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  1. Recognition.Christina H. Dietz - 2024 - Erkenntnis 89 (4):1617-1628.
    This paper offers an account of recognition and its relation to knowledge. One important observation is that while ‘know’ is a stative verb, ‘recognize’ is an achievement verb. A second is that ‘recognize’ is knowledge entailing, both when combined with a complementizer phrase and when combined with a noun phrase. The behavior of the latter kind of construction is particularly subtle and is the main focus of this paper. This paper ends with an interesting puzzle about object recognition.
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  • Intensional transitive verbs.Graeme Forbes - 2012 - In Peter Adamson (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    A verb is transitive iff it usually occurs with a direct object, and in such occurrences it is said to occur transitively . Thus ‘ate’ occurs transitively in ‘I ate the meat and left the vegetables’, but not in ‘I ate then left’ (perhaps it is not the same verb ‘left’ in these two examples, but it seems to be the same ‘ate’). A verb is intensional if the verb phrase (VP) it forms with its complement is anomalous in at (...)
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  • Incomplete events, intensionality and imperfective aspect.Sandro Zucchi - 1999 - Natural Language Semantics 7 (2):179-215.
    I discuss two competing theories of the progressive: the theory proposed in Parsons (1980, 1985, 1989, 1990) and the theory proposed in Landman (1992). These theories differ in more than one way. Landman regards the progressive as an intentional operator, while Parsons doesn't. Moreover, Landman and Parsons disagree on what uninflected predicates denote. For Landman, cross the street has in its denotation complete events of crossing the street; the aspectual contribution of English simple past (perfective aspect) is the identity function. (...)
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  • Monotonicity in opaque verbs.Thomas Ede Zimmermann - 2006 - Linguistics and Philosophy 29 (6):715 - 761.
    The paper is about the interpretation of opaque verbs like “seek”, “owe”, and “resemble” which allow for unspecific readings of their (indefinite) objects. It is shown that the following two observations create a problem for semantic analysis: (a) The opaque position is upward monotone: “John seeks a unicorn” implies “John seeks an animal”, given that “unicorn” is more specific than “animal”. (b) Indefinite objects of opaque verbs allow for higher-order, or “underspecific”, readings: “Jones is looking for something Smith is looking (...)
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  • Nonexistence and Aboutness: The Bandersnatches of Dubuque.Stephen Yablo - 2020 - Critica 52 (154).
    Holmes exists is false. How can this be, when there is no one for the sentence to misdescribe? Part of the answer is that a sentence’s topic depends on context. The king of France is bald, normally unevaluable, is false qua description of the bald people. Likewise Holmes exists is false qua description of the things that exist; it misdescribes those things as having Holmes among them. This does not explain, though, how Holmes does not exist differs in cognitive content (...)
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  • A Constructive Type-Theoretical Formalism for the Interpretation of Subatomically Sensitive Natural Language Constructions.Bartosz Więckowski - 2012 - Studia Logica 100 (4):815-853.
    The analysis of atomic sentences and their subatomic components poses a special problem for proof-theoretic approaches to natural language semantics, as it is far from clear how their semantics could be explained by means of proofs rather than denotations. The paper develops a proof-theoretic semantics for a fragment of English within a type-theoretical formalism that combines subatomic systems for natural deduction [20] with constructive (or Martin-Löf) type theory [8, 9] by stating rules for the formation, introduction, elimination and equality of (...)
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  • Against LF Pied-Piping.Arnim von Stechow - 1996 - Natural Language Semantics 4 (1):57-110.
    The arguments for LF Pied-Piping given by Nishigauchi and others are represented. It is shown that Nishigauchi's semantics for pied-piped phrases gives the wrong meaning for interrogatives. We argue that none of the arguments for LF Pied-Piping is tenable and most of the arguments against the traditional approach (unbounded wh-movement at LF) do not stand up to scrutiny. However, some data turn out to be problematic for the traditional account. The alternative considered here involves pied-piping at an intermediate level between (...)
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  • Believing in things.Zoltán Gendler Szabó - 2003 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 66 (3):584–611.
    I argue against the standard view that ontological debates can be fully described as disagreements about what we should believe to exist. The central thesis of the paper is that believing in Fs in the ontologically relevant sense requires more than merely believing that Fs exist. Believing in Fs is not even a propositional attitude; it is rather an attitude one bears to the term expressed by 'Fs'. The representational correctness of such a belief requires not only that there be (...)
