Research

Dissertation

The Semantics of Proper Names and other Bare Nominals

This research proposes a unified approach to the semantics of the so-called bare nominals in English and Japanese, including proper names (e.g., Mary), mass and plural terms (e.g., water, cats). I argue that bare nominals themselves are monadic predicates true of more than one particular, but they can constitute referential complex phrases when located within an appropriate linguistic environment. Bare nominals used as the subjects or objects of sentences are some or other variant of definite descriptions, which are analyzed as non-quantificational, referential expressions. The overarching thesis is that the semantic properties of bare nominal expressions (e.g., rigidity) are not inherent in the words themselves, but derived from the basic features of complex nominal phrases.

Defense Slides (27 Mar 2012) pdf 720kb

A Japanese (and a little more polished) version of this work is available from Keiso Shobo.

この博士論文に修正を加え，日本語で執筆したものが出版されました．

『名前と対象:固有名と裸名詞の意味論』（勁草書房）（専用ページ）

Papers (Comments are more than welcome)

Yu Izumi, Heechul Ju, and Katsuhito Nakasone, 2018, "Hate Speech: Shinrai no Kowashikata" (“Hate Speech: How to Break Trust”), Tora Koyama ed., Shinrai-o Kangaeru: Leviathan kara Jinkochinou made (“Thinking about Trust: From Leviathan to Artificial Intelligence”), Keiso Shobo, pp.281-304 (in Japanese).

(和泉悠・朱喜哲・仲宗根勝仁, 2018,「第12章 ヘイトスピーチ 信頼の壊しかた」, 小山虎編，『信頼を考える リヴァイアサンから人工知能まで』勁草書房，pp.281-304.)

Yu Izumi and Shintaro Hayashi, 2018, “Expressive Small Clauses in Japanese,” in S. Arai et al. eds., New Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence: JSAI-isAI 2017 Workshops Revised Selected Papers, Lecture Notes in Computer Science/Artificial Intelligence, pp.188-199.

Yu Izumi, 2018, Soushoubun to Sexual Harassment (“Generics and Sexual Harassment”), Tetsugaku, The Philosophical Assocaition of Japan (in Japanese), pp.32-43.

(和泉悠, 2018,「総称文とセクシャルハラスメント」『哲學』69号（日本哲学会）pp.32-43.)

Definite Descriptions and the Alleged East-West Variation in Judgments about Reference (Philosophical Studies, 2018, vol.175(5), pp.1183-1205, DOI: 10.1007/s11098-017-0902-9) [pdf]

Yu Izumi, Masashi Kasaki, Yan Zhou, Sobei Oda

Abstract

Machery et al. (2004) presented data suggesting the existence of cross-cultural variation in judgments about the reference of proper names. In this paper, we examine a previously overlooked confound in the subsequent studies that attempt to replicate the results of (Machery et al., 2004) using East Asian languages. Machery et al. (2010; 2015) and Sytsma et al. (2015) claim that they have successfully replicated the original finding with probes written in Chinese and Japanese, respectively. These studies, however, crucially rely on uses of articleless, 'bare noun phrases' in Chinese and Japanese, which according to the linguistic literature are known to be multiply ambiguous. We argue that it becomes questionable whether the extant studies using East Asian languages revealed genuine cross-cultural variation when the probes are reevaluated based on a proper linguistic understanding of Chinese and Japanese bare noun phrases and English definite descriptions. We also present two experiments on native Japanese speakers that controlled the use of ambiguous bare noun phrases, the results of which suggest that the judgments of Japanese speakers concerning the reference of proper names may not diverge from those of English speakers.

“Drop Dead, Japan!!!”: The Semantics of the Japanese Swear Word Shine 2017 Philosophia OSAKA vol. 12 pp. 39-51

Contextualism and Japanese Knowledge Attributions 2013 Metaphysica vol. 44 pp. 99-111

Abstract

This paper presents a linguistic account of epistemic contextualism, which is the view that the propositions expressed by the sentences of the form 'S knows that p' vary in an epistemologically distinctive way depending on the contexts of use. I defend the thesis that a knowledge attribution is a species of modal expressions, such as 'must', which are widely held to be context-sensitive. The main argument for the thesis is that a modal account is a plausible approach to knowledge attributions in Japanese, where the knowledge verb is morphologically complex and its underlying logical structure is more transparent than the English counterpart. The account is based on an independently motivated modal analysis of the progressive (Portner, 1998), and it does not suffer from an objection raised by Stanley (2005).

