Descriptions, Misc

Logical analysis of the applicability of nominals (which are introduced by hybrid logic) in the formal descriptions of the world (within modern knowledge representation and semantics-based systems) is very important because nominals, as second sorts of propositional symbols, can support logical identification of the described world at specific [temporal and/or spacial] states. This paper will focus on answering the philosophical-logical question of ‘how a fundamental world description in description logic (DL) and a nominal can be related to each other?’. Based (...) on my assumption that nominals can support more adequate identification of the world in DL, this paper will deal with the concept of ‘world identification’. Accordingly, based on a logical-terminological analysis of nominals, the paper will analyse hybridised fundamental world descriptions. The research will finally reach the idea that we can have a hybrid description logic based on the analysed concepts. (shrink)

This paper presents rules in sequent calculus for a binary quantifier I to formalise definite descriptions: Ix[F, G] means ‘The F is G’. The rules are suitable to be added to a system of positive free logic. The paper extends the proof of a cut elimination theorem for this system by Indrzejczak by proving the cases for the rules of I. There are also brief comparisons of the present approach to the more common one that formalises definite descriptions with a (...) term forming operator. In the final section rules for I for negative free and classical logic are also mentioned. (shrink)

According to ‘composition as identity’, a composite object is identical to all its parts taken together. Thus, a plurality of composite objects is identical to the plurality of those objects’ parts. This has the consequence that, e.g., the bricks which compose a brick wall are identical to the atoms which compose those bricks, and hence that the plurality of bricks must include each of those atoms. This consequence of CAI is in direct conflict with the standard analysis of plural definite (...) descriptions. According to that analysis, the denotation of ‘the bricks’ can include only bricks. It seems, then, that if CAI is true, ‘the bricks’ doesn’t denote anything; more generally, if CAI is true, there are fewer pluralities than we ordinarily think. I respond to this argument by developing an alternative analysis of plural descriptions which allows the denotation of ‘the bricks’ to include non-bricks. Thus, we can accept CAI, while still believing in all the pluralities we could want. As a bonus, my approach to plural descriptions and plural comprehension blocks recent arguments to the effect that CAI entails compositional nihilism. (shrink)

In some sentences, demonstratives can be substituted with definite descriptions without any change in meaning. In light of this, many have maintained that demonstratives are just a type of definite description. However, several theorists have drawn attention to a range of cases where definite descriptions are acceptable, but their demonstrative counterparts are not. Some have tried to account for this data by appealing to presupposition. I argue that such presuppositional approaches are problematic, and present a pragmatic account of the target (...) contrasts. On this approach, demonstratives take two arguments and generally require that the first, covert argument is non-redundant with respect to the second, overt argument. I derive this condition through an economy principle discussed by Schlenker (2005). (shrink)

This paper presents rules of inference for a binary quantifier I for the formalisation of sentences containing definite descriptions within intuitionist positive free logic. I binds one variable and forms a formula from two formulas. Ix[F, G] means ‘The F is G’. The system is shown to have desirable proof-theoretic properties: it is proved that deductions in it can be brought into normal form. The discussion is rounded up by comparisons between the approach to the formalisation of definite descriptions recommended (...) here and the more usual approach that uses a term-forming operator ι, where ιxF means ‘the F’. (shrink)

Discussing Keith Donnellan's distinction between attributive and referential uses of descriptions, Gareth Evans considered a speaker he found it natural to describe as having “given expression to” a singular thought, though he insisted she was not referring to the person she has in mind. On accounts otherwise similar to Evans's, to express a singular thought just is to refer. Thus, as he does not explain why this speaker might speak this way, it is tempting to ignore this as a slip. (...) On the contrary, I shall argue, Evans has good reason to deny that picture of reference. My interest, though, is in the case itself. It turns out it is a presentational use of descriptions: it provides its audience a cognitive ability they would otherwise lack. This characterization raises deep theoretical questions which I only begin to address here. My goal is to show that we ought to address those questions, for there is no better way of understanding examples like Evans's than to see them as presentational. (shrink)

This paper presents a way of formalising definite descriptions with a binary quantifier ι, where ιx[F, G] is read as ‘The F is G’. Introduction and elimination rules for ι in a system of intuitionist negative free logic are formulated. Procedures for removing maximal formulas of the form ιx[F, G] are given, and it is shown that deductions in the system can be brought into normal form.

