On pourrait s’attendre à ce que la pauvreté sémantique des noms généraux et leur polyvalence référentielle en fassent d’excellents candidats aux reprises anaphoriques infidèles. Bien des contextes, néanmoins, ne se prêtent pas à une reprise par un nom général comme _chose_, _personne_ ou _individu_ d’un référent préalablement classifié. Les difficultés posées par de telles reprises ou les effets discursifs (souvent péjoratifs) qu’elles produisent sont liées à la déclassification du référent qu’elles impliquent. Les noms généraux se distinguent en effet, nous le (...) verrons, des autres noms superordonnés par leur non-classifiance. Cette propriété les rapproche en revanche des noms de qualité (au sens de Milner), qui apparaissent au plus haut du continuum de généralité dans certains exemples proposés par Halliday & Hasan. (shrink)

The story of the greatest of all philosophical friendships—and how it influenced modern thought David Hume is widely regarded as the most important philosopher ever to write in English, but during his lifetime he was attacked as “the Great Infidel” for his skeptical religious views and deemed unfit to teach the young. In contrast, Adam Smith was a revered professor of moral philosophy, and is now often hailed as the founding father of capitalism. Remarkably, the two were best friends for (...) most of their adult lives, sharing what Dennis Rasmussen calls the greatest of all philosophical friendships. The Infidel and the Professor is the first book to tell the fascinating story of the friendship of these towering Enlightenment thinkers—and how it influenced their world-changing ideas. The book follows Hume and Smith’s relationship from their first meeting in 1749 until Hume’s death in 1776. It describes how they commented on each other’s writings, supported each other’s careers and literary ambitions, and advised each other on personal matters, most notably after Hume’s quarrel with Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Members of a vibrant intellectual scene in Enlightenment Scotland, Hume and Smith made many of the same friends, joined the same clubs, and were interested in many of the same subjects well beyond philosophy and economics—from psychology and history to politics and Britain’s conflict with the American colonies. The book reveals that Smith’s private religious views were considerably closer to Hume’s public ones than is usually believed. It also shows that Hume contributed more to economics—and Smith contributed more to philosophy—than is generally recognized. Vividly written, The Infidel and the Professor is a compelling account of a great friendship that had great consequences for modern thought. (shrink)

Anaphoric deflationism is a prosententialist account of the use of “true.” Prosentences are, for sentences, the equivalent of what pronouns are for nouns: as pronouns refer to previously introduced nouns, so prosentences like “that’s true” inherit their content from previously introduced sentences. This kind of deflationism concerning the use of “true” (especially in Brandom’s version) is an explanation in terms of anaphora; the prosentence depends anaphorically on the sentence providing its content. A relevant implication of this theory is that “true” (...) is not understood as a predicate and that truth is not a property. Primitivism, defended by Frege, Moore, and Davidson, is associated with two ideas: (1) that truth is a primitive and central trait of our conceptual system and (2) that truth, as such, cannot be defined. This second claim can be called “negative primitivism,” and it especially points out the facts about the “indefinability” of truth generally advocated by primitivists. In what follows, a connection is established between the deflationist’s rejection of the predicate and of the property and facts (and primitivist ideas) about the indefinability of truth. This connection establishes a common framework to lend further explanatory power to both options. According to the resulting view, this indefinability can explain the appeal and soundness of a deflationist dismissal of predicates and properties dealing with truth. (shrink)

Unbound anaphoric pronouns or ‘E-type pronouns’ have presented notorious problems for semantic theory, leading to the development of dynamic semantics, where the primary function of a sentence is not considered that of expressing a proposition that may act as the object of propositional attitudes, but rather that of changing the current information state. The older, ‘E-type’ account of unbound anaphora leaves the traditional notion of proposition intact and takes the unbound anaphor to be replaced by a full NP whose semantics (...) is assumed to be known (e.g. a definite description). In this paper, I argue that there are serious problems with any version of the E-type account as well as the (original form of the) dynamic account. I will explore a new account based on structured propositions, which can be considered a conservative extension of a traditional proposition-based semantics, but which at the same time incorporates some crucial insights of the dynamic account. (shrink)

