Possible Worlds, Syntax, and Opacity

It is argued that a solution to the problem of opacity in the possible words account is provided by the syntax of dependent that-clauses, using an analysis in the framework of government-binding theory. Although possible worlds semantics appears to require identical truth values for sentence pairs o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Analysis (Oxford) 1993-10, Vol.53 (4), p.270-280
Main Author: Pietroski, Paul M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ascriptions
Competition Supplement
Grammatical clauses
Linguistics
Metalinguistics
Modal realism
Opacity
Semantics
Syntax
Truth
Truth value
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Summary:It is argued that a solution to the problem of opacity in the possible words account is provided by the syntax of dependent that-clauses, using an analysis in the framework of government-binding theory. Although possible worlds semantics appears to require identical truth values for sentence pairs of the type John believes that Twain wrote novels/John believes that Clemens wrote novels, a semantic difference is posited between a proposition P & the CP node containing that P. It is shown that semantic value of the complementizer that in a given context is deictically determined, having the form that there is a world in which a IP node contextually similar to the sister IP of the complementizer is true. A belief sentence is therefore true if the subject referent believes the intersection of the latter set of worlds & that in which the proposition holds. 19 References. J. Hitchcock
ISSN:0003-2638
1467-8284
DOI:10.1093/analys/53.4.270