Truthful resolutions: a new perspective on false-answer sensitivity

Truthful resolutions: a new perspective on false-answer sensitivity. Theiler, N., Roelofsen, F., & Aloni, M. In Moroney, M., Little, C., Collard, J., & Burgdorf, D., editors, Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT 26), Ithaca, NY, 2016. LSA and CLC Publications.

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Responsive verbs like know embed both declarative and interrogative complements. Standard accounts of such verbs are reductive: they assume that whether an individual stands in a knowledge-wh relation to a question is determined by whether she stands in a knowledge-that relation to some answer to the question. George (2013) observed that knowledge-wh, however, not only depends on knowledge-that but also on false belief—a fact that reductive accounts can't capture. We develop an account that is not reductive but uniform: it assumes a single entry for interrogative-embedding and declarative-embedding uses of a responsive verb. The key insight that allows us to capture the false-belief dependency of knowledge-wh is that verbs like know are sensitive to both true and false answers to the embedded question. Formally, this is achieved through a novel, fine-grained way of representing the meaning of a clausal complement in terms of so-called truthful resolutions. The resulting analysis gives us a unifying perspective, under which false-answer sensitivity comes out as a general characteristic common to all levels of exhaustivity.

@inproceedings{Theiler:16salt,
	abstract = {Responsive verbs like know embed both declarative and interrogative complements. Standard accounts of such verbs are reductive: they assume that whether an individual stands in a knowledge-wh relation to a question is determined by whether she stands in a knowledge-that relation to some answer to the question. George (2013) observed that knowledge-wh, however, not only depends on knowledge-that but also on false belief---a fact that reductive accounts can't capture.

We develop an account that is not reductive but uniform: it assumes a single entry for interrogative-embedding and declarative-embedding uses of a responsive verb. The key insight that allows us to capture the false-belief dependency of knowledge-wh is that verbs like know are sensitive to both true and false answers to the embedded question. Formally, this is achieved through a novel, fine-grained way of representing the meaning of a clausal complement in terms of so-called truthful resolutions. The resulting analysis gives us a unifying perspective, under which false-answer sensitivity comes out as a general characteristic common to all levels of exhaustivity.},
	address = {Ithaca, NY},
	author = {Theiler, Nadine and Roelofsen, Floris and Aloni, Maria},
	booktitle = {Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT 26)},
	date-modified = {2021-08-17 00:00:00 +0000},
	doi = {10.3765/salt.v26i0.3791},
	editor = {Moroney, Mary and Little, Carol-Rose and Collard, Jacob and Burgdorf, Dan},
	issn = {2163-5951},
	keywords = {attitude predicates,inquisitive semantics,modality,questions,theoretical linguistics},
	mendeley-tags = {attitude predicates,inquisitive semantics,modality,questions,theoretical linguistics},
	publisher = {LSA and CLC Publications},
	title = {{Truthful resolutions: a new perspective on false-answer sensitivity}},
	url = {http://journals.linguisticsociety.org/proceedings/index.php/SALT/article/view/26.122},
	year = {2016},
	Bdsk-Url-1 = {http://journals.linguisticsociety.org/proceedings/index.php/SALT/article/download/26.122/3632},
	Bdsk-Url-2 = {https://doi.org/10.3765/salt.v26i0.3791}}

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