Intensionality

Sentences which reveal interpretative or cognitive

behaviour
 Interpretations
• ex. languages contain a whole range of verbs
which describe different mental states.
Frank knows that S.
Frank believes that S.
Frank doubts that S.
Frank regrets that S.
Frank suspects that S.
Frank hopes that S.
Frank imagines that S, etc.
 Propositional attitudes
Propositional attitudes are not only conveyed by
embedding S under a higher verb. We might say
that if a speaker chooses between the sentences
below, the choice reflects a difference in
propositional attitude between certainty and
degrees of lack of certainty:
• Ex.
a. Phil misrepresented his income.
b. Phil probably misrepresented his income.
c. Phil may have misrepresented his income.
 The classical cases are the verbs of
propositional attitudes (Opaque contexts)
Opaque describes the fact that the truth or
falsity of the subordinate clause seems to be
independent of the truth or falsity of the whole
sentences.
Ex.
a. Jones believes that Paris is in France.
b. Jones believes that Punakha is in Bhutan.
 Intensionality
• Verbs of propositional attitude
• Modality
• Tense & Aspect
 Modality
Modality is often described in terms of two
related aspects of meaning.
The first, epistemic modality, concerns the
resources available to the speaker to express
judgement of fact versus possibility. The
Second, deontic modality, allows the expression
of obligation and permission, often in terms of
morality and law
 Tense and aspect
• One way to do this is to include tense operators

a. Past(C (r, i))

b. Present(C (r, j))
c. Future(C (z, j))
Key: C: chase
t: Tom
j: Jerry
• Tom chased Jerry.
• Tom is chasing Jerry.
• Tom will chase Jerry.
Aspect is a speaker's choice of viewing a
situation as complete or incomplete, stretched
over time or punctal, depending on the
aspectual parameters of the language