Modal Comparisons: Two Dilettantes in Search of an Expert

In this short squib, Kai von Fintel and I express our puzzlement over the role of the German comparative form “eher” in metalinguistic and modal comparisons. We can’t do this alone. We have data, we have observations, we have speculations, but we need you to tell us what to do with them. We want to sit down with you and work on this together

Modal Comparisons: Two Dilletantes in Search of an Expert

We express our puzzlement over the role of the German comparative form “eher” in metalinguistic and modal comparisons. We can’t do this alone. We have data, we have observations, we have speculations, but we need you to tell us what to do with them. We want to sit down with you and work on this together

From Evidence to Belief: Developmental Precursors for False Belief Ascriptions

Recently, a fruitful line of inquiry has linked children’s acquisition of the language of the mind to their developing understanding of other minds. In particular, a cascade of linguistic effects regarding sentences embedded under mental verbs has been shown to occur around the age of four years for the average child, roughly the age when children start passing standard false belief tests. This set of linguistic effects is summarized briefly below. In the proposed study, we will turn our attention to possible precursors for the ability to ascribe a false belief to another person. These precursors include knowledge about how people form beliefs from the evidence of their senses and by what evidence they judge the existence of such belief states in others. To explore such questions, we will examine how children acquire some selected constructions relating to the path leading from evidence to belief: epistemic uses of modals such as “must” and “might” and direct and indirect perception reports using verbs like “see”

Sens et contexte

François Recanati, directeur d’études Séminaire doctoral Ce séminaire, destiné en priorité aux doctorants de François Récanati et aux doctorants étrangers en stage avec lui, prend tantôt la forme d’un groupe de lecture et tantôt la forme d’un séminaire classique avec exposés suivis de discussions. Le séminaire doctoral a accueilli des exposés, parmi lesquels : François Recanati, « Pragmatic modulation » (18 novembre 2009) ; Dan Zeman (doctorant, Université de Barcelone) ; « Binding predicates..

On truth unpersistence: At the crossroads of epistemic modality and discourse

International audienceWe propose a semantic analysis of the particles afinal (European Portuguese) and alla fine (Italian) in terms of the notion of truth unpersistence, which combines both epistemic modality and constraints on discourse structure. We argue that the felicitous use of these modal particles requires that the truth of a proposition p* fail to persist through a temporal succession of epistemic states, where p* is incompatible with the proposition modified by afinal/alla fine, and that the interlocutors share knowledge of a previous epistemic attitude toward p*. We analyze two main cases, that of plan-related propositions and that of propositions without plans. We also discuss the connections between truth unpersistence and evidentiality