2023 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
One-World Semantics for Modals and Attitudes
| Project/Area Number |
20K00613
|
|---|
| Research Institution | Keio University |
|---|
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)
|
|---|
| Project Period (FY) |
2020-04-01 – 2025-03-31
|
| Keywords | subjective semantics / formal semantics / intensional semantics |
|---|
| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
We are writing a book to introduce the new subjective framework for doing semantics that we are creating. A new co-author was added to the project this year, resulting in several foundational changes. The biggest change was that possibilities are now no longer stored in sets of interpretation functions but rather in lexical entries. This has necessitated a thorough reworking of the formalism, though the core ideas being implemented remain the same. The change in formalism will ultimately make the framework more easily accessible to a wider audience. Not only is the new framework conceptually simpler, but it also makes it easier to separate out the compositional aspects of interpretation from their conceptual counterparts.
The advantages of the new formalization of subjective interpretation as well as ways of working out specific problems within the framework were discussed in two 1-week sessions, one with each of my co-authors. Based on those discussions, we have written up analyses of the model used for interpretation; the role of lexical items in connecting words, concepts and extensions; and concepts based on these constructs needed for interpreting expressions semantically and for exploiting these interpretations pragmatically to explain agreement and disagreement. We have also written up interpretations of names, simple predicates, definite descriptions, pronouns, anaphora, identity, and quantifiers, and have solutions for interpretations of indefinite descriptions, attitude predicates and modals worked out and in the process of being written up.
|
| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
In empirical terms, only modest progress was made this year. Two factors affected this. First, we prioritized simplifying the framework over advancing applications since doing so is a prerequisite for implementing analyses in the new framework. Second, changing the framework required re-analyzing things that had already been analyzed in the prior framework, and the re-analysis was at times fairly complicated. The endpoint of this re-analysis from an empirical perspective brought us back to where we were before the re-analysis, though we have since then gone further empirically beyond what had already been accomplished prior to the re-analysis.
From a theoretical perspective, great progress was made in simplifying the framework in a way that should make it more accessible, especially to beginning researchers. This progress was made possible by getting together separately with each of my co-authors, one of the trips funded through this project and a second funded independently. The new framework neatly separates out the individuals and functions denoted by various expressions from the conceptual information those denotations have to satisfy, making it worth the time it has taken to work out and implement the simplification.
|
| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
We are now at the stage of the project where all of the basic problems we originally set out to solve have been given preliminary solutions, and many of these have been written up. We plan to continue with the writing over the coming year, finishing the presentation of the framework as a whole by summer and turning to more focused analyses of the different flavors of modal interpretation and their interactions with identity after that. We will also continue to discuss whether to include analyses of all intensional phenomena in the book, including counterfactual conditionals and intensional transitive verbs which we have not yet worked on within the new framework, or to limit the scope of the book to identity, modals and attitudes, saving other intensional phenomena for a future project. The decision we make about this issue will affect when the book can be ready for publication.
|
| Causes of Carryover |
The funds were used this year to pay for travel expenses for one of my co-authors to come to Japan. The only time we could arrange our schedules to get together was from the end of March into the beginning of April, but I was only able to cover that part of her trip that was in the current fiscal year, starting from April 1st. I plan to use the money that was left unspent for travel to the US to meet with her again next fiscal year, and if financially feasible to give talks at several institutions in the US.
|
