Intensive Transitive Verben

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Intensive Transitive Verben
Intensive Transitive Verben

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Intensive transitive Verben

Erstveröffentlichung Mi 3. November 2004; inhaltliche Überarbeitung Do 7. Mai 2020

Ein Verb ist transitiv, wenn es normalerweise mit einem direkten Objekt auftritt, und in solchen Fällen soll es transitiv auftreten. So kommt 'aß' transitiv in 'Ich habe das Fleisch gegessen und das Gemüse verlassen' vor, aber nicht in 'Ich habe dann gegessen' (vielleicht ist es in diesen beiden Beispielen nicht dasselbe Verb 'links', aber es scheint dasselbe zu sein 'aß'). Ein Verb ist intensiv, wenn die Verbalphrase (VP), die es mit seinem Komplement bildet, auf mindestens eine von drei Arten anomal ist: (i) Das Ersetzen eines Ausdrucks durch einen anderen, der im Komplement des Verbs mit ihm übereinstimmt, kann die Wahrheit ändern. Wert des Satzes, in dem der VP vorkommt - zum Beispiel könnten Sie Mark Twain bewundern, aber nicht Samuel Clemens,Wenn Sie nicht erkennen, dass Ihr nerviger Nachbar Sam der berühmte Schriftsteller ist (in diesem Fall wird durch die Ersetzung von Mark Twain durch den Kernsatz "Samuel Clemens" im VP "Mark Twain bewundern" ein wahrer Satz "Sie bewundern Mark Twain" in einen falsch, 'Sie bewundern Samuel Clemens'); (ii) Der Vizepräsident gibt eine spezielle „unspezifische“Lesart zu, wenn sie einen Quantifizierer oder einen bestimmten Quantifizierertyp enthält (Quines Beispiel (1956: 185) ist berühmt: Er stellt fest, dass, wenn wir „Ich möchte eine Schaluppe“umschreiben, „ Es gibt eine (spezifische) Schaluppe, so dass ich sie will. Dies gibt die falsche Vorstellung, wenn alles, was ich will, „bloße Erleichterung von der Schaluppenlosigkeit“ist, eine Schaluppe, aber keine spezifische. Weitere Beispiele finden Sie in Abschnitt 1. und (iii) die normalen existenziellen Zusagen von Namen und existenziellen Quantifizierern im Komplement werden ausgesetzt, selbst wenn der Einbettungssatz negationsfrei ist (wieder,siehe Abschnitt 1).

Intensionsphänomene sind rätselhaft und es lohnt sich, sie zu studieren, denn (a) es scheint, dass die einzige Möglichkeit, die Fähigkeit von Sprachsprechern zu erklären, Sätze ihrer Muttersprachen zu produzieren und zu verstehen, denen sie noch nie begegnet sind, darin besteht, eine kompositorische Struktur in Sprache und Sprache zu setzen eine Interpretationsfähigkeit in Sprechern, die es ausnutzt. Aber (b) die einfachsten Vorstellungen darüber, wie eine solche Struktur aussieht, können die Intensionalität nicht berücksichtigen. Wir wollen also wissen, was die kleinste Komplikation ist, die die Intensivierung ermöglicht. Die Untersuchung von Intensionsverben konzentrierte sich hauptsächlich auf Verben, die zur Erstellung von Aussagen über die Einstellung verwendet wurden. Diese Verben nehmen eher Klauseln als direkte Objekte als Ergänzung. Wie wir jedoch weiter unten sehen werden,Intensive transitive Verben (fortan ITVs) duplizieren nicht nur die Probleme, die durch Verben der Aussagenhaltung aufgeworfen werden, sondern führen auch zu eigenen besonderen Schwierigkeiten.

  • 1. Einige Gruppen von ITVs und ihr Verhalten
  • 2. Wie viele Mechanismen für wie viele Marken?
  • 3. Propositionalismus
  • 4. Montagues Semantik
  • 5. Überarbeitungen und Verfeinerungen
  • 6. Prior's Puzzle
  • 7. Die Logik der intensiven Transitive
  • Literaturverzeichnis
  • Akademische Werkzeuge
  • Andere Internetquellen
  • Verwandte Einträge

1. Einige Gruppen von ITVs und ihr Verhalten

Suchverben und Wunschverben manifestieren alle drei im Prolog aufgeführten Verhaltensweisen als „Zeichen“oder Effekte der Intensionalität. So kann Lois Lane Superman suchen. Aber es scheint nicht zu folgen, dass sie Clark sucht, obwohl Superman Clark ist, und so haben wir ein Beispiel für die erste Art von Anomalie, die im Prolog erwähnt wird: Die Substitution eines Namens durch einen anderen für dieselbe Person führt zu einer Änderung im Wahrheitswert für den Einbettungssatz (hier „Lois sucht Superman“). In ähnlicher Weise möchte eine durstige Person, die glaubt, dass Wasser den Durst stillt und dass H 2 O eine Art Rattengift ist, etwas Wasser, aber nicht etwas H 2O. [Nach Ansicht einiger ist dieses angebliche Versäumnis der Substitution, den Wahrheitswert zu bewahren, eine Illusion; aber aus Platzgründen verfolge ich diese Theorie nicht - ihr locus classicus ist (Salmon 1986).]

Zweitens erzeugen sowohl Suchverben als auch Wunschverben spezifisch-unspezifische Mehrdeutigkeiten in ihren enthaltenden VPs, wenn das syntaktische Objekt des Verbs aus einem Bestimmer gefolgt von einem Nominal besteht (diese Mehrdeutigkeit wird nach Quine 1956 auch als relationale / fiktive Mehrdeutigkeit bezeichnet, wobei es wurde zuerst studiert, zumindest in der Neuzeit). Zum Beispiel könnte "Ödipus sucht ein Mitglied seiner Familie" wahr sein, weil Ödipus speziell Jocasta sucht, der ein Mitglied seiner Familie ist, obwohl er es nicht merkt. Bei einer solchen Gelegenheit kann das, was wahr ist, genauer ausgedrückt werden als "es gibt ein Mitglied seiner Familie, so dass Ödipus diese Person sucht". Die alternative, unspezifische oder fiktive Lesart wird durch Hinzufügen von "aber keinem bestimmten" erzwungen: "Ödipus sucht ein Mitglied seiner Familie, aber kein bestimmtes". Hier wird Ödipus impliziert, nur um die allgemeine Absicht zu haben, ein Mitglied seiner Familie zu finden. Vergleichen Sie die erweiterte „Umarmung“: Ödipus kann kein Mitglied seiner Familie umarmen, aber kein bestimmtes.

Drittens ist es offensichtlich, dass es möglich ist, das zu wollen und zu suchen, was nicht existiert, zum Beispiel einen Brunnen ewiger Jugend. Aber es ist nicht möglich, über so etwas zu stolpern, es sei denn, es existiert.

Darstellungsverben wie "Zeichnen", "Formen" und "Vorstellen" widersetzen sich der Substitution in ihren syntaktischen Objekten, zumindest wenn das klausale "Vorstellen" dies tut: Wenn die Vorstellung, dass Superman Sie rettet, nicht dasselbe ist wie die Vorstellung, dass Clark rettet dich, es ist schwer zu verstehen, warum die Vorstellung von Superman dasselbe ist wie die Vorstellung von Clark. Eine spezifische / unspezifische Mehrdeutigkeit ist ebenfalls möglich, wie das Wandetikett für Guercinos The Aldrovandi Dog (ca. 1625) im Norton Simon Museum bestätigt, in dem es heißt, "dies muss das Porträt eines bestimmten Hundes sein", wodurch eine Alternative impliziert wird "Guercino hat einen Hund gezeichnet" könnte bedeuten, dass er einen Hund gezeichnet hat, aber keinen bestimmten Hund - er hat nur einen erfunden. Und wir können klar zeichnen oder uns vorstellen, was nicht existiert (im Gegensatz zum Beispiel zum Fotografieren). Braques kleiner Hafen in der Normandie (1909) ist ein Beispiel dafürLaut den Kuratoren des Art Institute of Chicago: "Es scheint, dass dieses Werk aus der Fantasie heraus gemalt wurde, da die dargestellte Landschaft nicht identifiziert werden kann."