We argue that definite noun phrases give rise to uniqueness inferences characterized by a pattern we call definiteness projection. Definiteness projection says that the uniqueness inference of a definite projects out unless there is an indefinite antecedent in a position that filters presuppositions. We argue that definiteness projection poses a serious puzzle for e-type theories of (in)definites; on such theories, indefinites should filter existence presuppositions but not uniqueness presuppositions. We argue that definiteness projection also poses challenges for dynamic approaches, which (...) have trouble generating uniqueness inferences and predicting some filtering behavior, though unlike the challenge for e-type theories, these challenges have mostly been noted in the literature, albeit in a piecemeal way. Our central aim, however, is not to argue for or against a particular view, but rather to formulate and motivate a generalization about definiteness which any adequate theory must account for. (shrink)

Standard semantic theories predict that non-deictic readings for complex demonstratives should be much more widely available than they in fact are. If such readings are the result of a lexical ambiguity, as Kaplan (1977) and others suggest, we should expect them to be available wherever a definite description can be used. The same prediction follows from ‘hidden argument’ theories like the ones described by King (2001) and Elbourne (2005). Wolter (2006), however, has shown that complex demonstratives admit non-deictic interpretations only (...) when a precise set of structural constrains are met. In this paper, I argue that Wolter’s results, properly understood, upend the philosophical status quo. They fatally undermine the ambiguity theory and demand a fundamental rethinking of the hidden argument approach. (shrink)

NPs with intensional relative clauses such as 'the book John needs to write' pose a significant challenge for semantic theory. Such NPs act like referential terms, yet they do not stand for a particular actual object. This paper will develop a semantic analysis of such NPs on the basis of the notion of a variable object. The analysis avoids a range of difficulties that a more standard analysis based on the notion of an individual concept would face. Most importantly, unlike (...) the latter, the proposed analysis can be carried over NPs such as 'the number of people that fit into the bus', which describe tropes (particularized properties). (shrink)

This paper argues for a particular semantic decomposition of morphological definiteness. I propose that the meaning of ‘the’ comprises two distinct compositional operations. The first builds a set of witnesses that satisfy the restricting noun phrase. The second tests this set for uniqueness. The motivation for decomposing the denotation of the definite determiner in this way comes from split-scope intervention effects. The two components—the selection of witnesses on the one hand and the counting of witnesses on the other—may take effect (...) at different points in the composition of a constituent, and this has non-trivial semantic consequences when other operators inside the DP take action in between them. In particular, I analyze well-known examples of mutually recursive definite descriptions like ‘the rabbit in the hat’ as examples of definites whose referent-introducing and referent-testing components are interleaved rather than nested. I further demonstrate that this picture leads to a new theory of relative superlative descriptions like ‘the kid who climbed the highest tree’, which explains the previously mysterious role of the definite determiner in licensing such readings. (shrink)

Fregean theories of descriptions as terms have to deal with improper descriptions. To save bivalence various proposals have been made that involve assigning referents to improper descriptions. While bivalence is indeed saved, there is a price to be paid. Instantiations of the same general scheme, viz. the one and only individual that is F and G is G, are not only allowed but even required to have different truth values.

