David Y. Oshima

Perspectives in Reported Discourse David Y. Oshima

Perspectives in Reported Discourse

David Y. Oshima

Stanford University

June 3rd, 2005

Dissertation Proposal Talk

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Background

- The notion of perspective (and its subvarieties) plays an important role

in many aspects of natural languages, such as:

• construction alternations, anaphora (syntax)

• deixis and indexicality (semantics)

• functional sentence perspective (semantics-pragmatics interface)

• narrative styles, rhetorical structures (discourse)

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- Various notions subsumed by or closely related to linguistic perspective

have been discussed in the literature:

spatial/temporal/social deixis, empathy, topicality, attention focus, figure-

ground, subjectivity, ...

- The exact cognitive/ontological natures of these notions, and the in-

terrelations, similarities, and differences among them, are far from well-

understood.

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- Reported discourse is an especially important domain in this light. When

an agent reports another agent’s utterance (or belief, etc.), he can choose

from, or otherwise mix, two standpoints from which the utterance is rep-

resented: that of the reporter-agent and that of the reported-agent.

- Dynamic interactions, fusion, and clash of two perspectives within re-

ported discourse provide us with important clues as to the nature of many

perspectival features in natural languages.

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The aim and organization

- The main goal of this thesis is to develop semantic analyses of attitude

reports that capture various effects of perspective-taking.

- First, I establish the distinction between the direct and indirect modes

of reported discourse. A report in the direct mode describes a relation

between an individual and a linguistic object (linguistic representation),

while a report in the indirect mode describes a relation between an indi-

vidual and a semantic object (proposition, etc.) (Partee 1973).

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- Then, I demonstrate that the indirect mode of attitude reports can be

divided into subtypes, depending on the extent to which it maintains the

“original” perspective.

- Certain indirect attitude reports are more “direct speech-like” than oth-

ers, in the sense that they contain perspectival features that are anchored

to the secondary agent (whose utterance, belief, etc. is reported). I take

up four types of “perspective shift” phenomena:

1. the de re /de dicto opposition (the analytic perspective shift)

2. the de se /non- de se opposition (the logophoric perspective shift)

3. the deictic perspective shift

4. the empathic perspective shift

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- Finally, I examine factors that affect/condition the speaker’s choice of

perspective in discourse reporting:

1. vividness of a report (Tannen 1985)

2. the hierarchy of attitude predicates (SAY > BELIEVE > KNOW >

SEE; Culy 1994)

3. implicational relations between the subtypes of perspective

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The two modes of reported discourse

- It is traditionally well-known that there are two kinds of reported dis-

course – direct and indirect.

(1) a. John said (to me): “I need to talk to you”.

b. John said (to me) that he needed to talk to me.

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- The two modes differ in various respects:

• verbatimness

• syntactic marking (e.g. mood, complementizer)

• deictic adjustment

• expressives (e.g. “gee”, “uh”, “what a story!”)

• syntactic well-formedness (John said: “ate, John, peanuts” vs. *John

said that ate John peanuts)

• syntactic opacity (*What did John say: “I want to eat ”?), ...

- What is the definitive feature that distinguishes the two modes?

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Direct reports : relations between agents and linguistic objects

Indirect reports : relations between agents and semantic objects

(i.e. propositions)

(cf. Partee 1973; Recanati 2000; Potts 2004)

- In a direct report, the quote is an indecomposable unit – a single ex-

pression that denotes a linguistic expression (or in certain cases, a non-

linguistic representation). It is “mentioned” rather than used.

- In an indirect report, the syntactic/semantic parts of the quote contribute

to the syntactic structure and meaning of the whole sentence in the same

way as they would in a matrix (non-quote) environment.

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- An indirect report is syntactically/semantically integrated to the embed-

ding clause, in the sense that there is no heterogeneity between the em-

bedding and embedded clauses in terms of their syntactic and semantic

statuses.

(2) Thesis of Integrity : An indirect quote is integrated to the em-

bedding environment, while a direct quote is not.

