Table Of ContentENTITIES AND INmeES
Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy
Volume41
Managing Editors:
GENNARO CHIERCHIA, Cornell University
PAULINB JACOBSON, Brown University
FRANCIS 1. PELLETIER, University ofR ochester
Editorial Board:
JOHAN VAN BENTHEM, University ofA msterdam
GREGORY N. CARLSON, University ofR ochester
DAVID DOWTY, Ohio State University, Columbus
GERALD GAZDAR, University of Sussex, Brighton
IRENE HEIM, M.LT., Cambridge
EWAN KLEIN, University of Edinburgh
BILL LADUSAW, University of California at Santa Cruz
TERRENCE PARSONS, University of California, Irvine
The titles pub/ished in this series are /isted at the end of this volume.
ENTITIES AND INDICES
by
M. J. CRESSWELL
Victoria University ofW ellington
and University of Massachusetts at Amherst
KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS
DORDRECHT / BOSTON / LONDON
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cresswe 11, M. J.
Entities and indiees I M.J. Crasswell.
p. cm. -- (Studies In l1ngulstlcs and phl1osophy ; v. 41>
Ineludes blbliographieal referenees (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-7923-0966-9 (hb: acid-free paper)
1. Semantles (Philosophy) 2. Grammar, Comparatlva and general-
-Ouantlfiers. I. Tltle. II. Series.
B840.C72 1990
121' .68--de20 90-5347
ISBN -13: 978-0-7923-0967-3 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-009-2139-9
001: 10.1007/978-94-009-2139-9
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To
HELEN FLEMING
T AB LE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE ix
PART I MULTIPLE INDEXING
CHAPTER 1 A basic intensional language 1
CHAPTER2 'Now' and 'then' 17
CHAPTER 3 'Actually' 34
CHAPTER 4 Indiees and world variables 47
CHAPTER 5 Mediated relations 63
CHAPTER6 A second-order treatment 76
PART II ONTOLOGICAL COMMITMENT
CHAPTER 7 Possibilist quantification 95
CHAPTER 8 Possibilities 111
CHAPTER 9 Intersentential operators 130
CHAPTER 10 Substitutional quantification 142
CHAPTER 11 Modality and supervenience 156
CHAPTER 12 Counterpart theory 173
PART III INDEXICAL QUANTIFICATION
CHAPTER 13 Generalized quantifiers 197
CHAPTER 14 Quantifiers as indexieal operators 213
CHAPTER 15 Time and world quantifiers 228
CHAPTER 16 Context and indiees 242
BffiLIOGRAPHY 260
INDEX 266
PREFACE
In ordinary discourse we appear to ta1k about many things that
have seemed mysterious to philosophers. We say that there has
been a hitch in our arrangements or that the solution to the problem
required us to examine all the probable outcomes of our action. So
it would seem that we speak as if in addition to eloeks, mountains,
queens and grains of sand there are hitches, arrangements, solutions,
probiems, and probable outcomes. It is not immediately obvious
when we must take such ta1k as really assuming that there are such
things, and one of the tasks in this book is to develop tests for
discerning what has eome to be called ontological commitment, in
naturallanguage.
Among the entities that natural language appears to make
reference to are those connected with temporal and modal
discourse, times, possibilities, and so on. Such entities play a crueial
role in the kind of semantieal theories that I and others have
defended over many years. These theories are based on the idea that
an essential part of the meaning of a sentence is constituted by the
conditions under whieh that sentenee is true. To know what a
sentence says is to know what the world would have to be !ike for
that sentence to be true. Since the real world may not be !ike that
we need to introduee other possible worlds, and in possible-worlds
semantics the meaning of a sentence is the set of worlds - of world
time pairs - in whieh the sentence is true. I want to shew that
among the things that natural language assumes exist are indeed
possible worlds and they play a similar semantieal role to that
played by times.
Chapter 1 of the book sets out a relatively simple formal
language which uses possible worlds semanties and in which the
problems can begin to be discussed. Later chapters extend this
language in a variety of ways. Chapter 2 presents an argument for
lX
x PREFACE
assuming that natural language needs times among the things it
supposes to exist. It does this by shewing that certain temporal
sentences require a logical form which involves operators like 'there
is a time t such that .. .'. Such operators are called quantifiers, and
there is a widely accepted view, dating from at least Quine 1939,
that a language assumes to exist precisely the things it quantifies
over. In the remainder of Part I it is argued that certain sentences
require a possible-worlds semantics in which a sentence must be
evaluated at a sequence of worlds rather than just a single world,
and that this is as powerful as explicit quantifieation over worlds.
Since the book is about the ontological eommitment of natural
language it is neeessary to say something about the metaphysical
implications of this commitment and this is the topic of Part II.
One objection to the moral drawn from Part I might be that
even if natural language has the structure of quantifieation over
worlds, that is, even if you can describe its semanties in this
way, it does not quantify directly, but uses operators instead, and
so does not really quantify. In order to reply to this argument
m
Part shews how to express ordinary quantification over
individuals by operators and indiees. Further, it is shewn that from
the point of view of natural-language syntax this is at least as viable
as a variable-binding treatment, and may in fact give a more
realistic picture. So an operator treatment eannot carry any
suggestion that the quantification is not genuine.
I recognize that many of the technieal results are difficult to
follow. I have tried to make them as simple as I ean but I am only
too eonscious of the burden still imposed on a reader. David Lewis
suggested that the results in Part I might be more approachable to
readers who are familiar with Quine 1960a and 1971. Parts II and
m
both depend on Part I, but very little on eaeh other. Comments
on the preliminary draft indieate that philosophers will want to
m.
proceed directly to Part II and linguists to Part Linearity
eonstraints have prevented my satisfying both groups, so all I can
suggest is that Part m can easily be read straight after Part I.
While most of the material in Part II depends on Chapter 7, much
PREFACE Xl
of the material in the other chapters in that Part can be omitted
without loss of continuity. This applies especially to Chapters 8-10.
This book was begun during a month' s residence at the
Rockefeller Foundation' s Study and Conferenee Center at Bellagio
on Lake Como in September 1988. I would like to thank the
Foundation, and especially Gianna and Roberto Celli and the staff
of the Villa Serbelloni, for providing an ideal environment in which
to get back to real work after several years of departmental
administration. An award by the New Zealand University Grants
Committee of a Claude McCarthy Fellowship assisted my travel and
enabled me to take advantage of the kindness of Hugh Mellor and
others at Cambridge in making October 1988 so pleasant and
profitable.
In 1989 I was privileged to take up the [ust of a continuing
series of fall semester appointments at the University of
Massachusetts at Amherst. Among the many colleagues who made
me feel welcome were Angelika Kratzer, Ed Gettier and Ede
Zirnmermann. Conversations with these and others have helped to
improve many parts of the book. I am grateful also for detailed
comments from David Lewis and for helpful discussions wth Bill
Lycan and Graeme Forbes.
Shelley Carlyle, Helen Fleming and Lynette Ramonda with
assistance from Jim Baltaxe of the University' s Computing Serviees
Centre, have done heroie work in producing camera-ready copy on
the basis of a manuscript containing horizontal, diagonal and
vertical lines of handwritten material. Helen Fleming retires from
our philosophy department this year after an association with us
going back at least 23 years. All academics will understand why
she deserves a book dedicated to her.
Wellington, New Zealand
May 1990
PART I
MULTIPLE INDEXING
