Experiential Attitudes: Centered Situations in the Semantics of Remember and Imagine∗ Tamina Stephenson (Yale University) [email protected] http://sites.google.com/site/taminastephenson/

Brown University, March 16, 2011

Main Proposal Imagine and remember have a distinct experiential reading, on which they make crucial reference to centered situations (situation-individual pairs). Among other things, this helps account for a direct witnessing requirement akin to that in direct perception reports and the special interpretation of subjectless gerunds (control constructions).

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Experiential Readings • Claim: remember and imagine have a distinct, experiential reading1 (builds on observations by Higginbotham, 2003)

Characteristics of Experiential Readings: • Direct witnessing requirement (§1.1.1–1.1.2) • Availability of modifiers vividly, in perfect detail (§1.2.1–1.2.2) • Morphosyntactic / Aspectual properties of embedded clause (§1.3.1–1.3.2) ∗ Special thanks to Chris Barker, Ivano Caponigro, Simon Charlow, Ashwini Deo, Mike Freedman, Jon Gajewski, Larry Horn, Tim Hunter, Meagan Louie, Sophia Malamud, Keir Moulton, Paul Portner, Bernhard Schwarz, Yael Sharvit, Dennis Storoshenko, Anna Szabolcsi, John Troyer, Ryan Waldie, and audiences at Yale, UConn, SALT 20 (poster session), and the DGfS Workshop on Attitudes. Apologies to anyone I’ve omitted here. Of course I remain responsible for any errors and deficiencies. 1 These are the cases that Higginbotham (2003) describes as remembering or imagining an event. In an earlier version of this work (Stephenson, 2010b) I called this a “vivid” use after the diagnostic in §1.2.1.

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1.1.1

Direct Witnessing------Remember

(1)

Mary remembered John feeding the cat.

[experiential]

Mary saw the feeding happen ⇒ true Mary was told that John fed the cat ⇒ false (2)

Mary remembered that John fed the cat.

[non-experiential]

Mary saw the feeding happen ⇒ true Mary was told that John fed the cat ⇒ true

Compare to: (3)

[direct perception]

Mary saw John feed the cat. Mary saw the feeding happen ⇒ true Mary was told that John fed the cat ⇒ false

(4)

[not direct perception]

Mary saw that John fed the cat. Mary saw the feeding happen ⇒ true Mary was told that John fed the cat ⇒ true

(See, e.g., Barwise, 1981; Barwise & Perry, 1983; Kratzer, 2009) To see the point in another way: (5) (6) 1.1.2 (7)

# Mary remembered being born in L.A. Mary remembered that she was born in L.A.

[experiential] [non-experiential]

Direct Witnessing------Imagine Mary imagined John feeding the cat.

[experiential]

Mary’s mental image includes the actual feeding ⇒ true Mary’s mental image includes only hearing / inferring that the feeding occurred ⇒ false (8)

Mary imagined that John (had) fed the cat

[non-experiential]

Mary’s mental image includes the actual feeding ⇒ true Mary’s mental image includes only hearing / inferring that the feeding occurred ⇒ true

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1.2.1 (9)

(10)

Modifiers------Remember (a)

Mary vividly remembered John feeding the cat.

(b)

Mary remembered John feeding the cat in perfect detail.

(a)

?? Mary vividly remembered that John fed the cat. Can be forced into interpretation ‘Mary vividly remembered finding out that John fed the cat’

(b) ??/* Mary remembered in perfect detail that John fed the cat. (c) ??/* Mary remembered that John fed the cat in perfect detail 1.2.2

Modifiers------Imagine

(11)

Mary vividly imagined John feeding the cat.

(12)

?? Mary vividly imagined that John fed the cat.

1.3.1

Morphosyntax and Aspect------Remember

The distinction may have more to do with aspect than finiteness/tense:2 (13)

Mary vividly remembered that John was busy feeding the cat. imperfective; experiential(?)

1.3.2 (14)

Morphosyntax and Aspect------Imagine Mary vividly imagined that John was busy feeding the cat. imperfective; experiential(?)