This paper distinguishes between definiteness and determinacy. Definiteness is seen as a morphological category which, in English, marks a uniqueness presupposition, while determinacy consists in denoting an individual. Definite descriptions are argued to be fundamentally predicative, presupposing uniqueness but not existence, and to acquire existential import through general type-shifting operations that apply not only to definites, but also indefinites and possessives. Through these shifts, argumental definite descriptions may become either determinate or indeterminate. The latter option is observed in examples like (...) ‘Anna didn’t give the only invited talk at the conference’, which, on its indeterminate reading, implies that there is nothing in the extension of ‘only invited talk at the conference’. The paper also offers a resolution of the issue of whether possessives are inherently indefinite or definite, suggesting that, like indefinites, they do not mark definiteness lexically, but like definites, they typically yield determinate readings due to a general preference for the shifting operation that produces them. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that same is fundamentally different from different, in that same imposes a discourse condition on eventualities, while different compares individuals. This difference has not been noted in previous literature. Furthermore, in the literature on same, there has been a persistent puzzle about the contribution of the definite article with which same must co-occur. We show that this puzzle is resolved once the contribution of same is adjusted to apply to eventualities: then the definite article can (...) be interpreted in the usual way, as generating a presupposition about individuals. (shrink)

Many languages offer a surprisingly complex range of options for referring to entities using expressions whose main descriptive content is contributed by an adjective, such as Dutch de blinde ‘the blind,’ het besprokene, ‘the discussed,’ or het ongewone van het niet roken ‘the strange about not smoking.’ In this paper, we present a case study of the syntax and compositional semantics of three such constructions in Dutch, one of which we argue has not previously been identified in the literature. The (...) data and the analysis will shed light on our understanding of how reference using adjectives differs from that using nouns in languages that have the two categories, as well as on the differences between reference to entities via their properties vs. reference to properties themselves. Finally, we briefly discuss related work and indicate directions for future study of the typological variation found in this rich and highly understudied corner of natural language. (shrink)

One of the big questions about indefinites is why they can escape scope islands. In the recent approach of Brasoveanu and Farkas :1–55, 2011) scopal relations with syntactically dominating quantifiers are hard wired into the semantic definition of the existential quantifier, which immediately explains why the semantic scope of indefinites may exceed their syntactic scope. In this paper, I argue for the revival of an alternative approach which places the explanatory burden on the idea that indefinites are essentially referential expressions, (...) similar to definites, and not plain existential quantifiers. I propose one fully explicit variant of such theories and argue that it comes with a number of conceptual and empirical advantages over competing theories. (shrink)

Almost entirely ignored in the linguistic theorising on names and descriptions is a hybrid form of expression which, like definite descriptions, begin with 'the' but which, like proper names, are capitalised and seem to lack descriptive content. These are expressions such as the following, 'the Holy Roman Empire', 'the Mississippi River', or 'the Space Needle'. Such capitalised descriptions are ubiquitous in natural language, but to which linguistic categories do they belong? Are they simply proper names? Or are they definite descriptions (...) with unique orthography? Or are they something else entirely? This paper assesses two obvious assimilation strategies: (i) assimilation to proper names and (ii) assimilation to definite descriptions. It is argued that both of these strategies face major difficulties. The primary goal is to lay the groundwork for a linguistic analysis of capitalised descriptions. Yet, the hope is that clearing the ground on capitalised descriptions may reveal useful insights for the on-going research into the semantics and syntax of their lower-case or 'the'-less relatives. (shrink)

We pose two arguments for the view that sentences containing definite descriptions semantically express multiple propositions: a general proposition as Russell suggested, and a singular proposition featuring the individual who uniquely satisfies the description at the world-time of utterance. One argument mirrors David Kaplan's arguments that indexicals express singular propositions through a context-sensitive character. The second argument mirrors Kent Bach's and Stephen Neale's arguments for pluralist views about terms putatively triggering conventional implicatures, appositive, and nonrestrictive relative clauses. After presenting these (...) arguments, we show that rival explanations (appeals to implicature, referential use, presupposition, etc.) do not offer equally compelling explanations of the data, and defend the methodology employed in the arguments against some criticisms. (shrink)

