Reference to Abstract Objects in Discourse (Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, 50)

Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy Volume 50

REFERENCE TO ABSTRACT OBJECTS IN DISCOURSE ~

Managing Editors

,j

GENNARO CHIERCHlA, University of Milan PAULINE JACOBSON, Brown University FRANCIS J. PELLETIER, University ofAlberta

by Editorial Board JOHAN VAN BENTHEM, University ofAmsterdam GREGORY N, CARLSON, University of Rochester DAVID DOWTY, Ohio State University, Columbus GERALD GAZDAR, University of Sussex, Brighton IRENE HElM, MIT., Cambridge EWAN KLEIN, University of Edinburgh BILL LAD USAW, University of California at Santa Cruz TERRENCE PARSONS, University of California, Irvine

NICHOLAS ASHER Department of Philosophy and Center for Cognitive SCience, The University of Texas at Austin, U.S.A.

KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume.

DORDRECHT / BOSTON / LONDON

4

NCES

I Gj I~t6 \U 'I~

~

('"

Bibliotbeque :i

\0 \S/L

0

----

'" V/IlJ -

~

.....tN". ?~~

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Asher. N1cholas. Reference to abstract objects 1n dlscourse ' by N1cholas Asher. p. cm. -- IStud1es 1n llngu1st1cs and philosophy; v. 50) Inc 1udes b 1b 1 i ograph 1ca 1 references and 1ndex. ISBN 0-7923-2242-8 (hard alk. paperl 1. Anaphora (L1ngu1St1CS) 2. D1scourse analys1s. 3. Grammar. Comparat1ve and generai--Nom1nals. 4. Semant1cs. 5. Abstract1on. I. T1tle. II. Ser1es. P299.A5A8 1993 415--dc20 93-14793

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE INTRODUCTION

ix 1

ISBN 0-7923-2242-8 CHAPTER 1 -- FROM EVENTS TO PROPOSITIONS: A TOUR OF ABSTRACT ENTITIES, EVENTUALITIES AND THE NOMINALS THAT DENOTE THEM . Published by Kluwer Academic Publishers, P.O. Box 17,3300 AA Dordrecht, The Netherlands. Kluwer Academic Publishers incorporates the publishing programmes of D. Reidel, Martinus Nijhoff, Dr W. Junk and MTP Press. Sold and distributed in the U.S.A. and Canada by Kluwer Academic Publishers, 101 Philip Drive, Norwell, MA 02061, U.S.A. In all other countries, sold and distributed

by Kluwer Academic Publishers Group, P.O. Box 322, 3300 AH Dordrecht, The Netherlands.

1. 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 2.

2.1 2.2 3. 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4

4. Printed on acid-free paper

CHAPTER 2 -- A CRASH COURSE IN DRT 1.

All Rights Reserved © 1993 Kluwer Academic Publishers No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner. Printed in the Netherlands

Distributional Data and the Typology of Abstract Entities Events and Propositions: The Poles of the Spectrum States and Other Sorts of Eventualities Situations Divisions Among Proposition-like Entities Quantification, Abstract Object Anaphora and the Typology of Abstract Objects Quantification Anaphora . .. Principles of Summation and Structured Domams for Abstract Entltles Events Propositions States Facts Provisional Conclusions

2. 2.1 2.2 2.3

2.4

2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8

3. 4.

A Philosophical Overview of the Aims of Discourse Representation Theory The Basic Fragment DRSs and Truth Conditions The Basic Construction Procedure DRS Construction, Multiple Sentence Discourse, and Intersentential Anaphora Every and if... then SubDRSs, Accessibility, and Anaphora Scopes for Quantifiers in DRT and Other Constraints on Anaphora Other Determiners and Operators in the Basic Fragment External Anchors and Definites Expanding the Fragment: Events in DRT Plurals in DRT

15 18 18 23 24 26 32 32 34 40 41 48 51 55 57 63 63 66 66

69 73

74 75

79 81 82 85 91

vi 4.1 4.2 5. 5.1 5.2 5.3

CONTENTS DRS Construction for Plurals and Basic Plural Anaphora Plural Anaphora Appendix: Formalization of DRS Construction and DRS Interpretation Definition ofDRSs Model Theory The Construction Procedure and its Semantics

CONTENTS 91 92 95 95 96 98

4.2

CHAPTER 3 -- ATIITUDES AND ATTITIJDE DESCRIPTIONS

111

5.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

111 115 118 122 128 135

Attitudes and Attitude Formation Attitudes, Operators, and Predicates Interpreting Attitude Ascriptions Concepts and Attitudes Attitudes, Propositions, and Representations Conclusions

CHAPTER 4 -- THE SEMANTIC REPRESENTATION FOR SENTENTIAL NOMINALS 1. 1.1 1.2 2. 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 3. 3.1 3.2 3.3 4. 4.1 4.2 4.3 5. 5.1 5.2

