Using data from native NGT informants, we argue that sign languages grammaticalize only the first vs non-first person distinction. A non-first pronoun can be (i) a demonstrative pointing at an actually present referent, e.g. the addressee, or (ii) a pointing to a more abstract discourse referent previously established in the signing space. We aim to show that there is nothing in the grammar of a pronoun that sets a pointing to an addressee apart from any other pointing at an actually (or 'virtually') present individual. Against Berenz' use of the `body coordinates model' to distinguish 2nd and 3rd, we propose that eyegaze/point/head alignment is not a grammatical factor, but a by-product of a more general pragmatic principle: look at the person you are addressing. Strong evidence for our proposal is our finding that NGT allows non-addressee directed imperatives, comparable to Mastop's Dutch 3rd person imperative “Laat hij het zelf maar oplossen!”.

Kratzer (2009) notes that the possessive in Du bist der einzige der deinen Sohn versorgt can only have a strict reading (nobody else took care of your son), which she attributes to the φ-feature mismatch between the (2sg) possessive and the (3sg) embedded verb. However, in English and Dutch a similar mismatch does not exclude a sloppy reading, as witness You are the only one who is brushing your teeth and Jij bent de enige die je best heeft gedaan. For English, Kratzer attempts a solution based on the fact that apart from the copula English verbal morphology is much poorer than German. Dutch, we argue, remains problematic because its verbal paradigm is almost as rich as German. Furthermore, Kratzer's analysis relies on 'perspectival' v's with uninterpretable φ-features, feature transmission, and two distinct kinds of binding. We propose a simpler semantic/pragmatic theory involving Higher-Order Unification, motivated by the fact that syntactic theories tend to undergenerate sloppy reading (cf. e.g. donkey pronouns in VP ellipsis, focus-binding of names, and our Dutch fake indexical data).

Keywords: fake indexicals, strict/sloppy, Higher-Order Unification

Geurts&Maier's (2005) analysis of mixed quotation suggests an extension to direct discourse, analyzing that as mixed quotation of an entire sentence. This would effectively blur the line between direct and indirect discourse. The following simple and unified picture of speech reporting then emerges: to report another's speech there is only indirect discourse, within which the device of mixed quotation can be used to mimic a particular phrase of the reported speech act verbatim. The aim of the current paper is to provide new evidence for this blurring of the direct–-indirect distinction.

Keywords: Japanese, direct/indirect discourse, quotation

Keywords: tense, anaphoricity, de re/de se, DRT, attitudes

Keywords: tense, anaphoricity, de re/de se, DRT, attitudes

Keywords: rigidity, LDRT

We isoleren alle voorkomens van van met indirecte rede uit het CGN en analyseren vervolgens de variatie in matrixwerkwoorden (zeggen van; vragen van; zoiets hebben van) en afhankelijke zinnen (van dat het geen zin heeft; van wie het gedaan heeft). Onze uiteindelijke vraag is of in principe elke afhankelijke objectzin met van geconstrueerd kan worden en of er factoren aan te wijzen zijn die het gebruik van van in deze context bevorderen of afremmen.

Keywords: proper names, LDRT, direct reference

Keywords: indexicals, LDRT, direct reference

Two problems for the double meanings approach (subclausally quoted expressions are both used and mentioned at the same time, necessitating two levels of meaning (Predelli 2003, Potts 2004)) are deictic shifts (2) and quoted ungrammaticalities (3):

(2) Niet alleen de RAI, ook het parlement, nee, heel Italië is trots op “onze meiden” in Irak.
(3) Nicola said that Alice is a “philtosopher”.

The problem with both of the above is the computation of the use part of the meaning; normally we'd get that by interpreting the sentence as if there were no quotation marks, but then (2) would get the wrong interpretation, the quoted 1st person pronoun referring to the Dutch, and (3) would get no (reasonable) interpretation since “philtosopher” is uninterpretable.

Keywords: mixed quotation, quoted errors

I defend the reduction of de se attitudes and their reports to (Kaplan 1969)-style de re belief, against the attack by Percus&Sauerland (2003). I present my own Lewisian reduction, differing from the earlier ones in that it uses presuppositions and DRT, and takes seriously the context-dependence of the acquaintance relation: I use higher-order unification (as used by e.g. Dalrymple et al. (1991) for ellipsis resolution) to actually resolve the relation in the context, rather than e.g. existentially quantifying over it.

