14th Internationl Pragmatics Conference, Antwerp 29 July 2015

First-Person Pronouns in Quotation: A Case for Radical Contextualism?

Minyao HuangKasia M. Jaszczolt

1

Setting the scene

The Fixity Thesis:The referent of a first-person pronoun is fixed by the speaker of the current context, except for its occurrence in quotation (Kaplan 1989).1. Anna said that I was late.2. Anna said, ‘I was late.’

Character (linguistic meaning ) of ‘I’: the speaker

2

Fixity

• When a first-person pronoun is used, its referent is always indexed to the current context of utterance. In this sense, it is directly referential.

• No operator can shift the interpretation of a used ‘I’. Such an operator, called a ‘monster’, does not exist in natural languages.

3

Against Fixity: Summary of the Proposal

• Expressions in quotation are used.• Cross-linguistically, the quotative/non-quotative distinction is not clear-cut.

• The referent of a first-person pronoun in use can be shifted.

• Direct reference is not sufficiently versatile to capture the properties of first-person pronouns.

• A radical contextualist view on ‘I’ is called for.

4

Mentioning “I”

• Mention involves metalinguistic, autonymous reference.

• To mention means:• To refer to an expression type, e.g.

“I” is a first-person pronoun.• To refer to an expression token, e.g.

Anna said, “I love pragmatics.”

5

Mentioning “I”

• Referring to an indexical token implies referring to the original context in which it is tokened (Kaplan 1989: 510)

• Through being mentioned, the quoted material refers to what its unquoted counterpart refers to in the source context. In other words, the interpretation of the quoted material is deferred.

6

Mentioning “I”

Bush said that the enemy “misunderestimated me”. (Maier 2008)

Bush said that the enemy did what he referred to as “misunderestimated me”

7

Mentioning “I”

• In cases of mentioning, the interpretation of the first-person pronoun may be deferred, but not directly shifted.

• If quotation is a case of mentioning, i.e. it only involves meta-linguistic reference and (sometimes) deferred interpretation, it is not a ‘monster’.

• BUT: Quotation is not (just) a case of mentioning.

8

Uses of “I” in Quotation

1. The interpretation of first-person pronouns in quotation is not deferred, for it can be quantified over.

Every child grabbed a toy and called it “mine”.

9

Uses of “I” in Quotation

• Deferred interpretations cannot be quantified over.Paul says he's due to present his work in the “paper session”. (meaning the poster session)Smith says he's due to present his work in the “paper session”. (meaning the postgraduate session)

? Both say that they’re due to present their works in the “paper session”.

10

Uses of “I” in Quotation

Every child grabbed a toy and called it “mine”.

× Every child uttered the word “mine”, and called the toy he/she grabbed whatever the individual child intended to mean by his/her use of “mine”.

√ Every child called the toy he/she grabbed his/hers, and used the word “mine” to express his/her ownership of the toy.

11

Uses of “I” in Quotation

2. In some cases, the first-person pronouns in quotation are not mentioned, for they need not be uttered by anyone else before.

12

Uses of “I” in Quotation

As those feelings of exclusion persist, though, the behaviors may become even more detrimental to the organization -- lying on expense forms, drinking on the job. A sense of "my boss has mistreated me, coworkers have mistreated me, so I'm going to get them back," may prevail. These notions, obviously, can lead to serious negative impacts for organizations. (http://www.hreonline.com/HRE/view/story.jhtml?id=534357676)

13

Uses of “I” in Quotation

• The speaker employs the quoted material to simulate a type of self-oriented thought, and attribute it to other individuals (e.g. an excluded employee).

• In simulation, the interpretation of the quoted material is not deferred.

14

Uses of “I” in Quotation

3. The ordinary character of the quoted material contributes to the meaning of the quotation.

Studies by the University of Michigan show that when health care providers are allowed to say "I'm sorry," patients and their families are able to let go of their anger and move on sooner. In fact, the University of Michigan Health System estimates the average cost of lawsuits has been cut in half since it adopted an "I'm Sorry" policy nearly a decade ago. At the same time, patient satisfaction has increased. (http://www.michigan.gov/snyder/0,4668,7-277-61409_61412_61527-254556--,00.html)

15

Uses of “I” in Quotation

• According to Kaplan, quotation is not a ‘monster’ because the apparently shifted interpretation that occurs in its scope can be explained away by meta-linguistic reference plus deferred interpretation.