Syntactic and Semantic Assumptions and Basic Principles Assumptions about Syntax and the Syntax-Semantics Interface Additional Semantic Principles and the Effects of the DP Analysis on DRS Construction Derived Nominals The Distinction between Process and Result Nominals Process Nominals Result Nominals Propositional and Fact Readings of Derived Nominals Remarks on Property Derived Nominals Of-ing Gerund Phrases and Bare Nominals Analysis of of-ing Gerund Phrases The Aspectual Force of -ing in Of-ing Gerunds Bare Gerunds and Nominals That Clauses That Clauses Differ from DPs N'-CP Constructions That Clause Constructions, Factive Presuppositions, and Individual Anaphora More Abstract Nominals: Infinitivals and Projective Propositions Analysis of Infinitivals Chierchia's Analysis of Infinitivals

138 141 141 144 149 150 152 157 159 162 163 163 167 168 171 171 172 178 180 180 184

CHAPTER 5 -- PROBLEMS FOR THE SEMANTICS OF NOMINALS

190

1. 2. 2.1 2.2 3. 4. 4.1

190 193 193 197 204 206

IP Gerunds and Some Data About Them The Syntactic and Semantic Analysis of IP Gerunds ACC-ing Constructions as IPs POSS-ing Constructions as IPs Naked Infinitives Correspondences and Connections Between Abstract Objects The Structure of Abstract Object Domains in Natural Language Metaphysics

206

4.3 4.4. 4.5 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 6.

The Spectra of Nouniness and World Immanence Do Not Correlate Completely Proposition Readings for Fact Nominals: Shifts up the Spectrum of World Immanence Predicate Incompatibilities and Polymorphic Characterizing Structures Metaphysical Relations Between Eventualities and Abstract Objects in Natural Language Metaphysics The Problem of Event Negation Solved Three Tests for Negation and Event Descriptions Negation Without Wide Scope Adverbials Negation and Wide Scope Adverbials Negation and Event Nominals Conclusions Concerning DRS Construction for Nominals: Lessons for Natural Language Metaphysics

vii

207 207 210 212 214 215 217 218 219 221

CHAPTER 6 -- ANAPHORA AND ABSTRACT ENTITIES

225

1. 2. 3.

225 232

4. 5. 6. 6.1 6.2

Toward a Unified Analysis of Abstract Entity Anaphora Event Anaphora Event-Type Anaphora and Using Event-Types to Construct Event Sums Proposition Anaphora Fact Anaphora Concept Anaphora in DRT Concept Anaphora with Explicit Anaphors VP Ellipsis in DR Theory

CHAPTER 7 -- A THEORY OF DISCOURSE STRUCTURE FOR AN ANALYSIS OF ABSTRACT ENTITY ANAPHORA 1. 2. 3. 4. 4.1 4.2 4.3 5. 6. 7. 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4

The Problem of Discourse Structure and Anaphora Discourse Structure and Discourse Representation Theory Discourse Relations and Their Semantics Principles of Discourse Segmentation and SDRS Constituent Construction Constraints on Attachment Inferring Discourse Relations Rules for Attachment Revision of Constituents after Updating Taking Stock Appendix of Definitions and Constraints in Chapter 7 Basic Defmitions for SDRSs and Their Constituents Axioms and Meaning Postulates for Discourse Relations Basic Definitions and Axioms for SDRS Updating Constituent Revision

235 241 245 246 246 251 256 258 262 263 269 270 272 275 284 297 299 299 300 302 304

CHAPTER 8 -- APPLYING THE THEORY OF DISCOURSE STRUCTURE 312 TO THE ANAPHORIC PHENOMENA 1. 2.

Constraints on Abstract Object Anaphora Derived from an SDRS: Availability and Well-Foundedness Some Examples of Proposition Anaphora

312 318

viii 3. 3.1 3.2

3.3 4. 5. 6.

7.

CONTENTS Availability, Anaphora and Constituent Revision Availability and Parallelism and Contrast Availability and Topic Revision The Limits of Availability Discourse Subordination Event and Plural Anaphora Revisited Anaphoric Connections Across Different Abstract Types Conclusions About Abstract Anaphora

321 321 330 338 339 345 349 351

CHAPTER 9 -- APPLICATIONS OF TIffi TIffiORY OF DISCOURSE STRUCTURE TO CONCEPT ANAPHORA AND VP ELLIPSIS 354 l. 2.

3. 4. 5. 6.

Extending SDRS Theory Examples of Overt Concept Anaphora VP Ellipsis Sloppy Identity Concluding Thoughts on Abstract Entity Anaphora Appendix of Definitions and Constraints for Concept Anaphora

CHAPTER 10 -- MODEL TIffiORY FOR ABSTRACT ENTITIES AND ITS PHILOSOPHICAL IMPLICATIONS l. 2.

3.

4.

11

ii!