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  • Connectivity in Specificational Sentences.Yael Sharvit - 1999 - Natural Language Semantics 7 (3):299-339.
    This paper is concerned with the relationship between the semantics of specificational and predicational sentences and the Connectivity effects they display. It discusses the advantages and disadvantages of semantic and syntactic approaches to Connectivity (the ‘unconstrained-be theory’, the ‘question-in-disguise theory’, and the ‘unclefting theory’), concluding that a semantic theory of Connectivity is not only preferable, but necessary. The paper also discusses the implications of such a move regarding Binding phenomena (i.e., Principle A, B, and C effects): adopting a semantic theory (...)
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  • The semantics of scandinavian free choice items.Kjell Johan Saeboe - 2001 - Linguistics and Philosophy 24 (6):737-788.
    I present an analysis of Free Choice Items (FCIs), based on Scandinavian, where FCIs are complex and distinct from polarity sensitive items. Scandinavian FCIs are argued to have two components. One is a universal quantifying into modal contexts. The other is an operator mapping a type (s,t) expression onto itself, adjoining to the closest type t or (s,t) expression. Thus invoking Intensional Functional Application, this operator requires the presence of a modal in the scope of the universal quantifier. Facts concerning (...)
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  • Interrogative quantifiers within scope.Jürgen Pafel - 1999 - Linguistics and Philosophy 22 (3):255-310.
  • Two kinds of universals and two kinds of collections.Friederike Moltmann - 2004 - Linguistics and Philosophy 27 (6):739 - 776.
    This paper argues for an ontological distinction between two kinds of universals, 'kinds of tropes' such as 'wisdom' and properties such as 'the property of being wise'. It argues that the distinction is parallel to that between two kinds of collections, pluralities such as 'the students' and collective objects such as 'the class'. The paper argues for the priortity of distributive readings with pluralities on the basis of predicates of extent or shape, such 'large' or 'long'.
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  • Properties and kinds of tropes: New linguistic facts and old philosophical insights.Friederike Moltmann - 2004 - Mind 113 (449):1-41.
    Terms such as 'wisdom' or 'happiness' are commonly held to refer to abstract objects that are properties. On the basis of a greater range of linguistic data and with the support of some ancient and medieval philosophical views, I argue that such terms do not stand for objects, but rather for kinds of tropes, entities that do not have the status of objects, but only play a role as semantic values of terms and as arguments of predicates. Such ‘non-objects’ crucially (...)
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  • Presuppositions and Quantifier Domains.Friederike Moltmann - 2006 - Synthese 149 (1):179-224.
    In this paper, I will argue for a new account of presuppositions which is based on double indexing as well as minimal representational contexts providing antecedent material for anaphoric presuppositions, rather than notions of context defined in terms of the interlocutors’ pragmatic presuppositions or the information accumulated from the preceding discourse. This account applies in particular to new phenomena concerning the presupposition of quantifier domains. But it is also intended to be an account of presuppositions in general. The account differs (...)
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  • Intensional verbs and their intentional objects.Friederike Moltmann - 2008 - Natural Language Semantics 16 (3):239-270.
    The complement of intensional transitive verbs, like any nonreferential complement, can be replaced by a ‘special quantifier’ or ‘special pronoun’ such as 'something', 'the same thing', or 'what'. In this paper, I will defend the ‘Nominalization Theory’ of special quantifiers against a range of apparent counterexamples involving intensional transitive verbs.
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  • Quantification and the Nature of Crosslinguistic Variation.Lisa Matthewson - 2001 - Natural Language Semantics 9 (2):145-189.
    The standard analysis of quantification says that determiner quantifiers (such as every) take an NP predicate and create a generalized quantifier. The goal of this paper is to subject these beliefs to crosslinguistic scrutiny. I begin by showing that in St'á'imcets (Lillooet Salish), quantifiers always require sisters of argumental type, and the creation of a generalized quantifier from an NP predicate always proceeds in two steps rather than one. I then explicitly adopt the strong null hypothesis that the denotations of (...)
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  • Far from obvious: the semantics of locative indefinites.Sela Mador-Haim & Yoad Winter - 2015 - Linguistics and Philosophy 38 (5):437-476.