This article discusses the “Argument from Inference” raised against the view that definite descriptions are semantically referring expressions. According to this argument, the indicated view is inadequate since it evaluates some invalid inferences with definite descriptions as “valid” and vice versa. I argue that the Argument from Inference is basically wrong. Firstly, it is crucially based on the assumption that a proponent of the view that definite descriptions are referring expressions conceives them as directly referring terms, i.e., the terms which (...) contribute their referents into the semantic content of the sentences in which they occur. However, the framework of direct reference is not essential to the idea that descriptions might have semantic referential interpretation. Secondly, the Argument of Inference - if correct - suffices to establish an overgeneralized conclusion that even paradigmatically referring terms, like proper names, cannot be semantically referential. This fact indicates that the argument is flawed. In the final part of this article, I briefly consider what the source of the problem with the Argument of Inference might be. (shrink)

In recent literature on plurals the claim has often been made that the move from singular to plural expressions can be iterated, generating what are occasionally called higher-level plurals or superplurals, often correlated with superplural predicates. I argue that the idea that the singular-to-plural move can be iterated is questionable. I then show that the examples and arguments intended to establish that some expressions of natural language are in some sense higher-level plurals fail. Next, I argue that these and some (...) other expressions should instead be classified as plurals whose reference is articulated, an idea explained and elaborated in the paper. I also show that the related categories of plural and superplural predicates collapse to that of ordinary predicates. In the process we also see that the law of substitutivity salva veritate should be elaborated for cases involving expressions more complex than singular ones. (shrink)

Accounts for referential communication (and especially communication by means of definite descriptions and indexicals) in the mental file framework.

NPs with intensional relative clauses such as 'the impact of the book John needs to write' pose a significant challenge for trope theory (the theory of particularized properties), since they seem to refer to tropes that lack an actual bearer. This paper proposes a novel semantic analysis of such NPs on the basis of the notion of a variable object. The analysis avoids a range of difficulties that an alternative analysis based on the notion of an individual concept would face.

In recent years, a new argument in favor of Donnellan’s (Philos Rev 77: 281–304, 1966) semantic distinction between attributive and referential descriptions has been proposed by Michael Devitt and Marga Reimer. This argument is based on two empirical premises concerning regularity of use and processing ease. This paper is an attempt to demonstrate (a) that these empirical observations are dubious and fail to license the conclusion of the argument and (b) that if the argument were sound, it would severely overgenerate. (...) The general lesson of the paper is that empirical observations about (a) how frequent an expression E is used to mean M and (b) how easy and fast M is processed cannot be taken to provide reliable evidence about the lexically encoded semantic properties of E. (shrink)

Descriptions are phrases of the form ‘an F’, ‘the F’, ‘Fs’, ‘the Fs’ and NP's F (e.g. ‘John's mother’). They can be indefinite (e.g., ‘an F’ and ‘Fs’), definite (e.g. ‘the F’ and ‘the Fs’), singular (e.g., ‘an F’, ‘the F’) or plural (e.g., ‘the Fs’, ‘Fs’). In English plural indefinite descriptions lack an article and are for that reason also known as ‘bare plurals’. How to account for the semantics and pragmatics of descriptions has been one of the central (...) topics in philosophy for centuries. This entry focuses on the historical and contemporary philosophical debate about Bertrand Russell’s theory of descriptions and the theories that developed as responses to this theory. (shrink)

Carnap's theory of descriptions was restricted in two ways. First, the descriptive conditions had to be non-modal. Second, only primitive predicates or the identity predicate could be used to predicate something of the descriptum . The motivating reasons for these two restrictions that can be found in the literature will be critically discussed. Both restrictions can be relaxed, but Carnap's theory can still be blamed for not dealing adequately with improper descriptions.