III il

II

5. 6. 6.1 6.2 6.3

First Order or Higher Order DRT? Intentional Frames and Intensional Contents Problems of Self-Reference Two Arguments for a Representational Theory of Abstract Entities Metaphysical Representationalism and Metaphysical Reduction Technical Appendix Intentional Frames and Frege Structures Intensional Contents The Semantics for the Expanded Construction Procedure

354 357 361 370 381 382 387 388 391 395 407 413 419 419 424 429

CONCLUSION

434

BIBLIOGRAPHY

436

INDEX

451

I

PREFACE

I have many to thank for what is good in this book--friends, colleagues, and family. At Texas I have received support and helpful comments on drafts from many. I would like to thank especially Maria Bittner, Dan Bonevac, Maggie Browning, Herbert Hochberg, Manfred Krlfka, Per Lindstrom, Joanna Seibt, Carlota Smith, and my students, Paul Losiewicz, David Newman, Ben Rode, Andrew Schwartz, Munindar Singh, and Katsuhito Yabushita. I also would like to thank the University of Texas University Research Institute and the National Science Foundation, grant number IRI8719064, for financial support during my labors on this book. The Center for Cognitive Science at the University of Texas has also generously provided computer and technical support for this project. Without Adrienne Diehr and Marj Troutner of the Cognitive Science Center, this manuscript would have been replete with typographical errors and sloppy drawings--a special thanks to them. A special thanks is also due to Deborah Nichols, who read over much of the manuscript and improved its style and accuracy. I also want to thank colleagues and friends at the University of Stuttgart in Stuttgart, Germany. I was able to do considerable work on this book at Stuttgart, thanks to the generous support of the Sonderforschungsbereich 340 and to the efforts of Hans Kamp and Christian Rohrer to bring me there. I owe a special debt to Hans Kamp, who has been a friend, colleague, intellectual guide, and collaborator on DRT and related topics for ten years. But there are many others from Stuttgart to thank--Rainer Bauerle, Kurt Eberle, Veerle van Geenhoven, Fritz Hamm, Michael Morreau, and especially Antje RoBdeutscher. Finally, I would like to thank David Beaver, Kathy Dahlgren, Claire Gardent, Franz Guenthner, Alex Lascarides, Carol Lord, Joyce McDowell, Fredericke Moltmann, Jeff Pelletier, Rob van der Sandt, Jerry Seligman, Frank Veltman, and Alessandro Zucci for their helpful comments on drafts and discussions about topics in the book.

INTRODUCTION

·/Ii /'1

Ii II II /111

i i Ii

This book is about abstract objects and the ways we refer to them in natural language. Abstract objects are things like propositions, properties, states of affairs and facts. They have no spatio-temporallocation, usually no causal efficacy, and are not perceived by the senses. They may be universals, like properties, and apply to many concrete objects or they may be particulars. Traditionally, abstract objects have been studied by metaphysicians, logicians and, in particular, ideal-language philosophers. 1 These philosophers' efforts to "regiment" and to systematize the realm of abstract objects have revealed the pitfalls and paradoxes that threaten naive conceptions of these entities, the conceptions exhibited in the ways we ordinarily speak and think about them. But those interested in natural language have also paid a price for this hegemony. The ideal-language philosopher's interest in the natural language semantics of expressions denoting such abstract entities is often much like an inquisitor's interest in the views of a heretic. While the naive view of abstract entities reflected in natural language remained largely unexplored, linguists and philosophers, inspired by the work of Reichenbach, Davidson, and Vendler, developed a sophisticated understanding of events and states and the expressions that denote them. They developed a typology of such entities, distinguishing between various types of events, as well as states. Following Emmon Bach, I shall call objects that are either some kind of event or states, eventualities. Especially in work on the semantics of tense and aspect, the study of eventualities has flourished. 2 Davidson's famous paper, "On the Logical Form of Action Sentences," led to the use of eventualities in a general account of adverbial modification. 3 Actions, companions to events, have received somewhat less attention in philosophy, but still far more than propositions, facts and states of affairs. Davidson and others have argued that eventualities, unlike abstract objects, are concrete entities. Nevertheless, eventualities share at least some of the properties that the so called abstract entities have. From the perspective of a naive semantic point of view, eventualities have very close connwtions to abstract objects like propositions or facts. An assertoric sentence in indicative mood describes, the naive semanticist would say, an event or state. But it also expresses a proposition. 4 Some might also say that it denotes a fact or describes a state of affairs. Also, anaphoric reference to eventualities is sometimes hard to distinguish from anaphoric reference to facts or propositions. This points to a complex correlation between eventualities and the more abstract entities. The study of purely abstract entities should thus be pursued in with a study of eventualities. This ok offers a particular view of abstract entities and eventualities as we