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- It has been discussed that certain languages have a mode (or modes)

between the direct and indirect modes (semi-indirect mode), which has

some characteristics of the direct mode and some of the indirect mode

(Coulmas 1985b; Kuno 1988; Kamada 2000; Rice 1985; Reesink 1993;

Evans 2005).

- That the binary distinction is not fine-grained enough does not neces-

sarily mean that the direct/indirect distinction is continuous (not categor-

ical), nor that the thesis of integrity must be compromised.

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continuous scale

direct indirectsemi-indirect ……

direct (not integrated) indirect (integrated)

more “direct-like”

indirect reports

more “indirect-like”

indirect reports

more “indirect-like”

direct reports (?)

NOT:

BUT:

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“Direct discourse-like” features in indirect

discourse

- Indirect attitude reports can be subdivided along several dimensions,

depending on how much they reflect the secondary agent’s perspective.

- I take up four types of such perspectival dimensions:

(3) (i) analytic perspective (de dicto vs. de re attitudes)

(ii) logophoric perspective (de se vs. non-de se attitudes)

(iii)deictic perspetive (the primary vs. secondary deictic refer-

ence point)

(iv)empathic perspective (the primary vs. secondary empathy hi-

erarchy)

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De re vs. de dicto attitudes

- Generally, indirect quotes (or descriptive terms within them) have two

kinds of interpretations: de re and de dicto.

(4) a. the de dicto interpretation: the quote (or its translation) has

the form which the reported agent used or would use to ex-

press the quoted utterance/thought, etc. (except for deictic

expressions).

b. the de re interpretation: the form of the quote can be altered

in a way that the quoted speaker would not necessarily ac-

cept.

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(5) Oedipus said that his mother was beautiful.

a. Oedipus said: “My mother is beautiful”. (de dicto)

b. Oedipus said: “My wife/Jokasta is beautiful”. (de re)

- The de re/de dicto distinction can be construed as a matter of the

speaker’s perspective (Coulmas 1985b). In a de re report, the exter-

nal speaker takes the liberty of introducing additional information, which

is not available to the quoted agent, into the quote. In a de dicto report,

on the other hand, the external speaker sticks to “choose the words” from

the quoted agent’s perspective.

- I will use the term analytic perspective to refer to the point of view in

this sense, relative to which “choice of words” is made.

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De se vs. non- de se attitudes

- When a reported utterance/belief involves reference to the secondary

agent (the reported agent) or other coordinates of the secondary context

(time, place, etc.), the report has either the de se or non-de se interpre-

tation, or is ambiguous between the two.

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- The following report is ambiguous (Percus and Sauerland 2003a):

(6) Pavarottii believes that hisi pants are on fire.

a. Pavarotti is disposed to say: “My pants are on fire.” (de se)

b. Pavarotti may not be disposed to say: “My pants are on fire.”

(non-de se)

In a situation where Pavarotti is looking at his image in a mirror without

being aware that the man in the mirror is himself, and sees the man’s

pants be on fire (and says to himself: “Gee, that guy’s pants are on fire”),

(6) is false on the de se interpretation while true on the non-de se inter-

pretation.

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- Many languages have anaphoric expressions called secondary indexi-

cals (or quasi-indexicals), which single out the de se interpretation. (Schlenker

2003; Oshima in press):

(i) Logophoric pronouns (Ewe, etc.)

a. Kofii

Kofi

be

say

yei/∗j-dzo.

log-leave‘Kofii said that hei left.’

b. Kofii

Kofi

be

say

e∗i/j-dzo.

3sg-leave‘Kofii said that hej/shej left.’

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(ii) Long distance reflexives (Icelandic, etc.)

a. Joni syndi Haraldij fot a sigi/j .

‘Johni showed Haroldj clothes for himselfi/j .’

b. Joni segir aδ Marıa elski sigi/∗j.

‘Johni says that Mary loves (subj.) himi.’

(iii) “All-purpose” indexicals (Amharic, etc.)

Johni says that Ii am a hero.

‘Johni says that hei is a hero.’

