Presupposition and Policing in Complex
Demonstratives
Forthcoming in Nous
Michael Glanzberg (Univeristy of Toronto)
and Susanna Siegel (Harvard)
January, 2004
The expressions this cat and that glove with
a hole are complex demonstratives. In this paper, we defend a thesis about
complex demonstratives. The thesis we defend concerns the role of the nominal
(e.g., cat and glove with a hole) in a central class of uses. In the utterances at
issue, we argue, the nominal F in that F plays a policing role: no proposition is semantically expressed by the
utterance, if the object appropriated by the speaker’s use of that F fails to be F. We'll call this nominal policing.[1]
In characterizing nominal policing, we
introduced the concept of an appropriated
object. Roughly, a speaker’s use of that F appropriates an object, if the
speaker demonstrates that object, where demonstrations can include both
publicly observable gestures by the speaker as well as speaker intentions. For
example, if a speaker says That car is
better than that car, successively pointing at and intending to talk about
two cars in plain view, with each use of that
car the speaker appropriates a different object. In this case, the object
is a car both times. If in place of one of the cars, there was a boat, but the
speaker’s intentions and gestures of pointing remained the same, the speaker
would appropriate a boat by one of her uses of that car. Nominal policing predicts that the speaker’s utterance in
this case would fail to semantically express a proposition.
The thesis of nominal policing has been a
focal point of debate within the literature on complex demonstratives. It has been defended by David Braun (1994)
and Emma Borg (2000), while Richard Larson and Gabriel Segal (1995) have
suggested that it is false.[2] Much of this debate has relied upon the view
that complex demonstratives, like bare demonstratives, are referring
expressions, and paradigms of direct reference at that. If such a view is assumed, then at least
part of the semantic contribution of a use of a complex demonstrative is its
referent, and the crucial question becomes what, if any, semantic contribution
the complex demonstrative can make beyond its referent. Policing, or the denial of policing, become
theses about the status of this additional contribution.[3]
Now,
the nominal in complex demonstratives can play a policing role, even if complex
demonstratives are not directly referential. Recently, philosophers have begun
to consider seriously the view that complex demonstratives are quantificational,
where this is held to exclude their being devices of reference (direct or
otherwise).[4] Our defense of nominal policing, unlike
previous ones, is neutral on whether uses of complex demonstratives are
referring expressions (as direct reference theorists hold), quantificational
expressions (as King has proposed), or discourse anaphors in a dynamic
semantics (as Craige Roberts (2002) has argued). This neutrality is not a lack
of interest, and its point is not simply to avoid a premise which some have
recently denied. Rather, we think that understanding what underlies nominal
policing is fundamental to understanding the behavior of complex
demonstratives, and in particular, the behavior that makes them appear referential. We will suggest that
this behavior itself can be understood without supposing that complex
demonstratives have the semantics of referring expressions.
Our defense of nominal policing will
focus on a certain sort of presupposition
failure to which uses of complex demonstratives are prone, when the
appropriated object fails to satisfy the nominal. We argue on independent
grounds that presupposition failure of this sort is tantamount to failure to
semantically express a proposition. This will be central to our defense of
nominal policing.
The discussion will proceed as follows.
After some preliminary remarks in Section 1, in Section 2 we consider and
reject the view that the nominal in complex demonstratives plays no
truth-conditional role whatsoever, and some other related views. In Section 3,
we present the core evidence for nominal policing. In Section 4, we argue that
what appear to be some counterexamples to nominal policing do not really enjoy
this status. We conclude the discussion in Section 5 with a speculation:
perhaps referring expression as they have traditionally been understood do not
form a genuine semantic category.
1.
Preliminaries
Two
things need explaining right away: the class of utterances at issue, and the
notion of appropriation that occurs
in our definition of nominal policing.
First, we will focus on a range of
uses of complex demonstratives: expressions of the form that F. The nominal F can itself be complex, as in that large house or that glove with a hole in it or that
car which I saw the other day. The
uses with which we will primarily be concerned are perceptual uses: those in
which the speaker (and usually the hearer) perceives an object, upon which she
thinks the truth or falsity of the utterance depends. These are paradigmatic uses of demonstratives. We will call them
“classic perceptual uses,” and we will call the utterances in which they occur
“perceptual demonstrative utterances.”[5]
We focus on classic perceptual uses
because they exemplify what many have taken to be the paradigmatic behavior of
referring expressions. For instance, when they occur in an utterance that has a
truth-value, they are rigid. However,
as we mentioned, our defense of nominal policing does not require any stance on
the semantic category to which complex demonstratives belong.
Second, our central claim is nominal policing:
If the object appropriated by the speaker’s use of that F in a perceptual demonstrative
utterance is not F, then the utterance fails to semantically express a
proposition.
‘Appropriation’
is our term for the contextual supplement required by uses of complex
demonstratives. Both bare and complex demonstratives require some sort of
supplement from the context. In the case of complex demonstratives, the nature
of this supplement is illustrated by the following contrast. Consider an utterance of:
1. That key is bigger than that key.
Suppose the speaker successively points to
and intends to talk about two keys in plain view. Contrast an utterance under the same circumstances of:
2. #The key is bigger than the key. [6]
The
latter is markedly infelicitous.
The contrast just drawn between
complex demonstratives and definite descriptions suggests that the
contextual supplement needed for
complex demonstratives differs from whatever sort may be needed in the case of
definite descriptions.[7]
An utterance of (2) could be infelicitous, even when the speaker successively
points to and intends to talk about two keys, both of which are already
conversationally salient.[8]
Here is a heuristic. A speaker
appropriates an object o by the use of a complex demonstrative, if she stands
to o in a relation of the sort that would suffice for her to refer to o by
using a bare demonstrative. Some
candidates for this relation include intending to refer to o by the use of a
demonstrative expression, and using publically accessible cues, such as
pointing, to indicate o.[9] This is just a heuristic, as we wish to
remain neutral on what sorts of facts
about the context make it the case that by her use of that F, a speaker
appropriates one object rather than another, or rather than nothing at all.
