Kasia M. Jaszczolt

Monsters and I: The Case of Mixed Quotation

According to Kaplan (Demonstratives: An essay on the semantics, logic, metaphysics, and epistemology of demonstratives and other indexicals. In: J Almog, J Perry, H. Wettstein (eds) Themes from Kaplan. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 481–563, 1989a), the semantic value of an indexical is fixed by the context of the current speech act, except for its occurrences in quotation. However, contrary to this thesis, now known as ‘Fixity’ (Schlenker, A plea for monsters, Linguist Philos 26:29–120, 2003), subsequent discussions have demonstrated that the content of pure indexicals can be fixed by the intended speech act (Predelli, Erkenntnis 74:289–303, Analysis, 2011). Cross-linguistically, Fixity also proves untenable for languages such as Amharic where the referent of a first-person pronoun can be drawn from the reporting context or the reported situation (Schlenker). In this paper we focus on the variety of ways the English first-person singular pronoun is interpreted in quotation, focusing on mixed quotation, and argue that (i) mixed quotation is a case of language use and, pace Kaplan, the behaviour of first-person pronouns in mixed quotation is relevant for, and testifies against, Fixity; (ii) mixed quotation induces context-shifts or a generalisation over contexts that can be captured in terms of what we call ‘character-at-issue’ and ‘content-at-issue’ uses; and (iii) the extant contextualist accounts that appear to be best suited to account for the diversity of use do not pursue the interpretation of first-person pronouns in quotation to its logical end. To remedy this weakness we demonstrate how the use of first-person indexicals in these Fixity-defying contexts (Kaplan’s ‘monster’ contexts) can be accounted for in the radical contextualist theory of Default Semantics (Jaszczolt, Default semantics: Foundations of a compositional theory of acts of communication. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005; Default semantics. In: B Heine, H Narrog (eds) The Oxford handbook of linguistic analysis. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 215–246, 2010; Meaning in linguistic interaction: semantics, metasemantics, philosophy of language. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2016). Overall, we conclude that ‘I’ is not an indexical term and quotation is not a monster, which points to the possibility that indexicals are a philosophers’ fiction.

The syntax-pragmatics merger: Belief reports in the theory of Default Semantics

This paper is a voice in the ongoing discussion on the source and properties of pragmatic inference that contributes to the representation of discourse meaning. I start off from the contextual standpoint of truth-conditional pragmatics (TCP, Recanati, Linguist Philos 25:299–345, 2002; Recanati, Embedded implicatures. http://jeannicod.ccsd.cnrs.fr/documents, 2003; Recanati, Literal meaning. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004) and develop a proposal of representations of utterance meaning, the so-called merger representations, that incorporate the output of pragmatic inference. The move from TCP to pragmatics-rich semantics of acts of communication is facilitated by rethinking the compositionality of meaning and predicating compositionality of such pragmatics-rich structures. I argue that the advantage of ‘semanticizing’ the output of pragmatic sources of meaning is that we can relax the view on compositionality of meaning and offer an algorithm of the interaction of such sources where the requirement of compositionality is imposed on the output of the interaction rather than on the output of the syntactic processing of the sentence.

‘Pragmaticizing’ Kaplan: Flexible Inferential Bases and Fluid Characters

It can easily be observed in analysing natural language discourse that the category of an indexical expression does not correspond to clearly delimited types of expressions: in spite of the philosophers’ rigid distinctions into directly referring expressions and expressions whose referring function is present on only some occasions of use (where, for example, indexicals and proper names belong to the first category and definite descriptions to the latter), the devices that natural languages use for the purpose of conveying reference cannot be easily put into this mould. At the same time, these rigid classifications, such as those informing Kaplans content/character distinction, rely on a formal semanticists’ dubious assumption that expressions can be identified and classified prior to the function they have in a particular context. So, for example, for Kaplan, personal pronouns have characters (sometimes referred to as ‘linguistic meanings’) that are in need of contextual specification before the truth-conditional semantic analysis (in terms of a function from possible words/circumstances of evaluation to truth values) gives them content. However, what counts as character is arguably itself context-dependent: the unit that is relevant for such a contextual specification is in itself dependent on the particular situation of discourse, and even, arguably, on the speakers intentions. It is therefore proposed that Kaplans character/content distinction be ‘pragmaticized’ accordingly, to apply to such a flexible, use-driven category. In short, characters become ‘fluid’ because they correspond to ‘flexible’ inferential bases.