When imagine means ‘believe’ or ‘entertain,’ this seems to be non-experiential: (15)

(a) ??/* I vividly imagine (that) you must be tired. (b) ??/* I never vividly imagined that John would actually forget to feed the cat.

2 Portner (1992, Ch. 5) discusses a way in which gerundive clauses can differ in aspectual properties. It’s not yet clear to me how this relates to the contrast I’m looking at.

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2 De Se Reports 2.1 Imagine and Remember with subjectless gerunds (control constructions) (16)

John remembered feeding the cat.

(17)

John imagined feeding the cat.

Interpretation: • De se, as usual with control constructions (see, e.g., Morgan, 1970; Chierchia, 1989): not true if John remembered “that guy” feeding the cat • Imagining / remembering is from the inside (in the sense of Vendler, 1979; also see, e.g., Recanati, 2007; Ninan, 2008): memory / image must be from the sensory perspective of the person doing the feeding. [Note: To distinguish the two, consider, e.g., out of body experiences]

2.2

Are these experiential readings? • X Being from the inside ⇒ direct witnessing (being the person doing the feeding is one way to be a direct witness) • X OK with vivid-type modifiers (18, 19) • X? At least allow imperfective-type interpretation

(18)

John vividly remembered feeding the cat.

(19)

John vividly imagined feeding the cat.

Note: (As usual) reflexive pronouns do NOT have this effect (John could be imagining a film strip): (20)

John imagined himself feeding the cat.

(21)

John vividly imagined himself feeding the cat.

3 3.1

Proposal Centered Situations • Individual centers (e.g., Lewis, 1979) + parts of worlds(Kratzer, 1989). • More precisely: hs, xi where s is a partial world and x is an individual in s (figure 22) 4

Centered Situations:

(22)

Centered Situations: hs1 , ai, hs1 , bi, hs2 , bi, hs3 , ci, hs4 , ci, hs4 , di [and technically] hw1 , ai, hw1 , bi, hw2 , ci , and hw2 , di Part-Whole Relation: s1 ≤ w1 , s2 ≤ w1 , s3 ≤ s4 ≤ w2 For now: hs, yi is in a world w iff s ≤ w.

Semantics for Imagine and Remember

3.2 Notes:

• Using existential quantification over centered situations for concreteness. (other possibilities: implicit argument; clauses refer to centered situations) • Meanings below are for experiential readings (non-experiential readings would presumably be different) • In an attempt to optimze consistency and simplicity, I’m taking situations to be indices of evaluation. (It would be more consistent to treat them as centered situations, but I won’t motivate that here.) 5

3.2.1 (23)

Semantics for Experiential Remember JrememberK s∗ = [λp . [λx . ∃hs, yi : p(hs, yi) = 1 and x has the cognitive relation of remembering experientially towards hs, yi in s∗] ]

⇒ “Cognitive relation of remembering experientially” = placeholder for psychological / neurological / etc. phenomenon: (24)

For x to experientially remember hs, yi (in s*), it must be the case that: (i) x formed a memory of s by directly witnessing it (ii) x’s experience of s is from the perspective of y (iii) the time of s is prior to the time of s* (iv) s and s∗ are part of the same world (for true memories)

3.2.2

Semantics for Experiential Imagine:

(25)

(26)

3.3

JimagineK s∗ = [λp . [λxe . ∃hs, yi : p(hs, yi) = 1 and x has the cognitive relation of imagining experientially towards hs, yi in s∗] ] For x to experientially imagine hs, yi (in s∗), it must be the case that: (i) x forms a mental image of s as if by directly witnessing it (ii) x’s imagined experience of s is from the perspective of y (iii) s and s∗ are (typically) part of different worlds

Semantics for Embedded Clauses

Meanings above require that p have a truth value at centered situation hs, yi (27)

JJohn feeding the catK¢ = [λhs, yi . John feeds the cat in s]

(28)

Jfeeding the catK¢ = [λhs, yi . y feeds the cat in s]3

3.4 (1)

Example (1) Mary remembered John feeding the cat.

