Indirect Discourse : Parataxis , the Propositional Function Modification

In “On Saying That,” Donald Davidson offered an analysis of indirect discourse that was meant to overcome the classic difficulties of a semantic theory of indirect discourse. Additionally, Davidson’s treatment of indirect discourse was purported to further his project of explaining meaning in a purely extensional, explicitly truth-defined, and compositional manner. The particular paratactic theory that Davidson introduced to accomplish his purposes has been influential and widely debated ever since 1968. Many criticisms of Davidson’s theory have attacked the idea that the object to which indirect discourse report-clauses refer is an utterance. However, recent attempts to salvage the paratactic theory—most notably by Gary Kemp—have tried to retain the paratactic logical form and the distinctive character of the Davidsonian theory in face of these objections by offering alternative accounts of what it is that indirect discourse reportclauses refer to. In this paper I will argue that Kemp’s account fails to offer a suitable replacement for the role of the “utterance” in Davidson’s theory. Moreover, in addition to critiquing Kemp specifically, I will show that Kemp’s strategy of modifying this one particular aspect of Davidson’s paratactic theory is inadequate to salvage the plausibility of Davidson’s theory, even if Kemp’s modifications were successful.