James Higginbotham

Reference and Control

The classical province of the theory of control lies within what might be grouped together as the phenomena of understood reference for an argument position of a head, where a reference to a thing x is said to be understood with respect to a given position of a given head if there is no expression in that position referring to x, but one takes it that the position is appropriately related to x, either through another independent argument or position in the sentence or discourse in question, or as pragmatically supplied. The phenomena of understood reference, so described, included all cases of “gaps” apart from raising and the movement passive, and specifically include the case of deictically fixed understood reference, as in Emmon Bach’s example (1) (Bach (1977): 147): (1) Here’s a book to read to each other (a handing a book to b and c)

English is not a context-free language

The question whether English is a context-free language has for some time been regarded as an open one. In this article, I argue that the answer is negative. I exhibit a regular set L (a set that can be generated by a finite-state grammar or accepted by a finite automaton), whose intersection with English is not a context-free language. Since context-free languages are closed under intersection with regular sets, that L ∩ English is not a context-free language proves that English is not a context-free language either.

Tense, aspect, and indexicality

Introduction 1. On Events in Linguistic Semantics 2. Tense, Indexicality, and Consequence 3. Tensed Toughts 4. Tensed Second Thoughts: Comments on Richard 5. Why is Sequence of Tense Obligatory? 6. The Anaphoric Theory of Tense 7. Accomplishments 8. The English progressive 9. The English perfect and the metaphysics of Events 10. Competence With Demonstratives 11. A Plea for Implicit Anaphora 12. Rembering, Imagining, and the First Person

The English Perfect and the Metaphysics of Events

I argue here that the what Otto Jespersen called the “conservative” English Perfect is a purely aspectual predicate, true of occurrent results of prior events, noting also: (i) that nominalizations, including nominalizations of the Perfect, call for extending event positions to nonheads including adverbs and quantifiers, and (ii) that restrictions on the present perfect with prior temporal determinations extend also to embedded clauses under the principles governing tense anaphora, or sequence of tense.

On linguistics in philosophy, and philosophy in linguistics

After reviewing some major features of theinteractions between Linguistics and Philosophyin recent years, I suggest that the depth and breadthof current inquiry into semanticshas brought this subject into contact both with questionsof the nature of linguistic competence and with modern andtraditional philosophical study of the nature ofour thoughts, and the problems of metaphysics.I see this development as promising for thefuture of both subjects.

Evidentials: Some Preliminary Distinctions

I raise several questions about the semantic interpretation of evidentials, supposing throughout that they are only through grammaticalization distinguished from main Verbs, and thus amenable to abstract study, even through languages that do not support evidential morphology. These questions point to distinctions that are often not made, and sometimes not even considered, in the important and growing literature on the topic. A major question is: does a person who asserts an evidential sentence say one thing, or two? Some links to well-known philosophical topics, such as first-person authority, are also explored.

Expression, Truth, Predication, and Context: Two Perspectives

Abstract In this article I contrast in two ways those conceptions of semantic theory deriving from Richard Montague’s Intensional Logic (IL) and later developments with conceptions that stick pretty closely to a far weaker semantic apparatus for human first languages. IL is a higher‐order language incorporating the simple theory of types. As such, it endows predicates with a reference. Its intensional features yield a conception of propositional identity (namely necessary equivalence) that has seemed to many to be too coarse to be acceptable. In the most usual expositions, it takes the object of linguistic explication to be the sentence in a context, as in Kaplan, 1977. This last has led to recent speculations about ‘shifted’ contexts. IL may be contrasted with a more linguistically (representationally) bound conception of propositions and interpretation of their predicational and functional parts, and with the explication, not of sentences in contexts, but of potential utterances, relative to the antecedent referential intentions of their speakers. We may then advance, as an empirical hypothesis about all human languages, that contexts never shift, and propose that apparent counterexamples stem from the misconstrual of linguistically coded anaphoric relations, relations that are wanted independently anyway. Donald Davidson’s posthumous volume Truth and Predication mounts a sustained criticism of the notion of predicate reference. This criticism is not decisive. However, it may put the ball in the other court, insofar as it asks for a justification of what IL takes as given. Elaborations of IL using structured propositions, recently defended in King, 2007, recognize the problem of predicate reference, and the correlative issue of the ‘unity of the proposition’; but I do not see that they can do better than bite the bullet already bitten in IL. I agree with Frege’s insight that full justification of predicate reference pushes the boundaries of natural language, and to that extent may not be found within the semantic (as opposed to general scientific) enterprise.

Jackendoff's conceptualism

In this commentary, I concentrate upon Ray Jackendoffs view of the proper foundations for semantics within the context of generative grammar. Jackendoff (2002) favors a form of internalism that he calls “conceptualism.” I argue that a retreat from realism to conceptualism is not only unwarranted, but even self-defeating, in that the issues that prompt his view will inevitably reappear if the latter is adopted.

GB Theory: An Introduction*

Publisher Summary This chapter is intended for persons with various backgrounds in linguistics who are interested in becoming acquainted with the general features of the development and internal logic of Government and binding theory (GB) and are ready to approach the subject from a somewhat abstract point of view. The chapter explains some of the concepts of GB theory and the axioms governing them. The formalization of a linguistic theory requires an inventory of its primitives, among which hierarchy, linear order, and labeling are given. Apart from the uncertainty about the inventory of possible labels, it is remarked in the chapter that phrase markers could be enriched with binary relations not definable in terms of hierarchy, linear order, and labeling: these included at least the antecedent–anaphor relation and the relation of predication. The dawn of syntax is marked by the realization that the structure of sentences is hierarchical—that is, behind the linear order of words and morphemes that is visible in natural languages, there is another organization in terms of larger or smaller constituents nested one within another.

Latter-day intensions

This two-volume set consists mostly of revisions of essays originally presented at a I986 meeting at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. The first volume is concerned not so much with specifically linguistic issues as with matters of logic and metaphysics, prompted in part by the apparent syntax and semantics of human languages. The second volume contributes to a variety of linguistic semantic topics as outlined below.