Date of Award
August 2021
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Philosophy
First Advisor
Peter van Elswyk
Committee Members
Nicholas Fleisher
Abstract
Imperatives can be answers to questions. That creates a dilemma. It seems to force us to choose between the predominant semantics of imperatives on which imperatives are non-propositional, and the standard semantics of questions on which answers are propositions and questions are sets of them. This paper presents the dilemma and offers a solution. To preserve the non-propositional semantics of imperatives, I argue that imperatival answers are fragment answers. To retain the propositional nature of answers, I proffer a discourse function-oriented mechanism for constructing propositions from imperatives pragmatically. Specifically, I show that the pragmatically constructed contents of imperatival answers are similar to the propositional contents expressed in anankastic conditionals.
Recommended Citation
Chen, Jingyi, "Imperatives as Fragment Answers" (2021). Theses and Dissertations. 2766.
https://dc.uwm.edu/etd/2766