Interpreting referential noun phrases in belief reports – the de re/de dicto competition

Yuhan Zhang, Kathryn Davidson
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Abstract

The de re/de dicto ambiguity centers on the referential and/or attributive properties of noun phrases within the scope of intentional operators, such as belief reports. For instance, in the belief report "Julie believes Elizabeth’s poem will win the competition," a de re reading of the embedded referential noun phrase "Elizabeth’s poem" entails that the referential association between this noun phrase and the target poem is true from the speaker's perspective but may not be recognized as such in the belief holder’s (i.e., Julie’s) mind. In contrast, a de dicto reading describes Julie’s beliefs as she understands the referential association in her mind. While both de re and de dicto readings of definite noun phrases are considered acceptable, given different supporting contexts, we show that the acceptability of de re readings is vulnerable to contextual and pragmatic manipulations. One such case involves a context in which the belief holder, Julie, holds a mistaken belief about the identity of the poem, such as thinking that it was written by Nicole when, in reality, it was written by Elizabeth. This mistaken identity context introduces a de dicto reading of a competing noun phrase, "Nicole’s poem," in "Julie believes Nicole’s poem will win the competition." In this context, the speaker-oriented de re reading of "Elizabeth’s poem" has a roughly bimodal acceptability distribution, while the de dicto noun phrase was overall preferred. Our study is the first to systematically lay out the empirical landscape of de re/de dicto readings of definite noun phrases and highlights the vulnerability of the de re reading. This investigation solidifies the foundation for further theory development and endorses the practice of collecting reliable empirical judgment data for nuanced semantic phenomena.
解读信仰报告中的指称名词短语--de re/de dicto 竞赛
de re/de dicto 的歧义集中在意向运算符(如信念报告)范围内的名词短语的指称和/或属性上。例如,在 "朱莉相信伊丽莎白的诗会在比赛中获胜 "的信念报告中,对嵌入的指代名词短语 "伊丽莎白的诗 "的 "去重 "解读意味着,从说话者的角度来看,该名词短语与目标诗之间的指代关联是真实的,但在信念持有者(即朱莉)的头脑中可能并不如此。与此相反,"de dicto "阅读描述的是朱莉在脑海中对指代联想的理解。虽然在不同的支持语境下,定语从句的 "de re "和 "de dicto "读法都被认为是可以接受的,但我们发现,"de re "读法的可接受性很容易受到语境和语用操作的影响。其中一种情况是,信念持有者朱莉对诗歌的身份持有错误的信念,比如认为诗歌是妮可写的,而实际上是伊丽莎白写的。在 "朱莉相信妮可的诗会在比赛中获胜 "中,这种误认语境引入了一个竞争性名词短语 "妮可的诗 "的听读。在这一语境中,"伊丽莎白的诗 "的说话者导向的重读具有大致的双峰可接受性分布,而名词短语的听写则总体上更受欢迎。我们的研究首次系统地阐述了定语名词短语的 "去重"/"去指 "读法的实证情况,并强调了 "去重 "读法的脆弱性。这项研究为进一步的理论发展奠定了坚实的基础,并认可了针对细微语义现象收集可靠的实证判断数据的做法。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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