[go: up one dir, main page]
More Web Proxy on the site http://driver.im/
Skip to main content
Springer Nature Link
Log in

Connectives without truth tables

  • Published:
Natural Language Semantics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

There are certain uses of and and or that cannot be explained by their normal meanings as truth-functional connectives, even with sophisticated pragmatic resources. These include examples such as The cops show up, and a fight will break out (‘If the cops show up, a fight will break out’), and I have no friends, or I would throw a party (‘I have no friends. If I did have friends, I would throw a party.’). We argue that these uses are indeed distinct from the more ordinary uses of and and or, but that they are nonetheless related in a principled way. To explain them we give an analysis of what we call the dynamic effects of connectives, which arise in all their uses. The special uses at issue are then argued to be instances where the connectives exhibit their dynamic effects without their truth-conditional meaning.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
£29.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price includes VAT (United Kingdom)

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Beaver David (2001) Presupposition and assertion in dynamic semantics. CSLI Publications, Stanford

    Google Scholar 

  • Bolinger, Dwight. 1967. The imperative in English. In To honor Roman Jakobson, 335–362. The Hague: Mouton.

  • Chemla, Emmanuel. 2008. Similarity: Towards a unified account of scalar implicatures, free choice permission and presupposition projection. Unpublished manuscript, ENS.

  • Clark Billy (1993) Relevance and “pseudo-imperatives”. Linguistics and Philosophy 16: 79–121

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Culicover P.W. (1972) Om-sentences: On the derivation of sentences with systematically unspecifiable interpretations. Foundations of Language 8: 199–236

    Google Scholar 

  • Culicover Peter, Ray Jackendoff (1997) Semantic subordination despite syntactic coordination. Linguistic Inquiry 28(2): 195–217

    Google Scholar 

  • Davies Anna Morpurgo (1975) Negation and disjunction in Anatolian—and elsewhere. Anatolian Studies 25: 157–168

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dever, Josh. 2010. Must or might. Unpublished manuscript, University of Texas at Austin.

  • Fox Danny (2006) Free choice and the theory of scalar implicatures. Unpublished manuscript, MIT

    Google Scholar 

  • Fox Danny (2008) Two short notes on Schlenker’s theory of presupposition projection. Theoretical Linguistics 34: 237–252

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • George, Benjamin. 2007. Predicting presupposition projection: Some alternatives in the strong Kleene tradition. Unpublished manuscript, UCLA.

  • Geurts Bart (1996) Local satisfaction guaranteed: A presupposition theory and its problems. Linguistics and Philosophy 19: 259–294

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Geurts Bart (2005) Entertaining alternatives: Disjunctions as modals. Natural Language Semantics 13: 383–410

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gillies Anthony (2004) Epistemic conditionals and conditional epstemics. Nous 38(4): 585–616

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gillies Anthony (2007) Counterfactual scorekeeping. Linguistics and Philosophy 30: 329–360

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gillies Anthony (2010) Iffiness. Semantics and Pragmatics 3(4): 1–42

    Google Scholar 

  • Han Chung-hye (2000) The structure and interpretation of imperatives: Mood and force in universal grammar. Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Haspelmath, Martin. 2004. Coordinating constructions: An overview. In Coordinating constructions, ed. Martin Haspelmath 3–39. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

  • Heim, Irene. 1982. The semantics of definite and indefinite noun phrases. Ph.D. thesis, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

  • Heim, Irene. 1983. On the projection problem for presuppositions. In WCCFL 2: Second annual west coast conference on formal linguistics, ed. D. Flickinger and M. Wescoat 114–125. Malden: Blackwell.

  • Heim, Irene. 1990. Presupposition projection. In Reader for the Nijmegen workshop on presupposition, lexical meaning, and discourse processes, ed. R. van der Sandt. University of Nijmegen.

  • Khoo Justin (2011) Operators or restrictors? A reply to Gillies. Semantics and Pragmatics 4(4): 1–43

    Google Scholar 

  • Klinedinst, Nathan. 2007. Plurality and possibility. Ph.D. thesis, UCLA.

  • Kratzer, Angelika. 1981. The notional category of modality. In Words, worlds, and contexts, ed. H.-J Eikmeyer and H. Reiser, 38–74. Berlin: de Gruyter.

  • Kratzer Angelika (1986) Conditionals. Chicago Linguistics Society 22(2): 1–15

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, David. 1973. Counterfactuals. Harvard.