    Simple locative sentences show a variety of pseudo-quantificational interpretations. Some locatives give the impression of universal quantification over parts of objects, others involve existential quantification, and yet others cannot be characterized by either of these quantificational terms. This behavior is explained by virtually all semantic theories of locatives. What has not been previously observed is that similar quantificational variability is also exhibited by locative sentences containing indefinites with the ‘a’ article. This phenomenon is especially problematic for traditional existential treatments of (...)
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  • Experiential Attitudes are Propositional.Kristina Liefke - forthcoming - Erkenntnis:1-25.
    Attitudinal propositionalism is the view that all mental attitude content is truth-evaluable. While attitudinal propositionalism is still silently assumed in large parts of analytic philosophy, recent work on objectual attitudes (i.e. attitudes like ‘fearing Moriarty’ and ‘imagining a unicorn’ that are reported through intensional transitive verbs with a direct object) has put attitudinal propositionalism under explanatory pressure. This paper defends propositionalism for a special subclass of objectual attitudes, viz. experiential attitudes. The latter are attitudes like seeing, remembering, and imagining whose (...)
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  • On the quantification over times in natural language.Kiyomi Kusumoto - 2005 - Natural Language Semantics 13 (4):317-357.
  • Free choiceness and non-individuation.Jacques Jayez & Lucia M. Tovena - 2005 - Linguistics and Philosophy 28 (1):1 - 71.
    . Fresh evidence from Free Choice Items (FCIs) in French question the current perception of the class. The role of some standard distinctions found in the literature is weakened or put in a new perspective. The distinction between universal and existential is no longer an intrinsic property of FCIs. Similarly, the opposition between variation-based vs intension-based analyses is relativized. We show that the regime of free choiceness can be characterized by an abstract constraint, that we call Non-Individuation (NI), and which (...)
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  • Friends and colleagues: Plurality, coordination, and the structure of DP.Caroline Heycock & Roberto Zamparelli - 2005 - Natural Language Semantics 13 (3):201-270.
  • On The Relation of Connectivity and Specificational Pseudoclefts.Daphna Heller - 2002 - Natural Language Semantics 10 (4):243-284.
    From Higgins (1973) to Iatridou and Varlokosta (1998), connectivity has been considered in the literature to be a defining characteristic of specificational pseudoclefts. This paper argues against this view based on an analysis of specificational pseudoclefts in Hebrew. Pseudoclefts in Hebrew are interesting in two ways. First, predicational and specificational pseudoclefts are distinguished lexically in the choice of the copula. Second, specificational pseudoclefts fall into two classes, each exhibiting a different set of connectivity effects. The connectivity pattern in Hebrew is (...)
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  • Non‐Propositional Attitudes.Alex Grzankowski - 2013 - Philosophy Compass 8 (12):1123-1137.
    Intentionality, or the power of minds to be about, to represent, or to stand for things, remains central in the philosophy of mind. But the study of intentionality in the analytic tradition has been dominated by discussions of propositional attitudes such as belief, desire, and visual perception. There are, however, intentional states that aren't obviously propositional attitudes. For example, Indiana Jones fears snakes, Antony loves Cleopatra, and Jane hates the monster under her bed. The present paper explores such mental states (...)
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  • Proof-Theoretic Semantics for Natural Language.Nissim Francez - 2019 - Topoi 40 (1):55-69.
    The paper has two parts: 1. A brief exposition of proof-theoretic semantics, not necessarily in connection to natural language. 2. A review, with a contrastive flavour, of some of the applications of PTS to NL with an indication of advantages of PTS as a theory of meaning for NL.
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  • Proof-theoretic semantics for a natural language fragment.Nissim Francez & Roy Dyckhoff - 2010 - Linguistics and Philosophy 33 (6):447-477.
    The paper presents a proof-theoretic semantics (PTS) for a fragment of natural language, providing an alternative to the traditional model-theoretic (Montagovian) semantics (MTS), whereby meanings are truth-condition (in arbitrary models). Instead, meanings are taken as derivability-conditions in a dedicated natural-deduction (ND) proof-system. This semantics is effective (algorithmically decidable), adhering to the meaning as use paradigm, not suffering from several of the criticisms formulated by philosophers of language against MTS as a theory of meaning. In particular, Dummett’s manifestation argument does not (...)
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  • Proof-theoretic semantics as a resource for expressing semantic variability.Nissim Francez - 2022 - Synthese 200 (4):1-27.