Ob jedoch eine fiktive Lesung eines Darstellungs-VP möglich ist oder nicht, hängt davon ab, welcher Quantifizierungsbestimmer im Nominalphrasen-Komplement auftritt. Wenn wir sagen "Guercino hat jeden Hund gezeichnet", "Guercino hat die meisten Hunde gezeichnet" oder "Guercino hat den Hund gezeichnet" (nicht anaphorisch "der Hund"), scheinen wir auf eine vorhergehende Domäne hinzuweisen, in Bezug auf die "jeden / gezeichnet hat" Die meisten / die Hunde sind zu bewerten. Daher sind spezifische Messwerte erforderlich. [1]Dieser Widerstand gegen unspezifische Konstrukte ist sprachübergreifend robust und typisch für jene quantifizierenden Determinanten, die in existenziellen Kontexten wie „es gibt“nicht natürlich vorkommen: Kontrast „es gibt einen Hund im Garten“mit „es gibt jeden Hund im Garten“',' es gibt die meisten Hunde im Garten 'oder' da ist der Hund im Garten '. Ein Bericht darüber, was mit "es gibt jeden Hund im Garten" falsch ist (siehe Keenan 2003), könnte durchaus die Materialien enthalten, um das Fehlen unspezifischer Lesarten von Darstellungs-VPs mit Determinatoren wie "jeder", "die meisten" und "die" zu erklären.;; siehe weiter (Forbes 2006: 142–150).

Es sollte betont werden, dass Darstellungsverben in dieser Hinsicht etwas Besonderes sind, da es kein Problem gibt, unspezifische Messwerte mit "jedem", "am meisten" und "dem" unter Verwendung von Wunschverben oder Suchverben zu erhalten. Guercino sucht möglicherweise nach jedem Hund auf Aldrovandis Anwesen, obwohl es keine bestimmten Hunde gibt, die er sucht. Der Leser fährt möglicherweise auf einem unbekannten Flughafen-Mietwagenplatz herum und sucht nach dem Ausgang. In diesem Fall gibt es keinen Ausgang, so dass er gesucht wird. ('look' ist nicht wirklich ein transitives Verb, aber wenn die folgende Präposition 'for' ist, wird eine Suchaktivität bezeichnet, daher ist es üblich, solche 'suchenden' in Kontexten, in denen Intensionalität wird diskutiert.)

Gemischtes Verhalten manifestiert sich auch in bewertenden Verben wie "Respekt", "Bewundern", "Verachtung", "Anbetung", einschließlich Emotionsverben wie "Lust (nach)" und "Angst". Lex Luthor könnte Superman fürchten, aber nicht Clark, und Lois könnte Clark verachten, aber nicht Superman. Unspezifische Messwerte von VPs mit quantifizierten Komplementen sind jedoch schwerer zu hören, zumindest wenn der Quantifizierer existenziell ist. "Lois bewundert einen Außerirdischen" kann auf zwei Arten gehört werden: Es gibt die Lesart "Bewundert einen bestimmten Außerirdischen" und es gibt eine generische Lesart, was bedeutet, dass unter den Dingen, die sie bewundert, Außerirdische im Allgemeinen sind. Generische Messwerte von bewertenden Vizepräsidenten weisen Dispositionen auf und sind nicht mit unspezifischen oder fiktiven Messwerten identisch (siehe Cohen 1999, 2008 und den Eintrag zu Generika). Es scheint kein vernünftiges, nicht generisches Konstrukt von "Lois bewundert einen Außerirdischen, aber keinen bestimmten" zu geben.

Das Verb 'Bedürfnis' ist ein interessanter Fall. Eine Sportmannschaft braucht möglicherweise einen besseren Trainer, obwohl es keinen bestimmten besseren Trainer gibt, und möglicherweise einen besseren Trainer, selbst wenn es keinen gibt. Es sind also zwei von drei Intensitätsmerkmalen vorhanden. "Bedürfnis" steht jedoch in Bezug auf Substitution im Gegensatz zu "Bedürfnis": Unser dehydriertes Subjekt, das kein H 2 O will, weil es glaubt, dass es eine Art Rattengift ist, braucht dennoch H 2O. Es scheint, dass Begriffe, die gemeinsam bezeichnet werden, in der Ergänzung von „Bedürfnis“ausgetauscht werden können. Aber nur aus Versehen können nicht zusammen sein: Larson (2001, 232) gibt das Beispiel von Max, dem Theaterimpresario, der mehr Sänger, aber nicht mehr Tänzer braucht, obwohl alle tanzen, und umgekehrt. Der Eigenschaftssänger und der Eigenschaftstänzer sind unterschiedliche Eigenschaften, daher können Ausdrücke für sie nicht in der Ergänzung von 'Bedürfnis' ausgetauscht werden. Eine ähnliche eingeschränkte Substituierbarkeit wird bei Transaktionsverben wie "Wette", "Schuld", "Kaufen", "Verkaufen", "Reserve" und möglicherweise dem Transaktionsergebnis "Eigen" beobachtet. Man kann einen Tisch in einem Restaurant reservieren, obwohl es keinen bestimmten Tisch geben muss, den man für die Reservierung reserviert hat, da das Restaurant möglicherweise eine langsame Nacht erwartet. Diese Verben erlauben jedoch den Austausch von ko-referentiellen Ausdrücken (ein Kauf von Wasserrechten ist ein Kauf von H.2 O-Rechte), jedoch nicht (Zimmerman 1993, 151) von versehentlich gemeinsam ausgedehnten. Für "eigene" siehe (Zimmerman 2001, passim).

In der Tat ist es sogar fraglich, ob bei Verben, die den Austausch von versehentlich zusammen ausgedehnten Ausdrücken ermöglichen, einige Intensitätsmerkmale vorhanden sind. Ein typisches Beispiel sind Abwesenheitsverben wie "Auslassen" und "Fehlen". Wenn es so kommt, dass alle und nur die Physiker an der Fakultät die Nobelpreisträger der Fakultät sind, dann fehlt einem Fakultätsausschuss, dem ein Physiker fehlt, ein Nobelpreisträger. Es kann jedoch nicht zu viel Gewicht auf diesen Fall gelegt werden, da es sein kann, dass auf einer bestimmten Ebene der „Mangel“(möglicherweise auf komplizierte Weise) dahingehend analysiert werden sollte, dass er nicht vorhanden ist. In diesem Fall wäre dies nicht wirklich der Fall Intensionsverb überhaupt; Nach Kenntnis des Autors wurde jedoch keine überzeugende Analyse dieser Art formuliert. Siehe (Zimmerman 2001, 516–20) für eine weitere Diskussion der Beziehungen zwischen den Zeichen der Intensionalität.

2. Wie viele Mechanismen für wie viele Marken?

Wir haben drei „Zeichen“oder Effekte der Intensionalität unterschieden: Substitutionsresistenz, Verfügbarkeit unspezifischer Messwerte und Existenzneutralität. Eine natürliche Frage ist, ob ein und derselbe semantische Mechanismus allen drei Effekten zugrunde liegt, ob sie völlig unabhängig sind oder ob zwei eine gemeinsame Quelle haben, die sich von der dritten unterscheidet.

Im Zusammenhang mit einer Diskussion von Verben mit Aussagenhaltung, dh Verben, die eher klausale oder in Klauseln eingebettete Substantivkomplemente als einfache Nominalphrasen (NP) -Objekte enthalten, ist eine Hypothese, die den Erklärungsapparat auf ein Minimum beschränkt, dass alle drei Effekte der Intensionalität ergeben sich aus der Möglichkeit, dass das Komplement einen engen Umfang in Bezug auf das Einstellungsverb hat. Somit können wir zwei Lesarten von unterscheiden

(1)
Lex Luthor befürchtet, dass Superman in der Nähe ist,

nämlich

(2a)
Lex Luthor befürchtet wahrhaftig die Behauptung, dass Superman in der Nähe ist [2]

und

(2b)
Superman ist jemand, bei dem Lex Luthor befürchtet, dass er in der Nähe ist.

