As discussed in Sections1.2–1.4, the impersonal reading of personal pronouns is used to express generalizations, norms, and rules that hold for animate individuals. These rules can be further restricted with the use of adverbials andals-phrases that provide addi-tional descriptive content. These observations conflict with a direct reference analysis of the semantic contribution of first and second person singular pronouns, as discussed in Section1.5. The central puzzle is how to get from expressions that contribute a spe-cific person, i.e. the speaker or the addressee, to truth-conditions that express a general statement about individuals with a certain property, which the speaker or addressee may or may not have.
Before a general revision of the meaning of first and second person singular pronouns is attempted, or, less radically, before some form of lexical ambiguity is assumed for first and second person singular pronouns, one might try to model the impersonal uses more conservatively. One possibility is to assume that the meaning of sentences containing impersonal uses arises from an interplay of the meanings of co-occurring material while the directly referential meaning is retained for the pronouns. This idea is the basis for the Counterfactual Hypothesis.
(147) Counterfactual Hypothesis:
Sentences with impersonally interpreted singular personal pronouns are inter-preted as counterfactuals. That is, the sentences hypothesize what would hold for the speaker/the addressee if he or she had the given relevant property.
The Counterfactual Hypothesis is inspired by the behavior of personal pronouns in identity counterfactuals, as in example (148).
(148) Wenn
‘If I were you, I would look for someone else.’
In identity counterfactuals, the subject of the copula clause in the antecedent is assumed to be (in the situation experienced by) another person. The consequent clause then ascribes a property to the subject under this assumption. If the subject of the identity counterfactual is a first person singular pronoun, the effect arises that the speaker “puts herself in the shoes” of another person. In example(148), for instance, the speaker puts herself in the shoes of the addressee, and states what she would do in the addressee’s stead.86
In analogy to these identity counterfactuals, one might assume that when sentences contain “impersonally used” ich or du, the speaker counterfactually assumes herself to be a member of the group of individuals for which the generalization is stated.
For example, the sentences in (149-a) and (150-a) might express the counterfactual statements in (149-b)and (150-b), respectively.
(149) a. Wenn
b. If you (add.) were a team and wanted to win, you would have to fight.
At least two reasons can be given for why the Counterfactual Hypothesis needs to be discarded: First, the counterfactual paraphrases cannot be derived without either violating compositionality, or discarding the Kaplanian semantics for the pronouns, which would go against the initial motivation for the hypothesis. Second, the counter-factual paraphrases do not capture the intuitive meaning of the data, and make false predictions with respect to what can be expressed with sentences of this kind.87
The compositionality problem arises because there is no lexical material which, on the one hand, obligatorily co-occurs with the impersonal readings of ich and du, and, on the other hand, could be assumed to contribute the necessary meaning components for a counterfactual interpretation.
86Malamud(2006) uses identity counterfactuals as inspiration for her account of the impersonal use of English you. Her account is discussed in Chapter2.
87Alonso-Ovalle (2000) argues against a similar analysis for impersonal second person singular in Spanish. He states that looking at the most normal worlds in which the counterparts of the addressee have the relevant properties is too weak to capture the generalization that is expressed with sentences containing an impersonally used second person singular pronoun.
The morphological marking found with the verbs in the collected data does not support the Counterfactual Hypothesis since the verbal mood is consistently indica-tive. Hence as far as morphological marking is concerned, attributing a counterfactual semantics, which is exclusively connected to irrealis mood, to the data seems unmoti-vated.
But even though this is not attested for actual counterfactual conditionals, let us assume for the sake of the argument that the indicative mood in connection with other lexical material may be interpreted just like an irrealis mood. Then another, although relatively minor problem arises: impersonal readings occur in a range of different sentences, not all of which have an overt conditional structure, or even contain an overt modal expression. Consider examples(151) and (152).
(151) Ich I
muss must
als as
Mannschaft team
auf meinen my
Trainer coach
h¨oren.
obey
‘A team has to obey its coach.’
(152) Ich I
zahle pay
doch prt
als as
Konzern
corporate-group nicht not
einfach simply
f¨ur for
nichts.
nothing
‘A corporate group doesn’t just pay without expecting anything in return.’88 For examples with no overt conditonal structure as (151) and (152), the conditional structure of the desired counterfactual interpretation has to be derivable in some way.
