5.4 Apparent counter examples: Indefinite ‘dieser’ showing scopal
5.4.2 Analysis of critical examples
Let us start with Ionin’s (2006) and Prince’s (1981) examples in (246) and (247), repeated as (253) and (254) below:
(253) Sarah said she found this unicorn in her garden. Unicorns don’t exist so she’s either lying or crazy.
‘Sarah hat gesagt, dass sie dieses Einhorn in ihrem Garten gefunden hat.
Es gibt aber gar keine Einhörner, daher lügt sie entweder, oder sie ist verrückt.’
(254) John dreamt that he was in this Eskimo restaurant. But Eskimo restaurants do not exist.
‘John hat geträumt, dass er in diesem Eskimorestaurant war. Es gibt aber keine Eskimorestaurants.’
Embedded under propositional attitude verbs or in dream reports indefinite dieser appears to rather reflect the state of mind of the referent of the subject of the matrix clause (Sarah, John), rather than that of the speaker. Remember that, according to Fodor and Sag (1982) the use of indefinite dieser is dependent on the state of mind of the actual speaker. In (253) and (254) the speaker, however, does not refer to a particular unicorn or Eskimo restaurant which exists in the actual world of utterance. In contrast, the speakers of (253) and (254) even spell out that they do not believe that the respective objects exist. In (253) and (254) the belief that the unicorn or the Eskimo restaurant exists is only on the part of the speaker of the matrix clause — the actual speaker’s belief’s are not reflected at all. This behavior is clearly unexpected in the account proposed above and longs for an explanation. According to Ionin (2006: 189), in (253) “the belief that unicorns exist, and the intent to refer to a particular unicorn is all on the part of Sarah”.
This becomes obvious if we consider (255), which does not contain any embedding: the speaker commits himself to a particular unicorn by stating that Sarah found it in her garden. Therefore, it leads to incoherence if the speaker negates his / her previous statement:
43 See footnote 42.
(255) Sarah found this unicorn in her garden. # But unicorns don’t exist.
‘Sarah hat dieses Einhorn in ihrem Garten gefunden. # Es gibt aber gar keine Einhörner.’
(Ionin 2006: 189)
Similarly, in the example with the Eskimo restaurant in (254) the use of indefinite this does not mirror the state of mind of the actual speaker either, but that of somebody else: the actual speaker clearly does not intend to talk about any Eskimo restaurant that exists in the world of utterance, it does not even entail that the speaker believes that Eskimo restaurants do exist. If we consider (256) (even without the dream report) below, according to Ionin (2006: 189), the belief in the existence of a particular Eskimo restaurant is, similarly, on the part of John rather than the speaker:
(256) Poor old delusional John wanted to eat in this Eskimo restaurant. But Eskimo restaurants do not exist.
‘Der arme, alte, verwirrte John wollte in diesem Eskimorestaurant essen.
Es gibt aber keine Eskimorestaurants.’
Ionin (2006: 189) observes that “while (256) does not have embedding under a propositional attitude verb, it may be understood as implicit embedding:
the meaning expressed by (256) is, roughly Poor old delusional John said that he wanted to eat in this Eskimo restaurant.” These examples are apparent counter examples to the proposal made in this chapter. If indefinite dieser is an indexical expression, as proposed in this work, it should always refer to individuals in the actual world and it should never be affected by embedding. Nevertheless, we find dieser in these critical examples and so we have to account for its occurrence in these examples.
What stands out, considering the first two apparent counter examples from the list above is the type of the respective “referents” of indefinite dieser: a unicorn and an Eskimo restaurant. The apparent non-indexical use of indefinite dieser in (253) and (254) only appears to work with fictional objects, which somebody believes to exist but whose existence can be denied by the speaker. An explanation for these types of examples which allow indefinite dieser to scope under attitude verbs — with fictional objects — is found in Ionin (2006: fn. 8) who refers to Heim (p.c.), claiming that it is possible to use indefinite this as a referential indefinite with fictional objects. Ionin suggests that in the Eskimo restaurant example “the matrix speaker is directly referring to the fictional restaurant of John’s dream” (2006: 190), with the following, demonstrative-like, truth conditions:
(257) “John dreamt that he was in this Eskimo restaurant” expresses a proposition only in those utterance contexts c where the following felicity condition is fulfilled: the speaker intends to refer to exactly one individual xc in c, […] and xc is a (fictional) Eskimo restaurant in c. When this condition holds, “John dreamt he was in this Eskimo restaurant” is trues iff John in wc at tc dreamt that he was in xc,
(Ionin 2006: 190)
In an analogue fashion, in the unicorn example “the matrix speaker is directly referring to the fictional unicorn of Sarah’s imagination.”