In (2a) we make the clause ‘that Superman is nearby’ the complement of ‘proposition’ to guarantee that ‘Superman’ is within the scope of ‘fears’ (the resulting NP ‘the proposition…’ is a “scope island”). And in (2b) we use a form of words that encourages an audience to process ‘Superman’ ahead of ‘fears’. We can associate substitution-resistance with (2a), while allowing substitution in (2b). (2b) ascribes a complex property to Superman, and therefore also to Clark; namely, being an x such that Lex fears x to be nearby. (2a), on the other hand, puts Lex in the fearing-true attitude relation to a certain proposition, with essentially no implications about what other propositions he may fear-true. So, provided the proposition that Superman is nearby is distinct from the proposition that Clark Kent is nearby, substitution-failure in (1) construed as (2a) is explicable.

As for taking these two propositions to be distinct, there are many serviceable accounts, mostly involving some variation of the original proposal in modern philosophical semantics, found in (Frege 1892, 1970). According to Frege, every meaningful expression or phrase has both a customary reference that it denotes, and a customary sense that it expresses. In the case of clauses, the customary reference would be a truth-value which is compositionally derived from the denotations of the words of the clause, and the customary sense would be a way of thinking of that truth-value, compositionally derived from the senses of the words of the clause. Therefore, provided that ‘Superman’ and ‘Clark Kent’ have different though coreferential senses (i.e., provided they express different ways of thinking of the same individual) we will get different propositions. (However, it’s highly non-trivial to find an adequate account of the senses of names, given the critique of the most straightforward accounts in (Kripke 1972).)

However, on the face of it, this only has (1), intended in the (2a) manner, expressing a different proposition from

(2c)
Lex Luthor fears that Clark is nearby.

Since truth-value is on the level of reference, and the corresponding words of (2a) and (2c) all have the same referents, the resulting truth-values for (2a) and (2c) will be the same; but they are supposed to be different. So Frege makes the ingenious suggestion that it is an effect of embedding in intensional contexts (he only considered clausal verbs) that expressions in such contexts no longer denote their customary references, but rather their customary senses. Then (1) intended as (2a) is true iff the reference of ‘Lex’ stands in the fearing-true relation to the switched reference of ‘Superman is nearby’, namely, its customary sense. Now we have our explanation of why merely interchanging customarily co-referential expressions in (1) can produce falsehood from a truth: the substitution does not preserve reference, since the names are now denoting their customary senses. However, if (1) is intended as (2b), there will be no truth-value switch, since there is no name-reference switch: in (2b) ‘Superman’ is not in the scope of ‘fears’, therefore it denotes its customary reference, and interchange with any other expression denoting that same referent must of necessity be truth-value preserving. (Readers in search of more detailed discussion of Frege’s notion of sense might consult the section on Frege’s philosophy of language in the entry on Frege. See also the entry on propositional attitude reports, and for other uses of Frege-style “switcher semantics”, Gluer and Pagin 2012.)

A view like this has the capacity to explain the other intensionality effects. The specific-unspecific ambiguity in ‘Lex fears that an extraterrestrial is nearby’ is explained in terms of scope ambiguity, the notional or unspecific reading corresponding to

(3a)
Lex Luthor fears-true the proposition that an extraterrestrial is nearby

and the relational or specific reading to

(3b)
An extraterrestrial is such that Lex Luthor fears that it is nearby.

Existence-neutrality is also explained, since the proposition that an extraterrestrial is nearby is available for its truth to be feared, believed, doubted or denied, whether or not there are extraterrestrials.

There are other accounts of substitution failure, but details are incidental at this point. For there are real issues about (A) whether a single mechanism could be responsible for all three effects, and (B) whether an account of any effect in terms of a scope mechanism is workable for transitive, as opposed to clausal, verbs.

(A) The behaviors cited in the previous section suggest that substitution-resistance and the availability of an unspecific reading have different explanations. For we saw that the verb ‘need’ contrasts with the verb ‘want’ as regards substitution-resistance, but is similar as regards the availability of unspecific readings of embedding VPs. So it seems that there is a mechanism that blocks substitution, perhaps the Fregean reference-switch one, perhaps something else more compatible with what Davidson calls “semantic innocence” (Davidson 1969, 172-a semantically innocent account of substitution-failure is one that does not alter the semantics of the substitution-resisting expressions themselves for the special case in which they occur in intensional contexts). And this mechanism cannot occur with ‘need’, but can with ‘want’ (‘can’ rather than ‘does’ because it is optional; this is to allow for “transparent” or substitution-permitting readings of the likes of ‘Lex fears Superman’ analogous to (3b)). On the other hand, whatever accounts for notional readings is evidently available to both verbs, and therefore it is not the same mechanism as underlies the substitution-resistance of ‘wants’. However, this reasoning is not conclusive, since the substitution-resistance mechanism may be present with ‘needs’ (and transaction verbs) but somehow rendered ineffective (see Parsons 1997, 370). One would need to hear how the ineffectiveness comes about.

Evaluative verbs present the converse challenge: substitution-resistance but apparently no unspecific readings of embedding VPs, certainly not existential ones. It is less clear how a defender of a ‘single explanation’ theory would handle this, at least if the single explanation is a scope mechanism, since it appears from the other cases that occurrence within the scope of the intensional verb immediately produces an unspecific reading.

Suspension of existential commitment may group with availability of unspecific readings for explanatory purposes. There appear to be no cases of intensional transitives which allow notional readings of embedded VPs, but where those VPs have the same existential consequences as ones which differ just by the substitution of an extensional for the intensional verb.

(B) The scope account is the only real contender for a single explanation of the intensionality effects. But there is a major question about whether it can be transferred at all from clausal to transitive verbs. For the intensionality effects would all be associated with narrow-scope occurrences of noun phrases (NPs), and with a transitive verb such syntactic configuration is problematic when the NP is quantified. This is because, in standard first-order syntax, a quantifier must have a sentence within its scope (an open sentence with a free variable the NP binds, if redundant quantification is ruled out in the syntax). We can provide this for relational or wide-scope readings, for example

(4)
An extraterrestrial is such that Lois is looking for it

in which ‘Lois is looking for it’ is the scope of ‘an extraterrestrial’. But if ‘an extraterrestrial’ is supposed to be within the scope of ‘looking for’ there is no clause to be its scope; it has to be an argument of the relation, which is not allowed in first-order language. As Kaplan says, ‘without an inner sentential context…distinctions of scope disappear’ (Kaplan 1986, 266). (Though readers who have taught symbolic logic will be very familiar with the student who, having symbolized ‘Jack hit Bill’ as ‘ Hjb ’, then offers something like ‘ Hj (∃ x)’ as the symbolization of ‘Jack hit someone.’)

The description of the problem suggests two forms of solution. One is to preserve first-order syntax by uncovering hidden material to be the scope of a quantified NP even when the latter is within the scope of the intensional verb. The other is to drop first-order syntax in favor of a formalism which permits the meanings of quantified NPs to be arguments of intensional relations such as fearing and seeking. We consider these options in turn in the following two sections.

3. Propositionalism

The idea of uncovering hidden material to provide NPs in notional readings of intensional VPs with sentential scope was prominently endorsed in (Quine 1956), where the proposal is to paraphrase search verbs with ‘endeavor to find’. So for (5a) we would have (5b):

(5a)
Lois is looking for an extraterrestrial
(5b)
Lois is endeavoring to find an extraterrestrial

Partee (1974, 97) objects that this cannot be the whole story, since search verbs are not all synonyms (‘groping for’ doesn’t mean exactly the same as ‘rummaging about for’), but den Dikken, Larson, & Ludlow (1996) and Parsons (1997, 381) suggest that the search verb itself be used in place of ‘endeavor’. So we get

(6a)
Lois is looking to find an extraterrestrial

or in somewhat non-Quinean lingo,

(6b)
Lois is looking in order to make true the proposition that an extraterrestrial is such that she herself finds it.[3]

Here ‘an extraterrestrial’ is within the scope of ‘looking’ but has the open sentence ‘she herself finds it’ as its own scope.