(iv) Ambiguous pronouns? (English, etc.)

Johni says that {he*i/hei} is a hero.

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- In certain cases, reference to the secondary agent can be made either

with a secondary indexical or a regular pronoun:

(7) a. Johni-wa [zibuni-ga boku-o tasuke-ta] to omotte-i-ru.

‘Johni believes that selfi helped me.’ (de se)

b. Johni-wa [karei-ga boku-o tasuke-ta] to omotte-i-ru.

‘Johni believes that hei helped me.’ (non-de se)

(8) a. Situation 1: John believes: “I helped David”

b. Situation 2: Amnesic John believes: “The guy called John

helped David”

(7a) is compatible only with Situation 1; (7b) is compatible with both Sit-

uation 1 and 2.

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- In certain other cases, as a rule reference to the secondary agent must

be made with a secondary indexical:

(9) a. Johni believes that he*i helped me.

(he* = logophoric pronoun)

b. Johni believes that hei helped me.

(10) a. Situation 1: John believes: “I helped David”

b. Situation 2: Amnesic John believes: “The guy called John

helped David”.

In Bafut, (9b) is possible only in an unusual situation like (10b), and is not

compatible with (10a).

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- The occurrence pattern of secondary indexicals (under ‘believe’) in Ba-

fut parallels that of primary indexicals.

(11) a. I (referring to the speaker) am smart.

b. #He (referring to the speaker) is smart.

- The pattern in Japanese suggests that in certain cases the speaker

can choose whether or not to introduce the secondary context relative to

which (secondary or all-purpose) indexicals are interpreted.

- The presence of such a secondary context indicates that the speaker

describes the quoted material referring to the reported agent’s perspec-

tive; I will call this the logophoric perspective .

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- Which of the primary or secondary logophoric perspective is allowed is

to some extent lexically determined (Schlenker 2003; Anand and Nevins

2004):

(12) a. Certain attitude predicates require the secondary logophoric

perspective, i.e., require that an indexical be used to refer to

the secondary agent (e.g. Bafut ‘believe’ , Slave ‘tell’),

b. Some others require the primary logophoric perspective, i.e.,

exclude secondary indexicals from the complement clause

(e.g. Slave ‘know’, Zazaki attitude verbs except ‘say’)

c. The others allow the alternation between indexicals and or-

dinary third person pronouns (e.g. Japanese attitude predi-

cates in general , Zazaki ‘say’).

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Deictic reference point

- In a matrix environment, the acceptability of deictic motion verbs go and

come is conditioned by the location of the speaker/addressee (Fillmore

1997).

(13) (Situation : The speaker is not at John’s office at the utterance

time, and the addressee is not at John’s office at the utterance

time or at the event time.)

I {went /#came} to John’s office.

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- The conditions under which go and come are used can be formulated

as follows (among other ways):

(i) go and come refer to a set of contextually salient individuals: RP

(reference points).

(ii) a. go requires that no member of RP be at the goal of motion at

the utterance time.

b. come requires that (i) there be some member of RP at the

goal of motion at the utterance time or at the event time, or

(ii) the goal be the home base of a member of RP.

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(iii) The selection of the members of RP is conditioned by the follow-

ing rules (in English):

a. The speaker is always a member of RP.

b. It is preferred for the addressee to be a member of RP as well

(e.g. {?John/?I} went to see you). The degree of preference

is affected by various factors; under certain conditions, the

inclusion of the addressee to RP is almost obligatorily (e.g.

??Should I go to see you?)

c. When neither the speaker nor the addressee is the theme

(the moving entity), a third person individual can be chosen

as a member of RP (e.g. John came to visit Mary).

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- In an embedded environment, the choice of reference point(s) does not

follow the rules summarized above:

(14) John believes that I {went /came} to his office.

(cf. John was writing a letter when I {went /#came} to his office.)

- The contrast between (13) and (14) suggests that in an embedded en-

vironment the reference point for deictic predicates can be chosen either

from the external speaker’s or the secondary agent’s deictic perspec-

tive .