(disregarding the role of past tense) (29)

JMary remembered John feeding the catK s∗ = JrememberK s∗ (JJohn feeding the catK¢ ) (JMaryK s∗ ) = [λp . [λxe . ∃hs, yi : p(hs, yi) = 1 and x has the cognitive relation of remembering experientially towards hs, yi in s∗] ] ([λhs2 , zi . John feeds the cat in s2 ]) (Mary) = 1 iff ∃hs, yi : John feeds the cat in s and Mary has the cognitive relation of remembering experientially towards hs, yi in s∗

3 See Stephenson (2010a) for a more detailed implementation, based on Chierchia (1989) and others.

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3.5

Example (16)

(16)

John remembered feeding the cat.

(30)

JJohn remembered feeding the catK s∗ = JrememberK s∗ (Jfeeding the catK¢ ) (JJohnK s∗ ) = [λp . [λxe . ∃hs, yi : p(hs, yi) = 1 and x has the cognitive relation of remembering experientially towards hs, yi in s∗] ] ([λhs2 , zi . z feeds the cat in s2 ]) (John)

= 1 iff ∃hs, yi : y feeds the cat in s and John has the cognitive relation of remembering experientially towards hs, yi in s∗

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Further Applications and Issues

4.1 Vividly First pass at a meaning: It’s most straightforward if we treat it as a verb-modifier (applying directly to imagine, e.g.) rather than a VP- or S-modifier. (31)

JvividlyK s∗ = [λP :P involves mental representation of a centered situation hs, zi . [λp . [λx . P(p)(x)(s∗) 1 and x’s mental representation of hs, zi is especially similar in details to hs, zi] ] ]

The idea: the propositional case involves no mental representation of a (centered) situation, so there’s a presupposition failure.

4.2

Dual Perspectives

We can straightforwardly account for sentences like (32)-(33):4 (32)

Mary imagined having a bright light shining in her eyes and not being able to see it. ⇒ Mary must simultaneously imagine that the light is shining and NOT seeing it [e.g., temporary blindness]

(33)

Mary remembered being in a room with Beethoven’s Ninth playing but not being able to hear it. [similar]

Illustrate with (32): (34)

Jhaving a bright light shining in her eyes and not being able to see itK¢

= [λhs, yi . y has a bright light shining in y’s eyes in s and y can’t see the light in s] 4 Thanks to Irene Heim for especially useful discussion of these kind of examples.

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(35)

JMary imagined having a bright light shining in her eyes and not being able to see itK s∗ = JimagineK s∗ (Jhaving a bright light shining in her eyes and not being able to see itK¢ ) (JMaryK s∗ ) = 1 iff ∃hs1 , zi : z has a bright light shining in z’s eyes in s1 and z can’t see the light in s1 and Mary has the cognitive relation of imagining experientially towards hs1 , zi in s∗

The moral: both the “situation” and the “center” (of centered situations) are crucial.

4.3

Nominal Complements

Remember/Imagine can also take nominal complements: (36)

Mary remembered the cat.

(37)

Mary imagined a cat.

Are these experiential? • X Direct witnessing: Mary has to have directly perceived the cat (36) / have an imagined mental image that includes the cat (37) • X vivid-type modifiers OK: (38)-(39) • (Aspect n/a) (38)

Mary vividly remembered the cat.

(39)

Mary vividly imagined a cat.

Extending the analysis: (40)

Ja catK¢ = [λhs, yi . there is a cat in s]

(41)

Jthe catK¢ = [λhs, yi . there is a unique contextually salient cat is in s]

4.4

Lawlike Generalizations

Experiential readings disallowed (for some speakers, hence %) when the embedded proposition is lawlike:5 (42)

[Context: People are discussing what they remember from math classes in school.]

