Space Trumps Time When Talking About Objects

The nature of the relationship between the concepts of space and time in the human mind is much debated. Some claim that space is primary and that it structures time (cf. Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) while others (cf. Walsh, 2003) maintain no difference in status between them. Using fully immersive virtual reality (VR), we examined the influence of object distance and time of appearance on choice of demonstratives (this and that) to refer to objects. Critically, demonstratives can be used spatially (this/that red triangle) and temporally (this/that month). Experiment 1 showed a pattern of demonstrative usage in VR that is consistent with results found in real‐world studies. Experiments 2, 3, and 4 manipulated both when and where objects appeared, providing scenarios where participants were free to use demonstratives in either a temporal or spatial sense. Although we find evidence for time of presentation affecting object mention, the experiments found that demonstrative choice was affected only by distance. These results support the view that spatial uses of demonstratives are privileged over temporal uses.     

Unenriched Subsentential Illocutions*

In this paper I challenge the common wisdom (see Dummett and Davidson) that sentences are the minimal units with which one can perform a speech act or make a move in the language game. I thus sit with Perry and Stainton in arguing that subsentences can be used to perform full‐fledged speech acts. In my discussion I assume the traditional framework which distinguishes between the proposition expressed and the thought or mental state (possibly a sentence in Mentalese) one comes to grasp when using/understanding an utterance (or sentence‐in‐a‐context) expressing a proposition. Unlike Stainton, I will argue that the proposition expressed by a subsentential assertion and its corresponding thought are not the end product of a pragmatic process of free enrichment. I shall defend the view that a thought may concern something without the thinker having to represent that very thing. This should help us to resist the view that with the utterance of a subsentence enrichment is mandatory. I will further argue that subsentences and their corresponding thoughts are situated. Because of that we can successfully interact and engage in joint ventures using subsentences and be guided by thoughts without having to enrich them. The fact that the actors’ unenriched thoughts are co‐situated may suffice to explain the positive outcome of their joint project. Last but not least, I will also show how the picture I propose gains further support by taking on board Perry’s distinction between reflexive truth conditions and incremental truth conditions (or official content). Since competent speakers can grasp an utterance’s reflexive truth conditions without having to grasp its official content (roughly, the proposition expressed) they can successfully interact without their thoughts having to undergo a process of free enrichment. Moreover, if I’m right in arguing that an utterance’s reflexive truth conditions are the best tool to classify the semantic features of one’s mental state (or sentence in Mentalese), we can further explain mental causation and linguistic communication without appealing to free enrichment.     

Zero tolerance for pragmatics

The proposition expressed by a sentence is relative to a context. But what determines the content of the context? Many theorists would include among these determinants aspects of the speaker’s intention in speaking. My thesis is that, on the contrary, the determinants of the context never include the speaker’s intention. My argument for this thesis turns on a consideration of the role that the concept of proposition expressed in context is supposed to play in a theory of linguistic communication. To illustrate an alternative approach, I present an original theory of the reference of demonstratives according to which the referent of a demonstrative is the object that adequately and best satisfies certain accessibility criteria. Although I call my thesis zero tolerance for pragmatics, it is not an expression of intolerance for everything that might be called “pragmatics.”     

Children’s Demonstrative Comprehension and the Role of Non-linguistic Cognitive Abilities: A Cross-Linguistic Study

Previous studies have shown that young children often fail to comprehend demonstratives correctly when they are uttered by a speaker whose perspective is different from children’s own, and instead tend to interpret them with respect to their own perspective (e.g., Webb and Abrahamson in J Child Lang 3(3):349–367, 1976); Clark and Sengul in J Child Lang 5(3):457–475, 1978). In the current study, we examined children’s comprehension of demonstratives in English (this and that) and Mandarin Chinese (zhe and na) in order to test the hypothesis that children’s non-adult-like demonstrative comprehension is related to their still-developing non-linguistic cognitive abilities supporting perspective-taking, including Theory of Mind and Executive Function. Testing 3 to 6-year-old children on a set of demonstrative comprehension tasks and assessments of Theory of Mind and Executive Function, our findings revealed that children’s successful demonstrative comprehension is related to their development of Theory of Mind and Executive Function, for both of the language groups. These findings suggest that the development of deictic expressions like demonstratives may be related to the development of non-linguistic cognitive abilities, regardless of the language that the children are acquiring.     

