Indefinite Noun Phrases and Referential Opacity

James T. Heringer Ohio State University

In this paper it is argued that the distinction between specific and non-specific indefinite noun phrases first noted by Smith (1964) and discussed by Baker (1966) and Karttunen (1968), among others, actually amounts to a distinction between those noun phrases which carry with them a presupposition of the 'existence', in a sense to be clarified later, of a referent and those noun phrases which do not. The evidence for this comes from the manner in which specific and non-specific noun phrases behave in referentially opaque contexts. There are three major types of superficial indefinite noun phrases which it seems necessary to distinguish. First, there is the generic indefinite, illustrated in sentences (1) and (2).

(1) A quagmire is tough to get out of. (2) A goose flies south for the winter.

These are general statements about a class of individuals and are usually, but not always, paraphrasable by sentences having definite or plural noun phrases in place of the indefinitel, as shown by sentences (3)-(6).

(3) Quagmires are tough to get out of. (4) Geese fly south for the winter. (5) *The quagmire is tough to get out of. (6) The goose flies south for the winter.

Contrasting with this is the type of indefinite noun phrase illustrated in sentences (7)-(9). The indefinite noun phrases

(7) A four-toed troglodyte just entered the room. (8) A square circle disturbed my dreams last night. (9) A friend of mine eats tapioca pudding with his bare hands.

beginning these sentences clearly refer to specific individuals. However, they are able to do this without being a correct or true 90

description of their referents. In line with the semantic distinction drawn by Donellan (1966) between referential and attributive definite descriptions, it may be said that this type of noun phrase, called specific in discussions of syntax, is referential, i.e., used by the speaker to "enable his audience to pick out whom or what he is talking about" rather than to "state something about whoever or whatever is Ca] so-and-so,"2 which is the case with the attributive usage.3 Thus, sentences (7) and (8) are meaningful independent of the existence in the real world of any entity which has four toes per foot and lives in a cave or which is simultaneously round and square, and sentence (9) is meaningful independent of whether the relationship between the speaker of this sentence and the individual referred to would really be called friend- ship. Sentences like (7)-(9) are usually paraphrasable by sentences to which there-insertion has applied and by sentences containing certain in the indefinite noun phrase, as in the next sentences.

(10) A certain friend of mine eats tapioca pudding with his bare hands. (11) There's a friend of mine who eats tapioca pudding with his bare hands.

The third type of indefinite noun phrase, the non-specific or attributive variety, cannot be paraphrased with the corresponding sentence containing certain, nor does it necessarily have a referent. This type of noun phrase denoted a single individual chosen arbitrarily from the class of individuals described by the noun phrase, as in sentences (12)-(16).

(12) John wanted to catch a fish. (13) Henry tried to locate a winged horse. (14) Max is a doctor. (15) I didn't find an osteopath. (16) Did you hit a pig in the snout?

These sentences are paraphrasable by pseudo-cleft sentences, independent of whether the class of individuals described is human or not, a fact recently noted by Kuno (to appear), N.B. the last three sentences of the next group.

(17) What John wanted to catch was a fish. (18) What Henry tried to locate was a winged horse. (19) What Max is is a doctor. (20) What I didn't find was an osteopath. (21) Was what you hit in the snout a pig?

While the object noun phrase in (16) is ambiguously specific or not (as in the case in (12), (13) and (15), at least for some 91

speakers of English), the corresponding noun phrase in (21) is unambiguously non-specific, although still possibly human. The preceding is by way of introduction and is meant to be indicative of what has been said previously about the specific/ non-specific distinction in indefinite noun phrases. Next we examine the interaction of this distinction with the phenomenon of referential opacity. Philosophers have long noted the curious semantic behavior of noun phrases in the complements of certain verbs, such as want, think, claim when the subject of these verbs is not to,be identified with the speaker of the sentence containing them.' It has been pointed out that in a sentence like (22) there is an ambiguity as to whether the responsibility for the description

(22) John wants to marry a witch. la witch' is to be assigned to John or to the speaker of the sentence. Further, it is not always possible to substitute equivalent terms for la witch' in (22), preserving meaning. Finally, the assertion of (22) does not entail that witches exist. This situation is contrasted with that in sentences like (23).

(23) John married a witch. (24) All witches are hunchbacked. (25) John married a hunchback. (26) John wants to marry a hunchback.

