Concealed Questions, Discourse Questions, and Descriptivism
Sam Cumming, Rutgers University
Abstract:
Definite descriptions can be questions, embedded or matrix:
(1) a. John knows what the capital of Fiji is. b. John knows the capital of Fiji.
Proper names, however, are inadmissible as questions:
(3) a. Today, John learned what the capital of Fiji is. b. Today, John learned the capital of Fiji. c. *Today, John learned Suva.
I argue for a deep semantic connection between intensional expressions (those whose type is functional on possible worlds) and questions. Since names cannot be questions, they are not intensional, and descriptivism (the thesis that names are disguised definite descriptions) is false.
This leaves us with a puzzle. Consider:
(4) Which one is Jones?
If 'Jones' is a rigid designator, then the Groenendijk & Stokhof semantics of (4) will result in a trivial denotation. I suggest that (4) is a question targeted at discourse uncertainty rather than information about the world. A proper answer to it connects the discourse referent denoted by 'Jones' to another discourse referent from a set of contextually salient alternatives.
Last Modified: November 30, 2006