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Empathy hierarchy

- Certain languages have altering forms of transitive/ditranstive verbs:

(15) a. Direct forms : the speaker’s perspective is closer to the sub-

ject (the speaker empathizes more with the subject than with

the object).

b. Inverse forms : the speaker’s perspective is closer to the (di-

rect or indirect) object (the speaker empathizes more with the

object than with the subject).

(Oshima to appear, Kuno 1987)

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- Japanese giving verbs yaru and kureru form such a pair (yaru = direct,

kureru = inverse; note that they share the same argument structure):

(16) a. Boku-wa

I-Top

Taro-ni

Taro-Dat

prezento-o

gift-Acc

{yaru/*kureru}.

give-Pres‘I will give Taro a gift.’

b. Taro-wa

Taro-Top

boku-ni

I-Dat

prezento-o

gift-Acc

{*yaru/kureru}.

give-Pres‘Taro will give me a gift.’

- In a matrix environment, it is impossible to choose a third person par-

ticipant as the empathy locus when the other argument is the speaker.

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- In an embedded environment, it appears that this constraint can be

violated:

(17) a. Taro-wa

Taro-Top

[boku-ga

[I-Nom

kare-ni

he-Dat

prezento-o

gift-Acc

yatta/kureta]

give-Past]

to

Quot

omotte-i-ru.

believe-Asp-Pres.‘Taro believes that [I gave him a gift].’

b. Taro-wa

Taro-Top

[kare-ga

[he-Nom

boku-ni

I-Dat

prezento-o

gift-Acc

yatta/kureta]

give-Past]

to

Quot

omotte-i-ru.

believe-Asp-Pres.‘Taro believes that [he gave me a gift].’

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- This suggests that in an embedded environment the empathy hierarchy

(the ranking of individuals based on the degree to which the speaker em-

pathizes with them) can be determined either from the external speaker’s

or the secondary agent’s empathic perspective .

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Semantic analyses of the four perspectival

dimensions (outline)

(18) (i) analytic perspective (de dicto vs. de re attitudes)

(ii) logophoric perspective (de se vs. non-de se attitudes)

(iii)deictic perspetive (the primary vs. secondary deictic refer-

ence point)

(iv)empathic perspective (the primary vs. secondary empathy hi-

erarchy)

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Analytic Perspective

- Previous approaches:

• The classical scope approach

De dicto attitudes = descriptive terms taking narrow scope; De re attitudes = de-

scriptive terms taking wide scope

• Kaplan’s approach based on the “acquaintance” relation

A term in an extensional context can be related to (“quantify into”) a reported ut-

terance/belief only if there is a name (descriptive term) that the subject (secondary

agent) associates with it.

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- A model of attitude reports along the lines of Crimmins and Perry (1989):

(i) An attitude report is about a relation between an agent and a

cognitive entity (“a thing in the agent’s head”) that has a propo-

sition as its content (a mental representation of state of affairs;

MRSOA). An MRSOA “represents” a proposition.

(ii) An agent can have various attitudes toward his MRSOAs.

(iii) MRSOAs (thoughts) are structured entities that contain notions

and ideas as constituents. Notions are cognitive entities that

are (causally) related to individuals; ideas are, similarly, cogni-

tive entities related to properties/relations (or more higher-order

objects). Notions and ideas represent individuals and proper-

ties/relations, respectively.

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m(rsoa)1, m2, …

i(dea)1, i2, …

n(otion)1, n2, …

Structure (m1) = <i1; n1, n2>

…

P = R(a, b)

Content (m1) = P

m1

causal connection

(“content of” relation)

attitude relation (believe, say, fear, desire, …)

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(19) Lois Lane believes that Superman is strong.

(20) λw1[∃m1[believe (lois.lane , m1, w1) ∧Content (m1) = λw2[strong (superman , w2)]]]

(n.b.) Truth Definition : An expression λw1[α] that serves as a translation of a nat-

ural language matrix sentence is true in the context c in the world w under the

assignment g iff [[α ]]c,w,g[w1→w] = 1.