This paper critically assesses the widespread claim that jealousy is a response to infidelity. According to this claim, herewith called the entitlement theory, jealousy is only an appropriate response to a relationship between a loved one and a rival if, by entertaining this relationship, the loved one does not treat the jealous person the way she is entitled to be treated. I reconstruct different versions of ET, each of them providing a different answer to the question why we should assume (...) that jealousy is a response to infidelity. I show that even the most plausible versions enjoy less argumentative support than it seems at first sight. The positive aim of this paper is to present a more inclusive account of jealousy as an alternative to ET. According to this account, jealousy serves to disturb the rival relationship and to gain the attention and affection of the loved person. Jealousy so understood is not only an appropriate response to infidelity but has wider appropriateness conditions. However, it plays a role in the negotiation of norms concerning exclusivity in personal relationships. The inclusive account does justice to the continuity and commonalities between adult and infant protest against rival relationships. (shrink)

Propositions are posited to perform a variety of explanatory roles. One important role is being what is designated by a dedicated linguistic expression like a "that"-clause. In this paper, the case that propositions are needed for such a role is bolstered by defending that there are other expressions dedicated to designating propositions. In particular, it is shown that natural language has anaphors for propositions. Complement "so" and the response markers "yes" and "no" are argued to be such expressions.

This paper argues that according to the influential version of legal moralism presented by Moore infidelity should all-things-considered be criminalized. This is interesting because criminalizing infidelity is bound to be highly controversial and because Moore’s legal moralism is a prime example of a self-consciously liberal legal moralism, which aims to yield legislative implications that are quite similar to liberalism, while maintaining that morality as such should be legally enforced. Moore tries to make his theory yield such implications, first by claiming (...) that the scope of our moral obligations is much more limited than legal moralists have traditionally claimed, and second by allowing for the possibility that the goodness of legally enforcing morality is often outweighed by the badness of limiting citizens’ morally valuable autonomy and spending scarce resources on enforcement. If Moore is successful in this, legal moralism is strengthened because it becomes immune to many of the most damaging liberal objections. By showing that despite making those moves Moore’s legal moralism is still committed to criminalizing infidelity, a manifestly illiberal implication for legislation, it is established that Moore is unsuccessful in creating a liberal legal moralism, and Moore’s failure in this regard raises questions about whether there can be such a thing as a liberal legal moralism. (shrink)

Anaphoric deflationism is a kind of prosententialist account of the use of “true.” It holds that “true” is an expressive operator and not a predicate. In particular, “is true” is explained as a “prosentence.” Prosentences are, for sentences, the equivalent of what pronouns are for nouns: As pronouns refer to previously introduced nouns, so prosentences like “that’s true” inherit their semantic content from previously introduced sentences. So, if Jim says, “The candidate is going to win the election,” and Bill replies (...) “that’s true,” the real meaning of Bill’s statement is “It is true that the candidate is going to win the election.” This kind of prosententialist deflationism around the use of “true,” especially in Robert Brandom’s version, is an explanation given in terms of anaphora. The prosentence is an anaphoric dependent of the sentence providing its content. Båve (Philosophical Studies, 145, 297-310. 2009) argued that the anaphoric account is not as general as prosententialists claim, and that the analogy between prosentences and pronouns is explanatorily idle because it does not do any real explanatory work. The two criticisms are connected: The lack of unity within the anaphoric theory can be used to show its poor explanatory value. The plurality of uses of “is true” exceeds the anaphoric account indeed. Therefore, prosententialism is just a superficial re-description and the real work is done by means of more general semantic terms, namely “semantic equivalence and consequence” between “p” and ““p” is true.” I analyze Båve’s arguments and highlight that he fails to acknowledge the importance of a pragmatic and expressive dimension explained by the anaphoric account, a dimension that semantic “equivalence” and “consequence” are not capable of explaining. I then show that the anaphoric account can actually explain semantic equivalence and consequence, and this is crucial because equivalence and consequence do not explain anaphoric dependence. This reverses the allegation of generality: The anaphoric account is more general. Again, the cases typically used to defend prosententialism, if correctly described, show a unitary structure: They are all versions of lazy anaphoric dependence. Therefore, the unifying principle performing the explanation here is lazy anaphora. (shrink)