Our neutrality on the mechanism of
appropriation makes us neutral on a subtle question concerning the role that
the nominal plays in appropriation. There seem to be cases where the nominal is
quite prominent in appropriation: for instance, cases in which the speaker
cannot make clear what object she wants to talk about by using a bare
demonstrative. If the mechanism of appropriation is the speaker’s intention,
then appropriation proceeds independently of the use of the nominal, and in
these cases the nominal will play a merely epistemic role, enabling addressees
to discern which object the speaker has appropriated. In contrast, suppose the
mechanism of appropriation is a set of publically accessible cues. This opens
the possibility that the use of the nominal plays a constitutive role in
appropriation: a role that not merely enables the addressee to discern which
object is appropriated, but furthermore determines which object this is.
Because we are neutral on the mechanism
of appropriation, we are neutral on whether the nominal plays a constitutive or
a merely epistemic role in this sort of case. Whatever the nature is of the
contextual supplement needed by complex demonstratives, it is clear that some such
supplement is needed. ‘Appropriation’ is our term for the supplement, whatever
it is. We thus content ourselves with a functional characterization of
appropriation.
Given how we have defined the class of
classic perceptual uses of demonstratives, we may expect the appropriated
object in such uses to be something the speaker perceives, and in the simplest
cases, we may expect that it is common ground between speaker and hearer which
object that is. However, we wish to
stress that appropriation is fundamentally a linguistic notion, not a notion in
the philosophy of mind. Appropriation is achieved in acceptable uses of complex
demonstratives. Being appropriated is a
status something can only have in a context of discourse.
Our definition of nominal policing
alludes to the object appropriated by
the speaker’s use of that F. Whatever
underlies appropriation, we stipulate that if any object is appropriated by a
speaker’s use of that F in a
perceptual demonstrative utterance, then a unique object is. Something
analogous will hold for plural demonstratives.[10]
So far, we have spoken as if there is such a thing as a
speaker appropriating, by her use of a complex demonstrative, an object that
does not satisfy that complex demonstrative’s nominal. (Our very definition of
nominal policing assumes that this is possible). But logical space has room for
a theory of appropriation on which an object can be appropriated by a speaker’s
use of a complex demonstrative expression, only if that object satisfies that
expression’s nominal. On this theory, cases of the sort described in the
definition of nominal policing are not possible. Since we said we were neutral
on the mechanisms of appropriation, and since the theory just mentioned is a
theory in part about those mechanisms, this theory deserves comment.
Martin Davies (1982) has defended a
theory about complex demonstratives according to which there is no such thing
as a speaker’s appropriating an object that is not F by the use of that F.
Like nominal policing, Davies’s view rules out that a proposition may be
expressed by an utterance of That F is G
when there is no appropriated object that is F. Indeed, the view seems to give
the same predictions about truth-conditions in the context of utterance: an
utterance of That F is G will be true
only if the appropriated object is F (in the context of utterance) and G, and
it will be false only if the appropriated object is F and not G. This
view, then, makes similar predictions to ours, but in a way that makes policing
appear trivial. The reasons Davies offers for his view are ones we reject. [11] Moreover, we will present examples below
which are clear cases of appropriation in which the nominal is not satisfied.
Though we have given only a functional
characterization of appropriation, we believe this is enough to proceed to ask
what role the nominal in a complex demonstrative plays, especially when an
object is appropriated.
2. Inertness and shiftiness in complex
demonstratives
The
notion of appropriation suggests one reason why nominal policing is
contentious. If we think of a
demonstrative as a device of reference, then it may appear that appropriation
of an object suffices to secure its referent, and that there is no
truth-conditional role left for the nominal to play. The nominal appears to be,
as we shall say, truth-conditionally inert. Let the strong inertness thesis be the following:
A perceptual demonstrative utterance of That F is G is true in the context of utterance if and only if the
appropriated object is G.
Larson
and Segal (1995, p. 213) and Neale (1993) express some sympathy for this thesis
(though they do not offer a full-fledged defense of it), and it is defended by
Stephen Schiffer (1981). According to
the strong inertness thesis, no matter what the value of F is, the truth of an utterance of That F is G depends on and only on whether the appropriated object
is G. To keep things simple, we have
stated the thesis for a sentence of the form That F is G. More generally, the strong inertness thesis holds that
the semantic contribution of an occurrence of a complex demonstrative is
determined entirely by the appropriated object, leaving no semantic role of any
sort for the nominal.
In principle, the strong inertness
thesis could be combined with a proviso about appropriation to the effect that
something can be appropriated by a use of a complex demonstrative only if it
satisfies the nominal (as Davies 1982 proposed). As we mentioned earlier, this
view would seem to make the same predictions as nominal policing: when no
object is appropriated, no proposition is expressed; utterances of that F is G have truth values only if
the object the speaker wants to talk about is F; they are true if that object
is G and false if it is not G.
Without this proviso concerning
appropriation, the strong inertness
thesis is incompatible with nominal policing. Following our remarks at the end
of Section 1, in the rest of this paper, when we discuss the strong inertness
thesis, we will assume that the version of the thesis at issue is free of this
proviso. We will thus allow that a
speaker may appropriate an object by using a complex demonstrative, when the
object does not satisfy the complex demonstrative’s nominal. Indeed, as we mentioned in Section 1, we
will discuss at length examples which make our assumption appear to be the only
natural one.
The strong inertness thesis takes it
to be sufficient for the truth of an utterance of That F is G that the appropriated object be G, while policing
requires that it satisfy F for the
utterance to have a truth value at all. The denial of the strong inertness
thesis is compatible with nominal policing, but does not require it. One sort
of semantics that denies the strong inertness thesis allows that in a context
where the object appropriated is not F, the utterance is false. In contrast, if
nominal policing holds, then such an utterance fails to semantically express a
proposition at all.[12] All the same, in our case for nominal
policing, the first order of business is to argue against the strong inertness
thesis.
The
strong inertness thesis is motivated by a sort of case made familiar by
discussions of referential uses of
definite descriptions (borrowing terminology from Keith Donnellan 1966). The
referential uses in question are uses of the definite description the F where the intended referent does
not satisfy F. Despite the fact that
the speaker in Donnellan’s classic examples misdescribes the object she intends
to talk about, communication proceeds unimpeded. In one of the examples, a
speaker at a party says:
3. The man in the corner drinking a martini is
happy.
The speaker is
pointing at and intending to talk about a man who is drinking water. Yet
communication appears to be unimpeded.
Thus, part of the nominal seems to be communicatively inert. It seems to be superfluous in indicating the
man about whom the speaker intends to communicate.