It may or may not be meaning-preserving to replace (5a)’s prepositional phrase with (6a)’s purpose clause, but even if it is meaning-preserving, that is insufficient to show that (6a) or (6b) articulates the semantics of (5a); it may merely be a synonym. However, with ‘need’ and desire verbs, evidence for the presence of a hidden clause is strong. For example, in

(7)
Physics needs some new computers soon

it makes little sense to construe ‘soon’ as modifying ‘needs’; it seems rather to modify a hidden ‘get’ or ‘have’, as is explicit in ‘Physics needs to get some new computers soon’, i.e., ‘Physics needs it to be the case that, for some new computers, it gets them soon’. (For ‘have’ versus ‘get’, see (Harley 2004).)

Secondly, there is the phenomenon of propositional anaphor (den Dikken, Larson, & Ludlow 2018, 52–3), illustrated in

(8)
Physics needs some new computers, but its budget won’t allow it.

What is not allowed is the truth of the proposition that Physics gets some new computers.

Third, attachment ambiguities suggest there is more than one verb present for modifiers to attach to (Dikken, Larson, & Ludlow 1996, 332):

(9)
Physics will need some new computers next year

could mean that a need for new computers will arise in the department next year, but could also mean that next year is when Physics should get new computers, if its need (which may arise later this year) is to be met.

Finally, ellipsis generates similar ambiguities:

(10)
Physics will need some new computers before Chemistry

could mean that the need will arise in Physics before it does in Chemistry, but could also mean that Physics will need to get some new computers before Chemistry gets any.

However, the strength of the case for a hidden ‘get’ with ‘need’ or ‘want’ contrasts with the case for propositionalism about search verbs. As observed by Partee (1974, 99), for the latter there are no attachment ambiguities like those in (9). For example,

(11)
Physics will shop for some new computers next year

can only mean that the shopping will occur next year. There is no second reading, corresponding to the other reading of (9), in which ‘next year’ attaches to a hidden ‘find/buy’. The phenomena in (8) and (10) also lack parallels with search verbs; for example, ‘Physics will shop for some new computers before Chemistry’ lacks a reading that has Physics shopping with the following goal: to find/buy new computers before Chemistry finds/buys any. And although the propositionalist might offer something like

(12)
Physics will seek more office space by noon

as an analog of (7), it is not easy to decide if (12) genuinely has a reading of the ‘seek to find more office space by noon’ sort, or whether the hint of such a reading is just an echo of (7).

Other groups of intensional transitives, such as depiction verbs and evaluative verbs, raise the problem that there is no evident propositional paraphrase in the first place. For psychological depiction verbs such as ‘fantasize’ and ‘imagine’, Parsons (1997, 376) proposes what he calls “Hamlet ellipsis”: for ‘Mary imagined a unicorn’ we would have the clausal ‘Mary imagined a unicorn to be’. Larson (2001, 233) suggests that the complement is a “small” or “verbless” clause, and for ‘Max visualizes a unicorn’ proposes ‘Max visualizes a unicorn in front of him’. This is too specific, for we can understand ‘Max visualizes a unicorn’ without knowing whether he visualizes it in front of him, above him or below him, but even if we change the paraphrase to ‘Max visualizes a unicorn spatially related to him’, this proposal, as well as Parsons’, have problems with negation: ‘Mary didn’t imagine a unicorn’ is not synonymous with either ‘Mary didn’t imagine a unicorn to be’ or with ‘Mary didn’t imagine a unicorn spatially related to her’, since the first of these allows for her to imagine a unicorn but not imagine it to be, the second, for her to imagine a unicorn but not as spatially related to her. There may be philosophical arguments that exclude these options,[4] but the very fact that a philosophical argument is needed makes the proposals unsatisfactory as semantics.

Clausal paraphrases for verbs like ‘fear’ are even less likely, since the extra material in the paraphrase can be read as the focus of the fear, making the paraphrase insufficient. For example, fearing x is not the same as fearing encountering x, since it may be the encounter that is feared, say if x is an unfearsome individual with a dangerous communicable disease. In the same vein, fearing x is not the same as fearing that x will hurt you; for instance, you may fear that your accident-prone dentist will hurt you, without fearing the dentist.

We conclude that if any single approach to intensional transitives is to cover all the ground, it will have to be non-propositionalist. But it is also possible, perhaps likely, that intensional transitives are not a unitary class, and that propositionalism is correct for some of these verbs but not for others (see further Schwarz 2006, Montague 2007).

4. Montague’s semantics

The main non-propositionalist approaches to ITVs begin from the work of Richard Montague, especially his paper “The Proper Treatment of Quantification in Ordinary English” (Montague 1973), usually referred to as PTQ in the literature (Montague’s condition (9) (1974, 264) defines ‘seek’ as ‘try to find’, but this is optional). Montague developed a systematic semantics of natural language based on higher-order intensional type-theory. We explain this term right-to-left.

Type theory embodies a specific model of semantic compositionality in terms of functional application. According to this model, if two expressions x and y can concatenate into a meaningful expression xy, then (i), the meaning of one of these expressions is taken to be a function, (ii) the meaning of the other is taken to be an item of the kind that the function in question is defined for, and (iii) the meaning of xy is the output of the function when applied to the input. The type-theoretic representation of this meaning is written x(y) or y(x), depending on which expression is taken to be the function and which the input or argument. A functional application such as x(y) is said to be well-typed iff the input that y denotes is the type of input for which the function x is defined.

For example, in the simple theory of types, a common noun such as ‘sweater’ is assigned a meaning of the following type: a function from individuals to truth-values (a function of type ib, for short; b for ‘boolean’). For ‘sweater’ the function in question is the one which maps all sweaters to the truth-value TRUE, and all other individuals to the truth-value FALSE. On the other hand, an (“intersective”) adjective such as ‘woollen’ would be assigned a meaning of the following type: a function from (functions from individuals to truth-values) to (functions from individuals to truth-values), or a function of type (ib)(ib) for short. Thus the meaning of ‘woollen’ can take the meaning of ‘sweater’ (an ib) as input and produce the meaning of ‘woollen sweater’ (another ib) as output; this is why the meaning of ‘woollen’ has the type (ib)(ib). woollen(sweater) is the specific function of type ib that maps sweaters made of wool to TRUE, and all other individuals to FALSE.

In this framework, a quantified NP such as ‘every sweater’ has a meaning which can take the meaning of an intransitive verb (e.g., ‘unravelled’), or more generally, a Verb Phrase (VP), as input and produce the meaning (truth-value) of a sentence (e.g. ‘every sweater unravelled’) as output. Intransitive verbs and VPs are like common nouns in being of type ib. For example, the VP quickly(unravelled) is of type ib, mapping all and only individuals that unravelled quickly to TRUE. So a quantified NP is a function from inputs of type ib to outputs of type b, and is thus of type (ib) b. ‘Every sweater unravelled quickly’ would be represented as (every(sweater))(quickly(unravelled)), and would denote the truth-value that is the result of applying a meaning of type (ib) b, that of every(sweater), to a meaning of type ib, that of quickly(unravelled) (the adverb quickly itself is of type (ib)(ib), like the adjective woollen). Rules specific to every guarantee that every(sweater) maps quickly(unravelled) to TRUE iff quickly(unravelled) maps to TRUE everything that sweater maps to TRUE.

So far, the apparatus is extensional, which, besides providing only two possible sentence-meanings, TRUE and FALSE, imposes severe limitations on the range of concepts we can express. Suppose that the Scottish clothing company Pringle has a monopoly on the manufacture of woollen sweaters, and makes sweaters of no other material. Then a garment is a woollen sweater iff it is a Pringle sweater, meaning that woollen(sweater) and pringle(sweater) are the same function of type ib, and these two terms for that function are everywhere interchangeable in the type-theoretic language. Then modal operators such as ‘it is contingent that’ cannot be in the language, since interchanging woollen(sweater) and pringle(sweater) within their scope should sometimes lead to change of truth-value, but cannot if the two expressions receive the same meaning in the semantics. For example, ‘it is contingent that every Pringle sweater is woollen’ is true, but ‘it is contingent that every woollen sweater is woollen’ is false. Therefore the concept of contingency has no adequate representation in the type-theoretic (boldface) language.

