Abstract the Semantics of Proper Names and Other
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ABSTRACT Title of dissertation: THE SEMANTICS OF PROPER NAMES AND OTHER BARE NOMINALS Yu Izumi, Doctor of Philosophy, 2012 Dissertation directed by: Professor Paul M Pietroski Department of Philosophy This research proposes a unified approach to the semantics of the so-called bare nominals, which include proper names (e.g., Mary), mass and plural terms (e.g., water, cats), and articleless noun phrases in Japanese. I argue that bare nominals themselves are monadic predicates applicable to more than one particular, but they can constitute complex referential phrases when located within an appropriate linguistic environment. Bare nominals used as the subjects or objects of sentences are some or other variant of definite descriptions, which are analyzed as non-quantificational, referential expressions. The overarching thesis is that the semantic properties of bare nominal expressions such as rigidity are not inherent in the words themselves, but derived from the basic features of complex nominal phrases. The Semantics of Proper Names and other Bare Nominals by Yu Izumi Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2012 Advisory Committee: Dr. Paul M. Pietroski, Chair Dr. Erin Eaker Dr. Valentine Hacquard Dr. Michael Morreau Dr. Alexander Williams Acknowledgments I have many to thank for making this dissertation possible, but I will be brief. There is no way to acknowledge all of them, or even any of them properly. My sincere gratitude goes to all who have helped me along the way. First of all, I would like to thank my dissertation committee. Paul M. Pietroski has continuously provided me with support and guidance throughout the years I spent at the University of Maryland. My intellectual debt to Paul is enormous. Here I only state that I genuinely wish his high standards and rigorous scholarship will be reflected in my future work. It was very fortunate for me that Alexander Williams arrived here while I was writing this dissertation. His comments and suggestions greatly improved many aspects of this work. I am grateful to Alexander for his time and encouragement whenever I needed it. In their joint lecture on propositional attitudes, Erin Eaker and Valentine Hacquard effectively gave me the topic of this dissertation. I wish to thank Erin for her sound advice and encouragement from the inception of this research to its completion. I owe a great deal to Valentine, who was very generous with her time and expertise every time I asked for help. I thank her for giving me her insights and ideas that became the bases for some of the analyses pursued here. Michael Morreau introduced me to a number of issues in philosophy of language and metaphysics, a subset of which is explored in this work. I benefited from the discussions with him on various occasions. He also taught me how to chop wood. Norbert Hornstein graciously agreed to serve as the external examiner of this dissertation. I also want to mention that his teaching was of great value to me. ii I would also like to thank my fellow students, colleagues, and other professors here and elsewhere for sharing their time and thoughts with me on this research—in particular, Jun Abe, Fabrizio Cariani, Paul Elbourne, Kent W. Erickson, Kenshi Funakoshi, Mike Gavin, Ryan Millsap, David McElhoes, Kevin Morris, Ryan Fanselow, Michael¨ Gagnon, Takashi Iida, Chris LaTerza, Chizuru Nakao, Hiroki Narita, Naho Orita, Brendan Ritchie, Masahiko Takahashi, Chris Vogel, Xuan Wang, Alexis Wellwood, and Maki Kishida Ya- mamoto. My special thanks go to Louise Gilman for making my life at UMD much easier. I am also thankful for the Ann G. Wiley Dissertation Fellowship. My friends and family deserve more thanks than any humanly possible language can convey. I thank them all for their support, without which I would never have finished this entire process. I wish to express special appreciation to Toshi, Saga, Bun, the Yamamotos, and in particular, Mio for their friendship. Last, I would like to thank my brother and mother, Ryo and Ritsuko Izumi, for tolerating the good-for-nothing cadet. This work is dedicated to my mother. iii Table of Contents 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Basic Notions . 2 1.1.1 Names . 2 1.1.2 Thought, proposition, logical form . 9 1.1.3 Semantics . 12 1.2 Three Semantic Theses about Proper Names . 18 1.3 Overview of the Dissertation . 22 2 Millianism and Variabilism 24 2.1 Variabilism . 25 2.2 Complexity of Proper Names . 30 2.2.1 The modified uses of proper names . 30 2.2.2 Generics with proper names . 