Ionin (2006) further explains, that this fictional-object-proposal can be transferred to other cases, as well. Therefore, I use it in order to explain the fairytale-prince and the virtuoso example in (248) and (251) as well: these types of reports can be explained if the subject of the matrix clause has established a fictional object, i.e. a fictional fairy tale prince or a virtuoso (which the matrix speaker imagines to exist) which the actual speaker does not believe to exist.
For the sake of completeness, I will mention another theory which could also be used in order to explain the above examples containing embedding under propositional attitude verbs (following Ionin 2006: 189, fn 8). As Ionin (2006) points out, “one possible solution to the above facts is to treat this-indefinites in the framework of Schlenker (2003a, 2003b)”, as Schlenker generally allows shifts in reference for all indexicals via his so called double index account. Schlenker proposes that propositional attitude verbs such as say or think, due to a general principle, do manipulate the context variable, as shown in (258). In his proposal, the sentence Sarah said that she found this unicorn in her garden. Unicorns don’t exist, so she is either lying or crazy! has the truth-conditions in (259) below. This proposal can also account for the sentence Poor old delusional John wanted to eat in this Eskimo restaurant. (if we assume implicit embedding), but it cannot be used, at least without modifications, in order to explain the dream-report-case, as dream-reports are to be distinguished from propositional-attitude-reports.
(258) John saysci that p is trues iff every context c compatible with John’s claim is such that p is trues[ci->c] when uttered in c.
(Schlenker 2003a: ex. 28)
(259) Sarah saidci that she found this unicorn in her garden expresses a proposition when the following condition is met: in every context c compatible with Sarah’s claim, the speaker of c (namely, Sarah) intends to refer to exactly one individual xc in c and xc is a unicorn in c. When this condition holds, Sarah saidci that she found this unicorn in her garden is trues iff every context c compatible with Sarah’s claim is such that Sarah in wc at tc found xc in her garden.
(modeled after Ionin 2006: 189, fn 8)
The fact that Schlenker’s analysis cannot account for the dream-case makes me prefer Ionin’s view on these examples with fictional objects. Nevertheless, a formal analysis of those examples is lacking in Ionin (2006) and I leave that question open for further research.
Let me move on with the examples (250) and (251), repeated below as (260) and (261). Here we are not dealing with fictional objects and embedding under propositional attitude verbs, but have quite a classic case which creates the appearance that indefinite dieser scopes under the existential quantifier jeder.
Both examples give rise to a reading in which there is more than one specific colleague / trader. That is, the examples below create the appearance that dieser allows for a reading of co-variance, which is not expected in the above account of referentiality for indefinite dieser:
(260) Im Leben jeder Frau gibt es diesen attraktiven Kollegen, mit dem sie ab und zu mal Essen geht.
‘In every woman’s life there’s that attractive colleague with who she’s going out to dinner every now and then.’
(261) Jeder kennt diesen Händler, der einem seine Ware völlig überteuert anbietet.
‘Everybody knows that trader who offers totally overpriced products.’
These two examples, however, are not a threat for the theory developed above either, for two reasons: firstly, they actually (i) do not contain dieser in its indefinite use but dieser in its recognitional use. This is so for two reasons again:
Firstly, dieser, as we can see in (262) and (263) is replaceable by the definite article:
(262) Im Leben jeder Frau gibt es diesen / den attraktiven Kollegen, mit dem sie ab und zu mal Essen geht.
‘In every woman’s life there’s that / the attractive colleague with who she’s going out to dinner every now and then.’
(263) Jeder kennt diesen /den Händler, der einem seine Ware völlig überteuert anbietet.
‘Everybody knows that / the trader who offers totally overpriced products.’
A second indicator that dieser is used in the recognitional use in these examples is the fact that the translation to English only works with the distal demonstrative that. Note that, if we insert the proximate demonstrative this in the English example we only receive the classic indefinite this-reading, giving rise to one possible (and very odd) interpretation only, namely that there is exactly one colleague or trader who the actual speaker intends to refer to in the actual world:
(264) In every woman’s life there’s this attractive colleague with who she’s going out with to dinner every now and then.
Only possible reading: one particular colleague for all women (265) ‘Everybody knows this trader, who sells totally overpriced products.’
Only possible reading: one particular trader for everybody.
