I’d just like to point out that there is a definite answer to this. If a person has never started beating his or her wife, then they cannot stop and the answer must be no. Is there a flaw in this reasoning? Or am I not using the common definitions?
Martin told Bob the building was on his left.
Here, too, I see a definite answer. The word “left” is possessed by the word “his.” In the English language, the pronoun “his” (and similarly “him,” “her,” “it,” etc.) always refers to the nearest possible preceding sensible noun. In this case, “building” is not a sensible word for “his” to refer to. The next nearest noun is “Bob,” which does make sense for “’his” to refer to. Therefore, “his left” must refer to Bob’s left. Of course, given context, the interpretation of “sensible” could change. If, say, Bob was giving Martin directions, and Bob just asked Martin to tell Bob what Martin saw (note that pronouns would more typically be used; I used names to allow a more certain answer upon careful reading), then “his left” would refer to Martin’s left. Of course, this example is widely more open to interpretation, and I myself am not convinced.
I’d just like to point out that there is a definite answer to this. If a person has never started beating his or her wife, then they cannot stop and the answer must be no. Is there a flaw in this reasoning? Or am I not using the common definitions?
It’s technically accurate, but it fails to provide useful information. The question isn’t impossible to answer on its own terms, it just turns a simple negative into non-Gricean communication.
Any English speaker who hasn’t been brainwashed with prescriptivist poppycock will tell you that the sentence has two possible readings: one where ‘his’ refers to Martin, and one where it refers to Bob. In natural language, linear order or closeness tends to matter a lot less than you might think. (This is why many linguistic analyses represent sentences as hierarchical tree structures, and argue that the behavior of some word is predicted by its position in the tree.)
We can even see effects on the resolution of pronoun reference that apply across sentence boundaries:
Martin punched Bob in the face. He fell.
Martin punched Bob in the face. He was very angry.
There’s a preference to interpret ‘he’ as Bob in the first case and Martin in the second (it’s not absolutely impossible to interpret them the other way around, but there’s a preference), and it comes not from syntax (we’ve kept that pretty constant) but from what we might nebulously call “the structure of the discourse”. It’s extremely hard to predict what the preferred interpretation will be in any given case.
However, I think that the example could have been better constructed for a different reason. There are actually two phenomena at work in the sentence: the deictic quality of the word ‘left’, and the problem of pronoun reference. The point could have been made with reference to either one individually. So it’s not a very consequential confound, but it’s worth separating the two effects nonetheless.
“Martin told Bob the building was on the left” still suffers from the problem that we don’t know whose left is meant (Martin’s, Bob’s, the speaker’s, maybe the addressee’s?). In this case, I can’t see any way of determining a definite answer, even one based on some word-counting bullshit.
There would still be ambiguity if we got rid of ‘left’ but kept the pronouns in:
Martin told Bob that the building was to the north of him.
(‘North’ differs from ‘left’ in that it is defined relative to the entire earth, but the sentence has different truth conditions depending on who ‘him’ refers to.)
Or, with less grammatical awkwardness:
Martin told Bob that the Xbox was at his house.
Since “Either Martin told Bob that the Xbox was at his house, or Martin did not tell Bob that the Xbox was at his house” can be false if ‘his’ refers to Martin in the first clause and Bob in the second, it still fits the example, but the ambiguity comes from a different source.
“Have you stopped beating your wife?”, as has been explained elsewhere, is simply an example of a question that has a presupposition. Linguistics grad students and the people who love them will sometimes answer “Presupposition failure” to questions, but this has yet to catch on in the general population. ;)
I’d just like to point out that there is a definite answer to this. If a person has never started beating his or her wife, then they cannot stop and the answer must be no. Is there a flaw in this reasoning? Or am I not using the common definitions?
Here, too, I see a definite answer. The word “left” is possessed by the word “his.” In the English language, the pronoun “his” (and similarly “him,” “her,” “it,” etc.) always refers to the nearest possible preceding sensible noun. In this case, “building” is not a sensible word for “his” to refer to. The next nearest noun is “Bob,” which does make sense for “’his” to refer to. Therefore, “his left” must refer to Bob’s left. Of course, given context, the interpretation of “sensible” could change. If, say, Bob was giving Martin directions, and Bob just asked Martin to tell Bob what Martin saw (note that pronouns would more typically be used; I used names to allow a more certain answer upon careful reading), then “his left” would refer to Martin’s left. Of course, this example is widely more open to interpretation, and I myself am not convinced.
It’s technically accurate, but it fails to provide useful information. The question isn’t impossible to answer on its own terms, it just turns a simple negative into non-Gricean communication.
Late to the party here, but:
Any English speaker who hasn’t been brainwashed with prescriptivist poppycock will tell you that the sentence has two possible readings: one where ‘his’ refers to Martin, and one where it refers to Bob. In natural language, linear order or closeness tends to matter a lot less than you might think. (This is why many linguistic analyses represent sentences as hierarchical tree structures, and argue that the behavior of some word is predicted by its position in the tree.)
We can even see effects on the resolution of pronoun reference that apply across sentence boundaries:
Martin punched Bob in the face. He fell.
Martin punched Bob in the face. He was very angry.
There’s a preference to interpret ‘he’ as Bob in the first case and Martin in the second (it’s not absolutely impossible to interpret them the other way around, but there’s a preference), and it comes not from syntax (we’ve kept that pretty constant) but from what we might nebulously call “the structure of the discourse”. It’s extremely hard to predict what the preferred interpretation will be in any given case.
However, I think that the example could have been better constructed for a different reason. There are actually two phenomena at work in the sentence: the deictic quality of the word ‘left’, and the problem of pronoun reference. The point could have been made with reference to either one individually. So it’s not a very consequential confound, but it’s worth separating the two effects nonetheless.
“Martin told Bob the building was on the left” still suffers from the problem that we don’t know whose left is meant (Martin’s, Bob’s, the speaker’s, maybe the addressee’s?). In this case, I can’t see any way of determining a definite answer, even one based on some word-counting bullshit.
There would still be ambiguity if we got rid of ‘left’ but kept the pronouns in:
Martin told Bob that the building was to the north of him.
(‘North’ differs from ‘left’ in that it is defined relative to the entire earth, but the sentence has different truth conditions depending on who ‘him’ refers to.)
Or, with less grammatical awkwardness:
Martin told Bob that the Xbox was at his house.
Since “Either Martin told Bob that the Xbox was at his house, or Martin did not tell Bob that the Xbox was at his house” can be false if ‘his’ refers to Martin in the first clause and Bob in the second, it still fits the example, but the ambiguity comes from a different source.
“Have you stopped beating your wife?”, as has been explained elsewhere, is simply an example of a question that has a presupposition. Linguistics grad students and the people who love them will sometimes answer “Presupposition failure” to questions, but this has yet to catch on in the general population. ;)
Maybe where your from. In English where I’m at, Jim will use ‘him’ to refer to Bob if he wants.
An answer of ‘no’ to that question would normally be interpreted “I am still beating my wife”.
Descriptivism FTW.