Susanna Cummings
Biographic Data
| ID | 736435 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Susanna Cummings |
| GIVEN NAMES | Susanna |
| FAMILY NAME | Cummings |
| SIGNATURE | CUMMINGS S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Los Angeles |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5629-3269 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 8 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 27 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 8 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1987 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Tense and evidence
This paper argues that tense is used to mark evidential source in English. Specifically, nonfuture tenses mark the speaker’s evidence as causally downstream from the event being described. This amounts to a linguistic solution to a puzzle recently posed by Dilip Ninan (“Assertion, evidence and the future,” The Philosophical Review, 2022). The analysis is principally supported by parallel phenomena in evidential systems of Bulgarian and Korean
Semantic reasons
An analysis of a predicate normally takes the form of a condition that is both necessary and sufficient for the predicate's application. Here I consider the idea, due originally to Friedrich Waismann, that semantic analyses might include conditions that are defeasible, and so allow for exceptions. Analyses of this sort can be expressed in nonmonotonic logic, a post‐Waismann development. I'll argue that defeasibility makes analysis tractable, with…
Showing Seeing in Film
In this paper, we describe two film conventions for representing what a character sees: point of view (POV) and sight link. On a POV interpretation, the viewpoint of a shot represents the viewpoint of a particular character; while in sight link, a shot of a character looking off-screen is associated with a shot of what they are looking at. Our account of both treats them as spatial in nature, and relates them to similar spatial interpretative pri…
Counterfactuals and Abduction
We argue that counterfactuals and indicative conditionals are not so different. Certain notorious differences previously observed between pairs of indicative and counterfactual sentences are actually due to the presence of an anti-abductive modal auxiliary (would) in the consequent of the counterfactual. But such auxiliaries, of which will is another example, span the counterfactual-indicative divide
Structures of Morality and Allegiance in the Character Arc Story
The view that allegiance to characters is a matter of general moral assessment, as developed by Carroll (1984) and Smith (1995), has the resources to respond to counter-examples proposed in the literature, including appeals to anti-heroes, rough heroes and other ‘reprehensible characters’ that garner our allegiance. It can even admit non-moral factors as subterranean influences on moral assessment. Nevertheless, the view requires that the charact…
Semantics for Nominalists
Variabilism
Variabilism is the view that proper names (like pronouns) are semantically represented as variables. Referential names, like referential pronouns, are assigned their referents by a contextual variable assignment (Kaplan 1989). The reference parameter (like the world of evaluation) may also be shifted by operators in the representation language. Indeed verbs that create hyperintensional contexts, like `think', are treated as operators that simulta…
Is there 'discourse ergativity' in Austronesian languages
Variabilism
Variabilism is the view that proper names (like pronouns) are semantically represented as variables. Referential names, like referential pronouns, are assigned their referents by a contextual variable assignment (Kaplan 1989). The reference parameter (like the world of evaluation) may also be shifted by operators in the representation language. Indeed verbs that create hyperintensional contexts, like `think', are treated as operators that simulta…
Is there 'discourse ergativity' in Austronesian languages
Is there 'discourse ergativity' in Austronesian languages
Variabilism
Variabilism is the view that proper names (like pronouns) are semantically represented as variables. Referential names, like referential pronouns, are assigned their referents by a contextual variable assignment (Kaplan 1989). The reference parameter (like the world of evaluation) may also be shifted by operators in the representation language. Indeed verbs that create hyperintensional contexts, like `think', are treated as operators that simulta…
Semantics for Nominalists
Showing Seeing in Film
In this paper, we describe two film conventions for representing what a character sees: point of view (POV) and sight link. On a POV interpretation, the viewpoint of a shot represents the viewpoint of a particular character; while in sight link, a shot of a character looking off-screen is associated with a shot of what they are looking at. Our account of both treats them as spatial in nature, and relates them to similar spatial interpretative pri…
Counterfactuals and Abduction
We argue that counterfactuals and indicative conditionals are not so different. Certain notorious differences previously observed between pairs of indicative and counterfactual sentences are actually due to the presence of an anti-abductive modal auxiliary (would) in the consequent of the counterfactual. But such auxiliaries, of which will is another example, span the counterfactual-indicative divide
Structures of Morality and Allegiance in the Character Arc Story
The view that allegiance to characters is a matter of general moral assessment, as developed by Carroll (1984) and Smith (1995), has the resources to respond to counter-examples proposed in the literature, including appeals to anti-heroes, rough heroes and other ‘reprehensible characters’ that garner our allegiance. It can even admit non-moral factors as subterranean influences on moral assessment. Nevertheless, the view requires that the charact…
Semantic reasons
An analysis of a predicate normally takes the form of a condition that is both necessary and sufficient for the predicate's application. Here I consider the idea, due originally to Friedrich Waismann, that semantic analyses might include conditions that are defeasible, and so allow for exceptions. Analyses of this sort can be expressed in nonmonotonic logic, a post‐Waismann development. I'll argue that defeasibility makes analysis tractable, with…
Tense and evidence
This paper argues that tense is used to mark evidential source in English. Specifically, nonfuture tenses mark the speaker’s evidence as causally downstream from the event being described. This amounts to a linguistic solution to a puzzle recently posed by Dilip Ninan (“Assertion, evidence and the future,” The Philosophical Review, 2022). The analysis is principally supported by parallel phenomena in evidential systems of Bulgarian and Korean
Philosophy (6 works) · Computer Science (5 works) · Linguistics (5 works) · Epistemology (4 works) · Artificial Intelligence (3 works) · Logic, Reasoning, and Knowledge (3 works) · Philosophy and Theoretical Science (3 works) · Advanced Algebra and Logic (2 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (2 works) · Mathematics (2 works)