ma%\) letl-nrr~gto tlre dlsplnyed materul o r
O I I I his ,4pprodcfl t o quotatlo11
sotni. typc \?;filLh11 lnStdlltlSte5 ( I > ~ L . I ~ S1979)
cva\ flrst tncrrt~orleci(\lvitb q p r o v ~ f by
) RrtL1til Pnor
Soxrke . . . would s a y that tile quotatior]-marks arc cl'c.tnctns~r~~rir~c.r
which poirtt to tticir
interior, so tilat ""'l'lre cat s'it 0x1 the in:itM
has nineteen letters' is r;irl-rerlike ''['hc cat
sat c i ~ ttlre xitat. ---- rl'ili\ I r ~ s*sninetc>er~
Ieitcrs'. I i11c line to this view 111yselJI^:a i d
ctrtaixlly ii'it is the correct view it is easy to cInssifV the illusion iilvolvecl in tre;ttirlg
' .',
l'ite cat sat o n rllr nlat" has r~illrtrenIettthrs' 01- ' "Tlre tat sat or1 tile m,xt" was
trttered by fohn' ns c-ornpourlcI sentences wit11 "rhc cat h a t on the rn:tt' as a
corqxxnenr. ?*l~isis siimply the illt~sionof seeing two senteric:es as one, bec-ause
they happen to ctarld i l l an intrrt~stingrclatiorl to ctne arrother. ("rinr 197r: ( i t . r ~ )

O n t1:lj cicw, tllcrc 15 crx11,rrrtlc mertid oitly to the extent tlrat, strlctlv
t t t ~ cI I ~ P S I ~ I I I ~
rpc~bla~g,
the nklta'irilng o f the quoted ~n,iten.tlrs not n g ~ s of
of the sentence rrl mlirch the r r t a t c r ~ 1s
~ lqliotctl. But the tittrourse coilt~txls
more than t i w t scritence t t alto corttaln tire qnott~fnl,~tclid F-Ience the
quoted r?lLiter~.d
n \ ~ " r r l ~ i n t ~ ~lizert
d i i yonly in A rt.,iurtvf,sertsc It Icnldrrts, o r
can rc111~1112,rcmdntlc~liyact~ve'it the sepqu-<1te
level to whlcll rt belollp. In
) quoted nratrnal I \ scmantlthe 'hove esttrnplc (Arabelln and 1ic1 c n ~ k c the
tally ra~ertti1 h e senleurc In wllich it.ie>rr>t~cc
1% m a J ~to that muterirrl-~t 15 not
s e ~ ~ i . ~ r ~part
t ~ c oftheat
~ U y \cnterlce, bnt rxint be wen ~ .ly~xig
i
outsrde r t Yet it
1s \em,mtrcall? actlve ln the chscourse a> 't wflole
i ~holehe'i~tecilycriciorre the negmve patt of IJ~v1d5on's ar,*ilysl\. in
~losecitltlotanon, the &\phyed matend 15 not scnl.lrztlt ally part of the
nlentionlng scnter~te, ~t Ir dtcplrryed alongslde the serrtcnce nrld reierred to

by so~rretlnxlg( d \irlgular tcrrn) i l l that sentence Ac cordir~gto me, ~ C ~ C V C V C ~ T .

the srrrgtil~rterm ln the ntentlonlng ,:errtence cannot bc tlre pair of cprota
tron m,at-l\s
If the qtiot;ction illarks were x stngular terxlt, AS lI)av~d\oncl,l~rn\,tltcrt,
'ttrrtctron In tlte saxrle way and Etave the \arrle
gxven the nsstt~npt~ori
t l ~ rthey
t
se~naxlci~
vahle whatcvcr I ~ i l g u ~ s colitext
t~c
they occ11r 111' (Gappclcn ~ I I C
I epure 1997 $3-c), tllrle wottlct be x dar;qbr(e s l q u l l n tcnfl Irr ,211 Irlstance5 of

open yuotahon- a urigular term wthout a sentence fiarne in which to fit.

Thus (7) wo~lldconsist of four sentences ("Stop that, Johxz', 'Nobody hkes
rne', 'I ~rnrrnserabte', 'Don't you &I& you exaggerate a b~t?')and two
d~nghngs~ngulartenris (the quotation r m k s around 'Nobody hkes me' arid
'I arnx rnlserable')).T o nuke sense ofthose singular terns, one could perhaps
argue that (7) ts acttrdiy ellipt-rcalfor somethlng hke
(7") Stop that John! 1b i ~say "Nobodyltke, me', 'I aril mserable' . . . Don't you
t h r l k you exaggerate a bit?

In (7")-indeed, there is a suitable hame, namely 'yo11 cay-',

where the
alleged \irlg~tlarterns cam fit But I denv that (7) and (7*) are synonymous.
Nor are there any grounds for postulattng ellipsrc here except the desire to
cdve the throrv in ttte f ~ c e
of obvious counterexan~ples.
An acfdit~onald~Uitultyarises m exmple5 of open quotat~on111 w h ~ c h
there rs a gentiule singular temi over and above the demonstratron. If
Dav~dsonwere nght about quotatroil narks, the senteiice '(:ontment aliez
vous' would be referred to tznce in example (4), once by rneans of the
quotatior1 m~rkc(d danglmg angular tenn), another time by means of the
dernon\tr~tlve'tirat' Evidently, it rn~kcsrriore sense to say that the sentence
fint ci~\l\pl,iyrd,then referred to
7 he problen~of ihe cianglu~gsrngular term become\ p~mcularlyembarra\smg In corlrlcctloli w t h the plie~lomenonof 'rmxed quotahon', to be
coit,~dereddt ler~gthbelow. l>avldson cla~rristhat in ( I )
(1)

Quinc savs that qucttatiou

" . . . h:a

a certain ailctmdous feature'

the words 'har a cemin arionralous feature' are quoted ,it the same nme as
they are uwcl 13ut rf-there were a s ~ n ~ lterm
a r refernng to those words m
( I ) , the sentence would be as ung~mrrxaticala$
Qu111e\ay5 that quotanon these wordb has a certain anomalous feature.
(See I)avl&on 1979 81; Searle 1983: 183; Czappelen and Lepore 1907. 437-8).
Thrs shotvs that the quotatahon inark5 do not function AS a ~ngulartenn 111 (I)

j4

" To be sure, chicre 1s a closed variant of (1) in which ttlr words me explicitly rehrred to, namely:
'Qrunr rays tirat yuotaaoa, rn his words, tws a cenaln anontalous f'ture'. 0112 may argue that (1) is to be
undrrrtood on this pattern: the quotation marks in ( I ) furlction just as the description 'his words' in the
above vxkatlr. I will discuss that view below ($4.1).

St~fl,we Lan retam the ecsentids c ~D,w~dson\

f
theory, wlizle rcjectrng XIIS
treatment of the quotahctrl rnarks as a s ~ r ~ g ten11
d ~ r The quotdtloxl x-narkr,
It rs, X
merely ~nlllcatethat the quoteci ~vordsare belrzg dernoii~tr~~ted
suggest, the dentoiatral~on~t\eli\lo1.11c lr assunres tire firn~troriof s ~ n g ~ i l x r
term, in closed quoQtlons l 5 The muvcal es~nlple(6) pmvrde5 evrdenc e
thdt even a nord~r~guist~c
demonstrrrtion can play the role ofa sutgalar tcrnr
Thus we can agree that, i n closed quoratlon,
the quoted nlatenal is d~splavedor presented for cten~nnstrat~ve
purposes, as ln operl quotdtrora,
(u) the demonstrat~onassllnlr.; a gra11111idtical filn~tlofi111 the sentence
that of a sinG~lar
trrln rcferrrng to the demonstrated type,
(m) the quoted rnatcnal itself-,dntmct 6ont tlie prr"sertt(ltzon of th,rt rrlaterlal (the den~on\trat~ori),
rs not scm,~rltlcnuya part of the c:,entcltienn
wluch it IS presented
(1)

A sentence bke 'Garbo s a d "'I warit to be alone"" c'in tIiereG>re be malyred,

iId D A V I ~ S O
AS I ~ ,
Carbo sald \ D e ~ n l ~I ~warlt
, . to he alone
where the second sentence corrcsporlii.i to tfit ~flspl~~ycd
~ I J E C ~ L c~hrle
L~,
the
firrt sentence contalns [I )rntlNi, the pr erentatiorr of that matermi, iervllig =IS
s ~ n p l a rterm and referring t o \orl-xe typc wlllcb the matendl 111 qqiiiAstion
in~tantlates.'~

4. Mixed yrxotation
4.1. Clpen or closed?

By 'mixed quotation' Cappelell :~ndI,epore rxxean a tnixntrc: oforatio obliqua

i~aj
aiid oi.di;oialt'i,c;iji;litsi"iztd by tjie i'5e ,.,f quOtjtioil ili,ii-+s iii ;kte
complement of an indirect.--speechconstructio~l.They use L>avjdson\ sexample ( I ) , repeated below, ;is a pxriidign.

1 owe this point to Berroit cir Cornahel

1 assume that the %dyingr e k d ~ o nhoids betweerr a prn-son and a Lype just in 1.3s~
question utters a token of the uype.
l5

l6

person in

'l'iirr first thing t o notice i s r h r the ilispl;ryeii ral,~teri:liis not sentantically

1lrcr.i Iture. 'The words '1.1;is :icertain arzorir;rlotis fc;ituri2 work 3s. :i pr~t.liir-rrfc,
in

(I) tircy kcep

rixeir i~cisrrr;ii sex~l:lrrticfirrrctiox~ within thi: ruerltioning

ieritc.rii.ib. I ' X i i x srik;gesr-s tlr;tt rrrixcti ilirtrt~3tiorl is riot an insta~tcco f closed

~iuot~ition.
In cioceti c~uot:rtion,the ctisplnyc:d rrratcri:~l i s scgregntrcl kern the
ra~cliticj,mi~ig
sciitcxic.tr. l'lie nicntiorrirrg scrrrcrrctLorily coatnirls the ~ C I I ~ O X I S C ~ L I L ~ O rc(:rii~t~"d
PI,
asb3 si1igu1;lr ~cr111.
Still, i)avi~Ison;ind lris fidlirwers rrl:tiarrai~l that the cluotcd rrraterial is
rt$xm'd to. ? 111srises tile problcnr of tlrc il;~llglirlgsit~g~il:~r
term, 2s we have
sccx~.Aftcr tlrc cvor-ds 'QCne says clr;rr ilriot:tric.irr' we (lonot expect, and
tr:i~irictt nrcor.r~xr:i>cEarc,
a hi11gul;istcrrli. WJr;it \via cupect is 'i pcdicntc-and
irldrctl w c i i ~ l c trrle,
i
sillci: the dispi;avcil 1rlntcri~i.1p1;u;rs its ~sol-tnalser~lalrtric
role. I'hc :~llcgcd\irigul:lr terxli i s lor] extra cor~stitiserit~vliictrdoes not fit
a r i y ~ v i ~ c r111
i ' drc sclriterrc-c. What. i.ar-i wt: Jt, wr~ll~ t l
?'o;~cc-i-rr~imlicst.Eaie
the allt~gcclsisigirl;ir tiSrlil, wi~c;lpl
s:~yt k r r tllc mixedi l t ~ ~ suritcricc
~ u g
1s clli[~lictrlJrr a It-inycr scildenci' w l ~ c r cit (the Jangling
~ingukirierrii) c-,iri i i t . The sentericc in q r r r s r i o ~ irruiit corlt;iir~;I rrletalirlguistic. prc.iiicdtc, srric:tb ehc. ;rlleged sixrgrriar tru-rrr r t k s to \.vonls: tile sing~:txlar
terns ~ 1 1 thus
1 hc c-orrstr~~ecI
:is prclvidirig t o r w cd'thtr nrg,?ri-rierlts
of the elided
1m"*iiia.:rtc.I >;rvriisi~rrl~inr~seifstrggcscs
that (1) carr bi, ~ri,ttlrnlclre esp1ic:it as

Usiarg those very words [or, ;is i>;ividsorr prlts it: 'using words of which
rlli5 i;,itokcai'], (&rirje says tlr'it ijuoc~ritrr~
112s :ici.rtaiirl ,ini~rii,iIotrskatxirc.
l'tuc cieirionsrx:itivc "hose very words' i s v sir~guinrtcrrrr refcrritrg to rlre
wi)r-:Is '1-i:rs ' i ccr-i,Irrr '~rlonl:tlok~s
feature'. It piayc rlrii s;.irxlcrcrie as ( a r d is nlorc
or lcbss syrioaiyrutirls wirt-1) tlic ~ L L O L ; ~ L ~ Orlrarks
I~
:trcirrird those ivorcis, ir,
i3:iviciscirl's :~rialysis.If wc rcp1:rc.c i t by rhc tlcr~ic\rrstr~ciorr
p
i
r syrlt;lctic:i11y
re<.%-~~i
t t A , wt.: d~:ill:in;dyse ( I ) :ah

where tlic" verb i n ix)Xdiice has been eliciecl.

Clrz this ;rri;ilyrxs, tlre speiker of (1) says two rirarrgs at the sarrle time: (i)
~ll;il
Q u i l r ( x ~ 3 yihal
~ qllcftati~rlh;ls c~rt:Gn~PI(IIIL,~IOIISfc?alllre;~ ~ n(ii)
t i that
Qriirie vays str risirlg the words %;is a c:est;~irra~rorrr;doi~s
ikature'. In contrast
t t r the first itatexnciit, chc seconcl c>ne is c1liptic;rl: thc spcakcr refers to Quirle

,nlci to the words 'h,i\ .t cermrl .irtoinalous h'tture', hut the rr~ctdllitg~~lstsc
prcdlcate rerrr,urrs ~ ~ ~ p l n The
c r t &\played rt~litenallias 1t5 norrn'd serrldntrc
fuunc t ~ o nIn the e x p l ~ \t,itemenr,
~t
the ricrrzon\trat~ort\crvt\
.) .~~rlgul,lr
terlr~tn the el11pt~c~~I
\tliteilzelst
C
cfispen\es wltll tlie pos~~ildt~on
of
An dternative i i i ~ d y 1~11sthe \ ~ I (pint
Jn clrded predrc'ite, wiule maintalnlng that there are two overldpp~rtg
pledicate,
\tatements, OIIC superimposed or1 the otller The 11.~et~~l1ng111\tr~
~tcan be argued, 15 drexdy articulated in the seiltence. tt 1s the verb '~;rys' In
(I) 'says' ~ A e tzuo
s iufzthvict dttrct nf.ilccts trt the carvrc tirrtcp. the 'th3t7-clduse ~ i x j
the quotatlor] eac Lh prol/~de\one ( I ) I\ therefore to he atla1y\etl as
that cluotdtlon I~,lsli c e r t a ~ dl ~ i o r r l d o ~
fi"~t~11
\ t-

Qrrrne says
Illrin J N t l
tvlicre the \ir~gt~Id~
ten21 ( n ~ l t irefer\
]~~
to>the word\ 'has a ( crt,ur? ariolrl,r;
lous fefe,lture7
(Cdppien ,ulcl Lepore 1997:447 fn).
I find hot11 v,mnnls of the '\~~pennlpovhon'
,~rldys>r
corlvc,hrtt.d drld pcltittou us. The fonx ofcomnpcl\~t~on
they appe,al to rs, t o 111y liriowic~cige,u~ihcnrdot-.
The only lnotlVdh(3rl fbr offbnrrg baoque 'rccounts lrke these I\ ille tlcurc to
c iluatatlom
\ave 3 dogma the mew th'tt yuotdtic,ns refer. Whert we t e a l ~ ~dt,it
car1 be upcn a \veil a\ closed, Iiowever, we rzo longer 11,rvc to worry ,tboitt the
dat1dmg \~ngrlartenn ,tnd bow i t fits In the sentence T11cre r t o lorlger 1s '1
r i r i g h g s~ngdartenn, bzc.~ii~c.
there no lo~lger15 '1 \~rrguldrtern].
Oii the vlem I ;lcfv~cate,~ I I Y C ~ I I CILIO~'I~IOII15 (orrectly t i e ~ c ~ ~ t )'21,e d
iofto-cvs: Tile very tvords wliirll nre uscd to expre\\ the corttcnt of tlzr
reported 'ttt~tslde( o r cpeec l.1 act) are 'it the s d ~ r ~
ttrlsc
e d1sp1~~y~c.i
for ~ C I I I O I I
str'ttive pulpotec, brrt they .ire not iehrred to by rne'ux of A \lngll,lr tcrili. As
f po~ntcdout In (:lr,~ptcr 6 , t l ~ csltu,ltior, 15 s~nirl,trto wlut wcvc ftrjci 111 the
followrilg exdnlples, ~ l i c r ein
, tlic Lourw of report~ngt11e Gi\cnhee'r\pc.ccll
~
dct, the speaker riumsc\ him or her by phr~srllgarlit/or prctnourtt I I I the
cornplernent sentence In 3 certain way:
(9) 'To which nifr B d e v nrocicstly replied that Ilc hopeci be k n o w 4 wot
o'clock it wos in gined. (l>ickerrs, :VI~zrtinC:kttrzzl~-urit,citcd 111 (:kirk and
Gerrig 1990: 791)
(10) C,ke vieille,fimnfi~.. . vint ill6 seuil et nic d~tnurtdL2qu6 quc jlvc.trdrus, d'tine voix
tuuiriat? tc el hatqrzensc. (kku-bey d'hurevilly. L,'Bzsouielt!~~)

At the same time as he reports the ascnbee's talk, using indlrect speech m the
nonnal way, the qpeaker shozi)~w l ~ athat
t
wlk w a llke.I7 'The speaker nught
s~rmlarlygesture In a certam wav to m n u c the asenbee'., own gestures. In
such caces linguittlc and icoriic meaning run In parallel somethmg IS $aid
md, s~rnultaneousfy,solneth~ng1s shown, concerning the tarne top~c.Yet
there 1% no conversion of the plctonal into the linguntic, rio syntactic
recrultnlcnt of the con ;15 a constituent in the sentence. In particular, the
~
a smgular term in the sentence (ar it does in
dernorictratioil does I I C )become
closed quotzltiorl)
4.2. 'Wixed guot~ztior-1(2s hybrid use

When Davtdson fmt rntroduced example. (I), he presented ~tas a 'mxed case
of use asiti rne11ao11~,
that is, ; i a~ hybnd case in wtuch the menaoned words
are, at the smie tune, m active use (L>amdson1979: 81). Now there are many
cases of that sort whch do not ~nvolveorutra obllqtka at A, for example
(11) Joliri
(12)

a very 'cool'

'The deinonstraaon prov~zfcsthe 'mode of pre~entahun' of the referent.

hence dcternunes tlie contextual 'sense' of the demonstrative. (From Sectlon j I hove)

In wckt cdscs, typic ally, one trscs words to say somethrng while at the rarne
tinie rrkostzg sonle otllcr person's use of the came words '' Even though the
words 111 quotat-on marks are u\ed in part demonstrahvely, to deplct someone's urage, they d 1 w do their normd semantic work in the sentence. That
characten~atioradoe, not take us very far because the quoted words generagy do their normal semallbc work (and, I would argue, are used to tay
something) 111 irntances of open quotat~on,such as (7) But the chxactenration can be rnadt. rnoxc preclse What disnnguishes hyblnd cascc hke ( r r )
and (12) &on1other exanlples ofopen quotation llke (7) is the fact that m (7),
thc derz~omtratec!~vorclsare uttered for the sole purpose of the de~nonstratiori the speaker arguably says s o m e t h g by using them, but what 1s thereby

I
I
S

" See Stanton 1999: 273 -4 for a similar analysis ofmixed quotarion. Stainton and I agree that 'mixed
quotation is cquivaient to indirect quotation-give or take some nkkcry' (Stainton 19yr): 275).
Not aJI hybrid cases are echoic, though. The exanzple I gave in footnote ro (the dei-kition:
A 'fonrdght' is a period of fourteen days) rs hybrid since the word 'fortnight' is both nleririoned and
used, but it is not echoic because the derr~onstrationlackr a carget. (Or so 1 d~ought;see Chapter 8 for
q~lalitications.)

O P E N QUO'1'ATION

241

said is said as part of the act of demor~st~atrorx.

When the speaker of(7)rays '1
am mserable', b?is locutlonary act rc raleaxlt as A repllca of the delr~or~strdted
jxx),
speech and has no lndepetldent xnt)tivatron 13ut when the sye'lker s&~yc
he performs an independent locutmnary x t , to wllich the dernonstr~tcd
words themselves contribute That ,let 1s not subservient to ttlc act ot
denlonstratlve slmulatlorl wlncl~thc speaker also pcrforrtrc t l ~ ldtter
r
rurlr
In parallel to the act of sxy111g that John rs cool. It 1 j XI that sense that the
quoted words can be said to be ured s~n~~~ltntteoiisly
~n9,1y11igsoneth~xigand
performlng a demonstration (That the locutrvnarv act is not ruhordmateii
to the demonstration is shown by the tact th,.tt the Jemonstratlon takes
r n ~ a lirnlted por~ioxs.irf
'narrow scope', as ~twere; rt is local and c o i ~ ~ e only
the sentelice by means of whrch the locutlortarv act 1s pcrk)m~ecl Irl
Chapter 8, using Potts's terrn~r-tology,wch c , w s wlll hr reterred to .I\
instances of sub-daustzl open yuot'ltion j
By draw~ngthe hearer'? attentlorr to the words he or she mes, the speaker
typically suggests thdt those words are to be ascribed to some otl~erprrson
(or group of persons): the 'internal target' of tlrc quotation But thc rug$gcs
h o ~ in
l yuestlon d o e not become p ~ r of
t the proposition exprc\,c.ti bv the
words. In (12) the expressiotl*,"rrlode of preseritntion' ,mtt 'sense' are 1114
played, suggcstirig that thev are used r r l a x cctloic nrat112cr. A noritla1 ar~alvtii
philosopher readuig sentence (12)rrl thri; article ~ ~ n ~ l ~ e d l aurrderstariid.,
telv
the author as echolng Frege, ~;lr-rcias expectu~ghrnl or her to tahe the
d~splayedwords m the sense tliev have m the Fregean Irteraturr I b ~ t
rnetahnguistic indication may help dctcmlule wlticll propo\it~or~
i s ex
'The propt~iztror~
ex
pressed, but it 1s not Itself part 01. t h a t p~op~)s~tioxt
pressed by (12) 1s slmply t11c propoatlon that- the denlolistration prov1de.i
the mode ofprecentation of the ret^c.relzt,hence detemunes the coxltextrxlrl
5ense of the demonstrat~ve Stnlilarly ro ( K T ) the speaker echoes ,I ccrtalrl
group of people by uslrig the word 'cool' w111ch (we m,ky assume) helonp to
thelr vocabulary. He ostensively 5peah hke them. but he does n o t IAV that
he speaks l ~ k ethem.
of echolc
Mmed quotation is only a part~cularcase of that phenor~~enon
use. The speaker uses certnln words r o ex1)ressing the content of the dttitudc
or speech act he or she is reporting, wh~leat the same tune drawng the
hearer's attention to then1 for demonstrat~vepurposes. On the tuost riatural
lnterpretatlon of the dernonc~abon,the &splayed words Are ~xxlplrcicly

24.2,

biiXF,i> ~ ) l l i l T A l ? C 7 1 ' 3

,iwribeii t o the vcry perscm whirse attinxdr or speech ac:r is reporteci.'" Yet
i.lie q)t-".iAn;rdocs not .wy rlt~attfre ascnbce useti rlaese wcrr~is.I ie merely sho~,us
(iie~rl6rriC,~r,lti"*r)
I i i e WO~IISthe :iscr&ec ~iscd.S'11is is like csarnple (9): the
re.:iilcss risrtii.r\t,ind I fickerrs AS 1111nlickii~gB:tij~y'sI P I : I I ~ ~ C I ; Sof speech, but
n r o \ r i k t ~ * o trs~ i t said rlwr 1I;aiiey sye~~lis
in t h i s way.
I u t h l c i+;r rxrcw ork,it is siulply r i o t true &;re tl-rc proposition expressed Ity
rl~ecor~iplerricx-ctsi~itericein ( J ) is "alitrtit wcurtl.;', as C:;~ppelenand Leyore
ci~riiar(witlici~rt:ul?;rrrllentj.C'::rppclen arrti 1,eyorc use this trnsupported claim
t o rirrdel-iriiire ,iii ti.ie stlir~dar(l' ~ ~ ~ ( I L I Tof~ ~iildircct
s
speech, based o n the
k)Llci\vir>gprinirpiu:

(A) A pnq~'(-)""Ci'~~i"l
'ittit~idt.r-cpcirtis trr.~c.jusrin c-;~.;c:-inngcnt s~mikirl ;icerwin
rc~l,iiic~ai,
c.g. the s:ryiitg rcicttiorr, t o the coirteart iifthc co111l3lernent clause.
(C::~j)pelc~l
ar~il1,epore 1997: 435)
i r l ( I S ) > L; :,ippc!cxi, arid L epoxv 'irguc
.1.33), the cor~lple~nerrt
clarrse
contauns ~ ~ L I O I ; ~ ~ II OI II LI I ~ i"r1~1
~ S is chcrek>rc; ~ i > ow-or&:
~~t

t I 3 ) A l ~ \,31(1
r t l ~ : ~hk
t

1% '~!iL'fic~ilt
to L I I K ~ ~ I - s ~ : I ~ ~ '

Yut Aiic-i! did rlor say 'inytl-iirrg ai)out worth, lrencr she does not stand in the
wyirig rci,ltioai to the propositit>r~cxprt:sscil by the conipler~~erlt
clause in
(13). I-his is s ~ r p x w c dt o slionr tti;it tllc st:iiid;lrd , ~ C C O L I ~ T~SE i ~ ~ d i rspeech
ect
l-xiscil oni pnnciplc (A) art. ;riP ri~istaken.0 x 1 the prcsiant proposal, )nowever,
1 8 7 ~propo5iii011 cxprersetl by t-I-lccorr~pieri~errt
sentence is the sarne wit11 or
wiil-rcxri the. ila~trtatiorlrr~:rrks,~ r r t it
i is not :rhorrt worcls. T'he deirlonstr-ation
(.of~i:eys,III : ) ( k i i t ~ o ~rxn~eln ~ ~ i1~ ~3 g
t i,~~ ~p~ctoriid
~
rt
~ ~ ~ t - ' i tI-UIIS
~ i r l1x1
g p:ir;dIeI to
r i i ~ .p~-o,i~oulcio"n
\vhit l i rs ii~lg~~istlc:~lly
.ir~Erxrlatc.cl:i t is i ~ c t ;1t part o f i t . Mixecl
cpo"ritba>ii ti-ribrcfi,rcdoes not c'o~rstitriee'ii:trrrrrtcr-exalliple to Principle (A).""

At tlrxs point "ZCippel~x t r i tepor-c car) JrgLrc that, surely, the li~lguistic
nlrbairing tri-(13) is rrot tfrc saltlc :is tIl;st of'the scrrtence w e get when we drop
dici cjiiot31:iorr rrr.irRs, vir. ( 1 4 ) .

''
iiirs7
r., oiiiv t i i c iiroii iiac~lrll~ntr~iprct.itiuri.
lro\vn;ever. Orrc r ,ui c.&tlv uilaglnc J c o ~ ~ t rin
x twhich a
iikt. (i)VI'OLIICI he usel\ with wiiic.tiuiig oiibcr c11,ui tlic dst.rih~r'sutterdncce :rs lnterrwi
the- f~~'l~1~)1i\tr~~lO6i
5t.c ~ < c ~ ~ d ~f Al )~l >+l >t/ >l : 7.i4) ioi d r l exA~1lpk:

\ t . i l i c i ~ c c .c*.it i i y
IAIget fill
'()

S<Y

\ ~ ' i 1 1 1 t O l l (l()O<j

2;!

3) fix

\ l l l ~ ~l-?rrl'irL:,
l ~ ~ ~

(I

4) Abt e 1.1sd tkit [Lfe 15 dlfErult to urtde15t,md

Tile quot'rtron rrt'lrks are p x t of the lariguage They ,\rcxItr~grrrscrc\ymbol,

e r ~ d o ~ v cwith
d
C C ~ I I L C ~ ~ I O SI II ' ~ S Z ~ ~ C ~ W
K I eC c'trrrlot
~
tortsrcicr t17~'1)1 J\
depnved of m y lulguistrc rrwarxxlg wliat\oevcr anc3 't\ opcr;lt~vconly rtl
the p ~ corla1
t
realm
Iri reply, I should fir\t p a n t out that ~tIr n o t obviotxr t l ~ x rtile cjuotatlon
xrlarhs arc p x t of 'the language' The cluotahoit ~ n ~ t r arc
L \ ,t puntfltiltioti s t g i l ,
and a\ ~ L I beloi~g
L ~
to the ;cuto~ronioussystein of zr~ntfrriLr-rgu~ge(Nunberg
1090) 111 poke^^ I ~ r ~ g i ~ athere
g e , 'tri. nu qutitdtron m,lrhs proper the spedker
511nply draws the hearer'\ ,ittentloI1, by wh,itever ine3114,to the ~vor(i\be or
contarir cjtiotatloxl
rhe utter\ " Be th,kt a\ i t 112ay, ler 115 asurnc thdt f ndi\l~
nl.irk\, as wntten f:nglnh clexrly doe\. Tlicn, ndlnlttedly, ( I 3) ~irci(r.y) 'Ire
rlot the same 5entence (13) cont'tins a Lirlguistlc sign (thc cluc,tltiorr niark\)
w h ~ (14)
h doe\ not ( orrtarrl As a result, ( I j) ,rrici ir t ) (30 riclt Ir,ivc the sanlc
Iin'gu~\t~c
rnemrng What c ~ we
n szy about th,rt tlrfieretlce?
I think the dlEerc~ncebetween ( r j) .rrlcf )4"( 1fiilmrl~~r
to chat between
( I j)

Flz

15

(16) I-ie is

17ch and stup~d

1%-hbut stupid

l%othutterances cxpress the proposthon that the yer.;ttn 111ciilc\ttorl 1s hot11

n~11a i d \tuprd, btit (16) cotivrys 1' frtrtller indrc,ttlor~ that t?i\ it~1~71dity
15
ur-ir~pe~tw3
glvert lsrc n c h i - t c ~*f
~1115 ~ndicahoil1s t onkeyed r r l vli-tue of- the
cc~nd~tiorziof w e of the word 'but' RccortLng to O\w,tlct I)iicrot at?cl Iln
tcfiool, 'but' 15 to be used to t oryorn two ct;itcrrlet,t\ 1' '>ridC,) ortly rfthcrc 1s
of rllc (i)llowi~~g
sort hctlvccri tlrc'oi
'in c ~ ~ g u r n e niet ~eoritmct
i
1' provides evidencc irk &our of, i.e. 'snpports', a certaix) concl~tsione

'' 7'hc tlispiay can be ut~denioodIn vanoits ways-- not rrit-e~s.it-11yi s a qclitt.uiorr. (:i>ri-$ii$t.r h r
esarnpic the kollowi~tgutterarlcr (where block iectcn ~rliL(:atettrac the words arc dispixyecl ul spciker~
speech):
(I)

Tint said ibat John is HIC;HI Y datigerous

cxpre~si~rg
exnphws r.tr- A> ~rtd~catlitg
1'
Ifre ikrplay of 'lngl~ly'call t)e u~ltit:rstood i l l vnsloir\ wdys:
drrnolutr:itive lnkcrttion on rtie p:~stof'the rpzakrr. (Qrlot~txonn w r h i i r wxlticr] speecll c.1ri hcar-o ~ l l ytltc
\i.(-onci iritrrprctant)n.) Gor~traitiveti>ius i s another ponlhli: irticrliret.ttion.

