Open AccessMood and Contextual Commitment
Author(s) -
Paul Pörtner,
Aynat Rubinstein
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
proceedings from semantics and linguistic theory
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2163-5951
pISSN - 2163-5943
DOI - 10.3765/salt.v0i0.2642
Subject(s) - predicate (mathematical logic) , modal , meaning (existential) , variety (cybernetics) , mood , romance , linguistics , computer science , psychology , epistemology , natural language processing , artificial intelligence , social psychology , philosophy , psychoanalysis , chemistry , polymer chemistry , programming language
Many recent analyses of mood selection in Romance and Balkan rely on the idea that subjunctive is triggered by a modal predicate whose meaning is comparative. We work out a precise version of this idea, which we call the Proto-Standard Theory, and show that it runs into problems with a variety of indicative-selecting predicates in French. We then develop and argue in favor of an alternative account based on individuals being Contextually Committed towards the modal parameters used to give the meaning of the predicate.