Transcript Contextualism and Minimalism about De Se Belief Ascription

Default Semantics Workshop
University of Pisa, 8 May 2012
Kasia M. Jaszczolt
University of Cambridge
http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/kmj21
1
• Part 1
Default Semantics and Interactive Semantics:
An introduction
• Part 2
Selected applications: Temporal reference in discourse
• Part 3
Selected applications: First-person reference in discourse and
beliefs de se
2
The scenario:
(1) The person who agreed to organise the drinks is to blame.
(2) I am to blame. I completely forgot I was put in
charge.
3
‘I once followed a trail of sugar on a supermarket floor,
pushing my cart down the aisle on one side of a tall counter
and back the aisle on the other, seeking the shopper with the
torn sack to tell him he was making a mess. With each trip
around the counter, the trail became thicker. But I seemed
unable to catch up. Finally it dawned on me. I was the
shopper I was trying to catch.’
Perry (1979: 3)
4
De se
 Grammar/pragmatics interface in conveying the intended de
se meaning
 Representing de se reports in Default Semantics
5
Outcome
A contextualist but grammar-based account of de se in DS
6
Part I: Beliefs and expressions de se
referential semantics conflates (1) with (2):
(1)
(2)
The person who agreed to organise the drinks is to
blame.
I am to blame. I completely forgot I was put in charge.
x [to-blame(x)] (kasia jaszczolt)
Perry (2001, 2009): referential content as the ‘default’ content
7
? Grammar
produces the self-referring function
Chierchia (1989: 28): The cognitive access to oneself is ‘systematically
excluded from the interpretation of (non-pronominal) referential
expressions. It is systematically present in the interpretation of overt
pronouns. It is systematically and unambiguously associated with the
interpretation of PRO the null subject of infinitives and gerunds. It is
associated with the interpretation of long-distance reflexives (at least in
some languages)’.
8
? Grammar
produces the self-referring function
Chierchia (1989: 28): The cognitive access to oneself is ‘systematically
excluded from the interpretation of (non-pronominal) referential
expressions. It is systematically present in the interpretation of overt
pronouns. It is systematically and unambiguously associated with the
interpretation of PRO the null subject of infinitives and gerunds. It is
associated with the interpretation of long-distance reflexives (at least in
some languages)’.
9
Long-distance reflexives (e.g. Chinese ziji, Japanese zibun, or Korean
caki) are not specified for person, number of gender (have no features) and can have many functions such as subject, object,
indirect object, or possessor.
(3) Takasi-ga
zibun-ga tensai da
Takasi-SUBJ self-SUBJ genius is
Takasi1 thinks that he1 is a genius.
to
omotteiru.
COMP think
(adapted from Huang 2000: 191)
10
The cognitive access to the self is present in
the semantics of English (in some form or other).
11
An argument from non-pronominal expressions
(but not the one you expect)
x Pace Chierchia, cognitive access to oneself is not so ‘systematically’
excluded from the interpretation of non-pronominal expressions:
Sammy wants a biscuit.
Mummy will be with you in a moment.
12
Honorifics:
 Japanese and Thai: the first-person marker has the characteristics
of both a pronoun and a noun. Pronouns and nouns are not
morphologically different: like nouns, pronouns do not form a
closed class; like nouns, they form the plural by adding a plural
morpheme;
 also e.g. Burmese, Javanese, Khmer, Korean, Malay, or Vietnamese.
Typically: ‘slave’, ‘servant’, royal slave’, ‘lord’s servant’, ‘Buddha’s
servant’ are used for self-reference with self-denigration;
 Thai: 27 forms of first person (‘mouse’) (Siewierska 2004: 228);
Siewierska (2004) and Heine and Song (2011)
13
Conflation of the nominal with the pronominal:
 Acoma (New Mexico), Wari’ (Brazil): no personal pronouns;
 Generic one and arbitrary pro:
(4)
(5)
One can hear the wolves from the veranda.
It is scary PRO to hear the wolves from the veranda.
Generic one and arbitrary (non-controlled) PRO express
‘generalizing detached self-reference.’ Moltmann (2010: 440)
14
 Counterfactuals:
‘if I were you’ conveys second-person oriented advice
(Moltmann 2010: 453):
(6) If I were you I would wait a couple of days before
issuing a complaint.
cf.
(7) Wait a couple of days before issuing a complaint.
15
 Spatial deixis: Thai phŏm1 nii2 ( ‘one male this’);
 Japanese kotira, Korean yeogi, and Vietnamese hây (‘here’)
used for self-reference;
16
Degrees of cognitive access to oneself:
(8)
(9)
(10)
(11)
I think I put this book back on the shelf.
I think I remember PRO putting this book back on the shelf.
I put this book back on the shelf.
I remember PRO putting this book back on the shelf.
Conscious awareness is present to different degrees
rather than as a binary, all-or-nothing characteristic.
17
 Self-referring that involves cognitive access to oneself defies any attempt
to fit it squarely into the mould of a single, systematic morphosyntactic
device.
 Instead, the device standardly used for this purpose in English, the firstperson singular pronoun, can have other uses as well, and devices that
specialise for other uses, such as common nouns and proper names, can
adopt the function of reference de se.
 This suggests that formal semantics that relies on the rigid distinction
between an indexical and non-indexical expression (Kaplan 1989) needs
‘pragmaticising’ .
(Jaszczolt 2012, ‘Pragmaticising Kaplan’, AJL)
18
cf. Perry (2012: 99):
‘Using the first person is a normally self-effecting way of
acting, and so under the control of our self-notion’
and
‘ ‘I’ is a basic tool for communication, but the self-notion is a
tool for organizing information and guiding action.’
19
An argument from conceptual shift
Kaplan (1989a: 491): uttering ‘I’ and pointing at someone else
is ‘irrelevance or madness or what?’
But:
(12) ‘It1+t2 believe I should have prepared the drinks party. In a
way It1 also believed that It1+t2 should have done it when
It1 walked into the room. The fact is, the person
appointed by the Faculty Board should have done it and
as It1 later realised It1+t2 was this person.’
20
Wiemt1+t2,
know1SgPres
że
that
przygotować
prepareInf
te
drinki.
thisAccPl drinkPlMAcc
wtedy
then
też
also
wiedziałamt1,
know1SgFPast
ponieważ
because
miała
be-toSgFPast
przygotować
prepareInf
osoba
personSgFNom
wybranaprzez
selected by
Radę
Wydziału,
BoardSgFAcc FacultySgMGen
a
and
jat1+t2
INom
to
Dem
to
Dem
jat1+t2
INom
powinnam byłat1+t2
should1SgFPast
W pewnym
sensie,
In certainSgMInstr senseSgMInstr
byłam
tą
beSgFPast DemSgFInstr
je
theyNMAcc
osobą.
personSgFInstr
21
An argument from 1st person pronoun
Kratzer (2009): pronouns can be ambiguous between a
referential and a bound-variable interpretation
(13)
(14)
(15)
I’m the only one around here who can take care of my children.
Only I admitted what I did wrong.
Only you can eat what you cook.
22
Restriction: Bound-variable uses are rare, restricted,
and differ from language to language.
Tylko ja
jeden
only 1Sg soleSgMNom
Tylko ja jedna
przyznałem
się do błędu.
admit1SgPastM
Refl to mistakeSgMGen
tutaj
Only 1Sg soleSgFNom here
swoimi
ReflPronPl Instr
potrafię
zajmować
się
can1SgPres
careInf
Refl
dziećmi.
childPl Instr
23
Kratzer:

