A (contingent) content–parthood analysis of indirect speech reports. (15th September 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Davies, Alex
• Is Part Of: Mind & language. Volume 36:Number 4(2021)
• Page Start: 533
• Page End: 553
• Publication Date: 2021-09-15
• Subjects: communication -- content parthood -- context -- indirect speech -- speech act pluralism -- truthmakers; Psycholinguistics -- Periodicals; Thought and thinking -- Periodicals; Language and languages -- Philosophy -- Periodicals; 153.42
• DOI: 10.1111/mila.12357
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0268-1064

Abstract

Abstract : This article presents a semantic analysis of indirect speech reports. The analysis aims to explain a combination of two phenomena. First, there are true utterances of sentences of the form α said that φ which are used to report an utterance u of a sentence wherein φ 's content is not u 's content. This implies that in uttering a single sentence, one can say several things. Second, when the complements of these reports (and indeed, these reports themselves) are placed in conjunctions, the conjunctions are typically infelicitous. I argue that this combination of phenomena can be explained if speech reports report (perhaps contingent) parts of the contents of the sentences reported.