Composing Criteria of Individuation in Copredication

Abstract

Copredication is the phenomenon whereby two or more predicates are applied to a single argument, but those predicates appear to require that their argument denote different things. This paper focuses on the problem of individuation and counting in copredication: many quantified copredication sentences have truth conditions that cannot be accounted for given standard assumptions, because the predicates used impose distinct criteria of individuation on the objects to which they apply. I propose a compositional system for criteria of individuation and show that it improves predictions regarding the truth conditions of numerically quantified copredication sentences compared to existing accounts. * This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in the Journal of Semantics following peer review.

Copredication and Property Inheritance

“…VI.II. Gotham (2016) Gotham's theory of copredication shares some key elements with ours. Like us, Gotham holds that "book" is unambiguous, and that it designates objects that can instantiate both properties ascribed in a copredication sentence like (2).…”

“…Gotham (), () and Asher () develop sophisticated views that contrast with our own view that copredication requires no revisionary semantics. Our final task is to compare their views to ours.…”

“…An example presented in Gotham (), which plays a key role in his discussion, is the following: (59)Three informative books are heavy. …”

Copredication, Counting, and Criteria of Individuation: A Response to Gotham

“…This problem has driven theorists to a variety of dramatic conclusions, most notably that referential semantics should be jettisoned altogether (Chomsky 2000, Pietroski 2005, Collins 2009. Those who are moved by the puzzle but wish to preserve referential semantics have offered a range of complex semantic theories (Pustejovsky 1995, Luo 2012, Asher 2011, Gotham 2017. The details of these views vary considerably, but they share the common general idea: nouns involved in copredication (such as 'book') belong to a kind of complex semantic type (in this case, a type which in some manner combines being physical and being informational), and which (perhaps after some further syntactic and semantic footwork) allows the two conflicting properties or modifiers ('heavy' and 'informative' in this case), to apply.…”

“…The problem, however, is that from a philosophical point of view it is not obvious how to make sense of this view: since Asher takes being a physical object and being an informational object as incompatible properties (p.139), it is hard to explain how both 'conceptualizations' can be 'equally true' of books, and the doctrine of relative identity on which Asher relies is widely rejected in the philosophical literature. 2 Against this background, Gotham (2017) makes an important and welcome contribution to this debate. Gotham's theory offers a compositional semantics which accounts both for the true readings of copredication sentences and for a wide range of intricate data concerning counting and individuation sentences.…”