In
some contexts, classic perceptual uses of complex demonstratives exhibit these
same features. A fox is nosing its way through the garbage. An onlooker who
mistakes it for a badger says to someone witnessing the scene:
4. That badger is hungry.
In some such
contexts, the nominal badger is not
needed to enable the hearer to understand what the speaker intends to
communicate. It is not needed, for instance, if the fox is already available to
be the topic of the conversation by being mutually acknowledged as visually
prominent. [13] In general,
if other factors already make it obvious to the addressee which object the
speaker has appropriated in her use of that
badger, then the nominal badger
is not needed to serve this purpose.
The
strong inertness thesis is motivated by the idea that communicative inertness indicates truth-conditional inertness. It takes those uses of complex
demonstratives in which the nominal is communicatively inert as the paradigm
classic perceptual uses.
It
is tempting to dismiss strong inertness out of hand, as one might think that a
predicate could not be semantically inert in a sentence. This idea is expressed by the following
argument:
In
a compositional semantics, the semantic value of a sentence is a function of
the semantic values of its constituents.
If the nominal F in a complex
demonstrative that F were inert, F could not make its usual contribution
to the truth conditions of sentences of the form, for instance, a is F.
Call this the semantic contribution argument. Borg (2000, p. 239) makes this argument in
criticizing Larson and Segal’s support for the strong inertness thesis:
[W]e
know that the parts treated as otiose [by the strong inertness thesis] must be treated as meaningful elsewhere
in our theory; that is to say, our semantic theory independently requires rules
for predicate expressions, which will be called into play when a predicate term
appears in any other context . Yet,
when appearing concatenated with a demonstrative term, these meaning rules must
simply be bypassed; despite the superficial similarity of that F and the F, the
proponent of [the semantic inertness thesis] must hold that our theory treats
only the latter as possessing a structured meaning…[14]
Though we deny the strong inertness
thesis, we think the semantic contribution argument against it is misguided.
The argument conflates the input to semantic composition with the output of
semantic composition. This is a mistake. It is not difficult to give a
semantics of complex demonstratives which allows the nominal both to have its
usual semantic value, and yet to be inert when it is part of a complex
demonstrative.
To
illustrate this point, we need to consider a fragment of a semantic
theory. Let us stipulate, not
implausibly, that a sentence of the form That
F is G has the structure [[[that][F]] is G]. We shall take the predicates F
and G to have their usual semantic
types, as functions from objects to truth-values, and we shall assume that the
only composition rule at work is functional application. It is relatively easy to arrive at a
semantic value for that F which is
not anomalous, where that has as its
semantic value a constant function on the value of F. In this case, that F will deliver the same output, no
matter what value F has. This is
compatible with the nominal F having
the same semantic value as it has in other constructions.
Rather than develop this theory in
much more detail, let us consider what it predicts with respect to a use of an
English sentence of the form That F is G. Return to the scene with the garbage, in
which a speaker mistakes a hungry fox for a hungry badger, and utters That badger is hungry (4). Let us first
suppose that, for an occurrence of that
as part of a classic perceptual use of a complex demonstrative, there is a
function a(c) which returns the appropriated object of the context of use c.
Then the semantic value of that
will be a constant function from the value of F to a(c). In notation, [[that]]c=λF.a(c), where an expression inside double brackets superscripted with c indicates the semantic value of that
expression relative to the context c.
Then, by applying function to argument, we can compute:
5.
[[that badger is hungry]]c=1 iff
[[hungry]]c([[that badger]]c) = 1 iff
hungry(a(c))
This is true if
the object appropriated by the use of that
badger has the property of being hungry.[15]
In
this fragment of a semantic theory, the nominal retains its usual semantic
value. It nonetheless satisfies the strong inertness thesis, thanks to the
unusual rule for that. Granted, the
way in which the semantic value of that F
depends on the semantic value of F,
in this fragment, is not very interesting. But it is compositional just the
same. This illustrates that it is possible to give a compositional semantics
for That F is G with the following
three features. First, the truth or falsity of a use of That F is G does not depend on whether that object is F; second,
the semantic values of nominals need not differ from what they are in other
constructions; third, it uses only entirely standard modes of semantic
composition (indeed, only functional application). The fact that the semantic theory sketched has these three
features shows that the semantic contribution argument does not threaten the
strong inertness thesis. For all the semantic contribution argument shows, that
thesis is perfectly plausible.
Although
the strong inertness thesis is not threatened by the semantic contribution
argument, it is threatened by other considerations—notably, by some pragmatic
considerations. Return once more to the fox in the garbage. Suppose that this
time, the speaker mistakes the fox for a secret agent. The fox does not look
like a secret agent, in the way in which gasoline looks like water. But the
speaker has a set of idiosyncratic beliefs: he believes that a new sort of
secret agent has come to patrol the garbage, on a hunt for potentially useful
information, and that the secret agent has the capacity to make himself look
exactly like a fox.[16]
Let us suppose that the speaker in this situation is making two sets of
mistakes. First, his beliefs about the disguises of secret agents are mistaken:
there are no such secret agents who can disguise themselves as foxes. A fortiori the fox in the garbage is not
a secret agent. Second, let us suppose, the speaker mistakenly believes that
his addressee shares these beliefs. In fact, the addressee knows that the
creature in the garbage is a fox, and knows as well that there are no secret
agents that can disguise themselves in the way the speaker imagines.
In
such a context, consider the speaker’s utterance:
6. #That secret agent is hungry.
He takes this to
be both appropriate and true. More exactly, he thinks that the nominal secret agent is an epistemically useful
nominal to use, in order to communicate what he wants to about the creature he
sees in the garbage.
Once
apprised of the facts, native English speakers do not tend to regard as true
the speaker’s utterance of (6) in the context described. We take this to be a
datum. There seem to be three possible explanations for it: (i) something is
appropriated by the speaker’s use of that
secret agent, and the nominal plays a truth-conditional role; (ii)
something is appropriated by the speaker’s use of that secret agent, and the utterance is true, and in judging that
it is not true, speakers are confusing lack of truth with pragmatic
inappropriateness; (iii) nothing is appropriated by the speaker’s use of that secret agent.
Only
explanation (ii) is compatible with the strong inertness thesis. According to
(i), since the nominal plays a truth-conditional role, the utterance is either
false or truth-value-less, and according to (iii), the utterance is
truth-valueless because nothing is appropriated. Given that only (ii) is compatible with the strong inertness
thesis, the weaker the case for explanation (ii), the weaker the reason to
believe the strong inertness thesis.