Here it is supposed that (1) the speaker must take responsibility for the description 'a witch; (2) given the concurrent assertion of (24), (25) follows (while (26) under the same circumstances • would not follow from (22)); (3) it follows from the assertion of (23) that witches exist. All contexts in which equivalent terms lack substitutivity and there is no existential generalization possible are called opaque contexts. The type of opaque context which was just illustrated and which is at issue in this paper is the type involving ambiguity concerning who is referring. This type is called a referentially opaque context. The reading of ambiguous sentences like (22) in which the speaker is responsible for the description is called the transparent reading; that in which the subject is responsible is called the opaque reading. It is only in the opaque reading that substitutivity and existential generalization are ruled out. As an illustration of the preceding, consider the sample argument given in (27). The statement of the conclusion, (2709

(27) (a) Oedipus wanted to marry Jocasta. (b) Jocasta was Oedipus' mother. (c) A0edipus wanted to marry his mother.

is given by a sentence ambiguous in the manner just described. The important thing to notice here is that the argument is valid 92

only if thd sentence of the conclusion is given the transparent reading, that is, if 'his mother' is the speaker's description of Jocasta. If referential opacity is examined in the light of the specific/non-specific distinction, or rather the referential/ attributive distinction, since we are treading on philosophical ground, it becomes evident that referential opacity is not as monolithic a concept as it has been made to appear in most philosophical literature concerning itself with opacity, the content of which the sketchy description given above is meant to reflect. First, consider attributive indefinites in referentially opaque contexts. As Patton (1968) has noticed, attributive noun phrases in referentially opaque contexts can only be construed opaquely, and thus must be considered the responsibility of the subject of the sentence. Actually, this needs further qualification, as the following examples show. First, consider the argument given in (28). As opposed to the situa-

(28) (a) John claims to be a bachelor. (b) All bachelors are profligates. (c) «John claims to be a profligate.

tion with the argument in (27), there is no sense in which (28) is valid, given that 'a bachelor' and 'a profligate' are attributive and that 'bachelor' has its 'normal' meaning here. However (29) does constitute a valid argument.

(29) (a) John claims to be a bachelor. (b) All bachelors are unmarried. (c) .John claims to be (an) unmarried (person).

Moreover, it is not only the assertions associated with the noun phrase in the object complement which may be substituted, but also the presuppositions associated with the noun phrase in question,2 as shown by the valid inferences in (30) and (31).

(30) John claims to be an assassin. «John claims to be a killer.

(31) John wants (expects) to be a dictator. .John wants (expects) to be a ruler.

The generalization to be drawn from this seems to be that an attributive noun phrase in an opaque context cannot be supplied by the speaker of the sentence if the description it gives is not at least presupposed in the subjects' belief world by the description the subject originally gave, or, more precisely, if the speaker does not assume that such a connection exists in the belief world of the subject. Thus if the speaker substitutes 'a profligate' for la bachelor' in a context like (28c), he is 93

presupposing that the term 'bachelor' carrys with it a presupposition of profligacy for the subject of the sentence and, perhaps, for everyone. The oddness of (28c) is evidence that such a presupposition would generally be considered false and apparently demonstrates a second-level presupposition failure,, i.e., failure of a presupposition that a presupposition holds.' Turning to the interpretation of referential indefinites in opaque contexts, it is apparent that the situation with respect to substitivity is entirely different than what was found to be the case with attributive indefinites, for the substitute may denote a class of individuals entirely disjoint from that denoted by the substituendum while making reference to the same individual as the substituendum. This is shown in example (32). Even if John has no knowledge of the information

(32) (a) John wants to locate a virgin he knew ten years ago. (b) The virgin John knew ten years ago is now the mother of thirteen children. (c) :.John wants to locate a mother of thirteen children he knew ten years ago.

expressed by (32b), there is an interpretation of (32c) which is a valid conclusion from the premises, namely, the transparent reading. The claim that is being argued for here is that this ambiguity of sentences containing referential indefinites in opaque contexts does not result solely from the question of who is responsible for the description expressed by the indefinite, but also from the question of who is presupposing that the referent exists. This existence is not meant to be taken as existence in the real world, but rather as belief-world existence. Thus, the second question really amounts to the question of whose belief world the referent is presupposed to exist in. The description question and the existence question are assumed to be equivalent in most discussions of referential opacity. That they are to some extent independent is shown by the fact that sentence (33a) is, with respect to the issues being discussed here, three ways rather than two ways ambiguous.

(33) (a) John wants to marry a witch he met last week, (b) But I don't think she exists. (c) *But I don't think she exists and he doesn't think she's a witch. (d) (I think she exists,) but I don't think she's a witch. (He thinks she's a witch.) (e) (I think she exists and is a witch,) but he doesn't think she's a witch. (f) *But he doesn't think she exists (for him).7

The continuations of (33a) given in (33b-f) are attempts at clarifying the three possible readings as well as some impossible 94 ones. It is very important that the pronominalization of 'a witch' in the continuations be definite, for the question of whether the speaker or the subject believe in the existence of witches is irrelevant here. (This follows from the fact that referential noun phrases can refer without denoting.) In a sentence like (33a), either the referent exists only in the belief world of the subject, in which case the responsibility for referring to the referent by the noun phrase in question must lie with him alone (as shown by the oddness of (33c)), or the referent exists in the belief worlds of both speaker and subject. In this case, either the speaker or the subject may have chosen the particular noun phrase as a conven- tional way of referring to the referent (as shown by continuations (33e) and (33d), respectively). The fact that (33f) is out shows that the referent must in any case at least exist in the belief world of the subject, thereby ruling out two of the four logically possible combinations of belief world existence and non-existence . Further, if the reasonable assumption is made that an individual cannot be held responsible for a description of a referent not in his belief world, then all except three of the eight remaining logically possible readings of the sentence as to who is presupposing existence and who is describing (such as (33c)) are ruled out. The view that there is only the above relationship between the existence question and the description question for referential indefinites in referentially opaque contexts gains further support from a consideration of how such indefinites behave in an object complelkent of a factive verb such as regret, resent, comprehend, etc.° Sentence (34a) and the continuations in (34b-e), similar to those in (33), illustrate this behavior.