Since example (151) contains an overt modal, i.e. a quantificational operator, a so-lution regarding the missing conditional structure might be found in the literature on quantificational structures (cf. Partee 1992). A well-known observation is that some-times, material is interpreted in the restrictor of a for which the surface order suggests that it is in the scope of a quantificational expression even though the surface order suggests that it is in the scope of that expression. The semantics of modal operators proposed inKratzer(1977,1981a,1991) would then relate the restrictor and the scope of the modal in a conditional-like fashion.
For the appropriate identity counterfactuals to be derived, at least the als-phrase needs to be interpreted in the restrictor of the modal. And indeed, one characteristic property of German als-phrases is that they can be interpreted in the restrictor of a sentential operator.89 To arrive at the relevant counterfactual for example (151), the als-phrase,als Mannschaft (Engl. ‘as a team’), even seems to be the only material that is needed in the restrictor, see (153).
(153) If I were a team, I would have to obey my coach.
Even though the als-phrase seems to be the missing link for the Counterfactual
Hy-88Shortened fromhttp://www.spongeblog.de/567/2006/07/07/zeiss-of-jena/
89Cf. the discussion of German nominalals-phrases in AppendixA1.
pothesis to work, there are three reasons for why the als-phrases do not provide the solution: (i)als-phrases only restrict quantificational operators that co-occur with them in a clause, (ii) they never directly modify the lexical meaning of the operators that they restrict, and (iii) they are optional (cf. Section 1.3).
An example illustrating the first point is (152), which contains no overt quantifi-cational operator. Since als-phrases are not indicators for the presence of a covert quantificational operator if no overt operator is present—in contrast to if-clauses (cf.
Kratzer 1986)—it is unclear which operator the als-phrase would restrict to derive the desired counterfactual interpretation in (154).
(154) If I were a corporate group, I wouldn’t just pay without expecting anything in return.
The second counter-argument is illustrated by the following example.
Context: Maria occasionally takes on various part-time jobs on week-ends to earn some extra money (but only always a single one). Her two friends, A and B, discuss her work hours.
(155) A: Maria Maria
muss must
als as
Kellnerin waitress
acht eight
Stunden hours
ohne without
Pause break
arbeiten.
work
A: ‘When Maria takes on a job as a waitress, she has to work eight hours with no break.’
The als-phrase, als Kellnerin (Engl. ‘as a waitress’), can restrict the modal muss to those week-ends where Maria is a waitress.90 It can never induce an irrealis interpreta-tion of muss, though. If it were known that Maria never did any waitressing in her life, the sentence above simply could not be used in this context. Example (155) simply cannot express the following counterfactual statement.
(156) If Maria were a waitress, she would have to work eight hours with no break.
Other optional material that supports the impersonal reading of ich and du, and that may be interpreted as restricting the domain of a modal operator behaves just like als-phrases do. Example (157) illustrates the behavior of spatial adverbials.
(157) Maria Maria
muss must
im in-the
Schulgeb¨aude school-building
ihre her
Straßenschuhe outdoor-shoes
ausziehen.
take-off
‘When Maria is inside the school building, she has to take off her outdoor shoes.’
The rule expressed in (157) implies the counterfactual statement in (158).
90Example(155)can also be interpreted with theals-phrase outside the restrictor or scope ofm¨ussen (Engl. ‘must’). In this case, it should be translated as ‘Since she is a waitress, Maria has to work eight hours with no break’.
(158) If Mary were inside the school building, she would have to take off her shoes.
The examples in (158) and (157), however, do not express the same statement. For instance, if Maria ceased to be a student, and her mother reminisces about the school rules, then Maria’s mother could not use (157) to express the counterfactual in (158).
So neitherals-phrases nor adverbials can induce the counterfactual interpretation by restricting a modal in the indicative. The optionally co-occurring discourse particles (e.g.ja, doch,wohl, . . . ) are even more implausible candidates to modify verbal mood.
It is a well-known fact that the central function of discourse particles is of a pragmatic nature, and usually involves commenting on the semantic content of the utterance in the specific discourse context (cf. Zimmermann 2011a and Appendix A2). If it is assumed that a covert subjunctive modal provides the necessary ingredient for the counterfactual interpretation, another problem arises: one would have to explain why the impersonal readings only occur with the covert subjunctive operator, but overt irrealis marking on the verb blocks the impersonal interpretation (cf. Section1.3).