Explanation
(ii) must posit a merely pragmatic role for the nominal in (6). It cannot be
part of this role to break appropriation, since by hypothesis the fox is
appropriated by the speaker’s use of that
secret agent. What makes explanation (ii) inferior to (i) and (iii) is that
there is no such role for the nominal to play. There does not seem to be any
epistemic role for it to play in helping the addressee figure out which thing
is appropriated. It is easy to imagine
the case in such a way that it is obvious to the addressee that the speaker is
pointing to and intending to talk about the fox. (Indeed, this is the way we assumed the case to be.) Thus, in (6) so described, there is no
further question about which object the speaker wishes to say is hungry, and so
no epistemic role for the nominal to play.
There
is a different version of explanation (ii) that might be proposed by the
proponent of the strong inertness thesis.
According to this explanation, the utterance of (6) is pragmatically
odd, not because of its semantically expressed content, but because of an
implicature it generates: namely, the false implicature that o (where o is the
appropriated object) is a secret agent. This putatively implicated proposition
may itself suffer from some additional pragmatic oddity, but neither oddity nor
falsehood are features of the proposition semantically expressed by (6).[17]
We have two objections to this view.
First,
recall that one of the hallmarks of a conversational implicature is that it is cancelable. To take, for instance, a
typical scalar implicature:
7. Some of John's children are sleeping—in
fact, they all are.
The usual
implicature of the existential quantifier is canceled by the second part of the
sentence. Such explicit cancellations are never contradictory. But now
consider:
8. # That secret agent is hungry, but it is not
a secret agent.
This is not
merely inappropriate, it is apparently contradictory.[18]
We thus do not see the hallmark of conversational implicature in the relation
between the proposition expressed by (6) and the proposition that o is a secret
agent.
Second,
on the proposed view, there has to be some pragmatic mechanism that takes as
input the putatively semantically expressed (and true) proposition that o is
hungry, and delivers as output the putatively implicated proposition that o is
a secret agent. On Grice’s original
formulation (1975), the mechanism is explained via the familiar maxims of
quality (do not say what you take to be false or evidentially unsupported),
quantity (do not be overly or insufficiently informative), relation (be
relevant), and manner (do not be obscure, prolix, or disorderly). But none of these maxims is violated if an
utterance of (6) simply conveys the semantically expressed proposition. It is clear that neither quality nor
quantity is violated. Likewise relation
is not (as the appropriated object is sufficiently relevant).
The only sort of implicature in the
Gricean scheme for which we might find a mechanism then seems to be a manner
implicature. The maxim of manner instructs us not to be obscure, prolix, or
disorderly. It is not always easy to know if this would be violated, but it
might be suggested that the mere use of a nominal is sufficient prolixity to
trigger a manner implicature. Our
objection from cancelabilty readily applies here. Like all implicatures, manner implicatures are cancelable, but
manner implicatures are especially easy to cancel, as there is an easy, uniform
means of cancellation: you just say, ‘but I did not mean to suggest anything by
that, other than ...’.
Furthermore,
there are striking disanalogies between the putative implicature generated by
(6) and the paradigmatic manner implicatures. In paradigmatic manner
implicatures, the manner of expression triggers the implicature, as in Grice’s
example:
9. She produced a series of sounds that
correspond closely with score of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
As Grice points
out, if a reviewer chose to write (9) as opposed to “She sang ‘The
Star-Spangled Banner’,” the implication would be that the singer sung badly.
This implicature is thus triggered, not by the fact being reported, but rather
by the manner in which it is expressed. But not any occurrences of
linguistic material suffice for manner implicatures. Compare (9) with:
10.
A. She sang the national anthem.
B. She sang the country's national anthem.
Only (9)
triggers any sort of manner implicature.
As a number of discussion of implicature have shown, to generate a
manner implicature, some sort of marked phrase is required, where sufficiently
prolixity or disorder can suffice for markedness.[19] On the basis of the presence of a marked
phrase, speakers calculate a manner implicature accordingly. But as we see with (14), the mere presence
of linguistic material which is not strictly necessary for expressing a content
is not sufficient to generate a manner implicature. It need not be sufficiently marked. Hence, there is no prima
facie reason to think that the mere presence of a nominal triggers a manner
implicature, and as our remarks on cancellation show, there is good reason to
think it does not.[20]
In
response to this pragmatic criticism of the strong inertness thesis, a fan of
the main idea behind the strong inertness thesis might try to weaken the thesis
as follows:
There
are some contexts in which a perceptual demonstrative utterance of That F is G is true, if the appropriated
object is G and not F.
Whereas the
strong inertness thesis says it is sufficient for an utterance of That F is G to be true, the appropriated
object is G, the weakened thesis allows that there are utterances of That F is G that are not true, even
though the object appropriated by the use of that F really is G.
We shall call this the weakened inertness thesis. As formulated, the weakened inertness thesis
is very weak: weak enough to be compatible with number of different theses about
the semantics of complex demonstratives. But the basic point of any of them is
the same. Call contexts like that of
(4) (the fox/badger) reasonable: in
such contexts, it is reasonable to take the appropriated object to satisfy the
nominal. Call contexts like that of (6) (the fox/secret agent) unreasonable: in these contexts, it is
unreasonable to take the appropriated object to satisfy the nominal. The point of the weakened inertness thesis
is to have the nominal behave as if inert in reasonable contexts like (4), but
not in unreasonable contexts like (6). The nominal will thus appear to be inert
in reasonable contexts, but will play a stronger role in unreasonable ones. We
will consider three ways of implementing the weakened inertness thesis.
The first stays as close as possible to the
model of the strong inertness thesis, in that it applies the inertness
semantics. But it applies the semantics selectively, taking it to apply only in
reasonable contexts. On this view, in reasonable contexts, the nominal combines
by a rule like the one discussed for strong inertness; in unreasonable
contexts, it combines by a rule that applies the nominal’s default value. So this option appeals to context-dependent
rules of composition: which composition rules apply, on this view, depends on
whether the context is reasonable or unreasonable. Rather than introduce context-dependence via a rule, it makes
what rule applies itself context-dependent. [21] We find this highly implausible, and are
inclined to dismiss it out of hand. (For any readers not so inclined, the
objection we raise against the second proposal will apply to this one as well).
