61. Indexicality and De Se reports

Abstract

Indexicals are context-dependent expressions such as I, you, here and now, whose semantic value is determined by the context in which they are uttered (e.g. I denotes John if uttered by John, and Mary if uttered by Mary). In English, these expressions typically depend on the actual context of speech, i.e. the context in which they are in fact uttered. In other languages, however, some indexicals may depend on the context of a reported speech act, so that what is literally John says that I am a hero may mean that John says that he, John, is a hero; in such cases, we say that the indexical is ‘shifted ’ because it is evaluated with respect to a context that is different from the context of the actual utterance. In yet other languages, there are dedicated expressions for this reported use, with a pronoun he * that can only appear in indirect discourse; these ‘logophoric expressions ’ can, at least as a first approximation, be analyzed as indexicals that are obligatorily shifted. This chapter provides an overview of the semantics of indexical and logophoric expressions, with special reference to recent theoretical and cross-linguistic analyses. 1. Kaplan’s theory of indexicality The modern theory of indexicality owes much to philosophers of language, who were

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