--

Q suppow the oppogite conclusion not-?

Q IS stronger tharl p.
In virtue of t:hose condztions of use, the speaker saying 'P but Q' indicates
that there is a cooclilsion r such that the first conjunct supports it whiie the
second cor?juilct:provicfes a stronger argunzent in favour of its negation (see
e.6 Anscomnl~reand Dtrcrot 1977).This indication comes in addtion to the
conjunctive proposition expressed by the uttermce. The utterance therefore means two things:
that I? 8c (2
(11) that there is a conclusion r such that the first conjunct supports it
wtilte the 5ccond conjurrct prowdes a stronger arguinent In hvour of
(I)

its t-re&nbon
Irt d

sense, then, the utterance expresses not one, but two proposiaons (Bach

1999; Neale rpyy). In the case of (16) the two proposibons are

(1) F fe 11; both nrh and itupld

r n 'John is mtelligent') such that h ~ being
s
(11) 'There Ir A ~ ~ n c l u ~ lro(e.g.
nch support\ r to some degree, whlle his bcirig stupld refutes ip
'rl-rese two propositions are not on the same level, however. Only (i) is
com~>ositiondly
articulated. 'The coniplex met&iiguistic proposition (ii) is
cxpressed holistically, in virtue of a pragmatic mechanism. By using 'but',
one irnplies that the conditions of use of that expression are satisfied, hence
one irnplies (ii). 'r'hat is a pragmatic implication, or 'imnplicature', to use
Grice's cover tenn. Since the iniplicature arises rather directly from the
coriventiofts governirlg the use of a pxticular expression, Grice called it a
conveniiolral implicature, in order to disthguish it both Gom the conzpositionally articulated content of the utterance, and Gom the conversationul
i~nplicatureswhich :ire not directly tied to the conventional significance
of words.
Quotation rnarks too have conditions of use: one should use quotation
marks only if one is using the quoted words demonstratively. Using quotation rnarks therefore indicates that one is deri~onstrating:that is the hguistic
meaning of quotation rnarks, \vIGcl.l differentiates (13) from (14). Sentence
( I 3) tl~ereforomeans two things:

--.

O P E N QLJOTAl'lON

245

(I) that Alice said that hfe 11sdl-flic~iltto underctaid

(u) that the words 2iEicult to understand' are belng used itemot~\tratlvely
XVhlle the proposition 111(1) is con~poslt".onallyamculated. the proposltlon
in (11) is not. It 1s expressed hohstlcdiy and lras the c ~ t u sof ~t yragrndnc
unplication By usrng quotation niarh, the \peaker inrplles that rlle ccsncfxnon governing their use obtains Since the cctridibun in yire5txon 15 t~xedby
the conventions of the language, tbi4 sort of irllpllcature deserves to be
called a conveu~tzonulmlphcature 7 hough rotiven~oxlal,it 1s not past of tire
(composinondy artrtcixlated) prol>os~tionalcontent: of the rltteraiicr The
proposlhonal content of (13) n the rarne as that of(lq), ever1 r f (13) 2nd (14)
do not have the same hngulstlc rneanrrlg

5 . Interpreting cluotatioxls: the pragxratic view

j.I .

Three levels o f meat~zn<q

qqurrz

(b1.46

not the santpi

Quotdtion marks tun1 out to belong to the clas\ of prqgniatlc rrrdrcatnn

expression\ which liave c e r t ~ ~ctrrrtlrtroti.i
n
of use, and \vho\r usc ixtdrrates
that tlle condltrtons 111 qilertlor~ctbt~lxi(Recanatl 1998, $4) For all ~11th
expresaons, we can d~stingur\hseveral layer; of rrlearlrlig
(a) The ineaning of a prapz,itlc inch. ator, p i . 1 exprcs'lon type. IS the
convention govenlmg its use For example, the inlperative rlioocl rs
governed by tile coiiverltlon th,rt 11. IS tir he used oidy ~fthe speakcr
act "Bur' rs govcrlred
usiilg it IS peTfomlixig a 'd~rectrve'illocut~ot~~ry
by the convet-itiorr that it IS to be tised in a conjnrlcnve utterarrt e only
if there 1s a certalrt concluaorr r such tlrar the fir\t cctryunct 4ilpportc r
wMe the cecond co~qunctprovlcies a atrotlger argurxrria 111 &?votrr ot m
negahon. In all cases of &,bt cort the ccrrrventlon tikc~sthe ionla of a
con&aonal, the ngl~t-h,mdsrde ofwhich is ~trlplrcltlyor expla~~tlv
"tokenreflexrve".The convexibon s'iys drat fix every token x of clle rkpressron,
x passes muster only tff(z) Yiix)' Ir a conchaoil or1 the token--3 COI~S(S~.III~
whch the token must satx@ for the rrre to l:,hc&hcitou\

(b) At the next level the nlemmg of tlir exprecsion type is contemldly
applied. When a specific token 7 of the expression IS produced, ~t (the

toner-i) lrlrarls that Z(r) in virtue of tl-ic ri~echa~tisrn

described

the
yrcviorrs sceutrrt. '1'11~s;in i1lxper~4tiari.iltte.r-;rncei rriearls that i serves to
pcrfi~rin;r clire.c:dve illocutioriary 'ice. Ari niteruxrce u of 'Llle is rich but
I I S tllcre is a coiic.li*sitrxi rsrrc-11that the first ic~i~j~irrct
of u
~ t ~ r p i~d~' I C ~that
? x ~ p ~ ~r \vtrlie
~ - t s thc secorrc.l i:or!junc-t o?a~pioviit~sa stronger arglxnent
in Ilvotrr o f ~ ~ o t -?'I'IIC
r . ;tpl~lietlrne;rrrirrg of'die token is but an i~rstantiatiora oftllc right -harid side ofttrc*corrvvtitiorl of irse. As Jolm I'eerry likes
ti) j r o i r ~ c( > p i t , 111eani11g;it t h scc:orli!
~
level is rssenti:llly reflexive (Perry
200 1 ).
(t.)

ill

Next.. tlac ~pplliect~ ~ l e a r l iuil ~ thc

g ttrkc.11 is cor~~cxtu:IUy
fI~<sb~cri
out. For
rxzlr~ipic,t1w Iria;uer irnlst itlenldljr a specific iilr~cutio~lary
act, within the
itircctivc class, 3s heirrg tll;rt wllicll the speaker interrtfs to perfon-rr. Or,
ivr tlic c:lsi* of 'but', she I ~ I L I Sidentify
~
tC11c c o n c l i ~ sri such
~ ~ ~that the fl~rst
c-oryriric.t siipyzorts r wl-rilcthe sec.oiuit r.or~jirnztxq?po~t~
not-Y.Note that
flcslrrrig out is ,ill ol)lig;rtory stcp, similar to tflc ob1igitoi-y itientificatiori
critbrc rt~firc.rizcirl intcq7rt:dng n dircc:dy i.t:i'crential exc>rssion.Just as
ycur cFio arcit prtrperly ~rniler-sca.ri~i
7 II~. is Xxriti' tlrlless you itierltiFy tlre
rc.icirerit trf illc j>roriourt, yorr ilo 13ot~l~ltfentclriri
6it'imh3s ri~easlcsbut
J i a l ~ i i ' i ; i)otk i s tong' ifytrri cIv 11oi cc~~\t~)itiially
icientify the relev-ant r, in
tibnx.rxi>i'wkiic).i0111. can rn;ilie qcrsv of ~171: stlggested coi~trast:behvcen
tilt two iarxqirxicts.

0 r l c . r rJnc ,rppilctl r~reanir~g

oftltc ~okearhas becx~fiesheti out. the interpreter

casr apprvcii:"~":~ h cixtterance's illoc~idorl:xv fli>rt-t. (i:.g. the 61ct that it is

intt.nrit.d AS ;i I C ~ I I C S ~or
) its argi~llit~r~eltiv~" (e.g. the L~ctthat the whole
utter.irlc:e itself is ofired ;is an :Irgtixllerit Irr Kriro~lrof not-r, since the sccor-td
r:crrljcr?;rct is ;irgcrriruirc,rti\ strorlger tfiarr the first oxlc). 'These dir~-rensioris
of
rlicLaalng-----ilPcicutitrn;uy
k>rceant3 :~rgi~nieritttti\re
\rLiXtr~~--~re
distinct from and
extcrrral to tPrc i~itt*r:rl~cc's
propositiorr~dcontcrit, yet they frclvc converrtiond
~nmclic;ltor.sirr t l i c scrirence. Sitrrilal-ty, I IlolJ, the iluotatiori ITIIL~ELS are a pmg-uratic. irltfic:ltor wl~ic.Xr aontsii>rxtesto tlre nic;uiixrg oi'tllc seritellc.e, withotit
c~or~rril?rrci~rg
to i t s propositiox~alcoxiterrt. I-1rrlc.e we shoulcJ bc able tc~disting~lislrt l r t ;ri,ovt= Ic~vc.1~
oflnetrrling in yiloe;ltiorr:d rlrtterances. Indeed we are: (a)
'X'hi. yuot:irsicrrr lrr~trkslzavt conditioxts of'iise: dley ;Ire to be used only if the
spcakcr is usirig tt>r quoted words ~clcxlrcinst~~tively.
(11) In virtue of this
c,c>rlvc,ndori:rlrcilirircrncx~t,using thi" y u o t . ~ t i ~I~~RL'F,s
r ~ in 3 particular utter:tnce
ir irrc1ic;ibcr; t h a t tlxe rc~keri0 wic-hin rlrc ~jrrot:atiotr rnarks i l i u is clisplayctl tc~r

dertiomtr,~txvepurpses Th*s utchcxnot? (the ~pplrcdLile'rrirllg of tire tokrr~)

has the st~tusof "~ortventlondlimpi~t,lt~rre',
as we SAW 111 Itf< tton '4 3 It IS
drrectly getrerated by the c ori\7c=ntlon~ e g ~ l d t t the
n g tiw of the cxprcsinrt l3irt
(c) it nlu\t be iievired out in ( ontest. r l ~ intclpreter
e
rltrist ~cicrrtri"j/
rhc u~kerxl,rl
1 rnust ~dcr~trfv
tlie proptrtles
target of the dcrnorrstratlon, 11there n one, ~ 1 r the
type) knti
ofthe toberl w h ~ c a
lt
~:'deptctlve' (c onstltutive of tllc dc~-t~on,tr.lted
tliuw wllicli are r~xerelyac~idcrrt~tf
or 'supportivt~' ((:ldrk ,rnci C;erng I ~ ( > o .
768). When the apphed meari~ngofthe quot'ibon irtdrks b ~ heen
s
flc\I.rcd out
m tlxs way, the lrlterpreter 1s able to apprecldtc tlre dcrnt>nstr,tt~o~l'\
plctor~,d
v a l ~ ~ L'
c he p ~ c t o ~ value
~ a l tlrt~sdetenrl~tiedL\ ,u extcrrlal ro tbc ~ i t t ~ t , ~ r t ~ c ' s
propos~tlondcor~tei~t
as 'rrgrrtrlcntdtlr e vilue or tlioc utror~imfoxc t"
What 1s the relatton between the three l'ryerj we I-tavelust tlntlngri\hcci(A), (?I),,md (i)--G~~id
the three levels of meauxig we t~lbecl, r i > t r ~ l tr,rrl~er111
collne~tlonw ~ t hclosed q u o ~ t i o i lnx~nely
,
levels r , 2, ~ r t c i3 below2

I t'rke it that tile I ~ I'tyer~

W
c ~rre\pondto J t c p Z F I t h ~ ~ ' t z e ~ ,ift tthe
l o ~ ~ tor1<11
rtleanrllg of the tfcnlo~
tstrat~orr.Level (A) 1s the Inrtgulstlt nle,rnrng of the
cluotclhon m x k Tius IS dlshnc t from, drough on '4 par wxth, the Inednulg of
the cirylayed m,itenal (Ievei I ) When ,L sentert~cwltlr (IUOLI~IOF~1xl;lrlhC IS
issued, hot11 the rnatend vatl;lu~the ~j~otdtlon
111dri.s 31id the qutrtdoon r ~ r ~ l r k s
themseives have ,I lutgul\tic, r olivcrlt~onalnre,rnmg wlut 11 1s c o r ~ t c ~ x t ~ t ~ d l v
proce5sed. By (b) ,~pplyinganti (c) Aedl~rrgout tlie lllealllxlg of tllC qt~ot,ltloll
rnarks, one determines the pictor~dvalue of the clernor~sh-at1011
(level 2): r;vlrat
~t deplc~5and w d e r whch a5pct ts. As for the thlril of tlie tl~rrelevelc t,iIked
'llmi~tu~Scctlon 3 2, it Ir relev'int only when the quotat1011 is t l o ~ cand
i serve\
JS a \mgt~liir
term 7 he levcls ('I), (b),and (c). 017 the O L ~ lr,mtl,
C ~ can I)e fottnd
m all tr~staxlccsof quotation, whether open or closeit

Even III open q u o ~ t ~ o ithe

l , proce\s of nntelpletatlg-trt docs not stop wherl
tlre mterpreter gasps the qr~otation'~
prctonai vdue 7'he mterpreter xtnv
well grasp the latter-lle rruy realwe tblt the spe,iker rs clcplctrrls so ,trzd \o's
speech In such and sucll re\pec ts - wltllour gettutg the point of tlre demon15 u\cci rcftarnr~gl\ ih ~ t
itr~tion In closed quotatton, tfze dertlonstr,~tioi~

248
-

INTERPKE TIN(, QlJOTA TfONS: TllK PFu-GMATK

-

-- -

--

%I'

mdy serve a riu~nberof purpose, w h c h c m only be deterrmned on a

pragrnatlc baclr In Irony, one rakes fun of the person one is m.mckmg.
The speaker thereby drvioclates herself honl the target She may do so
jokingly or sarrxstlc~lly,depe~xd~ng
on whether her intentson n to m u s e
or to harm. At the other end, the polnt of demonseamg can be to appeal to
autl~ontyto Invest one's utterance ~vlththe authority ofthe penon whose
speech is den~onstrated.O r tile speaker car1 express condescendent approval
of that per\ion As Ijerrdre W~lsonpoints out, 'the attitudes conveyed by
echo~cutteralce, are very nch and vaned: the speaker may lnmcate that she
agrees or th,tgrees mtt1 the orignal, is puzzled, angry, an~used,mtngued,
cceptical, etc., or m
a
n
y comblnahox~of these' (Wlkon 2000. 432) "
Note that the speaker's a m 111 ciepict~ngthe target need not be unique or
well-dehileated in (12), for example, the polat of the demonstration IS
multsple: the speaker's a m 1s (1) to rnake sure that the readers ~villtake the
\peaker's words 'sense' and 'mode of presentatson' m thc proper technical
sense he mtends diem to have m t l s conrext, and thereby to help them
grasp the prc>poat~onafcontent of t11e utterance; (11) to appeal to Fregean
authcrnty, (111) to srtggest d 'context' (111 the sense of Sperber and Wilson
ty86&), n~rnelythe boQ oi' Fregeart theses about sense, in w h ~ c hto draw
relevdnt crrmecluences ti-on1the proposition expressed by the utterance O r
con\~dcrthe follow~ng,rather typical example of 'scare quotmg'.
(17) Koun Skour,~to~,
general probecutor, w a suspended tn March by Bons Btsm.
H i s suLcesi;or, Ivurl I chaka, was 'promoted' mmster ofJusttce U I August

The quotdtlon niark~aro~lrlci'promoted' convey rnany things to the mterpreter (1) that tills tern1 was oi-Frc~aUyused, or at least, that Ioun Tchaika's
itd dirge of aEect,itlori w ~ /presented
i
a3 a promotion, (11) that the speaker (the
newspaper colu~rm~st)
doe\ not fully endorse that descnption, (111) that the
reawn why he does not IS that ~twas not a real promotion, but rather a way
of' getnr~gnd of loun T'chaika by 'lacking hirn upstalr5'
There are no
iledr Ii~nltr\to ~IJliat( an be corlttrstuallv suggested in th~srnarlrier This is all
in atld~tionto what the utterance d~rectlyexpresses, where 'what the
s
arhculatutterance directlv e~cpresses'Includes not ordy ~ t corrlpos~tionally
eci ( ontent but alco the plctonal meaning of the demonstration
I ""
tfiese atntudes can &o he conveyed in closed quotation: the referring functiorl of the quotation
~ioesnot pt-everitit born dso s e ~ a qnumber of other purposes.

250

iN1 F-I<I"XIL;,'l-IN(; <)II(YTATIONS: 'i'iii I"<AGMATlC

(i8)

VIIIW

It~iiii
v ~ y slie's iirre t i ) 1)reselrc his work iii tiae "xiper session'

wl1cr.e tixc spe;rkcr is rrxlilerstoud

35 ~~Gnlickirig:i?;>auI'sdeviant use of tlrc

phr;ae "paperI C S S I ~ X I ' LVlfat
.
I ? ~ u irrltx:irrf. \vircrr PIC said what (18) reports was
t h r t 81c w;rs ( i ~ 1to~ present his work rn tlrr poster. scssioti. 'l'lic speakcr
in-or~ii-;illyc.c-Erlws it:rtri's tlrist:rl\crr iise. W11:1t iirc the tr-ritll-cotrditiorrs oi'
(1811 A r c tBat.\~ the rarrrc :;ts those ok'
(i8k)

iE,~
~ ~~~he'\
Ii clue
y ~()I. pi-cst"iit 131s wol-k iii the paper x s s i o n

I (los i o r

scerxu to nrc t l ~ (18)

t
,rscrihcs to I%ul refel-ence to tjrr
postvr .s~.ssiotiI I C EC' P
t l i t ' wroriir, r~crnlc-:.Xbrt irn (18") rrc, reference t.ct the poster
scssiorl is ,nsc~-ii)cdt c i I'aui.
B+i.r.haps :r rixisii'lr i:uarx~yle.wit11 L, proper ~ X I ; I I ~ ~ziill
IC
eliiit clearer intuiri,911s. S I I ~ I N
ilr ~ii ~~ ~~~Cu t t i t llinowri
lly
ttr till(: :;pcakcs and his addrcssec tlvat
'j:irnc.s rxtisiilc~m-iriiicd.ic.i-rtai~roitl rrrnrr ('l'ini Mi.e"llersoi3) :LS the 6~nious
plriii~sopl~er
Qr~irrc.'!'he spe:rkcr i-ari tl)c:rr irc>rrrc,~liyirsc thc rlarxle 'Q~rine'
irl ~~uo"~st~"nc
t oi .Mcl"~crsorr.
i:r
'l'liirs lse <::rrr sa\-:
ililrik \ t r . It

1x1 (19) d i e speaker xcfen to Mcfqirt:i.;c)n under. illc narxlc wlliclt J~tmes
s ~ i i s t a k ~ r i ig~vl
y wcshi~rr.Simiiarly ill (20): tlrc spe;rki:r rei'ers to McT"tlerson
(riricler- tile Irasiie wlriih J a i r ~ c s~nist&c.lrlygivt..; him) 2nd says thatJarnes says
t l ~ a thc (Mcl~licrsou)w;ukts to speak to ris. Now COIISI~CI.(20.~):

(a)*J): ~ I Y ~~ s; ~ ~ a I hQ, ti ~t i i ew;rrits to speak to 11s

1 hr\ ticscr

ritot

s.1~ irrytl~rng,rl?o~itMc l%c"x\trsxl 1 acrlce tl-rcre 1s an o b v ~ o t r \

t171111
c OXI~I~IOII~IE

d i f f t ~ c L'~ ~~CcS ~ W C C(LO)

I I J B I(io*)
~
CIIIC s t ~ t e m e iIS
~ ~t b o ~ r t
McPiicrsoxi, tilc cbsl-rcr r\ a l l o ~ l tQ ~ I I II. Itlllnh
~
WC" Ii~iilt h e SJIHC sort o f
ilifierer~c-csbcxtiikccr~( r 8) arid (I X*)
Arrotlrci- pc~cc.rltr;llc ci~rx~tclcu,urlplc,
drre Y O ('appt'icr, .~rldI,rpore, 1s

.cvlrerc Nic-ul,r i s ri, fivsx--yeas-trlit boy. Serrrcrrc,e (21) c:tnnot have the same
trrktlr - cox~eiiti~rxls
:is

O l ' b N ()LJi-rI'A I I O N

(21*)

251

Nicula bdieves that h i s tither i s a pi~rltosopbrr

for tlic simp1e reL&onthat ( I I * ) 15 rtlear~rngltssthe scnteuc c cor1ta1115't non\vc)rd, hence ~t does n o t exptess caniplete p~opositt"onIllut (21) ~rguably
does.
In aU these p,urs--(I )-(I *), ( I 8)-(I X*) , ( 2 0 ) (LO*), (T: I) -(A I *) here is ,i
truth-conctlclond drffrreric e between the t w o menil,ers of the palr lllrrs
\bows that tnlred quotatsot1 nEccts, trt~th-condlt~ctrlI)ocs rr tollow t h ~ 1t
w ~ swrong when 1 cl.ams\~lledtnlxed cjuat,ltlon as ,III Irr\rciltt e of open
quotxt~on?No, for the problem I\ rrlore gener~l I l ~ eproblcn~ts that
soinetlrxles open cltrotatro~ltseerny to affect tnltJr-cc?~rciitrt~~~\
Miard yuotat , there ,ire otliers. T hi]\ 111 (I<>)the iranic 'C>tl~nr'1s
Don n a case 1111 p o l ~ ~but
dert~oristrated,at the sane tinlc 1' s it IS usrti to refer to Ncl21etsctrl L'hat 1, a
llybnd case, but trot an Iristmce ofrillxed cluotatron (\~rrc.ethere 1ms\no omtrc~
obliquai. Yet the ciernonstration c~ppe.zsto ~ktxectthe truth cctrid~nomof the
trttermce. &s~t does t r i m5tances of rn~xeti!qtlotation such d5 (SO) 4rntentc
(LO) cbes not have rhe same trutlt-corrdrt~ons.IS (19")

,,

(19*) ldoo?+.
w h o rc ( ornlng! (Jrurlc VV~~IZSto

sj~rakto

ti\

Xn contr'jst to (I()*), which SAY, \ornethlr~gabout (>urnc, ( I 9)siys \olnetbmg

dbotit McPl~erion
I11 tlrc last sechori of tfus chapter X wl1 Jedl cvlth tlrc3se countorexa~nplr",
to
the vlew t h ~ open
t
quotation jli~clucilng1111.zed cluotatson) 1s a prginxtlc
~>hei~(>menon.
1 w ~ l Jsgue
l
CoUo~vs.'1 he counterexriniples do not show
that the v ~ c wrtself IS ttr-rtenxl?le,but only that ~1~~t7Cklrd
uus,i,tnzptmn\ lancemlng
tJlc t n t e f i e betuietn sc~nzurzttc-iand pru'qmatic-c fttust he qutk~titl~tlcd.I'~LZS
it IS indardly ,zssunied thxt there n a s-rnglerlotlorl oflltcrxi content wl-uch IS both the
ttzt~tftve
tmtll-~3ndlt1olialcontent of tlrc utter,mce mind Its l i ~ ~ r ~ i c t u aavr-~aifutcrl
lly
conteiat ( w h ~ the
t autonomous rnecharrist-rl of- 'w~n;litt~c
c olnporltion' dellargued
ver;) But m tlre prev-rouschapten, I have Vven up that a'r\\lilrptloli
of 411 urtermce results rrt part b(3m
t b t the Ilituihve m~t11
- c o n d ~ ~ o ncontei~t
al
'pragrnabc ~ntruuons'of vmotts sorts-pr~grlatJtc uttruuons whtch, by uitertlzc process o f c e ~ ~ m conlposit~c-)n,
~nc
cnnc h or modify w11,lt would
fenng wtd~
otherw~sebe the truth condltlonal cortte~lto f the utterance. If I xrn nght,
ng
of t h ~phenorncrtoxl
t
mxed qLrotatJorr pro\des A s a ~ k ~ rllumatlon

6 . In dcfencc of the pragmatic view

6r

C~mufutrvehyhrrds arid pruyvnczlzc er~nctzment

We have just seen that in some insQnces, removmg the quotation marks ~n
hybnd cases of open quotatlton somehow & e c ~the content of the utterance Thus there 1s an lntuibve &f%erence1n truth-con&tlons between the
two members of each of the above pars (I)-(I*), (18)-(18*), (19)-(19*)*
(20)-(LO*), &rid (21)-(21*) WOCVcan this h c t be reconcrled wlth the
pragmatic v ~ e w i
Before we mswer tllat cjuestion, we niust draw a dlstinctlton between two
sons ot'caw Consrder the p a r (I)-(I*) once again.
(I)
( I *)

Quirte savs that quotation ' . . .has a ceaaix~anomalous feature'

Quine says that quotation has a certain anox~~dous
feature

As 111 all the counterexanlples mentioned in Sect~on5.3, the first member of

the p a r errt&il.\sorneth~ngw h c h the second member does not entad. In thls
partlculx case, however. that 15 the only seinanhc &Eerence between the
two stnterrients The quotatron adds somethmg to the content of the
utterance, hz4t LC does rzot st~btr~zct
~tnytizlvtqfromat. As a result, (I) entads (I*).
7 hat i\ -I= Corn trivral for, m tfie ocher countcrewmples, the fvst member of
the p a r does not e~lt,illthe second member. Sentence (19) does not entad
(lo*), I I O ~
does (30) e r ~ t a (~o*)
~l
(19) f1,ook who is conGng!] 'Quine' wants to speak to us.
jig*) [1.00k who 1s co~x~irlg!]
Quine wants to speak to us.
( 2 0 ) James says that 'Qtxinr.' wants to speak to us
(lo*) James says tk3t Quine wants to speak to us

The diftereuce between the two sorts of case can be spelled out as follows.
While trr (I) the contelit of (I*) 1s eilnched through the demonstratxon, ~n
the other exarnples rt seerns t h the
~ content
~
of the utterance is transformed
ini;tr,id of bemg nicrely enriched 111 the first tvpe of case I sav that the
hvbnd IS 'c~trrrlu1,rtlve' fbr the dexnunstratior~contnbutes sonlethrng in
udditzotz to the nonnal content of the utterance, whlch 1s preserved (although
possibly ernchecf). The cunlulative nature of the hybnd 1s estabhshed by
the tact thdt the \er~tencecor1tamiIig ~t eiita~lsthe sentence obtained by

O P E N Q ' C J O 1A 1 I O N

253

removing tlie qilotatlon ni~rks.In the recolid type of care (to be dealt: wrth
m Sections 6.2-6.3), the hybnd is 'i~t>n-cunlulat~ve'
the dclno~rstrat~on
results m the fact that the utterance ~ z olaugcr e x p r f i ~ a'SESn~)r~null
ro~ltet~t,
not
even as part of a ncher content
The smple hybnds I merit~onedm Sectloxi 4 2 were clearly cuniulative
Thus (11) entarls (11").
(11)
(11')

John is very 'cool'

John a very cool

The differerlce between the curxrt~lat~ve

hybrid 111 (xr) and the noa curnulatlve liybnd in (19) u s ~ d a to
r the d~fierencebetween ( I ) ant1 ( L O ) To be
wre, (I) and (LO) are inrtancec ofmrued quotation. whle (11) and (10) arc
not. But that is irrelevant I he cun~u1,ttlveInon-c~lmiilative
ciis~rict~on
15 a
drshnchon between two sorts of lryhrzd rise S~ncexll~xedqliotatlon a 3
variety of hybnd use (~nvolvmgorcltw ohlrq~ma),~t 1s not suq7nsing tilac the
dlst~nctlonbetween the two fi>rxnsapylles to ~ n ~ x qizotat~ori
ed
as well as to
suxipler cases hke (11) and (1"3 ( K'alde 7 r l
lfespite tlie fact that both (1) and (11) .ue cuniulatlve livht-id\, rn ivh~cll
the normal conterit of tile utterailce rr preserved, onlv 1x1 (11 rs there
ennctixnent of tlrat content z f r tire mrfh-iotid~tronalsttzsc. In (11 ), the dernoxistranon 'enriches' the content oi tlrc" rrtlerarrce rxi the rense th,~trt ~ d d to
s IC a
layer of pictonal meanlilg, as we h a v e secrr, but the trutli-coiici~tior~s
of the
purrit ofv~e.cv,there 1s no
utterance are unagected. From a truth-r ortiirtiol~~rl
difference between (11) and (rr*) Bur therc 15 a tn~th-ct~ndrt~oxld
ii~fiertxrice
between (I) and (I*): (I) entats sometbr~igwhrcll {I*) does not entall 1 Iow
can we accoiint for that Gct;
When, as in t h s case, the hybnd is ciimuiatrve, there IS ari edsy expl,mation for the demonstration's rnlljact upon the tnlth condruoni, o f the
Table

7 .I .