Interpreting Bare Nouns: Type-Shifting vs. Silent Heads 2011 SALT 21

Abstract

Bare noun phrases in article-less languages such as Japanese have a variety of interpretations. There are two competing approaches to the semantics of bare noun phrases: one is to appeal to type-shifting to derive various interpretations, and the other is to introduce more structure, i.e., silent determiners. I present an argument against the latter silent-head approach based on the behaviors of phonologically null arguments in Japanese. The silent-head approach has difficulties in explaining the semantics of null arguments, whatever syntactic analysis of null arguments turns out to be correct. The type-shifting approach to bare noun phrases, by contrast, easily accounts for the semantics of null arguments.

Manuscripts

Descriptions, Presuppositional Indefinites, and Comparison Semantics of want (Spring 2014)

Abstract

One of the problems for Russell’s quantificational analysis of definite descriptions is that it generates unattested readings in the context of non-doxastic attitude verbs, such as want. The Fregean-Strawsonian presuppositional analysis of definite descriptions is designed to overcome such shortcomings of the quantificational analysis. Schoubye (2013), however, objects to the Fregean-Strawsonian solution to the problem of non-doxastic attitude verbs by generalizing the problem to indefinite descriptions. He claims that the generalized problem and presuppositional uses of indefinite descriptions demand a dynamic semantic revision of the standard view of definite and indefinite descriptions. In this paper, I defend the standard non-dynamic semantics of descriptions by refuting Schoubye’s objections to the Fregean-Strawsonian analysis. I argue that, once we take into account Villalta’s (2008) recent analysis of non-doxastic attitude verbs, we can solve Schoubye’s generalized problem. I also argue that presuppositional uses of indefinite descriptions are compatible with the standard quantificational account of indefinite descriptions.

Working Title: Is ‘Cat’ A Proper Name?: An Argument Against Millianism

Abstract

In recent years, the view that proper names, such as ‘Mary,’ are monadic predicates in their own right has received renewed attention in the philosophical literature (for example, see Graff 2013 and Jeshion 2014). In order to defend this view, predicativism, I develop a reductio argument against the opposing position, Millianism, according to which the semantic contents of proper names are exhausted by their referents. The reductio argument extends Millianism to clearly predicative expressions in natural language, such as ‘cat,’ and ‘car,’ by drawing on the data from Japanese, which lacks the article system and highlights the parallelism between proper and common nouns. I examine some of the considerations that are alleged to support Millianism, and argue that they support ‘Millianism about common nouns' equally well. Any attempt to resist ‘Millianism about common nouns’ will undermine the standard Millian view about proper names. When we take an articleless language as a point of departure for the semantics of proper names, Millianism loses its intuitive appeal.

Proving the Predicativity of Proper Names

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to defend Tyler Burge’s (1973) approach to the semantics of proper names, according to which proper names are predicates in their own right. On this predicate approach, the predicative contents of proper names figure in the computation of meaning at two different levels. Depending on its linguistic environment, a proper name contributes its metalinguistic content either to the presupposition or assertive content of a sentence. The singular use of a proper name in argument position constitutes a definite description, which nondescriptively contributes an individual to the assertive content, while its predicative content is presupposed in the conversational background. Any adequate theory of the referential use of an incomplete definite description accounts for the rigidity of proper names in argument position.

I present two arguments for the predicate approach. First, I argue that the predicate approach is necessary to account for the metalinguistic implication of a use of a proper name (e.g., ‘That there is someone called by that name’). The metalinguistic implication of a proper name is a genuine presupposition (which is projectable and defeasible) rather than entailment or implicature. We have to attribute a predicative content to a proper name to derive such a presupposition. Second, I argue that the predicate approach explains the complex, modified uses of proper names better than any Millian alternative. I discuss the modified uses of proper names in English, such as the joking Woody Allen and every Alfred, as well as the generic use of a name in Japanese. The Millian theorist of proper names cannot explain away the productive occurrences of names without introducing an ad hoc machinery.

Articleless Descriptions and Logical Form (June 2012)

Abstract

Descriptions in articleless languages such as Polish and Japanese have no overt marking for definiteness or indefiniteness, and they act both as definite and indefinite descriptions. There are three approaches to understanding such articleless descriptions, which respectively rely on the resources of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of natural language. In this paper I argue against the pragmatic approach to articleless descriptions, which accounts for the difference between definite and indefinite uses of articleless descriptions in terms of pragmatic reasoning. As possible pragmatic accounts of articleless descriptions, I examine and refute Ludlow and Segal’s (2004) and Szabo’s (2000) pragmatic analyses of definite descriptions. Their analyses are shown to be problematic with respect to both English and articleless languages. Major difficulties arise when we consider the maximality implications of definite descriptions and the so-called weak definites, which require no uniqueness implication (e.g., going to the hospital). Toward the end I also argue that there is a further philosophical implication from the study of articleless descriptions. The semantic approach to articleless descriptions, if correct, undermines a Tractarian association between natural language syntax and logical form, which can be found in Stanley (2000) and King (2007).