    The paper highlights proof-theoretic semantics as providing natural resources for capturing semantic variation in natural language. The semantic variations include:Distinction between extensional predication and attribution to intensional transitive verbs a non-specific object.Omission of a verbal argument in a transitive verb.Obtaining sameness of meaning of sentences with transitive verbs with omitted object and existentially quantified object.Blocking unwarranted entailments in adjective–noun combinations.Capturing quantifier scope ambiguity.Obtaining context dependent quantifier domain restriction. The proof-theoretic resources employed to capture the above semantic variations include:The use of (...)
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  • Created objects, coherence, and anaphora.McCready Eric - 2006 - Journal of Semantics 23 (3):251-279.
    This paper considers the possibility of anaphoric dependencies to the objects of creation verbs in progressive aspect. It is shown that such dependencies are possible in the right circumstances and a classification of the felicitous cases is proposed. A formal analysis making use of pragmatic information and discourse structure is given. Finally, some broader implications of the analysis are discussed.
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  • Distributing arguments.Molly Diesing & Eloise Jelinek - 1995 - Natural Language Semantics 3 (2):123-176.
    We examine several cases of object movement from various languages, and demonstrate that the syntactic behavior of objects can be derived from certain conditions on LF representations. Conditions on LF relevant to the distribution of arguments are identified as relative scope fixing and type mismatch repair. These two conditions interact with the multiple semantic types that may be assigned to NPs (cf. Partee 1987) to induce movement of certain objects out of the VP, universally by LF and parametrically in the (...)
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  • Semantic Verbs Are Intensional Transitives.Justin D’Ambrosio - 2019 - Mind 128 (509):213-248.
    In this paper I show that we have strong empirical and theoretical reasons to treat the verbs we use in our semantic theorizing—particularly ‘refers to ’, ‘applies to ’, and ‘is true of ’—as intensional transitive verbs. Stating our semantic theories with intensional vocabulary allows us to partially reconcile two competing approaches to the nature and subject-matter of semantics: the Chomskian approach, on which semantics is non-relational, internalistic, and concerns the psychology of language users, and the Lewisian approach, on which (...)
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  • Prior's puzzle generalized.Justin D'Ambrosio - 2023 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 106 (1):196-220.
    Prior’s puzzle is standardly taken to be the puzzle of why, given the assumption that that-clauses denote propositions, substitution of “the proposition that P” for “that P” within the complements of many propositional attitude verbs is invalid. I show that Prior’s puzzle is much more general than is ordinarily supposed. There are two variants on the substitutional form of the puzzle—a quantificational variant and a pronominal variant—and all three forms of the puzzle arise in a wide range of grammatical positions, (...)
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  • Ramsification and the Ramifications of Prior's Puzzle.Justin D'Ambrosio - 2021 - Noûs 55 (4):935-961.
    Ramsification is a well-known method of defining theoretical terms that figures centrally in a wide range of debates in metaphysics. Prior's puzzle is the puzzle of why, given the assumption that that-clauses denote propositions, substitution of "the proposition that P" for "that P" within the complements of many propositional attitude verbs sometimes fails to preserve truth, and other times fails to preserve grammaticality. On the surface, Ramsification and Prior's puzzle appear to have little to do with each other. But Prior's (...)
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  • Definiteness and determinacy.Elizabeth Coppock & David Beaver - 2015 - Linguistics and Philosophy 38 (5):377-435.
    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 (...)
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  • Topic, Focus, and the Interpretation of Bare Plurals.Ariel Cohen & Nomi Erteschik-Shir - 2002 - Natural Language Semantics 10 (2):125-165.
    In this paper we show that focus structure determines the interpretation of bare plurals in English: topic bare plurals are interpreted generically, focused bare plurals are interpreted existentially. When bare plurals are topics they must be specific, i.e. they refer to kinds. After type-shifting they introduce variables which can be bound by the generic quantifier, yielding characterizing generics. Existentially interpreted bare plurals are not variables, but denote properties that are incorporated into the predicate.The type of predicate determines the interpretation of (...)
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  • Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 15, Saarbruecken.Ingo Reich (ed.) - 2010 - Saarbrücken: Universitätsverlag des Saarlandes.
     