C:umulanve and ~~on-r-unlrxl,ittvc

l~y.\>ncis

Cumulative
SmpEe
hybnd

(IT) John n venq'cool'

&Itxed
quotatxon

( I ) Quine says that quotatlorl 'ha\ a certairr

anomalous feature'

Non-cumulative
(19) 'Qulne' wmts to speak
LO u\

(ro)Junes says t h ~ 'Q111ne7

t
w.xr1t.s to tnlk to us

2s 4

IN I>IITEN('F (>I:l'l-iE PR A<;Mi"rTlC mEW

uttrrawic-r. We

irivcjke t.lre noric,xl trf prirgniatic enrichlllent of.' truthC X P I ~kbl:ge

C ~ i n thb: p r e v j o ~ ~
chapters.
s
\Xilroixr ,I rpc";A.c~.issc:rtssc.rn~c~.tl~ing,
tl-acre Arc 0tie11 aspects o f what be
,~ssca.isrll,it , 2 r t 1101 i.xjrlic.irly sr:rte~Ihrrt arc- pr-ovicied by the contcxt. This is
different horn tx~dcxic:rlityirrst>firr-;LS ~ l i ccoritcxtrr~llyprovided constirl~cnts
rcrrrLlirlchrinrcly 'ixrrr,irt*c:iil;ltcit'.K goocS ex,~rr~pie
is
c.;lri

corlciit~trn~a~
crraltcnlt, u7hi(:h 113s ~

(2.2)

1 i e i c ~ c i ko u r 111s k r : ~and opei~etlttrc- tioov

1s ~ i : ~ t t r r , ~ X J~lil(ierstoo~t
v
tliat thc (loor mentio~iedin the sccorld
coryur1c.t wdc o j > ~ ' ~ i1c4 idf l l tlrc key xrrerritiorlrd i ~ rthe first cor;junct. Tlizt is a
j>rag~r>;itic.
>~i:ggi~stiorr
convc~yrdby the I.lttc~r,mnc-e,
r:ltht:r than an aspect ofits
c c . i ~ r i ~ ~ ~ ~ i r i cariic-ulatecf
~ n ~ i i i y r:cTr>tc8rrt. (Judi j>r:"~gxiiaticsuggestiori it can be
c;iiri-eiied, ;is r ii

i n viihic-j-1i t

(23)

I ili. took

cirrt

liii

key ~irtdopcrieci the ciocrr, brrt he used my key instead ofbis

i)c.i,itasr iir rc.,rlrieci his w:a hr-okcn

i)cspiti" itr pr:tg.:iri;itic: ixtturu, the suggestiorr corrvcyed l1y (23)---to the
effect that ~ l r t d i i o o rw:a opcltec! with the key --docs not rernairi external to
~Lleirrcrirrivi: trtittl- i:c>riditiotlsofthe irtter-:irrc:cb.This is ixr contrast to st:mtfard
*e~ouvcrs;itrors-Li
ir-ripiii.ntures',whit-h rt-.rrl;rirrirlt~ritlveiydistinct from wlrat is
,auertc:ii. I'hr is i s ]
(24)

Wor~/c/yo131 like rorrre bmi~tly?j

1 tion'r tivrrik alct.thol

rlae ,rirst\c.r rxripl-xc,irc:s i.tt:rt the sycaliix tit.^^^ not \v:mit the 'r,r;inily she is kindly
trfi2rcti; b i i t
irtrplii::tture rt-.rri:~itisdrsiiric-t tioln, ax~tdcxten~alto, what is
~sser-tvd.b5y *WII:II is xsserted' lrcre t rrie;-inr .;tx-nc*tl.iingcorresponclirlg to the
thc speaker who
ixrttiiiivc tatat11 c-otiilitioris of' dre uttcr;kric.c. Xlit~~itively,
in,iki=st i i c nniswcr i r l (24) :isscrts tlr;lt slxe i10c.s trot ilririk alcohol and 'implies'
tllat she ciiic-s l i c i t w:trrt :trry br-antiy. Irr (221, Iruwcvcr, tllc flict that the ctoor
wils cipt":wd \ w i t h ~.lrckey i s r l o t ixrt~rltivclytakexx ttr be 'iirriplied' as opposed
to nsscr-tc<j.El c;ikrs soirle rt~flectioxxto realize that that h c t was nut expiicitly
clrtic-rri3i,ccJiiii tlrc" sciiterlcc. I:ronr 3 ~)syctli;)logic;~1
paint ot'view, the pragrri:lric ~rri,ngc~".tiorrk Irrcorpor.atrd irxttr c v l ~ , ~isr asserted: a sirrgle rnentai
represc~itacirrxais constructed i~sirlgIroth ling1nsr-i~arrct corltextual clues,
i - , r t f i c ~ r11,tri twtr i 1 i s t i l ~ t . r : rt:present.atic)r.~sns irr the case of the answer irt
c i i c s

(24) 111 $11~11ed\c\, I \ay thdt tlle tr~itir-cc)xlJ~trc>n~l

cortterlt of tlze tlttt-railce 15
pt;ymcztz~aliy enncht~d
Now rclxember LLEIAL I \aid ,ii>oitt( I ) A( c trrding to urly '~rt.tly'irs(5c.i t~ort\
3 r- 5 L), the hr,>rergr;l\pk the ptc ton'ri trlcanlrig ctf the cluc>tatiorl\vherr 4t1e
~~rlcferstands
die spe'tker a\ tleylc ttng Cjulnc's own use of tile Cfexr~ori\tr~ltcrl
e r ~hearer
t.
rtrust ,tho i(+crttdy t11t porrtt of
\vords. ULI~
thdt IS ]lot > ~ i M ~ c ~tlte
the derllon\tlatlorl, that IS,she ruu\t r e t o g r ~ ~the
~ e\ ~ ) e ~ L e lnteirtion
l'\
to let
lie1 knom that (2urne used those very W C ) ~ ~111S the speecl~ep*\ode wtllch
the utter'mce reports I Ilo ldst aspec t of-tiltIntc'rprctal~orl oi tl~tvittcr,rrtcc,
i\ ~ i t t e ~ plagxildtrc,
ly
yet I r ,rffec ti;
relatlttg to the poxrrt of'tlrc: cte~rio~l\tr,itic)~,
the lnturrive t~uth conill tlonal contetit of tlw uttcrdnt e ( \ v h ~ itr &isserteJ)
tfrdt Q L I Iexy
~ Ir ~
eswct die I cportect pi opc)+itlon,trlct
The h e ~ r e unde~ct,tnci\
r
c11d so uszr;? tllc delrzorastrutc~divorciJ, trrtich
in ( 2 2 ) tlic lie'lrcr ul~dcrst.incfs
that the t n d ~ ~ i d ilrfe~recl
~ ~ i i t o took out hl\ kcy '111rf OI)C=IIC'J
the (iot>rI V I I ~ I~t
In both case\ wtl<rtthe 11earcrtrrirlc'r\t'irrds a\ berr~g'i\ri.rted c orlt'lirri rlrore
drtlcul,tted, 35 ,1 ~c\tiltof pwgnl'ittc cllrrc Jirrterit
than what i\ i~rrgul\t~callv
I r i (sr), the praglnalrc rnealing oi tilt" dcliiorntr,~tior~
docs no1 ,i1Pect wJ~,lt
I \ r~rrderstoociAS d\\e~trd,hut only ~ a i i 1)
~ ~IIIII~ICLI
t
(111 the ~ n t l i ~ t l v
SC
t ~I I ~ )
Exnr-nple ( 1 1 ) theretore 1s rnore l ~ h c(24) tlt~~tn
lrLe ( 2 2 ) 7 he cvndit~c)n\
~tndcrwh~c-iipraglt1,ztrc enr~cllnicr~t
ot tr~ltlr-co~tcl~tioj~,il
c orlrerlt lil.iy or
illay not t'rbe place 1s a diilrcult rr\rre wtict\c, d~scu\w)rt I wlll pctstpottc rt~ttll
CIlaptet 8 (5e~tiorr3) 13ut w l l ~1s
t lnlpoltatlt f a r rllc I>re\crrtargllrnelit I\ the
~~t~t
of tmth -c oncl~tron,~i
iac t that soinchme\ the] c 15 p r ~ g ~ t trl~lcjirrtc'rlt
L>t~twct~rl
the c o~x~posltri,nally
content 511lcc t h ~ISt \o we need to cl~\tzrtgit~\h
c~
a l c i it\ lrltliltive t n ~ t h ,irt~c~ti,ttcd
cortterlt of tire t i t t ~ r a ~ (C~ i iotitcl~t),
cond~tlon,iicontcnt (I c o~rtent) Wlrcnelicr ~ I J ~ , I I I , L ~ er~ri~hrrlr~zt
IL
t~l.e\
place, as u~ (27,). the I-content coilt;ilxl\ irlole tli,~rlthe c c orltctlt
needed cf~rtxtctronbct\veeli the
As 5oon as orte draws tlsc ~iiu'eperidex~tlv
two r ~ o t i o nof
~ content--the I - < ortterlt and tk~cc corttexlt -the problcltl
raued fix the pr;igri~,~tlc
vrcw by thc 1 ~ ~ 1 ct ho l ~ i h t ~ o r(31fkrc11ce
t~l
berwceli
( I ) ,aid (I*) vdnlshe\ Wllen I sav that; open ipot,ltrori 111 generzll, .utd inlucd
quot&hort rn particular, n pragm,ruc ~ l l dcioe\ not ,Ifrect thc corrtcrlt of the
utterarict., I mean illat ~tdoes 11i)tnfrer t 1t3 L-c oxtent. Tlr'tt I \ cousntcrit wt11
the Lct that ~t can affect IS I-content Irdeed, I 1lolt-l thxt I corltent in
general IS yutte systervl~ttcallvaftei ted by pragnlanc Intru\rons o f v ~ n o n s
sorts. So I ~ 1 1 1not worrlecf by the iounterexanrplc\ ~nvolvnigc~nlirllatlvc
hybrid\ 51rlcc'tfre)~car1 bc 11~1ldli.dur telnn of pr,igrrieltlc crtr!tli~~rerlt,tlrc'y

are not counterexa~nplesto rny mew. They ram difficulties only for
someone who holds both the p r a p a b c mew (argued for m thn chapter)
and the tr'~31ttonalview which equates the I-content and the c-content.
6 2 La~guu~qe-sla$f~
ftir~ no~i-czfrntr~atzve
hybvtds

When the hybrid IS non-cumulatlve, we cannot Invoke the notlon of

prdgrnatlc emcbrxient of trt~th-condalonalcontent to dispose of the counterexamples 'I he Iilillr~urkof the process of content enr~chmentis the fact
that the ennched tontent (the output of the process) entails the ongnal
content (the irlprrt to the process). Thus we have seen that ( I ) entalls (I*).
But rn thc non ctmxulatlve cour~terexamples, repeated below, the first
lnenlbcr of the pair does not cntxl the second mernber Instead of belng
1s transformed
pr~servecland riierelv eriri~hed,the o n g n ~ content
l
Paul savs he'\ due to present his work 1x1 the 'paper sess~on
I'arrl ,ays hc'9 due to pre~erlt111s work in the paper session
(LO) jarneb LJVS that 'Qrune' waxits to speak to us
(20") Jaxlit'~savi t h ~ Qiur~c
t
want\ to spesk to La
NICOIA
hcltrves
thdt
11.1s
fatl~er1%a 'ph~ltosopher'
(21)
(a*)
NtctrL beltevc~sthat his father is a philtosopher
(18)
( I X*)

I-Jere n wlrnt I t ~ k the

e Inttxrnve cclritcnt of the first nlember of e a ~ hpalr
to be. Serltel~~e
(18) cxpresres tlre proposrbon that Pml says he's due to
preserlt hls work m what he calls the 'p;rper session', narnely the poster
secuoa, serxtence (20) expresses the proposltlon &at James says that the
~ndlmdual he cdls "Qwne', namely McPherson, wmts to speak to us;
sentence (2 I ) expresses the proposstion that the five-year old N~colabeheves
hrs fither Ilw the property he (N~cola)assoctates m t h the word 'phlltosopller', whatever that property my be In each case the expression wlthn the
quotation nlarkl\ IS not used wrth ~ t sstatldxd medmng, but with the
niedn~ngrt has )or tht*person whose use u betnq echutcally stmtrlated. The reason
why the first rnenlber of the pax does not entail the second member can be
traced to tlrc f a ~ that
t the xneanmg of the quoted expresslor1 does not s ~ y
invdn~nt Instead of supenmposlng an extra layer of meanlng upon an
otherwise invanant content, the demonstrat~onchanges the m e m g of
the expresrion in quotes and thereby aEects ~ t contr~bution
s
to content.
Those cdses can be described III terms of a farguu~qe-shlfiIn (18) the
speaker does not use the word 'paper' sn its nor1na.l sense, that IS, m the

sense a has m academc Eng11sh (where ~t alealrs urtde), but In the scr~sc~ t :
has m Paul's idiolect (where ~t Iiieans what 'poster' means m clc-ademlc
Enghsh). 711e sanie t h ~ n gholds fix- the proper mine Qume' In (20) t t ~ t
narne norndly refers to Qurnc., hilt nI (20) ~t is used in the .ieir\e it t i ~ s111
James' id~olect,where lt refers to Tmi MtPherson In (11)tlie speaker uses a
word from Nicola's ldlolect 'l I u t word does not emrt ln kngl1s21, even
though ~t 1s etymolog~cdydenved &om the Engl~sliword 'yhrlosopher' L3 24
As Bar-HiUel panted out hail a century ago,
Anv token has to be understood to beloiig to a certalii language Whet] somcbodh
hears somebody else utter a sound wilrch \ounds to tum like the Ex~glsi~
"ilrne', he
lrught sometimes have good reasom to believe that tlus sound doec not retcr to the
nurnber rune, and th15 1s the case that he will have g~)cd
reaoris to dsunle that t h
sound belongs to the Ceririarl Inngtlagc, r i l wlut h Lase it refer\ to the sarrrc as tire
Englrsh 'rio' In this sense, no h n g u ~ seupresslon
t~~
n corrlpletelv rrldeprxlderic oi tile
pragmabc context (&r-kIfiel 1954 80)~'

In \onle cases the Interpreter mav have reasom to belleve tlidt ,I pdrt~cuXdr
portlon of a grven utter'ulce belongs to A d ~ E e ~ e'language'
nt
t11~nthe rest of
the utterance 1 put 'language' 111 yrrutatlon inarks Rere bec:,tuse 1 arrl illslrrg
the word 1n a fairly ~rlclusivcsensc The shlfl ' ~lssttr
t
tl-tclyhe fioili Lagllsl-,ti)
(say) French, AS ~n 'He say\ I
ionlplctelv togrrh', or rn the exarriple iron1
Chapter 6 Sectlor1 2 2 ('as the tretxh sty, otz r?'e~tpas sortis dc l'a~thccqe'),but
~t niay also he fiom a &dec t o f l-,ngIrsh to another, or frc~rn,I 'level of
language' to ailother.. 7h1u I xvould routlt exznp1c.j (9) arid {roj fronr
Section 4.1 as Instances ofsenterrrce-lxltenlal Ia~~wage-sh~fi

Zj Wlde in (18) anu (20) we know what the relevarit words nleari in the relevant idiolects, in ( z r) i t ' s
hard to say exactly what the serise of 'pitiltosopher' m Nicola's idiolect is. 'Thrs caw n actually qmre
complex (and tnteresting), for both Nicola's own use and the speaker's echoic tse can he sad 1 0 be
'deferential' in dieir own ways (Recanati aooob, Part VI). Nicola d r k to [nature speakers of Er~giishm
1.'. ..
C.-l..,
...-I .....
L&sii ~ o i wdt d~e die spiaLeiof[i i)d~fcibt<>? < A c c ~O*U
' ~ t i x *>tit:li
tub uhe OL waut ,LC -m
LU bc
he nlirnics. Be that as it may, it is out oftbe yuesnori to undertake the andyrh of such a cornpiex exatnpie
here.
Z4 Stefano Predelh @.c.) raises the following irl?lecuori to my treatment of these examples r n tesms of
language sbtfi. 'The thesis is that, say. "Quine" in (30) "IS i~sc:din the sense it lcls in Janies' idiolect. wherr
it refers to Tim McPherson", and that "philtosopher" in (21) is "a word froin Nicoh's idiolect". that a, a
word referring to philosophers. The obvrous worry L\ that ~r would be slmpfy Use to say "'He rs not a
'philtosopher"' and contradictory to say "He 1s not a 'phdtosopher', he 1s a philosopher".' But the
objection assumes that the same interpretatiotr 1s given ofthe qltntahon it, examples like (20)--(2r) and ur
instances ofso-called metalinpistic negatiorr such ar dwse l'redetli cites. 1 reject cbac asstrmpooal,
" See Kaplan (1978: 228-9) and Keciiratl (rg79, 16s) for sinrilar remarks and exarrrpi~s.

258

IN I>I;I'FI".JG:E

('I17

"I'Tl)i i'l<AC;lbZKl.lt: VlLIW

ioj 1.0 \zriirc.i~ Mr I33ilt.y inotlcstly replied tir.it he hoped he kllowed wot
o'cXoc-l, ~t cvos 1x1 gi~lzr-d.
(:ti) 1 :rrr-! vii~i!~r&?nr?ri".
. . ?,sirzt1124 i e u i j (!I v i e d ~ ~ ~ r a r lye14
d i z i _ i i ~ ~ ~ . j ' v o ~d'tirtr:
~ i a i srioi.x
,
avcl;ri,rnii. ~ i irnrtrii.~tse.
:

1 t;rkc i t cP.);ie ( i X), ( L O ] , I I ~ (21)

I ~ can be ~IKIX~SCCI
~ I~
I ~ ~oro less
r ethe sane terns.
TItc ~ x p r e s s i o l/~I ) (.III(ILCS i s ~~tlderstot>il
as Oeloi~gi~ijr
to s ~ n ~ c o t ~idiolect
e's
(l';rilE7\, Jarncs" ox. Nit-(cia's),irr eoritrast to tllc rcst of tire sentence. As a restzlt
r-lrxt vxprcssic,ri i s givcsrr :1 speci;+l~ ~ i e , x ~ bkrl*icli
l i ~ ~ g detcnrlines
,
n speiid content.
Let rr:, t , ~ k t ~ t o c Ri n. IIOII ~ u t ~ ~ i ~ lil~st:\li~es
~ t i v e of lnixed quotati011 as
b
tlrr worcis inside the quotes
e/sewI\crc, the clrxc)t;it.ion rt~arhsi x l i l i c a ~ ~that
.ire lised tleri~cjarstr;~trvely.
14s the irlcgc;itictrr Is Aecl~etlout, the henrer underSCIIJLJS t l x i t t1it.h ~l)tsak(:rL I S ~ Sttic \vorcls L"CIICIIC;\I/Y
in tile (deviant) sense they
Ir:ruc hi,i, srrcir h i r ~ r.;lit-!.i
i
:t person. "I'his ;~fTi.crs
tX~ct.ontent of the utterance, by
tlic 1~1)gtt:tgc~ v h i t - is
\ ~ ri~levar~t
CCP the i1tter1;retatiw of the
cletei-~r~iriirri;
i*xprrcs?;iorri r i quottts. li Ierc, in i-orltrast to what happens ill cumulative
c : ~ ~the
e ~i, c o l l t ~ n of
t the U~I[CTL?IIC.C
i ~ ~ i l r ~ tFor
e d the
. process ot'sersiarttic
c-o~aiposii~icirr
cvlmrclr outputs tire c-ci-~rrtrntt;il\cs rlrr rt-icnning of the corrstitiic"rxi wa)rc.ls ~s irrprrr, aritl the ri.rc:ir-riilgof'tlsc constitucrlt wcjrds itselfdepencls
i i p ~ ~ l iI cI I "I I ~ U ~ I ~ V ( Sti)
) which the words irr qricstion ;ire tnkerr to belong.
I:wesr clrvirgir i t ~ffi-ctstlie c -corriex*tof tfrr eittcr;lnc-e, the demonstration
doc5 so only irrr~iructlv.T ~ T U L I ~ ~ the
I
~ict~~~'i"ril):etii>~~
ofthe i r ~ p ~tot ttlle sem;u~tic
~ ~ E " C CWS ~S I C I I o t l t p l i l ~the c -(:otittX~it.
l ' l ~ ; iPTOI.~~";
t
o f ir1l>ut:-~3etenrUn:~tiorl
is,
by dehnitiora, prc scrrl;u~tic.As K ~ p l a r i ( 1 9 8 9 ~ 1559)
:
writes: 'C;ivcn an
iitier,lfiie, scrr 1arrlic.s carrrrot tcii 11s what. crxj-.rcssio*i was ~itterecjc)r what
iarigu;v,c i t \*,is uttered irk. ' T l l i s is J 1mre~trrri~irrtiitask.' 1 angtiagc-selection is
itkc, WC"XI~I".-SC~XC"(
~ i o 311
~ that
i
rcspei,t. WIlcrl ari. ari~il)ig~;llotrs
serltertce is ~lttere~i,
wrrlnarrii:~ b y itscil' c:mxiot tell us in kvhic-XI senso il must he taken. 80th
ili~~i~lrbigrratior
and I:urgri:rge--detur~~iii~~iti~~~x
arc prt~glilatic-processes wltich
arltisr takt: p1;wc. hr;/bri> ttxc sc~raa~rtic
prtrcuss of c.ontent-deterr~~i~~tian
can
cvt-rr starl. It i s only :rt that .~?r~->crir;rntic
levci rllllr tlre ctcmonstratiorr has an
ilr~pac-tupor 1 tlrr. rarr erarlcc.'s s-coxltcnt, iri 1 1 7 ~ X I O L L - - C L I I ~ ~ L ~cotinter~;L~~V~
cxar-~iplrs.ii k r c rigairi, the, an:ilogy :yvit.h cfisaiixrbig~ratio~r
is useful. As Kaplan
poiirit~o t l t * 1f':t Il;rherJ~~sl~rr
says 'I ::\rtr o u t of r:llecks7 to a banker, 'whether
tile uttcrancc t<rl;cs piact. ia t-he store or at idle bank
help the bartkeu to
cietrrrmir-re what 1I-i~Ir3berciasher htis said' (Kapbn 1978:229); yet the
Icrc:~titrai of the trtcc:rauce rxlakcs n o tjireit contritrtltion to its content,