The
second option avoids appealing to context-dependent composition rules. Instead,
on this option, what is sensitive to whether the context is reasonable or
unreasonable is the nominal itself, rather than any special composition rule.
On this view, in reasonable contexts, such as (4), the nominal contributes a
sufficiently general property that the appropriated object satisfies it. And in
unreasonable contexts, such as (6), it makes its normal contribution. One cost
of avoiding context-dependent rules is that the nominal is never genuinely
inert, as it is according to the strong inertness thesis. For in both kinds of context, it contributes
a property, albeit a less restrictive one in reasonable contexts. The weakened
inertness thesis is weak enough that this option satisfies it.
Like
the context-dependent composition rules invoked by the first option, the
context dependence invoked here is not very plausible, prima facie. Consider a perceptual demonstrative utterance where
the nominal contains the clearly context-dependent expression tall:
11. That tall secret agent is hungry.
In the
unreasonable context of (6), the nominal would contribute the usual value of tall secret agent, where the value of tall is fixed in part by the
context. Now, consider a reasonable
context for (11). There is a five-foot
tall man wearing a trench coat and a hat. By a trick of the light, he looks to
be about six feet tall, and he is not
in fact a secret agent, he is a banker.
The view we are considering predicts that in this context, the nominal tall secret agent will contribute its
less restrictive value. Assuming that the value of tall secret agent is the intersection of the values of tall and of secret agent, this option predicts that the context extends the
extension of tall to five feet, and
extends the extension of secret agent
to include bankers. But nothing that we know about how the value of tall depends on the context gives any
reason to expect that its value will change in this way. More generally,
nothing we know on independent grounds about the context-sensitivity of such
adjectives suggests that they are sensitive to whether a context is reasonable
or unreasonable.[22]
There are other reasons to think
this second option makes false predictions.
If sensitivity to whether a context is reasonable or unreasonable is an
aspect of the context-dependence of the nominal, then it should appear
independently of what determiner goes with the nominal. With this in mind, consider:
12.
The badger is hungry.
In the
reasonable context of (4), the second option predicts this will come out true.
(It does not merely say that there is a true speaker meaning associated with
the utterances; it says that the semantic value of the sentence in context is
evaluated to truth). This appears
wrong, and is predicted to be wrong on most theories of definite descriptions.
Let
us turn to a third way of implementing the weakened inertness thesis. Whereas
the previous option called for the nominal to shift its contribution between
different uses of complex demonstratives, this option calls merely for
shiftiness between nominal contributions in complex demonstratives, on the one
hand, and nominal contributions in other constructions, on the other. It is,
therefore, equally a view about the contributions of that and F in that F.
The single sort of contribution allegedly made by the nominal in complex
demonstratives is this. The semantics of that
converts the value of F to reasonably taken to be an F, and the
nominal then contributes this value in a policing role.
As
with the previous option, the nominal’s role is not inertness, as posited by
the strong inertness thesis, since the nominal always makes some sort of
semantic contribution. But it satisfies the weakened inertness thesis
nonetheless. In reasonable contexts, That
F is G will be true even if the appropriated object is not an F. This will
be so because, by hypothesis of what reasonable contexts are, it is reasonably
taken to be F. The third option may appear to circumvent the problems with the
previous proposal, as it avoids context dependent rules of composition, and
does not ask the nominal to shift its value between uses of complex
demonstratives.
Our
objection to the third option considers the following pair of sentences:
13. A.
That mouse is hungry.
B.
That thing reasonably taken to be a mouse is hungry.
According to the
third option, the complex demonstrative construction makes the extension of mouse expand to include things (in that
context) reasonably taken to be mice. So it predicts that (13A) and (13B) will
be synonymous.[23]
This
prediction appears to be false. Suppose we are in a zoology lecture. The
lecturer informs us that mice and shrews can be reasonably mistaken for one
another, and that even experts sometimes make mistakes. But the lecturer goes
on to show us one animal of each kind, and shows us precisely how to tell by
looking which one is which. She can
certainly go on to say (13B) twice in succession, once pointing to the mouse,
and once pointing to the shrew she has just explained can be reasonably taken
for a mouse. Assuming the animals
really are hungry, both utterances of (13B) are true. In contrast, we get no such judgment for the corresponding uses
of (13A). There, when she is pointing
at the shrew (which was just explained not to be a mouse), there is a strong
judgment that her utterance of (13A) cannot be true.[24] More importantly, there is a strong
differential judgment between (13A) and (13B). This is incompatible with the
prediction that they are synonymous.
Let us summarize the dialectic so
far. The strong and the weakened inertness theses are motivated by the
imperviousness of communication to (some) misdescription. The strong inertness
thesis has trouble with demonstrative utterances (of the form That F is G) in which the object
appropriated by the use of That F is
G, yet in which speakers are strongly disinclined to assess the utterance as
true. The weakened inertness thesis tries to accommodate these cases, but, we
have argued, it cannot plausibly be implemented.
If both the strong and the weakened
inertness theses fail, then the remaining option is that the nominal plays a
truth-conditional role of some sort. This would be either a policing role, or a
role whereby an utterance of That F is G
is false if the appropriated object is not F.[25] We now argue directly for nominal policing.
3. Presuppositional phenomena as evidence
for nominal policing
Our argument for
nominal policing has the following three-step structure. First, we will point
out a glaring sort of semantic defect to which uses of bare demonstratives (this,
that and their plurals) are prone. In
the case of bare demonstratives, it is relatively easy for hearers to tell when
this phenomenon is present, as the defect is something that can be readily
observed. Aside from the striking
feeling of defectiveness, however, there are also tests, involving the ways in which discourse may sensibly continue,
by which one can detect this phenomenon.
The second step of the argument is to present these tests.
In
the third step, we move from bare demonstratives to complex demonstratives. We
will argue, using the tests presented in the second step, that certain uses of
complex demonstratives behave the same way as defective uses of bare
demonstratives do: namely, uses in which the speaker appropriates an object
that does not satisfy the nominal turn out (by the lights of the tests) to be
just as defective as the defective uses of bare demonstratives. From the fact that the tests give the same
results in both of these cases, we conclude that the same phenomenon of
semantic defectiveness is present both times.
This
will amount to an argument in favor of nominal policing. As will become clear as the discussion
progresses, it will offer diagnostics for when an utterance fails to
semantically express a proposition. When an appropriated object fails to satisfy
a nominal, those diagnostics are met, and no proposition is expressed.