36 2.2.3 Informativeness of proper names . 38 2.3 Summary . 42 3 The Form and Meaning of Names 44 3.1 Syntactic Theory . 44 3.2 The Syntax of Names . 48 3.2.1 The DP analysis . 48 3.2.2 Proper names . 56 3.3 The Metalinguistic Theory of Names . 66 3.3.1 The theory . 67 3.3.2 Criticisms . 72 3.4 Summary . 77 4 The Semantics of Definite Descriptions and Proper Names 78 4.1 Situation Semantics . 78 4.1.1 Introduction . 78 4.1.2 Basic definitions . 80 4.1.3 Ontological implications of possible and actual worlds/situations . 89 4.2 Situation Pronouns and the Interpretations Complex Nominals . 91 4.2.1 Implicit domain restriction . 92 4.2.2 Independent interpretations of complex nominals . 97 4.2.3 Situation pronouns in use . 99 4.3 The Presuppositional Analysis of Definite Descriptions . 111 4.3.1 The analysis without situations . 111 4.3.2 The analysis with situations . 116 4.4 Interlude—Quantification and Inevitable Scope . 135 4.5 Proper Names . 145 4.5.1 Kripke’s objections . 146 4.5.2 The bound use of a proper name . 150 iv 4.5.3 Descriptive names . 155 4.5.4 Frege’s puzzle . 157 4.6 Empty Names and Descriptions . 161 4.6.1 Empty expressions can denote abstracta . 164 4.6.2 Negative existentials . 170 4.6.3 Strawson’s contrast . 174 4.7 Summary . 176 5 The Semantics of other Bare Nominals 177 5.1 Introduction . 177 5.2 The Characteristics of Bare Nouns . 183 5.2.1 Bare common nouns . 184 5.2.2 Proper nouns . 191 5.2.3 Narrow scope . 193 5.3 The Semantics of Bare Nouns . 196 5.3.1 Background . 197 5.3.1.1 Domains with aggregates . 197 5.3.1.2 Type-shifting and how to represent maximality . 201 5.3.2 Object Reference . 203 5.3.3 So-called Kind-Reference . 207 5.3.3.1 What is a kind? . 207 5.3.3.2 English mass terms and bare plurals . 211 5.3.3.3 ‘Kind-reference’ in Japanese . 225 5.3.4 Existential Quantification . 226 5.3.5 Generic Quantification . 228 5.3.6 Summary . 232 5.4 Argument Against Silent Determiners . 233 5.4.1 Introduction: grammatical form and logical form . 233 5.4.2 Interpretive independence of null argument anaphora . 235 5.4.3 Ellipsis analysis of null argument anaphora . 237 5.4.4 Pronominal analysis of null argument anaphora . 243 5.5 Philosophical Implications: Grammatical Form and Logical Form . 248 5.6 Summary . 255 A Formal Derivations 257 B Evidence for situation pronouns 262 C Minimal situations 267 v Chapter 1 Introduction An undeniable distinction exists between a sign we use for a particular thing and a sign for a multitude of things. The sound ‘mamma’ made by a child seems to be related to nothing but the child’s mother like a photograph of her, whereas a pedestrian crossing road sign seems to be about a repeatable road event.1 Some but not all occurrences of proper names are signs of the former kind. We singularly use a name such as Immanuel Kant to talk about a particular individual, not a multitude of individuals. I will discuss in what follows how it is possible. In my view, proper names themselves are, despite their appearance, general terms applicable to a multitude of things, but they make up passing, context-dependent singular terms. This dissertation is mainly concerned with the semantics of proper names. I will present a semantic theory that adequately describes the propositional contributions of proper names in various constructions of both English and Japanese. I will argue that 1I suggest that the distinction is at least pre-theoretically intuitive. John Locke says: There is nothing more evident than that the ideas of the persons children converse with ... are, like the persons themselves, only particular. The ideas of the nurse and the mother are well framed in their minds; and, like pictures of them there, represent only those individuals. The names they first gave to them are confined to these individuals; and the names of ‘nurse’ and ‘mamma’, the child uses, determine themselves to those persons. Afterwards, when ... [children] observe that there are a great many other things in the world, that ... resemble their father and mother, they frame an idea, which they find those many particulars do partake in; and to that they give ... the name ‘man’, ... And thus they come to have a general name, and a general idea. (Locke, 1964, Book III, iii, 7.) 1 proper names used as arguments of sentences are complex phrases that are essentially equivalent to definite descriptions, which are analyzed as non-quantificational referring expressions. A number of semantic properties we observe in the uses of proper names and definite descriptions (e.g., rigidity, the de re/dicto distinction, etc.) are derived from the general features of complex nominal phrases.