whlc h ~t affects mcirrectly. ?he \nxxse thtllg c ,311 be \a111 ~ h o u tlie

t role of the
c o~~rtterex'ritlyles
It a f l i ~t 4 tit? truttldemonstrat~onm the lion-c~~mulatrve
cond~trorrsot the utterance tlliilrec tly, ity slgndllrrlg ,t sclitcrtc e-tr~tern,d
language-shrft 'Tile \hifi in clut\tlori rlprtrc di~tlv~ttZ"ct\t l x ~c-t oliteilt of
the utterarlce, but the dernotl\tratron melt rllxkes n o dlrc'ct cotttnl~rrt~orl
to
t h ~coritcnt.
t
l l ~ o111y
e
tilrect ~ o n t n b ~ l t r othe
n tfentc>n\tr,it~onlirlakes to tlie
rneaxllng of the utterance tn the noti-cun~~ri;lnve
cou~.rterex,inlple\15 the
p~ctortdrneariing oi the quotnhon. That, xs w c tl,*-Lereeti, rein,lius external
to the c content
I conclude that the rlon-cunnrlat~vrcounteres,unple r t o tnorc tllre,rten
tlte pragimtrc, vww rhan the ct~rr~ulative
c uirntcrexal-f~j~le~
(to rllc C I I I I L L I I ~
tibe counteresaa~plesare cilali~cten~eci
by tlrc opcr'rtlorr of '1 pmgmatlc
pro( ess of content-er~r~chrtlertt
which attzcti the I -content o i the uttetdrlce
hut Lenves ~ t c-content
s
~ l n t o ~ t ~ l l cNOTI
c t ( I I I I I U ~ ~ ~ I cV Co ~i i n t e r ~ x ~ ~Arc
~~~j~lt~
harder to dlsposr of-slnc c tlle r cor1terlt of the ntt-erancc I \ ,~i\odffec tcd lS~1t
cvc h ~ v just
e \een &at ~t I\ nffe~tedoi~ly~niiirectly.at ,A pre-\cttldntlc leccl
7 111s mlses no prol>lcm for the pragmatic vie-~v""

There 'ire rtorl-crr~n~ilatlvehybrrcis that carr~lotbe t ~ ~ n d l c 1st

t l terms of
lc
lar-tguage-shzft. In Kecmatl (1987- h3) 1 g'rvth tlrc fifollow~nge ~ 3 r t i ~ ~C~IJ)pow fi 15 ~nurualknowledge [setweerr john arid nryselt t11,ir PCtc'r wrongly
hel~evesthat Mary I\ my sister Spottlng M,try ,it 2 clrst;tt~cc,Johrlc;ry\ to n l t X
(25)

1-ook! 'Yotir sister' is coliung over.

By u\lng the mcorrec t dercrrptlorl 'your \~ster' to ~ e f e rto M'+r-v, J o h n

~ronlcallyecha es Peter's ~ n ~ ~ t , t Tltr~t
k e . tlr~i15
shown by the h r t that ( 2 5 ) cives rlot cnt'i~l
(26)

nori-c uxnulahve hylmct

1s

Your srster IS cornrng over

Sentence (25) 1xle;Lnstlrat tl?eperson wi-tom f ' e f p r Bcsrrrbec ia m y srcrrr I\ corntrlg

over. That does not elit;l~lthat niy , i ~ t u diirter (j;lne, say) 1s coxntilg o v c ~
2" Note clrai h e pragiianc psoces o i cczntrrit-.enr.ich~llenz
aisrt wkrs place I r i x~o~~-c~irn~rlaove
instances of mixed quotaeon. What sixgles out non-cuiuulative i~istanccsof niixcd quotation n ~tre
Bct drat afunhrr process ofhtrguage-shifi (or, as we sh;tll rec, cutrtcxt-sliili-)trikes placc, wkuch affecis the
c-conrcnt. It is because crftiiat fitrther proces, aiso trigscrid by the clcn~onstr,icro~l.
that tlre first mernbrr
10Fthe p i r does not errall ttlc second rt?e~rit)cr.

260

IN 1)TFFNCE 0 1 7 i-Ed~ M ~ M ~ T ! ~ - % E W

--

--

Even tllotigli the hybrid 1s non-cumulative, it cannot be handled in tern?

oflanpage-sh~fi.For the phrase "our sister' is used wlth its nonnd meamng
in (251, rt ir the itandard Enghsh phr~se'your s~ster',with its standard
scrnantlcs The ditTerence between (25) and (26) concerns the circumstance
wlth respect to witich the extensrctn of the descnptlon IS detemned. The
descnptloil 'your slster', as uttered l)y John, denotes Jme, my actual. sister, tn
I ~ u~tt1(11
P
tfl~rld,Lbut rn Peter's 'behef-world' (that is, in the set of worlds
con~patrblcw ~ t hwhat Peter belreves). or rather 111 what the speaker takes to
he Peter's brhcf-world, the descnpt~ondenotes Mary. m a t 1s special wlth
(25) is ttte fact that the relevmt crrcunistance of evaluation for the descnptron
rs Peter's alleged behef-world rather than the actual world
She ~onterltof an utterance 1s traditronaby equated with the conhtloris
that m11rt hold in ~lrcurrwtaticeof evaIu,ition for the utterance to be m e ~n
or at tttat c~rcunistmce Wtien a sentence 1s uttered m a context k, the
relevant circumstnxlce of evaluaaon IS normally the 'circumstance of the
context' (Kaplan 1989u). A context comprises a specific situation of uttermce
(~nvolving3 speaker, a Ilearer, a time and a place of utterance, plus vanous
other hctors) togvtlxer wit11 a ~ontpletepo\yible world to wfilch that 5ltuatrorl helung Sslien a \entente IS uttered, the specific srtuation rerves to
anchor the ~ n d c x ~ cm~di rprov~de~enlaxltrcvalues fbr them, thus deternunmg d tmtli-cvdlu~blecontent frtr the utterance, that content Is then evaluated
1t1 the po\sible world of the context, thus detemunlng a truth-vdue. The
rarne thulg holds for sub sentenhal constituents ruch as the description 'your
sister' it a fint interpreted w t h respect to the s~tuatronofutterance (in order
to fix the value of the mclexlcd 'your') then evduated in the circumstance of
the context so as to detenmlle the extension of the descnp~onm that
c i r c ~ i ~ i ~ r ~ xWhat
~ c e . ' is
/ special m the case of (25) IS,agam, the fact &at the
ctrcurz1st;lnce of evaluation for the descnphon 1s not the actual world (in
whch tire titterarice takes place) but Peter's alleged beltef-world.
Thn case c a n be dercnbed ~5 follow^. The speaker temnporanly pretends that
he is Peter: he uses the dtvcnptlon 'your snter' to refer to Mary, the way Peter
himselfwould. In other words, even thou& (25) is uttered m a context k, the
speaker pretentls, at a certarrt point, that the context is dtfferent &om what ~t
act~rallyw. 'That 1s an msmce of context-shlft. Slnce the speaker tempordy
'' Unless, of couae, the eqxcsslon is in the scope ofa circumstance-shiftirtg operator in thesmtence.
See Chapter 6. $2.2.

--

O P E N Q U O T A I LIIN

261

..

pretends that the context is ddrerent &or11 what it actually ts, the relevant
Luccumstance of evaluahon 1s t e n ~ p o r d ys h ~ f i ~the
d world of the context r10
longer 1s the actud world-it 1s l"eterqsdlcged behef-world.
The analysis 1 have just gven must be reaibly quhfied Even though, m a
sense, the speaker pretends that he IS 13eter,sttU tile context-shlfi a#ects only
the czrcumsmce of evaluation. Iri reply to (251, 1 m.ly sdy
(27) You're nght; 'my .ilster' rc llidcccl corntng

Here I myself 'pretend that 1 am Peter' 111 ~ I l senre

r
that 1 urltmii lurri by my
improper use of the description, but the fmt person in my rrtterarrce itdl
refers to mysex-it does not refer ro Peter This suggests that the coritext
whlch shlfis here 1s what m Cjrapter ! refened to as the zllo~tstlonary
ont text. The speaker tempormly ~ d o p t Peter's
s
poirlt of vaew ~ r t derlgdgrs
in a form of pretence, but he does not pretend thar Peter ii; uttenllg the
words, as happens in locuhonaq corrtext-shifts
Be that as it may, other 11on-cnmula~veIq4~ndswlrlch cannot be hantlled
a\ instances of locutlonary contextin terms of language sh~fiurn be a~l~dysed
\hlft. That rc the case m particular for an ~ntngiamgexanlple of mxcd
quotation menhoned by Cappelerl arrd L epore (1997. 429)
(28) Mr Greenspan said he agrezci w t h Labor Secretary K. U. Iieich 'con qurce a jot
ofthings'. Their accord on this issuc., he said, has proved 'quite a surprise "ro
both of u s ' .

The word 'us' here refers ro Mr Greerispaz and Mr Keicli. I t ~loecriot refer
to a group includ~ngthe spe~kerof (28). AS A result, tlle hybr~dis noncurrtulative. Sentence (38) does xrot eritail (29)
(29) Mr Greer,.ipan s a d iic agreed wit11 I ahor Srcreurv 1X B Rerch o n ilrute a lot
of things. Theu accord ori tlui nsur, I.te sluci, has proved q~trtcs surprtse to
both of us

That ir so because (29) entail5 that, 'accordlrrg to C;reensparz, t l ~ eagEement

reached by Greenbpari &indRetch has pt ovcd ;l 5urpme to thr rpcakcr (I e. to
the person who reports C;reensp,~tl's~rrtera~lce).
'Tbat en~tilnreiitn absent
&om (28), since 'us\n (28) 1s quoted and ~nterpretedwrth respect lo the
shifted context of the reported speech ep~sode.So it IS, agan, tile presemantlc process of contest-select~on~ 4 u c l is
r afEected by the quc~tdt~c)~~
h
the sh~ftedcontext relevant to the uiterpretat~oriof the cltloted worda, the

262

(-oN~:I

I~SION

sycahcr i s Mi (;rc.crlsparl ilimscldf (rather. than dre persoti who reports his
rrtec:ranit~)~
so "1s' r e i t r s to n group irrcl~idiiag(;reerrsp;ul rather &an to a
qi~tlj"irxclt~tlingrile reporter.
C a e b irr wltic.11 riiv laxrguagtx s l l i i i s can thers~sclves
be andysed as irlstarlces
of Xocutitrrr;~.; coritcxt-slrilt, at I~:LsI.it' wc ;i(.ct:pt the idea of treating the
:is a ji"atii I-c of-tile C O I I ~ C X('is
~ 1 /I;IVC "~~ggestcd
a cotlple of tirnes).
larlg~i~gr
So wc call say tli;it, in the l1011--~~1rltiI:itiv~
cmliples dealt wit11 ill the
pcviorrs icctiori, rc is the 1;ulguaiye feature oC the curltext tl~atshifts. illhe
sye;~ktr-rspe,rks a I-ert<tinI;inplage wl~ic.his c:unstitutive of the context in
wl-iich the rittrr.;rrii:e tnkes place; yet ii pot-tiorr ol'tlic utterance is interpreted
wit11 rcspec.t to a tiistirict context in wlriclr anvtl-ier 1aitgu;ige is used.

7 . (:o~rclasiro-r~
In tlln ( Ir,iptthr I IMW
,irgtred (Collo\v~ngi ; ' l ~ k )rll,tc- cluotntlotl 1s ,I fonn of
iie~~i~~ll\hdtion,
~th a P I L ~ O i
r
et it
I
I'kli\ nukes ijerotit;rutl, at bottorm, A parai i r ~ g g u ~ c t l~rkicritrxilc~rion,
t
like gesrirnxig or rntr)rl,itlorr iuc-h y l~enorlterraplay a
(c..rltr d xidc rrr ilr\c trurst., so to s'ry that cjrlotauon rs, d l I>ott0111,
paralxngu~st~c
m
n o \.c ,1v rrrr(terpiii\fs i t s ~crleor-rrtlport,rrtc c' rar Ix~lgx~.lr_s~~-rc
pract~~c.~~
I,vthir thcilig;h, clalci denaoxxstrat~ons,cluotaatrlcjnihave ptctor1a1 rather than
Irngwitrr- rncaxilxrg, they iio a r c t Lrt~gnirrcrlle*trringr n several w;ly5. I havc
ciescmbcd die anq>,ict of yilotAtron 011 In~ha~\trc
rnc'uirng at tour IcveLs. Fmt,
the C X ~ E O C ~ O~OiP~I ~ rtlierilcelvtu
h:,
have IUIL~~IISCIC
i~~eall~ng------tllcry
convetntiondy
rntiic at r the
t rhlt the rpe&er 1s cier x l o r ~ating
t ~ the enclosed worcls.
'I hat iratllc ,ltitrri, lrke lltc rxieaillllg of i>rccgtihrticirxdrc'tton rn general, n 'uset orrchtior~~.'
rather dr'u~"trrrth c-on&tlolld7(XXccaii,icl rc)c)8), xn more tradlaon,d
tcnm, i t la,r\ dic \t,il;iis of J. 'con.i.mrror~drrxlplrccx~ri~'
Second, tile clenionsmtion ( ,rrr yrc "IIII,WIIII,IU~ ,dI;'c t the tn~thc<rxlcIranndcontent o f m uttem~ceby
41ltt1ng tire torltclt rn wlucll it, or part of it, rr rntciyreted. 'Tb~rd,what the
derxrtrur\tx-itrcrtl (vxrvcys m vmue of'rts p~ctundrncmrlg c3l.i be Incorporated
t ~ c r r ~ c ~ x i b t r , r t x orliL0ivl;lig
rl
11!1g~ll'.tlc~ l l d l ~ r i i<)i-ld
!

"" Not oiiiy tic> circEi plirr~ixnt:rraplay a ~:crrtr;ilrok: in kt~iguage~.nct!,&.hey ~xiterac.cl

wlth the liripisuc
\ystcnl iucil- iri i i r ~t~'tr)yways that t11c jattcr cdnrlot IJC ~>ri>prrig
dcscrrlx(j witl~clout&ing them into
< ur~~,rdirntioii.
Par e:i:urrpiv, the r ~ o ~ l c loi'
r ~a ttr>nlrngu~urshc
'painting' can ItartlLy be ilispr~isedwith rn

r ~ l t ~ ~ ~ r l"zt il>#Ol~gt ~I

~ ~ ~ ~ l ~ ~ l l 5 ~ 1 , ~ I ~ V ~ ~ ~ .

illto the titterance7>tnlt11-concj1tlon.31 cortterlt--or ,*tlest, Into tlit* iontc~ltof.

the spe'ker's d%erbon- through the pmcers of praii;"x'xac clmchlrzex~t.f l hat I\
only to be expec ted, s111ceboth the pi~tox~d
ixlemirlg ofthe denlonsh;ttzort md
the hngwist~cxeamg ofthe senterlcc c ontr~bureto detemtrrnng the noxl-xldhxr'll
memng of the tlttewrice, by nlalikstrr~g the ipe.&er's corrullurrrc&xtxvc
~rttentlons.)
The tlzrec contr~bt~tlcms
to Lmg~ust~c
me,inlrlg I luvc just descr~beti
to the lrtcrd
are sonlewhat pcnyheral. They are not cillect cox~trtbut~orts
' s the
truth-conclitions of tile utterarm--to wltat 1 referred to ,~bove1
'c cotitent' But clnot.ltlons can d ~ o and
, often do, contribute ~Ilrectlyro
tmth-co~~cfitlor*d
content. 'X'h~t happens whetlever '1 qucltntlon IS clo.w./,
t11,rt IS, lulgu~sticaUyrecrtr~tetf 2s A ungulclr tern? In the nleritionrng
a,; a r~gwlarungul;it- terrll, both 5yrttactIc ally
\entent e. Bec'rnre it f~~nct~orts
2nd senlant~cally,clo4ecI cj~ot~~troli
undoubtedly n ;I genrrrrte I~ilglrst~c
phenor~ienon.
, riry airn
C:ioscd quotation as I lrdve criescnbed l t 1s orriy A specrdl c ~ s cdriti
was preciselv to chow that i t 15 only ,r spec~alcaw Illat \pecr,i! cd\c I\ w h IS~
ilstidly cbi.lUed'cj~~otat~or~'
rn the pbtlosophicnl 11terdtrrre C $ f i t c1tlot.ltitJn lids
t ( . ~ 'ififord
n
to
beer] ignorccf s o far by phdosoptler~.Oile m~ghttl-t~nkt h ~one
1g1wre it, pre~~sely
because ~t is not directly selt~v~u~t
t o tlrc \yntactrcosenraritlc .itudy of language, which rs tlze cerltral concern of fclrn~dlyrxxnded
pb~losoplzers.f3ut that rs slot nglzt. By igr~onngope11 qctotatron, phllosophers have been lecf to colzinvt mstakes and overgertcr,1h7atio1~
about word\; 1t7sa
Quotation, plrtlosophea 1zme said, 1s A device li)r tAc~~rg
r<kr~atr~al
device. But quotatlun r~liarksare ~ i s oused for ciomg other thing,, Ilke
dntanc~rigone5elf &on11' word or errpressrorr whxch one r\ rising. Accorchng tc)
the standard plulosoptl~catvrew, there i c not ni~lth111 corxinlon between
the two usm, hence cpotatlorr rnarlis d a p l ~ ya ofonl~ttfnnlblputv wh~rlrIs to
he d~spefiedCor the sake of cl'irity Il1u.l phdosopben otter) dMCIllPt to w e
cl~fiercrrtsort.$of quo~itlontnarks accorc%ngto the purpose at 11,rrid.~"
My oblectlon to tlxs approach IS twofold. First, I tlurrk we rnos a gencral1iatron rf we pos~taxrl dnx~bzgu~ty.
Clored quotst~o~j
is only x spec1:il cace of J
amre general phenomenon, and scae quotulg 1s ailother, even more specla1
case. (It's A special case of open yuotat~on.)Secorld 'md initre uxlpott~nt,the

29

Daviiison rrco&mizesthat this a an 'absurd .%aidunworkable forrrtttla' ( 1 9 7 ~XI),:

reason. Sce fooirrure jo beIu>+

but fctr the wrung

-- - -- standard approach n methodologcdy confused The distancmg eEect charactensac of scare CJUOQII~is the pol& of the demonstration in an unportant
group of cases But there are other cases urhch are quite srrmlar on syntacaco-semantic groulids-they ,ire also cases of open quotanon-but where
the point of the detnonstrat~on1s riot to distance oneself &om the displayed
words In pmcular, there are instances of quotanon, like (31) below, whose
Iriarn poirit ~c to a s ~ n b ethe displayed wcrrds to someone whose speech the
speaker 1s reporting, but whtch oygjzt to be cluss$ed as open rather than closed on
~.\ynta~t~~cr-~er~zd~~t~cgrounds,
even though i t 1s closed qtlotanon that one typltally uses 1x1 d l r e ~ tspeech report Thls shows that one should carefully
distulbwish two Issues. a bas~csyntactlco-senian~cissue (Is the quotation
open or closed, that is, 1s rt, or n ~tnot, linguls~callyrecnnted as 2 smgular
term'), d11d a pragnatlc IssLx (What is the polnt of the demonstratton;).
Those issues are hopelessly conhced In the standard approach.
U\mg the sirnple-minded dlstmctlon between 'genu~ne' quotanon
(where one tdks about words, and t l e quotacron funchons as a smplar
tenxi) and scare cluotmg (where one achreves a dlrtmcmg effect, w t h n o
referentlal mtent), urie cannot account for exan~plessuch as the followmg.
130) A 'lortrirght' is a penod of touneen davs
( 3I ) To begn wth, I endone Evam's (r 982, ch I I ) &sancaoil between prodgrcea
'anti corrszrmzrs in a proper-narnc-using practlce Cons~der'an orhnary
proper--.llau~e-us~ng
pramce, In whch the name "NN" is used to refer to
the prrsor~x' Ttre producer, are the members of the 'core group oispeakers

who have been introduced to the practtce ma the~racquaintance wth x',

that n. on the bass of learm~zg'a truth which they could then express as
' This a NN", where "Ihrs" inakes a demonstrative reference to x', m the
~ o ~ ~ tofe ax crrtarn
i
capa~ityto recowre persons, or at least: that pamcdar
peron, crier tlriie (p 376) [rroln B Brewer, Percepttori lrnd R e a ~ o n Oxford:
,
Clarer~dorll ' ess
~ 1999 411

In ( j1) the po~ntof dle three succesr~vedemonstrations ic clearly to ascnbe

to Evanc t l ~ c hparticular words that are enclosed wclun quotation marks The
page u~ Bwrrs'r book where those passages occur u even mdcated Those

yuotanons are therefore @raplatic&y) s m l a r to those that occur m dxect

(Cappelen and Ixpore
speech reports such as "age 321, Evans says "-'".
cLa'~l%such ~dse\a caes of 'dlrect quota~on',where we quote someone by
nlentiomrtg the words he or she used ) In (30), we g v e the mearung of the

word 'fomght' T h 1s (p-aacdy)

su~ularto w h ~ Cay>pelen
t
and I .epore
call 'pure quowon', where we ascribe properties to words (as when we
'Foortn;lght is an ~ d a n x h a xkvord') Despite die pragn~lbcs m h t r e s vvrtlr
mstarices of either pure or dxect qL1otaacm, however, the quobnons nr (30)
and (31) are open rather than closed The yuut3aons x e not lmiguwhc,&y
recrurted as smgular tern15 in contrast, both in 'Page 321, Ev,irls says
and 111 'Foenliyht rs an u d ~ m h a word",
r
the quot;lt3011 LS closed.
For lack of the dist.mctton between open and c1i)sed quot,iaon, ~jhrlosophen hke Davidsori or Cappelerr arid Lepore, confronted wldr examnpler
y
prag11'ttJc slndmhes Into thlnklng
slm11s;r to (31), have bee11 msled k ~ the
that such cases are cases of genuine quotatrtorr In thelr serise." Tl-hrsn'~~ura1lv
led to the mistaken assuniphon that h e r e must be a singular ten11 ret'enrmg
to the displayed words somewhere rn the seliterice
What I have just s a d may sourld urkfa~rto I)avldson and <:ai>peler?i arid
Lepore, since they do not &scuss cxalrlples 11ke (30) or (31) But I take ~tthat
(33) and (34) below present the came chararlenstlc teamre\ as ((32),wluch 1s
extracted fiom (31):
''---'''9

(32)

1 endorse Evaris's &slinctiol~betweer1 produ~ers311d C O P Z S H ~ ~j.1Y1S a propername-using practice. 'The produi;crs ;ire the rrlr:rtibers oftlie 'core group r-bf
speakers who have becar introdclced to the practice via their acqrraint2nc;e

with

x'.

(33) According to Evans, the yrodtccers are the ~ncrnbersof the 'core grozlj, of
speakers who have been introducrd to the practice via their acquartitance
with x'.
(34) Evans says that the producrrs Lure tile mmben oftlie 'core group ofspcakers
who have been irltrodticed to tlie practice via their acquainr*a~~ce
with x'.

It follows from whkt D~vrdson~nciCappelen anif Lepore s ~ *,xborrt

y
inned
quotatrori that 111 (34) the word\ 'core group o l speakers who lzave beerr
introduced to the practlce vla thew acquwltarlce w t h x' are referred lo h't
means of a singular tenn occurring n~ (34) By par~ty,the ~ a n i ethmg S ~ _ I C ) L I L ~
be saci about (32) and (33). In dl sucll cases. bv Igtlonrlg open qtrotdtion,
one IS led to posit a smgulnr tenn where there is none.

3re retkrred a))

a~rd
The pragmatic simidaritlcs bemeerr cases oi'clobcd ilt~otdrion(tvlrere the
cases ofopen quotation where rhe potrrt oftlre dcnronstzihon 1s to cotrvey sometlli~lgahour tile words IS
what seems to have convinced Davidson that the simple-ntmn<tcddntinctiorl hemeen genuine cases of
quoration in which we niention words and case5 in which we rr~erelyscare-quote &ern 1s smwrtrkable.

M y own 'xtl,xPyui. ()I- c-lo\cd ijut~t~~bcm

rs vex? SUIIII~I~to DJVI~\OII'S,
except
that kc)r rrre, ~fi,
kwr plays the role 02.the 5inp1Lr t i m r rs he i3emonstratro11itself,
rrcat the quoutrora rarark What i olyei-t ttr 1s the terldency, ~rs~phclt
m
I>,\\rckorxand cpriirih t.-\plic~tI n i (,,ipj?ii~Xr~n
dx~d1 crpcti-e, to extend &'it anJyss
to i ,ire\ x j i optm cjtlc>c,ierorx. hke (14) In (34)*the \pe&er chplays certam ofthc
w o n t Exc rs u w i 4 wit11 r-he oven rrleerrtron IXI,I~ the i~earerurider'ltnnd these
words ,I\ ~ P Z I I T~juored
~S
vcrbatln~Crk.orrr Ffv,rn\'s I>ooL.I?'tz~tmtent~c>i~
unclerlyung
~llcvpzaL~r'i
cicrrson~tratio~t
r\ ~"ti.iLyrct r9gnwahie, lrctice the speaker \uiceeds
rn iorirrnuxii~dtllig:to the fie,rrer that the cvords wrtl~lr:,yuotahori nsdrks come
fsclrt~l \TAXI\'\ b)oojl Yet t h ~dipcv
t
t of wtldt the uttcran~eionulstmlcate, 1s not
part i d it\ ~ - ~ o ~ i t e
I he
" ~ascrrptrri
li
of tllc cluotcd words to the reportee IS part
of rkre: ( oxrtclxt tiic actrrfrclrz \vllrc"l dlc. sprcker T X I ; L ~ L ~but
S,
thdt p x t of the
I OII~C"IILof t l l i \ d \ \ i t t ~ o ~l'il s l o t ~ o ~ ~ ~ o " r f i uCJC~~ZIIIIII~CI
n ~ ~ l J y hv the worcfs wtlrch
thc
LIW~
?i-sftorrr expltcrtlv tdL1trg <il>oirtthe quoted words ~ ~ r d
'iscnbrr~gthr~ixto ~ h rcr p ( ~ r t ethe
~ , \ p ~ l k c ~r C W S1101. even refer to them; he
drsy~i;cv\tlicrrr, . \ a d his illtcrttrorr to aicnl-tr thrnr to tire reporter I\ rccop7n17eJ
xlrcacEv b y gr ryrltrg iiie parxlt tri rl-ica rirrno~x~t~~~t,rtrc~x.~
f o l i i h br ,rix~ton,cv,vl;lo 5in111ar ly ~ c l trc
v , t t i ~ r d a pragrrutic zppr0~~11
to
t~irxcilcjinot,rtiori," ( .ippt'lcrl ,ind X epore rrpircd tXut iuch '1 vlew 'underidl,ryjs] irrijaora;anr irng~ur,tic , r q ~ c . t b of the prxtlre o f ~ilciirectreportma'
(('appelcn ,IIPC~/ i p ~ ~1()(j9
r i ~ 282) l311t ~t does not, or need not. One need
not dcriv r-h,~rp a t of wlt.3~oxre \ ~ ~ c l n r c i l3yx4wert~by t~tterlllga anlxedcluotiirl:; \crxterrcc ri; that tlrt. reportrc LESLX! the C J L ~ O ~ Cwords;
C~
the only
t h u g one hi,to i";l.rry ts t h t r h s . u p e t ~oi'thi" lijtkiltlve trutll-co~~drnond
c O I X ~ ( " of
I ~ ~tllc IIC~CT;IIICC 1\ io n ~ ~ ~ o s ~ ~determlncd
~ o ~ ~ d l lby
y the uttered
cvortis O r i c sinrply hcsf to apply to arrrxrd qrlotdtion the strdteg9 wwhh s
~ o n l a l r o r ~ l yc cptrd i i ~ serlterrc-es
r
X~kc(21)or (35)? c ~ t e de~rher:
(at)I tc5 rook orat i l l s key arlct c-tpet~ed
the iicros
(:35) I%.ccbr ;axid M ~ r ygot ~l~xrrreci
a r ~ dh a i l 1rr:iny c.hildre11

In ( 3 51%the tetlrpor'd sugestlorr C l ~ k 1 :Vettxrdxrcl Mslly fiad ch11clrt.n after gettmg

xrt

rrnrii (r,izlrcr dr,~nthe other w ~ ro~1nc3)

y
i\rtot c o n ~ o s ~ t ~ o rdeteimlned
rdy

"

"iri riiixeil qriai;riiori o r i c b "sirows" the iiiig~iist:ictools vihlcli wrrc* used by the reported speaker;
"'ah~,~.ri.ziiitig
~ h tIi(~w"
c
ncqiurr be1lt.k about the hmx of spret.li exrrployed. l h r , to pnr.~plir;ae
ID:~i-riisorr'i thorigha i)ri riietaptic,r, i t - s at error ti?. Cisten olr the (cnr~te~lts
of the thoughts a nlised
~ ] u o t a L i c i c ipftividLt:s, , i i x d i t ) ic,aci titi:\r i(,riti.ritc iaco the rlriarci quularlrrri ilself' (Swrtlton rr)c)u: 273).
i i ~ i i lrhrse

mw-"s---

by rile littered word%,it IIOC part ofthe U ~ ~ C M ~ I C I "c' \ < otttent '' Yot one neccl
n o t deny tlrat tlin ~ I ~ ~ I I X~ugLYtlon
~ I C
I:, p x t .tnd p'ui el of wlx'lt 1s dswrtcd by
lrttenrig ( 3 5 ) in din 3ppn)pn~-te
( onlext
I he salrii. t f t ~ n g( d11 bo SJIC~~ h o athe
t
o ntiic
ed
urggesnon, rn ( r z ) ,thdt the door w'u opened w ~ t ht l ~ cLcy r r ~ ~ ~ l t ~ 111
t
\ug.ge:ec;trtr~is
arc lr~tu~tively
part anct parcel of
ftrst col~juntc 'The fact t h ~ those
the tnitll-corrclrtlotw of rile Irtterance no objec t l o x l to a. pragrlmtlc treatment.
LltterdilCr ,Ire
onc o ~t 1s ac ccptetl th,rt the lrialltlvc truth-condrtion\ of
sh,tped, to n. large extent, by pugmatit f~ctors'"?'
" i'his 1.; ;~itit~lly
controvcnid. As I a1re:iciy rirerrtlrttied, tl~ert-are ct>rnptLc,iirg
andiyscs ofthe cetnporal
\uggest~xi~onveyedby (33).
'' At tlus I J O L I I ~a dcfrntier of the swrtciard &:count tilay rrpiy that In ( L A ) o r (33). the pr:i:;lnatii
cii:iractcr ot tbr srrggesttuti i:.m he e~kildishedby rts~trp,the c.arr<:eilab~Irtytezc: rinr- cari lit-vxse corttcsts lo
wiuci~(21)or (35) do r i ~ Ct O ~ I V C Ythe relevalit iuggestrons. 13u~tti's~rnc thi~lg( 2 1 1 bc d,tor. wlih ~ X ~ I I I P I C S
lrki (31): One has orrly L(> ric1ai:irie a context in wk~ctrthe interrra?large' oi'tirc: deinutistranon 15 distlncc
fklm the reported iirter:rrice (exterrial target). (See iiiutnote 1 9fibove, arid C h y t e r 8 beiow.)
'" Ti~iscliapter, which brnetittcd fro~rithsc~issiorisxmtii tieniia1.i (hppelen, i<oi>y~r(;ars~on, I)ick