5 Thanks to Meagan Louie for helpful discussion of these cases.

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(a) (b) (c) (43) (a) (b) (c)

% I remember pi being irrational. I remember that pi was irrational. % I vividly remember that pi was irrational. [Context: People are discussing what they remember from physics classes in school.] % I remember gravity being inversely proportional to distance squared. I remember that gravity was inversely proportional to distance squared. % I vividly remember that gravity was inversely proportional to distance squared.

The problem: On my proposal, if (e.g.) ‘pi is irrational’ is true in all situations, then (42a) is essentially guaranteed to be true (unless the speaker has no experiential memories at all). Possibilities: • Say that lawlike facts only hold in certain situations (e.g., ones containing the relevant, possibly abstract objects); people ordinarily can’t have sufficiently vivid cognitive relations to (situations containing) these things.6 • Require that hs, yi exemplify p (rather than just making it true), on a suitable extension of the concept of exemplification.7 Then the relevant situations would have to be very minimal (containing just pi, e.g.). Again, claim that people can’t ordinarily have sufficiently vivid cognitive relations to these. BUT Complication: I’ve gotten a wide range of judgments here.

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Conclusions and Outlook

Summary: • Argued: remember and imagine have a distinct experiential reading • Introduced notion of centered situations to help account for this reading Some Remaining Issues: • Say something more about cognitive relations of remembering, imagining, etc. (hopefully this links into existing ideas in psychology, etc.) • More attitude predicates? (e.g., dream) • More languages! • More integration with situation semantics 6 This would go against Kratzer’s (1989) view that lawlike propositions are either true or false in all the situations of any

given world. 7 Here is a possible definition based on the one in (Kratzer, 2002, p. 660): hs, yi exemplifies p iff p is true in hs, yi and whenever s0 ≤ s and p is not true in hs0 , yi, s0 can be extended to a minimal situation s00 such that p is true in hs00 , yi. Note the sleight of hand here, though (mine, not Kratzer’s!): the center could potentially be extraneous to the truth of p.

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References Barwise, Jon. 1981. Scenes and Other Situations. The Journal of Philosophy 78(7). 369–397. Barwise, Jon & John Perry. 1983. Situations and Attitudes. The MIT Press. Chierchia, Gennaro. 1989. Anaphora and Attitudes De Se. In R. Bartsch, J. van Benthem & P. van Emde Boas (eds.), Language in Context, 1–31. Dordrecht: Foris. Higginbotham, James. 2003. Remembering, Imagining, and the First Person. In Alex Barber (ed.), Epistemology of Language, 496–533. Oxford University Press. Kratzer, Angelika. 1989. An Investigation of the Lumps of Thought. Linguistics and Philosophy 12. 607–653. Kratzer, Angelika. 2002. Facts: Particulars or Information Units? Linguistics and Philosophy 25. 655–670. Kratzer, Angelika. 2009. Situations in Natural Language Semantics. In Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2009/entries/situations-semantics/. Lewis, David. 1979. Attitudes De Dicto and De Se. The Philosophical Review 88(4). 513–543. Morgan, Jerry. 1970. On the Criterion of Identity for Noun Phrase Deletion. In Papers from the Sixth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, 380–389. Ninan, Dilip. 2008. Imagination, Content, and the Self. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT dissertation. Portner, Paul. 1992. Situation Theory and the Semantics of Propositional Expressions. Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts dissertation. Recanati, François. 2007. Imagining De Se. Paper presented at at Mimesis, Metaphysics, and Make-Believe: A Conference in Honour of Kendall Walton. University of Leeds, U.K., June 23, 2007. Stephenson, Tamina. 2010a. Control in Centred Worlds. Journal of Semantics 27(4). 409–436. doi:10.1093/jos/ffq011. Stephenson, Tamina. 2010b. Vivid Attitudes: Centered Situations in the Semantics of Remember and Imagine. In Nan Li & David Lutz (eds.), Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT), vol. 20, 147–160. Ithaca, NY: CLC Publications. Vendler, Zeno. 1979. Vicarious Experience. Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 84(2). 161–173.

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