Grammar constrains acts of predication

Båve has argued that act-type theories of propositions entail unwanted ambiguity of sentences such as 'Donald loves Joan'. King has argued that act-type theories of propositions entail an unwanted abundance of propositions. I reply that a version of the act-type theory can avoid these obje...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Inquiry (Oslo) 2021-10, Vol.ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print), p.1-21
Main Author: Hodgson, Thomas
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
act types
ambiguity
grammar
meaning
propositions
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Summary:Båve has argued that act-type theories of propositions entail unwanted ambiguity of sentences such as 'Donald loves Joan'. King has argued that act-type theories of propositions entail an unwanted abundance of propositions. I reply that a version of the act-type theory can avoid these objections. The key idea is that grammar constrains the acts that can be performed by the utterance of a sentence. I present enough of the details of this version of the act-type theory to show how it can be used to respond to Båve's and King's objections. I conclude that this is a promising way to develop the act-type theory of propositions.
ISSN:0020-174X
1502-3923
DOI:10.1080/0020174X.2021.1990793