(34) (a) John regrets marrying a witch, (b) *But I don't think she exists. (c) *But he doesn't think she exists. (d) But I don't think she's a witch. (e) But he doesn't think she's a witch.

As Lakoff (oral communication) has pointed out, such factives with object complements work just like the verbs involved in referential opacity (i.e., non-factives with object complements) with regard to the ambiguity of who is presupposed to supply the description given by the referential noun phrase. Where these verbs differ is in whether or not there is a presupposition that the speaker necessarily believes in the existence of the referent of the referential noun phrase in the complement. The discussion above perhaps sheds some light on the question of how the notion of presupposition is to be formalized in semantic structure. First, since sentences like (35) are perfectly acceptable when the indefinite is taken attributively,

(35) John wants to marry a witch, but neither he nor I believe they exist. 95

the referential/attributive distinction for indefinites may be said to amount to a distinction between the presence or absence of a presupposition of existence of a referent in any of the belief worlds set up by uttering the sentence in a given context. This means that the notions of belief world and of the owner of belief world will have to be formalized if the notion of pre- . supposition is to be.9 Second, there will have to be some independent mechanism for indicating which of the belief world owners has chosen to refer with the referential indefinite in question. This mechanism would be used to account for the ambiguities in sentences with either factives or non-factives with object complements containing -referential indefinites. Third, the presupposition formalism will need to be able to characterize presuppositions about presuppositions in order to account for attributive indefinites in the object complements of non-factives. - In conclusion, it is hardly necessary to point out the large number of stones which have been left unturned by this paper, among them the question of what happens as regards the referential/attributive distinction in all the other environ- ments in which indefinite noun phrases can occur and the question of what's going on with referential and attributive definite noun phrases whether in referentially opaque contexts or not. The latter question suggests itself partly because the referential/ attributive distinction was originally made for definites, and because most examples of the phenomenon referential opacity given in the past have involved definites rather than indefinites, but mainly because no treatment of indefinite noun phrases can hope to stand by itself. 96

Footnotes

'See footnote 10 of (Perlmutter, to appear) for a discussion of this. 2(Donellan 1966.285). The question of what relevance the hearers' belief world has is an important one, but one not touched on in this paper. 3The correspondence between Donellan's distinction and the specific/non-specific distinction was pointed out by Lakoff (oral communication). 4For example, see (Quine 1960.141-56). 5The assertions associated with a noun phrase are those aspects of the semantic content of the noun phrase which may normally be questioned and negated; the presuppositions are those aspects which are not normally questioned or negated when the nun phrase is questioned or negated. °It is an interesting fact that substitution of terms of abuse for human attributive indefinites by the speaker usually does not cause such a second-level presupposition picture, e.g.,

John wants to find a dean. :John wants to find a bastard.

This may be because of the vagueness of such terms. Notice however the oddity of the following:

John wants to be a dean. «John wants to be a shithead.

The president of the college expected a dean to be present at every student uprising. AThe president of the college expected an asshole to be present at every student uprising. IThis continuation is not to be taken in the sense where John 'pelieves the referent doesn't exist except for him. °See (Kiparsky & Kiparsky, to appear) for a discussion of such verbs. 9Lakoff (1968) has shown this to be necessary on independent grounds. 97

References

Baker, C. Leroy. 1966. 'Definiteness and indefiniteness in English,' unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Illinois.

Donellan, Keith S. 1966. 'Reference and definite descriptions,' Philosophical Review. vol. 75 no. 3, 281-304.

Karttunen, Lauri. 1968. 'What do referential indices refer to?' RAND Corporation Report, Santa Monica, Calif.

Kiparsky, Paul, and Carol Kiparsky. To appear. 'Fact', Recent Developments in Linguistics, ed. by M. Bierwisch & K. E. Heidolph. The Hague, Mouton.

Kuno, Susumu. To appear. 'Some properties of non-referential noun phrases,' Studies in Oriental and General Linguistics. ed. by Roman Jakobson. Tokyo, The TEC Co., Ltd.

Lakoff, George. 1968. 'Counterparts, or the problem of reference in transformational grammar', paper presented at the LSA Summer Meeting.

Patton, Thomas. 1968. 'Referential opacity and the referential/ attributive distinction,' paper given as a Forum Lecture, Linguistics Institute, University of Illinois.

Quine, W. V. 1960. Word and Object. Cambridge, M.I.T. Press.

Smith, Carlota S. 1964. 'Determiners and relative clauses in a generative grammar of English,' a. 40.37-52.