But:• First-person pronouns in quotation can be shifted in ways that do not conform to meta-linguistic reference or deferred interpretation.

16

Uses of “I” in Amharic ‘direct speech’

In Amharic ‘direct speech’, first-person forms routinely refer to the agent of an attitude, instead of the current speaker. (Leslau 1995, cf. Schlenker 2003)

bassǝr däqiqa wǝst ǝmätalläwh alä

In ten minutes I-will-come he-said‘He said (that) he would come in ten

minutes.’17

Uses of “I” in Amharic ‘direct speech’

So-called ‘direct speech’ cuts across the quotative/non-quotative distinction.

alaggǝzäňň aläčč

I-will-not-help-me she-said‘She refused to help me.’ (although she

didn’t say it)

18

Uses of “I” in Amharic ‘direct speech’

So-called ‘direct speech’ can be used to attribute intention even to inanimate objects.

ǝnčätu aldärq alä

the-wood I-will-not-dry it-said‘the wood wouldn’t dry’

19

“I” in Quotation

• In English and Amharic, the first-person pronouns can be recruited to attribute a self-oriented thought to others, which falls out of the scope of meta-linguistic discourse.

Pace Kaplan, quotation qualifies as a monster.

20

Conclusion so far:

‘Monstrous uses’ of I invade quotation in a variety of ways.

Categorially different ways quotation is a case of language use

21

Character-at –issue vs. content-at issue

‘Levi Foster, in fact, is the great-great-grandfather of Gov. Mike Foster of Louisiana, who said recently on a radio program that it would be “news to me” if anyone in his family had owned slaves.’ (Recanati 2008: 3)

Character is foregrounded in preference to the content (the addressee represents a specific attitude de se that is in focus).

22

Character-at –issue vs. content-at issue

‘character-at-issue’ use

23

Character-at-issue

‘I’ does not refer to anyone in particular; only tokens of it do.You have to add ‘I’ in lines 5 and 13 on page 7. Every child who catches a bird calls it ‘mine’.Stop that John! ‘Nobody likes me’. ‘I am miserable’. Don’t you think you exaggerate a bit? (Recanati 2000: 182)

‘Nobody likes me’, ‘I am so miserable’ .. I hate people who complain about their lives.‘I am sorry’ is called for in this situation.

24

character-at-issue/content-at-issue

Stop that John! “Nobody likes me”. “I am miserable”. Don’t you think you exaggerate a bit? ‘character-at-issue’

>> Dynamic incremental interpretation:(‘Don’t you think you exaggerate a bit?’) ‘content-at-issue’ (John’s self-pity)

25

‘Fluid characters’

Flexible inferential base for interpretation >> ‘fluid character’(Jaszczolt 2012)

‘Nobody likes me’, ‘I am miserable’ .. I hate people who complain about their lives.‘I am sorry’ is called for in this situation.

26

Is the term ‘monster operator’ justified?

Kaplan’s fixity thesis can arguably be reinterpreted as, and weakened to the status of, a guiding principle for language use rather than being adopted as a semantic principle.

27

Quotation “has a certain anomalous feature”

Quotation targets what is to be emphasised: content at-issue, character at-issue, or both. It is not a monster operator not because there are many types of alleged monsters, but because it is a perfectly natural case of pragmatic meaning.

28

Radical Contextualism

29

In order to capture the fact that the first person pronoun can be used to refer to (a) the character; (b) the character with additional conceptual information; (c) the content (not necessarily the speaker); or (d) to participate in a ‘fluid character’ formed with respect to the inferential bases of different length, we need a contextualist perspective pushed to its logical limits. What we need is a theory in which the composition of meaning allows for maximal possible (and maximal empirically demonstrable) pragmatic contributions to the truth-conditional content. 30

However, current contextualist accounts of quotation do not go far enough in that they do not take the idea of pragmatic intrusion into the truth-conditional content to its logical conclusion.

