Quantifying Over Possibilities
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10695398 |
|---|---|
| Authors | John Mackay (0000-0002-4883-195X, University of Wisconsin–Madison), J F G Mackay (0000-0003-0716-2638, University of Wisconsin–Madison, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2013 |
| Volume | 122 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 577-617 |
| Publication date | 2013-10-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Philosophical Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0031-8108 • E-ISSN: 1558-1470 |
| Publisher | Duke University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1215/00318108-2315297 |
| OpenAlex | W2121070103 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 49 |
A person of average height would assert a truth by the conditional ‘if I were seven feet tall, I would be taller than I am,’ in which an indicative clause ‘I am’ is embedded in a subjunctive conditional. By contrast, no one would assert a truth by ‘if I were seven feet tall, I would be taller than I would be’ or ‘if I am seven feet tall, I am taller than I am’. These examples exemplify the fact that whether a sentence's evaluation remains at the actual world in the scope of a modal or conditional depends on the combination of mood in the embedded and matrix clauses rather than, as is commonly thought, just on the presence of an operator ‘actually’. This essay argues that this phenomenon provides evidence that mood admits of bound and free readings along the lines of tenses and pronouns. It therefore favors the hypothesis that natural language contains variables and quantifiers for possible worlds in the object language. This, in turn, requires that the truth of a semantic value of a sentence (or whatever structure is embedded in a modal) be relativized to a sequence of worlds rather than to an individual world, and thus be distinguished from a proposition in the traditional sense. The essay also compares the framework defended with an alternative account of similar phenomena by Kai Wehmeier
Contrast (vision) · Dependent clause · Epistemology · Linguistics · Modal · Object (grammar) · Phenomenon · Possible world · Proposition · Sentence · Truth condition · Truth value · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Logic, Reasoning, and Knowledge · Philosophy · Philosophy and Theoretical Science · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
Studies in logical theory
Tense, Attitudes, and Scope
The Nature and Structure of Content
Relativism and Monadic Truth
A Theory of Conditionals
Some Structural Analogies between Tenses and Pronouns in English
Sequence of Tense and Temporal de re
The Proper Treatment of Quantification in Ordinary English
The Notional Category of Modality
Two notions of necessity
More Structural Analogies Between Pronouns and Tenses
Index, Context, and Content
Indicative conditionals
Ii.—on Denoting
Quantified Modal Logic and the Plural De Re
Tense, Modality, and Semantic Values
Tense, Attitudes and Scope
Against the identification of assertoric content with compositional value
Expressive power, mood, and actuality
Pragmatics
Reference and Monstrosity
Semantics and the objects of assertion
The Grammatical Ingredients of Counterfactuality
The Semantics of Comparatives and Other Degree Constructions
Indicative and Subjunctive Conditionals
| Citations per year | 0.33 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2017 - 2022 (6) |
| Highly cited | No |