Shifting to intensional type theory deals with this difficulty. The intension of any expression X is a function from possible worlds to an extension of the type which that expression has in the extensional theory just sketched, if it has such an extension, otherwise to something appropriate for intensional vocabulary such as ‘it is contingent that’. An intension which is a function from possible worlds to items of type t is said to be of type s t. sweater, for instance, will have as its intension a function from possible worlds to functions of type ib, providing for each possible world a function that specifies the individuals which are sweaters at that world; so sweater ‘s intension is of type s (ib). However, a modal sentential operator such as ‘it is contingent that’ will have as its intension a function that, for each possible world, produces the very same function, which takes as input functions of type sb and produces truth-values as output. So the extension of ‘it is contingent that’ at each world is the same function, of type (sb) b. (The operator is said to be intensional because its ex tension at each world is a function taking intensions, such as functions of type sb, as input.)

A function of type sb is sometimes called a possible-worlds proposition, since it traces the truth-value of a sentence across worlds. For example, with appropriate assignments to the constituents,

(13)
(every(woollen(sweater)))(woollen)

should be true, that is, refer to TRUE, at every world.[5] So the intension of (13) is the function f of type sb such that for every world w, f (w) = TRUE. This is a constant intension. On the other hand,

(14)
(every(pringle(sweater)))(woollen)

is true at some worlds but false at others, those where Pringle makes non-woollen sweaters; so its intension is non-constant.

We define the intension of contingent to be the function which, for each world w as input, produces as output the function c of type (sb) b such that for any function p of type sb, c (p) is true at w iff there are worlds u and v such that p (u) = TRUE and p (v) = FALSE (this is the meaning of ‘contingent that’ in the sense ‘contingent whether’). So the intension of ‘contingent’ is also constant, since the same function c is the output at every world.

Since contingent expects an input of type sb, we cannot write

(15)
contingent((every(woollen(sweater)))(woollen))

since in evaluating this formula at a world w we would find ourselves trying to apply the reference of contingent at w, namely, the function c just defined, to the reference of (every(woollen(sweater)))(woollen) at w, namely, the truth-value TRUE. But c requires an input of type sb, not b. So we introduce a new operator, written ^, such that if X is an expression and t is the type of X’s reference at each w, then at each w, the reference of ^X is of type s t. ^X may be read as ‘the intension of X’, since the rule for ^ is that at each world, ^X refers to that function which for each world w, outputs the reference of X at w.

If we now evaluate

(16)
contingent^((every(woollen(sweater)))(woollen))

at a world w, the result will be FALSE. This is because the function p of type sb that is the reference of ^((every(woollen(sweater)))(woollen)) at every world, maps every world to TRUE. So there is no u such that p (u) = FALSE. But there is such a u for ^((every(pringle(sweater)))(woollen)), and so

(17)
contingent^((every(pringle(sweater)))(woollen))

is TRUE at w. Note that choice of w doesn’t matter, since the intension of contingent produces the same function c at every world, and the reference of, e.g., ^((every(pringle(sweater)))(woollen)), is the same function of type sb at every world.

Finally, our type-theory, intensional or extensional, is higher-order, because the semantics makes available higher-order domains of quantification and reference. sweater refers to a property of individuals, a first-order property. (every(sweater)) refers to a property of properties of individuals, a second-order property. For just as sweater(my favorite garment) attributes the property of being a sweater to a certain individual, so we can think of (every(sweater))(woollen) as attributing a property to the property of being woollen. Which property is attributed to being woollen? The rules governing every ensure that (every(F)) is truly predicated of G iff G is a property of every F. In that case, G has the property of being a property of every F. So (every(F)) stands for the property of being a property of every F.

Treating quantified NPs as terms for properties of properties means they can occur as arguments to any expression defined for properties of properties. We can even rescue the uncomprehending student’s attempt at ‘Jack hit someone’, for provided ‘hit’ is of the right type - which is easily arranged - we can have (hit(someone))(jack). Here hit accepts the property of being a property of at least one person, and produces the first-order property of hitting someone, which is then attributed to Jack. In extensional type-theory, hit has the type ((ib) b)(ib) if (hit(someone))(jack) is well-typed and jack is of type i.[6]

The significance of this for the semantics of intensional transitives is that we now have a way of representing a reading of, say,

(18)
Jack wants a woollen sweater

in which the quantified NP is within the semantic scope of the verb without having scope over a hidden subsentence with a free variable for the NP to bind: the quantified NP ‘a woollen sweater’ can just be the argument to the verb. To allow for the intensionality of the transitive verb, Montague adopts the rule that if x and y can concatenate into a meaningful expression xy, the reference of the functional expression is a function which operates on the intension of the argument expression. Suppressing some irrelevant detail, this means that if ‘wants’ syntactically combines with ‘a woollen sweater’ to produce the VP ‘wants a woollen sweater’, then in its semantics, want applies to the intension of (a(woollen (sweater))), resulting in the following semantics for (18):

(19)
want(^(a(woollen(sweater))))(jack).[7]

In (19), a(woollen((sweater)) is within the scope of want. So if we take (19) to represent the notional reading of (18), the idea that notional readings are readings in which the quantified NP has narrow scope with respect to the intensional verb is sustained.

5. Revisions and refinements

How does Montague’s account of intensional transitives fare vis à vis the three marks of intensionality? The existence-neutrality of existential NPs is clearly supported by (19), for there is nothing to prevent the application at a world w of want to ^(a(woollen(sweater))) from producing a function mapping Jack to TRUE even if, at the same w, (woollen(sweater)) maps every individual to FALSE (woollen sweaters don’t exist).

Substitution-failure is supported for contingently coextensive expressions. For instance, (19) does not entail want(^(a(pringle(sweater))))(jack) even if there are worlds where all and only woollen sweaters are Pringle sweaters, so long as there are other worlds where this is not so. Let u be a world of the latter sort. Then a(pringle(sweater)) at u and a(woollen(sweater)) at u are different functions of type (ib) b, making ^(a(pringle(sweater))) and ^(a(woollen(sweater))) different at every world. Therefore want(^(a(pringle(sweater)))) may map Jack to FALSE at worlds where want(^(a(woollen(sweater)))) maps Jack to TRUE: since want is applied to different inputs here, the outputs may also be different.

But this result depends on the fact that (pringle(sweater)) and (woollen(sweater)) are merely contingently coextensive. If ‘water’ and ‘H2O’ are necessarily co-extensive, then wanting a glass of water and wanting a glass of H2O will be indistinguishable in higher-order intensional type theory. This failure to make a distinction, however, traces to the intensionality of the semantics - to its being (merely) a possible-worlds semantics - not to its being higher-order or type-theoretic. So possible solutions include (i) augmenting higher-order intensional type theory with extra apparatus, or (ii) employing a different kind of higher-order type theory. In both cases the aim is to mark distinctions like that between wanting a glass of water and wanting a glass of H2O.

A solution of the first kind, following (Carnap 1947), is proposed in (Lewis 1972:182–6); the idea is that the meaning of a complex expression is not its intension, but rather a tree that exhibits the expression’s syntactic construction bottom-up, with each node in the tree decorated by an appropriate syntactic category label and semantic intension. But as Lewis says (p. 182), for non-compound lexical constituents, sameness of intension implies sameness of meaning. So although his approach will handle the water/H2O problem if we assume the term ‘H2O’ has structure that the term ‘water’ lacks, it will not without such an assumption. For the same reason, it cannot explain substitution-failure involving unstructured proper names, on the usual view (deriving from Kripke 1972) that identity of extension (at any world) for such names implies identity of intension. So we have no account of why admiring Cicero isn’t the same thing as admiring Tully.