It is widely held that truth and reference play an indispensable explanatory role in theories of meaning. By contrast, so-called deflationists argue that the functions of these concepts are merely expressive and never explanatory. Robert Brandom has proposed both a variety of deflationism — the anaphoric theory —, and a theory of meaning — inferentialism — which doesn’t rely on truth or reference. He argues that the anaphoric theory counts against his (chiefly referentialist) rivals in the debate on meaning and (...) thereby paves the way for inferentialism. In this paper, I give a friendly reconstruction of anaphoric deflationism (section II) and point to a distinguishing feature of the theory with respect to other deflationist proposals. While Brandom simply assumes, but doesn’t earn this feature, I propose a natural argument to justify it (section III). Then, however, I point out a subtle but clear sense in which truth and reference can play a role in explaining meaning, even if the anaphoric theory holds. Thus, anaphoric deflationism will turn out to be neutral in the debate on meaning (section IV). (shrink)

Oneanaphora (e.g.,this is a good one) has been used as a key diagnostic in syntactic analyses of the English noun phrase, and “one‐replacement” has also figured prominently in debates about the learnability of language. However, much of this work has been based on faulty premises, as a few perceptive researchers, including Ray Jackendoff, have made clear. Abandoning the view of anaphoricone(a‐one) as a form of syntactic replacement allows us to take a fresh look at various uses of the wordone. In (...) the present work, we investigate its use as a cardinal number (1‐one) in order to better understand its anaphoric use. Like all cardinal numbers, 1‐onecan only quantify an individuated entity and provides an indefinite reading by default. Owing to unique combinatoric properties, cardinal numbers defy consistent classification as determiners, quantifiers, adjectives, or nouns. Once the semantics and distribution of cardinal numbers, including 1‐one, are appreciated, many properties ofa‐onefollow with minimal stipulation. We claim that 1‐oneanda‐oneare distinct but very closely related lexemes. When 1‐oneappears without a noun (e.g.,Takeone), it is nearly indistinguishable froma‐one(e.g.,takeone)—the only differences being interpretive (1‐oneforegrounds its cardinality whilea‐onedoes not) and prosodic (presence versus absence of primary accent). While we ultimately argue that a family of constructions is required to describe the full range of syntactic contexts in whichoneappears, the proposed network accounts for properties ofa‐oneby allowing it to inherit most of its syntactic and interpretive constraints from its historical predecessor, 1‐one. (shrink)

The notion of anaphoric conservativity, that is a property of specific functions taking sets and binary relations as arguments is studied. Such functions are denotations of anaphoric determiners forming nominal anaphors. It is shown that anaphoric conservativity is strictly stronger that ordinary conservativity of this type of functions. In consequence some novel semantic descriptions of reflexive and reciprocal pronouns are provided and a semantic universal stating that reflexive and reciprocal non-possessive determiners denote anaphorically conservative functions is proposed.

