Author	Hintikka, Jaakko. author
Title	Anaphora and Definite Descriptions [electronic resource] : Two Applications of Game-Theoretical Semantics / by Jaakko Hintikka, Jack Kulas
Imprint	Dordrecht : Springer Netherlands, 1985
Connect to	http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-5410-6
Descript	XIV, 250 p. online resource

I n order to appreciate properly what we are doing in this book it is necessary to realize that our approach to linguistic theorizing differs from the prevailing views. Our approach can be described by indicating what distinguishes it from the methodological ideas current in theoretical linguistics, which I consider seriously misguided. Linguists typically construe their task in these days as that of making exceptionless generalizations from particular examples. This explanatory strategy is wrong in several different ways. It presupposes that we can have "intuitions" about particular examples, usually examples invented by the linguist himself or herself, reliable and sharp enough to serve as a basis of sharp generalizations. It also presupposes that we cannot have equally reliable direct access to general linguistic regularities. Both assumptions appear to me extremely dubious, and the first of them has in effect been challenged by linguists like Dwight Bol inger. There is also some evidence that the degree of unanimity among linguists is fairly low when it comes to less clear cases, even in connection with such relatively simple questions as grammaticality (acceptability). For this reason we have tried to rely more on quotations from contemporary fiction, newspapers and magazines than on linguists' and philosophers' ad hoc examples. I also find it strange that some of the same linguists as believe that we all possess innate ideas about general characteristics of humanly possible grammars assume that we can have access to them only via their particular consequences

I: Introduction to Game-Theoretical Semantics -- 1. General -- 2. Formal first-order languages -- 3. Equivalence with Tarski-type truth-definitions -- 4. Translation to higher-order languages -- 5. Partially ordered quantifiers -- 6. Subgames and functional interpretations -- 7. Extension to natural languages -- 8. Similarities and differences between formal and natural languages -- 9. Competing ordering principles -- 10. Atomic sentences -- 11. Further rules for natural languages -- 12. Explanatory strategies -- Notes to Part I -- II: Definite Descriptions -- 1. Russell on definite descriptions -- 2. Prima facie difficulties with Russellโs theory -- 3. Can we localize Russellโs theory? -- 4. Game-theoretical solution to the localization problem -- 5. Anaphoric โtheโ in formal languages -- 6. Applications -- 7. Epithetic and counterepithetic the-phrases -- 8. Vagaries of the alleged head-anaphor relation -- 9. The anaphoric use of definite descriptions as a semantical phenomenon -- 10. The quantifier-exclusion phenomenon in natural languages -- 11. Inductive choice sets -- 12. Other uses of โtheโ -- 13. The Russellian use -- 14. The generic use motivated -- 15. Conclusions from the โpragmatic deductionโ -- Notes to Part II -- III: Towards a Semantical Theory of Pronominal Anaphora -- I: Different Approaches to Anaphora -- II: A Game-Theoretical Approach to Anaphora -- III: The Exclusion Principle -- IV: General Theoretical Issues -- V: GTS expalains Coreference Restrictions -- VI: Comparisons with Other Treatments -- Notes to Part III -- Name Index

1. Linguistics
2. Language and languages -- Philosophy
3. Semantics
4. Linguistics
5. Semantics
6. Philosophy of Language