Introduction

This is an introductory chapter. It sketches the project of the book, which is to understand the ontology of a central class of particulars, and of their most basic and central properties and relations. This central class encompasses the commonsense entities that our experience seems naïvely to reveal. First of all, there are ordinary visible objects like balls and cars. The book investigates the kind of particularity they present in experience. Second, there are locations in space and time that such ordinary things occupy, and which have a somewhat different sort of particularity. Third, there are the material bits that make up the balls and cars. The proper understanding of both the particularity and the concrete properties and relations of ordinary concrete objects like these demands certain metaphysical novelties. It requires a return to the ancient conception that there is a difference between different ways of being, specifically between the existence of actual tables and chairs with their evident colors and shapes on one hand, and what might be called “the subsistence” of certain merely possible beings on the other. But it also requires the recognition of various sorts of unity relations less than strict identity, which for instance relate determinable and relevantly determinate properties. All these novelties involve distinctive forms of modal structure.

On null objects in Egyptian Arabic

This paper provides a descriptive account and a syntactic analysis of the grammatical distribution and properties of null objects (NOs) in Egyptian Arabic. In particular, it is shown that NOs cannot be analyzed as instances of null pro or as variables bound by a null topic operator. A Verb-Stranding VP-Ellipsis account is also shown to be empirically non-viable. Instead, I argue that NOs result from Argument Ellipsis (AE), an operation that targets arguments for deletion at PF. This AE analysis has several empirical advantages, including an account for (a) the different-entity interpretation of NOs, (b) the fact that PP and CP internal arguments can be null, (c) the availability of both strict identity and sloppy identity readings with null PPs and CPs, (d) the indefiniteness and inanimacy restrictions on the antecedents of NOs, and (e) the fact that subjects, as opposed to objects, cannot undergo AE. Following existing proposals in the generative literature on null arguments, I provide a minimalist implementation of the AE operation, whereby principles of φ-agreement, case licensing, the NP/DP distinction, and a notion of relativized phasehood, all conspire to determine when NOs occur and when they are disallowed in the language.

Defining and Supplementing Conciliar Trinitarianism

This article constitutes a brief reply to Timothy Pawl's clear and insightful article on Conciliar Trinitarianism (defined as the Trinitarian theology of the Ecumenical Councils from Nicaea I to Nicaea II). The two basic arguments of that article (regarding the relationship between divine persons and divine nature and the debate over possible subordinationism) are celebrated rather than challenged. I instead offer three short comments. The first concerns the limited nature of the conciliar texts for the articulation of highly developed Trinitarian theology, and thus the question of methodology as it applies to Conciliar Trinitarianism. The second comment argues that the question of strict identity in the Godhead can be extended beyond the relationship of divine person and divine nature to the question of divine nature and divine power, will, and energy. The third comment argues that Pawl gives undue weight to a line from Cyril of Alexandria for a discussion of the Holy Spirt's mode of origination, and not enough weight to the clause related to the Holy Spirit articulated at the First Council of Constantinople, which recurs in one way or another at each of the subsequent Ecumenical Councils, up to and including Nicaea II. These three comments serve more as a supplement than a challenge to Pawl's original article, providing three further avenues for scholarly deliberation on the matter of Conciliar Trinitarianism.

Conciliar Trinitarianism, Divine Identity Claims, and Subordination

In this article, I present the trinitarian teaching of the first seven ecumenical councils, what we might call Conciliar Trinitarianism. I then consider two questions. First, what is the relationship between the divine persons and the divine nature? I argue that neither strict identity nor instantiation interpretations of that relationship fit well with the conciliar texts. Second, does the relation of procession among the divine persons, asserted in the conciliar texts, imply an objectionable ontological subordination in the Trinity? I argue that there is at least one way for a proponent of Conciliar Trinitarianism to deny that objectionable ontological subordination follows from the divine processions.

Peripheral ellipsis and verb mismatch

Right-node raising is usually set apart from other elliptical constructions for imposing a strict identity condition between the omitted and the peripheral elements. Since Pullum & Zwicky (1986), it is assumed that only syncretic forms may resolve a feature conflict between the two conjuncts (I certainly will and you already have set the record straight. ). We present an empirical study of RNR with final verb in English and French that shows that verb mismatch does occur in corpora with and without syncretic forms, i.e. that syncretism does not appear to play a role. We present an acceptability judgement task on French that confirms this hypothesis. We therefore propose a new HPSG analysis of RNR that is based on sharing LID features and not morphophonological forms.

Sameness, Definition, and Essence

I formulate an apparent inconsistency between some claims Aristotle makes in his Metaphysics about the sameness and non-sameness relations which obtain between an object and its essence: while a (type of) object is not the same as its essence, an essence is thought as being the same as its essence. I discuss different ways in which one may propose to overcome this apparent inconsistency and show that they are problematic. My diagnosis of the problem is that all these putative solutions share the assumption that Aristotle is operating exclusively with the notion of strict numerical identity between an object and its essence, or between definiendum and definiens. I introduce the notion of sameness in nature which holds between an object and its essence, understood as the metaphysical counterpart to the relation of 'being defined as': two items are the same in nature just in case the answer to the 'what is it?' or 'what is its nature/essence?' question is common to both. I argue that the notions of sameness in nature and 'being defined as' need not (but may) entail strict identity. Further, they are compatible with, indeed require, the idea that an essence is prior to its essence-bearer, or that a definiens is prior to the relevant definiendum. I conclude that the twin notions of sameness in nature and 'being defined as' successfully defuse the apparent inconsistency formulated at the outset.

Strict Identity, Coherence, and Parallelism in VP Ellipsis

No abstract.

IDENTITY AND INDISCERNIBILITY

The notion of strict identity is sometimes given an explicit second-order definition: objects with all the same properties are identical. Here, a somewhat different problem is raised: Under what conditions is the identity relation on the domain of a structure first-order definable? A structure may have objects that are distinct, but indiscernible by the strongest means of discerning them given the language (the indiscernibility formula). Here a number of results concerning the indiscernibility formula, and the definability of identity, are collected and a number of applications discussed.