The pragmatics of propositional anaphora in English
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22159294 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jon Gajewski (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 5900 |
| Publication date | 2025-04-23 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2473-8689 • E-ISSN: 2473-8689 |
| Publisher | Linguistic Society of America (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.3765/plsa.v10i1.5900 |
| OpenAlex | W4409774609 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 2 |
English employs a variety of devices to refer back to propositions, including demonstratives, the null complement anaphor, the pronominal it and the proform so. The last of these shows a relatively limited distribution. The relative distribution of it and so has been the subject of much inquiry. In this paper, I examine their differences in responses to polar questions, in response to assertions and in the context of anaphora to embedded propositions. I make the novel observation that believe with an overt source argument tracks with it and not so in these contexts. This observation inspires a novel approach to restricted distribution of so and its characteristic effect on interpretation. The notion of a sourced doxastic background is introduced as the basis of the semantics for doxastic attitude predicates. This new notion allows evidential distinctions between predicates to be encoded
Linguistics · Pragmatics · Propositional variable · Computer Science · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Philosophy · Artificial Intelligence
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |