15 research outputs found
Inalienable possession construction and passive markers inducing an idiomatic interpretation
Descriptive Indexicals, Propositional Attitudes and the Double Role of Context
This paper offers an account of some uses of indexicals in the context
of propositional attitude ascriptions, i. e. reports that concern the cognitive relations
people bring to bear on propositions. While the contribution of indexicals
to the truth conditions of an utterance is usually singular, their interpretation is
general in the case of so called descriptive uses. I will propose an interpretation
of the descriptive uses of indexicals via a mechanism of descriptive anaphora and
apply this mechanism to the case of attitude ascriptions. I will emphasize the role
of context both in the suppression of the default referential reading of the indexical,
as well as in the reconstruction of the relevant interpretation of the whole
utterance