Indexicality and context-shift

François Recanati (1)

1 IJN - Institut Jean-Nicod

I distinguish, and discuss the relations between, five types of (alleged) context-shift involving indexicals. For 'intentional' indexicals - indexicals whose value depends upon the speaker's intention - we can shift the context more or less 'at will', by manifesting one's intention to do so. For other indexicals we can shift the context through pretense. Following a number of authors, I distinguish two types of context-shifting pretense, corresponding to two sets of linguistic phenomena. The fourth type of case is that of expressions which are not really indexical, but perspectival, and for which we do not need to appeal to the notion of context-shift in order to account for their shifty behaviour. The fifth category I introduce and discuss is that of 'shiftable indexicals' (in Schlenker's sense). Do we need it, given that we already have the other four categories ? My answer is a qualified 'yes'.

François Recanati. Indexicality and context-shift. Workshop on indexicals, speech acts and logophors, Nov 2004, Harvard University. ⟨ijn_00000552⟩