Expressing Permission

Abstract

This paper proposes a semantics for free choice permission that explains both the non-classical behavior of modals and disjunction in sentences used to grant permission, and their classical behavior under negation. It also explains why permissions can expire when new information comes in and why free choice arises even when modals scope under disjunction. On the proposed approach, deontic modals update preference orderings, and connectives operate on these updates rather than propositions. The success of this approach stems from its capacity to capture the difference between expressing the preferences that give rise to permissions and conveying propositions about those preferences.

Free choice, simplification, and Innocent Inclusion

“…As William Starr has pointed out to us, the argument from ellipsis doesn't carry over (at least not straightforwardly) to other accounts with a non-standard semantics which, unlike Aloni (2007), don't rely on ambiguity (see recently Starr 2016;Aloni 2016;Willer 2018). In order to deliver the right truth conditions for sentences like (6) without assuming ambiguity, those approaches rely on defining truth and falsity conditions 6 And, of course, they are also explained when weaker demands are made, as in Rooth (1992) and Heim (1996)-the 'parallelism domain' for ellipsis (the domain of ∼ in Rooth 1992;Heim 1996) need not contain Exh.…”

“…This is not strictly speaking true ofStarr (2016), whose proposal nonetheless involves non-standard modifications of logical operators, a move we are trying to avoid.9 In addition, some of those approaches(Starr 2016;Aloni 2016) predict FC inferences when disjunction takes wide scope above the modal, a result argued against inBar-Lev (2018, Chap. 2).10 This criticism is reminiscent ofSchlenker's (2009) criticism of dynamic semantics approaches.…”

Choice and prohibition in non-monotonic contexts

“…Zimmerman 2000), recent theories have made substantial empirical progress, since they predict dual prohibition alongside free choice. Accounts in this vein include, among others, Starr (2016), Aloni (2016), Willer (2017), Goldstein (2018), and Rothschild and Yablo (2018). For concreteness here we focus on the account in Goldstein (2018) and sketch its predictions in relation to our results.…”

Sluicing on free choice

“…A survey of the literature, especially in philosophy, suggests that the NCN is not widely accepted by formal semanticists. Many authors hold that 'I don't know which'-sluices demonstrate cancellation while maintaining the mainstream assumption that disjunction scopes narrow at LF in Free-Choice triggering sentences (Kamp 1978, Zimmermann 2000, Starr 2016, Willer 2017. Others have embraced the less mainstream position that FC obtains for wide-scope 'or', but nontheless take the cancellation data to be relevant to it (Hawke & Steinert-Threlkeld…”