A solution of the second kind, employing a different kind of higher-order type theory, is pursued in (Thomason 1980). In Thomason’s “intentional” logic, propositions are taken as a primitive category, instead of being analyzed as intensions of type sb. In turns out that a somewhat familiar higher-order type theory can be built on this basis, in which, roughly, the type of propositions plays a role analogous to the type of truth-values in extensional type theory. A property such as orator, for example, is a function of type ip (as opposed to ib), where p is the type of propositions: given an individual as input, orator will produce the proposition that that individual is an orator as output. Proper names, however, are not translated as terms of type i, for then cicero and tully would present the same input to orator, resulting in the same proposition as output: orator(cicero) = orator(tully). So there would be no believing Cicero is an orator without believing Tully is an orator. Instead, Thomason assigns proper names the type (ip) p, functions from properties to propositions. And merely the fact that Cicero and Tully are the same individual does not require us to say that cicero and tully must produce the same propositional output given the same property input. Instead, we can have cicero(orator) and tully(orator) distinct (see Muskens 2005 for further development of Thomason’s approach).

Applying this to intensional transitives is just a matter of assigning appropriate types so that the translations of, say, ‘Lucia seeks Cicero’ and ‘Lucia seeks Tully’, are different propositions (potentially with different truth-values). We need to keep the verb as function, and we already have the types of cicero and tully set to (ip) p. The translations of ‘seeks Cicero’ and ‘seeks Tully’ should be functions capable of accepting inputs of type (ip) p, such as lucia, and producing propositions as output. seeks therefore accepts input of type (ip) p and produces output that accepts input of type (ip) p and produces output of type p. Thus seeks is of type ((ip) p)(((ip) p) p), and we get substitution-failure because seeks(cicero) and seeks(tully) can be different functions of type ((ip) p) p so long as cicero and tully are different functions of type (ip) p (as we already said they should be). seeks(cicero) can therefore map lucia to one proposition while seeks(tully) maps it (not ‘her’) to another; and these propositions can have different truth-values.[8]

Finally, there is the question whether (19) shows that Montague’s semantics supports notional readings. One problem is that Montague’s semantics for extensional verbs such as ‘get’ is exactly the same as for intensional verbs, and it takes an extra stipulation, or meaning-postulate, for ‘get’, to guarantee that the extension of get(^(a(woollen(sweater)))) at w maps Jack to TRUE only if the extension of (woollen(sweater)) at w maps some individual to TRUE (you can want a golden fleece even if there aren’t any, but you can’t get one if there aren’t any). So apparently (19)’s pattern embodies something in common to the notional meaning of ‘want a woollen sweater’ and the meaning of ‘gets a woollen sweater’, something which is neutral on the existence of woollen sweaters. This is unintuitive, but is perhaps not a serious problem, since it can be avoided by a different treatment of extensional transitives.

A more pressing question is what justification we have for thinking that (19) captures the notional, ‘no particular one’, reading of (18).[9] On the face of it, (19) imputes to Jack the wanting attitude towards the property of being a property of a woollen sweater. This is the same attitude as Jack may stand in to a particular woollen sweater, say that one. But it is not at all clear that we have any grasp of what a single attitude with such diverse objects could be, and the difficulty seems to lie mainly with the proposed semantics for notional readings. What does it mean to have the attitude of desire towards the property of being a property of a woollen sweater?

Two ways of dealing with this suggest themselves. First, we might supplement the formal semantics with an elucidation of what it is to stand in a common-or-garden attitude to a property of properties. Second, we might revise the analysis to eliminate this counterintuitive aspect of it, but without importing the propositionalist’s hidden sentential contexts.

Both (Moltmann 1997) and (Richard 2001) can be read as providing, within Montague’s general approach, an account of what it is to stand in an attitude relation to a property of properties. Both accounts are modal, having to do with the nature of possible situations in which the attitude is in some sense “matched” by the situation: an attitude-state of need or expectation is matched if the need or expectation is met, an attitude-state of desire is matched if the desire is satisfied, an attitude-event of seeking is met if the search concludes successfully, and so on. According to Moltmann’s account (1997, 22–3) one stands in the attitude relation of seeking to ^(a(woollen(sweater))) iff, in every minimal situation σ in which that search concludes successfully, you find a woollen sweater in σ. Richard (2001, p. 116) offers a more complex analysis that is designed to handle negative quantified NPs as well (‘no woollen sweater’, ‘few woollen sweaters’, etc.). On this account, a search π demands ^(a(P)) iff for every relevant success-story m = for π, things in s with a property entailing P are in the extension of ^(a(P)) at w. Here s is the set of things that are found when the search concludes successfully in w.

By contrast, (Zimmerman 1993) and (Forbes 2000, 2006) propose revisions in (19) itself and its ilk. Zimmerman (161–2) replaces the quantifier intension with a property intension, since he holds that (i) unspecific readings are restricted to “broadly” existential quantified NPs, and (ii) the property corresponding to the nominal in the existential NP (e.g., ‘woollen sweater’) can do duty for the NP itself. Of course, the proposed restriction of unspecific readings to existentials is controversial (cf. our earlier example, ‘Guercino is looking for every dog on Aldrovandi’s estate’). It may also be wondered whether there is any less of a need to explain what it is to stand in the seeking relation to a property of objects than to a property of properties (but for a response to this kind of objection, see Grzankowski 2018, 146–9).

According to (Forbes 2000) the need for such an explanation already threatens the univocality of a verb such as ‘look for’ as it occurs in ‘look for that woollen sweater’ and ‘look for some woollen sweater’. Observing that search verbs are action verbs, Forbes applies Davidson’s event semantics to them (Davidson 1967). In this semantics, as developed in (Parsons 1990), search verbs become predicates of events, and in relational (specific) readings, the object searched for is said to be in a thematic relation to the event, one denoted by ‘for’; thus ‘some search e is for that woollen sweater’. But in unspecific readings, no thematic relation is invoked; rather, the quantified NP is used to characterize the search. So we would have ‘some search e is characterized by ^(a(woollen(sweater))) ’, i.e., e is an a-woollen-sweater search (Forbes 2000, 174–6; 2006, 77–84). What it is for a search to be characterized by a quantifier, say ^(a(woollen(sweater))), is explained in terms of ‘outcome postulates’. For the current example, as a first approximation, a search is characterized by ^(a(woollen(sweater))) iff any course of events in which that search culminates successfully includes an event of finding a woollen sweater whose agent is the agent of the search. Similar postulates can be given for, e.g., the meeting of expectations and the satisfaction of desires: a state of desire is characterized by ^(a(woollen(sweater))) iff any course of events in which that desire is satisfied includes an event of getting a woollen sweater whose recipient is the agent of the search (Forbes 2006, 94–129).

There is therefore a range of different non-propositionalist approaches to intensional transitives. As we already remarked, one possibility is that propositionalism is correct for some verbs and non-propositionalism correct for others. However, there is also the option that non-propositionalism is correct for all. A non-propositionalist who makes this claim will have to explain the phenomena illustrated in (7)–(10), without introducing degrees of freedom that make it unintelligible that these phenomena do not arise for all intensional transitives.

6. Prior’s Puzzle

Intensional transitive verbs are also involved in another puzzle of substitution-resistance besides the one already discussed. In the literature on propositional attitude reports, it’s the received view that the complement clauses in such reports refer to propositions. So, for example, in ‘Holmes believes that Moriarty has returned’, the clause ‘that Moriarty has returned’ is taken to stand for the proposition that Moriarty has returned. The whole ascription is then understood to have the form Rab, which in terms of the example means that Holmes (a) stands in the relation of belief (R) to the proposition that Moriarty has returned (b). However, as well as being denoted by that -clauses, it seems that propositions are also denoted by proposition descriptions, noun phrases that explicitly use ‘the proposition’, such as, in the previous sentence, ‘the proposition that Moriarty has returned’. So, if the clause and the description co-denote, we have the following truth:

(20)
that Moriarty has returned is the proposition that Moriarty has returned.

