Despite remarkable efforts, it remains notoriously difficult to equip quantum theory with a coherent ontology. Hence, Healey (2017, 12) has recently suggested that ‘‘quantum theory has no physical ontology and states no facts about physical objects or events’’, and Fuchs et al. (2014, 752) similarly hold that ‘‘quantum mechanics itself does not deal directly with the objective world’’. While intriguing, these positions either raise the question of how talk of ‘physical reality’ can even remain meaningful, or they must ultimately embrace (...) a hidden variables-view, in tension with their original project. I here offer a neo-Kantian alternative. In particular, I will show how constitutive elements in the sense of Reichenbach (1920) and Friedman (1999, 2001) can be identified within quantum theory, through considerations of symmetries that allow the constitution of a ‘quantum reality’, without invoking any notion of a radically mind-independent reality. The resulting conception will inherit elements from pragmatist and ‘QBist’ approaches, but also differ from them in crucial respects. Furthermore, going beyond the Friedmanian program, I will show how non-fundamental and approximate symmetries can be relevant for identifying constitutive principles. (shrink)

French truc and machin (‘thing’) can function as placeholders, fillers or in general extender constructions. The aim of our paper is to investigate whether the prosodic characteristics of these three different uses may give a clue as to their respective status. For our analysis, we extracted 112 occurrences of truc and 57 occurrences of machin from the audio data of the PFC Corpus, which were analysed using Praat, focusing on the acoustic duration, the individual pitch contour and the integration of (...) machin and truc into the intonation contour of the utterance. As in previous studies, our results show that the prosodic patterns vary remarkably and show a highly heterogeneous picture so that the use of prosodic properties as cues for disambiguation is problematic. However, we are able to show some weak tendencies which point to a close functional link between placeholders and fillers reflecting their pragmatic functions. There is no evidence for prosodic weakening or even phonetic reduction in placeholders. Furthermore, we detect some evidence for the detachment typical of pragmatic markers in the case of fillers. The prosodic characteristics of truc and machin in general extender constructions diverge from both the placeholder and the filler functions. Their prosody seems to be largely determined by the particular respective construction into which both forms are strongly integrated. (shrink)

Malgré une littérature fournie sur les marqueurs de discours, le cas de_ wait_ reste assez peu traité à ce jour. L’étude présente les arguments permettant de classer certains emplois de ce terme (non intégrés à la syntaxe de la phrase, et possédant une valeur pragmatique) en tant que marqueur de discours, et définit les contours de cet emploi. L’étude se donne également pour objectif de déterminer ses effets de sens en contexte, en se basant sur un corpus d’exemples issus du (...) COCA et du BNC. Le rôle du MD et le rôle de l’environnement linguistique doivent être distingués, ce qui conduit à rechercher la valeur fondamentale de _wait_ dans cet emploi pragmatique. Cette dernière n’est pas totalement étrangère à celle du terme lexical, mais réinvestie dans le domaine de la construction énonciative. Elle peut ainsi être décrite en termes de suspension de la construction énonciative, mise à profit dans le domaine des réajustements du discours. (shrink)