190 research outputs found
Sticky situations: Force and quantifier domains
No full textSupporting materials for the manuscript: Matthew Mandelkern and Jonathan Phillips, (to appear) Sticky situations: Force and quantifier domains. Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory 28
Sticky situations: Force and quantifier domains
No full textSupporting materials for the manuscript: Matthew Mandelkern and Jonathan Phillips, (to appear) Sticky situations: Force and quantifier domains. Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory 28
Talking about worlds
No full textI explore the logic of the conditional, using credence judgments to argue against Duality and in favor of Conditional Excluded Middle. I then explore how to give a theory of the conditional which validates the latter and not the former, developing a variant on Kratzer (1981)'s restrictor theory, as well as a proposal which combines Stalnaker (1968)'s theory of the conditional with the theory of epistemic modals I develop in Mandelkern 2019a. I argue that the latter approach fits naturally with a conception of conditionals as referential devices which allow us to talk about particular worlds
Talking about worlds
No full textI explore the logic of the conditional, using credence judgments to argue against Duality and in favor of Conditional Excluded Middle. I then explore how to give a theory of the conditional which validates the latter and not the former, developing a variant on Kratzer (1981)'s restrictor theory, as well as a proposal which combines Stalnaker (1968)'s theory of the conditional with the theory of epistemic modals I develop in Mandelkern 2019a. I argue that the latter approach fits naturally with a conception of conditionals as referential devices which allow us to talk about particular worlds
Hierarchical structure and local contexts
No full textWe use antecedent-final conditionals to formulate a challenge to parsing based theories of local contexts, and associated theories of presupposition projection and triviality, like the one given in Schlenker 2009. We show that a theory like Schlenker’s predicts that the local context for the antecedent of an antecedent-final conditional will entail the negation of the conditional’s consequent. It thus predicts that presuppositions triggered in the antecedent of antecedent-final conditionals will be filtered if the negation of the consequent entails the presupposition. But this is wrong: John isn’t in Paris, if he regrets being in France intuitively presupposes that John is in France, contrary to this prediction. Likewise, parsing-based approaches to triviality predict that material entailed by the negation of the consequent will be felt to be redundant in the antecedent of the conditional. But this is wrong: John isn’t in Paris, if he’s in France and Mary is with him is intuitively felicitous, contrary to this prediction. Importantly, given that the material in question appears in sentence-final position in antecedent-final conditionals, both incremental (left-to-right) and symmetric versions of parsing-based theories of local contexts make the same problematic predictions here. In Mandelkern and Romoli 2017, we discuss one solution to this problem, given within a broadly parsing-based pragmatic approach. In this paper, we explore an alternate direction: incorporating attention to hierarchical structure into the calculation of local contexts. We sketch several possible implementations and point to some of the possibilities and challenges for a hierarchical approach to local contexts
Hurford disjunctions: Beyond redundancy and triviality
No full textWe present two experiments on Hurford Disjunctions (Hurford, 1974, and much subsequent work) and their conjunctive counterparts, testing key predictions of the two dominant approaches in the literature: the Non-Redundancy approach (Katzir and Singh, 2013) and the Non-Triviality approach (Schlenker, 2009). Our results challenge core predictions of both accounts, suggesting that neither fully captures the actual patterns. We explore the implications of these findings and argue that the notion of super-redundancy, introduced by Kalomoiros (2023a), provides a promising framework for explaining our results. Finally, we draw connections to recent developments in the literature on presuppositions, particularly to insights from Mandelkern et al. (2020) and Kalomoiros and Schwarz (2024), which could help refine our theoretical account of redundancy phenomena
Coordination in conversation
