SciELO - Scientific Electronic Library Online

 
vol.57 issue69Hölderlin and the Unsaid: On the Question of Silence in Martin Heidegger´s Interpretation of His Poetry author indexsubject indexsearch form
Home Pagealphabetic serial listing  

Services on Demand

Journal

Article

Indicators

Related links

  • Have no similar articlesSimilars in SciELO

Share


Diánoia

Print version ISSN 0185-2450

Abstract

GARCIA RAMIREZ, Eduardo. Negative Existencials as Metalinguistic Denials. Diánoia [online]. 2012, vol.57, n.69, pp.3-29. ISSN 0185-2450.

There are uses of empty names where the speaker cannot justifiably be said to be committed to there being a referent for her use of the relevant name. These appear within negative existential constructions of the form ‘X doesn't exist' where ‘X' is an empty name. Yet, speakers manage to convey non-trivial and sometimes even truthful information with such uses. According to the metalinguistic tradition initiated by R. Stalnaker (1978) assertions of ‘X doesn't exist' convey the information that " ‘X doesn't refer". In this paper I develop a hypothetical account that purports to advance this tradition. On this view, these speech acts are understood as metalinguistic denials. I defend this hypothesis by comparing it against a recent metalinguistic proposal owed to L. Clapp (2008).

Keywords : presuppositions; metalinguistic uses; positive existentials; negative existentials.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )

 

Creative Commons License All the contents of this journal, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License