C:.rner. iicricrit dc Corn~~iier,
David KapLin, Stefarro i'recielll, I"u1ippe SI-hlenker, I-\an).S~ruth,Darr
Spi:rl>i.r. R.ob Scalritor~.-l-itrr Willijlrnron, .tnd Dctrdre Wii?,on, a a srvi>cd versiori c ~ tlic
f p:q)rr 1
pubinhi-d uritlcr the s.iitlr titic irr :blind I 10, -our: '''$7
-X/; ~ v t u c bpaycr t)fft,ied ,* \on~cwb,~t
slrclpiifled
~ c r ~ i i of
i n ~ l l estory pt-esmtrd one vear earlier i r i rrxy hook (tr~itroOhllr(>rii, Omtio ilnru. Sirtc c the j q r r
WAS yubiistizii. a lot oi' work i1a5 bei.ii doric on the tupir aiupeti quutatii)n, arid irr i7.rnlcuirc a spet:ini
s t ? ~sheen
$ tiev<)tedro it. trridrr the M-I\? ed~torshipcrfl'hilrppe I.)?
issxrc vi'tlle l3?[fiur?,~ctarnuii$ l . . ~ f z ~ ~ u rtias
f+rabaritt:r. -0pcii Qtxowtxori I<cvmltrd' ((:li:ijlter 8 I~rlrrw)is trly rcli t1*,11 to tile articles <hsctissitigopen
quotmon "1 hat joicrr~d,.bird at thc canie tirm A rrtursi to he ~lighliyIrrclre 1,rtrnpiex stcrcy of Oruriu
Ol)iiquu, O m t i o Rtciiz. ((hi tile more cotnplcx s t i q , drr: i.r)r)tc.i~
.shift W ~ C I~har:1ctrn2c%
I
~CIWIC
y~ot.itaonsinust lie reflc.c~ed111 rile relriantics; so i t rs not A pfrrcl)' pragzxlatic ]~flc'rromenondtcr all.)

Open Quotation Revisited

I.

T h e pragmatic vlow

Sonietlmes, by putting wor& wrtliln quotatloll marks, we bltrld an expression whicli refers to the words wrthln the quotahon markc Example., a e
prov~dedm (I) and (2).
(I)
(2)

'Very' n a four-letter word

He sad '1 ain fed u p wit11 AU tth~s'. and slarrui?ed the door

Even though 'very' n an adverb ,11111 '1 2111fed up w t h aL1 thi\' a i i " l ~ t e l ~the
~t~.
expresslorn constructed by putnxlg therri w~tlx~n
~lji1otat1orln~arX\SpIav t l ~ ~
gra~mnaucalrole of a 'smg~ila_rtcnn' in tlrrc sentcncec ~n .cvhlch thaw
quotations occur Becmse they go where singular tenns can go, qllotdtrorls
have been andlysed ac singu1,~rter rxxs home theorists \re then1 AS a v.irrct\~ol.
proper names, others ar cfernonstrat~ves,still otl~ersas deiin~tedcscnptloi~s
In 'Open Quotahon' (Recanatx zoola) I have argued that rt 3% a ranntxke to
build a general theory of quotatlorx oil such exaniple\, srrice they are not
representative of the erltlre category of ~ases Exa~nples( I ) a x ~ d( 2 ) ,ire
instarlces of 'closed' quotahun Closed quotations are slr~gularteam rekrnng to the enclosed matend, but not all quorxtions are like that In '~operr'
cluotatlon, just as in closed quot,raori, worifs are ostcns~velydrsplayed, but
1s not
theri syntactic a i d sea~~mtic
type zemams ~lnd3ected-tl1e quo~~tioix
.g-ATulla~idy recrdteLi &a a' ,,illgd~Ax
tc~l-,<:xjrppre ( 2 )
('1
(3) 'I am fed up with
to say'

aU

t h s ' Don't you have anything mcrre constmctlve

tlie words 'I am fed up ~.vitllall this'5J.l a slot m the sentence frarrte
'He s a d -,
and slamlled the iit>or9'flie qrrrotahorz serves as a grdmnlatlcal

(2)

totyec " I o r d i e Clril~~lln1e

verb 'ay' No \ucll ~17113g
l~~lpprrrs
111 ( 3 ) Yet ( 2 ) dncl
(3) i ~ l v cs lot i r i (oralrrmn. LT~.E?;ocIL L J \ C \ rRic wolilr '1 ~ 1 1 fed
1
~ i wltb
p
,111 ihl5'
art-o s i c x i s i v c ~ l vdisphycd (r~tdrertj-ilrn rlsc"a1in] thc" norriral way). (311illy view.
clc>sc~lc~tltri~~tli~rxi
<artlike operr cprc,tciirtrns, hut they arc disting~~ishctl
by a n
lrddiriorrtrl i>alurc: !.heir pra~rlrri~~ticdl
enro!nleail ;is siiigdar terms designating
thc: sxrlcloscil ur,ita.rr;rb.Intcrrxsrii~gti-~t>r~gh
ir. is, this ndditiorlal fcat~rceis too
spec:'tic ti) h c rl-ic rvnrrcpiec-e in the gcrrerrrl tlixcory of cluotatictn, ;rnd more
clttrritic>rislxcitilii be paid to open i{llclratiotr tliari h;is beer) the case s o -fnr (or
than h:td 1ictt11the I::XSCw h e . ~I wrote "Opcn Q ~ i o t a t i o t ~tor
' ; tltc sitt~atjorr
E.r:ls cii,rrigcc3, :is wirricssect by tile specnrl rssire which tbc Bc[qi~trtJotrrlztzl of
I.irt'qg"isrii:s tievotcd to &is topic ;r few yi>,le-s.lgo)."
A iitrsirii ijrrtrt:lr.ion rt:&rs t o the enc.ic>scclexpressiorr, or,i~iori:precisely,
t o soaars: type wiriih t i l e displ:iyeti tokrt, irrst,~nti,ltes.l'li;it i s the corrtcnt, or
scrii:ixitic. cor~trrl>~ltitrn,
of rhe ciosecl cluot:aiurr. TIrc major diiEicirlty which
ciosctl quot,ititrlr r;riscs fbr c-c>r~lposititrx,ai
sernaxiric.~is tlr;lt the contc~rtot'tllc
earciostci wijrtis tlors i r o t sctBrrxlto bc rvlev,irtr to the content of tlic ~ L X O ~ : L riori: iriticcii, evcii if'tisc erlcloscd wr~rdsarc rirmrringless a n ~ latrk
i
contertt,
the q i i c ~ t , i t i c ~will
r
hcep its refGrenti;rl val~ie(EL
will still refer to tile cncioseci
words). Ycr ;ic.ct>rili~igto i-o~nposirir)rr:ric;crr~rtritics,tljc ec.intrnt of at1 esp w s i o r ~d"ilclirnlt1iirc ,iii.ixlc.tiorl o f t l ~ c ~ c t r n t c ~ ol il 'ii st s 1r;irts. This s~~ggcsts
tl-tnt

the crlc.losc,.d cxpresslott does Trot really ccuirsr as "p;s~-t' of the. qucttatiort
iliiilt by earcitrsirig i t within qnor;ttiorr rnirrks. Willat docs that rrlearl exactly?
I will n t r t br ci~ric.tsrrtcc1with t h i s issui' ticre, but \wit11 a tiistinct issue
I I I V O / V ~ P I open
~
c l ~ ~ ~ i i rarid
i o n itr conicrrt.
Wli;ie rs ilrc. coxrtcxtt, or sernaiitic- cc>rlrribtitrt:m,o f z r r open quot;itiorl? In
c:orii.r:ixi. to cdc~scclcjriotntiotn, an oprri LIIIO~:-:L~~<)XI
docs 11~12refix. A lingttistic
exyrcssialrr rs irsrrrisively displ.iyc.cl or, as Isli;iii s~iyGclril now ozi, 'derilotistrarcii', .ivitlrorlt i-iuirlg ling~iisric.allyrc.fe1-1-cii t o . S o what is the content of,
fix- c.x:il-ii~rlc, thr. oyjcrr cjtrotaticrri i r r (3):" Well, it is uncle;u that iirl opel-j
cj~rot-ationI r ~ scorikrrrt, or r~r;rkcsn senrariiic- c-irnrtnbutiort, in the way in
which cioqcd ijuotations do. 'L&/h<ir
i s spe<:i'il nborrr (3)- ---what makes it a crrsc
o f ipmtlltiori rnthtv cEran it rtorrllal trse of thc worcis '1 ;tin fed up with ;dl
this' - i s ~rgilal-rlynot a rnartcr t>f'senaat~tic.
corrierlt. Wlletl>erX say "I arls fi-d
up wid1 all this' seriously, by wlty of u~,lkinga r i ;issertlon, or--as in (3)c~c-lroic;diy,to reprotlirce tllc previc>irs spe;rkcr's iitteu;lrlce, is a rnattcr of
I

\r,e 6)r l3raha1lir.r ' 0 0 5

h r c e r'tthcr thm ii matter of content. It h,i\ lo do w ~ t l wll'it

t
we do ivxth
words, rather tb,ir~wlth WII,IC the cvords rrle,rrt l>ot.c ~t lollow t l u t open
(1110t,lt1011\ have 1 1 0 rne~tlingover dnd bcyorrd tfie nreallltrgs ofthe dernorl
\tmted word\; Not cltlite 'fhc s17e,&krr74~t c of O\LCIISIVC d15pl~ycltsarly
rncans sometfiing 111 (3) it rne.a15 tlrat the spe,~heris echoing the prctlotts
speaker's utterance I h c s p e ~ k e rdoe< \o 111 older t o iot~veyscrrrlethritg
'ibout that uttetdnce, nartxrly that IL n not very ( on\tritchvc Hut nonc ot thls
is cornposihon.1~1~
articulated ln the way In whrch r~onxrai\eolalltic contellt
n ~~olnpositioxlnlly
artl~ulatedWhat 1 h ~ \ i ejust described n, 114 1 \did, the
meaning ot the spzaker's act of o\tcnuvtxd~splay'Tint ~ne,rrtrngis pragnnhc:
kt I\ the xneaning of an ACC perbrrnetf by the spe,iker. r,~tflert l l n r ~ tfic
sernantlc cct~iteritof an e\pre\slorl ~ttttrctiby rhe speahct \~ni~larly,
the
speaker*\act ofrarvr~ghrh voice will, rrt Apprctpnatc cirt L~rrtstaxlccs,convey ,1
t m a n meanlrig Thir t;llie\ u\ to the llr,art of the differcrrc e i ~ c t w e e
open
~~
yuotatlorl and tlowtl qrrotntion wlltle ,4 clo.ie(f quordtlon 14 elevated to the
cortterrt oflts own, ,In open
\t;~txrsofllngutstlc c onstltuent 2nd l z ~a\ sserrza~it~~
~ t speaker
~ o ~ ~ t-loes ,erne
quotxtion 17 not ancl does n o t It] O ~ ~ qI ~I l o t ~ tile
thlng w t h the worti\, .ind tliereby riie,m\ \orneclilng. Wh,it the \peakthr
nieans by osrel~snelyd ~ s p t a y ~ ~
the
r g wold\ shotilct he ~leallyci~st~rlgt~j\l~eJ
tram what the words thern\el\ies mc,-rn W11,ir tile vbords trie'tti I$ pretry
d e t c m ~ i n ~and
t e cdn he consputetl hv appealrng to else serrlalitlc rule\ of the
Ixlguage What the \peaker nlearl\ Larl oldv he lnlened context ,itld I J L ~ S
the detcrnur~a~y
o f \enlailtlc content

Exanyle (3) rs ,ui ur\tanLe of what I b t t s (2007) lefen t o 1' 5 L ~ - I U S ( I / (OPCII)

But the rlloct 111tere5hr1gL,r\es ,ire the 'ssub-cl,t~~\,d'rr-rsr,lnte\,
where the dcmonstratcd words occur loc,illy wlttrtrl 3erltenc es that a e riot,
of.irth-cl,tu\nl
~s a whole, demorntrmed. (I),(j), arld (7) belnw ,KC cx,is~~ples
open cluotaaol~drscusred 111"pen Quot.itron', wlille (6) cortte\ Gon? a book
about Cli,ite~~lbnar~d
I wll concerlmte on mch cases fi-orn 11ow on
c]tmo"tlo

John is very '(coctl'.

(3) 'The de~xxoratrationprovides the '~tlodeof presentation' of the reEerei~t,
hence deterrriirles the contextual 'sense' of tile dm~orrstraiivc.
(4)

Chateaubnand returned to France in 1800, 'wlth the century'.

(7) A 'fortnight' n a penod of fourteen days.

(6)

Given the locjl chmcter of the quotation m such cam, we e,xpect some
mter,iction w ~ dthe
t procas of s e m n c Loniposltmn whch outr ~ t the
s content
of the sentence LII wlxch tfir quotmon occvrs Such mteracnon d be documented m Sectlorn 1- j,yet, I w11 argue, we need not ~i&icantly depart 6om
die pragniatic mew of open qtiotatlon sketched m the previous recaon.
In ex~rriples(4)-(7) the words wrthin quotation marks contribute in the
norn~jlwdy to the 5errlalrtrc content of the sentence they occur in. at the
sxme time, however, they are demon,trated, and thls contnbutcs an extra
level of rrlearrrtlg that 1s clearly prapiatic. The question that anses for the
interpreter w whv is the speaker drawmg attention to those words he 1s
uslngi If the t.pe~ker15 reporting someone', speech, or has just done so,
expticltly or even mtplicitly, then a hkely explanation for the demonstranon
r\ that the spe'xkcr, by Aagg~ngthose words, makes rnamfest that he is
echonig the pcrsoxi IU question--usmg his or her very words "n such
t "oint' ofthe quoQtlorl is ascnptlond the speaker wants
Lases I sav t h ~tile
to inCor1r1tile he,krt.r t h ~the
t person m question used those words Exan~ple
(6) beloxlgr to t h ~ categorv
s
by putting the wordr 'vvltlr the centuly' within
yuotxclorr m~rtrks,the spe,iker irrlpties that Chateaubnand hmiseli; when
dcscnbitig the eteilt of h ~ rreturn to France, used that phrase. In (5) the
cluoted words are fa~nou~ly
associated wlth frege, and the speaker, by
flagging those words, presunlably rnterlds to mdke man~festthat he is
usrng rregea1.t tern~mology.I Iere the pornt 1s not ascnptlonal the speaker
doe., not lnter~dto 11iform the hearer that Frege used the words 'mode of
presentnt~rtnythatis coiiunon kiiowledge): what the speaker intends to do,
rather, n to warn the hearer that the terms ought to be taken in the techmcal
sense they liave 1x1 t21e Fregean hterature, to evoke the proper background
for the mteqretatson of the clams he is mahng by using them, and more
generaiiy perhaps to appeal to Eregean audionty. in exampie (71, cne reason
why the speaker hi&hgh:hts the word 'fortnlght' a that the sentence in which
thrt word oLLun rnay be taken as a defirutroti of that word. St~ll,sentence
(7) 3s not fornrally 'about wor&', but about thngs (namely, fortnights).
f &eely b o m w some ternnulogy (but not necessarily the associated doctnnm) &om other people
'Flaaflrig' ronres &om 1)redeth (2003, zoos&), 'echo~ng'6orn Sperber and Wdson (1981,1986a), and
'u.itnq otlrrr people's words' from Scnbaj~(2004)

There is a daerence between tfidt selitence, where the woni 'iortnrght' is

used and the quotation open, arlci a nretal~nwntlcsentence like (81,rivlierls
the word is nienhoned rather than used ,md the quotatlon belongs to die
closed vanety
(8) 'Fortnight' designates a period o f fourtee11 davs

FinAy there is the Lase of '\care cjuotes', illustrated by (4) the spe~ker
indicates that the words she 1s urtrrg xrr not her words, that she tr ~ O L I O W I X I ~
them frorn other people withctut filly erlt3orsing them Why the spe,ilier 1s
dista~lc~ng
herself horn these words I\ a n o d ~ c rquestlon t11~1r h a to be
answered 111 order to fully grasp the rneanulg of the iluotdt~on Another,
related questiori that h ~ 5to be answered b c m urt tile tl,lture o f the attltude-playful, derisive, cntrcal, o r whatever ---wli~chthe speaker contcutu ally expresses towards the source of the use ,he 1s echo~ng
These are only a few typical elidlnple~There rr t i o lrii~itto the nuxnbrr of
more o r less fine-gamed e;lcpi~n~t~orrs
that r axz be iitund in rctt~tostbr t11c
speaker's denionctratlon of sonle ot d ~ eword\ lie 1s us~nij: Nor Art. t l ~ c
euplandtlons UI questlon c x ~ l u s ~ v
olz,zi
e Ir ortier Corisiclcr vx.~rrq~le
(91,and
what I s a ~ dabout it in 'Open Qtiot;ltlon'
(9) Iouri Skouratov, general prosrcutnr, was suspendrtl in March by Bons
Eltsin. His successor, lo~iriTcl~jiic~,
was "proinoted' r~~ilristcrof j ~ x s t i i rin

August.
The quotatlon nzarE-s around )pmnioted convey IIWIIY thlrtg co the ~ ~ i t ~ ' q > r e t e r
(I) that thx7 term w35 oBi~~all\i
used, oi at Irxst, CEIJC loi~nl'ch,uLa'\ cll,ix~geoi
affectanon was prcscbtztcd
a pronlntlou, (11) that the speaker ( d ~ crrewspaper
coltimnist) does not f d v ertdorse that descr~ptlor~,
(in) that the reA5orr wllv he
does not IS that ~twas not a real p r o i ~ ~ o t lhut
o ~ rather
~,
a way ofgetting nd of Lrmn
zoora. 666)
Tcl~akaby 'hchng tcm? ups~lm' (I<ec,ulat~
The quotat~onhere belongs hoth to tlre "a\rrt~~trotral'n~rdto the "carequotes' vanety.
m a t , then, is the meaning of a rub- clausd open cluo~tiou'l'irw qucs
hon h a no simple answer, and we r~eedto draw a threefold dist~rlctrort
between

A. the meaning/content of tllc quoted words, i.e. t11e1r c o ~ ~ t r l b t ~ t ~ ~ n

to the meaning/content of the sentence they occur

1x1,

li. tirc ccrrrvcritit>n;~lrtit.:lr~ic~g

trl'the quot;ition lnarlrs (or of their corrntca.px~(/ ~ orai
r
speei-hj;
i '. t!ic ic>sitcxtir;i\ tncarlirlg r > l ' k ) i ~cluotaticli~r.

A 1s corrccr~~ed,
n o t rrrixi.ii ayp,~rciltlyneecls to be said: as I pointed
o u t , i i i (,I) (7) tbr, wortis keep their ncrrrrlal corrt-exlts:triil rrlake their rlornlal
coritrii~eltior~.
I,accu, I~owevi.r,we sirall sce tl-r:it i n a t least sonlt cases of subi.i:iii"(;PJ
~L
j* 11irot
I\
itiilii, tkr rncrinirig/cox~te~it
clr'rl-iequoted ~vordsis a&cteJ.
Ac ibu 13. t1rir.c arc two irrrptrrrarlt issi.icc to he c~dcfresscd:
As f i r

,i.i

I'lt~sti-irsiIssrie I9e;1r.sor1 1.11~

n~rti~e~iticrttcd
~ ~ ~ i i ~ z r iot'the
i i ! y quotation r~r:ks.
Wl><ntI\ it cx.tc-tly? So CAI X E-rave suggvsrcd that the quotation marks
ia~crc\yt3;ig r l i t s \vorcis as spcr:ci:ti :inid express thc speaker's inter~tionto
~ i r , i - ~riiu
v a~riiit~tlce's
;ittt.r1tior1 t o t.herrr. Alvcrrrativciy, one 1ni-u). take the
( i>rrvc.ii~iori;al
rrle;*riingof the qrrcir:ie;ror~rrrarks to hi. rrlore specific than
iliiit. P I I , B ~ \ >they
C
ill(iic;att*s l o t ordy t l ~ i tthere is sorilettiing specid 'L, 1>out
d i e i,~ic-iostbti wc)rtls I m t :L/SCI ~~.pllill
i s sj)ei-WJ ' r b t ~ u thein,
t
t~;inrely,tirnt the
\pe:~Rt~rI\ risrrig ttl~crrlc.il~.oii-(~llli,
SO as to replicate the words used by
strrrii: o oiirc.stri:lily itlcntifi:ibli. source. Tlris dt,c1~1:~tive
is stlggested by
t i i c t.1c.i i h t t i l e ~1uot:rtic)rrs
in (4)--(6) arc ali c1c;rriy echoic, despite their
tirffi~rt:rii.e>iI will c.trrrlc I ~ c t
ko tl?:~tissuc irelow. For the tirt~e.being, in
ctrtiet not ro pr-e judge t h a t issue, 1 :issrrrric th;it for sornc relntion
K bcrsvc~entlic 5pe:iker 'inif tile words, the iltrot;ttiurl nlarks indicate
t$r,it tIlc \pc;ihcr is 12-irig thr~erlclored wortis (i.e. eatl~erdenlonstrating
i l r t b r l i , or>011 the 111o1.esp~(-i/ic.~ ~ ~ t i ~ l . p r e t ;~~~t s
i ~i ithem
>l gi i ~ ecl~oically).
( ~ ~ C C O lsiiric:
I L ~ \&3t i s the S ( C ~ ~ EU!/S' C ~ : I CI . O I I V C \ ~ ) L I O ~nleanirrg?
~~/
Does it,
o r ~ C L C * ~t
W r i o t , bt4ol1~:to ' ~ t i : i ti s siid', to. die rcgu1;lr tn1tl-i-c-onditiortai
ciriitcrir tri'tlic' ~rttcr;uice?It st:erlls tEut i t docs not. T t ~ c
speaker who
titters :IILY of'(4) - (7) tlocs rroc sc2y rXut s / I ~ r :Ks tlre rniLoseJ words. ?'frat,
r:iilrcbr, ii,:I '(.oilvi.rltjot~:rlirtiplrc;irlirc' (or, pt:rh.ips. a presttp~fositiori\isc ircEov/). Irr 1ny -Cr;rrrrework ccrrivmtior~,~l
iariplicatures are usec.c~niiiticlit/ric,orlxl>ont:lltso/'lltC:1*lirrg (1Ccc:nrr:lri r c ) ~ S $4.).
:
An expression
c.oric-ey\ tac~-i~oritiit,i(-rr~:~l
r-~lrariir~g
if :rritl t r r ~ i yif i t is governect by a
c.oiic.iitionl of' rrse i r i sirdl 3 way tll:tr: lrsirrg thct expr-essiol~irrlylies that
riiv ioirtliriorr is s'itistied. NCWt ~ ~ l ~ t ; tI ItIj~oI -~~hxve
~
S
conditions ofust:
tlrcy arc to bc' used only ifthe s p c ~ k c irs M-irrg (or i ~ ~ t e ~to
z dbe
s R-irig)
rlic i~rrc.icisc.iiworcls. In virtue trfthis rrorrll:~civccorltlitiorr on the use of

~ L I O L . I ~ I O Irliarks,
I

~ctctallyustrlg them conver~trc)rlcllly~nrylrc~ t e sthat

the speiker 1s K-lr~gthe errclo4ed words

l-lr-i,tlly, C' n what we get wherr we ~ l l s w cthe.

~ i l ~ i t - s t ~ ~o ~ ~l 1s
l ytile
>peakcr rtoli~gt h (R-lng the er~clu\cdcvotcis)? Wlx~tcvetrearor1 can be
i ontextu~llyinferred fbr the speaker's q u o t a t ~ o n bchav~ot~r
~~l
15 part of tlir
< clntestual rne,lriir~gof the qrloratlon Thr5 15 opal-ended tl~ereI.; n o ll~rllt
to the explan,itiorlr one tan g v e , I r l tile \ert\e that one c,ui gct a\ fineg r ~ ~ n 2s
e done tvishcs In titis respect the ~nterk~ret,it~on
of
open iprotclttort
looks niorr i ~ k cthe ~ntc-rpret,~tton
o i l~tcrdry
~
tcxt thnrt the ( on*putatroll ot
sern'irttlc content
AH this \uggcst\ ,r muit~-dl~~lenrlotlal
,in~ly\r\C: 15 a verv dli-i:I.rcxtt sort ctt
h e ~ <than
t A It 1s prdgrn,itrc. open-ended, artd vdgue It 15 ,t rmtter OF ~1.1thri~p-ccmslJered intercsrc e, cvblle 're11iant3c c oilteiit i,tri he c onlpirte~to n
the ba\rs of rules NOW13 EL A nutter of iules, like A 11 1s what tlie cjtiot~tlon
t e the (c~riventlos~
rh'rt: go\iern\ t h r use Yet B 2nd
m.irLs ~ndlc,lre111 v ~ r t ~of.
,L,uguably ren3,un separate 01)
the \ t , ~ ~ l d , ~~ rl l~t t~, l t ~ - ~ l r ~ r ~ t ~applo,~clr~
rl\ior~al
to corjventlond ;llrr~pilc
~ t ~ t (013ginat~11g
~es
lri rrege) J grverl \cntenctXrti.ty
express several proposltmil\, hierarzl~lc,illyordered 1r1 terms ot centrality fhr
exj)rc.sv\ ,I given I>roposrtlorr,
truth c v a l u ~ t ~ o So
n . ,L sertteltt e cctrrry~cliztzotz~~li~~
~ t ~ t t c r ~ ~,I\ ~tilrc
~ c eor
w h ~ c h1s what has to be conurcfered m ~ ' V J I L ~ A ~ I I I thC
o?Lprcrs fll~tflerprol>o\ititlris \~vllc~,e
t,llse 111'tddicron. IL iriay ~ct~-tur~Jrl~otzitlly
hcnrir~g011 t h e truth or falaty of the irttcrlnce 13 lei5 ohv~our \ttcir A
mult~gdle-propc"t1t1011fr'rrrlework ha\ bceli put fonvarti lor deallrtg w ~ t l ~ ,
I I~
I I~
~ ,~tI lL Z ~ U ~arrd
C S , <evc*r,~l
autl~itrs,~tr<lcidlng1ny5eIl;
Inter ~11'1,( i ) l l v e t ~ t ~ ~
have suggested unng ~t for cie,~lrngwith (opcrr) qttotatron ' O n the vcr<Iorr
o t tlrls view 1 put forw'zrd irr C,h,~ptet 7,any ot (4)-(7)coingx)~~"tx~u11y
t
expresser a ccltaln propo4rtion -the sdnlt.. rt -\?roulil et\plcs'\ ~ v l t h o i ~the
yuotat~onruarks-'uld us(.-cor~tl~troricliyexprev,~.;2 firtiler propo\itlo~rto
the e&c t t k ~ t tthe speaker 1s R-rng the e11tloscd wolds I11 addlt1011 the
v ~do
r ~~v1t11
g
uttt-r~ncepragrrratit ,illy convey\ nrr array u f p r o p o ~ t ~ o n d ~ a to
the speaker7\p o ~ ~inr tfi-tng the ertclosrd wolds

j 011
the rrlultrple-propos~tioz~sCmncwo~-k,see flactl (r:)g<)),Neale (rt/t/t)), Putr?, (zoos), arrrt>ng
ochcn; on irs use in dedlng ulth (open) quoranon. rze ILzwnati (~oocib,Lcwra), I'lrdrilr (nooj),(;:trcr~
( : ~ r p ~ ~ t(hcroj),
c r o Fiott.\ (,oo-;)

3 - 1nter;ictiorr with semantic cont :nt:

(I) free enrichnzent
Bart Geurts and Emar Ma~erhave ob~ectedto a multi-dmenstond andysls,
ort the ground$ that it is only 'suitable for representing dl-trerent hnds of
content that don't Interact too rnuch'((Geurts and Maier 2005. 113) There is
a lot of iiiteract~oabetween the utterance's regular truth-con&tiond cond
the quotation coritnbutes, tiiey claim, co it is a m~staketo
tertt ~ n what
po\it 'J atnct cbv~de'between thern (Geurts and Maier 3005 115) Now, 1
agree thdt the rneaning of art open quotation can agect the trutli-con&tions
ot the LltteranLe in wl~ichit occurs, but I dlsagree that t h s necessarily goes
X also d~sagreewith Potts, Cappelell
apmst a rliultl dlrnens~onala~zalys~\.~
arid I epore, L I I C ~xri,Ariy other authors that suc 11 Interaction goes dglaSt a
yragng'l'at~~
treatment s u d ~as I advocate (Given the context-sensitivitv of
tn~tfl-coritiiitiotlalaLontetlt, Interaction w~ttithe pragmatic meanlng of the
qu(3tation n pred~ctable,since the acbon of quotmg takes place in the very
context with recpecr to which the sentence rs asslgned ~ t struth condihons
I here are t w o broad types o f interaction between semantlc content and
q~iotanond~tlreaningla the .sort of c,uer at Issue. In t h ~ rsectron I deal on15
filth tlie first onc, which ~nvolvesthe ~nechanismof '&ee ennchment'
7 hroug11 tllin rnrc hanism, a11expression IS glven a more specific mterpret;rt1011, 111 context, than its serndrltic content stnctly hcenser (Recmati 2004).
If, m (lest rrblng a traffic-regulation scene, I say 'The pohceinan stopped
the car', we niitx~r~lly
understand this as meaning that the pohceman caused
t wus to stop, thereby rnaklrzg htrn or
the car to \top by rgnulbr~qto the ifnver t h ~ Cze
her do so Brit the senterl~eitself says nothlng about the means used by the
pohcerr~art(it does not even Fay whether the stopping of the car was ;un
mtent~onalaction or1 tlie part of the pohceman) The ~tahctzedpart in the
above cle\~nptioxicorrespond:, to an aspect of the Interpretation that is
~ur~iirkiutrd
by iLe l r e d ~ r ' sC X ~ C L L A O J ~ S gii.cii t i t s iii her bac'rigro~tiid
kr~owledge S ~ r ~ cd1e
e speaker, who knows what those expectdtxons are
(and knows that the hearer knows that he knows), has done noth~ngto
C>fro~me,
it depetids or, what exactly one means by t h . G e m and Maier's main target is Potts
(aoo7), and it 15 not nuy imentiorl to defend Porn's account against their criticisnl. it may be that Geutts
and Maier, whose view is rrrnilar to niinc in rnany respects, w-ould have 110 objection to the 'multi-level'
analysis I defend in this chapter. Yet they clainl that their criticistx~applies to all versions of multidimensionalism, and rhey cite me as a would-be multi-dimertsionafist.

prevent the hearer honl lriterplehtlg the utterance in thls way, he clearly
mphes that t h ~ sn the way the ~>ohccrnm\topped the cdr Now thrs
mlphcature is mtegrated with the serildrltlc content of tlie utterance rn
such a way that they are ~ i o tntult~vely
t
disangtztched the InRntIve truthconditions of the utterance incorpordte the ~mphcatme
W h y 1s there yra'qmattc ~ntrwtort---ChdtI), ~ncoqjoraaonof the ~ii~pl~cature
rnto 'what is said"ir1
this type of case but not ln others?$ Prenm~ably,
because the irnphcature further .iyec~fiesthe event which tlxe $entcncc
descnbes in virtue of I& serrl'iritic ont tent T h e l ~ x l p l ~ ~ aprovrdel
t ~ ~ r e an
extra argument (the relevant 'way of ctoppmg') in additloll to the asgunicnt\
that are tinguistlcally articulated (the agent and the theme of the stopplrrg
event). Whenever an anphcature overlap.; with the seniantlt conteat of the
i s deqcnbed
utterance m h s way by provldrrig Fbrtl~ers p e ~ d i ~ ~ aofo ~the
event, it tends to get incorporated i ~ l i uthe uttermce's intuxt~ve~ ~ ~ i 1 1 ~onditions,mstead of remalnlrig rntult~velysepaate a t v h e ~~ ~t contnl-in
s
tlon is orthogonal to semantic content
In some cases, sindarly, the n~eanlag(>i- an open yuot%tlon can ea\*ly bc
mtegrated wth the sernantlc conterrt OF the utteratice, bec~usrthev overlap
