Semantic expressivism for epistemic modals

Peter HAWKE; Shane STEINERT-THRELKELD

doi:10.1007/s10988-020-09295-7

Semantic expressivism for epistemic modals

Peter HAWKE^*, Shane STEINERT-THRELKELD

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal Publications › Journal Article (refereed) › peer-review

15 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Expressivists about epistemic modals deny that ‘Jane might be late’ canonically serves to express the speaker’s acceptance of a certain propositional content. Instead, they hold that it expresses a lack of acceptance (that Jane isn’t late). Prominent expressivists embrace pragmatic expressivism: the doxastic property expressed by a declarative is not helpfully identified with (any part of) that sentence’s compositional semantic value. Against this, we defend semantic expressivism about epistemic modals: the semantic value of a declarative from this domain is (partly) the property of doxastic attitudes it canonically serves to express. In support, we synthesize data from the critical literature on expressivism—largely reflecting interactions between modals and disjunctions—and present a semantic expressivism that readily predicts the data. This contrasts with salient competitors, including: pragmatic expressivism based on domain semantics or dynamic semantics; semantic expressivism à la Moss (Semant Pragmat 8(5):1–81, 2015. https://doi.org/10.3765/sp.8.5); and the bounded relational semantics of Mandelkern (Philos Rev 128(1):1–61, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-7213001).

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	475-511
Number of pages	37
Journal	Linguistics and Philosophy
Volume	44
Issue number	2
Early online date	23 Mar 2020
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-020-09295-7
Publication status	Published - Apr 2021
Externally published	Yes

Bibliographical note

The authors are listed in alphabetical order.

We’re grateful to our anonymous referees for insightful and constructive comments. For helpful comments and discussion, we owe thanks to Maria Aloni, Alexandru Baltag, Johan van Benthem, Franz Berto, Justin Bledin, Emmanuel Chemla, Ivano Ciardelli, Cleo Condoravdi, Melissa Fusco, Thomas Icard, Alex Kocurek, Karolina Krzyżanowska, Thom van Gessel, Dan Lassiter, Martin Lipman, Meica Magnani, Matt Mandelkern, Aybüke Özgün, Philippe Schlenker, Tom Schoonen, and Frank Veltman. Thanks also to the audiences at Inquisitiveness Below and Beyond the Sentence Boundary (InqBnB1), Institut Jean Nicod, the Logic and Interactive Rationality (LiRa) seminar and the Logic of Conceivability Seminar. PH has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC CoG), Grant No. 681404 ‘The Logic of Conceivability’. SS-T has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013)/ERC Grant Agreement No. STG716230 CoSaQ.

Keywords

Assertibility logic
Domain semantics
Epistemic modals
Expressivism
State-based semantics
Update semantics

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10.1007/s10988-020-09295-7Licence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "Semantic expressivism for epistemic modals",

abstract = "Expressivists about epistemic modals deny that {\textquoteleft}Jane might be late{\textquoteright} canonically serves to express the speaker{\textquoteright}s acceptance of a certain propositional content. Instead, they hold that it expresses a lack of acceptance (that Jane isn{\textquoteright}t late). Prominent expressivists embrace pragmatic expressivism: the doxastic property expressed by a declarative is not helpfully identified with (any part of) that sentence{\textquoteright}s compositional semantic value. Against this, we defend semantic expressivism about epistemic modals: the semantic value of a declarative from this domain is (partly) the property of doxastic attitudes it canonically serves to express. In support, we synthesize data from the critical literature on expressivism—largely reflecting interactions between modals and disjunctions—and present a semantic expressivism that readily predicts the data. This contrasts with salient competitors, including: pragmatic expressivism based on domain semantics or dynamic semantics; semantic expressivism {\`a} la Moss (Semant Pragmat 8(5):1–81, 2015. https://doi.org/10.3765/sp.8.5); and the bounded relational semantics of Mandelkern (Philos Rev 128(1):1–61, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-7213001).",

keywords = "Assertibility logic, Domain semantics, Epistemic modals, Expressivism, State-based semantics, Update semantics",

