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A note on existential import

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Abstract

It is shown that a linguistically well-motivated semantical analysis of certain extensions of categorical sentences is compatible with a semantics that fulfils the so-called existential import condition, but is not compatible with a semantics that does not fulfil this condition.

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References

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This work was written during a stay at the Institute for Mathematical Studies in the Social Sciences at Stanford University and funded by grant No. Bo 778 of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

I wish to thank Patrick Suppes for critical remarks and to gratefully acknowledge the use of the facilities of the Institute of Mathematical Studies in the Social Sciences and the Center for the Study of Language and Information.

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Böttner, M. A note on existential import. Stud Logica 47, 35–40 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00374050

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00374050

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