The (ii) second reason why these examples do not pose a threat to a theory of direct reference for demonstratives (such as indefinite, and also, importantly, recognitional dieser) is the observation that, in fact, no co-variation reading is present. In contrast, direct reference is made to a type-referent, as the respective examples contain type-token shifts. In the examples the hearer is clearly expected to be familiar with this type-referent, as the second sentence in (265) even contains the phrase everybody knows. These examples of dieser in the recognitional use exhibit a type-token shift (Hole and Klumpp 2000) and can still be claimed to exhibit direct reference to a given type. They exhibit reference to a certain type of colleague or a certain type of trader (the attractive type of colleague who is present in every office and the greedy type of trader who we all know, for example) — and thus reference can still be claimed to be rigid.
Hole and Klumpp (2000) state that the semantic distinction in the domain of argument expressions between the reference to types or tokens is very important.
They note that the lexicon of German and other languages provides a number of expressions to make clear that what is referred to by an argument expression is not a certain individual mass or item, but rather a type:
(266) Diese Art / Diese Sorte / Dieser Typ Rotwein / Pullover ist besonders teuer.
‘This kind / This sort / This type of red wine / jumper is particularly expensive.’
Dieser, in the critical examples in (260) and (261) can be very naturally combined with those type-expressions. This proves that type-reference is actually present in those examples:
(267) Im Leben jeder Frau gibt es diesen Typ von attraktivem Kollegen, mit dem sie ab und zu mal Essen geht.
‘In every woman’s life there’s that type of attractive colleague with who she’s going out to dinner every now and then.’
(268) Jeder kennt diesen Typ Händler, der einem seine Ware völlig überteuert anbietet.
‘Everybody knows that type of trader who offers totally overpriced products.’
Thus, dieser is used recognitionally in those critical examples and exhibits reference to a familiar type and not to different, co-varying individuals.
Remember that I showed in Chapter 4 already that dieser, quite naturally, may allow for type references and that they do not pose a problem to a direct reference theory of demonstratives. Even deictic dieser may exhibit type-token shifts (269), still directly referring to one particular type of jacket (represented by one token of that type), i.e. the type of which a representative token is pointed out by the actual speaker in the actual utterance situation:
(269) Jedes Kind in meiner Klasse hat DIESE Jacke [pointing gesture to a jacket in a shop window].’
‘Every kid in my class has THIS jacket [pointing gesture to a jacket in a shop window].’
Finally, consider the critical example (252), repeated as (270) below: it looks like a classic functional-scope reading in that dieser scopes under the quantifier jeder Mann and that the related co-variation of reference with respect to dates and men is defined via a function (marriage):
(270) Jeder Mann vergisst dieses Datum: den Geburtstag seiner Frau.
‘Every man forgets this date: his wife’s birthday.’
This example, however, does not pose a threat to the theory developed for indefinite dieser either. It does not represent dieser in its indefinite use: it is not unstressed. Dieser, in (270), is used in its cataphoric use. The cataphoric use is a sub-use of the anaphoric use (cf. Chapter 4). Demonstrative reference may work cataphorically, in that the demonstrative NPs are mentioned first and the
“antecedent” is delivered later, in the upcoming discourse:
(271) Listen to this1: {Eva is coming to the U.S.A.!}1
Von Heusinger’s (2012: 27, fn. 11)) defines the cataphoric use in that it is only well-formed if missing information is delivered in the very same or the next sentence. The example in (271) would be incomplete if Eva is coming to the U.S.A. wasn’t delivered after using cataphoric this. In the case of cataphora, the demonstrative is generally stressed, as dies in (272) and diese in (273):
(272) Von ihr erfuhr Lisa DIES: Ihr Vater lebte in Osnabrück.
‘From her Lisa learned THIS: her father lived in Osnabrück.’
(273) DIESE Personen werden nicht kommen: Müller, Meier, Zimmermann.
‘THESE persons won’t come: Müller, Meier, Zimmermann.’
(Zifonun et al. 1997: 314, cited by von Heusinger 2012: 27)
One main indicator for the cataphoric use is stress. (272) and (273) only work when dieser is stressed, whereas with indefinite dieser (always unstressed) the functional reading cannot be received. More on the cataphoric use in von Heusinger (2012).
To summarize, the examples in (246) to (252) which at first glance looked like examples in which indefinite dieser allows for co-variation readings do not pose a thread to the present account as they could either still be analyzed as referential expressions via Ionin’s (2006) fictional-object analysis, or they did not even represent examples of the indefinite use of dieser, referring either recognitionally to a known type of referent, or were examples of the cataphoric use of dieser.