17 research outputs found
Context Sensitivity and Indirect Reports
In this paper, I argue that Contextualist theories of semantics are not undermined by their purported failure to explain the practice of indirect reporting. I adopt Cappelen & Leporeâs test for context sensitivity to show that the scope of context sensitivity is much broader than Semantic Minimalists are willing to accept. The failure of their arguments turns on their insistence that the content of indirect reports is semantically minima
Indirect Reports and Pragmatics
Abstract: An indirect report typically takes the form of a speaker using the locution âsaid thatâ to report an earlier utterance. In what follows, I introduce the principal philosophical and pragmatic points of interest in the study of indirect reports, including the extent to which context sensitivity affects the content of an indirect report, the constraints on the substitution of co-referential terms in reports, the extent of felicitous paraphrase and translation, the way in which indirect reports are opaque, and the use of indirect reports as pragmatic vehicles for other speech acts such as humor, insult, or irony. Throughout I develop several positions: (i) that a semantic analysis of indirect reports is insufficient, (ii) that the distinction between direct and indirect reports is not clear and that indirect reports are the predominate way of reporting while direct reports may be a para-linguistic variation on them, (iii) that most questions about the semantics and pragmatics of indirect reports will rely on a full understanding of the nature of what is reported and how it gets reported, (iv) that an analysis of reporting requires the pragmatic tools of metarepresentation and a social, inter-personal understanding of relevance and shared knowledge
The Abnegated Self
Abstract: A self-abnegating person lacks contact with their agency. This can be against their will, in absence of their will, or voluntarily. This does not mean that they cannot provide reasons for or a narrative about their actions. Itâs just that the reasons or narrative are someone elseâs. People abnegate parts of their agency regularly; for example, within hierarchical institutions. In other cases, the self-abnegation is all-encompassing; for example, a victim of brainwashing. An agent in such a position can completely fail to understand themselves or be understood by others as having a self. I focus on two problems related to self-abnegation. The first is whether there is a conception of a self that can reliably discriminate between strong selves and abnegated selves. The second is whether a person with an abnegated self should be treated as a person with a strong self. I conclude that the good of respecting derived or instrumental agency comes in putting that person in a position to agentially flourish and in maintaining the structural conditions and expectations of agency
Parental Obligation
The contention of this article is that parents do have obligations to care for their children, but for reasons that are not typically offered. I argue that this obligation to care for oneâs children is unfair to parents but not unjust. I do not provide a detailed account of what our obligations are to our children. Rather, I focus on providing a justification for any obligation to care for them at all
Reporting Practices and Reported Entities
Abstract: This chapter discusses speakersâ conceptions of reported entities as evident in reporting practices. Pragmatic analyses will be offered to explain the diversity of permissible reporting practices. Several candidate theses on speakersâ conceptions of reported entities will be introduced. The possibility that there can be a unified analysis of direct and indirect reporting practices will be considered. Barriers to this unification will be discussed with an emphasis on the cognitive abilities speakers use in discerning the entities referred to in reporting contexts
Indirect Reports in Modern Eastern Armenian
In this work we consider the distribution of complementizers in Modern
Eastern Armenian. There are two complementizers: wor and tâe. They
both introduce complement clauses, but tâe also expresses a dubitative
value, implying that the speaker has doubts on the content following the
complementizer. Moreover, tâe, when embedded under verbs of saying,
shifts the anchoring of indexicals, moving the anchor from the speaker
â better called utterer â to the subject of the saying predicate. On the
basis of this and further evidence coming from the analysis of sequence
of tense and if-clauses, we will argue that the position of tâe in the left
periphery of the clause occupies a high position in the syntactic hierarchy.
The aim of this work is on one hand, a better understanding of indirect
reports and their syntax and, on the other, a more precise characterization
of indexicals across languages