One of the mainstays of the theory of definite descriptions since Russell (1905) has been their interaction with negation. In particular, Russellians, who advocate the view that definite descriptions are a kind of quantifier, point to these interactions as evidence in favor of the their view. The argument runs roughly as follows.

The subject of the first section is Carnapian modal logic. One of the things I will do there is to prove that certain description principles, viz. the ''self-predication principles'', i.e. the principles according to which a descriptive term satisfies its own descriptive condition, are theorems and that others are not. The second section will be devoted to Carnapian modal arithmetic. I will prove that, if the arithmetical theory contains the standard weak principle of induction, modal truth collapses to truth. Then (...) I will propose a different formulation of Carnapian modal arithmetic and establish that it is free of collapse. Noteworthy is that one can retain the standard strong principle of induction. I will occupy myself in the third section with Carnapian epistemic logic and arithmetic. Here too it is claimed that the standard weak principle of induction is invalid and that the alternative principle is valid. In the fourth and last section I will get back to the self-predication principles and I will point to some of the consequences if one adds them to Carnapian Epistemic arithmetic. The interaction of self-predication principles and the strong principle of induction results in a collapse of de re knowability. (shrink)

The famous “slingshot argument” developed by Church, Gödel, Quine and Davidson is often considered to be a formally strict proof of the Fregean conception that all true sentences, as well as all false ones, have one and the same denotation, namely their corresponding truth value: the true or the false . In this paper we examine the analysis of the slingshot argument by means of a non-Fregean logic undertaken recently by A.Wóitowicz and put to the test her claim that the (...) slingshot argument is in fact circular and presupposes what it intends to prove. We show that this claim is untenable. Nevertheless, the language of non-Fregean logic can serve as a useful tool for representing the slingshot argument, and several versions of the slingshot argument in non-Fregean logics are presented. In particular, a new version of the slingshot argument is presented, which can be circumvented neither by an appeal to a Russellian theory of definite descriptions nor by resorting to an analogous “Russellian” theory of λ–terms. (shrink)

The problem of indistinguishable participants is a well-known problem for D-type theories of donkey pronouns. Recently, Paul Elbourne has offered a D-type theory that purports to dissolve the problem of indistinguishable participants. I argue against Elboune’s solution.

The paper revisits Sharvy's theory of plural definite descriptions. An alternative account of plural definite descriptions building on the ideas of plural quantification and non-distributive plural predication is developed. Finally, the alternative is extrapolated to account for generic uses of definite descriptions.

A number of authors in favor of a unitary account of singular descriptions have alleged that the unitary account can be extrapolated to account for plural definite descriptions. In this paper I take a closer look at this suggestion. I argue that while the unitary account is clearly onto something right, it is in the end empirically inadequate. At the end of the paper I offer a new partitive account of plural definite descriptions that avoids the problems with both the (...) unitary account and standard Russellian analyses. (shrink)

