Mixed quotation: The grammar of apparently transparent opacity

• Main Author: Emar Maier
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Linguistic Society of America 2014-05-01
• Series: Semantics and Pragmatics
• Subjects: metalinguistic reference; mixed quotation; unquotation; opacity; compositionality; syntax–semantics interface; presupposition
• Online Access: http://semprag.org/article/view/2892

The phenomenon of mixed quotation exhibits clear signs of both the apparent transparency of compositional language use and the opacity of pure quotation. I argue that the interpretation of a mixed quotation in- volves the resolution of a metalinguistic presupposition. The leading idea behind my proposal is that a mixed-quoted expression, say, “has an anomalous feature”, means what x referred to with the words ‘has an anomalous feature’. To understand how this solves the paradox, I set up a precise grammatical framework, explicitly connecting various levels of linguistic analysis: phonological forms, categorial syntax, and a dynamic picture of the semantics–pragmatics interface. In this framework I formalize and evaluate a presuppositional account of mixed quotation. Finally, I address the phenomenon of unquotation and argue that it is an essential ingredient for an elegant and empirically adequate analysis of mixed quotation in natural language. http://dx.doi.org/10.3765/sp.7.7 <a href="http://semantics-online.org/sp-bib/maier-2014.bib">BibTeX info</a>