tandl

1

2

INTRODUCTION

characterize them in our ordinary speech. I develop a semantic and metaphysical analysis of these entities in two stages. The first reflects faithfully the rich ontology of abstract objects necessitated by the forms of language in which we speak and think. We need such a rich ontology to account satisfactorily for the semantic facts. This first level of analysis portrays what Emmon Bach (1981) has called the "natural language" metaphysics of abstract objects. Natural language metaphysics distinguishes many sorts of abstract objects. But often it fails to provide clear identity conditions or a full analysis. Natural language metaphysics is thus at best a partial theory of abstract objects. A second level of analysis maps the ontology of natural language metaphysics onto a sparser domain-- a more systematic realm of abstract objects that are fully analyzed. This second level reflects the commitments of real metaphysics. The models for these commitments assign truth conditions to natural language discourse. A natural place to look for the ontological commitments of natural language concerning abstract objects would be in the semantics of expressions that refer to or denote abstract objects. Such expressions fall into a broad, syntactic class called nominals. These nominals may have meanings that are of the same type as the meanings of sentences, nouns, or verbs. 5 The variety of nominals in English is large . and will be examined in chapter one. I will concentrate on sentential nominals--those nominals whose meanings are correlated with sentences. From the perspective of the philosophy of language and model-theoretic semantics, the semantics of nominals is full of intriguing puzzles and difficult questions, many of which await exploration. In spite of the fact that formal semantic theories have developed a variety of theories of propositions to handle sententially complemented verbal constructions--chiefly verbs of propositional attitude--very little has been attempted, so far as I am aware, in the way of a systematic, semantic treatment of all the sentential nominals. The way sentential nominals and other linguistic forms denoting abstract objects interact with various predicates reveals a fundamental distinction between two sorts of denotations-- world immanent objects like events and states, with causal, temporal and spatial properties, and purely abstract objects like propositions and thoughts that do not have causal, temporal, or spatial properties. But there appear to be also intermediate entities, facts, that, like events, have causal efficacy but, lilap"" 3.3

Chapter 4.1

~ Chapter 4.2-4.3 - +

/ Chapter 4.4-4.5

!

/ l ChaPt~r 10.1-10.3 !

Chapter 5.1-5.3

\Chapter 5.4-5.5

~

Chapter 10.4-10.5 Chapter 10.6

~~

Chapter 6.1-6.5 ---- Chapter 7

!

ChaJ't6/""8 +

Chapter 9 The scope of this project, though broad, has nevertheless dictated a choice of topics. Originally, I wanted to devote myself originally only to a study of saturated, abstract entities, but it proved impossible not to include similar, complex nominals that are the result of various forms of verb phrase nominalization. I have excluded a study of various forms of lexical property nominals; properties, though abstract objects and part of natural language metaphysics, will not receive systematic treatment. Mass terms, bare plurals and morphological transformations of English common nouns and adjectives using the suffixes -ness and -ity are all extremely interesting instances of lexical property nominals. The first two kinds of nominals have received considerable scrutiny in the linguistic literature, while the latter have received very little attention at all. Nevertheless, lexical or predicate nominals seem to invite rather different concerns from sentential and verbal and verb phrase nominals, and including them

!!ITJ,-----:-1-4-~==~=C~~-IN~T~R-O-D-U~C=TI-O-N=~~----~-------;------~"-.'~~-

CHAPTER ONE

I ,

within the discussion would take us too far and too often afield. So I will not raise in this work the interesting and difficult issues concerning lexical or predicate nominals.

!

IPor instance, the work of Chierchia and Turner (1987), Barwise and Perry (1983), and Barwise (1988) are welcome, sophisticated inquiries into this area. 2The use of events in coding the tense and ~tual infonnation is due originally to Reichenbach 2947), but recently many have attempted to refine and make more precise Reichenbach's ideas. See amp 3Here s(h197ul9d)'bfor ms~ncede. work by p' 0 e mention arsons, BHauerIe, Link , and Krifka. 4nis view seems to date actually from the Stoic doctrine of the lekton. 5The tenninology of sentential nominal is perha.lls unforumate, even though there is often an obvious semantic correliition-- as in for instance, the death of Caesar and Caesar died. Sentential nominals should not be thought of as §Ylltactically derived from sentences, though such early research in transfonnational grammar (Lees 1960) proposed such a view. Por a discussion, see Chomsky (1970). 6Por example, see Lemmon (1967). 7Dan Bonevac collected these examples from the Wall StreetJoumal. 8See Asher (1986, 1989). 9 A further reduction to an (almost) eventless universe would appear possible, but I shall not pursue it here. lOpor instance Vendler (1964), Verkuyl (1972), Mourelatos (1978), among others. llThis last description is taken from Smith (1980,1991). 12But in reality this theory is much older than Russell. It has roots in the Greek and Scholastic traditions. 13Por the development of the Russellian picture, see Kaplan, Barwise and Perry (1978, 1983), Soames (1987) and Almog (1986). Anderson (1980), Porbes(1986) among others develop the Pregean tradition. 14nis is explored in Asher (1987). 15See Asher and Kamp (1986) and Parsons (1975) for a discussion. 16See Dahlgren (1988) for a study of abstract entity reference in The Wall Street Joumal commentaries. Bonnie Webber (1988,1991) has also looked at abstract entity reference in various expository texts.