This article explores the meaning of the root k-f-r in the Quran, questioning the practice of translating the noun kāfir as “infidel.” It argues for a distinction between the idiomatic phrasal verb kafara bi-, which does mean to reject or disbelieve, and the simple intransitive verb kafara and its deverbal nouns, which are used in the Quran in a large number of different ways. This polysemy is explored through contextual readings of Quran passages. It is argued that the noun kāfir, (...) unlike the verb kafara, is used only with regard to adherents of traditional polytheism and is not deployed in an unmodified way with regard to Jews and Christians. The possible influence on the Arabic kafara of Greek and Latin conceptions is also broached. (shrink)

This paper arose from an attempt to determine how the very late medieval1 supposition theorists treated anaphoric pronouns, pronouns whose significance is derivative from their antecedents. Modern researches into pronouns were stimulated in part by the problem of "donkey sentences" discussed by Geach 1962 in a section explaining what is wrong with medieval supposition theory. So there is some interest in seeing exactly what the medieval account comes to, especially if it turns out, as I suspect, to work as well (...) as contemporary ones. Besides, finding a good analysis of pronouns has proved to be very difficult, and so we might possibly find some insight in a historically different kind of approach. I discuss a version of supposition theory that aims at producing analyses of sentences containing quantified terms,2 as articulated around 1400 by Paul of Venice, and as further developed by certain logicians such as de Soto and Celaya in the 1400's and early 1500's.3 Much of what I will say also applies indirectly to earlier versions of supposition theory (before 1400). (shrink)

This paper argues that "that"-clauses do not reference propositions because they are not intersubstitutible with other expressions that do reference propositions. In particular, "that"-clauses are shown to not be intersubstitutible with propositional anaphors like "so." The substitution failures are further argued to support a semantics on which "that"-clauses are predicates.

This paper aims to provide a foundation for studying the interplay between emoji and linguistic (natural language) expressions; it does so by proposing a formal semantic classification of emoji-text combinations, focusing on two core sets of emoji: face emoji and activity emoji. Based on different data sources (introspective intuitions, naturalistic Twitter examples, and experimental evidence), we argue that activity emoji (case study I) are essentially event descriptions that serve as separate discourse units (similar to free adjuncts) and connect to the (...) accompanying (linguistic) text by virtue of suitable discourse relations. By contrast, face emoji (case study II) are expressive elements that are anchored to an attitude holder and comment on a proposition provided by the accompanying text. We provide further evidence for the distinct behavior of face emoji and activity emoji by looking at their scopal behavior with respect to linguistically-expressed negation. In particular, we probe interactions of emoji and texts that contain clausal negation, and conclude that both face emoji and activity emoji generally do not scope under negation. However, the appearance of such a scope relation arises with activity emoji when the emoji are connected to the accompanying text by virtue of an Explanation discourse relation. With face emoji, scopal interactions seem to appear in cases where the default interpretation would result in a discourse contribution that is pragmatically infelicitous, and also in cases that involve a specialized emoji-repetition construction where a repeated alternation of face emoji with words assumes a scope-marking role. (shrink)

The grammatical constraints on anaphoric binding, known as binding principles, are observed to form a classical square of oppositions. These constraints are then analysed as the effect of phase quantifiers over reference markers in grammatical obliqueness hierarchies, and the resulting phase quantifiers are shown to be organised in a square of logical duality. The impact of this result on the distinction between quantificational and referential nominals as well as on the logical foundations of the semantics of nominals in general is (...) discussed. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to use an anaphoric notion of presupposition for solving the problem of zero argument anaphora. Since Shopen (1973) it has been known that many missing arguments have an anaphoric interpretation, but it has not been known how this interpretation arises. I argue that these arguments are involved in presuppositions. On an anaphoric account of presuppositions as in van der Sandt (1992) or Kamp and Roßdeutscher (1992), it can be shown that the zero arguments acquire (...) an anaphoric interpretation through the presuppositions. The analysis rests on the principle that the Discourse Representation Structure for the presupposition is proper, so that the discourse referents for the zero arguments are in its universe and must be anchored to discourse referents in the context. (shrink)

Broadly construed, anaphors are forms that must be anteceded in a discourse, and more narrowly, as syntacticians tend to use the term, anaphors are forms that must be anteceded within a bounded, syntactically defined domain. In this short note, I focus on the difference between these two notions of anaphor and some problems with approaches to anaphora that try to collapse them by linking all anaphors to their antecedents by syntactic operations. The latter approach permits syntactic operations to exceed the (...) bounds of sentence grammar and must still introduce familiar descriptive constraints to distinguish between anaphora in the general sense, on the one hand, and syntactic anaphors, on the other. The notion of syntactic anaphor most familiar to syntacticians is the class of forms that are susceptible to Principle A (1a) of Chomsky's (1981) Binding Theory.. (shrink)