3.1 Bare demonstratives
Let us begin
with the glaringly defective uses of bare demonstratives. Suppose
a speaker points generally off into the distance and says:
14. #That is a fine piano.
This utterance is defective. There are two important
features of its defect. First, it
seriously inhibits communication.
Second, the reason it inhibits communication appears to be somehow
semantic—it is not that the utterance is rendered irrelevant, off-topic, or
opaque. In this case, it appears the utterance cannot completely determine the
conditions in which the item referred to by the occurrence of the demonstrative
that has the property of being a fine
piano. There is no such object, so we fail to determine truth conditions in this
sense.
In light of
this, we shall describe this sort of situation as one in which no proposition is expressed by the
utterance (as we likewise do in nominal-policing). This formulation is no doubt somewhat theory-laden. The situation could be described in slightly
different (and equally theory-laden) ways.
It could be described by saying a structured proposition is expressed,
but is gappy, in virtue of missing a constituent corresponding to the noun
phrase.[26]
Alternatively, it could be described by saying a false proposition is
expressed, but one that is false in a way distinctive of reference
failure. (This is especially
theory-laden, as the negation of the sentence would require the same
distinctive falsehood status). No
doubt, there are other options.[27]
In light of
the failure to determine truth conditions in the sense we described, we believe
our preferred description is apt. But
we also want to stress that for our concerns here, the theoretical differences
between these various descriptions of the situation are comparatively minor.
First of all, the judgment that there is something wrong in cases like (14) is
very clear, and we take it to demonstrate the phenomenon in question,
independently of any description we might choose. Moreover, each description agrees that the example exhibits some
kind of grave semantic defect, be it
lack of a proposition, incompleteness of a proposition, or a distinctively
marked sort of falsehood corresponding to reference failure.
It will be useful to have a label
for the defect at issue. We will call
it p-infelicity (‘p’ for
‘propositionless’). The term ‘infelicity’ is often used to indicate that
something is inappropriate or unacceptable. The judgment that (14) is somehow
defective is a clear case of a judgment of infelicity. There are many kinds of
unacceptability, and ‘p-infelicity’ is a label for the sort displayed in the
utterance of (14).[28]
We now turn
to the second step of our argument, in which we present tests that can detect
cases of p-infelicity, such as the defect apparent in the utterance of (14)
when the bare demonstrative is empty.
3.2
Tests for p-infelicity
The defective utterance of (14) is an example of a presupposition failure. The utterance
of That is a fine piano presupposes
that the demonstrative that indicates
a unique contextually salient individual. It is the failure of this
presupposition that leads to failure to express a proposition. The tests that
detect p-infelicity will be tests for a certain sort of presupposition failure.
Before elaborating the tests, it
will be useful to comment on the notion of presupposition at issue. In linking presupposition to judgments of
felicity, we are working with a pragmatic
notion of presupposition. This sort of
presupposition describes the requirements a sentence places upon a context for
an utterance of the sentence to be felicitous in a context. Thus, sentence S presupposes proposition p
if (and only if) a context must satisfy p
for an utterance of S to be
felicitous in it. A bare demonstrative triggers the presupposition that the
context contain a contextually salient demonstrated individual, as an utterance
of a sentence containing a bare demonstrative will not be felicitous unless
this requirement is met.[29]
The pragmatic notion of
presupposition is to be distinguished from the notion of logical
presupposition: a relation between (gappy) propositions which describes when a
proposition has a truth value. Our
notion is pragmatic, in that it is an aspect of the way sentences behave in
contexts, rather than a relation between propositions characterized in
many-valued logic. At the same time, it
must be stressed that p-infelicity picks out a subclass of pragmatic
presuppositions. Not all infelicities
are p-infelicities, and not all presuppositional requirements lead to
p-infelicities when they are not satisfied.
We have argued that bare demonstratives trigger presuppositions which
lead to p-infelicity, but we do not insist that all presuppositions have this
effect. Presuppositions leading to
p-infelicity are basically expressive
presuppositions, of the sort highlighted by P. F. Strawson (1950): they are
requirements placed on a context for a sentence to express a proposition in
that context. Just as p-infelicity is
a subspecies of infelicity, this is a subspecies of (pragmatic) presupposition.[30]
A presupposed proposition stands in
an unusual relation to the sentence that presupposes it. (When clear enough, we will simply talk
about a sentence which expresses a proposition, and talk about entailments
between sentences). Consider a
non-defective utterance similar to (14):
15. A. That is a fine violin.
B.
That is not a fine violin.
C.
If that is a fine violin, then we should appreciate it.
P: That
picks out a unique contextually salient individual.
Each of (A-C) implies (P).[31]
This is a mark of what is usually called the ‘backgroundedness’ of
presuppositions: presupposed propositions are background for felicitous
utterances, and so are insensitive to whether it is a sentence or its negation
which is uttered, or whether the sentence appears in a conditional.[32]
We have noted that bare
demonstratives trigger presuppositions that lead to p-infelicity. We will say the same for complex
demonstratives. To argue this, we need
to know more clearly how to detect p-infelicity. Many early discussions of presupposition, notably that of
Strawson (1950), linked the relevant notion of felicity to that of truth
value. Strawson noted that in many
cases of presupposition failure, especially in cases like (14), we are not
inclined to say that what was said is true, or that it is false. We are not inclined to assign a truth
value. As we mentioned, it is natural
to associate this with the lack of a proposition to be true or false.
Unfortunately, the situation is not
quite as clear as this explanation suggests. One reason is there is often an
option to employ a so-called presupposition-canceling negation. Consider:
16. That is NOT a fine piano—there is nothing there at all.
This is a marked construction, but speakers often have it
available. We are left wondering if the marked nature of the construction
allows it to count as assessing a proposition for truth or falsehood. But nonetheless, in uttering (16), speakers
appear to say something hard to distinguish from declaring an utterance of (14)
to be false.[33]
Luckily, there is some more stable
behavior that goes with p-infelicity.
Here, finally, we come to two tests that we will shortly employ with
uses of complex demonstratives. The first involves what we will call echo-assessments; the second involves indirect speech reports.