  • Lewis, David. 1975. Adverbs of quantification. In Formal semantics of natural language. ed. Edward L. Keenan. 3–15. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  • Lewis David (1979) Attitudes de dicto and de se. Philosophical Review 88: 513–543

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • MacFarlane, John. 2011. Epistemic modals are assessment-sensitive. In Epistemic modals. ed. B. Weatherson and A. Egan. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  • Moss, Sarah. forthcoming. On the pragmatics of counterfactuals. Noûs.

  • Oxford English Dictionary. 2010. and, conj.1, adv., and n. In OED Online, September 2010. Oxford University Press. http://dictionary.oed.com/. Accessed May 2011.

  • Roberts Craige (1989) Modal subordination and pronominal anaphora in discourse. Linguistics and Philosophy 12(6): 683–721

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rothschild Daniel (2008) Presupposition projection and logical equivalence. Philosophical Perspectives 22: 473–497

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rothschild Daniel (2011) Explaining presupposition projection with dynamic semantics. Semantics and Pragmatics 4(3): 1–43

    Google Scholar 

  • Rothschild, Daniel. forthcoming. Do indicative conditionals express propositions? Noûs.

  • Russell Ben (2007) Imperatives in conditional conjunction. Natural Language Semantics 15(2): 131–166

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schlenker Philippe (2006) Anti-dynamics: Presupposition projection without dynamic semantics. Journal of Logic, Language, and Information 16: 325–356

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schlenker Philippe (2008) Be articulate: A pragmatic theory of presupposition projection. Theoretical Linguistics 34: 157–212

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schlenker Philippe (2009) Local contexts. Semantics and Pragmatics 2: 1–78

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwager, Magda. 2006. Interpreting imperatives. Ph.D. thesis, University of Frankfurt.

  • Soames, Scott. 1989. Presuppositions. In Handbook of philosophical logic, ed. D. Gabbay and F. Guenther. vol. IV, 553–616. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

  • Stalnaker, Robert. 1968. A theory of conditionals. In Studies in logical theory, ed. N. Rescher. 98–112. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  • Stalnaker, Robert. 1974. Pragmatic presuppositions. In Semantics and Philosophy, ed. M.K. Munitz and D.K. Unger. 197–213. New York: NYU Press.

  • Stalnaker Robert (1975) Indicative conditionals. Philosophia 5: 269–286

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stalnaker Robert (1981) Indexical belief. Synthese 49: 129–151

    Google Scholar 

  • Stump, Gregory T. 1981. The formal semantics and pragmatics of free adjuncts and absolutes in english. Ph.D. thesis, The Ohio State University.

  • Stump Gregory T (1985) Semantic variabitily of absolute constructions. Reidel, Dordrecht

    Google Scholar 

  • von Fintel, Kai. 2001. Counterfactuals in a dynamic context. In Ken Hale: A life in language. ed. Michael Kentstowicz, 123–152. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

  • von Fintel, Kai., and Anthony Gillies. 2011. Might made right. In Epistemic modality. ed. Andy Egan and Brian Weatherson, 100–130. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  • von Fintel Kai, Sabine Iatridou (2007) Anatomy of a modal construction. Linguistic Inquiry 38(3): 445–483

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • von Fintel, Kai and Sabine Iatridou. 2009. LSA 2009 class notes: Covert modals. http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/people/faculty/iatridou/lsa_modals.pdf. Accessed May 2011

  • van Benthem, Johan. 1989. Semantic parellels in natural language and computation. In Logic colloquium ‘87, ed. H. O. Ebinghaus et al., 331–375. Amsterdam: North-Holland.

  • Veltman, Frank 1996. Defaults in update semantics. Journal of Philosophical Logic 25: 221–61.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yalcin Seth (2007) Epistemic modals. Mind 116: 983–1026

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zimmerman Thomas Ede (2000) Free choice disjunction and epistemic possibility. Natural Language Semantics 8: 255–290

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University College London, London, UK

    Nathan Klinedinst

  2. All Souls College, Oxford, UK

    Daniel Rothschild

Authors
  1. Nathan Klinedinst
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Daniel Rothschild
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Daniel Rothschild.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Klinedinst, N., Rothschild, D. Connectives without truth tables. Nat Lang Semantics 20, 137–175 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11050-011-9079-5

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11050-011-9079-5

Keywords

Search

Navigation