author = "Peter HAWKE and Shane STEINERT-THRELKELD",

note = "The authors are listed in alphabetical order. We{\textquoteright}re grateful to our anonymous referees for insightful and constructive comments. For helpful comments and discussion, we owe thanks to Maria Aloni, Alexandru Baltag, Johan van Benthem, Franz Berto, Justin Bledin, Emmanuel Chemla, Ivano Ciardelli, Cleo Condoravdi, Melissa Fusco, Thomas Icard, Alex Kocurek, Karolina Krzy{\.z}anowska, Thom van Gessel, Dan Lassiter, Martin Lipman, Meica Magnani, Matt Mandelkern, Ayb{\"u}ke {\"O}zg{\"u}n, Philippe Schlenker, Tom Schoonen, and Frank Veltman. Thanks also to the audiences at Inquisitiveness Below and Beyond the Sentence Boundary (InqBnB1), Institut Jean Nicod, the Logic and Interactive Rationality (LiRa) seminar and the Logic of Conceivability Seminar. PH has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC CoG), Grant No. 681404 {\textquoteleft}The Logic of Conceivability{\textquoteright}. SS-T has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union{\textquoteright}s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013)/ERC Grant Agreement No. STG716230 CoSaQ. ",

year = "2021",

month = apr,

doi = "10.1007/s10988-020-09295-7",

language = "English",

volume = "44",

pages = "475--511",

journal = "Linguistics and Philosophy",

issn = "0165-0157",

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T1 - Semantic expressivism for epistemic modals

AU - HAWKE, Peter

AU - STEINERT-THRELKELD, Shane

N1 - The authors are listed in alphabetical order. We’re grateful to our anonymous referees for insightful and constructive comments. For helpful comments and discussion, we owe thanks to Maria Aloni, Alexandru Baltag, Johan van Benthem, Franz Berto, Justin Bledin, Emmanuel Chemla, Ivano Ciardelli, Cleo Condoravdi, Melissa Fusco, Thomas Icard, Alex Kocurek, Karolina Krzyżanowska, Thom van Gessel, Dan Lassiter, Martin Lipman, Meica Magnani, Matt Mandelkern, Aybüke Özgün, Philippe Schlenker, Tom Schoonen, and Frank Veltman. Thanks also to the audiences at Inquisitiveness Below and Beyond the Sentence Boundary (InqBnB1), Institut Jean Nicod, the Logic and Interactive Rationality (LiRa) seminar and the Logic of Conceivability Seminar. PH has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC CoG), Grant No. 681404 ‘The Logic of Conceivability’. SS-T has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013)/ERC Grant Agreement No. STG716230 CoSaQ.

PY - 2021/4

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N2 - Expressivists about epistemic modals deny that ‘Jane might be late’ canonically serves to express the speaker’s acceptance of a certain propositional content. Instead, they hold that it expresses a lack of acceptance (that Jane isn’t late). Prominent expressivists embrace pragmatic expressivism: the doxastic property expressed by a declarative is not helpfully identified with (any part of) that sentence’s compositional semantic value. Against this, we defend semantic expressivism about epistemic modals: the semantic value of a declarative from this domain is (partly) the property of doxastic attitudes it canonically serves to express. In support, we synthesize data from the critical literature on expressivism—largely reflecting interactions between modals and disjunctions—and present a semantic expressivism that readily predicts the data. This contrasts with salient competitors, including: pragmatic expressivism based on domain semantics or dynamic semantics; semantic expressivism à la Moss (Semant Pragmat 8(5):1–81, 2015. https://doi.org/10.3765/sp.8.5); and the bounded relational semantics of Mandelkern (Philos Rev 128(1):1–61, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-7213001).

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KW - Assertibility logic

KW - Domain semantics

KW - Epistemic modals

KW - Expressivism

KW - State-based semantics

KW - Update semantics

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DO - 10.1007/s10988-020-09295-7

M3 - Journal Article (refereed)

AN - SCOPUS:85083359294

SN - 0165-0157

VL - 44

SP - 475

EP - 511

JO - Linguistics and Philosophy

JF - Linguistics and Philosophy

IS - 2

ER -

Semantic expressivism for epistemic modals

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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