Tense, Indexicality, and Consequence

This chapter outlines the problem of framing a theory of the temporal indicators of natural language in all their complexity and, in particular, of understanding the interaction of linguistic and contextual elements. It describes how the phenomenon of sequence of tense shows that tense logic is too limited, since it excludes the cross-reference typical of bound variables; it suggests instead that the tenses express temporal relations between events conceived as in Davidson. The particular discussion leads to the general question of the form of truth conditions for sentences in an indexical language. The discussion advocates conditional truth conditions, in which an antecedent clause spells out the import of the indexical elements. It goes on to describe two notions of a model for a language with such truth conditions, the notions varying as to whether the satisfaction of such antecedents is incorporated, and thus diverging in their conceptions of logical consequence.

Deictic codes for embodied language

Ballard et al. claim that fixations bind variables to cognitive pointers. I comment on three aspects of this claim: (1) its contribution to the interpretation of indexical language; (2) empirical support for the use of very few deictic pointers; (3) nonetheless, abstract pointers cannot be taken as prototypical cognitive representations.