Keywords: belief reports, only, de re/de se, acquaintance

We discuss monstrous operators on the basis of actual data from Ancient Greek. In Ancient Greek the phenomenon is wide-spread but we will focus on the behavior of pronouns in speech reports showing that indexicals in that-complements are sometimes echoed from the reported speech act and evaluated at a shifted context, viz. not the actual reporter's utterance context but that of the original speech act. We refute the orthodox Kaplanian's suggestion that these cases are to be analysed as mention/direct quotation of expressions.

Note: also presented at SiNIII, 2002, Nijmegen.

Keywords: monsters, Ancient Greek

It is often claimed that honorifics and expressives are strictly context-oriented. They behave more or less like indexicals in that, even when embedded under quantifiers, modals and report operators, they contribute information about the actual speaker and her relation to the addressee. I discuss some counterexamples, involving shifts of indexicals, expressives and honorifics embedded under reports. I show that these cannot be regarded as instances full direct speech reporting. Instead I apply a much more flexible mechanism of mixed quotation to analyze the various shifting phenomena uniformly and compare the result to some alternative approaches.

Keywords: quotation, context shift, direct/indirect discourse, indexicals, Japanese, expressives

Semanticists traditionally presuppose a fundamental distinction between two modes of language: we can talk about things in the world (use), or about words (mention). I collect a variety of tests that supposedly distinguish the two. I then point out a number of phenomena that fall outside this categorization. These include mixed quotation, scare quotes, direct discourse and shifted indexicality. Finally, I sketch a unified, use-mention-hybrid analysis of these data.

Keywords: use/mention, direct/indirect discourse, mixed quotation, scare quotes, shifted indexicals

Keywords: quotation, non-constituents

Accompanying Bushism video on youtube

Keywords: quotation, scare quotes, errors, non-constituents, monsters

Traditionally, proper names and indexicals (I, you, here etc.) have been treated either as descriptions (Frege/Russell) or as directly referential expressions (Kripke/Kaplan). More recently, we find analyses that treat them as anaphoric pronouns (Sommers'82), or as presupposition triggers (Geurts'97). These recent attempts are mostly inspired by new data like e.g. monstrously shifted indexicals and bound proper names. I propose a novel analysis that synthesizes the direct reference account with the presuppositional one in the framework of Layered DRT. I show how it deals with the new data and how it improves on the other analyses, including the ones mentioned above and the recent descriptivist proposal of Elbourne'06.

Keywords: indexicals, proper names, E-type, presupposition, LDRT, direct reference

A de se belief is a belief about oneself from a first person point of view. This differs from merely a de re belief about oneself as brought out by mistaken identity scenarios like the following: Karen and Miina just had Extreme Makeovers. Karen glimpses herself in a mirror and, mistakenly thinking she's seeing Miina, mumbles “She's pretty”. Miina simply thinks “I'm pretty”. Both women have de re beliefs about themselves, but only Miina has a de se belief. In this talk I consider some arguments, analyses, and judgments concerning de re/de se belief reports embedded under quantifiers like every (c.q. both) and only. More concretely we focus on the judgments below, which represent the acceptability/truthvalues relative to the scenario sketched above:

(1) Both girls believe they're pretty. [Zimmermann p.c.]
(2) Only Miina believes she's pretty. [Percus&Sauerland 2003]
(3) #Only Karen believes she's pretty. [Zeevat p.c.]

To account for these data, I extend my framework of acquaintance resolution with the possibility of locally accommodating (or: narrow scope existential quantification over) acquaintance relations.

Keywords: quantified belief reports, de re/de se, acquaintance, LDRT

Kaplan's (1989) argumentation against the possibility of so-called monsters, i.e. context shifting/non-intensional operators, in natural language depends on his quick dismissal of quotation as a monster. Too quick, I will argue, providing examples of mixed quotations (mixing direct and indirect discourse constructions) with shifted indexicals, and arguing that mixed quotation at least is immune to Kaplan's objection. A case in point is (1), a mixed quotation in which the indexical both of us does not refer to the actual writer of (1):

(1) Their accord on this issue, he said, has proved “quite a surprise to both of us”

Keywords: monsters, quotation