rt
Con~ider(6). The quotation is e ~ h o r cI, iald, m d IL\ polrlt is ascr~ptror~al
contextually means that Cliateaubnzrnd, nl de\cnb~ngthe event of 111s lerrrrre
to France, used those very word\ jxvrth the ce~itury') Ths (Chatembriand's usmg the words k t h tllc centurv') n a ci-r\tmct event trorn &at
wllich the main propositlor1 deccnbes (Chateaubnar~
J's retl*ri>iiIgto Frarrcc
in 1800, w ~ t hthe century), so the 'overldp' ~orldltlon1s nor sntafird But let
us change the example a bit
i
n
t<

(10)

In A%f6inor~es
d'outre-tomhe, (Il-latearrhriand wrvtc that he retririled to Crnncts
in 1800, 'mth the century'

Here the rnasn proposition descnbes rhc cverst of Chate,~nbria~td's

Aiaystg
~omet/zzngabout his returrz to Frmzce The Iilezrning of the cluot~tiorx-- \d~srch
arguably does not change--carr easily be mtegrxed wlth that propoarrorr
unce it is about the same evmt, wh1~1lit iiirther specifies by p~ovrdrngan
~d&aonaIargument to the "sayzng"relrltaon (vi* the wordc that Ch'rte~ubnand used in saying what he w d ) As ,I result of thls xrltegatlon, 'tn
ordmary user of the language dskecl about the truth-corid~t~on\of (rcs) rs

k
t

The phrase 'pqmatlt- mtna\ion' cornrs iron1 Lrvmson (zoooi

2 7~

INiI 11: AC J ION WEFT 51'binlirir'tc c(-wrrNr-(a) 1-11

FF r ~ t i i ( - t (N~i t .

jikclc

10

~ c \ p i ~ atlr.ir
~ t l t t l t = trttcr,rncc rr

txiic tf

axrci only II, 1x1 ,I.lirizorrtp~ d ' o ~ t t r r -

ioniirt, (1) C Bl,rte,rrnl>r~arrd

wrtrtc that hc rctorsried to Fr~rrcem [goo, and

(11)

hc ti\uiI the" wtrnh 'with rlrr century' tar (1e"rarlhr the trrnlng of h14 return.
i i r i s/rrcot,itloil, 111 euarnple (ioj, cledl-iy t ontribules t o ttle tmtll-concjlhons
of the iittt.rii-it c Iloes r t tctjlow thdt (1110t.xt1011,d ixied~~l~ig
aiid sen?antlc
iositrrit tlo ncrt E)c/ongto SCP,IT.~~Cci~triel~\~i)~~"r
1 tit> not thlrlk so. I thznk we

tlr,rr r1-r~.cor~trxtu,llxxrednlxlg o f tiit. quotatxon (to the eEect that

word?) helorrg to a clrgercnt cbn~ensionthan
t i i t * *cail,isrtrc ioaitrirt of tllr crtlerdllce, rf w,vc <rc'cizptt h t an utterance',
rlrttritrvr iirrt1-a coiitJirtivnr cdn go htyrrxiil w h ~ r\emarrtlr content p~ovides
A\ ckrc j i c t l i c carxi,ira e~arrrpleh ~ 4\Lzciwrl, tlie i r t e r d truth cundit~onsof an
trttca,trrc u G a r I ~ cpr"rg~:z'it~cdlytsnr1checl with iurtlle~spec~ficdtioltsof the
tlr*i s rlrrJ cvexit ~ h i c l the
t
ori it cut, o r gent-rai world-hnocvledgc, makes
l\iar lalde c c er i tbcttrglr thcy ,ire I K B C Irngr~r\~ic,illy
crrcoded A11othi.r wellhrior\ri i.x,\onpEc of sfl,rt \tnt ofthlrrg wlrrilr 1 h,we ~ l ~ e n t ~ o ralreacty
ied
15
c'irr rii,ilrut,iiaa

(;jiattc ilil)rr,~x-eii
u.icii tX-losr vcry

1~

rr,iiirr 11

to rritcrprct thcs wionil

icrxljriril

,is

nie,ulirlg t h ~ the
t pels011

acfcaaid i t r h)v "slit ' opcrlcd the ~Xoorwdx thr kcby ~ ~ s e t ~ t ~ o1n
r r the
e d first
coxrgiirit t, 'i ct nhe scbnterxcedoth\not 11tlit~~iIy
3dy dl~yt_bmj:
&out dle tnstru-

xriene uwd i l i opcnrrrg the door I l ~ cfiisthcx y)etdxcatloil of the opernng

rlrstrragh the < otltextual I ) ~ ~ V I $ I C ) Iof
L tlldr rxlrtrrrrxterlc 3e5ults fkorn free
cnrlt hxxieirr 1 111s 15 lake an ordln'iry ctrrrverrsxtrnr~~l
~mpltc-ature,hut ~nt h t
4011. o f ( d'b~"
the ~ r ~ ~ p h c ' tovt:r?^ldp\
t ~ ~ r e w ~ t hthe IiidlIl $>ropo~itfoli
expzened by
tlrc iec irulcl r oxljurrt t (th'tt:she c.il)cbnctltile door) since ~t ii~rthcrspecrfies the
csvc.xrt ot opcSniirly,tlic door hy provitl~rrg,in .iddltronal argurlrent (the key
xncxrrtic>ricitliitlic firit coxljurlt t) I'he rnxpb~canrrc tlr~rel-ole
tcnds to Intrude
into tlic E I ~ V C I J I I C C ' I~ ~ i t t i ~ ttnjah
i v e cuntlitiorlal content the httcr 1s p r q n ~ , i t .ill\
~ c CIr r i i heel t h oilgh
~
IIIL o r p o r ~ hXI( c>i the rir~pl~(
,lted conzportent.
Sor~rc~tlirrrg
i~rnri.ir,rrgunbly happer13 rn (10)
P hc irlturtrvc truth-corrd~
tron,il itrrrrcirt of tllc uner'xrrt c n crsncl~ctl111rolrgI:lithe urt orporatlon of the
anedrrrrrg of tlir cluot,iklorl. Uut tlus possrbrlity docr not Argue against i' nlultldmlcraxcarr,~lttcatniunt 'l11c hce t1-rat the rlrcarlrrrg of the cpwtatlon can be
xrrc uq,ob,rtecl illto turtll-t ondrtronal c onteni tlrrough free enrrcllment does
not \li,oc\ r8ictc i t I\ xlot '5ep;rrut.' froxlr \errl,tritct content If lt ~ h dthen
,
the
f d c t that d [ m i e of (oritrxtudl rnfc>rt~l,thtrri
ox \kcrrld kilo\.vlecige, or a conver\nut rrx,~i i~npiii
,icu r e i,r n be irliix,u;r'itecl a r a t o tlre ~axt~iitrvc
m t h -con~l~tion,d
i.\it,rit

content ofall utternnce throirg1-r free crlncfu~icrltwot~fctvrlrri,uly show t h ~ t

that plece ot ~ n i o m a t ~ o1snn o t sepalate from senl.~rttlcc trrltertt --,in ;rltsurci
cortcluston O n e may deny that tree rnrrtl-rlllent exrsts, I ~ u tft i t c\~cts,tl-reil
~t prov~desan eq>Lnatloir of the Inter'kitrotr of scrrlarrtlc content ,uid
quotat1oxr.d rncartlng ui (lo) that 13 fully contp~trblebotll wrtb ~ r ~ ~ r l t r
n
dimeliuon~lisrnknrf wit11 a pr'agrnatlc nppro.iclr to o p ~ ~qiiotatlori

4. Interaction with ser~~azitic

cotlterlt:

( 2 ) context-sflik

I'fre scc ond fcjrril o i Interac t ~ betwitclt

o ~ quotatlorlnl IiIeanm;: ,lnd ,crn.intlc
t~'
the pl~t~nontct~oxl
of
c o ~ ~ t c n1t lilexltron 111 'Open Q i ~ o t ~ t l o rnvctlve\
~ o n f ct-sh$
n
W e l-rave sect1 rlrat 111 ril,tny c aw\, open qtiot,ltlon 15 rcl-rorc
tl-re speakel's u\e 05 the clemon~tr'tteclwor ch 15 Incartt to ct h o tllt wortis uwtl
by sonleone else (the lntrrrtnl target of tlrc ijuot~t~ori)I ct 11s cIrLiw 4
i l n t ~ n c t ~ obetween
n
the r u ~ r ~ ~ ~ ' l c f i o ~ t t ~( ontext
~ v t - - t 1h11~w h ~ c hthe tjuotatron,rl
OLC t~rs--~ir~ti
the \ t ) ~ ~i ic tl ~f t t ~ (th(~ f
c ~ r ~ t i t of
' r t the o i - ~ g l ~L~I Wi l
(iellr~onstr,rt~on
wh~chthe yLlotatrwlr 17 zilednt t o echo) ~ ~ L I I O I the
I ~ I\Id ~ i i c *W O ~ C ~'ire
S LIIC'C~111
the current context ;L\ tri the iourt e cctrtte.*t, they rnay carrv tilift-lent
contents with respect to the two c o n t e ~~ ~I I C I C will be s ~ i ~~1l poti'l~t~al
r
dlvergerlce in coritcrlt wherte%erthe word\ 111 cltiestlcln r r i c lude .HI 1nt1e.ctc,ll
expresnon whlch talncc ddkrent v-xlue\ m the two contexts, or t.vhcnever the
worck nt m u c happen to not nlem the sanie tlilrlg i r t the two contexts. ( ThlnL
of the c s e m \vblch a Rnt~rlrspc"~Ler
eclioes. an Axl-rerrc,~tt'sme of a n thglnh
word ~vhich means drkkrent. thing, Irr lirtt~shIInghsh arlti A~xlcr~t
ax1 I uglidr.)
Now, rfthc speaker IS r ecagr~~aeil
,amtentior-rally ec Ilorng tfle \ourte's usr of
the snrne word, ~t \vlU be rl,~tur,~l,
111 VICi t CLSCS,
to ~arl\truethe q ) e ~ h e a)
r
deliberately urmg the dcrnonrt_mted Lvurdc wztfz thr rrrc~tzfflrg/rot1t1~1~t
tlrty htrd t17
tizc sozsrcc conirtxr. r'tther than with the niemrng/c orlteat they wo-ulti L ' L I I ~ I~,ld
~
they bcerl used 'plalnly' (non echorcally) rn tlrc c urrexlt I oxitcxt
An example frorii Cltaptcr 7 I r
(12)

f a ~ l says
l
he's due to present lus work

111 t.he

"pi~per
session'

where tllc speaker n untieritood as rnrn~icklngIQ111d7sdeviant ubc of the phra~e

'paper session'. Wbat Paul mea~ltwhen he sa1c1 what ( I L ) repom w,ls t11at 11e
U~
t'nnl's
was due to prewnt 111s work In the postPr cemor] I L O I I I L ~echolog

280

INTEILACTION WITH IEMANTIC CC)NTENTT-@J Z O m X F S R ' I r

- -

nustaken use, the 5peaker ascnbes to h m referexice to the poster session under
the wrong narrre. Here what the words 'paper session' contribute to semanhc
content is not their regular semanhc value, but rather the semnhc value they
have In Pa~h'si&olect (gven that he uses 'paper' to mean 'poster'). In such cases
senlantlc content Ir af5ected by the quotdtiond demonstratson. S W l y , when
the quoted words ir~cludean lncle~calesprek3lon, that expression inay have to
be rrtterpretcd with respect to the source context rather than the current
context, as in this example fro~xiChapter 6:
I\ the @eat-@cat-gandfatflef of Gov. I k e Foster of
Loruslam, whit sad recently on a ra&o program t at 1t would be 'news to
me' if uiyone m h s f a d y h ~ owned
d
d me$

(13) Lev] Ectster, lrr fkt,

7 he first-person a~cusative'me' w ~ t h nthe quoted matenal refers to the

speaker m the source context, namely M&e Foster, rather than to the
speaker 1n the current context, namely the utterer of ( 1 3 ) . ~
In the standard, Kaplaruai~sense of 'context', only (13) Involves a context-sh~fi Example (12) involves what I dubbed a lagquage-shift. the words
rnarks are interpreted as b e l o n ~ n gto the 'language'
with111 the yuot&~tlon
(idiole~t)of the source, and thls aEect\ not only their content but also t h e ~ r
lrngu~st~c
mt.ming or character Yet, rts I pointed out ln several places, the
rvvo p i i e n o r r ~ ucar1
~ be uiufied if-we let the language spoken m a context be
one of tlte c oor&nates ofthe context m queqtlon. In this framework, which
I adopt in what follows, both (12) md (13) involve a context-shft.
In (12) and (13) the seriwnhc ~ortterltofthe sentence rs not the same as what
we get when we reniove the cluorat~or~
m a h . So it seems that the cfuotahon
( ~ n m b ~ l tto
e s5ema~ticcontent in such Lases Yet a &stuictmn can be drawn
between srra?igi~tforwarcIly
cuntnbutzn'q to semantlc content, and merely havlrzg art
gflect out seabrirttc ont tent. Open quotdhon has an obvious eLfect on sernanhc
content m c35e5 l&e (12)and ( r j ) , but that e&ct can be decnbed aspre-semuntac.
It need not be taken as 'i genume 'contribution to' senlanhc content.
1 et LE\ G ~ s ~ iw~~i t~hDavd
~ e , Kaplan, that semantIc3 maps sentence-coritext
pars to co~itents tension^) Both 'sentences' and 'contexts' are tf~eoretrcal
construi ts mtended to track relevant properties ofutterances and die sltuahons
The smlr bhfi & o rcurrent
~ ~ context to source coritext m interprehng an lndextcal untlun an echorc
yrromuon can be obsened wth both clausd open quotation and closed quotation In examples ( 2 ) and
(3), arguahlv. die quoted seiiterrce 'I a m fed up wth all ths' n to be construed as echoing die source's use
ot the unle word.;, and as remnirtg the corltent a had when it was uttered by the source

0l"N

-.

< > U 0 1A ? I O N R T V I S I T L I )

281

they are produced m. As Predelll ( 2 0 0 j r ~ ) .forceMly pomtetl out, bebre

Y L
semanocs can apply to dehver the content ot a pxtxcular unerance, a Y ~ ~>\enlatzonal problem anses one must cieclde whch (abqtract) "entente' wdl d e yuately represent the concrete utteraxe that was mnade, and winch (absh';tract)
'context' IS relevant to the lxiterpretalclon of that sentence. These representsaonal problerm are not tnvld Moct h r ~ ~ g ~S ~L l~~Itare
~~ Sc a n ~ b i g u o
and
~ ~a~
decaion has to be made, oil pragluhc j q o u ~ i to
~ . declde whclr sellten~e1\
actually uttered arnong several competittjrs cornpat~blew t h tlic perceptrble
ugnd (As Bx-HiLIel(ir354) er~~phlls~zed,
u1 ail cases a pragrnatlc tleclson ha&to
be made to d e t e m e the language to wluclz the uttered exprcssictn belong )
Sometrmes, PredeUi (20ojb) suggests, i t m ~ ever1
y
be aclwsable to asslgz1drc
perceptrble signal to a sentence that 1s not tonmdly conipatrl-tlewrth. it, IE tho
speaker's performance happens to be taulr-ybut 111\ or licr llngulrt~cintentrcrn a
s ~ ~ c i e n tmanifest
ly
to deten~i~ne
whrch cuyresslori sihe mterded (but &led)
to token.' Be that as it may, tlse repre\entatmnd problern bas to be solved hgove
semnhcs can apply to a gven utterance Sim111xly,behre \emantrcs can apply,
one has to decide w h ~ c hcontext the \entetice count<a uttered ln 'Tlu< rn*iv
sound tnmal but it is not. the relevant conte7ct need not b t the srtuahon m
which the utterance is actuaflv nude Irr Chqter 0 , I gmo dze following
exmple (&omKecanan 2ooob 271)
(14) It's been three vears smce w e lclr the Earth A couple ofweeks Bter the Last
Dav, we lost track of the other \pacesli~ps 1 d l don't know whdt happened
to nlv twln blother Wenrv If he r\ ~ l r v e he
, probahlv thtrtkb I cired in the

colllsloll

Let's lnlagine d ~ a ~t h l s15 the ftr\t parLag.y>l~

of a novel What rs the context
Ibr those sentences?A tint c,indidate n the .~ctrial\ltuatlonof utterance the
novehst wntes those sentence? at the 1)eglnnlltgof her novel. Yer the word
'I', in the third sentence, doe., not denote tlse novel~ct;mthe-r, it purport.$ to
denote a character tn the t-tovel-- the su ceded 'narrator' '%henovelist
pretends that (14) is uttered bv that chmcter, and IS thdt pretend c o n t c ~ l ,
rather than the L I ~ Z L ~O IRZ ~~ C X ~whicI115
,
relevant for ititerpretlng the serrterries
in (14). In the pretend context, the speaker (I e the narrator, cirstmct fwnr
the novehst) is on board a spaceship, he or she has a twin brother called
' Thus when George Bush, wllose collu~l~mnd
ol English 1%less dun pertec t, ir~csthe ~rorr-wold
rublunmable', r is clear rhit he inten& to hr uvrig be i n g h h ward 's.obimunli.

1x1, we woil't get the nght content, sulce (becduse octfie sub-claus,d context
shrft) we need tlrio cotztexts rather thm one. 1o uzterpret (12) or ( r j ) , we need
both the Lunent context and the sorirce corltex* S o the represenc;lnoxlal
p~oblern(In w h ~ hc ~ ~ i t e x
arc
t we to ~ntrrpretthe sexltertce?) cannot be
y ,coune, revice the Irr*unewc>rl\
5olved for tlie sentellce a n wltole. We m ~ ~oof
a i d decide, for exx*nple, that o ~ d ysunple expre\slorir \ a l l he &\slgnedctlrtracters. for nture ~0111plexexpresslon"r~lkesctltenc n,we wrll ti~rectlycor-trpose
tlre co~~tents
detcmur-ted by the ~hari~dcte17~
of the pait!! 1x1 the11 re\yechve
contexts, ~rrste~d
of fint cornyosmg tlte ch~ratters of tllz \crltel~tl,tlpasts to get
the clrrx~cterot the centertee, arid then determlnlng the toirtent of ~tle
sencencc by applymg t h t character to 'the' context o f tile ser~terlce (See
JSmg m d Srmky (zoos) for the sugqestion that we don't liec3 clwn~tenti,r
K~~?lalutu~
elmre sentences.) llut si~pyoscwe WAI% to \t~ckto thc ~~rrzevrsed
f~a.t~iework.
what cm we do;
I be ohvxous ,olutlort. cori\lsts in sernarltr~1;tn,o the context-\hltt and
, rt were, ~nterndto ttic c llarncter of the seriterlcc 1111s we
makrng ~ t rts
cjuotdhon ,I naetc~livrqlczttzcL ~ L ~ M ~ ~ C
can do by asslgiurlg to tllr sub cld~~s,*l
wli~cb111aps the context in W ~ I tlie
L ~st~b-cla~ii~f
quot.it~o~lC U J S jvi/ the
current context) to rile content expre\ced Ity the criclosed cxpres\iorl when
rnterpreted m the source context. C l i l thrs vtcw the cluotatlon m,rrb
fuunct~o~r
as '1 conttxt sfrlftlng operdtor cl rhat operator corrtbines w ~ t han
expresslor1 n (the expresslor1 w ~ t h
die cjuotatlon rn,rrhr) to yield An
cxpressron of the \&me type, and ~ h ~ fthe
t \ context for the Interpretatton
of cr horn the current context I to tl-te wurce context c' So, In the current
context, the chxrL~cter
of dn determ~rlcsthe srtme corlteilt ,is the cl.tardcter of
o In the source coxltcxt. 7 hrot~ght h r ~~einautlcl7~hon
of thc coiltext-sf~lft,
whicli 1s now hullt Into tlze ~ z ~ c t d ~ t ~ gcuh,mcter
n t ~ c of' tlie yuotaaot-t, we
cat1 Interpret the ceiltexlce with reyect to A slrlgle conteut (the cunent
contest) axlet get the nght results: I'ur the expresuon dlr which occurs rrt
the sentence 17 cuch that ow11 Ixlteqretahorx In tjzc cttnetzt cm~lextyroc eeck
vla tire nltcrprctatlorl o f u an the sorrrte c o n l a t
f have no objet tion to ruch arz analysis, wlrrch 1 aryseK put fimvarci 111
O I Z JOl~hqua,
~ E O Cjrutto Krcfa (Re~artdt~
2000b c-kt. 17) ' B L II~w ~ ~tol qtral~f\r
t
tire conclua~onthat the contr~buhonof the quotittlon 1s tlxereby \emantr~rzed'
, ?

'The context-sh~fi~ng
anaiys~shas its roots 111Kecanat~(1997)( w h t ~ eI use the 'ilefirt?rrtd opemior'):
bee also Benhzi (2004) ior a r ~analogoi~bproporal.

V ,

284

tc~iorcr-r
Y

In one sense it 1s-the context-skrft IS, d e e d , bulk mto the character of the
sub-clau\al quotabon-but m mother sense it need not be We c m accept
that the sub-clausal quotation l~asa netalurgwsnc character and can be
formally represented as da, where d is a context-shlfisng operator. But we
need not c on\ider die quotahon marks ul the object-language as themselves
such at1 operator Rather, we can mantan what I said earher about them:
that thetr only semanhc coritnbuhon n a conventional imphcature, to the
egect that the speakcr rs K-lng the enclosed words. In the relevant contexts,
the 5pcaker's R-iiig the erlclosed w o r S ruggests that a context-shlfi occurs
,it the boundary marked by the quotes; and such an intra-clausal contextshrk has a rern'illtrc eBer t that 1s best captured (wthln the standard Kaplanian kamework) by posrtsng a context-shlftlng operator in the abstract
as one of the Inputs to
fonnuld whrch represents the uttermce ~ n serves
d
the scrnarlhc ~naclilllery On this view, the context-shlf~ngoperator need
not have any syrltact~creahzatlon In the hject-language. the theonst uses it
to persp~cuouslyrepresent the context-shfing effect of the yuotatlonal
demonstrahon 'The sugges~oi~
1s that, whenever an intra-sentenha1 context
shrfi occur\, whether or not t t zs converzt~orzallystgncdled by a speczalzzed hngui~txc
dcvicc, ,i(o~ltext-sh~ftl~~g
operator 113s to be pos~tedthat 'represents'this
s
+AVO ophons
context chi& arid makes it visible to the semantic^.^ T h ~ leaves
open w ~ t hrespect to the quotat~onmarks* either we treat them as the
object l~ngtragerealirat~onof the c ontext-shlfting operator and g v e then1
the ~omspoiidmgsemdntics, or me simply corlslder that they signal the fact
t h ~ the
t speaker 15 K-lng the enclosed words, which tact in turn suggests
that A i013text sftiit occurs arlci n1ale.i insertlor1 of a covert operator d
appropndte l n the fi)r111alrepreserltahorl of the utterance. In Oratto Obbyua,
Ckutzo KL'L~U
I took the latter posrtlon (Recanat] 2000b. 1 5 3 ) , but I adnxt this
IS a c oi~trovenralissue

6. Echoicity
Should the quot'at~or~
marks be construed as a context-shifiing operator, or
do tliry nterely convey a conventiortd ~mphcature(to the effect that the
' In many uses we need to posit the context-shitting operator in order to get a cohererlt interpretanon. even if the context-shift is not explicitly signalled by quotation marks or anything else.

--

OPEN Q U O I A T I O N KEVISITI.13

285

speaker is R-ing the enclosed words) which pre-se~~iant~cally

atTecti, the
character of the utterance by suggesting a coritext-rhifi?'O rrfils qilestxon ic
directlv related to the ~ssueraised lar Cectlor~2 whdt 1s the conventrond
meaning of the quotatson marks;
The quotabon marks, 1 said, slgr~dtlratthe rpe&er w R-lng the enclored
twit opaom. either the speakor
words. What 1s the relatior1 K? I ~rrerrt~ox~ed
rnerely calls attention to tlie ericloseil \vorcl\, deninnrtr;ltes them, or, more
specllically, the quotatlon marks srpal that the speaker u\es the enrlosecl
words echozcally. Ifwe take the first ophorl, the echoic interpretatlol~n utilv
one contextual interpretation ofthe speaker's act of drawng atter~t~vrr
to the
enclosed words, among other possble lrzteqreuhonq. O n the second iap
tion, the echoic interpretatlor1 wlsat the quotatlon marks tkierr~selvci
O X I i~ieancthat one 15 uclng
encode: puttmg words m t h ~ n~ ~ U O ~ J ~ Il~larlir
them echo~caUy,that 15, that oiie rs thereby cvok~ngsome use of tlholc
same words m a source context r "~st~nr t from the c tirrerlt ccrntext 1 arn
going to argue that, &we clsoo\e tlus optlo", ir will be very liard to revst the
claim that the quotatlo11 mdrh are an object-larigtiage re~hzatlor~
ol tire
contest-shifting operator
I menuoned two cases of context sh.rCi I ~ Irub-clausal open quotatloll the
case in which the cluoted word\ 111clude ari rndevlcal expre\slorr wl-ruse
semmtsc vslue varies across conteut\. and the c,lx\e irr which the quoted
words iticlude an exprc\sion cvhose I~nguistsctlientiulg vane\ acres L o r r texts. In both cases, the content ofthe cnclosed words changes a rerult o i
the shtft. Now, most echolc ures are crlcfn that: the content ot the quoted
(4)-(6) once aga:axrr
words remains unals-ected Corislder exam~~ler
(4) John 1s very 'cool'.
(5) The dern~~~strabon
prov~de~
the 'mode of preser~tat~on'
of the referent,

hence d e t e m e s the conte~tud"censehoftho dt~monstrative

(6) Chateaubriand returned to Er-ancc ur 1800, bwlt-I~the < entu1-y'
These quotations are echoic (the qpeaker t ~ c l t l yrefers to sonle use o f the
quoted words in a source context Cfrstrnct jjjroill the current context), yet the

' O That the cluracter of an utterance may bc aEecrcd by prayrtiatic facts, rather than l~cirig
enu~ly
and exdusively determined by the convenbons of the iangt~age1n a context-independeru: nramcr, rs
something we know already koril the study of den.rorrscnhvc~.(A sentence in which a dem<>nstrat~ve
occurs ha a determinate character only if the demorutr:ative rs completed, in context, by ati appropnatr
'demonswation'.)

~ v o ~ be
~ l ~f
d we re~riovedthe
q u o ~ i t ~ oHnI ; K ~ S . '~LUS~1.ifih~
be taken to show th:li not all echoic uses
iuvoivc: ,r t.orirc.xt- slrifi. O n this v i e w , svt. ~ ~ 1 2resist
2
t l ~ eclnint that the
y i i o t a i i t ~ ~rn,irba
:
:~r.i. iiri o i - t j e c . t - l ; ~ ~ ~reaiizatiori
gu:~
of rkre context-shiiting
opcntor-, even r f w e tnkc tlrei*~t o encode rhc f i c t that the speaker is using
chc eric:b.usct.l wcrriis ec:huicaily.
IJrrt the n.Lison.iaig &tit Ie,~dsro that corultrsion is fi~nlty.A context-shift
ilx,iy trt-i rir u,tirl.rout ail;>c:tingtfre ccrnt:rrrl: cid'the wwt-ds it c:oncerns, so the fict
that (:el-taxrr cxc-E.ic>iclrst:s ilo r i o t ;lflk:ct' the coutcnr: c-rfthe cjtroted -~vords
does
not sliow tliat: rlcl context--stlifi occurs. 1 et us define a, coiltest-shik as
"ber~fges'tlrlrenevi.r tire content of tlre wc~rtis;it iss~leis the same in the
t.-rrrrerrt ci"lrltext ~ ~ the
r dsource corztext. 111 srrth cases the contest -shift has
110 dIi'ct ora ctriiterrt. Tlmt is. :arguably, what h;appens in (4)-(6): in virtue of
cErc coritt-xt- slnlir, thc w ~ r d'c-001' witllilr quot:itiorr rrrarks denotes the
property wIlic.lir elic wtrrci 'cool' derrores in] iirc sorirce ctmtest. Sirrce the
word kct~ni'derjotcs rhe same rhirlg ill the so~rrc-ecor3tcxt anc3 the current
colxrcxi, tllc word 'ccilol' within q~itrtirtloxini:irks dcr~otesthe same thing as
thc wonl ' C OOP'
w i t h c ~ u tthe i j i i o ~ ; i t i olil~~lrlrs
~~
(F.e. witliix~tthe shifi}. The
co~rccxt--silitris tticrc:iix-e beraigl: it does r r o t aKect the content of the
scel~ttric-c-;l7rat i t :iffi:(-a i ~ qt:b;rracter, sirrc.c tile t.haracteu of the expressiort
withrri ij;riotation rxriirks is x~clwrner;llirlguistic. Ag:lin, 'cool' witl~iriquot:aticir~ni,irAs L ~ C I I C P L C " , ~( C~ O~ (~~~'~~P Y L O ~ LSir?
T the rcrurcc c~>niicxt.
j7'liis fornula 'says'
d r a t r t ~ ei ~ ~ ~ ~t ~ t / '~~ i~ tC X C X ~ in
~ C~ ~L ISOSI C~Sis
O and
X ~ t ~ th2
r
snrrle time 'shows'
its ss~ct.:lli~rguishi~tl;il-:sc-ter.~')
Siirc~c~
ioiircvt-diifis c:tr1 'rx. benign, tlirre I:; rto rcnsorl to cle~lythat, by
lislrig: worth c*c-iioizaIiy, one slrifis tire corrtcst f i r their irlteq3retation from
dii. currerri conrcxt to the source contcxt. 7 ' k s nlay, or trlay ricrt, critail n
cjiiarigc~i x i c.oril.cnt tbr the er~clasedworiis, irrit in all c;~sesa change in
cliarnrrtcr rcstrlts. So,t o S ; I ~that tiire c ~ n o t n t i w i irnarks ror~ver~tiorr;~lly
rnearl
that orrr is iasirr;: r l i c i:riclused cvcjriis ecl;ralic:xliy is to say that they are an
c~i~jc*c-tiaxigxclagc
rc,ili~ationof'tite ctjritexr -shitiirrg opc:ratc)r d. On this view,
ttrc cqnotatiorr rrlarbs :ifL.c.t the character of rhe wc)rcls tliey nttacli to, niaking