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- An alternative analysis of de dicto attitudes : for ‘A v ’s S’ to be true de

dicto, A must be disposed to express the content of the relevant MRSOA

by some sentence S’, which is identical to S except that all deictic terms

in S are replaced by certain other names.

(21) Lois Lane believes that Clark Kent is strong. (de dicto)

(22) λw1[∃m1[∃u1[believe (lois , m1, w1) ∧Content (m1) = λw2[strong (clark.kent , w2)] ∧assent (lois , m1, u1, w1) ∧ u1 ∈ DA(dClark Kent is stronge)]]]

(n.b.) (i) The function DA (“deictic adjustment”), applied to a sentence S, yields a set of

sentences identical to S except that all occurrences of indexicals/pronominals (I, you,

this, ...) are replaced by certain other terms. (ii) [[assent (a, m, u, w)]]w,c,g = 1 iff

[[a]]w,c,g assents that [[m]]w,c,g can be linguistically expressed by [[u]]w,c,g in [[w]]w,c,g.

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Logophoric Perspective

- It has been widely acknowledged that the object of a de se attitude must

be an entity that is more fine-grained than a proposition (propositional

content, a set of possible worlds), such as:

• property

(Lewis 1979; Chierchia 1989)

• a set of centered possible worlds (individual-world pairs)

(Cresswell and von Stechow 1982)

• propositional character (a function from contexts, i.e., tuples of a speaker,

an addressee, a time, a place, ... , to propositional contents)

(Schlenker 2003)

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- The same idea can be easily incorporated to the MRSOA-based analy-

sis of attitude reports.

- Some MRSOAs (thoughts) are indexical in their nature – Pavarotti would

behave differently when he has an ‘I’ thought (‘My pants are on fire’) and

when he has a ‘he’ thought (‘His pants are on fire’).

- What an MRSOA represents is a propositional character, rather than a

propositional content.

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(23) I am rich 7→ λw1[rich (Ag (c∗), w1)]

(24) Johni-wa

John-Top

[zibuni-ga

self-Nom

kanemoti-da]

rich-be.Pres

to

Quot

omotte-i-ru.

believe-Asp-Pres‘Johni believes that he*i is rich.’

(25) (24) 7→ λw1[∃m1[believe (john , m1, w1) ∧ Character (m1) =

λc1[λw2[rich (Ag (c1), w2)]]]]

(n.b.) a. [[c∗]]w,c,g is defined only if g(c∗) = c. If defined, [[c∗]]w,c,g = g(c∗).

b. [[ci]]w,c,g = g(ci).

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- The complement-clause of an attitude report can be content-denoting,

rather than character-denoting.

(26) Johni-wa

John-Top

[karei-ga

he-Nom

kanemoti-da]

rich.be-Pres

to

Quot

omotte-i-ru.

believe-Asp-Pres‘John believes that he is rich.’

a. John believes: ‘I am rich’.

b. Amnesic John, after reading his own biography, believes: ‘This

guy called John is rich.’

The difference between the two characters ((26a) and (26b)) is “neutral-

ized” in the report.

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- When the complement clause is character-denoting (n.b. the event ar-

gument is added to each predicate) ...

(24) 7→ λw1[∃e1[∃m1[believe (john , m1, e1, w1) ∧ Character (m1) =

λc1[λw2[∃e2[rich (Ag (c1), e2, w2)]]]]]]

- When the complement clause is content-denoting ...

(26) 7→ λw1[∃e1[∃m1[believe (john , m1, e1, w1) ∧ Character (m1) ∈{χ′〈c,〈s,t〉〉: χ′(〈john , Timee(e1), Placee(e1)〉) = λw2[∃e2[rich (john , e2, w2)]]}]]]]

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Deictic Perspective

- In a semantic model, the set of reference points (RP) for go/come can

be defined as an index relative to which an expression is evaluated (on a

par with the world, context, and variable assignment).

