Explaining the Actuality Operator Away

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4822293
AutoresJohn Mackay (0000-0002-4883-195X), J F G Mackay (0000-0003-0716-2638, University of Wisconsin–Madison, autor de correspondencia)
Año2017
Volumen67
Número269
Páginas709-21
Fecha de publicación2017-10-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Philosophical Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0031-8094 • E-ISSN: 1467-9213
EditorialOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/pq/pqx006
OpenAlexW2594022326
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas5
Referencias citadas28

I argue that ‘actually’ does not have a reading according to which it is synonymous with the actuality operator of modal logic, and propose an alternative account of ‘actually’. The cases that have been thought to show that ‘actually’ is synonymous with the actuality operator are modal and counterfactual sentences in which an embedded clause's evaluation is held fixed at the world of the context. In these cases, though, this embedded clause's evaluation is not due to the presence of ‘actually’. As an alternative, I propose that ‘actually’ is a presupposition trigger along the lines of ‘even’ or ‘too’, and it signals that presupposed information states in the discourse are evolving in a non-standard way.

Context (archaeology) · Counterfactual conditional · Counterfactual thinking · Epistemology · Linguistics · Modal · Modal logic · Modal operator · Operator (biology) · Presupposition · Reading (process) · Computer Science · History · Linguistics and Discourse Analysis · Logic, Reasoning, and Knowledge · Philosophy · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation