jonathan caleb kendrick

The Samaritan Paradox (Prior, 1958) is often taken to show that deontic ought is not upward monotonic. In particular, it’s often taken to show that ⌜ought (A ∧ B)⌝ does not entail ⌜ought A⌝. Parallel examples are often taken to show that desire ascriptions are not upward monotonic. We argue that this is mistaken. The Samaritan Paradox is really about presupposition; in particular, it shows that the domain of deontics can be restricted by their prejacent’s local context. We show that the resulting account yields natural solutions to Aqvist’s Paradox and the Paradox of Gentle Murder.

Karttunen (1972) observed that asserting ⌜must A⌝ signals that a speaker is in a weaker epistemic position than had she simply asserted A. But, according to the semantics for epistemic modals inherited from epistemic logic, must is veridical; that is, ⌜must A⌝ entails A. The standard solution to Karttunen’s problem treats must as a weak necessity modal quantifying over an ideal subset of the modal base. However, this view has recently been attacked by von Fintel and Gillies (2010, 2021) who argue that must is a strong necessity modal This paper makes the underappreciated point that contradictions of the form ⌜must A ∧ ¬A⌝ are, given classical logic, incompatible with the non-veridicality of epistemic must. While this appears to support veridical theories of must, we present new data against strong theories involving the interaction of epistemic must with indicative conditionals and anaphora.

Ability modals exhibit a puzzling asymmetry in force: they’re strong in positive contexts, but weak in negative contexts. To solve this problem, we sketch an analogy with plural definites which exhibit a similar strength asymmetry. To solve the strength problem, we combine a double modal analysis of ability modals with a homogeneity presupposition. We further argue that this proposal can be combined with a QUD-based pragmatics to yield an explanation of the exception-tolerance of ability modals which parallels extant explanations of the exception-tolerance of plural definites.

Cross-linguistically, the meaning of several attitude verbs depends on the kind of complement. This paper delineates a novel case of meaning alternation due to complementation: in Brazilian Portuguese, achar can be translated as think or find, depending on the syntax of its complement. We provide a formal analysis of these facts within Bondarenko’s (2023) framework, and discuss their implications for our understanding of Predicates of Personal Taste (PPTs) and Subjective Attitude Verbs (SAVs).

In this paper, we provide the first characterization of the semantics of conditionals headed by in case. We make two empirical contributions. First, we observe that while if-conditionals have both hypothetical and biscuit readings, in case-conditionals are obligatorily interpreted as biscuit conditionals. Second, we show that in case-conditionals are infelicitous when their antecedent is entailed by the common ground. If-conditionals, on the other hand, are compatible with these readings even under their biscuit interpretation. We then provide a formal account couched in inquisitive semantics. In a nutshell, we propose that in case-conditionals highlight the possibility that their antecedent is true, and assert their consequent.

Predicates of personal taste (PPTs) trigger an inference that the speaker is acquainted with the thing being evaluated. While the acquaintance inference (AI) is often analyzed as part of an utterance’s non-at-issue content, we argue it’s best explained as a semantic entailment. Building on Magri’s analysis of individual-level predicates as obligatory triggers of scalar exhaustification, we show that, if we treat the AI as arising from obligatory scalar exhaustification, we can explain much of the relevant projection data, provided we are willing to treating the AI as a semantic entailment of PPTs.