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(27) go 7→ λpl1[λx[λw1[move-to (x, pl1,w1){¬∃y[y ∈ r1 ∧ at(y,

pl1, w1)]}]]]]

(28) come 7→ λpl1[λx[λw1[move-to (x, pl1, w1){∃y[y ∈ r1 ∧ at(y,

pl1, w1)]}]]]

where,

(29) [[φ{ψ}]]w,c,r,g is defined only if [[ψ]]w,c,r,g = 1.

If defined, [[φ{ψ}]]w,c,r,g = [[φ]]w,c,r,g.

- A free RP variable ri always refers to the RP of the context of utterance:

(30) An RP variable ri must be bound unless [[ri]]w,c,r,g = r

(i.e. g is such that g(ri) = r)

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(31) a. John believes that I went to his office. (the deictic perspective

anchored to the speaker) 7→λw1[∃m1[believe (john , m1, w1) ∧ Content (m1) =

λw2[move-to (Ag (c∗), j’s-office , w2){¬∃x[x ∈ r1 ∧ at(x, j’s-office , w2)]}]]]

b. John believes that I came to his office. (the deictic perspec-

tive anchored to John) 7→λw1[∃m1[∃r1[believe (john , m1, w1)∧ adopt dx (john , r1, w1)∧Content (m1) =

λw2[move-to (Ag (c∗), j’s-office , w2){∃x[x ∈ r1 ∧ at(x, j’s-office , w2)]}]]]]

where,

(32) [[adopt dx (a, r, w)]]w,c,r,g = 1 iff [[r]]w,c,r,g is the set of refer-

ence points for [[a]]w,c,r,g in [[w]]w,c,r,g.

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Empathic Perspective

- Empathy-loaded expressions are interpreted with respect to the contex-

tually adopted empathy hierarchy, parallel to deictic motion verbs expres-

sions that are interpreted with respect to the contextually determined RP.

- The empathy hierarchy is a partially ordered set of individuals; the or-

dering reflects the relative degree to which the speaker empathizes with

its members.

- That the speaker adopts a hierarchy h within which a outranks b is

equivalent to that the speaker empathizes with a more than with b.

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(33) a. yaru 7→ λz[λy[λx[give (x, y, z){¬outrank (z, x, h1)}]]]

b. kureru 7→ λz[λy[λx[give (x, y, z){outrank (z, x, h1)}]]]

where,

(34) [[outrank (a, b, h)]]w,c,r,h,g = 1 iff [[a]]w,c,r,h,g outranks [[b]]w,c,r,h,g

within [[h]]w,c,r,h,g

- Again, a free EH variable hi always refers to the empathy hierarchy

adopted by the external speaker.

(35) An EH variable hi must be bound unless [[hi]]w,c,r,h,g = h

(i.e. g is such that g(hi) = h)

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(36) Johni-wa

John-Top

[boku-ga

I-Nom

karei-ni

he-Dat

hon-o

book-Acc

{a. yat /b. kure}-ta]

give-Past

to

Quot

omotte-i-ru.

believe-Asp-Pres‘John believes that I gave him the book.’

(the empathic perspective anchored to {a. the speaker/b. John})

(i) (36a) 7→ λw1[∃m1[believe (john , m1, w1)∧Content (m1) = λw2[give (Ag (c∗),the-

book ,john ){¬outrank (john , Ag (c∗), h1)}]]]

(ii) (36b) 7→ λw1[∃m1[∃h1[believe (john , m1, w1) ∧ adopt emp (taro , h1, w1)

Content (m1) = λw2[give (Ag (c∗),the-book ,john ){¬outrank (john , Ag (c∗),

h1)}]]]

where,

(37) [[adopt emp (a, h, w)]]w,c,r,h,g = 1 iff the empathy hierarchy for

[[a]]w,c,r,h,g in [[w]]w,c,r,h,g is [[h]]w,c,r,h,g

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Discussion: What determines the

perspective?

- What determines the speaker’s choice of each type of perspective? Are

there factors that interact with all types of perspectives?

- Do the types of perspectives have to, or at least tend to, match? Is “split

perspective” possible?

