A Case for Reference to Phenomenal Experience in Natural Language

• Gaetano Fiorin ^[1] ; Denis Delfitto ^[2]
  1. [1] Utrecht University

     Utrecht University

     Países Bajos

     
  2. [2] University of Verona

     University of Verona

     Verona, Italia

     
• Localización: Cahiers de linguistique française, ISSN 0259-6199, Nº. 32, 2015, págs. 119-132
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Model-theoretic semantics is grounded on the assumption that meaning is reference. In such a framework, defining the meaning of a natural language expression corresponds to defining the object to which it refers, a practice sometimes referred to as ‘Natural Language Metaphysics’. Typical objects of reference used in semantic modeling are individual entities and possible worlds. A number of linguistic facts have been explained by introducing novel classes of entities in the model. Relevant examples are times and events. In this contribution, we aim at producing a case for introducing phenomenal experiences among the set of objects natural language expressions refer to. We show that the truth conditions of some natural language expressions are best described as denoting phenomenal experiences, rather than objects of the world.