Linguistics Seminar - Complex demonstratives and selection presuppositions

Speaker: Ethan Novak, UCL

Recently, philosophers have tried to offer a unified analysis of deictic and non-deictic complex demonstratives by treating them as definite descriptions that take a hidden argument. When demonstratives are used deictically, they claim, the hidden argument place is saturated by an identificational property. When demonstratives are used non-deictically, the argument place is occupied by a semantically vacuous constituent. Although there is much to like about this approach, if it were right, we would expect demonstratives to be generally replaceable by definite descriptions. The data suggest the real story is more complicated—I will try and sketch a way it might go. (To tip my hand, I will claim that non-deictic demonstratives typically involve relative clauses that attach high, and can thus serve as second arguments to the determiner.) 

Details of further 2016/17 seminars can be found on our website here:

Time: 4pm, Wed 12th October 2016

Venue: Room G10, Chandler House, 2 Wakefield St  London  WC1N 1PF