Occasion-sensitive semantics for objective predicates

Abstract

In this paper I propose a partition semantics (Groenendijk and Stokhof in Studies on the semantics of questions and the pragmatics of answers, Ph.D. thesis, University of Amsterdam, 1984) for sentences containing objective predicates that takes into account the phenomenon of occasion-sensitivity associated with so-called Travis cases (Travis in Occasion-sensitivity: Selected essays, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008). The key idea is that the set of worlds in which a sentence is true has a more complex structure as a result of different ways in which it is made true. Different ways may have different capacities to support the attainment of a contextually salient domain goal. I suggest that goal-conduciveness decides whether some utterance of a sentence is accepted as true on a particular occasion at a given world. The utterance will not be accepted as true at a world which belongs to a truth-maker which is less conducive to a contextually salient goal than other truth-makers. Finally, the proposed occasionsensitive semantics is applied to some cases of disagreement and cancellability.

Are utterance truth-conditions systematically determined?

“…In this and the next section I examine Schoubye and Stokke's (2016) and Dobler's (2019) proposals respectively. The aim of these authors is to put forward a systematic theory of utterance truth-conditions.…”

“…In this section I examine Dobler's semantics (Dobler, 2019), another account that follows approach to discourse structure and applies partition semantics. Instead of QUD, i.e, conversational goals, Dobler makes use of domain goals, i.e.…”

Contextual Injustice

“…See e.g. the discussion of 'domain goals' and metasemantics in Dobler (2019). Lewis (2019) argues on similar grounds that intentions play a limited role in setting contextual parameters, as compared to objective features of the speakers' situation.…”

Pragmatic enrichment, issues and domain goals

“…Attaining the kind of resolution needed for interpretation requires that the informative content of a sentence undergoes pragmatic enrichment. To explain how we resolve semantic underdetermination to arrive at occasion meanings, I propose an account of pragmatic enrichment based on the idea of goal-conduciveness (see also Dobler, 2019).…”