But then we should be able to substitute proposition-description for that -clause, which, indeed, works well enough for ‘believes’: from ‘Holmes believes that Moriarty has returned’ it does seem to follow that Holmes believes the proposition that Moriarty has returned, even though a side-effect of the substitution is to change the clausal ‘believes’ into its transitive form. However, ‘believes’ is rather special in this respect. Despite (20), examples (21a) and (21b) below appear to have very different meanings:

(21a)
Holmes {fears/suspects} that Moriarty has returned.
(21b)
Holmes {fears/suspects} the proposition that Moriarty has returned.

(21a) may well be true, but it is unlikely that Holmes fears a proposition, or that some proposition is a thing of which he is suspicious. (This phenomenon seems first to have been noted in print by A. N. Prior (1963).)

That the meaning of the minor premise does not survive substitution is the rule rather than the exception: we get a similar outcome with ‘announce’, ‘anticipate’, ‘ask’, ‘boast’, ‘calculate’, ‘caution’, ‘complain’, ‘conclude’, ‘crow’, ‘decide’, ‘detect’, ‘discover’, ‘dream’, ‘estimate’, ‘forget’, ‘guess’, ‘hope’, ‘insinuate’, ‘insist’, ‘interrogate’ (literary theory), ‘judge’, ‘know’, ‘love’, ‘mention’, ‘notice’, ‘observe’, ‘prefer’, ‘pretend’, ‘question’,‘realize’, ‘rejoice’, ‘require’, ‘see’, ‘suggest’, ‘surmise’, ‘suspect’, ‘trust’, ‘understand’, ‘vote’, ‘wish’, and various cognates of these. In some cases, substitution fails because it is meaning-altering, in others because it is meaning-dissolving (a selection constraint is violated, or the purported transitive verb simply doesn’t exist in the language). The verbs for which substitution is acceptable are thinner on the ground: inference verbs such as ‘conclude’, ‘deduce’, ‘entail’ and ‘establish’, along with a few others like ‘accept’,‘believe’, ‘doubt’, ‘state’ and ‘verify’ (but for ‘believe’ see King 2002, 359–60; Forbes 2018, 118; and Nebel 2019, 97–9).

The puzzle doesn’t depend on the credentials of (20) as an identity sentence. Even if, for whatever reason, it isn’t, it is still hard to see how truth-value can change going from (21a) to (21b), granted that the proposition that Moriarty has returned and that Moriarty has returned are co-denoting. There also doesn’t seem to be a useful application of a traditional account of referential opacity, such as Frege’s (discussed in connection with (2c) above). Substitution-failure is explained in Fregean terms by co-denoting expressions having different senses, but it’s unclear that adding or deleting ‘the proposition’ is a significant enough difference to change sense. We also expect that examples of substitution-failure become unrealistic if the subject is attributed explicit belief in the identity premise. However, adding that Holmes is absolutely clear about the truth of (20) and has it at the forefront of his consciousness doesn’t make it any more likely that (21b) is true, even though (21a) is.

Consequently, there is some appeal to solutions of Prior’s Puzzle that discern an equivocation in the inference, or propose that the crucial terms, the proposition that Moriarty has returned and that Moriarty has returned, aren’t really coreferential as they occur in the inference. An approach of the first kind, in (King 2002), argues that the transitive and clausal forms of the intensional verb are polysemous, that is, weakly ambiguous (the two senses are related). This has been criticized on the basis of ellipsis examples, such as ‘Bob didn’t even mention the proposition that first-order logic is undecidable, let alone that it is provable’ (Boer 2009, 552), and ‘the Soviet authorities genuinely fear a religious revival, and that the contagion of religion will spread’ (after Nebel 2019, 77). Since these examples don’t strike one as amusingly incongruous, in the way that typical examples of zeugma do (‘All over Ireland the farmers grew potatoes, barley, and bored’), they are in tension with a postulation of polysemy. Consequently, Boer (2009) and Nebel (2019) propose that the problem lies in an equivocation in the terms the proposition that Moriarty has returned and that Moriarty has returned. On both their accounts, it is the propositional description ‘the proposition that…’ which fails to denote what one might expect. On the other hand, as evidence in favor of polysemy, there is the fact that some cases of ellipsis seem in some way anomalous, such as ‘John heard thunder and that a storm was rolling in’. Here the anomaly can be explained in terms of how different the two senses of ‘heard’ are.

Event semantics (see section 5 above) provides an alternative which may avoid the need for any kind of equivocation. An initial proposal is made in (Pietroski 2000) for ‘explain’, which behaves like ‘fear’ and ‘suspect’, as in

(22a)
Martin explained that the nothing itself nothings.
(22b)
Martin explained the proposition that the nothing itself nothings.

(22a) may well be true but (22b) is unlikely. The idea is then that the clausal and transitive forms of ‘explain’ take different thematic complements, content versus theme: with the clausal verb of (22a), a ‘that’-clause provides a content, while with the transitive verb of (22b), a proposition description provides a theme, the thing that gets explained. Since, as already noted, a side-effect of the substitution is to change the verb from its clausal to its transitive form, a consequent side-effect is to change the role ascribed to the proposition from content to theme. This account is developed in (Pietroski 2005) and also, as an extension of the event semantics of (Forbes 2006), in (Forbes 2018).

7. The logic of intensional transitives

There may be no such topic as the logic of propositional attitudes: it may be doubted whether ‘Mary wants to meet a man who has read Proust and a man who has read Gide’ logically entails ‘Mary wants to meet a man who has read Proust’. Even if standing in the wanting-to-be-true attitude to I meet a man who has read Proust and a man who has read Gide somehow necessitates standing in the wanting-to-be-true attitude to I meet a man who has read Proust, the necessitation appears to be more psychological than logical. On the other hand, what we might call ‘objectual attitudes’, the non-propositional attitudes ascribed by intensional transitives, seem to have a logic (for a compendium of examples, see Richard 2000, 105–7): ‘Mary seeks a man who has read Proust and a man who has read Gide’ does seem to entail ‘Mary seeks a man who has read Proust’.

Yet, as Richard notes (Richard 2001, 107–8), the inferential behavior of quantified complements of intensional transitives is still very different from the extensional case. For example (his ‘Literary Example’), even if it is true that Mary seeks a man who has read Proust and a man who has read Gide, it may be false both that she seeks at most one man and that she seeks at least two men; for she may be indifferent between finding a man who has read both, versus finding two men, one a reader of Proust but not Gide, the other of Gide but not Proust. Contrast ‘saw’, ‘photographed’, or ‘met’: if she met a man who has read Proust and a man who has read Gide, it cannot be false both that she met at most at one man and also that she met at least two men. As Richard insists, it is a constraint on any semantics of intensional transitives that they get this type of case right.

By contrast, in other cases, even very simple ones, it is controversial exactly what inferences intensional transitives in unspecific readings support. If Mary seeks a man who has read Proust, does it follow that she seeks a man who can read? After all, it is unlikely that a comic-book reader will satisfy her tastes in men.[10] If Perseus seeks a mortal gorgon, does it follow that he seeks a gorgon?[11] After all, if he finds an immortal gorgon, he is in trouble. Zimmerman (1993, 173) takes it to be a requirement on accounts of notional readings that they validate these deletion or “weakening” inferences. But there are characterizations of unspecific readings on which these inferences are in fact invalid, for instance, a characterization in terms of indifference towards which object of the relevant kind is found (Lewis uses such an ‘any one would do’ characterization in Lewis 1972, p. 199). For even if it is true that Mary seeks a man who has read Proust, and any male Proust-reader would do, it does not follow that Mary seeks a man who can read, and any man who can read would do. For not every man who can read has read Proust.

Is there anything intrinsic to the indifference characterization of unspecificity (‘any one would do’) that we can object to while leaving the status of weakening inferences open? One objection is that the characterization does not work for every verb or quantifier: ‘Guercino painted a dog, any dog would do’ makes little sense, and ‘the police are looking for everyone who was in the room, any people who were in the room would do’ is not much better. More importantly, the characterization seems to put warranted assertibility out of reach, since the grounds which we normally take to justify ascribing an existentially quantified objectual attitude will rarely give reason to think that the agent has absolutely no further preferences going beyond the characterization of the object-kind given in the ascription (probably Mary would pass on meeting a male psychopathic killer who has read Proust; see further Graff Fara 2013 for analogous discussion of desire).