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  • Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 9.Emar Maier, Corien Bary & Janneke Huitink (eds.) - 2005 - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics.
  • And the Visibility Parameter for D-Adverbs.Arnim von Stechow - unknown
    The proponents of strong lexicalism hold the view that “words” are formed in the lexicon and are opaque for the syntax ((Dowty 1979), (DiSciullo and Williams 1987), (Jackendoff 1990) and many others). Modular morphology, on the other hand, offers the possibility that at least some words are partially formed in the syntax ((Baker 1988), (Borer 1988), (Hale and Keyser 1994), (Chomsky 1995) and many others). In (Stechow 1995) and (Stechow 1996) it has been argued that facts observed with German wieder (...)
     
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  • Intensional ``transitive'' verbs and abstract clausal complementation.Richard Larson, Marcel den Dikken & Peter Ludlow - manuscript
     
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  • Compositionality as an empirical problem.David Dowty - 2007 - In Chris Barker & Pauline I. Jacobson (eds.), Direct Compositionality. Oxford University Press. pp. 14--23.
     
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  • Temporally opaque arguments in verbs of creation.Arnim von Stechow - unknown
    Summary Verbs of creation (create, make, paint) are not transparent. The object created does not exist during the event time but only thereafter. We may call this type of opacity temporal opacity. I is to be distinguished from modal opacity, which is found in verbs like owe or seek. (Dowty, 1979) offers two analyses of creation verbs. One analysis predicts that no object of the sort created exists before the time of the creation. The other analysis says that the object (...)
     
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  • Some remarks on choice functions and lf-movement.Arnim von Stechow - unknown
    It is well known that indefinite phrases are more liberal in taking scope than other quantifying phrases. In general, the scope of indefinites is not limited by the finite clause in which they occur, although the scope of universal quantifiers is. Wh-phrases behave very much like indefinites: in languages with wh in situ, their scope need not be restricted by anything like clause boundedness.
     
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  • Philosophy of Language in the Twentieth Century.Jason Stanley - 2008 - In Dermot Moran (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Twentieth Century Philosophy. Routledge. pp. 382-437.
    In the Twentieth Century, Logic and Philosophy of Language are two of the few areas of philosophy in which philosophers made indisputable progress. For example, even now many of the foremost living ethicists present their theories as somewhat more explicit versions of the ideas of Kant, Mill, or Aristotle. In contrast, it would be patently absurd for a contemporary philosopher of language or logician to think of herself as working in the shadow of any figure who died before the Twentieth (...)
     
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  • Truthmaker Semantics for Natural Language: Attitude Verbs, Modals, and Intensional Transitive Verbs.Friederike Moltmann - 2020 - Theoretical Linguistics 3:159-200.
    This paper gives an outline of truthmaker semantics for natural language against the background of standard possible-worlds semantics. It develops a truthmaker semantics for attitude reports and deontic modals based on an ontology of attitudinal and modal objects and on a semantic function of clauses as predicates of such objects. It also présents new motivations for 'object-based truthmaker semantics' from intensional transitive verbs such as ‘need’, ‘look for’, ‘own’, and ‘buy’ and gives an outline of their semantics. This paper is (...)
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  • Reference Processes in Intensional Contexts.Francesca Delogu - 2009 - In Arndt Riester & Torgrim Solstad (eds.), Proceedings of Sinn Und Bedeutung 13.
     
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  • Quantification with Intentional and with Intensional Verbs.Friederike Moltmann - 2015 - In Alessandro Torza (ed.), Quantifiers, Quantifiers, and Quantifiers. Springer.
    The question whether natural language permits quantification over intentional objects as the ‘nonexistent’ objects of thought is the topic of a major philosophical controversy, as is the status of intentional objects as such. This paper will argue that natural language does reflect a particular notion of intentional object and in particular that certain types of natural language constructions (generally disregarded in the philosophical literature) cannot be analysed without positing intentional objects. At the same time, those intentional objects do not come (...)
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  • Constructing Concessive Conditionals: In Case of Japanese.Ai Matsui - 2009 - In Arndt Riester & Torgrim Solstad (eds.), Proceedings of Sinn Und Bedeutung 13.
     
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