Universitt Heidelberg
Anglistisches Seminar
PS 1 Linguistics Semantics
Instructor: Nina Dumrukcic
Students: Uros Jovanovic, Niklas Pempe
15.11.2017
Referential Defectiveness: The Average American and its
problems (as discussed in Collins 2017)
1. Semantics and ontology
Ontology: The science or study of being; that branch of
metaphysics concerned with the nature or essence of being
or existence (OED)
Basic controversy/question: to what extent should semantics
deal with the world language describes, i.e. the truth value of
language?
Communis opinio: the proper business of semantics is to
specify how language connects with world in other words,
to explicate the inherent aboutness of Language (Dowty et
al. in Collins 2017, 3-4-)
2. Referential defectiveness
phenomenon connected to ontology: A word or expression e
is referentially defective iff (i) e apparently lacks a worldly
referent even under the right logical analysis, but (ii) e can
occur as a proper constituent of a sentence that apparently
can be true in a full-blown literal way (Collins 4)
examples: Sherlock Holmes, Father Christmas, Zeus
problem: how does one handle RD while retaining the view
that semantics is aligned with externalist [i.e. dealing with the
world outside of semantics] ontology? (Collins 4)
3. The case: the average American as a referentially defective
expression
the expression the average American as in is an especially
interesting case of referential defective ness, as it cannot be
as easily solved as other examples
the average American can refer to a single, typical American
(e.g. The average American drives a Ford.)
o This reading does not always work, though, as can be
seen in the sentence The average American has 2.3
children. -> As there are no half- or third- children,
one American cannot possibly have 2.3 children, but
still, this sentence is true
o Average has to be understood in an abstract sense
here
o Problem: how does one arrive at the correct reading
of that 2.3 is the degree of the measure of offspring
divided by their American parents (Collins 11)
4. Solutions to the problems the average American poses
Collins discards a narrow, syntax-centric semantical
approach such Kennedy and Stanley (2009) used, utilizing a
two-tier approach to semantics:
Universitt Heidelberg
Anglistisches Seminar
PS 1 Linguistics Semantics
Instructor: Nina Dumrukcic
Students: Uros Jovanovic, Niklas Pempe
15.11.2017
o one tier is not world-involving and deals exclusively
with syntax
o the second tier does not only deal with linguistics
he then keeps Kennedy and Stanleys distinction between
typical and abstract sense of average
according to him, the distinction between the typical and
abstract sense does not occur on the basis of narrow
semantics, but is coerced by particular predicates
those predicates (like has 2.3 children) force the competent
reader to understand the abstract sense of average, as the
sentence otherwise would not be conceptually available
(Collins 21)
thus, the competent reader through coercion perfectly
understands the sentence, even though the average
American still is referentially defective
5. Literature used
Collins, John. 2017. The Semantics and Ontology of The Average
American. Journal of Semantics 0: 1-33.