2022 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
One-World Semantics for Modals and Attitudes
| Project/Area Number |
20K00613
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| Research Institution | Keio University |
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Principal Investigator |
タンクレディ クリストファー 慶應義塾大学, 言語文化研究所(三田), 教授 (80251750)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2020-04-01 – 2025-03-31
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| Keywords | identity / modality / attitudes / subjective semantics |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
The most significant achievement this year was the publication of "Belief or Consequences" in the journal "Semantics and Pragmatics". This paper presented a novel way of analyzing belief attribution sentences that is vastly simpler than and empirically superior to all known alternatives in the literature. Two insights were key to the improvement: identifying the embedded clause as denoting an inferable consequence of an internal belief rather than directly denoting an internal belief, and analyzing interpretation as essentially subjective rather than objective. After publication, these research results were presented directly to audiences at six major institutions in Europe.
Work has additionally progressed on the analysis of modality and of identity statements. Most importantly for our future plans, we have identified identity statements as the empirical core we will look at to probe the semantics of other attitude attributions and of modal statements. The interpretive framework from "Belief or Consequences" is specifically designed to relate interpretation to the beliefs of the discourse participants and so easily handles identity statements in epistemic modal contexts, something that is challenging to other approaches. For this same reason, it is also readily extendable to identity statements in other attitude contexts. However, it faces challenges with those same identity statements in metaphysical modal contexts. Working out responses to these challenges is the central task for the upcoming year.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
Getting "Belief or Consequences" published forced us to focus more on belief attribution and the subjective semantic framework needed to analyze it than originally planned. While this has resulted in work on modals being delayed, it has also resulted in the semantic framework being far more robust than was expected at this stage. This in turn has made progress on modal interpretation easier than expected. In specific, it has made it possible for us to see that our original ideas for how to analyze modals was missing a key component needed for a subset of modal interpretation involving circumstantial modality, most specifically metaphysical modality (what is possible/necessary with respect to the fixed physical laws of the universe). This will be a key insight for going forward.
Until this year we had been taking a broad approach to modals, working with a wide range of phenomena. This year we began to narrow our focus to look specifically at how different sub-classes of modality interact with identity statements. Identity statements force one to look closely at the domain of individuals that one posits. In particular, acceptance of an identity statement previously thought to be false can force one to change the domain of individuals assumed in such a way that what was previously two individuals is replaced by a single individual. Focusing on how the domain of individuals can be manipulated in this way has helped us to see that sub-classes of modality differ in whether they can operate over such changes in the domain or have to operate with respect to a fixed domain.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
In "Belief or Consequences" we showed a way of analyzing belief attribution statements without a need for possible worlds. As we noted there, this achievement does not by itself eliminate the need for possible worlds elsewhere in the grammar. In particular, it says nothing about whether possible worlds are needed for the interpretation of modals. We gave an indication of how epistemic modality could plausibly be analyzed without recourse to possible worlds. However, that analysis does not easily extend to metaphysical modals. The central goal for this year is thus to determine whether possible worlds (or something equivalent) are needed for the analysis of metaphysical modals, and if so how to integrate them into the subjective semantic framework we have developed.
To achieve this goal it will also be necessary to clarify the semantics of identity statements. The fact that identity statements can be informative has posed a great challenge to semantic theories since Frege. Efforts to explain this possibility have invariably led to problems elsewhere. Our subjective semantics makes possible a new account of how identity statements can be informative. The precise way in which they are analyzed, however, will affect how they are predicted to interact with epistemic and metaphysical modals and with attitude attribution statements. We will thus be working on giving a fully explicit formal analysis of identity statements that leads to correct predictions regarding this interaction.
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Research Products
(1 results)