An echo-assessment of a sentence S that has already been spoken in a
context is a repetition of S (perhaps
correcting for occurrences of indexicals like I and you), preceded by either yes or no. In responding
to an utterance of (14), speakers (who do not have any misapprehension that
there is a demonstrated object) are strongly unwilling to make
echo-assessments. They will not say either of:
17. A. #Yes, that is a fine piano.
B. #No, that is not a fine piano.
When they do offer a negative judgment, as in (16), they do
so by way of initiating a repair,
marked by the stressed negation and the gloss on what semantic defect is
present in the original utterance. This is the first test for p-infelicity. If
an utterance is p-infelicitous, then echo-assessments are unacceptable, without
initiating a repair.
The second
test involves indirect speech reports. Speakers typically will not offer
indirect speech reports that make use of the defective phrase. In response to
(14), for example, they will not say simply:
18. #He said that is a fine piano.
If they do attempt this, they will typically initiate a
repair, as in:
19. He said ‘that is a fine piano’, but I don’t know what he was
pointing at.
That is the second test for p-infelicity. If an utterance is
p-infelicitous, then indirect speech report of it is unacceptable, without
initiating a repair.
A crucial point about the repairs in
these cases is that they are obligatory.
The conversation cannot be acceptably continued, in these cases, unless some
repair is made. Before speakers in the discourse can comment on the truth of
p-infelicitous utterance, or report its content, the utterance must be
repaired. Unlike the truth-value test,
the need for repair is not made difficult to detect by such devices as
presupposition-canceling negation. That just is a repair strategy. We propose that these two tests offer a
reliable guide to p-infelicity.
Each of the tests we have proposed
targets a central aspect of the notion of proposition expression: propositions
are bearers of truth, and propositions are what speakers say. The
echo-assessment test targets a proposition expressed by an utterance as the
bearer of truth, which determines if the utterance is correct or not. If an echo-assessment fails, in a given
context, it is because an assessment for truth of what was explicitly said by a
speaker cannot be given, without initiating a repair of their attempt to
express something. Hence, their attempt
was sufficiently defective to preclude truth assessment. This, we suggest, is a
central aspect of their having failed to express a proposition at all. This
test is thus a more refined version of the traditional test of truth value
judgments.
The indirect speech report test targets
the second aspect of proposition expression: propositions are what speakers
say. If a speaker cannot give an indirect speech report, it is because she
cannot appropriately express something the initial speaker might have been
attempting to say by the means that
speaker used. This occurs if in fact
the first speaker’s attempt to express a proposition—to determine ‘what was
said’—failed. As both features—being
bearers of truth and being what speakers say—are aspects of the single notion
of proposition expression, the tests are typically passed or failed together.
It is important to stress that
information from a p-infelicitous utterance may nonetheless reach a
knowledgeable interpreter. There are
many cases in which information is conveyed which are clearly not cases of
expressing a proposition. Consider a sun-burnt man, parched and dirty, who
crawls out of the desert, pointing to a pitcher of water and attempting to
speak. Too parched, he merely manages
to produce a scratchy sound vaguely like:
20. Waa…
By nearly anyone’s lights, no proposition is semantically
expressed.[34] But lots of
information is available in the act. The act conveys that he man is thirsty,
wants water, wants that water, wants it more than to call his wife, etc. Information may be conveyed in all kinds of
ways, many of which do not rise to the level of expressing propositions.
There is
not the space here to explore fully what this difference amounts to.[35] But let us simply note that it is important
that the issue is one of expressing a
proposition, by the assertion of a specific sentence, in a specific
context. That can fail, even if there
is a proposition that might be charitably attributed to the speaker. This comes out, for instance, when we apply
the indirect discourse tests. There may well be cases where the reporter knows
fully well what the speaker meant to convey, and can in many cases report
it. To apply the test, we need to
consider whether the reporter can report what the speaker meant, using her very
words (allowing certain small modifications, like changing I to she). It is this which targets whether a
proposition was expressed, rather than merely whether information was made
available.
We
have said that the relevant notion of repair is obligatory repair. This is a normative notion. The norm in question
is a norm of discourse, as is appropriate for one that tests for
presupposition. Such norms do not
operate in a vacuum. If we concoct a
case in which a speaker can save a small child from a horrible fate by making
an otherwise bad indirect speech report, we may rest assured most decent
speakers would do it without a second thought.
A norm of discourse brings with it a felt unwillingness on the parts of
speakers, and a tendency to seek out ways to avoid violations. Repair initiation is a well-established way
to do so.
The
basic mark of p-infelicity, and the presuppositions which induce it, is
obligatory repair. Our tests for p-infelicity are empirical tests, and to give
reliable results, they must be applied in good experimental circumstances.
There are two dimensions to good experimental circumstances. They concern the
epistemic situation of the speakers on the one hand, and their overall
normative situation on the other.
First, in good experimental
circumstances, the speakers are epistemically well-situated, so that there is
no question about what sentence is uttered, or what the values of its
constituents are. If you're behind a
curtain and I say Look, he’s swallowing
fire!, this is not a good circumstance for you to test for whether I have
expressed a proposition. What is needed is that you be epistemically
well-situated to assess the value if any of the constituents, and in this case,
you are not able to assess the value of he. Moreover, it must have been a fully
grammatical sentence that was uttered, since a grossly ungrammatical sentence
will also require repair, but not for reasons of p-infelicity. (Likewise the
utterance must not display any gross phonological or phonetic defects, etc.)
Another factor in being epistemically
well-situated is that speakers know the rules for when to change words in
belief reports, indirect speech reports, or echo-assessments. The rules are
clear for when to change I to she or you, for instance. Hence,
if B reports A’s utterance of I’m hungry,
B will say, Yes, you’re hungry. [36]
Second,
experimental circumstances isolate the relevant discursive norms. In general,
to see whether a norm is operative, the influence of competing norms must be
screened out, lest they mask the fact that the norm being tested for is
violated. In the case of our tests, a very good experimental circumstance is
the courtroom setting, where a witness is being asked by a lawyer for an
echo-assessment or an indirect speech report. In the courtroom (as we imagine
it), there is a clear premium on speaking correctly in the most narrow
sense. For the witness on the stand,
whether or not what they say is misleading, unhelpful, or irrelevant, is not
really their concern. Their obligation is only to speak correctly.
