How to Refer: Objective Context vs. Intentional Context (original) (raw)

Reference, intention, and context

Oxford Scholarship Online, 2017

This chapter takes up some recently published arguments that purport to show that a demonstrative, as used on a given occasion, refers either on account of certain features of the context or in virtue of a certain speaker intention, which is distinct from the sort of referential intention that is part of the speaker’s total communicative intention. After these arguments are disposed of, it is argued that there is no good rationale for maintaining that demonstratives refer in their own right. Rather, they have meanings that constrain their literal use. Speakers can and do use them to refer and to communicate what they use them to refer to without there being any referential role for demonstratives themselves to play. If this is right, it raises some interesting questions for standard conceptions of semantics.

Against intentionalism: an experimental study on demonstrative reference

Linguistics and Philosophy

In this paper, we present two experimental studies on reference of complex demonstratives. The results of our experiments challenge the dominant view in philosophy of language, according to which demonstrative reference is determined by the speaker's intentions. The first experiment shows that in a context where there are two candidates for the referent—one determined by the speaker’s intention, the other by some “external” factors—people prefer to identify the referent of a demonstrative with the latter object. The external factors for which this prediction has been confirmed include the speaker’s demonstration and the descriptive content of a demonstrative. The second experiment shows that while this preference can be explained in terms of the speakers’ having different sorts of referential intentions, the relevant kind of intentions are fully opaque to the subjects. At the end of our paper, we point to some alternative accounts of demonstrative reference, including a pluralis...

A Defence of Intentionalism about Demonstratives

Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2019

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. 1 Intentionalism about Demonstratives Consider this scenario: at the dog park, I tell someone that my dog's name is 'Fido'. She asks: which one is Fido? I answer, pointing in the direction of my dog: (1) This is Fido. Assume that everything goes well and that my interlocutor now knows which dog is mine. The question I will address is this: in virtue of what does that use of 'this' refer to Fido? This question is as interesting as any other question about the mechanism by which reference is secured. Additionally, demonstratives are interesting because they seem to rely on the speaker's intentions. This is in contrast to other types of expressions: 'today' picks out the current day, irrespective of the speaker's intentions.Whatever 'university' picks out-a property, a collectionit does not do so in virtue of the speaker's intentions. I will defend one variant of intentionalism, namely the view that it is the speaker's intentions, and nothing else, that are at work in cases like

Introduction: Demonstratives in discourse

Demonstratives in Discourse, 2020

Over the last decades, there has been extensive discussion in the typological literature of the functions and uses of demonstratives. It is well established that demonstratives are not restricted to referring to items in situational use based on concrete spatial parameters, but that discourse deictic, anaphoric/tracking, and recognitional uses are also common, if not universal, functions of demonstratives (see Himmelmann 1996; 1997; and Diessel 1999 for systematic overviews). Studies have shown that many parameters beyond location and configuration of referents and speech-act participants play a role in demonstrative choice. In particular, directing the addressee’s attention towards a target entity and prior knowledge of a referent either through the previous discourse or from the real world have been identified as relevant (see e.g. Burenhult 2003; Dawuda 2009; Diessel 2006; Enfield 2003; Hanks 1990; 1992; 2005; 2009; Küntay&Özyürek 2006; Özyürek 1998). The diachronic development f...

Context of Utterance and Intended Context

in V. Akman et al. (a cura di) Modeling and Using Context. Third International and Interdisciplinary Conference, CONTEXT '01, Dundee, UK, Proceedings, Berlin, Springer, pp. 73-86, 2001

In this paper I expose and criticise the distinction between pure indexicals and demonstratives, held by

BARE DEMONSTRATIVES, JOINT ATTENTION AND SPEAKERS'INTENTIONS

fil.lu.se

Non-linguistic facts about the context of utterance relate demonstrative utterances to their context and can thereby fill the double role of providing the token meaning of the utterance and determining its reference. The reference of perceptual, bare demonstratives depends entirely on such facts. But contingent, causal, environmental factors are not reliable enough to take on this semantic role. An element that is within the control of the speakers themselves is required. It is argued that joint attention, based in the speakers' mutual co-ordination of their states of attention, is the default strategy. Intentionalists hold that the speaker's secondary or ultimate intentions help fixing the reference. But processing the speaker's underlying intentions is a costly strategy. A more economic one is to grasp the speaker's intentions implicitly by reading her manifest states of attention as displayed in interaction with the hearer, and make use of environmental cues. Unless the speaker explicitly indicates that the hearer should take the more resource-demanding strategy, there is no reason for her to do so. Moreover, if there is no general expectancy of hearers to give the underlying intentions priority, speakers will not in the normal case be using such intentions to get their messages across.