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Vividness

- I suggested earlier that an indirect report where one or more perspec-

tival feature is shifted (anchored to the secondary agent) is more “direct-

discourse like”.

- Certain communicative factors that motivate the speaker to choose

the direct mode, rather than the indirect mode, might be relevant to the

speaker’s choice of the perspective in indirect discourse as well.

- In particular: It has been said that direct reports are more “vivid”, “lively”,

and “theatrical” than indirect reports (Tannen 1985; Clark and Gerrig

1990). The choice of the secondary (shifted) perspective may indicate

the speaker’s intention to make the report vivid, lively, and theatrical.

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Predicate types

- As we have seen, some attitude predicates require/prefer the primary lo-

gophoric perspective, while others require/prefer the secondary logophoric

perspective.

- The correlation between semantic types of predicates and the primary/secondary

logophoric perspective is captured by what is known as the universal im-

plicational hierarchy of logophoric predicates (Culy 1994; Stirling 1993):

(38) Speech Predicates (say) > Epistemic/Psychological Predicates (believe, fear )

> Knowledge Predicates (know) > Perceptive Precicates (see)

Verbs belonging to a higher class in the hierarchy tend to favor the sec-

ondary logophoric perspective.

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- The same hierarchy seems to have similar effects on other perspectival

dimensions:

• deictic

(39) a. John said to Mary that he needed to {go/?come} to my place.

b. John believed that he needed to {?go/come} to my place.

c. John knew that he needed to {??go/come} to my place.

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• empathic

(40) Boku-wa ano gakusei-ni suisenzyoo-o kaite-yar /*kure-(a)nakat-ta.

‘I did not write a letter of recommendation for that student.’

a. Ano gakusei-wa [boku-ga suisenzyoo-o kaite-?yar /kure-(a)nakat-ta] to minna-

ni iihurasite-i-ru.

‘That student is telling everyone that I did not write a letter of recommen-

dation for him.’

b. Ano gakusei-wa [boku-ga suisenzyoo-o kaite-yar /kure-(a)nakat-ta] to sinzikonde-

i-ru.

‘That student (wrongly) believes that I did not write a letter of recommen-

dation for him.’

c. Ano gakusei-wa [boku-ga suisenzyoo-o kaite-yar /*kure-(a)nakat-ta] koto-

o okkotte-i-ru.

‘That student is angry that I did not write a letter of recommendation for

him.’

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• analytic (?)

(41) a. John said that Samuel Clemens was a great author (but he

did not say that Mark Twain was).

b. John believes that Samuel Clemens is a great author (but he

does not believe that Mark Twain is).

c. John knows that Samuel Clemens is a great author (?*but he

does not know that Mark Twain is).

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- Possible explanations:

(42) a. Belief “reports” necessarily involve the (re)construction of the

reported material by the external speaker, and this makes the

external speaker’s perspective predominant.

b. Knowledge/perception reports require that the external speaker

conceive the reported content as a fact (have first-hand ac-

cess to the reported content), and thus favor the primary per-

spective.

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Interaction among perspectives

- Given an indirect report which involves two (i.e. primary and secondary)

agents, and where the attitude predicate can be either character-taking

or content-taking, theoretically there are 24 = 16 possible patterns of

perspective-taking:

(43) Analytic Logophoric Empathic Deictic

1. Primary Primary Primary Primary

2. Primary Primary Primary Secondary...

16. Secondary Secondary Secondary Secondary

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- Are the four dimensions of perspectives totally independent from each

other?

(44) a. “Independence” Hypothesis : A perspectival dimension can be shifted or

remain unshifted regardless of whether other dimensions are shifted or not.

b. “Co-variation” Hypothesis : A perspectival dimension is shifted iff the other

dimensions are shifted, and remains unshifted iff the other dimensions are

unshifted.

c. “Implicational Hierarchy” Hypothesis : A perspectival dimension can be

shifted only if other dimensions which are lower than it in the implicational

hierarchy are shifted.

