The Existential Quantifier, Composition and Contingency (original) (raw)
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The term 'existential sentence' is used to refer to a specialized or non-canonical construction which expresses a proposition about the existence or the presence of someone or something. Because of their special structural and interpretive characteristics, existential sentences have offered a rich ground on which to test theories concerning the semantics of noun phrases and of predication, as well as theories concerning the role of non-canonical constructions in information packaging. This chapter begins by reviewing the basic structural, semantic and discourse functional properties of existential sentences. Since, across languages, existential sentences resemble copular, possessive and locative sentences, considerable debate has arisen about the extent to which their semantics are similar. The chapter therefore continues with an overview of the different analyses that have been proposed for the core existential proposition. The remainder of the chapter is devoted to two distinctive features of these sentences which have generated substantial discussion in the semantics and pragmatics literature: 1) the so-called defi niteness restriction, which limits the ability of defi nite and quantifi cational nominals to appear as the 'pivot' of the construction; and, 2) the predicate restriction, which has been claimed to restrict the expressions that can appear as the 'coda' to so-called stage-level predicates.
Frege argues that considering Socrates as an object in the proposition "Socrates exists" raises two problems. First, this proposition would be uninformative. Second, its negation entails a contradiction. Attempting to solve these problems, Frege claims that Socrates is representing the concept of a man whose name is Socrates. Therefore, existence is a second-order concept. This paper surveys the main modern theories about the types of existence, in order to find another response to Frege's problems. For, if Socrates' existence differs from the type that "exists" implies, "Socrates exists" is informative and its negation is not a contradiction. At last, this paper argues for an idea, in which "existence" is not a concept or property. Existence is the principle of the objects. So, "Socrates exists" is in fact "the existence is Socrates," and "Socrates does not exist" is "there is no existence that be Socrates." This idea could be an alternative for responding to Frege's problems.
Compositionality II: Arguments and problems
Philosophy Compass, 2010
This is the second part of a two-part article on compositionality, i.e. the principle that the meaning of a complex expression is determined by the meanings of its parts and the way they are put together. In the first, Pagin and Westerståhl 2009, we provide a general historical background, a formal framework, definitions, and a survey of variants of compositionality. It will be referred to as Part I. Here we discuss arguments for and arguments against the claim that natural languages have a compositional semantics. We also discuss some problem cases, including belief reports, quotation, idioms, and ambiguity. * The authors wish to thank an anonymous referee for many comments that have helped clarifying the presentation.
On the Existential Import of General Terms
In his book Logic and How It Gets That Way Jacquette (2010) presents 'the formalization paradox' which emerges from the attempt to formalize a sentence like 'some monkey devours every craisins', where craisins are imaginary non-existent fruits. From this paradox Jacquette concludes the expressive inadequacy of classical predicate quantificational logic. In this paper I analyse the three assumptions supposed in the emergence of the paradox, viz.: (i) colloquial expressions of the same logical form can and should be formally symbolized by applying the same symbolization schema); (ii) 'Some monkeys devours every raisin' is correctly translated as ∃x[Mx & ∀y[Ry → Dxy]]; (iii) uninstantiated predicates can legitimately enter into (meaningful, true or false) predicates-quantificational symbolizations. I fully accept (iii), but reject both (i) and (ii). I argue, firstly, that (i) has at the first glance two possible interpretations, a trivial and a false one. So, I try to establish a third and more reasonable interpretation. Based on this interpretation I argue that ∃x[Mx & ∀y[Ry → Dxy]] is not the adequate formalization of 'some monkeys devours every raisin'. My basic claim is based on a generalisation of Russell's theory of description: just like most sentences of natural language which contain definite descriptions are viewed as entailing existential force which must be made explicit in formaliza-tion, so do we also consider many, although not all, sentences which contain general terms. A criterion for deciding in each possible case if the sentence entails existential force will be presented and defended.
Quantifier particles and compositionality / 2013
AC 2013 Proceedings
In many languages, the same particles build quantifier words and serve as connectives, additive and scalar particles, question markers, existential verbs, and so on. Do the roles of each particle form a natural class with a stable semantics? Are the particles aided by additional elements, overt or covert, in fulfilling their varied roles? I propose a unified analysis, according to which the particles impose partial ordering requirements (glb and lub) on the interpretations of their hosts and the immediate larger contexts, but do not embody algebraic operations themselves.
I argue in this paper that the debate over composition is factually empty; in 1 other words, I argue that there's no fact of the matter whether there are any composite 2 objects like tables and rocks and cats. Moreover, at the end of the paper, I explain 3 how my argument is suggestive of a much more general (and much more radical) 4 conclusion, namely, that there's no fact of the matter whether there are any material 5 objects at all. Roughly speaking, the paper proceeds by arguing that (a) if there were 6 a fact of the matter about whether composite objects exist, then it would be either a 7 necessary fact or a contingent fact, and (b) both of these alternatives are implausible. 8