Now Playing: FROM COUNTERFACTUALS WEEK (UPDATED)
Topic: HUMAN SEMANTICS
On the Lumping Semantics of Counterfactuals
By Makoto Kanazawa, Stefan Kaufmann and Stanley Peters
Kratzer (1981) discussed a naïve premise semantics of counterfactual conditionals, pointed to an empirical inadequacy of this interpretation, and presented a modification— partition semantics— which Lewis (1981) proved equivalent to Pollock's (1976) version of his ordering semantics. Subsequently, Kratzer (1989) proposed lumping semantics, a different modification of premise semantics, and argued it remedies empirical failings of ordering semantics as well as of naïve premise semantics. We show that lumping semantics yields truth conditions for counterfactuals that are not only different from what she claims they are, but also inferior to those of the earlier versions of premise semantics.
See also the Journal of Semantics 2005 22(2):129-151Constraining Premise Sets for Counterfactuals
By Angelika Kratzer
This note is a reply to "On the Lumping Semantics of Counterfactuals" by Makoto Kanazawa, Stefan Kaufmann, and Stanley Peters. It argues first that the first triviality result obtained by Kanazawa, Kaufmann, and Peters does not apply to the analysis of counterfactuals in Kratzer (1989). Second, and more importantly, it points out that the results obtained by Kanazawa, Kaufmann, and Peters are obsolete in view of the revised analysis of counterfactuals in Kratzer (1990, 2002).
Posted by Tony Marmo
at 00:01 BST
Updated: Tuesday, 28 June 2005 08:39 BST