Recanati (2000, 2001): mixed quotation is a type of ‘pragmatic intrusion’ into the truth-conditional content

31

Instead:

The truth-conditional representation is not restricted to enrichment of the logical form of the sentence but instead is guided by the primary meaning of the produced speech act.

32

K.M. Jaszczolt. 2005. Default Semantics: Foundations of a Compositional Theory of Acts of Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press.K. M. Jaszczolt, 2010. ‘Default Semantics’. In: B. Heine and H. Narrog (eds). The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 215-246.K. M. Jaszczolt, in print, Meaning in Linguistic Interaction: Semantics, Metasemantics, Philosophy of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

33

Merger Representation

Primary meanings are modelled as merger representations.

The outputs of sources of information about meaning merge and all the outputs are treated on an equal footing.

Merger representations have the status of mental representations.

They have a compositional structure.

34

Sources of information for

(i) world knowledge (WK)(ii) word meaning and sentence structure (WS)(iii)situation of discourse (SD)(iv) properties of the human inferential system

(IS)(v) stereotypes and presumptions about society

and culture (SC)

35

Processes involved in deriving

(i) Combination of word meaning and sentence structure (WS)(ii) Social, cultural and world-knowledge defaults (SCWD)(iii) Cognitive defaults (CD)(iv) Conscious pragmatic inference (CPI)

36

Mapping between sources and processes

WK SCWD or CPISC SCWD or CPIWS WS (logical form)SD CPIIS CD

DS makes use of the processing model and it indexes the components of with a subscript standing for the type of processing.

37

Fig. 3: Partial merger representation (Σ) for ‘Stop that John! “Nobody likes me”. “I am miserable”. Don’t you think you exaggerate a bit?’

38

• [IM Q DM (exaggerate (x))]WS

• Q = y/n• IM = [don’t you think]WS,SCWD

• DM = [a bit]WS

39

Conclusions

The range of meanings of first-person pronouns in quotation is not limited to context-shifting or quantification-over-contexts but also includes ‘character-at-issue’, ‘content-at-issue’, and a dynamic fusion of the two.

Quotation ought not to be excluded from potential monster operators. I does not warrant the fixity thesis and monster operators in the first place.

Our radical contextualist solution in Default Semantics has the advantage of accounting for all of the various uses of I.

40

Expressing the Self: Cultural Diversity and Cognitive Universals, The Leverhulme Trust Project, University of Cambridgehttp://www.mml.cam.ac.uk/dtal/expressing-the-self/Special thanks to Yoseph Mengistu for the Amharic data.

41

https://cambridge.academia.edu/KasiaJaszczolt

42

References

Jaszczolt, K. M. 2005. Default Semantics: Foundations of a Compositional Theory of

Acts of Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Jaszczolt, K. M. 2010. ‘Default Semantics’. In: B. Heine and H. Narrog (eds). The

Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 215-246.Jaszczolt, K. M. 2012. ‘ “Pragmaticising” Kaplan: Flexible inferential bases and fluid

characters’. Australian Journal of Linguistics 32. 209-237.Jaszczolt, K. M. 2013a. ‘First-person reference in discourse: Aims and strategies’. Journal of

Pragmatics 48. 57-70.

Jaszczolt, K. M. 2013b. ‘Contextualism and minimalism on de se belief ascription’. In:

N. Feit and A. Capone (eds). Attitudes De Se: Linguistics, Epistemology, Metaphysics. Stanford: CSLI Publications. 69-103. 43

Jaszczolt, K. M. in print. Meaning in Linguistic Interaction: Semantics, Metasemantics,

Philosophy of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Kaplan, D. 1989. ‘Demonstratives: An essay on the semantics, logic, metaphysics,

and epistemology of demonstratives and other indexicals’. In J. Almog, J. Perry, and H. Wettstein (eds). Themes from Kaplan. New York: Oxford University Press. 481-563.Leslau, W. 1995. Reference Grammar of Amharic. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.Recanati, F. 2000. Oratio Obliqua, Oratio Recta: An Essay on Metarepresentation.

Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Recanati, F. 2001. ‘Open quotation’. Mind 110. 637-687.Recanati, F. 2010. Truth-Conditional Pragmatics. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Schlenker, P. 2003. ‘A plea for monsters’. Linguistics and Philosophy 26. 29-120. 44