The impurity of “pure” indexicals

Within the class of indexicals, a distinction is often made between “pure” or “automatic” indexicals on one hand, and demonstratives or “discretionary” indexicals on the other. The idea is supposed to be that certain indexicals refer automatically and invariably to a particular feature of the utterance context: ‘I’ refers to the speaker, ‘now’ to the time of utterance, ‘here’ to the place of utterance, etc. Against this view, I present cases where reference shifts from the speaker, time, or place of utterance to some other object, time, or place. I consider and reject the claim that these counterexamples to the automatic indexical theory all involve non-literal uses of indexicals and argue that they cannot be explained away on the grounds that they involve conversational implicature or pretense.     

Centering on Demonstrative Thought

The nature of perceptual demonstratives, the ‘that F’ component of judgments of the form ‘that F is G’ based on perceptual input, has been a topic of interest for many philosophers. Another related, though distinct, question concerns the nature of demonstrative judgments based not on current perceptual input, but instead derived from memory. I argue that the account put forward by John Campbell fails to adequately account for memory-based demonstrative thought.     

Bare-Boned Demonstratives

This essay proposes a novel semantic account of demonstratives, aimed at clarifying the sense in which demonstratives are semantically dependent on demonstrations. Its first two sections summarize the main views currently on the market. Section 3 argues that they are all vitiated by the same shortcomings, and yield incorrect results of ‘truth in virtue of character’ and entailment. Section 4 proposes a different account of the relationships between demonstratives and demonstrations, grounded on the idea of truth-conditionally irrelevant aspects of the meaning of certain expressions. The resulting view of demonstratives is consonant with the so-called ‘bare boned’ account of their truth-conditional role, but is also in the position to recognize that the dependence of a demonstrative on a demonstration is, in some sense of the term, meaning-governed. The final section of this essay discusses the distinction between ‘vacuous’ and ‘incomplete’ uses of demonstratives, and cases involving multiple occurrences of these expressions.     

On the Alleged Ambiguity of ‘Now’ and ‘Here’

It is argued that, in order to account for examples where the indexicals `now' and `here' do not refer to the time and location of the utterance, we do not have to assume (pace Quentin Smith) that they have different characters (reference-fixing rules), governed by a single metarule or metacharacter. The traditional, the fixed character view is defended: `now' and `here' always refer to the time and location of the utterance. It is shown that when their referent does not correspond to the time and/or location of the utterance, `now' and `here' work in an anaphoric way, inheriting their reference from another noun phrase. The latter may be explicit or implicit in the discourse. It is also shown that `now' and `here' can inherit their reference from a presupposed or tacit reference. In that case, they are coreferential with what will be labeled a `tacit initiator'. This anaphoric interpretation has the merit of fitting within the Kaplanian distinction between pure indexicals (`now', `here', `today', etc.) and demonstratives (`this', `that', `she', etc.).     

Event-related brain indices of Japanese scrambling

This study examined the processing of Japanese wh-questions with preposed (scrambled) vs. in-situ (canonical SOV word order) wh-objects, and of yes/no-questions with scrambled vs. in-situ demonstrative objects. Questions with scrambled objects elicited bilateral slow anterior negative potentials between filler and gap. Scrambled demonstratives elicited P600 effects following the filler and (L)AN/P600 effects at the gap, while scrambled wh-words elicited primarily (L)AN effects at the gap. This replicated effects in response to filler-gap dependencies created by wh-movement in other languages, supporting the existence of universal parsing operations for all types of filler-gap dependencies. We suggest that these results are most generally compatible with notions of canonicity in sentence processing.     

The Alleged Priority of Literal Interpretation

In this article, I argue against a widely accepted model of utterance interpretation, namely the LS model (literality-based serial model), according to which the literal interpretation of an utterance (the proposition literally expressed by that utterance) must be computed before nonliteral interpretations can be entertained. Alleged arguments in favor of this model are shown to be fallacious, counter-examples are provided, and alternative models are sketched.     

Reference,perception, and attention

I examine John Campbell’s claim that the determination of the reference of a perceptual demonstrative requires conscious visual object-based selective attention. I argue that although Campbell’s claim to the effect that, first, a complex binding parameter is needed to establish the referent of a perceptual demonstrative, and, second, that this referent is determined independently of, and before, the application of sortals is correct, this binding parameter does not require object-based attention for its construction. If object-based attention were indeed required then the determination of the referent would necessarily involve the application of sortal concepts, since object-based attention initiates top-down cognitive effects on visual processing. I also examine Mohan Matthen’s claim that reference to objects is established only through the visual processing in the dorsal visual stream and argue that although it is true that processing in the dorsal stream can determine reference, a thesis that goes against Campbell’s view that the determination of the referent requires conscious attention, processing along the ventral visual stream can also establish the reference of perceptual demonstratives. It also claim that Matthen’s account of dorsal processing underestimates the kind of information processed along the dorsal stream and this has some implications regarding perceptual demonstratives reference fixing.

