February 16, 2018: Joe Tabolt

Time:: 4:30pm, February 16, 2018
Place:: Keio University, Mita Campus,
South Annex, 7th floor
Speaker:: Joseph R. Tabolt (Meikai University)
Title:: Assertions of epistemic modality
Abstract:: This talk discusses the discourse meaning of assertions containing epistemic modal operators, focusing on the possibility operators may/might. I will introduce the intersubjective modal base approach (DeRose, 1991; von Fintel & Gillies, 2011) to deriving truth conditions for epistemic modality sentences and then present some its inadequacies in terms of truth conditions and of explaining why the hearer feels entitled to disagree/agree with speaker's assertion. I will then propose a way of deriving adequate truth conditions and a suitable target for reactions by the hearer by accounting for the interaction among Kratzer (1981)’s ordering semantics, Stalnaker (1978)’s common ground and Grice (1989)'s Cooperative Principle, paying particular attention to the role of the quantity maxim.

Semantics Research Group Meeting, February 16, 2018