La définition de l’anaphore est loin d’être consensuelle. Alors que certains la décrivent comme la reprise d’un segment textuel, d’autres considèrent qu’elle consiste en la construction d’une représentation mentale à partir d’éléments discursifs. Le phénomène, quoi qu’il en soit, est normalement signalé par certains marqueurs spécifiques, ceux-ci contribuant à la construction des références anaphoriques. Dans cet article, nous examinons divers phénomènes liés à la réalisation phonologique ou phonétique des marqueurs concernés, aux niveaux segmental et suprasegmental. Cet examen nous conduit (...) à mettre en évidence le rapport étroit qui existe entre deixis et anaphore. Nous montrons que des éléments de nature phonologique se combinent à l’emploi de marqueurs grammaticaux dans la construction des références anaphoriques. Nous soulignons que certaines dichotomies observées sur le plan prosodique permettent de marquer la continuité ou la discontinuité discursive et suggérons que des nuances d’ordre phonétique contribuent à signaler divers degrés d’accessibilité mentale du référent des formes impliquées. (shrink)

In reading biographies or accounts of figures with which one agrees and sympathizes, there is a tendency that needs to be avoided, that is, of over -identifying with the figures in question and of too closely mapping one's own life and aspirations onto them.As such, there is some risk involved for a person like me in reading about the friendship between David Hume and Adam Smith. Dennis C. Rasmussen's excellent new volume, The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume, Adam Smith, (...) and the Friendship that Shaped Modern Thought, chronicles that friendship in an engaging and compelling narrative. The work is thoroughly researched and entertainingly written. Rasmussen uses the extant correspondence between Smith and... (shrink)

Cet article de présentation concerne deux notions, l’anaphore et les pronoms, dont nous examinons d’abord successivement l’état actuel des connaissances et des problématiques afférentes. Pour chaque notion, nous présentons aussi des éléments complémentaires issus de l’examen d’un corpus commun en anglais par des chercheurs qui évoluent dans des approches différentes, éléments que nous mettons en dialogue. La dernière partie de l’article vise à mettre en évidence la contribution que peut appor...

Cet article de présentation concerne deux notions, l’anaphore et les pronoms, dont nous examinons d’abord successivement l’état actuel des connaissances et des problématiques afférentes. Pour chaque notion, nous présentons aussi des éléments complémentaires issus de l’examen d’un corpus commun en anglais par des chercheurs qui évoluent dans des approches différentes, éléments que nous mettons en dialogue. La dernière partie de l’article vise à mettre en évidence la contribution que peut appor...

Few philosophers today doubt the importance of some notion of rigid designation, as suggested by Kripke and Putnam for names and natural kind terms. At the very least, most of us want our theories to be compatible with the most plausible elements of that account. Anaphoric theories of reference have gained some attention lately, but little attention has been given to how they square with rigid designation. Although the differences between anaphoric theories and many interpretations of the New Theory of (...) reference are substantial, I argue that rigid designation and anaphoric theories can be reconciled with one another and in fact complement one another in important ways. (shrink)