No full textThesis: Ph. D. in Philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2017.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (pages 199-207).I give an account of the meaning of epistemic modals-words like 'might' and 'must', on a broadly epistemic interpretation-and how speakers use them to coordinate on their information. I begin by exploring what epistemic modals mean. Motivated by embedding data which are problematic for almost all existing accounts, I develop a new semantics for epistemic modals which I call the bounded theory. The bounded theory comprises a standard relational semantics together with a constraint which entails that local information is always taken into account in the evaluation of epistemic modals. I argue that the bounded theory makes sense of the subtle embedding behavior of epistemic modals-thus providing an adequate account of their meaning-and sheds new light on the way that local information is structured in natural language. In Chapter 2, I turn to the question of how speakers use epistemic modals to coordinate on their common information. I argue that we can make sense of the characteristic dynamics of epistemic modality within a relational semantic framework (like the one given in Chapter 1), together with a contextualist approach to the dynamics of conversation. The key to doing so is to take the relation in question to be determined by the interlocutors' prospective common attitudes. Chapter 3 explores the contribution of 'must'. Assertions of -Must p-1 and assertions of p alone seem to have the same basic goal, and yet their felicity conditions subtly differ. I argue for a new characterization of those differences, and a broadly pragmatic explanation of those differences based on the approach to epistemic modals advocated in the preceding chapters. In Chapter 4, I return to semantic questions. I develop formal tools to compare the expressive power of semantic theories with respect to the embedding data which they can account for. These tools show that the relational theory can account for all the embedding data which recent revisionary theories can account for, but not vice versa, a fact which necessitates a substantial shift in perspective on the debate regarding the semantics of epistemic modals.by Matthew Mandelkern.Ph. D. in Philosoph
Counting partial objects
No full textIn this thesis, I develop a theory of counting. Chapter 1 introduces the topic and explains why it is important to give a theory of counting whole and partial objects. Chapter 2 shows that giving a theory of counting is surprisingly difficult because counting has five special features: counting is kind sensitive, source sensitive, context dependent, graded in felicity, and underspecified. Based on the observation that counting is tightly connected with the notion of mentally merging objects, I develop a theory of counting in Chapter 3 that accounts for all these features. Roughly speaking, we can count objects with respect to a predicate P iff we can merge them such that they form objects that are sufficiently similar to whole Ps and at most one partial P. Chapter 4 argues that this theory of counting performs better than its competitors. Chapter 5 refines the proposed theory in three ways, while Chapter 6 replies to six objections against the theory. Chapter 7 concludes these discussions by exploring potential future research questions
Bounded Modality
No full textWhat does 'might' mean? One hypothesis is that 'It might be raining' is essentially an avowal of ignorance like 'For all I know, it's raining'. But it turns out these two constructions embed in different ways, in particular as parts of larger constructions like Wittgenstein's 'It might be raining and it's not' and Moore's 'It's raining and I don't know it', respectively. A variety of approaches have been developed to account for those differences. All approaches agree that both Moore sentences and Wittgenstein sentences are classically consistent. In this paper I argue against this consensus. I adduce a variety of new data which I argue can best be accounted for if we treat Wittgenstein sentences as being classically inconsistent. This creates a puzzle, since there is decisive reason to think that 'Might p' is classically consistent with 'Not p'. How can it also be that 'Might p and not p' and 'Not p and might p' are classically inconsistent? To make sense of this situation, I propose a new theory of epistemic modals and their interaction with embedding operators. This account makes sense of the subtle embedding behavior of epistemic modals, shedding new light on their meaning and, more broadly, the dynamics of information in natural language
Modality and expressibility
No full textWhen embedding data are used to argue against semantic theory A and in favor of semantic theory B, it is important to ask whether A could make sense of those data. It is possible to ask that question on a case-by-case basis. But suppose we could show that A can make sense of all the embedding data which B can possibly make sense of. This would, on the one hand, undermine arguments in favor of B over A on the basis of embedding data. And, provided that the converse does not hold—that is, that A can make sense of strictly more embedding data than B can—it would also show that there is a precise sense in which B is more constrained than A, yielding a pro tanto simplicity-based consideration in favor of B. In this paper I develop tools which allow us to make comparisons of this kind, which I call comparisons of potential expressive power. I motivate the development of these tools by way of exploration of the recent debate about epistemic modals. Prominent theories which have been developed in response to embedding data turn out to be strictly less expressive than the standard relational theory, a fact which necessitates a reorientation in how to think about the choice between these theories
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