The dual life of embedded CPs: Evidence from Russian čto-clauses

With the data from clauses with the complementizer čto in Russian, I argue that embedded finite clauses with the same morphosyntactic appearance can receive two different denotations depending on the argument that they modify. I show that čto-clauses can combine with both nouns like mysl’ ‘thought’ and nouns like situacija ‘situation’, and that they do not have the same interpretation in these two cases. I propose that when čto-clauses combine with predicates of contentful individuals (like mysl’ ‘thought’), they describe the propositional content that these individuals have (Moltmann 1989, Kratzer 2006, Moulton 2015, a.o.). However when they combine with predicates of situations (like situacija ‘situation’), they provide the proposition that these situations exemplify. I furthermore show that the two meanings of čto-clauses can be detected when they occur with verbs as well, and sketch out a more decompositional view of how the two interpretations arise based on comparison with -(n)un-clauses that modify nouns in Korean.

The Relationship Between Conscious and Unconscious Intentionality

The contemporary view of the relationship between conscious and unconscious intentionality consists in two claims: (i) unconscious propositional attitudes represent the world the same way conscious ones do, and (ii) both sets of attitudes represent by having determinate propositional content. Crane (2017) has challenged both claims, proposing instead that unconscious propositional attitudes differ from conscious ones in being less determinate in nature. This paper aims to evaluate Crane's proposal. In particular, I make explicit and critique certain assumptions Crane makes in support of his asymmetry, and argue for a conditional claim: if Crane is right that unconscious intentional states are (relatively) indeterminate, this suggests that conscious intentional states are indeterminate in a similar fashion as well.

The Spirited Part of the Soul in the Timaeus

Chapter 8 examines Plato’s account of intrapsychic “communication” in the Timaeus and defends an imagistic account according to which the various activities of the spirited part of the soul—the motivations it generates, its training through musical and gymnastic education, its responsiveness to rational judgment, and its resistance to offensive appetites—can all be explained at the cognitive level by appealing only to the resources of sense-perception, memory, and imagination. On this view, it is not necessary to attribute to spirit the capacity either to understand the “logistic” (i.e. linguistic or propositional) content of rational judgments themselves, or to issue judgments with such content of its own. This chapter also examines how Plato adapts the Homeric and poetic association of thumos with the heart and circulatory system (as well as with the lungs and respiratory system) to provide a biological foundation for the dialogue’s theory of spirited cognition.

Expert Impressions in Stoicism

We focus on the question of how expertise as conceived by the Stoics interacts with the content of impressions. In Section 1, we situate the evidence concerning expert perception within the Stoic account of cognitive development. In Section 2, we argue that the content of rational impressions, and notably of expert impressions, is not exhausted by the relevant propositions. In Section 3, we argue that expert impressions are a subtype of kataleptic impressions which achieve their level of clarity and distinctness due to the contribution of expertise. In Section 4, we argue that the expertise in living well not only allows the wise person to assent correctly but also affects the content of her impressions. We suggest that these two models – one’s attitude toward an impression being informed by expertise, and one’s impressions being affected by expertise – might characterize distinct stages of cognitive development. Stoic wisdom is not only a matter of the way one assents to one’s impressions but also a matter of the condition of one’s soul and, consequently, of the kinds of impressions one even entertains. Expertise offers a model of how cognitive and discriminatory improvement through practice and effort can transform the non-wise into the wise. A reading on which the content of impressions is not exclusively propositional illuminates a further aspect of this transformation. If the same propositions are accessible through impressions with different non-propositional content, we can account for cases in which the novice and the expert entertain the same proposition.

Problems of axiomatizing religion

The paper discusses problems which arise in attempts to axiomatize parts of religion or religious belief systems. Besides those problems already investigated by Bochenski, like that of the propositional content or the meaning of religious discourse there are several further ones. This paper deals with the question whether full Classical Logic is suitable, whether one universe of discourse is sufficient, how to use definitions and analogous concepts and whether justifications satisfy credibility criteria.

Insults – between dysphemisms and markers of emotional closeness

The present investigative approach proposes an analysis of insults from a socio-, psycho- and pragmalinguistic perspective, aiming to reveal the complex character of this type of communication. Given that insults, as reactive acts of speech, are dependent on both the intentions of the speaker and the way the receiver decodes the statement, we suggested a classification based on the illocutionary point (motivated insults—with negative or positive illocutionary point—and unmotivated insults) and on the propositional content (direct insults—within this category, we analyzed the lexical innovations generated by the Covid-19 pandemic, especially the dysphemic use of the participle (substantivized) adjective covidat—and indirect insults). Although the oral communication provides the necessary data for the manifestation of insults, in addition to the sequences selected from TV shows, we chose messages written on various social networking sites and excerpts from online forums. Under the protection of anonymity, users are uninhibited and they violate socially imposed linguistic norms without fear of being held accountable for their actions.

Va a ser que no

This study seeks to gain a better insight into the origin and expansion of the construction <va a ser que sí/no > (lit. goes to be that yes/no) in Peninsular Spanish. We argue that this construction derives from the use of the periphrastic future construction <ir a ‘go to’ + inf> in a pseudo-cleft sentence whose subject is a deictic element or an element that conveys the speaker’s attitudinal assessment of the propositional content expressed in the attribute, a complement que-clause. The etymological structure evolves through a process that formally implies the suppression of the explicit subject and the fusion of the components va a ser que leading to the conventionalization of refutative and assertive values. To demonstrate this directionality, we examine recent stages of change and develop syntactic and semantic-pragmatic arguments grounded in a data-based approach.

The pragmatic functions and the interpretations of the particle ‘taha’ (τάχα) in classroom discourse in the Cypriot-Greek dialect: the emergence of a new function

This paper aims to present the pragmatic functions and the interpretations of ‘taha’ (τάχα) (a very commonly used particle in oral Cypriot-Greek interactions) as it is used in classroom discourse. The present study collected and analysed data from a three hour recording of the participants’ speech, and isolated 32 critical episodes that included ‘taha’. Students were also asked to note the functions of ‘taha’ through the use of a questionnaire, and to interpret its functions through a discussion. Following the pragmatic analysis proposed by Tsiplakou and Papapetrou (2020), the current research concluded that the basic meaning of ‘taha’ (‘supposedly/allegedly’) may perform several pragmatic functions, depending on the context. Among others, ‘taha’ functions as a pragmatic marker of (1) dissociation from the associated implicatures, (2) dissociation from the propositional content, (3) request for clarifications, and (4) a hedging device. In addition, ‘taha’ sometimes works as a pragmatic marker of emphasis to the propositional content, a function that has not been reported in the bibliography so far.