Still, this is not to validate weakening inferences; for that we would need to show that the more usual gloss of the unspecific reading, using a ‘but no particular one’ rider, supports the inferences as strongly as the indifference characterization refutes them. And it is unclear how such an argument would proceed (see further Forbes 2006, 94–6). In addition, making a good case that the inferences are intuitively valid is one thing, getting the semantics to validate them is another. Both the propositionalist and the Montagovian need to add extra principles, since there is nothing in their bare semantics to compel these inferences. For even if Jack stands in the wanting relation to ^(a(woollen(sweater))), that by itself is silent on whether he also stands in the wanting relation to ^(a(sweater)). The accounts of Moltmann and Richard both decide the matter positively, however (e.g., if in every minimal situation in which Jack’s desire is satisfied, he gets a woollen sweater, then in every such situation, he gets a sweater; so he wants a sweater).

The intuitive validity of weakening can also be directly challenged. For example, via weakening we can infer that if A is looking for a cat and B is looking for a dog, then A and B are looking for the same thing (an animal). For discussion of this kind of example, see (Zimmerman 2006), and for the special use of ‘the same thing’, (Moltmann 2008). Asher (1987, 171) proposes an even more direct counterexample. Suppose you enter a competition whose prize is a free ticket on the Concorde to New York. So presumably you want a free ticket on the Concorde. But you don’t want a ticket on the Concorde, since you know that normally these are very expensive, you are poor, and you strictly resist desiring the unattainable. Asher is here assimilating notional uses of indefinites to generics, which on his account involve quantification over normal worlds. So if for some bizarre reason you want a sloop, but one whose hull is riddled with holes, it will not be literally true to say you want a sloop.

Undeniably there is a real phenomenon here, but perhaps it belongs to pragmatics rather than semantics. If I say ‘I want a sloop’, someone who offers to buy me any sloop floating in the harbor could reasonably complain ‘You should have said that’ if I decline the offer on the grounds that none of those sloops meets my unstated requirement of having a hull riddled with holes. But my aspirational benefactor’s complaint might be justified because normality is a default implicature or presupposition that a co-operative speaker is under some obligation to let her audience know isn’t in force, when it isn’t. It is still literally true, on this view, that you want a sloop, despite the idiosyncrasy of the details of your desire. However, this is far from the end of the story. Those with doubts about weakening will find the discussion in (Sainsbury 2018, 129–133) congenial.

Another interesting logical problem concerns the “conjunctive force” of disjoined quantified NPs in objectual ascriptions. There is a large literature on the conjunctive force of disjunction in many other contexts (e.g., Kamp 1973, Loewer 1976, Makinson 1984, Jennings 1994, Zimmerman 2000, Simons 2005, Fox 2007), for instance as exhibited in ‘ x is larger than y or z ’ and ‘John can speak French or Italian to you’. In these cases the conjunctive force is easily captured by simple distribution: ‘ x is larger than y and larger than z ’, ‘John can speak French to you and can speak Italian to you’.[12] However, with intensional transitives we find the same conjunctive force, but no distributive articulation. If we say that Jack needs a woollen sweater or a fleece jacket, we say something to the effect that (i) his getting a woollen sweater is one way his need could be met, and (ii) his getting a fleece jacket is another way his need could be met. But ‘Jack needs a woollen sweater or a fleece jacket’ does not mean that Jack needs a woollen sweater and needs a fleece jacket. This last conjunction ascribes two needs, only one of which is met by getting a satisfactory woollen sweater. But the latter acquisition by itself meets the disjunctive need for a woollen sweater or a fleece jacket. So there is a challenge to explain the semantics of the disjunctive ascription, while at the same time remaining within a framework that can accommodate all cases of conjunctive force - comparatives, various senses of ‘can’, counterfactuals with disjunctive antecedents (‘if Jack were to put on a woollen sweater or a fleece jacket he’d be warmer’) and so on; see further (Forbes 2006, 97–111).

A penultimate type of inference we will mention is one in which intensional and extensional verbs both occur, and the inference seems valid even when the intensional VPs are construed unspecifically. An example:

(23a)
Jack wants a woollen sweater
(23b)
Whatever Jack wants, he gets
(23c)
Therefore, Jack will get a woollen sweater

Obviously, (23a,b) entail (23c) when (23a) is understood specifically. But informants judge that the inference is also valid when (23a) is understood unspecifically, with ‘but no particular one’ explicitly appended. If we seek a validation of the inference that hews to surface form, Montague’s uniform treatment of intensional and extensional verbs has its appeal: (23b) will say that for whatever property of properties P Jack stands in the wanting relation to, he stands in the getting relation to. So the inference is portrayed as the simple modus ponens it seems to be. It would then be the task of other meaning-postulates to carry us from his standing in the getting relation to ^(a(woollen(sweater))) to there being a woollen sweater such that he gets it.

Das letzte Beispiel, das hier betrachtet werden soll, sind fiktive oder mythische Namen im Rahmen von intensiven Transitiven. Ein Beispiel (Zalta 1988, 128) für die Rätsel, zu denen diese führen können, ist:

(24a)
Die alten Griechen verehrten Zeus.
(24b)
Zeus ist eine mythische Figur.
(24c)
Mythische Charaktere existieren nicht.
(24d)
Daher verehrten die alten Griechen etwas, das nicht existiert (existierte).

Oder auch:

(24e)
Daher gibt es etwas, das es nicht gibt, so dass die alten Griechen es verehrten.

One thing the example shows is that specific/unspecific is not to be confused with real/fictional. (24a) is a true specific ascription, just as ‘the ancient Greeks worshipped Ahura Mazda’ is a false one. (24b) is also true. So the ancient Greeks, who would not have knowingly worshipped a mythical character, were making a rather large mistake, if one of a familiar sort.

(24c) is also true, if we are careful about what ‘do not exist’ means in this context. It is contingent that Zeus-myths were ever formulated, and one sense in which we might mean (24c) turns on the assumption that fictional and mythical characters exist iff fictions and myths about them do. In this sense, (24c) is false, though an actual fictional character such as Zeus would not have existed if there had been no Zeus-myths. This also explains why (24a) and (24b) can both be true: ‘Zeus’ refers to the mythical character, a contingently existing abstract object.

However, by far the more likely reading of (24c) is one on which it means that mythical characters are not real. Zeus is not flesh and blood, not even immaterial flesh and blood. With this in mind, (24d) and (24e) are both true. The quantifier ‘something’ ranges over a domain that includes both real and fictional or mythical entities, and there is something in that domain, the mythical character, which was worshipped by the ancient Greeks and which is not in the subdomain of real items.

This gets the right truth-values for the statements in (24), but might be thought to run into trouble with the likes of ‘Zeus lives on Mt. Olympus’: if ‘Zeus’ refers to an abstract object, how can Zeus live anywhere? One way of dealing with this kind of case is to suppose, evidently plausibly, that someone who says ‘Zeus lives on Mt. Olympus’ and knows the facts means

(25)
According to the myth, Zeus lives on Mt. Olympus.

On the other hand, if an ancient Greek believer says ‘Zeus lives on Mt. Olympus’, he or she says something false, there being no reason to posit a covert ‘according to the myth’ in this case.

However, even the covert operator theory might be contested, on the grounds that within its scope we are still unintelligibly predicating ‘lived on Mt. Olympus’ of an abstract object. Simply prefixing ‘according to the myth’ to the unintelligible cannot render it intelligible. But there is the evident fact that (25) is both intelligible and true. So either prefixing ‘according to the myth’ can render the unintelligible intelligible, or what is going on in the embedded sentence is not to be construed as standard predication. For further discussion of these matters, see, for example, van Inwagen 1977, Parsons 1980, Zalta 1988, Thomasson 1998, and Salmon 2002.

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