i t rrietniialg~iist~c:
the i-lmrttc:ter of' a sub--d;rrrs;d opcrl cluotahoxl maps the
t-c~ritcrit~ ) fthe wtrtcrsce 15 tlre wrne ,1s i t

I'
Vli!i.it 13 b c ~ i ~ lgt t i < ~ tb: yr i ~ I I C~ t ~ b - i : I ~ i i i \open
~ t I ~jIIcIt*ItIoru
111 f h ~ S
s C I I ~ C I I C Cis I>umrt~eir'suse of the
Wittgcrictc~ixu.trrti~ow!c.q dl\troctroo 1.0 exphi11 t i k t ~iicath,rt A ilrcorp o f relkr-cr~cr
can 'scrvc as' a theory

of .ClI\C

c)~).N

~ C I iO11 I I O N I : ~ . V I S I

r e v 287

current context (the ( ontext iii \ v h i ~ hthe qtiotattor) 01-~'111->) t ~the

) corltent
expressecf by the cluotrci expression wLrtrl rrrterprctcd in the wtrrce torltext.
That rriet~hrrg~ilnt~t
char,icter Ir drfirlccl orlly t o r i ctntcut\ in wlllch tlrc
r
spe,lher (1 e. rile perion who cli~otei)tticidy rclcrr to \orrie ustA o f d ~ cj~iot~cl
' xwrCe C O I I L ~ Xi ~
' Cl~\t~llcr
fi0111 tllc C L I I ~ C I Iccmtext.
L
SO the
expressio~t$111
n thc kxoirlg some use
corrvent~oital~~nplrcclttlre,
to the effect tli,rt tile \pe&~ker
of e ci~rnncthorn ~ hcrrrrent
r
we, cast be ~cdescnhed,I\ A prrcriI)!Jo,tttotz of tlrc
y u o t i ~ t ~ oIn
~ icorltcuts rri wlrrcll tlre p r c s u ~ ~ p o \ ~ r not
~ x xt \\, i t ~ d i t (I
d c no
~tur,ittcr retklrns rro
use o i e ir echoecf by the speaker) ttlc r~rct~lrl,grrr>tic
c o l trllt.
~
W e strll have to choose between tht. i-ir\t arlri the \et c l n d optrorr ,is far . ~ s
nr rr ki I\ c ont crnc~J.l>o the
the corlventrondl s ~ g ~ ~ ~ f i t aofn cquot~tion
e
yuotatiori nrxik.4 inem t11,~t the er1c1ov.d words are usccf i~chol~,llIy
(IT)
wtlich C ~ S Cthey are t>e\t ar1,1ly\ec3 .ts a (C)rittx\t '1h1fi111g
operLxtor), or (10
they have a vaguer and morc gc.ncral rr-tcilr~i~rg,
to the cfkc t tJ~,cttlit~\pe,d,er
is deanonstrating the tilt losed .l.vo~-cji(tor some reawn or othcrli To answelthis question we trlust t l e t e n r ~ i ~tvlletlrcr
~e
;ill uses of cluot,rtjo~lmzrks are
interechoic, or wixtllel- the echoic interj>ret:iriorr is oilly orrc c.o~ltt.xt~iai
pretation among otlica.
It is pretty clear that riot all uses o f tluot:ttion rr~arks;we ecllctic. Many
irlstances ofcii-jseit q ~ ~ o t a t i oare
n not: the speaker t;~lksJI>OLI~WOI-dsurith(xit
evoking any use of those wortls iri a source context ciistirlc.t frorrx the crtrrerit
context. Example ( I ) belongs to t h i s r:~tc.gztryof Y1:it rtrentiorl'. (3rtc of the
rrlerits of tlre idea that quotatiorl rrxrrks arc :I d:irlgc:r sig11:~1by mc:ir,s of
which the spr;xker draws ,itreritioil to the words hc is crsirtg attcl 'cicri~ott
stmtes' tile111 is precisely tlrc fkct th3t it ~1pp1ie.sto botll open nrld closetl
ci~~otaticm
(tvbat clistinguislles closeti cjtlotation being at! acitiitictixai katurc).
In contrast, the rxlleged context-sllifiing filrtctiorl of iluotatio~tr~tarkscannot
be generalized to all cases ctf clrttjtntion. l3rtt this is not a decisive ol?jcrtior~to
tlie echoic view, tor the sernanric propertics of'ctosi:d tltiotation ;Ire, i r ~any
case, special, a i d it is by no mealls cle:tr that we c:in ,ic-hieve ;I ~ ~ r t i f i e r i
sernarltics for clpel~and closed cluotntiolt. So closetl q~~ot:lC;ort
i s n o t directly
relevant. Nor is clausal open cjuotation diret:tly re1ev:iut. 'VVh;it we arc
concerned with is snb-rkznsul open iltaalution, ior that is the type of rase that.
~ open quotaticxl (whether clatxsal or sub chusal)
casts doubt on the c l ~ t l nthat
is a pragmatic phenoli~enonthat (-ails hl-a rr~ulticfinie~rsior~alanalysis.
nlarks i n st~b-c-iausnlopcrr qrrot;ltioxl can urrifbrrirly
Iideed, if the cjuot:;~tio~r

be atialysed ar the context-shfiing operator d, this would a r p e in favour of

the type of rernanttr andysls w h c h Ceurts and N a e r provlde: a senianhc.
one-ciirnensiooal analysis. So the questlon we must answer 1s: Are all
instances of sub-clau\al open yuotdtlon eclioicj Or are there cases of f l ~ t
niennon anlong t i i e i ~ ~ ? ' ~
112 previous work I argued t h ~ there
t
are non-echoic instmces of subclausal open quotahon, met I provlded (7), repeated below, as an example:
(7) A

'fortn~ght'a a penod of fourteen davs

The speaker of (7) does not tacitly evoke sorne use of 'fortrught' In a source
context dnhtict troni tlie current context, I clamed. tle or she means to
corivey sontetlxng about the word 'fixtrught', wthout echoirlg anv parncular itse of r t This is a care of 'Hat mention' very much llke (I), save for the
fact that the qnoution 1s open rather tlzan closed
But 1all no longer so sure. Maybe the speaker of (7) is tacltly refemng m
some gerlenc rr~mnerto the use of'fortnight' by whoever, In the lmguistic
cornn~unity,conectlv uses that wctrd. Mdybe tile chdracter of 'fortrught' m
(7) IS rrlade tilctallrtgulsnc by the cjuocation nzarkli and can be spelled out as
thtng tnllrd 'Jortntght' or sometillng like that. If tills type of example a our
onlv reasor1 ifor resist~ngtlie echoic analyss, that 1s clearlv not suficient.
What a requtred, ~t thls stage, 1s a detxlled eniprn~dmvestlgatron of the
phenomenon of sub-clausal open yuotation, in order to ariswer the quest ~ o nare there trnrnlstakable ~nsta~~ces
of flat nieritlon among them, or more
generally cases t f ~ cannot
t
I)e given an e c h o i ~~nterpretation?For the time
beuig, 1 want to remain agnostic a~ictwrll leave that Issue open.
Where does thir Leave us \.nth rerpect to Geurts and Maer's cntlcrsm of
the nzulti dmenslonal malysls? Let us look at thelr own axlalys~s.In the
relevant type of caw, they clcui~i,
the quotation rnarks around an expresliion
e presuppose that there 1s a speaker x,a use-event u dlstxnct fiom the current
use. and d11 entlty % (of the same type AS the re_rmlrrr denota~onof e) such
that u lnvolves x's expressirzg % by riieans of e. Besides t h ~ spresupposition,
whlch u to be resolved by eltber bindmg' x, u, and Z to su~tableantecedents provlded by the coritext or by 'accommodatmg' them, the regular

" Gomez-Torrmte ciamms that there are also non-echoic uses that are not instances of Aat mention.
Fie mentions cenairl 'scare-quotitig' u s e that he thinks are not echoic (zoos: 150, fin 16); but I am not
convinced by his rxanlpie, which seerns amenab1e to a corrtext-shilnng analysis.

(3PRN C?IJOTA,Tl<2N R E V I S I T E D

289

semanac content of the quotatlonjust n the entity Z, which it denotes 'The

upshot is that, ~n the current context, the yuot;ltlon denote? whatever d ~ c
quoted expression denotes in the source context. 7h1s is roughly equxv,*ler~r
to the 'metahnguistic cl~aracter'analysi\ 1x1 terms of the context-shzftr~ig
character theory 'dso appeals to
operator d. Note that the rrtetalnl~e~,t~c
presupposition (see above) But the bxndlng theory of presupposition ui
which Geurts and Maier couch their proposal enables them to r11d.e clear
what distinguishes their account frorn trjvo-dlmenuond approac he\ srrlce
they treat presuppositions as a fonn of amphora that has to be 'resolved' rn
the course of semantic ulterprekiticrorl (rather than a a separate colxiporrent
that 1s 'passed along' as we nlovc ixp the sernantlc tree, as In Potts's niultr
&mensional analysis), they are able to provide a one dnnenslol~aitreattnenc
that integrates the convent~ondconrl lbut~ctn ot rluotdtloxl nldrB5 with
regular semantic content
Should it turn out that sub-~lausd (open cjtrotahon 1s always cchorc.
I would have no objection to thrs at~aly\ls Aga~n,~t is roughlv equlvalexrr
to tlle metaluiguisac cliaracter approach of <J)rut~o
Ohltqw, Oriatzo Kccrn
But that does not niean that I g v c up twn-dlnien\~on.~I~sn~
irr thc anal.ir;rs oh
open quotation. I tliink we still need two dintensrotis, even d we at cept the
Geurts-Maier analysis. h r we st111 haverr't r apturecl the corztcxtr~altneanal;?
of the quotation, w h ~ c hhds to do with the reasctll why tl-rc spe,~lierr q
echomg tlie source's use of the \anre words 1x1 ,oixxe caes, the \peaLerss
a m is to u~forrnthe hearer that the soulce used the yuoted \vol-dc, 111 other
cases she wants to &stance herself kern tlrose c~urdsor to ~niiicatethkt <he
does not fully endorse them, becau\e d.lev are lrladecluate or for whatever
reason the context nlay make n~an~Cest,
~ x stdl
l
other case$ she want\ to
appeal to autholty by using words recoguzably associated with the sour i c,
and so on and so forth if we leave as& wtlat I called 'the contextual
mearung of the quotat~on',we get onlv a tmncateii account
I conclude that. even lf we take echoic-rt\i to bc the convenhonal ?~.gr~.lfi
cance of sub-clausal open quotation, w e st111 need a complex picture with
several leveb, in the spmt of what I proposed We still need to thstlngurch

' 3 I say 'roughly' because the C;eum- M:uer ,urxiysls :dlows tirrr scope jltTerer~ces~ v t r ~ c
t rhy analysis ln
term? of cliaracter doesn't allow--an advanage for ~lteni,urrdoubtedy, if the rdevan readings can Ire
attested.

Erc:tr;rrcerr iss~rusA, li, 2nd C:. The alkswcrr

tl1c fi>l~o\v~~lg:

u
7
c

get ifcvc take this option are

e j 13: d :or2~p~'rot1iirzcd
nlt'~~ir1q
if I ~ Cq~iotlz(iot1marks] 7'11c" C ~ I I O L : ~ ~ ~
rnarks
OII
signxi that tlii: sjic.;ikcr i s wing tlxe errc-Iused wor-ds echoic-ally arid tacitly
rckrs t t r sclnxlc use o f ' the same words In a sotirce context c t (to he
corrcexi~x;rliyitlentitieci}"
* 1 A: ~ t e ~ ~ ~ i r ~ q / ~ of r t11t:
r t c q~iott!(/
nt
~,t)ordsjS~llltlliti(.~lly,
this has the effcct
i r i ' a;liifiirig the context &.>rtl.ii. interpretation of-the etrclose~twords,
r l ~ a k i r ~their
g c:Vlar:rcter rrl~talirrgrristic-.'This rri;ty. or m:y trot, dfcct the
cor iccirr oi' thi= i.vords irr citrestion.
* 1: C.'ontt~xtti'tiriz~(lniri~q
qj' ~ I Z ijtlot(iiiol~I
C
I'rag~ri:ltically, this raises tile
i k s i r e tri' t l ~ c' c ~ u o t a t i o r ~ npoirit'.--dre
l
speaker's season f i r ecl~oing.
I-llc ,rxrswe.r t o ih;it C~IICS~IOII
provi~iest l ~ c~ o ~ ~ t e x tmeaning
~ial
of the
ipiitra:iritrrr, which rernains separate (Llthoi~gI~
it may ;~tlkctthe tn~thc . i ) i i ~ j i t ~ ov1~3~tsr ~ v~ I I ~ ~ C ~ T I I C 2s
I I Ii1111I~ate(l
,
ir-r Section 3).

7. WIIXCCJ C X U O ~ ; I ~ ~the
O I ~t-d~~~'~"IldB>Xlity
:
issue
T h r gist c s f tire j-)cq~?;nraf;c
npprcx:lrfr I acivucatc is thttt if~ioration
involves the
$peak;.crqsc i i i i q aonlething ("R-ing' the qrrtri-ecl wcrrcts, wlintever that mrns orrt
to tic) drrci rhcrcby ~rl~ylyiltg
:intrrr~berofthkrgs having to do with the reasopts
wiiy c/hu docs so. 7'11~contC..itxr;rl r~rranirrh:~I'tXlc:(/~~otdtioil
is sometlGl-7gwe
gct to tl-tro~iglriritc,rpr-ctir~gthc spc;rkcr's ,tr.tioxi, r i o t st~rlietl~ing
t h ~ rcsul~s
t
kiie>rri xlic~-ir,lrric.;iiiy'~pl7lyitlg;L sct ot'rriles. Whcbi:frer or riot, scr~~aiitic;dly,
the
clt~~i"iifi>n
xn":~-Xcsi'iirrctiot~*u c~)rltex~-sl~ikix)g;
O~C*;IIOI-i l i t ~not change tl-zat
b3sk' p i s i t i o i ~ . It ~ l n ybe th;it thit ~ja1ot~tio1>
I I W C ~ Ss ~ s c < : I T ~ ~ni&ct
I . ~ c the
;~~
rrit.:inirig oi'cEic scbxrtcrlcethey occlrr irr, wielrotit the conrextu;il n~enrringctf'the
cv~fi-'~t~
k sx di "f resnhrrg &onr the applicrrtior~ot'sernarrtic rules.
Ntrr i s talc pr~g~:rn:xtic:
appro:~"h-under~.rrirlcd
Ily the Gct that the contextu~l
nrcarririg of' a-he c.~rrotation rr~nkes a dif1l.rer-r~~
t o the utterar~ce's truthcolrt-licior-is-Ttrar i t tioes i s shoxmr by the pherlorrxe~lotrknown as 'mixed
c111u"tatitrrl'. Mixed cluotatio~lis the c s e , il2nstrated by (10) ; L I ~(12). where
a*) cittcfiuicr wXkli-11 reports n loc:r~t*ioxl:lrya r l p e r f o n r i e d by some agertt x
spec-itivs LIE cc,r*tcr.rt oKrh,tt act I-ty i.tsirlg a 'that'-clause as cctrm17lenient of tlre

locuwon~iry\ielb I/', arid at the sane bllle spec~her(\ori~eof) the words ,ictudly
a ' ~ u ~ - c ~ ~ L~ LI ~I sO, A
~ ~
J O111ude
O ~ ) tfl~
'thdt' (-1~~1\e:
used by tile dgerll tl~ro~igfi
(LO)

(12)

In :2.fii.lzoirt.s d'cllrtut,-totrzbr, C:hateaixbri:ir>clwrote that Ite rrtlrrned to Fmiice

it1 1800, \\\nth the crr-ltury'.
Pat11 says he's due to present h i s work in tllr 'paper xss"ix~'

An utterdace hke (10) irlt~~itlvely

enta~1.5that ( :hdtc~itt~nand
used the word\
'lit t h ~ r\t k)emg reportetl In
'with the century' In perhniirng the locuhor~~iry
general, 3. mlsed-iluotat~oxiduttewnce 's i7-eJ that
' eirt,irlr t113t
'- '
the lo( ut1oi1ai-y,tct Vth,it 1s
the ,tgent x u$eJ the quoted wvrcis 111 perfi)l-r?i~~~lg
r l tcjue\hon
'
to ~ c s n l fio~il
t
free
be~xlgreportecl. NOLVI ~1k.t: the ' e n ~ ~ ~ l m c 1x1
rtre;irurrg of tile cluctta
ennch~nerltthrough i u t ozpor<inorlof the contcxtu~~l
tl~rouglithe fitllowg rx~ech~~r~lsrn
hon. More preclselv, ~t n ger~er~ited
L3)r ostens~velyqirot3rtg the wureis 111 tllc corttext of rc,portln;: C,lr,l
te~ubnanJ'\descnptlorl c>fhisreturri to Fr,lnce, ilre \pr.aber nlanlfe\ts
to tnfonil the i ~ c , ~ rthat
e r Ch,rtclr~ibr~anit
uwd tllo5e very
h ~ lntentlon
s
u~l
of the quoLttKotr
wolds 'That 1s t l ~ e' r o ~ ~ t e s t rrieanlng'
2 By thn5 ni&ing 111s rnto~indt~vtulterttrori rr~ttt~~ally
n r ~ ~ u l c <tlic
t,
<peaker co~linturucatesthat piece of ~rzi;>nndtrotlto itie hedrer j ~ r l
tile Griceai~serlse oi'coxnrrriililt atTotr 35 ' I K ) x I - I I , ~ ~ I ~ ~r~lean~ng')
A~
3 The prece o f ~ r i t i ) r l i l d t ~tllt~\
~ > ~prdpi,iticaily
i
fn~pnrtetjoverl,ip\ wlth
the utter,ulcr7ssem,ruitrc ror~te~lt.
2nd fine\ w ~ t bit ttirct~lghthe rnezha
nism of free erzr~cl~lrlent
l4
I

Many author5 reject the tree cl~rlcf~rricrlt

dccoilitt, b e i d u ~thev tltlni,
w h ~ t e c e lis clt.,trly pdrt of triltll ( o~idttrons~ I I L I he.
S ~ tee oiirited Tor in ternr\
ilt
fix
trf serrlalrtrc r~lles O f courw, thns c'tnnot be the ~ r g ~ ~ r n eillvolied
rgzctlrlg the at coiirlt, srnce that wori1r.l beg tile quc\tlctn So w11,rt is the
qywnent7 Well, the o ~ d yarglrnlent X have Reen eupo.\cd to 1s the fc\lIow~rrg
P he relevant 'cntxrl~~ient'(to the effect tb,~tC:h,rtedubrr~rtci llreci thctse
w'iy
words) cannot srrrlply be a prag111;ltlc suggeqt-on that ttns .tourid
into \ernanhc content, fix l i l t were, lt $hotlld be tnrrn31fahicz- hut It 15 notf

'' fbe sane niecllailxsm 1s argual)ly re.;pornble f i r the "clr~riyconrrzistlve enu~lrnents'vvh~ct~

Poth
(zoo.-/)detecu m the following srntcrrcrs:
(i,r) Wltexr

111

Santa Cruz, t'etcr ordt-n '/er/p~lcots'a t the locd nnrkct.

at tlic local rrilwkri.

(ib) Wlien in Ai~llrent,Peter iitiiers 'j,zj~iriiirt~'

--

---

This 1s the Gncem test for tellulg apart the seniantlc &om the pragmatic:
pragmAac suggesaons, by the~rvery nattlre, can be cancelled, either contextually or eqhcrtly I agree that ~trs tbrs sort of consideration that should
be appealed to for settluig the Issue, though, of course, 1disagree that m the
present c;r\e, the test argues aganst the Gee ennchment account.
Cappelen and Lepore have exphcitly appealed to car~cellabhtyin arguing
d g ~ ~ nthe
s t plagrriduc approach to m ~ x e dquotation (Cappelen and Lepore
zoojh, 3007) Their argument proceeds m two steps.
r If a corriponent of content expressed by a sentence S is not cancellable.
then we hdve good reaon to thlnk that this feature is part of the
sernantic content of S.
2 In XI Irn1,znce of livxed cluotation like (lo), or Cappelen and Lepore's
own exlzlrrplc (IS), the a\cnptiori of the quoted words to the agent
whose locutlonary act IS being reported (Chateaubnmd in (lo), Alice
1x1 (IS)) callrrot be cancelled.
(1,)

Alice t a c i that BIB Climtoil is 'smooth'

Chateaubriand used the worck 'w& the century' in

perfornlrtrg the lotuttorzarv act which (to) reports, (15) entals thdt Ahce
used the exac t word 'smooth' when she described Chnton as smooth. These
e ~ i t a r h n e ~are
~ bnot cancellable, C;appelen and Lepore say. That they are not
'1s evidenced by the fact thdt there are no true utterances of (16)' (Cappelen
and Lepore 2oo5b. 66):

juct a'r

(16)

(10)entlzil%that

Alice cdd that Ntll Chtorr

15

"slriooth', but she never used 'smooth'.

Now X accept the first prerlliss in Cappelen and Lepore's argument, but I
reject the second prerniss. Indeed, both in Orntio Obliquu, Orutio Recta and in
'Open ()uotation7, I pointed out that the ascription of the quoted words to
the ngent of the locutiorlary act being reported is cancellable.
A mixed quotation is a sentence of the schematic form 'x Vthat p' where
the "hat'-clause contains a sub-clausal open quotation. Let us grant that subclausal opeu quotations are (typically) understood as echoic: the speaker
tacitly refers to sorne use of the quoted words by some agent y in the course
of a speech event e. T o get the entailrne~ltthat x used the quoted words in
performing the act V which the sentence reports, it is necessary that the
reportee x and the echoee y be one and the same person. Furth.er, it is

oprrj

Q C J O~ A I I C I NK XV I \ I I ~ ~ . I P293

necessary that the locuhonary act Vand the speech event e be identrfied
Even when those c o n & ~ o n are
s met, we get the relevmt en~llrnentoxdy 1f
the speaker's '~~uotaaonjl
pomt' I \ a\cnphon,ll lftt rs not, we don't get the
entalment. So there x e three ways to contextudly 'cancel' tile ilnplrcdtrnrr
that x used the quoted words in perfor~mngact V We rndy conte~hrally
equate the echoee wlth some person 11 # x, or tve nay equate x and y brtt
take V to be perfbmied ui a speech evelit el dnt~nctfrom tile speech went
e belng echoed, or the point d the yuotatlon m ~ 11ot
y be ascnpaonal (ibr
example, the speaker may slniply wish to clrstnrlce bllliself &om x's tr\tS of
that word). In all such cases it wzU not bc part of die truth-mnrlltloris of the
utterance that x used the quoted word\ 111 pe&>nnmpact Ti.
Take Cappelen and Lepore'r exaniple (I.;) T o get nd oftlle eirtailnlerlt that
Ahce used the exact word %n~ooth\vherrshe described CXnton as rrnootlz, we
only have to inlagme a context m whch, bv mmg \ii~ooth>choicaUy, the
speaker tacitly refers to sollie use of the word \moot!>' by some agent y ~hstrnci
Jiom Ahce. That person y might be the bearer, as 1x1 th15 vanant
t
C
i

(17) Ahce sad that Chnton

rhe word h e used.

15

'smooth"

AS

you worrld put rt (3f c oitrie tl~at'i,xlot

The 'as you wotild put 1t' is oyt~ondrt muty be ~ontextrrallyclear that the
speaker is echoing the hearer" uu\e of: \\mooth' rather theinAhce's we have
to i m a p e a scenano In w h c h that wvrcl 1%saliently a\\oclated ivrtlz the
hearer, perhaps because he keeps usrrig rt, while IC is kno\.vn that the word
does riot belorig to Ahce's \iocahuinrv ) 50 1 tbrrlk ~t 1s quite poss~ble,~n the
nght context, to Irnagme sorrleolie 5rnvhly uttering Cappelel1 and Leyore's
'imposs~ble'sentence (16) '"
In Orirtio Oblrqiln, Orutzo Kectgz 1 gave an example 1r1 wluch a thrd party's
use of-the quoted word rs belng e d ~ o c d
(18) Paul says that Q u ~ n ei's late f??rlus own

~ I I ~ P X .

In chapter 7 1 used the rrotio~lof'intenlai targec' co rel2.1-to the use being echoed. The target, rhas
understood, involves botti a particular agent and a particular speech rverit. However ~tis better to clearly
iiistinguisl~bztwecn t21c age~irand the everit. as Geum ,snd Maier do 11) tlleir o t h e m s e sjnuiar account.
Here the quotation marks around 'ur,possible' are to be interpreted hv rtriEiing the world
coordinate of the cozitext. This e m ~ l p i eis anliog<ousto thr 'your aster' exanlple dicussed u~C:hap~er
7, $5.3.

L t * i ~ laiclnrc
g
,111~
echortl

Irere Ir ( m o t IQul's, but).J~zrnes'r mrs~xkienuce

o f t l l c r8'iirrc. Xo;!lrunu' t o rchr to Mcl41ersorr the s p c ~ i h o&(x8)
~r
xuo~k_mgl~
r n w i k ~ i trldrirr LO refer to J\I1cl~llersi>r1
III liep(9rt111g I)Au~'c
5tntelnent t h ~ he
t
(McXP1~critrli)
I \ Sate fhr 111s ow11~ . " V " S 1 /he LISC (91 the 1la111c'(Pulne' IS not
.~scnE~cd
rci drr pznorl (Paill) wl~osc
locirtrc>n,rry t 15 hc-mg reported. The
p ~ ~ f i oXn ~ I WLI\~L" i ~the
f l1dlTIe '%)LIIVIC'
irexng e ~ E l o c Jrs Lt t h d pdrty
O,ieizc\j who ~ili'it,~ki'c
P J I C X ~ I I ~ ~ ~~ OO IIQ
I u ~ ~ c
I lie f r c t r11,at the use (3ifthe I I ~ ~ I'(2ultlc'
V
~ ~ b i ib al nl g~echocst
~
111 (18) n
;i r r r r \ t ~ h t m,nxA ~icvr,rr~it
r~sc--1rLe the ir\e ot ^pGiper7
ln (12)--1s LII trrrlevant
bcit~rre. of t111s PJITICIII,!~exLul\ple-wlrlc\.r w,ls ong~rully~rrtroduced 111
( c\ru\ci UOLI '1~1th
the p h ~ r ) o l l l e n o01-~ ~jllltr~c l ~ u s d j1'~ngu~ge-ihlft.
It 1s
tX,t4y t o get ~ i i 01
l thdt fcdtrlre wl111t. rctxrrlxrig the strric trrre ofthe e x ~ ~ i ~ p l e
B cr 114 I I X I L ~ I ~th,it
C " LIIC P C I ~ O I I \rl tlo t i \,t~d
to ht41dti"fix h ~ OWXI
s
paper 15
C ) u ~ x l c l ~ r ~ r r s e imil
i , tlz,it the y c ~ k o ru'itixi (10)

WPrr ir r\

(10)

lDdrrl ~ y ' i11,it

i '~iVlr(Zuinc-' i s I;rtc hrr h i s c.rwir paper"

r m y be that the use o f the W O ~ I ~'Mr

S
Qzrine' which is being
csa:iri>c:il
EII (19) i s tlieii- use by :
I third p;irry, Jarr~ihs, w11o always rekrs to
(,)iiilic as %lr i,)rrirrc9. Yarrl is riot :Iw:kre ot'tl~acii(.t, and he sinlplv refers to
Q i ~ i r ~ as
r . ' C , D I I ~ ~ P C ~ ' .Rut WI~CX:!rcporti~~g
his I o ~ u t l ~ ~act,
~ l lthe
~ y speaker
ironic-'diy srscs j:itrics's l-rtirrrase. 'l'his is a rtc. r?. report : there is no intentiou
t r t i tRrrb s~rcaber's~m-t
to ascril,c"l~c rrsr of'thc plzmse 'Mr Quine'to Paul,
.
.
whose SPCCCII ;KIT Ixc is rcportulg. t'he speaker heely chooses that pllrase to
rcport Ititci's staternrzlt ( t h ~ t ' swhat nxskcs the report de r ~ ) a, r ~ dthe use of
t-Bxit plicase i a i t.Lre spedxr's niorrth i s clearly ecl~oic:it irorlitrally echoes
Jait~i:.;' use oi'it. X?I tlris context, the su:~c:stiorr that P5arxl (the agent of the
repwtccl locirtior~:~ry
act;) usccl the ijuc~ted~ k m s ein perfbrnlkg the locutloriiiry ;ri:t that i s Ireing repor-tccl is clearly ;ibse~it.?'his sl.lc>\vs that the
srigs:c.:\~ion in C ~ I X ~ * S L ~ OISI I c~ntexz~~ally
c,lncellab>ie.Accordiizg to Grice's
clr:irac,tc.nxatir,rr, ara ir~~plicatuze
'is corrtextu;rily carrceliable if one can find
iiitirar-io~lsirx wlrii,h the utter;uicc"of tijrel fornl c~f'wordswoidd sixrlply not
c;irry r he ixirpircatrrre* ((-;rice r98c~:4-41"In the CLW of Y I I ~ X C Cquotation,
~
the
reicvarnt 'fdi,rrrr r ) f words' is a serttcncc "x 1* that y' where the 'that7-clause
Ag'irrr

"

it

i*liii i i

LVWI-~ i m i t t i t

rcintriiscent irf t t x 'M. Arig~ntc'rsaoipic. wtiiclr 1 ~iiscrisseciat icrigth in my first piece of

~-1~tus~d
optw q t i u ~ ~ t (b<e(-,ir~;tti
~oi~
IO/$J Ji. 4)

roritJlra an open cluot'ltlrtn. Fi., (17)-(~9)sflow, notlnrrg 15 ea\~ertllaln to Ilnd

sltuatrons ul C V ~ L I Csuch
~
a Corirt of words doe!, not c axy the trrlpirc ~trorlthat
the Agent x u e d the cjuotcd wordi m performing the KC I;' whtclt r\ belrtg
reported.
It IS surpn\mg that C~ppelcnarid Lepore u,e the ca~~cclI'lb111~
argurrleltt
and
dgalrl~tthe prdgrlldtlc at count; for In both flrtltio obitquit, Orcrfro Rert~~
"Open Quot'itlon', I yotnted crut that the relevtux 111113bc,>taon1s c~ltcell~bic.
t d ~ dso in titotrrc~tes,huwevcr, alxl thwe footnotes app,rreritly esc~ped
Cappelen arid liepore's attel-ttloxl or] tkierr furrt readrxig. When they tooh
notlce, they came up wlth d response (C:appelcil artd Leporc 3oo5b. 67-4))
whlch lla~alio ternlmxl other colmxrent=itors (Golrrm-'Corrente zoo5
13.~-5) and whlc h 1 am rlow golng to d~sclrss.'l'11e methodoIogtc'11 ilIszL1e.i
bouxrrj~ryprovide 'in apthey raiw cone zrtllng the senlantl~s/yr,~grn,~tlcs
of thli ciraptcr, and oftlui book
pn>pndte top" for the cc>n~l~tdrng
sect~ox~

('appetm mcI Ixporc arid Ck~mez-7orrerite argue t'tl,lt we shouldn't \pet&

ot 'canc ellabllrty' rf the form of worljs a t Issue IS, or c,tn he wker-1 to bc,
'~t~lbsguou\C:otnsitler an ar-r1blpou~form oC word5 f+, for example the
orrertte',
qentence 'I am going to take a bath close to the bank' ((GOIII~L-'1