In
fact, the courtroom setting is a good experimental circumstance along both
dimensions. It makes vivid the assumption that all sentences are well-formed,
and all the information needed to determine the values of their constituents is
common knowledge. It also makes vivid
the screening-off of competing norms. When the tests bear in these cases, they
all the better detect the basic matters of whether truth-evaluable information
was expressed by the very utterance in question. They all the better detect whether a proposition was expressed.
To
summarize, when they are applied in good experimental circumstances, our tests
provide necessary and sufficient conditions for p-infelicity. But the following
caveats must be kept in view. First, the sufficient condition is obligatory
repair in the absence of other grounds for repair, such as ignorance of
context, phonetic defects, etc. (We might add syntactic or phonological
defects as well, but these may amount to failure to produce a well-formed
sentence at all, which certainly counts as failure to express a
proposition.) Second, the tests allow us to gather empirical evidence for
p-infelicity, when they show that speakers take repair to be obligatory in
certain settings. As the force of obligatory repair is normative, speakers
may not act upon it, if other norms are considered stronger in some occasion.
Hence, we proposed, the repair tests should be run in an appropriate
experimental setting, such as the courtroom setting. In short, the tests are
well tailored to gather evidence for p-infelicity. But they remain tools for
gathering evidence, rather than providing an analysis of the phenomenon of
failing to express a proposition. When properly applied, the tests detect
p-infelicity, and are in this way a sufficient condition.[37]
We now turn
to the third step of our argument: applying the tests for p-infelicity to uses
of complex demonstratives.
3.3
P-infelicity in complex demonstratives
Earlier, we discussed the notion of appropriation. Demonstratives, both bare and complex, require a
supplement from the context. In the
case of classic perceptual uses of complex demonstratives, the need for a
distinctive contextual supplement is illustrated by the existence of contexts
in which an utterance of (1) That key is
bigger than that key would be felicitous, but (2) The key is bigger than the key would not. We have been neutral on
what the nature of this supplement is, offering no more than this functional
characterization. But as we discussed in Section 1, some candidates include
speaker intentions of some sort, and publically accessible gestures of
pointing.
One route to p-infelicity in complex
demonstratives is through failure of appropriation. Call this the pre-appropriation route to
p-infelicity. This sort of failure
leads to genuine p-infelicity. Suppose,
for instance, I point at an
empty counter and say:
21. #That key is mine.
I have failed to
appropriate anything by my use of that
key. Compare this with the case in which I say:
22.
#That is mine.
Both utterances
are similarly defective. A speaker will not provide an indirect speech or an
echo-assessment for either (21) or (22) without initiating a repair. For example, applying the indirect speech
report test to (21) gives:
23. A. #She said that key is hers.
B. She said ‘that key is mine’, but I don’t
know what she meant, because there was nothing there.
The
pre-appropriation route to p-infelicity really does lead to p-infelicity. Even so, as pre-appropriation failures are
not generally due to the nominal, these are not the crucial cases for policing.
It is the second route to
p-infelicity that is especially relevant to our defense of nominal policing, so
we will focus on it. This route is
through appropriation success, where there is an object that the speaker
appropriates by her (classic perceptual) use of a complex demonstrative, but it fails to satisfy the nominal. This
would be a post-appropriation route
to p-infelicity. To argue for policing,
we have to argue that this really is a route to p-infelicity as well.
Suppose someone at a restaurant is
speaking to the waiter. The silverware is in plain view to everyone. Pointing
clearly to the fork, the speaker says:
24. #That knife is dirty.
This is indeed a p-infelicity. Running our diagnostics, we can see that the waiter will be
unwilling to offer an echo-assessment. He will not say either:
25. A. #Yes, that knife is dirty.
B.
#No, that knife is not dirty.
Nor will we find indirect speech reports like:
26. #The person at table 8 said that knife is dirty.
[Speaking to the cook.]
The speaker might avoid the issue, by saying:
27. Yes, that [pointing] is dirty.
Or perhaps a repair might be initiated, with:
28. Yes, I see your FORK is dirty. I’ll get a new one.
As we have described the case, there is an appropriated
object: the fork. We relied upon the
pointing gesture to make this clear, but it is not crucial to the case. We
might well have appealed to intentions manifested in some other way. But
however appropriation happens, there is further reason to think it happens in
this case. The further reason is illustrated by non-linguistic behavior. Suppose we have a command following (24), as
in:
29. #That knife is dirty. Bring me a new one!
We have marked infelicity here. It is p-infelicity, as our tests will readily show. But a thoughtful waiter, trying to satisfy
his client’s desires, will still have no trouble picking up the fork and
replacing it. This shows we have
appropriation, though we still have p-infelicity.
What we see
here is evidence for nominal policing. The failure of an appropriated object to
satisfy the nominal leads to p-infelicity.
Failure to satisfy the nominal is thus tantamount to failure to express
a proposition. So there is proposition failure in cases in which an appropriated
object fails to satisfy the nominal, which is just what nominal policing
predicts. Moreover, the requirement
that the appropriated object satisfy the nominal behaves precisely as we expect
of a presupposition which triggers p-infelicity. We see just as much:
30. A.
#That knife is dirty.
B.
#That knife is not dirty.
C.
#If that knife is dirty, I will make a scene.
We thus conclude that it is a presupposition of sentences
with complex demonstratives that the appropriated object satisfy the nominal,
and if this presupposition fails, we have p-infelicity. This is nominal policing.[38]
It may be objected that if there is
appropriation, then the sentence uttered in fact determines a proposition in
context. On this view, and utterance of
That F is G is true just in case the
appropriated object is G. This
objection is in effect to deny the data we have adduced in (25-29).
As we
discussed in Section 3.2, the way to bolster our data is to pay closer
attention to experimental circumstances, by looking at the ‘courtroom’
setting. Consider the ‘courtroom’
version of (24). The lawyer holds up a
fork and says to the witness on the stand:
31. Yes or no: this knife killed the victim.
In this case, the witness will find repair obligatory in
echo-assessment. We see:
32. #Yes, that knife killed the victim.
The objection is presumably based on the observation that we
can have:
33. Yes, that killed the victim.
This is perfectly acceptable; but it is not an echo-assessment.
There is a
strong differential judgment between (32) and (33). (33) is entirely
acceptable, while (32) is markedly bad.
If the objection where correct, then given that we have clear
appropriation of the same object in both, we would expect little or no
difference between the two. With policing,
we predict just the difference we see.
It is worth stressing here that the felicitous (33) constitutes an understa