Rethinking Kaplan's 'afterthoughts' About 'That': An Exorcism of Semantical Demons

Kaplan (1977) proposes a neo-Fregean theory of demonstratives which, despite its departure from a certain problematic Fregean thesis, I argue, ultimately founders on account of its failure to give up the Fregean desideratum of a semantic theory that it provide an account of cognitive significance. I explain why Kaplan's (1989) afterthoughts don't remedy this defect. Finally, I sketch an alternative nonsolipsistic picture of demonstrative reference which idealizes away from an agent's narrowly characterizable psychological state, and instead relies on the robust multiply realizable relation between the skilled agent and demonstrated object.When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but it finds none. Then it says, 'I will return to my house from which I came.' When it comes, it finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So will it be also with this evil generation.– attributed to Jesus (Matthew 12:43-45, New Revised Standard Version of the Bible)     

No Easy Argument for Two-Dimensionalism

Intentionalism about demonstratives is the view that the referent of a demonstrative is determined solely by the speaker’s intentions. Intentionalists can disagree about the nature of these intentions, but are united in rejecting the relevance of other factors, such as the speaker’s gestures, her gaze, and any facts about the addressee or the audience. In this paper, I formulate a particular version of this view, and I defend it against six objections, old and new.     

Indirect perceptual realism and demonstratives

I defend indirect perceptual realism against two recent and related charges to it offered by A. D. Smith and P. Snowdon, both stemming from demonstrative reference involving indirect perception. The needed aspects of the theory of demonstratives are not terribly new, but their connection to these objections has not been discussed. The groundwork for my solution emerges from considering normal cases of indirect perception (e.g., seeing something depicted on a television) and examining the role this indirectness plays in demonstrative assertions. I argue that indirectness routinely if not typically plays a justificatory role in such judgements, and not a semantic one, and that the same can be said of such judgements when considered within the indirect realist framework. The denial of this, on my analysis, is essential to the criticisms of Snowdon and Smith. The discussion is extended to include scenarios involving the sorts of misconceptions Smith employs.

Childhood stuttering and speech disfluencies in relation to children's mean length of utterance: a preliminary study

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of utterance length and complexity relative to the children's mean length of utterance (MLU) on stuttering-like disfluencies (SLDs) for children who stutter (CWS) and nonstuttering-like disfluencies (nonSLDs) for children who do not stutter (CWNS). Participants were 12 (3;1-5;11, years;months) children: 6 CWS and 6 age-matched (+/-5 months) CWNS, with equal numbers in each talker group (CWS and CWNS) exhibiting MLU from the lower to the upper end of normal limits. Data were based on audio-video recordings of each child in two separate settings (i.e., home and laboratory) during loosely structured, 30-min parent-child conversational interactions and analyzed in terms of each participant's utterance length, MLU, frequency and type of speech disfluency. Results indicate that utterances above children's MLU are more apt to be stuttered or disfluent and that both stuttering-like as well as nonstuttering-like disfluencies are most apt to occur on utterances that are both long and complex. Findings were taken to support the hypothesis that the relative "match" or "mismatch" between linguistic components of an utterance (i.e., utterance length and complexity) and a child's language proficiency (i.e., MLU) influences the frequency of the child's stuttering/speech disfluency. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES: The reader will learn about and be able to: (1) compare different procedures for assessing the relationship among stuttering, length and complexity of utterance, (2) describe the difference between relative and absolute measures of utterance length, (3) discuss the measurement and value of mean length of utterance and its possible contributions to childhood stuttering, and (4) describe how length and complexity influence nonstuttering-like disfluencies of children who stutter as well as the stuttering-like disfluencies of children who do not stutter.     

Modal rationalism and the demonstrative reply to the scrutability argument against physicalism

According to the scrutability argument against physicalism, an a priori gap between the physical and conscious experience entails a lack of necessitation and the falsity of physicalism. This paper investigates the crucial premise of the scrutability argument: the inference from an a priori gap to a lack of necessitation. This premise gets its support from modal rationalism, according to which there are important, potentially constitutive, connections between a priori justification and metaphysical modality. I argue against the strong form of modal rationalism that underwrites the scrutability argument and suggest a more moderate rationalist view. I offer a novel demonstrative reply to the scrutability argument, according to which demonstratives play a vital role in the generation of meaning for our representations of conscious experience. This connection between conscious experience and demonstratives, rather than a metaphysical gap generated by the truth of dualism, is the source of the epistemic gap between consciousness and the physical.