Chapter 4. Graded salience effects on irony production and interpretation

The effects of graded salience, as introduced and discussed by Giora (1997, 1999, 2003) can normally be observed during the process of meaning interpretation: the focus of current research falls on the issue of automatic access to salient meanings, which occurs regardless of any contextual bias. This chapter, however, explores some additional effects of salience, in parallel to its usual role in meaning interpretation. More specifically, the importance of salient meanings being in a contrastive relationship, either with other meanings or with the context at hand, is highlighted through the examination of different strategies for irony. The main hypothesis is that speakers and hearers are not only aware of the “competition” between meanings of various degrees of salience in different kinds of contexts, but they also use the strongest cases of such competition as a fertile ground for rhetoric devices like irony. The basic premise of this analysis is the existence of different types of pragmatic devices used for the creation of irony. A preliminary presentation of these devices is necessary for the understanding of the particular strategies that exploit salient meanings. Therefore, I will first introduce a typology for irony before moving on to discuss two different cases of contrastive use of salient meanings. The first case relies on the contrast between a salient and a less salient but literal or contextually prioritised meaning of an expression. In these cases, the ironist chooses to exploit the less (or least) probable meaning in order to create the ironic effect. In the second case, an expression carrying a highly salient meaning is used in the wrong context: assuming that such (conventionalized) expressions, apart from carrying a specific meaning, are also attached to a specific context, it

Slippery Meaning and Accountability

In his ‘Fishy business’, Mark Sainsbury (Analysis 74:3–5, 2014) presents a puzzle: in order to have a substantive disagreement, one has to first agree on the meaning of a proposition that is the object of this disagreement. Now, since before Linnaeus’ classification the criteria for counting as ‘fish’ were such that they allowed for the inclusion of whales, while the new classification (1758) excludes them, a substantive disagreement ought not to arise across these two. And yet, in a court case from 1818 he refers to, the judges did not dismiss the disagreement on semantic grounds. They proclaimed whales to count as fish, and, according to Sainsbury, we, the readers, are equally able to reach a verdict in that we would proclaim the jury to be wrong. The question I address in this paper is a metasemantic one, namely what should count as meaning of expressions for the purpose of theoretical inquiry. I point out that truth-conditional analysis of meaning increasingly makes use of pragmatically derived interpretations in radical versions of contextualism and that this pragmatization of meaning is supported by the increasingly common philosophical stance on reference according to which reference is to be pursued on the level of cognitive mechanisms rather than types of noun phrases. It is in this milieu that I analyse the cognitive construct of the primary meaning of an utterance that corresponds to the intended and recovered meaning in a model situation, derived here by employing the sources of information and processes identified in Default Semantics. I demonstrate through selected examples that any attempts to regiment meaning by using the explicit/implicit distinction, directly-referential/contextually-referential, or indexical/nonindexical distinction do not yield the primary meaning intended and recovered in linguistic interaction. As a result, the question of accountability arises: if the primary meaning can be implicit, context-driven and multidimensional, then is it this meaning that the speaker should be accountable for? If so, we need a normative theory that would predict such meanings. If not, then we would have to make the speaker accountable for some content that is not intended. I propose that a normative, radical contextualist account that places meaning on the level of a conceptual structure, while at the same time preserving the truth-conditional method of analysis, acts in favour of this accountability on the grounds of primary, intended meaning, irrespective of its explicit or implicit status. I tentatively conclude by pointing out one obvious corollary, namely that this pragmatization of meaning affects both sides of language in the courtroom but not to the same degree: the relevant law cannot have a communicative rather than textual content beyond certain limitations imposed on the generalizations over admissible contexts, while the primary content of the plaintiff’s and the defendant’s contributions, firmly situated in the co-constructed context, can easily cross the explicit/implicit boundary.

