Explaining anaphoric accessibility: navigating non-veridical environments in dynamic semantics

• Area: Language and Logic (LaLo).
• Level: Advanced.
• Lecturers: Patrick Elliott and Lisa Hofmann.

Class description

Classical dynamic accounts of anaphora rely on logical operators arbitrarily manipulating anaphoric information. Alongside conceptual concerns of explanatory (in)adequacy, classical accounts are known to make poor empirical predictions for non-veridical environments (see, e.g., Roberts 1987, Krahmer and Muskens 1995). In this course, we motivate an alternative approach, which treats logical operators as fundamentally truth-functional. In the first half of the course, we explore an approach to anaphora based on the Strong Kleene account of presupposition projection. The initial goal will be to derive and improve upon Groenendijk & Stokhof's (1991) accessibility generalizations, with a particular focus on negation and disjunction. The latter half of the course zooms in on counterfactual content: The initial Strong Kleene account fails to capture key constraints on the (anti)veridicality of anaphorically active content. We revise the account by intensionalizing discourse referents, which are in turn interpreted relative to both a local and a global intensional context.

Schedule

Unit 1: Introduction to dynamic semantics

We introduce the basics of dynamic semantics, give a basic fragment for interpreting anaphora, and discuss its predictions about anaphoric accessibility: The classic dynamic system predicts that anaphora to antecedents in non-veridical contexts are impossible.

• Recommended readings:
  • Groenendijk & Stokhof (1991) "Dynamic Predicate Logic"
  • Gillies (2022) "On Groenendijk and Stokhof's 'Dynamic Predicate Logic'"

Unit 2: Negation and disjunction in dynamic semantics

We discuss counterexamples to the generalization that anaphora in non-veridical contexts are impossible, investigate why we do not get the right predictions, and come up with generalizations to motivate the solutions we suggest in the upcoming sessions.

• Recommended readings:
  • Gotham (2019) “Double Negation, Excluded Middle and Accessibility in Dynamic Semantics”.
  • Krahmer & Muskens (1995). “Negation and Disjunction in Discourse Representation Theory”.

Unit 3: Bilateral Dynamic Semantics

We introduce a bilateral dynamic semantic fragment that allows us to address how anaphora behave in some negated and disjunctive environments.

• Recommended readings:
  • Elliott (2020) “Towards a principled logic of anaphora”.
  • Elliott (2022) “Partee conjunctions: Projection and possibility”.

Unit 4: Counterfactual anaphora and intensional dynamic semantics

We introduce an intensional dynamic semantic fragment that allows us to address anaphora with counterfactual antecedents, now we should be able to capture out counterexamples to the classic dynamic generalization.

• Recommended readings:
  • Hofmann (2019) “The anaphoric potential of indefinites under negation and disjunction”. (Conference paper)
  • Hofmann (2022) “Anaphora & Negation”. (Dissertation)
  • Stone (1999). “Reference to Possible Worlds”.

Unit 5: Spill-over and discussion

We leave some time to extend our discussions of the previous units, and we have some time for your ideas, questions, and further discussion.