Factive predicates (like ‘-matters’, ‘discover-’, ‘realizes-’) take NPs that refer to facts, propositional predicates (like ‘-seems’, ‘believes-’, ‘-likely’) take NPs that refer to propositions, and eventive predicates (like ‘-occurs’, ‘-take place’, ‘-causes-’) take NPs that refer to events (broadly speaking, including states, processes, conditions, ect.). Logically speaking at least two out of the three categories (facts, propositions, and events) can be eliminated. So, if all three kinds of referents turn out to be required for natural language semantics, their postulation is (...) empirically significant since a priori logical considerations do not require all of them.Pronominalization evidence inter alia raises questions about the distinctness of facts, events, and propositions. Two proposals for resolving the pronominalization dilemmas are, first, that abstract elements exist which contain the genuine antecedents for the pronouns (co-reference remaining both syntactic and semantic) and second, that syntactic co-reference is simply distinct from semantic co-reference. The first proposal hardly works at all, since it requires the postulation of many abstract elements and associated unmotivated deletion (or insertion) rules. The second proposal works for all the examples considered. Prior to discussing the two proposals, I show how any two of the three categories can be logically eliminated, a demonstration which also produces some hypothetical abstract elements of use in discussing both proposals. I conclude with some brief remarks on reference versus coreference. (shrink)

We sought to identify emotional reactions to a partner's sexual infidelity and emotional infidelity. In a preliminary study, 53 participants nominated emotional reactions to a partner's sexual and emotional infidelity. In a second study, 655 participants rated each emotion for how likely it was to occur following sexual and emotional infidelity. Principal components analysis revealed 15 emotion components, including Hostile/Vengeful, Depressed, and Sexually aroused. We conducted repeated measures analyses of variance on the 15 components, with participant sex as the between-subjects (...) factor and infidelity type as the within-subjects factor. A main effect for sex obtained for 9 components. For example, men scored higher on Homicidal/Suicidal, whereas women scored higher on Undesirable/Insecure. A main effect for infidelity type obtained for 12 components. For example, participants endorsed Nauseated/Repulsed as more likely to follow sexual infidelity and Undesirable/Insecure as more likely to follow emotional infidelity. Discussion addresses limitations of this research, and highlights the need for an integrative theory of emotional reactions to infidelity. (shrink)

La pragmatique linguistique a pour objet le calcul du sens dans les inférences et les implicatures, l’étude des effets des actes de langage, des présuppositions. Un des domaines qui a retenu l’attention des chercheurs en pragmatique est celui de l’anaphore et de la déixis. Le corpus examiné fournit des occurrences intéressantes d’anaphore pour un traitement pragmatique : le conférencier doit convaincre et garder son public attentif. Il cherche à établir une connivence avec son public en faisant référence à (...) un « common ground », tout en rendant son discours cohérent et structuré. Nous partons de l’hypothèse que l’anaphore ne peut être traitée qu’au niveau du texte, en prenant en compte des facteurs de cohésion du discours, de sémantique et de pragmatique, de stylistique. (shrink)

This paper consists of two main parts and a coda. In the first part I present the ''binding theory'' of presupposition projection, which is the framework that I adopt in this paper (Section 1.1). I outline the main problems that arise in the interplay between presuppositions and anaphors on the one hand and attitude reports on the other (Section 1.2), and discuss Heim''s theory of presuppositions in attitude contexts (Section 1.3).In the second part of the paper I present my own (...) proposal. To begin with, I define an extension of DRT in which attitude reports can be represented (Sections 2.1–2.2). I then argue that the verb believe triggers a certain presupposition and that, given the binding theory, this presupposition determines the projection behaviour of the verb (Section 2.3). This analysis yields predictions which are incomplete in the sense that they do not fully account for speakers'' intuitions about presuppositions and anaphors in belief contexts. In Section 2.4 I suggest that this is as it should be because we may assume on independent grounds that there is a class of plausibility inferences which complement the predictions of the presupposition theory. Finally, the analysis is extended to the verb want (Section 2.5). (shrink)

In The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship That Shaped Modern Thought, Dennis Rasmussen reminds us that ‘Hume believed that “the first Quality of an Historian is to be true & impartial; the next to be interesting”’ (p. 72). Rasmussen meets both criteria in his history of the friendship of Hume and Smith, two luminaries of the Scottish Enlightenment. The Infidel and the Professor lays out the facts carefully, showing both the depth of Hume and (...) Smith’s warmth and respect for each other as well as the extent of their shared intellectual interests and mutual influence. But while he is ‘true & impartial,’ just as Hume would want, Rasmussen also tells a lively and engrossing story. In a well-paced and beautifully written narrative, he demonstrates the same wit and genuine affection for his subjects that he proves characterized their relationship. (shrink)