I If

I! 1,I.i"'1

!i ,

!'II

(

FROM EVENTS TO PROPOSITIONS: A TOUR OF ABSTRACT ENTITIES, EVENTUALITIES AND THE NOMINALS"THAT DENOTE THEM

The main purpose of this chapter and its main contribution to the literature on natural language metaphysics is to construct a typology of abstract entities, organized according to a spectrum of world immanence. Expanding on the work of Vendler, Gary, and others, I will look at the distributional data concerning what sort of abstract object referring expressions go with which contexts. This will serve to divide eventualities from purely abstract objects like propositions. But further refinements will indicate that the typology contains a spectrum of world immanence among abstract objects--ranging from quite concrete objects like events to purely abstract objects of thought. I will distinguish not only between eventualities and abstract entities, but also between facts, simple propositions, and projective propositions among the more abstract entities. I will also adopt a typology of eventualities accepted by many linguists and philosophers. I will develop and refine this typology in three different ways. First, I will consider distributional data of the sort collected by Vendler. Second, I will use relevant observations concerning anaphora and quantificational relations are certainly relevant. These reinforce the basic division between eventualities and abstract objects, as well as the more detailed typology. For the present anaphora will be analyzed as a binding relation on the variable introduced by the pronoun and the denotation of the antecedent expression. Third, I will investigate the spectrum of world immanence using the logical structures of the different domains of abstract entities. Linguists and philosophers have suggested such structured domains especially for the realm of eventualities. Building on the work of Kit Fine, I will extend observations about structured domains to purely abstract entities. Where all three sorts of observation all point to a distinction, a distinction between natural language metaphysical types is relatively assured; but this will not always be the case. These observations suggest not only a complex typology but also some recalcitrant problems the solution of which is a prerequisite of a viable semantic theory of abstract and semi-concrete objects. A simple but fundamental distinction concerning abstract objects divides concepts and properties from propositions, facts, and eventualities. Propositions and eventualities are fully "saturated," to use a Fregean term. They are true or false simpliciter. Properties and concepts, on the other hand, are typically properties and concepts of something; they are not true or false simpliciter but ascribed truly or falsely to objects that constitute their arguments. Most of this chapter is devoted to examining saturated objects only. 15

FROM EVENTS TO PROPOS mONS

CHAPTER ONE

16

Besides Frege's distinction between unsaturated and saturated objects, there is another, natural dimension that distinguishes between abstract objects of various types and eventualities. This is the dimension of world immanence. Some entities like events have spatiotemporal locations and causal powers. They also take concrete adjectives like bloody. Philosophers like Davidson (1967) and Lemmon (1967) have suggested that individuation conditions for events depend on their locations or causal powers. These are the world-immanent objects. Other entities like propositions do not have spatio temporal location or causal efficacy, 1 and properties denoted by concrete adjectives cannot apply to them. Their individuation conditions depend on the way they are described. Propositions are typically thought to have a complex intemallogical structure resembling, if not exactly isomorphic to, the linguistic sentences that express them; events don't or need not. 2 It is this internal structure that, together with content, has been thought to individuate propositions. These are the "world removed" or purely abstract objects. There are thus a wide variety of informal tests that distinguish between world-immanent and abstract objects: spatiotemporal modification, causal efficacy, and linguistically sensitive individuation conditions. In what follows I shall try to fill in the spectrum of world immanence for saturated objects. 3 From metaphysical distinctions, I now turn briefly to some linguistic ones. Abstract entity referring expressions fall into two broad classes. The first concerns nominals and noun phrases that denote abstract entities. This class in turn divides into sentential nominals (those denoting something akin to what sentences express or denote) and predicate nominals (corresponding to common nouns, verbs, verb phrases, and common noun phrases). The logical distinction between saturated and unsaturated objects cuts across these linguistic divisions. Nominals and noun phrases may denote either saturated or unsaturated entities. Saturated objects are the denotations of sentential nominals and of whole sentences or discourses. Properties and concepts are the denotations of verb phrases and common noun phrases and predicate nominals. Sentential nominals and sentences have several sorts of entities associated with their interpretation. Sentential nominals come in a wide variety of forms and reflect this varied semantic aspect of sentences. There are of-ing gerund phrases, of which (1) is an example: 4 (1)

the mayor's throwing of the pizza in the guest of honor's face

The gerund in (1) denotes an event, or some sort of object that can be located in time and space as in (2) below. But of-ing gerunds have meanings closely correlated with those of sentences--compare (2) and (3): (2) (3)

The mayor's throwing of the pizza in the guest of honor's face coincided with the clock's striking 10 p.m. The mayor threw the pizza in the guest of honor's face, and that coincided with the clock's striking 10 p.m ..

17

There are also derived nominal phrases. These also typically have a meaning associated with that of a companion sentence, and also may denote events. (4) (5)

Caesar's destruction of Carthage Fred's love for Sue.

Sometimes, however, a derived nominal phrase like Fred's honesty (which is semantically correlated with Fred is honest) denotes something other than an event-perhaps it denotes some sort of abstract object like a fact. That clauses are another form of sentential nominal: (6)

, where 'M is a set of partial models and ~ is a partial ordering such that if M ~ M' and x E 1:(M), where 1:(M) is the domain of M, then x E t£(M'). The ordering encodes the relevant structure of the logical and rhetorical relations of a text but it abstracts away from the content of those relations, as this is not needed to express closure principles for spaces. I will assume that a satisfaction relation for formulae may be appropriately defined for models M in 'M. I will also suppose that these partial models form a context for the processing of elements of the text. So we may speak of a particular phrase introducing an object into a particular partial model in the structure--the one that serves as its most local context. Most local is defined with the help of~: M is the most local context for a phrase

