Demonstratives in Philosophy and Linguistics

Demonstrative noun phrases (e.g., that guy, this) are of interest to philosophers of language and semanticists because they are sensitive to demonstrations or speaker intentions. The interpretation of a demonstrative therefore sheds light on the role of the context in natural language semantics. This survey reviews two types of approaches to demonstratives: Kaplan’s direct reference treatment of demonstratives and other indexicals, and recent challenges to Kaplan’s approach that focus on less obviously context-sensitive uses of demonstratives. The survey then covers selected research on demonstratives in linguistics. This research offers new empirical puzzles and contrasting theoretical approaches to demonstratives. Demonstrative noun phrases in English are noun phrases containing this, that, these, or those, as shown in (1). English also has two demonstrative degree modifiers, as in (2). For the purposes of this short survey we will set aside the degree words, but see Maclaran for discussion. Note also that the demonstrative pronoun that in (1a) should not be confused with the homophonous complementizer in (3). (1) a. I like this better than that. b. I like this painting better than that painting. c. I like those better than these. d. I like those paintings better than these paintings. (2) a. Johnny is this tall already! b. It’s hard to believe that Johnny is that tall. (3) Fred said that it was raining. Demonstrative pronouns are also known as simple demonstratives, while demonstrative noun phrases with nominal content, as in (1b), are known as complex demonstratives. All known languages have demonstratives of some kind, though not necessarily with the same syntactic structure as English demonstrative noun phrases (Diessel). The demonstrative noun phrases of a language are those noun phrases with a characteristic use in which the speaker gestures towards, or demonstrates, the intended referent. It is this special sensitivity to extra-linguistic gestures that has captured the most attention from philosophers of language and natural language semanticists. 452 Demonstratives in Philosophy and Linguistics © 2009 The Author Philosophy Compass 4/3 (2009): 451–468, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2009.00205.x Journal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd The purpose of this survey is to review the highlights of research on demonstratives in philosophy and linguistics, and to suggest some potential starting points for new research on demonstratives. Readers who are primarily interested in an introduction to philosophical work on demonstratives will prefer to concentrate on sections 1 and 2. Researchers looking for new debates about demonstratives will also want to turn to the final two sections, in which I discuss two lines of research in linguistics that to date have attracted less attention in the philosophical literature. I believe that these lines of research contribute not only new empirical results, but suggest perspectives on the meaning and use of demonstratives that contrast with the received philosophical view in interesting ways. Demonstratives as Indexicals The core uses of demonstratives are indexicals, showing a special sensitivity to the context of utterance. Other indexicals include first and second person pronouns, here, and now. Notice that (4)