This paper locates the work and critical reception of the experimental poet Lyn Hejinian within the emerging debates of ‘third-wave’ feminist critique. It centrally argues that Hejinian's writing at once illuminates and undermines the apparent tensions between a feminist and an anti-foundationalist critical position. It specifically focuses on Hejinian's use of autobiography, as at once gesturing to the limitations of the theoretically naive self-knowing subject, steeped in the discredited assumptions of modernity, and the continuing cultural validity of and desire for (...) narrative, identification, self-expression and referentiality. The paper argues that Hejinian's writing makes sense of this equivocation, not through its use of feminized tropes assumed to subvert the linear assumptions of the genre and render the reader ‘active’, but through an attention to the ironical complexities of her own cultural positioning. Hejinian's writing demonstrates how the representation of the postmodern feminist subject involves an attention to authoriality, to the possibilities of textual experimentation and to the cultural sites that legitimize the production of meaning for these things. Hejinian demonstrates not simply that feminism can reconcile a need for agency with a critique of agency, and that such an act needs to consider its collective implications, but that these kinds of claims actually require an engagement with the varied contexts that continue to make feminist's attention to literature meaningful. (shrink)

Sensitivity to the extra-linguistic context, as exhibited by indexical and demonstrative expressions, and sensitivity to the linguistic context, as exhibited by, for example, anaphoric uses of third person pronouns, are regularly regarded as different and independent phenomena. The data on indexicals, demonstratives, and third person pronouns, however, call for a more unified notion of context and of context sensitivity. This paper aims to develop such a unified picture by generalizing the notion of anaphora to encompass extra-linguistic context dependency and generalizing (...) the notion of a structured discourse context so that contexts contain antecedents for expressions that refer to entities in the extra-linguistic context. (shrink)

The paper explains response particles like yes and no as anaphoric elements that pick up propositional discourse referents that are introduced by preceding sentences. It is argued that negated antecedent clauses introduce two propositional discourse referents, which results in ambiguities of answers that are partly resolved by pragmatic optimization. The paper also discusses response particles like okay, right, uh-huh, uh-uh, and German ja, nein and doch.

The paper describes the difference between being an infidel and being either an atheist or an agnostic.

This complete life story of David Hume, one of Scotland’s greatest thinkers, follows the Enlightenment from its early roots to its full blossoming in 18th-century Edinburgh. Using original sources, many for the first time, this biography details every aspect of the philosopher’s life—from the lukewarm reception of his now pivotal work, Treatise of Human Nature, to the fame and near excommunication brought about by his famous Essays and History. Also detailed are the stories behind his nickname, “The Great Infidel,” the (...) numerous guests seeking an invitation to dine at his table, and his lengthy intellectual involvement with a married aristocrat. This work is a well-rounded picture of the man, the century in which he lived, his famous ideas, and above all, his humanity. (shrink)

This research examines the complex interplay of religiosity, sexuality, and infidelity. We adopted a case study approach in this research, and discourse was made central to the analysis. There were two participants; both identified as homosexuals. One participant, Fahrin, is married while the other, Muzz, is divorced at the time of the interview. The participants were subjected to an in-depth, semi-structured interview to gauge their experiences, perceptions, opinions, beliefs, and thoughts on their sexuality, Islamic faith as well as relationship with (...) their spouses. The data were then transcribed and analyzed using the Discursive Action Model and Discursive Psychology frameworks. From the analysis, two overarching themes were identified. They are the allocation of blame and accountability and the participants’ attachment to their Islamic identity. The discussion then revolves around the societal role that pressures gay men to marry women and contextualizes the position of Islam on Homosexuality. (shrink)