bound variable pronouns are underlyingly referential pronouns
whose meaning can be accounted for through context-shifting.
or:
 they are unspecified and obtain the meaning through feature
transmission from their binders in functional heads.
24
 Grammatical foundation of self-reference cannot be excluded.
25
An argument from pro-drop (but not the one you expect)
(16)
Kasia
wie,
że  jest
winna.
KasiaNom
know3SgPres
that
be3SgPres
guiltySgFN
Kasia
przyznała,
że 
jest
winna.
KasiaNom
admit3SgPast
that
self-reference
be3SgPres
guiltySgFN
optional self-reference
Kasia wie, że to
ona
jest winna.
she
optional self-reference but strongly entrenched
Dem
26
An argument from PRO (but not the one you expect)
(17) Lidia wants to be a scientist.
no underlying ‘I’-reference ‘I want to be a scientist.’
27
(18) Alice wants what Lidia wants.
underlying ‘I’-reference (self-attribution of property)
But:
(19) Lidia’s mother wants what Lidia wants and that’s why she is buying
her lots of scientific books.
no underlying ‘I’-reference ( propositionalism)
28
Interim conclusion:
The cognitive access to oneself is
?‘systematically excluded from the interpretation of (non-
pronominal) referential expressions’;
?‘systematically present in the interpretation of overt pronouns’;
x ‘systematically and unambiguously associated with the
interpretation of PRO the null subject of infinitives and
gerunds’;
 ‘associated with the interpretation of long-distance reflexives
(at least in some languages)’.
29
 lexicon/grammar/pragmatics trade-offs
30
Part II: Reports de se/de re about oneself
(20)
Kasia believes that she is to blame.
quasi-indexical
31
Against syntactic ambiguity of de se/de re:
Percus and Sauerland (2003): logical form contains ‘variables
over concept-generators’
• de re: the complement of ‘believes’ denotes a function from
concept-generators to a proposition;
• de se : the complement of ‘believes’ denotes a function from
concept-generators to properties, achieved via type-shifting
(cf. Chierchia 1989)
32
Default De Se
Maier’s (2009) default de se:
(i) syntactic processing results in a de dicto reading;
(ii) presuppositions added (‘equality first’), coreference is
established as a default link;
(iii) if  recognize (x,x), then no coreference and search
continues.
 Default Semantics (Jaszczolt 2005, 2010, forthcoming c,d)
33
A disclaimer: non-coreferential readings
Kasiax believes that shex is to blame.
a strong tendency for coreference, van der Sandt’s (1992)
(presupposition as anaphora)
grammar delivers contextualist default contents
34
Towards a (pragmatic) solution
•
•
•
•
self-ascription (linguistic semantic)
self-reference (linguistic pragmatic)
self-attribution (epistemic)
self-awareness (cognitive)
35
?Grammar conveys self-awareness
Allocation of self-awareness to grammar is a matter of an
agreement as to what we want the grammar to do: capture
strong tendencies or capture patterns that underdetermine
meaning.
 minimalist or contextualist account
36
Contextualists on De Se
•
free, top-down modulation, unarticulated
constituents (e.g. Recanati 2004, 2005b, 2010)
•
hidden-indexical theory, additions to the sentence
meaning are traceable to the logical form (e.g.
Schiffer 1977, 1992, 1996; also e.g. Crimmins and
Perry 1989)
•
all truth-conditional effects of context can be
traced to logical form (e.g. Stanley 2002; Stanley &
Szabó 2000 )
37
John Perry: ‘I am making a mess.’
John Perry believes that he is making a mess.
FM, HIT, LF: John Perry believes of himself that he is making a mess.
38
Interim summary
• Self-awareness persists as a strong tendency across selfattribution and third-person attribution.
• Contextualist orientation to truth-conditional content does
not preclude deriving some of the optional aspects of
meaning, such as de se reading of third-person pronouns in
belief reports, from the grammar.
39
 Proposal: We should not ‘split’ the power of grammar into
that pertaining to the system and that pertaining to how
grammar functions in utterance processing.
 De se belief ascription provides strong support for a
contextualist, but grammar-triggered construal
40
De Se in Default Semantics
Jaszczolt, forthcoming c, d
Bel (x,’)
the individual x has the cognitive state represented as an
embedded representation ’
41
(i) CD  default status of de re
(ii) coreference x=y
(iii)
 de se (= from CD, WS)
42
‘I believe I am making a mess.’
x y ’