In sum, no overt lexical material present in the data can contribute the meaning components that are needed to make up the presumed meaning of the sentences under the Counterfactual Hypothesis.
The second, even stronger reason to discard the Counterfactual Hypothesis is simply that the counterfactual paraphrases do not capture the intuitive meaning expressed by the data. Specifically, it predicts certain restrictions on the use of sentences containing impersonally usedich and du which are not observed.
One central characteristic of identity counterfactuals is that certain parts and aspects of the subject are retained. In example (148), the point of view and the character of the speaker, picked out by the referential use ofich/I, still remain her point of view and character in the hypothetical situation of her being (in the situation experienced by) the addressee. That is, the sentence does not express that the speaker is completely identical to the addressee. If the latter were the case, it would be incoherent to state that the speaker would act differently in the first place. The observation that individ-uals retain their own point of view, character, and special characteristic properties is true for counterfactuals in general. Consider the following example.
Context: Speaker A is a linguist. He is also a great hobby athlete, and his special talent is long distance sprinting. In fact, he can catch anyone who attempts to run away from him. He could state(159) truthfully.
(159) A: Ich I
k¨onnte could.sub
als as
Polizist police-officer
bei at
Verfolgungsjagden chases
die the
Fl¨uchtigen fugitives fangen.
catch
A: ‘If I were a police officer, I would be able to catch the fugitives at chases.’
Similarily, a friend of A’s could truthfully utter (160).
B: ‘If you were a police officer, you would be able to catch the fugitives at chases.’
In case of impersonally used ich and du, the personality and personal characteristics of the speaker and the addressee are completely inaccessible, though. That is, even though A and his friend are aware of A’s special talent, the impersonal use of ich and du is blind to this information. Both examples in(161)express general statements about police officers of any kind, not only about those officers who share Peter’s special talent.
‘A police officer is able to catch the fugitives at chases.’
b. Du
‘A police officer is able to catch the fugitives at chases.’
If the impersonal readings were special cases of counterfactual statements, this differ-ence would not be expected to arise.91
Another prediction of the Counterfactual Hypothesis that turns out to be false is that the impersonal uses of ich and du should only be restricted to generalizations about sets of individuals that the speaker and the addressee do not belong to. Consider the pragmatic oddness of a female individual, say Susan, using the following counterfactual.
(162) Susan: #Wenn
Susan: #‘If I were a woman, I would have to achieve more than the men.’
It is, however, completely natural for a female individual to state the following gener-alization about women using impersonally interpreted ich.
91I thank Rajesh Bhatt (p.c.) for pointing this out to me.
(163) Susan: Ich I
muss must.ind
als as
Frau woman
mehr more
leisten achieve
als than
die the
M¨anner.
men Susan: ‘A woman has to achieve more than men.’
The Counterfactual Hypothesis would assign the counterfactual in (162) to (163).
Hence, the same pragmatic oddness is falsely predicted to arise. Analogously, the impersonal use of du should be pragmatically odd whenever the addressee is part of the group of relevant individuals, which is also not observed.
In sum, the discussion above to my mind convincingly shows that the Counterfactual Hypothesis is inadequate as an analysis for the impersonal readings of first and second person singular pronouns. It is not only unclear how the counterfactual semantics should be derived compositionally from the material given in the sentence, the proposed counterfactual meaning also does not capture the intuitive meaning expressed by the data, and makes false predictions concerning their use.
I will not further address elaborations of the Counterfactual Hypothesis that argue that the counterfactual meaning is contributed either by the personal pronoun itself or a context shift. As was stated above, the idea to let the personal pronoun intro-duce the counterfactual interpretation goes against the assumption that motivated the Counterfactual Hypothesis in the first place, i.e. that the directly referential semantics for first and second person singular pronouns is maintained. An analysis based on the assumption that the impersonal interpretation arises from context shifted indexicals—
without interpreting these sentences as counterfactual statements—has to be looked at separately. Such an analysis would introduce an additional assumption on context shift under modal expressions for languages like German and English, which do not show context shifts in the paradigmatic cases, i.e. under verbs of saying (cf.Schlenker 2003).
This line of investigation is briefly addressed in the Conclusion, but not considered in detail.
In the following chapter, I pursue a more promising account based on the observation of truth-conditional equivalence between the impersonal uses of ich and du and the impersonal pronounman, and on Nunberg’s (1993) deferred ostension cases.