The diagram reveals a basic distinction between event-like and proposition-like

58

FROM EVENTS TO PROPOSITIONS

CHAPTER ONE

entities. But a closer investigation of the spectrum of world immanence reveals a much more complicated typology. At the next level of detail, we may distinguish between events and states under event-like entities--and then further between states, activities, processes, accomplishments, and achievements. Among the propositionlike entities we have distinguished a group of fact-like entities with causal efficacy and a group of pure proposition entities. Both of these groups have further subdivisions. Here is a summary of the characteristics of the major divisions in natural language metaphysics. Eventualities: Spatiotemporal modification (states and events sharply distinguished by a variety of classifications of spatiotemporal modifiers), causal efficacy, no closure under complementation (states support modified complementation, events support relative complementation). Logical behavior: substitutability of coreferential expressions preserving reference to the same event or state. Limited comprehension principles dictate limited mereological summation properties. Simple Propositions: No spatiotemporal modification, no causal efficacy, highly intensional entities (no substitution of logical equivalents or of coreferential terms to preserve denotation to same proposition). Summation dependent on discourse structure. Projective Propositions: No spatiotemporal modification, no causal efficacy, highly intensional entities (no substitution of logical equivalents or of coreferential terms to preserve denotation to same proposition). Complex anaphoric properties occur among different types of projective propositions. Limited comprehension principles dictate limited summation properties. Facts, Possibilities, States of Affairs: No spatiotemporal modification. Probable causal efficacy. Logical behavior: substitutability of coreferential names, definite descriptions may get an opaque reading, questionable substitution of logical equivalents salva veritate, Sentential Comprehension Principle. My examination of abstract entities in natural language metaphysics has revealed a complex typology but also some puzzles. First, there is the problem of the structure of the domains of these abstract objects. The domains of events, propositions, and facts each seem to possess a rich structure with much as yet unsolved, at least as far as their interaction is concerned. That structure appears to bear some relation to the space of such entities created by a text, but much more needs to be said, especially in the case of propositions. Also, many of these domains are fraught with paradox in natural language metaphysics. This poses a traditional problem that natural language metaphysics cannot solve on its 6wn. How can we have a theory of propositions which admits paradoxical propositions? And how do other abstract domains avoid paradox, if they do? A second raft of difficulties concerns the typology itself. The typology of abstract entities is fluid. We have already seen that anaphoric links can exist between contexts that admit incompatible types of abstract objects--e.g. between

59

objects of NI perception and objects of propositional attitude. The selectional restrictions determined by various contexts do not appear to always apply. Further one can "relabel" as a possibility or a conjecture what someone believes: (95.a) John is certain that the universe was created in a big explosion, but as far as I know that is only a possibility, a conjecture, not proven fact. (95.b) Fred fears the possibility that Mary may leave John. But as far as John is concerned it is already a fact to be lived with. Of course, one can also disagree about the status of ordinary objects, as (96) attests: (96)

John believes he saw a cat run into the sewer, but I swear it was a rat.

There is, however, a different feel to (96) in comparison with (95.a-b). In (96), the nature of the object is in doubt. In (95.a-b), the content and even the structure of the abstract object at hand is completely determined; the characterization of the abstract entity by the that clause is not in doubt. What is being contested is the type. of abstract entity. A more apt comparison is to recast the discussion in (96) as bemg about the question of whether the cat John believes he saw was real or a figmen~ of his imagination. But unlike imagination and reality; identifying the abstract object type is often a matter of fiat or decision. Another consideration related to the fluidity of this typology is that different sorts of abstract entities like facts and propositions may "agglomerate" together to form uniform wholes that may be picked up by anaphoric pronouns. For instance, consider the following example: (97)

The fact that Sam ran off with his secretary surprised no one. Mary's expectation that he would be unfaithful is also a pretty grim commentary on his character. All of it makes plain the typical, sad state of modem marriages.

This, as well as the data in section 2.2.2 suggests that abstract entities like facts and propositions may not be so different that they cannot merge together to form another proposition. . The fluidity of the typology is revealed in the linguistic forms of sententlal nominalization as well. An unusual feature of my classification is that some sentential nominals, viz., that clauses, and to some extent POSS-ing gerunds, have a polymorphic or chameleon-like quality; like the color of chameleon~, their true nature depends on their surroundings. They may serve to charactenze abstract entities of different and even incompatible types. For instance that clauses may denote several different types of abstract entities: facts, propositions, and possibilities. This suggests that that clauses introduce structures that are ~ot themselves of any particular type in the typology of natural language metaphYSICS but which may serve to characterize many different types of abstract entities. '

