The Problem of Index-Initialisation in the Tempo-Modal Semantics

• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Polskie Towarzystwo Semiotyczne / The Polish Semiotic Society 2020-05-01
• Series: Studia Semiotyczne
• Subjects: future contingents; semantics of modal languages; context dependence; modal metaphysics
• Online Access: http://studiasemiotyczne.pts.edu.pl/index.php/Studiasemiotyczne/article/view/147

DOI: http://doi.org/10.26333/stsen.xxx.02 In Kripke-semantics for modal logic, the truth value of a sentence depends on the choice of a semantic index (e.g. world, time, or place). It means that application of such semantics to natural language analysis requires indication of an index relevant for semantic analysis. It is commonly accepted that the relevant index is initialised by the context of an utterance. The idea has been rejected by the semanticists investigating tempo-modal languages in the framework of indeterminism, which generated the problem of initialization of the semantic index. I present the main argument of those semanticists and describe several responses to the initialisation problem. I finally argue that under certain metaphysical and semantic assumptions, one can respond to the initialisation failure in the classical way, even in indeterministic contexts.