The Individual and the Social Path of Interpretation: The Case of Incomplete Disjunctive Questions

Subsentential utterances provide an ideal testing ground for issues central to the topic of the syntax–pragmatics interface such as the exact nature of the interaction between the information derivable from the structure and information obtained through pragmatic inference or default (automatic) pragmatic adjustments of meaning. Our case study for the purpose of this chapter is incomplete disjunction of the form ‘p or…’, in particular in interrogative constructions, with the second disjunct missing—unpronounced or, in some cases, even ‘unthought’ as our analysis of the corpus data shows. The chapter offers an attempt at a formal treatment, using the theoretical framework of default semantics (DS), of the compositional representation of such expressions, accounting for the sources of information, the processes involved in the recovery of the intended meaning, as well as allowing some preliminary insight into their interaction. It makes use of the database of incomplete disjunctive interrogatives in English complied out of the Great British component of the International Corpus of English, supplemented with examples taken from the Australian National Corpus and thereby offers theoretically motivated explanations for the pragmatic effects that incomplete disjunctive interrogatives have been observed to occasion in naturally occurring interactions. The category of disjunction is semantically and pragmatically complex: It can communicate, among others, that (i) the addressee is given a choice out of a set of alternatives (ii) the addressee has to think of possible alternatives, (iii) the speaker lacks information to make a stronger claim, and (iv) it would not be correct to make an informatively stronger assertion because two or more states of affairs are (equally) plausible. In Sect. 2, we point out the variety of functions that or can adopt. In Sect. 3, we introduce the theoretical problem with incomplete disjunction, and in Sect. 4, we move to the discussion of the semantics and pragmatics of incomplete utterances, focusing on contextualist pragmatic vis-a-vis syntactic ellipsis accounts. Section 5 offers a DS-theoretic analysis of the sources of information about completions and the associated processes that produce the truth-conditional representation. Section 6 lays out theoretical foundations for the mechanism of establishing relevant alternatives by proposing an extension to alternative semantics. Section 7 follows with the presentation of the merger representations for selected examples from the corpus, pertaining to different categories of ‘or…?’ constructions we previously identified.

The Cambridge Handbook of Pragmatics: Problems and Theories

The Cambridge Handbook of Pragmatics adopts a broad definition of pragmatics, presenting the main orientations in pragmatic research worldwide, incorporating seminal research as well as cutting-edge state-of-the-art solutions. In addition to the well-established post-Gricean philosophical accounts of intention and inference in communication, it includes lexical pragmatics, historical pragmatics, sociopragmatics, the pragmatics of utterance processing, and empirical approaches in pragmatic research. Against these perspectives, there is a section on applications of pragmatics to various types of expressions and phenomena which are of particular importance. The Cambridge Handbook of Pragmatics aims to offer unbiased and accessible introductions that present the many different points of view to be found in the current literature.

The Cambridge Handbook of Pragmatics: Interfaces and the delimitation of pragmatics

The Cambridge Handbook of Pragmatics adopts a broad definition of pragmatics, presenting the main orientations in pragmatic research worldwide, incorporating seminal research as well as cutting-edge state-of-the-art solutions. In addition to the well-established post-Gricean philosophical accounts of intention and inference in communication, it includes lexical pragmatics, historical pragmatics, sociopragmatics, the pragmatics of utterance processing, and empirical approaches in pragmatic research. Against these perspectives, there is a section on applications of pragmatics to various types of expressions and phenomena which are of particular importance. The Cambridge Handbook of Pragmatics aims to offer unbiased and accessible introductions that present the many different points of view to be found in the current literature.

The Cambridge Handbook of Pragmatics: The Cambridge Handbook of Pragmatics

The Cambridge Handbook of Pragmatics adopts a broad definition of pragmatics, presenting the main orientations in pragmatic research worldwide, incorporating seminal research as well as cutting-edge state-of-the-art solutions. In addition to the well-established post-Gricean philosophical accounts of intention and inference in communication, it includes lexical pragmatics, historical pragmatics, sociopragmatics, the pragmatics of utterance processing, and empirical approaches in pragmatic research. Against these perspectives, there is a section on applications of pragmatics to various types of expressions and phenomena which are of particular importance. The Cambridge Handbook of Pragmatics aims to offer unbiased and accessible introductions that present the many different points of view to be found in the current literature.

The Cambridge Handbook of Pragmatics: Index

The Cambridge Handbook of Pragmatics adopts a broad definition of pragmatics, presenting the main orientations in pragmatic research worldwide, incorporating seminal research as well as cutting-edge state-of-the-art solutions. In addition to the well-established post-Gricean philosophical accounts of intention and inference in communication, it includes lexical pragmatics, historical pragmatics, sociopragmatics, the pragmatics of utterance processing, and empirical approaches in pragmatic research. Against these perspectives, there is a section on applications of pragmatics to various types of expressions and phenomena which are of particular importance. The Cambridge Handbook of Pragmatics aims to offer unbiased and accessible introductions that present the many different points of view to be found in the current literature.