------------------------.-~--~-."~.-~~"~--

60

CHAPTER ONE

The typology for abstract entities differs markedly from a typology for concrete entItles. But the fluidity of the abstract object typology makes sense to a conceptualist. For while the realm of concrete entities appears to have fixed and determinate boundaries, there are no such boundaries that need be respected when categorizing the products of thought. For the conceptualist, the distinctions between abstract entities need not answer to fixed and determinate distinctions in nature or external reality. Abstract objects are our own creations and our categorizations of them answer to our own pragmatic needs; as our needs change, so may our categorizations. Furthermore, our needs for categorization may be local, so the typology may not be complete or altogether worked out. Finally, we may suspend our categorization for certain purposes or when giving another perspective on some abstract object. Natural language metaphysics reflects these conceptualist tenets faithfully. The next chapters will tum to a more careful linguistic analysis of these matters. 1Mental states, however, which relate together propositions and agents, may very well have causal efficacy. More on this later. 2Philosophers like Davidson have claimed that events are concrete individuals. According to Davidson (1967), however, events are to be individuated by their causes and effects (so they are not individuals like rocks, trees, animals, or space shuttles, altJiough they may share some properties with ordinary individuals). 3For unsaturated entities too there is a similar distinction between world-immanent and abstract objects. Natural kinds and event types are examples of world-immanent properties; such properties have causal efficacy, and kinds even have a kind of spatiotemporal extensIOn as in: (1) platypi are found in Australia but nowhere else. (2) dinosaurs lived for about 400 million years. Many predicate nominals, on the other hand, denote abstract properties with no causal efficacy or spatiotemporal extension. So it is odd to say something like: (3) Goodness caused the world to be saved. except in a highly metaphorical sense. But I will not examine predicate nominals or natural kinds here. 41 use the term gerund phrase to refer to the complex construction employing a verbal for like loving or having loved or even the form being about to Jove. This seems to oe standard usage in at least some of the syntactic literature, but there are many variations of terminology in this area. I also made up the term of ing gerund to denote those gerunds in which one argument IS or would be expressed with a prepositional phrase beginning with of. 51 use these somewhat barbaric terms, ACC-ing gerunds and POSS-ing gerunds, because they have become standard in the linguistic literature on sentential nominals. ACC-ing and POSS-ing stand for the different cases of the subject of the gerundized verb. 6See "Unfair to Facts" in Austin (1961). 7Temporal adverbial PPs also hold of perfect nominals, as in Fred's kissing of Mary on Monday. 8For a discussion, see Smith (1991). 9This suggestion is picked up by Bennett (1988). 1°1 differ here from Vendler in my judgments about the acceptability of the container true with yerunds and derived nominals. 1Vendler's arguments for distinguishing these types of eventualities rests on an examination of verb classes, although as Verkuyl (1972) pointed out, verb classes themselves do not uniquely determine the type of eventuality that the sentence will eventually introduce. 12For a detailed discussion of these categories and problems involving them see Dowty (1979), Krifka (1987), Smith (1991). 13See Barwise (1981), Barwise and Perry (1983), Asher and Bonevac (1985a-b), Higginbo'~lam p985a). 4Kaiser introduces two other contexts that I will not here. They consist of verbs of hapJJening and duration-- e.g. begin, stop, and last, and emotive and cognitive verbs-- e.g., infuriate, bOther, anticipate and regret. It seems to me that these classes of verbs do not distinguish between other types of abstract entities; the first group of verbs does playa peculiar role in that they take imperfect nominals like POSS-ing gerund constructions and apply temporal properties to them. More on this in chapter 5.