example), uttered r r l J. context c that rn&.es a c crt.iin re~lllitlgK sd~ent(e.g
the readmg ori wlz~ch'bank' I:, taken ul the sense of ruvt.a BANK) S~nceF 1s
antlul@mus, it wll l-te posirblc to find a sltuatrcm (,L co~ltext)c' u1c11 tlrat,
reading Ri (e.g the re~ding0 x 1 wtniclr
were F tokerled In c', an ctirernat~ve
sense) would be more sdllent than K. I>oec
'bank' u taker 1x1 thc fin~nci,~l
tlris dlnotrat to c~ntextctaily'cancell~rig'whatever ttnpht ahorls cf~,tt~lgtru~\lt
fS
from K'? Wo~~lci
the add~tionofthe worcii '1 don't rtzear~cloita to tfar rlver
tell blc>cl\\ way' coutlt L,\
bartk, I mca11 clo\c to die findrictal tllst~tutilo~l
exlyl~cltc aric eu,tt~or~
of 31) unplrcature? Of cottrse not. 't'hts example \bows
that C;nce's clxasacten7atlon of canceEaI>lfityrl-roirldhe used wrth cdre for a
nleanirig component in earned by an utterance of I: to count ac 'cancellable',
hence as a candidate ~nlphtaturc.~t n clearly not eizough tlut tone can
find sltuntrorks In W \ I I C ~an utterance of F would not c a q that nlearllltlg
applies o~zlyto iortxls of
co~nxponent.G n r c ' ~cancdlablhty te5t ,~g~?~ficantly

words that are not (relevantly) amb~guous;for ambiguous expressions pass

the test for tnv~aireasons chat have nothmg to do wlth ~mphcatures.So, rf
the form of word5 we want to apply the test to n anlbiguous, we should
disambiguate it (I e rpec~fythe rntended readtng) bi$ore we apply the test and
niake sure that the expression is taken in the same sense m the ongmal
context c and the alternative context c' in wfuch the alleged implicature
dnappears
Now, precnely, all open quotatrorl in the complement clause of a locutionary report is ambiguous, accord~ngto Cappelen and Lepore. That
arnblgu~tyIS due to the fact that quotahon marks are carelessly used both
for quomg (their properly sernarlhc flncnon) and for 'scare-quotmg'
(a Qstlnct Euilctlo~lwlth no SemanhC import). According to Cappelen and
I,epore, \care-quotlng has nothing to do with quoting, semantically, so the
quotaeon marks ~houldbe treated as ambiguous (or rather, as they put it, as
havlng a 'du,rl u\age7). Smce that 1s so, the alleged canceUahon effected
by context rn my examples (18) and (19) s~mplyreflects the fact that,
by charqgng the context, we sh1f-t the (most sdent) readrng of the sentence
horn the qtrotational reading to the scare-quote reading, j u t as, by chmgmg the conteut, we can \hlft the most sahent rea&ng of 'bank' hom the
nvcr reading to the financial readmg. If, befbre apply~rlgthe test, we
daaaibip,itr the sentence (as we should) and g v e the quotation marks
the quotahonal reding (both m c and c'), then the entdnlent turns out
to be non~'~ncelIahle!That u Cappelen and Lepore's response to my
examples Gorney-Torrcnte, who agrees wrth me (agamst Cappelen and
1,epore) that tl~emixed-quotatlctnal ascnpncrtn of the quoted words to the
reportee 15 cancellable, agree$ with them thdt my example (IS), because it
involves xare quotes, 'cannot convlnce someone who does not aLcept that
mark hdve the same meanmg' (Gomez-Tonente
uses of the q~lotatio~i
zooj r 35)
Before ctrnsidenng the rrl~tiorlbetween cancellabibhty and ambigpity in
mine drtnrl, let rrle first point out that the use of 'scare quotes' 1x1 my
examples 13 not e~aential What (IS) and (19) x e meant to dustrate are
cases UI which the echoee is distinct horn the repoaee. That the speaker of
( I 8) and (19) 1s ~roii~caliy
inochng the echoee, or distancrrig herself&om
the eclloee, is an Irrelevant feature of the example, which c a l be removed.

O P E N QLJU I A L I O N K E V I S I T h l 3

297

In t h s respect example (17) appears quite difkrent, and I uonder what

t
Cappelen and Lepore wortld say about - ~t8
m o e v e r holds that the use of quotlltiori nlarhs m scare-yuotmg examples hke (18) and (19) has nothli~gto do w t h their quotllbond me in (so)
and (IS) d have a very Iixd brne defenhrrg the same hne with respect to
the followmg examples.
(20)
(21)
(22)

fice sad that Clmtor~IS 'slnootlr', to u\e her a w l word

fice sa~dthat Clinton is 'ssmootll', a\ she put it
fice sad that Chnron 1s 'ssnooeh', as you woulcl put ~ t .

For it is pretty clear that (20) m d (131) are very sirdar to Gappelex1 and
Lepore's own example of mixed q~lot;ltloli(IS) the addit~onalphrase 'to me
her own word' or 'as she put rt'mnply rr1ake.i explicit that tlre quoted wordc
are ascnbed to the reportee. So I don't t h u ~ kCappelen aid Lepore can denv
that the yuotahon marks ftinctiori in tfie \aim way in (20)-(21) and in (IS),
(ro), or the other exaniples of rn~xedquoutlon The problem, ii,r thern, 1s;
that (22) n extremely slnvlar to (21) the n m n ~ixfferencers dtat the addin o d phrase contalnr second penon pronoun in5te~riof a thrrd penon
pronoun (that is what inxkec tlre echoee distlnct horn the reportee) In a
nutshell (32) is extremely s~rnilarto (21)whlrh 1s exbenlely sinvlar to (rc;)
N o sharp demarcnhorr between two distmct ren~fmgsor "usdgel' crf the
quotation marks can plausibly be invoked here Now (17), the exzxnple
which is supposed to demonstrate the ( ancellabilrtv of tlie mixed-quot,it l o n ~ limplication of authorsll~~,'"-2nd the p o ~ s ~ b l l ~oft yCappelen 2nd
Lepore's 'irrzpossible' sentence (10) --IS nothing but ( 2 2 ) plrrs m ac3d1rronal
sentence cancelling the iniplicatrox~m qixest~on'In tliic Lace, 1 think, the
'mb~guity'or 'dual usage' responce r\ hopeless
Now I turn to the methociolog~cdirrue. when arid how can we apply the
cancellabhty test? If a meanmg conrponerit m is an unpliczture or jrllore

Reuncr gves an exanlpie hke (r7), Ibr whrclr she crecirts Ph~iippeDe Ur~lxnrtcr(Relrncr
~ ~
~~nerriied
m deinonsrratr cancell3005: 180). See also Gonlez-Torrente 200s: I jj ti21 a S U Z I e.unipie
ability \vlthout relying on scare-quonng. Benb~ji(2005: 35) also nlentlvos the possibility that clle i.ciloce
might not be the reportee, but strangely shies awav froxri the i:onclusitm tha~are nuxed-q~ocanorial
implication is cancellable. on the grounds that the cunvenrrond inlphcature/presrlp~~0s1h~11l
that somr<)nr
used the words is not.
" I will henceforth use that phrase to refer to the 'en~~iimrnc'
allegedly contributed I>ythe iponoon
marks in mixed-quotationd sentences (to the cfiixt &at dre reportee used the quoted words rn
prrrforming the locutionary act V that is being repolzed).

Before proceeding, let me rlotc tlki~tthe sitiration is exactly t11c slime in

tlie present c;1se ;md in the classical cases iri tvlzicfrl the c;ricea~~
criteriz have
been applied to est;tblish the pragrn:ltic nature of' an im1,lic:ttiorr. ( :c)usicfcr
the
'and' arid "or'. 'l'lrc colzuer:tive 'or' fi;ls two pnrna Gcie 'reacli~~gs':
inclrisive reading and the exclusive reading. It ntay be takerr to be axnbiguous I7cmeext the two reaciings, but it is also possible to take the inclusive
reading to be the only 'litel-rd' re;rciirtg oftile connective, arld to ilccount for
the exclusive 'reading' by positing at] ixlrylit-ature that corrlbines wit11 the
iiterd readir~gin sor.ne contexts. On this pragmatic ;~nalysis,the two 'read
tile
iags' are simply: the reading wit11 the ir~tplicattlre(exclusive reading) :);~nd
'plain' reading w i t l ~ o ~the
i t itnpliiature ijtrlclrtsive reattirig). <;sic(%sixrrilat-ly
;txguetl that 'arid' is not anlbiguous, that is, tlnt it llas c.)nly oxtc literal
'rer~cling' (die logical reading): the vanous otlter 'reactirlgs' (thc tcnrporal
reading. the caus:ll reading, etc.) nli result Si-om the additit111 ctt'all iniplicat l tiisprove the ambiturc. Now, of course, ca~icellabilitycannot Ire ~ ~ s eto
guity ;mdysis; for i f 'or' were anibig~~ous
hetweer~the two I-eactittgs, h e
exclusivity itnp1ic:ttiolt would he prinra facie c.:lrlc-ellhie. Czaric-cllabiiitydoes
not tell US wt~ichaxidysis is right.'"
't'llr ilnair~tool in (;rice's hirtrcis for sho~vixzgtlt;xt a nlcan jng conlponent is
prag~~~:itic
mtl-lcr than sel~i;irlticis the metllodologt-:tl prcc-ept llc callect
'Modified Occam's Razor': Do no1 mralllply s c ~ s r sb<:yond v~eressily((;rice
1989: 47).21 According to tlxrt p~inciplc,if a given plreriomer~orl(e-g. t l ~ e
two 'readings' of diqunction) can be accounted fix either in terms o f
sernat~ticalrrbigrrity or in terms of implicantre, we sfnoulii choclsc the
at-co~rntin terms of in~plicaturcbecause it is rnorc pusinionious. ' I'iltls
Crice :~rguecfagainst the alnbiguity ctf logical particles like 'aud' arld 'or'
between several reading on the grounds t-hat a 1,ragtlatic story rc-ln be
tolti tirat ilosits only an irrlplirature and a basic meaning. Since irnplicntttres
:ire c:irrcellable altd appear ordy ixl some contexts, t11e p~agnaticstory
accounts for the existence of two apparent "readixtgs': the reading with the

"" T o esrxbirrl~tlrr pr.rgdtlati( nature of trrtar~ingcoiupor~tnt,we r r u y appeal to othcr i;.:tti,res of

rrripiic~rures,s~rclr'is G~ice's'r~ondtt:~chabdtty'
:uid 'cdculahiiity'. ITa rtrclrlttlg corxip<)ttentis r ~ r only
~t
cancellahie but also noiidetachable atld calculd)lc, it is vcry ilnllkdy thrt tt is 'scri~.rnt~c'r,itht:r than
~""gn><tt".
21 SCCalso tjiipke's ~ I F ~ U I I 'I1: fo tii)t pos~i
.LII .uni>tgix~t~t
iinlr.ss vou arr rwliy con-rd to' (Knpkr rs.17:
208 :

300

LANCE1 I.

--- -- -

impltcature and the ' p 1 ~ 1 readmg

'
without the unphcature Note that, zn all
such caser, an uwrb\qurty theoon~t~ n ~ g hrespond
r
us Cappelen and h p o r e do. that
cartceUablhty per se does not disprove the ambrgulty thesis. But Gnce and
the Gaceaiis never clamed that ~t did What canceilabihty (together wrth
the other feature\) does n show the pos~zbilrtyofa pragmatic explanation. T o
&pose of t l ~ earnbigu~tythesls, Gnce appeals to Modified Occam's Razor.
Accordllig to Gnr r, it is less econonucA to posit an ambiguity, d a pragrnattc explanation 15 avarlable, slnce tlie p r a p h c story stipulates only one
sertse (m5te.d of two) and appeals to gerteral and trzdependently mottvafed
prmnp1i.s to account for the generation of the ~mpl~cature.
It IS mn\tnlctlve to look at b p k e ' s $veil-known ~pplicatlonof the Gncean
strategy to tlie refererit~d/attnbunve distinenon. b p k e argues that the
definite art~tle1s not anibiguo~lsbetween two readings, on the grounds
that a pragtilatic explmatlon n available The pragnatlc exphlatlon 1s niore
parsunonlous, for tlie mgrecbents ~tuses are avalable wlzether or not one posz"
an arnbgutty Vosinng an ainbigurty therehre achieves notbng: there are n
phenomerid that can be explaned m the anib~gu~ty
kamework, w h c h could
not be esrylalned rf we did not poslt the amnblguay T o show that, b p k e
t~ivitebus to inugne a lnngwage In w h c h the defimte arucle IS, by sapulatlon,
L I ~ I V O L and
~
tlds the Rmsekan semmtrcs. Detinlte descnptloix wlU s&
have 'two rues\u ruch a language, slnce the refkrentxal use can be accounted
fix on the basic a f the Russelhan senlantrcs plris general and Independently
nlotivatcci pnxlc~plesof language use Thls tbougllt-experiment stnkmgly
ciex~~omtr~~tes
that pontlng an amb~guityadds nothlng In terms of explanatow potential (but co%s more).
fhe didcctlc witli the nuxed-quo~it~oi~al
i~nplicatiorlof autllorshlp 1s
exactly the same Cappelen m d Lepore accept that the lmpllcatlon is pnma
hcle caacdlablc, but clalln that this results &om an anibigulty (even lf they
reC-aln f+om usmg that word) the quotation marks mean somethtng different when the rn~phcatlon1s absent The utuatlon is as follows (I) There are
two pnrrla tacie 'rradrngr' of sentences ser?tencesof the form 'x L7 that p' where the
~ o ~ ~ ~ p / e lcenteitce
n e x ~ t cotttdliir a sub-thusdl open c~uotat~on-one readlng
with the mixed quotatlorid i r ~ i p h ~ a h oand
n another reading wlthout lt; (11)
&ere are two Lumpeting accounts- a semantic account that posm an ambigulty (or 'dud usdge'), and a pragmauc account that posits only one basic

meaning plus a pragniahc suggeshor:, (nl) the pr;igildhc account rs,

always, more parsmloruous."'
rs Inore p,irsiniornoils, and shoulci therefore be
That the pragrnatlc .~tox-y
preferred, can be shown by fi,lluw~ngIb~pke'sproced~trean~lI I I I ~ ~ a~ ~ I
language m which, by stlpulatlorr, tkrere &re no 'yuotatlon marks' wrtlr a
special sernantlcs, but the speaker cdn stdl ostei~srvelvderriorrstrate the words
she mes whlle speakmg. In some contest the densor1str;ltlon \viH be undcrstood as a plece of rnirnl~rywhereby tlxe speaker echoes some crtrrtextu~llj
identifiable person. If the piece ot rnlrlucry occurs in the cornple~rrentc Xnuse
of a sentence reportmg the content of ronieot~e'sspeech, the speaker *vrU
naturally be understoocl as nunxtkmg ttie reportee and speahng llkc h r ~ n
(In other words, the echoee and the icportre- the rxrternal dnd exterr~ai
targets, m the temmology of Clr'lpter 7-- u r ~ l lbe idenhfieif ) Thr darnonstrated words--or the toi~cof vorce, or the special proI1uIiiX&t1<)n,or
whatever is ostensively dcrnorrgtr~ttd--~\*rU
be ascnbetl to the rcportce It1
thls way it cat., be shctwii tbdt the rn1xed-qtl~3tdt1~t1dl
1nip11cdt1011o f authors h p can be accounted for on piGxgxll;rtlrgrour~ds
Instead of iniagnmg a lazlpage 1% ~thotltquotdtlon rrrarks. we carr ssnlph
look fbr an utterance ofthe form h that p' contuning no quoc,ttrorl urlxbs
but such that the speaker, vvlirle rcpurtlxtg the content ol x'\ speech,
ostensively displ~.vssome of the \vor-& ~lseriin the coxttent clarxrr, ,lnci
does so with a mamfestly ecliorc rntrx~t~r)u
" Ihe pragni~"btitheory pirc11~ts
that, in such curcumstances, the mrxecl-quotdtlon,il iniplrcanorr that the
reportee used those words (or this tone of vorce, or this s p e ~ l d~ ~ O O I I Z I E I C I L L
tlon, or whatever) w~llbe gerier~tcd 'I hrlt thr:, pred~ct~on
IS borne out rs
shown by thls exaiiple ti-om P)rrkens, whlcl~I l ~ v clred
e
sevemi t r r ~ ~ e s
(23) To which Mr B d e y niodestlv replred that he hoped he Llowed wrtr
o'clock ~t wos m gnerd (I )~ckms,jMjrtil~tC:Iitizzl~w~t,
CIC~L
1x1
~ C'ILark and

Gerng 1990 791)

Here the speaker report:, the c?scnbte9stalk, uslllg ~ndlrectspeech m the

nonnal way, and at the same airre shotvc wl~atthe tdk was hke. 'The Fentence

" Thus Saka rightly criticizes Cappcien and 1.r-pore's at:corrrit on the grounrls t h a ~it 'pusitls]
unnecessary ai~lbigliry'(Saka zoos: 203).
23 That there are insctnca of xnrxed iluotahot~w ~ t l ~ o rquoation
tt
n~arksIS shown by rlrrs example,
~ l ~ ~ eus to stop being hidxk~i
due to Philippe T)e Brabanter @.c.): 'At surne poitit, ~ o n ~ p r o requires
servants of Christ. It is at this point that we rrrusr, mrh Lilik~er,srace that here f stand, I can do no ocher
~

I ~

L~OC'\

not ( i ) ~ i t , i L
~ ~ Ii I O ~ , LIII,K"~S,
~ I C ) Ivet
~ dit. rxnt.ircatron thdt Mr Uarlcy \poke

rhuc W A Y e,%ag e a d y be tlerrvcd,

Qr:
?

~1113-147
by L S ~ P Lthe
I ~ hliowmg

cjueshon\:

'Ullryis the speaker cisterrsivrly speiik~ngin this iiinrly way?

l ~ l n n ~ xliiac;~usc
r:
11errlirnics Mr t$ailey.
Wlay IS he tloir~gso?
d+lnc.ziiitr:
Iri orcicr to irllirrrrl tlrc I1eart.r that tlrnt's the way M r Bailey
rqrclkc wlrerr he rrpliec-l (while a t the s;rlr,c tililc 111;lki11(:
fun of him).

Sirrcr r r ii; ailritu;~llynr.rrrifest to tlre speaker ancl tlre lrearer tiiar the hearer c,m
iirltl the .irlswi*r to ( 2 2 , ;mi since tlre spth:ikcr- has dorie nottlir~gto prevent
i-Cie ire;irex. frorri re:iclririg that CUIICIIISI~FI,
the spe3h;er overtly implies, hence
corrii-ii~init~i1c.s (in i l r ~(;rice;rrl sense of" "rlorl--natirral nieaning'), rbat M r
I3:rilt.y cpcrkc t h i s way whet1 ire. replied. T h e picce of infifi,rriuticrr~
tllus
pr;igfi"atic,rlly ixnl~:~rtcti
overlaps wit11 the seirr:rntic. cilrrterit of'thc Lltterarrce
jro tlii: i : i t i s i . t cli:~r Mr 'b3:aiic:y said ss~clr.,inii sucll) ,lnd fiises wit11 it through the
11icii-r;airi51ri
oi'frcc crinrl~ruwrrt.'Phist is tlxc ~irag:?;nrnticexplanation I offer for
rilr jrhcilorsuclxoii .it issue ( d ~ dscriptiotl
c
ofl;,klespeckrl way ol'spetiking to Mr
X5aiio:y r i l c h i s cx,irrrple, tile iiliseci-clr~ot~itrori~il
i111j7licatioilof authorship ill
rile oiEic:r c:jses). As crltv;ryswith pGrgur~;lric
i*spiariatior~s,tllc irrain reason tor
trc-i:rpririg r x r,irlrcxrtilr,rrr its serrl;ulric riv:tis i s
i t i s n.i<irep ~ r s i m o t ~ i o n s . ~ ~

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Index of Names
Anand, P. 97n, 1031-1, 21213, 218n
Anderson, S. 2 t i
Anccombre, J.-C. 147-8, 244
Ausan,J. L. 7011, 184, 201, 207. 229
Each, E. 211
Bach, K. r6n, 112, 135, 138, 141r1, rq6
149, 169, 18311. 191, 244. 275
Bar-I-fillel, Y. 2 57. 281
Barwise, J . 112, 102
Beauzbe, N. aron
Beribaji, Y. 272n. ~ S j n 297n
.
Benveniste, E. 7011, LIS
Bezuidenhout, A. 17n, I<%)
Bierwisch, M. 10j r ~
Bloorn, P. 7
Bolinger, U. 7
Borg, E. 2 , yo11
Brandonr, K. 3
Briscoe, 7'.85n
Bromberger, S. 223n
Burge, T. 19
Campbell, R. i49
Capone, A. roGn
Cappelen, 11. 2-3, 5-6, 8 - 9 , r7,43, 50,
2: -17,21C, 212I1, 23211, _"J;-;,
239, 242, 250, 261, 264-8, 276,
292-3, 295-8, 300-1
Carnap, R. 233
Carruthers, I?. 137
Carston, K. 68, 92, r 31-4, 14611, 147.

(:hierchka, C. 4711, 105.--6, r28, rjo,

132, 1:{4, 136-7, 152, rj~$--X, 165, t72?
174-80
Clml?zsky, N. 29, 136
Christenser~,N. 22 i
C:krk, E. 7
CLrk, 1-1. 8,195, LO!), 215, 232--.5,
L 3.7.
231, 2 3 ~ g .239, 247, 262, 301
Colzen, 1.. J. 30, 31, 46, i 50, 155.-6,
r58.-'>, 17311, r77
Cr,pest:aka, A. 85x1
C o ~ i z ~E.
a,

I tin

<:orxu!ier. B.'it x53n, 163, IBOXI, 195,

227-8. 237n. a68n
Crxrxrxx~ins.N. 121--2

L)avidson, L). j r 82-;, 89-90, 2 15.

sto - 2 , 2:3-8, 240, 263n, 26549
L3e Brahalltcr, 1'. 26811, q o n , arm,
?OII'l, 30211
1311.Swart, El. 40, 51
L)ucmr, (3.147-8, r5o, 158, 161, 164,
I!)?-.!&, 202, 23411. 243-4
i>rrrnl?lett, M. 28611

Egg, M. 21, 7011, 13711

E!?,,,
2'. 11, 95, rcjx!, rsq,
r l j , 13811
r,t~rcornucr,G 147 -8, 154
Fdlrnorr, (:. 7yn, So, ~9ir.7,208-9,
213-14
Fodor, J 30-2, 46-7, ~3s--C"

ib2,ri.k re, J. r B i , 6 ("1

kf;lrc*r,ii 276..278 g, 2c);n
iM<iitr't,I. ,711
M:tt-t.~,1,. \)O, 1 ~ ~ 113,
8, ~jg--~p
M:iy, K , r 3711

Mc (:ontxcll -C;irict, 1;. r o j 6,

iri,

ijo

Mrtzlic-ll, J. ,761
R/lorrt;cg~~e,
it. ji
Morga~i,J. 149
McNalIy, k. 06
R/lo~rnt,A. iXln
Nealc, S. 88-yo. 9611,138,24-1, 27511
Nevrns, A. a r rn
Noveck, 1. 178,i & o i ~

S;tk:), P. joiri
Satterl;rricI, l J . r8on
Sclilenker, 1'. ~oorl,i i > r n , l.+ln, r R j 1 1 ,
Pagin, f'. g , 4 j--7, j:in, 7bn, 12811
J'ancvova, J. 84
tJarsans, 'F. cj:~n, I 05 --0
P a m e , B. 73,75.79,08 101, rogn. r 18,
r6Xn, 185-6, 211
Xbelletier, J. 9,4jn
13errini, 1:. 8
IJerry, J. 22, 9611, I 21, 102, 240
Peters, S. 13711
Potts, C . 271, 27511, 570, 2x9, 29111
I'redclli, S. 129, 197, ~ 4 - - - 725711.
,
26811, s72n, 2,75n, 18 r - 2
Prior, A. 23j
I'uma~n,1-1. I 8

Kead, S. azi
Kvcanati, F. 3 , 5, 7, 12, 1.1, I O ~17n,
,

20- 3 , Lj, 40 I , 53, 5811, 78, 81--2, SO,

112, 123, 12811, 120, 140, 165, 168,
170, 173n, 179. 18311, 1991, 195-8,
202, 206, 21011, 215, 24J11, 24j,
25711, AS!>, ,262, 209, 273 0 , 2S1,
283-4, 201
Keicl~enbarh,I-I. io t n
Reimer, M. I 8313, 297n
Keyle, U. 206
Roberts, 1.. l8jrl
Kullmann. 1 1. I 8;
Run~elliart,1). 4 0 -I
Russell, B. r8on

r Y 7, r97. ~ o o 202
, 3, , ~ > 1.3,
o 2 I j,
218, 168
Scltu', I<. r8ii11
SCYLrltx,1. 3<l,33 4, .if),
40, 3, 47, 140,
169, 177. 211, 2.3311, 236
Sgdl, 1'. 84
Sicgt:I, S. I X j r l
Soanlcs, S. 311
Spcctor, H . i ~ 9 1 I ,8ori
Spcrbrr, 1). O j . 05, h S , .7hrt, 97n,
123 .f, 1 3 1 4 , 1 ~ $ 0 n16711,
,
1 7 ~~ ,S C O C I ,
8 , 223, z,%R,26811,
27211
Slairlto~t,1.: 2 !oil, 24111, 266,
26811
Sta11i;xker. I<. 16?., r64 5 , 173". 192x1,
21211, 218ri
Stanlcy. J. 4 7, ro r2, r.gil, 27, 90, rr:),
rzg, 166, 1-72 4, 177, 283
Ster11,I. 130 4 1
Str:~wson,1'. 00
Sz:jhG, %.

5311,

j4 8, ')on, 139

v a n 1)ceilttcr. K. rj711
van I\ooij, R . 18cin
von Stcc-how. A. ti2
Vuillat~~tle,
iM. zo5, 2og1r

Walker, I t . rg9 ~
Wcinsteitl, S. I9

O i

Wieiskopt; 17. 37n

VVesters&hl, D. yn, 46, 47ri
Whrder, S. 116--17
Wierzbicka, A. 23411
Wrlkes-Gibbs, D. 811
Willian~son,1'. 22711, zOSn

Wilson, D. 63.68, 123-4, 131--j, 172,

177, zXon, ryg, 22.3, 23+1, 248.
268n,272n
Wittgenstein, L. 7 , 28611
Zaenen, A. Ysn,

118,

169

Subject Index
Adjectives 30, 38, 40, 49-76
Gradable 50-7 I
Intersective 38, 49-53, 70--6
Privative 50, 53, 71-2
Relative 49-5 5 , 66-8, 7111
Adjunct I In, 84, 141
Austinian proposition 23-4, r14, I
Availabilrty 12x1, 14., 143-6, 157~
165,170

(loxitext--sexisitivitv r --3, (n,711, 12,

iIJ-10, 25, 27, 37-9, /il-.{, 46-7,
51, 66, 127-8, 135, 139, 15711,165~
r68r1, 173, 177,1x2, 276
Contest--slUft 23n, 2 5 , 18 i-218,
259-62, 26x11, 27y-+jO
Contextual ~lonraixlscstririccioa lor.
r ro -15, ILZ-3,141x1, 176
<:c,iitextuahstri 5n, 13, 17--22,43,

Caricell2bdity 141, 152, 154-5, 175,

467,5.5
Convelitiolzd i~nplicatore i5 2 , 16ia,
244.-5, 247, 249, 262, z7.$--.5, 284..
2.87,297ri
C:i,rm-crsat~on;diri~plitrnturc I 5- 16,6.3.
95. 143-52, 156, 158, 160-2, r7u- I ,

254.
268, 290-302
Character 2--3, 16, 37-9, 41-4. 168.
280, 282 -yo
Circunlstaiice of evaliration 13, 2.3- 49
122, 182, 189, z6o-r
(Zoercion 41-2, 69-71
Colour pre&crites 5 3 9
Commutiicatior~ 1, 6-9, 194. 106-8?
s l r , a z g , 291
Compositionality gn, 10, 15, as, 27--'+7,
. 62~1,73, ~ 2 2 ;;s4,
>;,
,
~ . 5 24.9- ~
156-7, 168, 244-5, 23.8, 254.-i9
266, 2 7 ~ ~ 1 , 2 7a98
5,
Cotiditional truth-conditions 3 , 19
Conditio~lals 155, r60-I, 161, 173.

176-7
Context-dependence sce Contextserisitivity

244, 255, 278

E.nlbeddrti 25, 14;--80

Sc:d*x 128, 1~913,148-49, iSa -5,
157-8, 160-1, 1&p72, 17.5 4)-

178,r80
Generalized 146-5 r
Covert optiorrals id(>,I 39-41. r Xnn
~ ' : ~ r n ~ u i a t i v e / i i ~ ~ ~ ~scw~Hybrid
~~r~uln~vc
lXSC

Elcliorc arsc 189,too. 2 1 ( j , 2 2 6 8,2 j i ,

,240 2 , 2.18 r)? "LO 9,2hSr1, 2711,

z74.-'7'/, 277,%"ac,ii, 2x2,

a)&!.
"k,

2x4 00,

301

I h - j c h u w r ~ t 14, 10, 2 2 5, * $ L , \o,

81 t), 01 5? IIL[, 1 1 1 13, I I ~ , I 22.
r ~5~ 128, 134, i.40,
25.5

i65,

6,?'sf), 263, ?. 7 0

174 80,

( j , LC)()

-40'2
X:.citnvo(-ax~o~x"
40

7,5 r 3 , .ii70
,

I ~ V C I K S 897 411
Nty,;ic~t;t : o ~6n
s t ~ e ~ u c ~ lof'
z c sI.(<> 60
l i v c i i ~seni,lntrcs X;i, 3
k:xir,irr~txfica~it>ii
?;n

t,

Meaning Elirnirtativism 2 r
Mrarung shift 74, I 15-21, r 24, r 8011
Metalir~glisticcharacter 283 .$,
286- 7, 289
Met;rp't~or 4, 41-2, 68, 118, rj8-9,
r?bGri
Metaphysics, us senlanrics 87-94
Meteorologcal predicatcx see Weatlicr
verbs
Metonymy 4, 19, 4 1 -2, 44. 7011, 118,
128, rjy-40
set also Predicate transfer
Mirrucry see Echoic use
Mii~iir~al
proposition gn, 13 14, 16, 2 I ,
24, 131
Minim&sni 5-7, 12. 10,43
Mixed quotation 25, 214 r 8,

220,

236 -45, 249, 75i, 253. 255, 258,

r?jc)n, 2 6 1 , 265-6, 290 --302
Modified Oc.carn's Razor ((:;rice) 62,
155, 299 --joO
Moci~~larity
a--t~,131, 13j
Mociulation 5, 7, 9 - 1 2 , 16, rc) 25,
39 -47, 55-76, t r r , 125, 128,
r 39-4.1, 168 70,173,179 80
(>\iotatic>li1n:trks LO(,, 21 9- 22. ~31,

Narrator 193, 305, 281

Non-rut nrai tnearting
see Speaker's rirearlirig

233 8, 240, 243 t), 252 j, 2.56 8,

~ 0 23, 266, 200 70, 373, 27'4. 5,
280, 283 90, 3(>jrl,296-7, 300-2
Q,)rtcttatiarl

Occasio~lrrre;uri~~g
xe' Sta~liijr~g
~lti(~tllling
(-:lased zrcj - 2 0 . 28.
-40, 247 0 ,
Optiorlal varklblcs 98 -102, 125
253. IOJ 0 , zhr) 71, 273 j, L ~ O I ~ ,
Optionality criterion 10, 57--8, 65,
287 8
llfybrid sce t-lvbrid use
Sq, 140
Mixed see Mixvli y~rotatiot~
Oratio recta/&rect speech rqg, r y i ~-9,
Opcn 219
203--4, 21 I , 215, 218, 327, 237, 26'1
Sub-clausal 241, 2'71- j, 282 (;),
C)stension 7, ry5, 215, 221-2, 228, 141,
29) .2, Lqrt, 3 0 0
369-71, 291, 302
c>ucrtatjorlalpoint 247- 9 , 2110, 293
C3vergeneration 6. ro