The semantics of temporal indexicals
The thesis investigates the formal semantics of temporal indexical expressions in English. Examples of such expressions include now, tomorrow and last year. In the past, research has concentrated on instances of such expressions which have two major properties. These indexicals are sensitive to extralinguistic context, and while they do possess descriptive meaning, that meaning does not appear within the propositions which correspond to utterances of the sentences which contain the indexicals. The thesis argues that this line of research has neglected a significant body of natural language evidence in which indexicals display rather different behaviour. We term indexicals from the first group unbound, and indexicals from the second group bound. Given these two domains of indexical evidence, the thesis sets out to achieve three primary aims. The first aim is to provide a formal semantic representation of both bound and unbound indexicals which systematically relates them, while distinguishing them from non-indexical expressions. To establish this aim, we informally investigate the relationship between the two types of indexical, and propose a unifying generalisation. This generalisation is then embedded within
Oberlander, Jon Reid
English language ; Semantics ; temporal indexical expressions ; bound indexicals ; unbound indexicals ; IQ
The semantics of temporal indexicals. The thesis investigates the formal semantics of temporal indexical expressions in English. Examples of such expressions include now, tomorrow and last year. In the past, research has concentrated on instances of such expressions which have two major properties. These indexicals are sensitive to extralinguistic context, and while they do possess descriptive meaning, that meaning does not appear within the propositions which correspond to utterances of the sentences which contain the indexicals. The thesis argues that this line of research has neglected a significant body of natural language evidence in which indexicals display rather different behaviour. We term indexicals from the first group unbound, and indexicals from the second group bound. Given these two domains of indexical evidence, the thesis sets out to achieve three primary aims. The first aim is to provide a formal semantic representation of both bound and unbound indexicals which systematically relates them, while distinguishing them from non-indexical expressions. To establish this aim, we informally investigate the relationship between the two types of indexical, and propose a unifying generalisation. This generalisation is then embedded within
semantics temporal investigates formal_semantics temporal indexical expression english examples expression include past concentrated instance expression two_major property sensitive extralinguistic context possess descriptive meaning mean appear within proposition correspond utterance sentence_contain argues line neglect significant_body natural_language evidence display rather different behaviour term first group second group bound given domain indexical evidence set achieve primary_aim first aim_provide formal_semantic representation bound systematically relate distinguish non indexical expression establish aim informally investigate_relationship two_type indexical propose unifying generalisation generalisation embed_within