FROM EVENTS TO PROPOSITIONS

61

15Barwise (1975) and Barwise and Perry (l?78, 1983) argue.persuasively on these grounds that the objects ofN! perception are not sets ofP9ssIble worlds ..TheIr arguments, ~owever, do not distinguish the naive notion of a proposluon from the objects of N1 percepuon. 16 This argument is given in Asher and Bonevac (1985.a). . 170 [!3/a] is the result of uniformly substituting the term !3 for every occurre~ce. of the term am 0: ·18 For a discussion see for example Asher and Bonevac (1985a, 1985b). Higgmbotham (1985a) IS a defense of the view that NI complements denote events. . 19Consider for instance His desperate situation forced him to gamble all he had on a vel)' nsky plan. 20S ee Asher (1987). 21See Asher (1987) again for a discussion. 22See Bonevac (1984). 23 In Asher (1987) I give a relatively detailed account of these categories. 24The semantics of questions that I have in mind is ~e s~mantics of questions using their direct or correct answers. ThIS view is held by a number of lIngUISts and phIlosophers. See Karttunen (1977), and Groenendijk and Stokhof (1982). 25 Again see Asher (1987) for a discussion and bib~ography. . 26S ee also Gupta and Savion (1987) for confirmauon on the faIlure of the property argument form .. .. . for projective propositional contexts. . 27These differences are too simple when we examme contexts m whIch propOSItIOnal and facUve contexts share arguments. There are highly intensional ~ontexts that appear to take ~acts ?S arguments and they would seem to sugzest that facts mIght also have those sorts of Idenuty conditions'that we have suggested are llie mark ofpropositi~ns. C~nsequently, (I) ~annot ~ used to distinguish between facts and propositions. There IS a readmg, for mstance, on whIch (l.a) IS true while (1.b) is false: (1 a) The fact that Superman was vulnerable interested Lex Luthor. (1:b) The fact that Clark Kent was yuhIerab~e interes~d Lex Lutl!or. . This objection however is not conclUSIve. Denved nommal, POSS-mg and of-1f1g gerund phrases, however, also behave non-extensionally in such contexts. The sa'!le contrast as, m (l.a) an.d. (l.b) obtains if we substitute instead of the pair of complt?x NPs, the parrs Superman s vulnerabilItya.nd. Clark Kent's vulnerability. On their own these nommals apJJear to denote ~e same state, b!lt wIthm the context of a verb like interest, these ~ominals aJJl~ar 19 denot~ somethII)g mu.ch '!lore lIke a proposition. Superman's spurning of LOIS and ClaiK Kent s spurmng .of LOI~, ~hICh m normal contexts would denote events also behave as if they denoted projJoSItIons wIthm the con~xts . described in (27). Names of individuals such as Superrp.!Ifl and Clark Kent al~o behave m the subject position of interest as if they were within s~me propOSIuonal ~ontext. Thus, mterest generates a propositional context, and tJierefore, one mIght argue.. always mvolves some appeal to .mental states, propositions or some other intentional object related m some way to the actual deno~u9n 9f the noun phrase or nominal in subject place. Propositional contexts can even be generated WIth mdIcate. Consider the pair: (2.a) This proof indicates to me that xn + yn = zn has n~ solution in the whole numbers. (2.b) This proof indicates to me that Fermat's theo~em IS true. . . It seems as though the frrst of this pair could be true WIthOUt the second bemg true, If I.am not aware of the contents of Fermat's theorem. Attitude contexts m?y ~orce such an ?ccommoda~on as the data concerning the various types of nominals would seem to mdIcate. The unif~rm beh~vI~r of all . nominals m such contexts makes it plausible that the more complex semantIc analYSIS IS .appropnate and so these sorts of observations do not vitiate the distinction oetween facts and propOSItIOns. 28This reconstruction of Moore's argument is .giv~n in Fine (1981). Note that sho~ and il}dic:ate do not require their object arguments to be facts m thIS sense; maps may show somethmg or mdIcate sometJiing but then they may also be wrong. Thus, such contexts seem to take not on1y facts but possible facts or possibilities as arguments. 29Many philosophers who adopt a corres~ndence theory of truth take this argument to support the view that facts ground the truth of propoSItions. For a discussion, see Hochberg (1978). 30This example is due to Peter Lasersohn in conversation. . 31 There is an interesting question as to whether one can use the argumel!t P!ltterns. m (2~) to make distinctions between BP SItuations and facts. It does seem t~at the substItuuon of mtensIOnally equivalent property descriptions wit~in a fact den~ting nqmm?l preserves the reference of that nominal whereas we have seen that It does not WIth BP SItuatIons. 32 The ~cceptability of events as well as NI complements as objects of NI perception verbs would .. explain why the quantificational test fails.. 33The data in (62) is sensitive to the presence dlscours.e partIcles lIke bur or tOf!. ~ese add considerable complexity to the analysis of abstract enuty anaphora. TheIr role IS dIscussed at length in chapter 8. . . 34Contrast (70) however with the perfectly acceptable VP ellipSIS: John asked [whether he could go

62

CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO

to the park);. He wants to. Of course here there is no clash in types; the anaphoric construction picks up a concept expressed by the VP in the previous clause. I shall analyze such constructions in chapter 5. 35It was given in a talk by Link at a conference on Discourse Representation Theory, Stuttgart, Gennany, 1987. 36Davidson (1967) states that events are subject to mereological principles. 37For instance, when we create a context in which these two events become thematically connected, then the anaphoric link becomes quite good: Fred and Mary drove into town together. Fred went shopping for a new pair of sneakers. Mary went to her office to prepare some reports. It took a long time. 38 Earth and water when mixed together make mud, but what of hydrogen and nitrogen? The mereological principles for mass tenns work only on quantities of a particular kind of stuff. 390f course one might here distinguish between singUlar events, which is what I have been talking about, and plural groups of events. Events can be summed to fonn a plural group along the usual principles of gn;mp fonnation. Such groups would be referred to witli the complex demonstrative these events as m: John hit Mary. Sam got married. These events would prove momentous in the history of Smallsville. 40rhis approach too is due to Davidson (1967). 41Such appeals to common sense knowledge in text understanding have a long history within the AI commumty-- see for instance Schank & Abelson (1977) or in computational lInguistic analysis Dahlgren (1988). ~2I .w.ill al..yays suppos~ that among the groups of individuals are singleton groups for every mdividual m the domam. 43The detenniner all then forces a distributive reading over this conjunction. I'll return to this curious anaphoric phenomenon later. 44A possible worlds theory of propositions identifies propositions with sets of possible worlds. Proponents of such a view are Stalnaker (1976, 1984), Lewis (1970), Montague (1970). A Russellian view of propositions, defended recently by philosophers like Salmon (1986), Soames (1987) and Barwise ana Perry (1983), claim that propositions are structured com,l'lexes that include individuals, relations that have those individuals as arguments and some sort of' polarity" indicating whether the relation holds or does not hold of the individuals. 45The view that prop()sitions are sets of possible worlds completely describes the al~ebra and gives it a Boolean structure. It also verifies all the Boolean identities. I here do not include Stalnaker's (1976, 1984) suggestions for a semantics in which linguistic facts about what word referred to what object as well as non-linguistic situations would be encoded into the possible worlds structure. For a discussion see Stalnaker (1984). 46See R. van Sandt (forthcoming) for a discussion of this issue. 47With sentential quantifiers, propositional comprehension, which could be written as 3p p =