[John Perry]CD (x)
[John Perry]CD (y)
[y=x]WS, CD
[[x]CD [believes]CD ’]WS
’:
[[y]CD is making a mess]WS
43
It1 believed It1+t2 was making a mess.
?/In a sense, I believed I
t1
t1+t2 was making a mess. It1 just
didn’t know that the person It1 referred to was It1+t2.
44
Merger representation:
• coreference: condition [y=x]WS
• the lack of self-awareness: differentiation of indexing on x and
y (CD vs CPI) and the non-default use of the belief operator
(CPI)
45
‘I believed, in a sense, I was making a mess.’ (marked reading)
x y ’
[John Perry]CD (x)

[John Perry]CPI (y)
[y=x]WS
[[x]CD [believe]CPI’]WS
’:
[[y]CPI is making a mess]WS
46
‘John Perry believes that he is making a mess.’ (default reading)
x y ’
[John Perry]CD (x)
[John Perry]CD (y)

[y=x]WS,CD
[[x]CD [believes]CD’]WS
’:
[[y]CD is making a mess]WS
47
‘John Perry believes that he is making a mess.’ (non-default coreferential reading)
x y ’
[John Perry]CD (x)
[John Perry]CPI (y)

[y=x]WS
[[x]CD [believes]CPI ’]WS
’:
[[y]CPI is making a mess]WS
48
Summary and Conclusion
 There is substantial cross-linguistic evidence that there is no reliable
representation of self-awareness in the grammar or the lexicon.
Instead, there is a lexicon/grammar/pragmatics trade-off, allowing for
various degrees of salience of communicating cognitive access to
oneself.
49
Summary and Conclusion
 There is substantial cross-linguistic evidence that there is no reliable
representation of self-awareness in the grammar or the lexicon.
Instead, there is a lexicon/grammar/pragmatics trade-off, allowing for
various degrees of salience of communicating cognitive access to
oneself.
 Self-awareness (cognitive access to oneself) can be construed as
conveyed by the grammar only when grammar is allowed to produce
cancellable interpretations. This is best achieved on a contextualist
account.
50
Summary and Conclusion
 When compositionality is shifted to the level of the merger of information
(), as in DS, the differences between syntactic and pragmatic solutions to
de se are rendered unimportant.
51
Summary and Conclusion
 When compositionality is shifted to the level of the merger of information
(), as in DS, the differences between syntactic and pragmatic solutions to
de se are rendered unimportant.
 In DS, conscious self-reference has a default status triggered by the
grammar and aided by the CD process. They produce an interpretation
pertaining to the strongest intentionality of the speaker’s mental state and
the strongest referential intention.
52
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