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12.5: De dicto vs. de re ambiguity

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    Another interesting property of opaque contexts, including the complements of propositional attitude verbs, is that definite NPs occurring in such contexts can sometimes receive two different interpretations. They can either be used to refer to a specific individual, as in (15a), or they can be used to identify a type of individual, or property of individuals, as in (15b).

    (15) a. I hope to meet with the Prime Minister next year, (after he retires from office).

    b. I hope to meet with the Prime Minister next year; (we’ll have to wait for the October election before we know who that will be).

    The former reading, which refers to a specific individual, is known as the de re (‘about the thing’) interpretation. The latter reading, in which the NP identifies a property of individuals, is known as the de dicto (‘about the word’ or ‘about what is said’) interpretation. The same kind of ambiguity is illustrated in (16).

    (16) a. I wanted my husband to be a Catholic, (but he said he was too old to convert).

    b. I wanted my husband to be a Catholic, (but I ended up marrying a Sikh).

    Under the de re interpretation, the definite NP denotes a particular individual: the person who is serving as Prime Minister at the time of speaking in (15a), and the individual who is married to the speaker at the time of speaking in (16a). Under the de dicto interpretation, the semantic contribution of the definite NP is not what it refers to but its sense: a property (e.g. the property of being Prime Minister, or the property of being married to the speaker) rather than a specific individual. This “shift” from denotation to sense in opaque contexts is similar to the facts about complement clauses discussed in the previous section. A similar type of ambiguity is observed with indefinite NPs, as illustrated in (17).

    (17) a. The opposition party wants to nominate a retired movie star for President.

    b. The Dean believes that I am collaborating with a famous linguist.

    With indefinites, the two readings are often referred to as specific vs. nonspecific; but we can apply the terms de dicto vs. de re to these cases as well.4 Under the specific (de re) reading, the phrase a retired movie star in (17a) refers to a particular individual, e.g. Ronald Reagan or Joseph Estrada (former president of the Philippines); so under this reading sentence (17a) means that the opposition party has a specific candidate in mind, who happens to be a retired actor (whether the party leaders realize this or not). Under the non-specific (de dicto) reading, the phrase refers to a property or type, rather than a specific individual. Under this reading sentence (17a) means that the opposition party does not have a specific candidate in mind, but knows what kind of person they want; and being a retired actor is one of the qualifications they are looking for.

    These de dicto–de re ambiguities involve true semantic ambiguity, as seen by the fact that the two readings have different truth conditions. For example, suppose I am collaborating with Noam Chomsky on a book of political essays. The Dean knows about this collaboration, but knows Chomsky only through his political writings, and does not realize that he is also a famous linguist. In this situation, sentence (17b) will be true under the de re reading but false under the de dicto reading.

    As we will see in our discussion of quantifiers (Chapter 14), de dicto–de re ambiguities can often be explained or analyzed as instances of scope ambiguity. However, the specific vs. non-specific ambiguity of indefinite NPs is found even in contexts where no scope effects are involved.5


    4 We follow von Heusinger (2011) in using the terms this way.

    5 Fodor & Sag (1982).


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