Token Dependency Semantics and the Paratactic Analysis of Intensional Constructions

This article introduces Token Dependency Semantics (TDS), a surface‐oriented and token‐based framework for compositional truth‐conditional semantics. It is motivated by Davidson's ‘paratactic’ analysis of semantic intensionality (‘On Saying That’, 1968, Synthese 19: 130–146), which has been much discussed in philosophy. This is the first fully‐fledged formal implementation of Davidson's proposal. Operator‐argument structure and scope are captured by means of relations among tokens. Intensional constituent tokens represent ‘propositional’ contents directly. They serve as arguments to the words introducing intensional contexts, rather than being ‘ordinary’ constituents. The treatment of de re readings involves the use of functions (‘anchors’) assigning entities to argument positions of lexical tokens. Quantifiers are thereby allowed to bind argument places on content tokens. This gives us a simple underspecification‐based account of scope ambiguity. The TDS framework is applied to indirect speech reports, mental attitude sentences, control verbs, and modal and agent‐relative sentence adverbs in English. This semantics is compatible with a traditional view of syntax. Here, it is integrated into a Head‐driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG). The result is a straightforward and ontologically parsimonious analysis of truth‐conditional meaning and semantic intensionality.