Accepted at Journal of Semantics

My paper “Paths across worlds: The presupposition of back in intensional contexts” has recently been accepted for publication in Journal of Semantics.

Abstract:

This paper describes a novel pattern of infelicity involving the English adverb ‘back’, which is incompatible with nonreferential direct objects of intensional transfer-of-possession verbs (including ‘offer’ and ‘promise’). This pattern is argued to arise from an identity condition in the meaning of counterdirectional ‘back’, with its apparent world-sensitivity arising not from genuine intensionality, but from inferences facilitated by the circumstantial modal. This correctly predicts the felicity of ‘back’ in a restricted subset of intensional cases. Discussion follows regarding a “proxy relation” which licenses exceptions to the identity condition, as well as a distinct pattern of infelicity observed with the adverb ‘again’.