- To determine the relations between the four dimensions, it will be crucial

to look into data from a language where shift of all the dimensions is

possible.

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(i) The analytic dimension is largely independent from the other three

dimensions; the correlation is weak, if not absent.

(45) Taroi-wa

Taro-Top

[boku-ga

I-Nom

karei-no

he-Gen

tokoro-ni

place-Dat

Spiderman-no

Spiderman-Gen

kantoku-o

director-Acc

turete-{a. iku/b. kuru}take-{go/come}

-beki-da]

-should

to

Quot

omotte-i-ru.

believe-Asp-Pres(a) ‘Taroi thinks that I should go to where hei is with the director of Spiderman.’

(b) ‘Taroi thinks that I should come to where hei is with the director of Spider-

man.’

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(ii) An implicational relation holds between the logophoric, deictic, and

empathic perspective:

(46) empathic perspective > logophoric perspective > deictic per-

spective

(a) Logophoric Deictic

A1 Primary Secondary acceptable

A2 Secondary Primary marginal

(b) Empathic Logophoric

B1 Primary Secondary more or less acceptable

B2 Secondary Primary marginal

(n.b.) primary = unshifted, secondary = shifted

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(iii) The mismatch between the deictic and empathic perspective leads to

unacceptability, no matter what the “direction” of split is.

(c) Empathic Deictic

C1 Primary Secondary at best marginal

C2 Secondary Primary at best marginal

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(A1) Taroi-wa

Taro-Top

[boku-ga

I-Nom

karei-no

hei-Gen

tokoro-ni

place-Dat

kuru-beki-da]

come-should

to

Quot

syutyoo-site-i-ru.

claim-Asp-Pres‘Taroi claims that I should come to where he*i is.’

(A2) ??Taroi-wa

Taro-Top

[boku-ga

I-Nom

zibuni-no

selfi-Gen

tokoro-ni

place-Dat

iku-beki-da]

go-should

to

Quot

syutyoo-site-i-ru.

claim-Asp-Pres‘Taroi claims that I should go to where he*i is.’

(B1) (?)Taroi-wa

Taro-Top

[boku-ga

I-Nom

zibuni-ni

selfi-Dat

sono

that

hon-o

book-Acc

yat-ta]

give-Past

to

Quot

syutyoo-site-i-ru.

claim-Asp-Pres‘Taroi claims that I gave him*i that book.’

(B2) ??Taroi-wa

Taro-Top

[boku-ga

I-Nom

karei-ni

hei-Dat

sono

that

hon-o

book-Acc

kure-ta]

give-Past

to

Quot

syutyoo-site-i-ru.

claim-Asp-Pres‘Taroi claims that I gave himi that book.’

(C1) ?*Taroi-wa

Taro-Top

[itumo

always

boku-ga

I-Nom

φi

φyuubinbutu-o

mail-Acc

todoke-ni

hand-Dat

kite-yatte-i-ru]

come-Ben-Asp-Pres

to

Quot

syutyoosite-i-ru.

claim-Asp-Pres‘Taroi claims that I always come to deliver mail to himi.’

(C2) ?*Taroi-wa

Taro-Top

[itumo

always

boku-ga

I-Nom

φi

φyuubinbutu-o

mail-Acc

todoke-ni

hand-Dat

itte-kure-i-ru]

go-Ben-Asp-Pres

to

Quot

syutyoosite-i-ru.

claim-Asp-Pres‘Taroi claims that I always go to deliver mail to himi.’

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Summary

• Some indirect reports are more “direct discourse-like” in the sense

that certain perspectival features are anchored to the secondary agent

(reported speaker).

• The mental representation-based model of attitude reports (a la Crim-

mins and Perry) has certain advantages over the Hintikkian doxastic

alternatives-based model; among other things, it provides a basis for

the “sententialist” analysis of de dicto attitudes.

• Whether a perspectival feature is anchored to the primary or sec-

ondary agent is affected/conditioned by: (i) the semantic class of the

attitude predicate, and (ii) to whom other perspectival features are an-

chored.

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David Y. Oshima

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