In order to understand a sentence, one must know the relevant semantic rules. Those rules are not learned in a vacuum; they are given to one through one's senses. As a result, knowledge of semantic rules sometimes comes bundled with semantically irrelevant, but cognitively non-innocuous, knowledge of the circumstances in which those rules were learned. Thus, one must work through non-semantic information in order to know what is literally meant by a given sentence-token. A consequence is that one's knowledge of (...) what is literally meant by a given sentence-token is sometimes embedded in non-semantic knowledge, resulting in a cleavage between what that sentence-token literally means and what the auditor in question takes it to mean. Such deviations obviously have nothing to do with the principles put forth by Grice, since those principles only concern sentence-tokens that have already been understood---since, to put it another way, those principles only concern post-semantic implicature. The just-described deviations are appropriately described as being due to "pre-semantic implicature." Given the phenomenon of pre-semantic implicature, it is easily shown that Russell's Theory of Descriptions, if taken as a theory of literal meaning, is false. In the present volume, these rather elementary principles are entirely ignored, and all of the articles in it are sterile repetitions of the points made by Russell and Strawson. The blinkered approach to language embodied in this volume must be reconsidered in light of psychological principles relating to language-acquisition and language-use. Unfortunately, analytic philosophers shy away from such topics, as is made clear by the papers in this grim volume. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss how the principle of identifying knowledge which Strawson advances in ‘Singular Terms and Predication’ (1961), and in ‘Identifying Reference and Truth-Values’ (1964) turns out to constrain communication. The principle states that a speaker’s use of a referring expression should invoke identifying knowledge on the part of the hearer, if the hearer is to understand what the speaker is saying, and also that, in so referring, speakers are attentive to hearers’ epistemic states. In contrasting it with (...) Russell’s Principle (Evans 1982), as well as with the principle of identifying descriptions (Donnellan 1970), I try to show that the principle of identifying knowledge, ultimately a condition for understanding, makes sense only in a situation of conversation. This allows me to conclude that the cooperative feature of communication (Grice 1975) and reference (Clark andWilkes-Gibbs 1986) holds also at the understanding level. Finally, I discuss where Strawson’s views seem to be unsatisfactory, and suggest how they might be improved. (shrink)

The prototypes of definiteness and indefiniteness in English are the definite article the and the indefinite article a/an, and singular noun phrases (NPs)1 determined by them. That being the case it is not to be predicted that the concepts, whatever their content, will extend satisfactorily to other determiners or NP types. However it has become standard to extend these notions. Of the two categories definites have received rather more attention, and more than one researcher has characterized the category of definite (...) NPs by enumerating NP types. Westerståhl (1985), who is concerned only with determiners in the paper cited, gives a very short list: demonstrative NPs, possessive NPs, and definite descriptions. Prince (1992) lists proper names and personal pronouns, as well as NPs with the, a demonstrative, or a possessive NP as determiner. She notes, in addition, that “certain quantifiers (e.g. all, every) have been argued to be definite” (Prince 1992: 299). This list, with the quantifiers added, agrees with that given by Birner & Ward (1998, 114). Ariel (1988, 1990) adds null anaphoric NPs. (shrink)

Szabó follows Heim in viewing familiarity, rather than uniqueness, as the essence of the definite article, but attempts to derive both familiarity and uniqueness implications pragmatically, assigning a single semantic interpretation to both the definite and indefinite articles. I argue that if there is no semantic distinction between the articles, then there is no way to derive these differences between them pragmatically.

A draft copy of this article, dated 13th February 1988, was given by Tony Manser in 1989 to Stewart Candlish, who has edited it for publication in Bradley Studies in the hope that the finished result will not only be of value to students of Bradley and Russell but also stand as a worthy memorial to a valued colleague and friend. Editing has been confined to a minimum, such as correcting errors in punctuation, quotation, referencing and typography; no attempt has (...) been made to alter the substance of any of the original version. The article is published with the kind permission of Jutta Manser. (shrink)

This paper proposes that elementary reciprocal sentences have four semantic readings: a strongly reciprocal interpretation, a weakly reciprocal interpretation, a situation-based weakly reciprocal reading, and a collective reading. Interpretational possibilities of reciprocal sentences that have been discussed in the literature are identified as one of these four. A compositional semantic analysis of all of these readings is provided in which the reciprocal expression is uniformly represented as 'the other ones among them' (recasting Heim, Lasnik and May 1991a, b). A reciprocal (...) sentence is thus a special kind of relational plural. Interpretational variability comes about by the same mechanisms of plural predication at work in relational plurals: pluralization operators, LF operations like QR, and addition of contextual information. (shrink)

This paper offers an explanation of the maj or traditions in the logical treatment of definite descriptions as reactions to paradoxical naive definite descriptiontheory. The explanation closely parallels that of various set theories as reactions to paradoxical naive set theory. Indeed, naive set theory is derivable from naive definite description theory given an appropriate definition of set abstracts in terms of definite descriptions.