Declaratives Are Not Enough Author(s): Nuel Belnap Source: Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the

Analytic Tradition, Vol. 59, No. 1 (May, 1990), pp. 1-30 Published by: Springer Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4320114 Accessed: 28/05/2009 14:42
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NUEL BELNAP

DECLARATIVES

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(Received17 January, 1989) 1. THE DECLARATIVE FALLACY

My thesis is simple:systematictheoristsshouldnot only stop neglecting interrogativesand imperatives,but should begin to give them equal weight with declaratives.A study of the grammar,semantics, and pragmaticsof all three types of sentence is needed for every single serious programin philosophythat involves givingimportantattention to language.1 Part of the backgroundof my thesis is that in our culture when a logician, or nearly any trained philosopher, says 'sentence,'what is meant is a declarativesentence,2a sentence capable of having,as they a sentence that can be say, a truth-value,or maybe truth-conditions, used to 'say'something,a sentence expressinga proposition,a sentence that can play a role in inferenceas eitherpremissor conclusion,a sentence that mightoccur in someone's (say Quine's)'canonicallanguage.' This is what is to be rejected.This is the DeclarativeFallacy.Instead, one should recognize that from the beginning there are not only declarativesentences,but, at least, both interrogatives and imperatives. The grammarians are right and those teachersof elementarylogic that seem to have miseducatedmost of us are wrong:give all sentences equal time, and do not take declarativesas a paradigmof what can happenbetweenfullstops. I wish eagerly(but parenthetically) to grantthat there are or may be other sorts of sentences besides the declaratives,interrogatives, and imperatives, say the optatives,or the performatives, and indeed further on I will ask you to think a moment about the precatives,but it is no part of my thesis that I've got the goods on what sorts of sentence are enough;so if you just promise to take my remarksas nonexclusive,we canmakesome honestheadwayandall willbe well.
Studies59:1-30,1990. Philosophical ? 1990 Kluwer Printedin the Netherlands. AcademicPublishers.

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1.1. Declaratives Are Not Enough Here is an example of the DeclarativeFallacy. Frege says, rightlyor wrongly,that only in the context of a sentence words have meaningthe famous context principle.3 There is, I think,small doubt that Frege himself,and no doubt that the traditionthat followed him, has in mind only declarativesentences,4leaving out the interrogatives and imperatives altogether,and if so, then the context principleis bad philosophy. For one thing,to the extent that it is true it is seriouslymisleading,for and imperatives is at least as the role that words play in interrogatives importantas the role they play in declaratives. Thus, the word six can or in an imperative obviouslybe just as meaningfulin an interrogative as it is in a declarative.And conversely, if you want a contextual explanationof the meaning of six, the declarativecontexts are not enough:you had better know as well how it functionsin interrogatives contexthas no prideof place. andimperatives. Declarative You may respondthat once you know all about six as it functionsin then what it comes to in the context of interrogatives and declaratives, imperatives is determinedand thereforesecondary.The point is doubly wrong.In the first place, it is a cheap philosophicalshot, for symmetrically, if I know all there is to know about six as it functionsin imperathen it is to an equal extent determinedwhat tives, or in interrogatives, six comes to in declaratives.If for instance I know everythingthat anyone can ask using six, then I know everythingthat anyone can say using six. And in the second place, some words,and six is one of them, playdistinctive rolesin interrogatives, as in Which six speechactsaremostimportant? Here the six is arguablypart of the interrogative form ratherthan part matrixsuggesting of a declarative as it mightbe in possibleanswers, Which thepresenceof sixpersons? speechactsrequire For a second thing, there are certainwords or modes of combination whose significanceis principallyto be gathered from their roles in interrogatives, say the questionwordsthemselves. Take whatas in What is an illocutionary force?

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Frege'scontextprinciplesuggeststhat what has no meaningexcept as it occurs in a sentence, but the primarysort of sentence in which what occurs is not a declarativeat all. If you wantto know what what means, - that is the best of advice. look at it in the context of interrogatives Another example is offered by the way or ways or functions in how or worksin, for example, interrogatives; that have invertedword Is it declarativesor interrogatives order? does not have much to do with truthtables or assent tablesor anything because it has to do declaratives, like those devices for understanding form itself. I am supposingthat it is obvious to with the interrogative you thatwe arenot givena yes-no questioninvolvingthe declarative, haveinverted Declaratives or interrogatives wordorder. is working interrogatively to deterInstead the or in the interrogative minewhatis to countas a possibleanswer. Let me summarize:declarativesare not enough. They are too insubstantialto count as a paradigm for interesting theses in the philosophyof language. Are Not Enough 1.2. Propositions Here is an easy corollaryof or additionto my thesis:assertions,that is, the speech acts so called, are not enough.And it needs bearingin mind that not only are they not enough,but they are not in any philosophical sense 'primary,' even though the canonicallanguagesof the dominant, more formallogiciansallow for nothingelse. To suppose that assertion is the primaryspeech act is to commit at least a misdemeanorwith Fallacy. respectto the Declarative Well, you may say, avoidance of the Declarative Fallacy is tired advice that you have takenall your life, becauseyou are a fan of speech acts, and all speech activistshave alwaysknown that there are numerous kinds of speech acts, with non-assertionssuch as questions and commands being prominent among them. I, too, am awed by our magicalpowers to do things with words, but alas, many of the central

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theoristsin this traditionare just as guiltyof the DeclarativeFallacyas those philosophers, say, who exclude interrogativesand imperatives fromtheirinvented'canonical languages.' For example,permitme to quotefrompage 1 of a recentbook.5
are speech acts of a type called illocuThe minimalunits of human communication
tionary acts. Some examples of these are statements, questions, commands, promises,

and apologies. Whenevera speaker utters a sentence in an appropriatecontext with certain intentions,he performs one or more illocutionaryacts. In general an illocucontentP. forceF anda propositional tionaryact consistsof an illocutionary

On the surfacethis looks to be a paradigmrejectionof the Declarative Fallacy,but it is not. The fallacyis, at the very beginningof the theory, to endow every kind of speech act with the same kind of content,here content.'Let us say that each assertion,or whatwe called 'propositional might call 'declarativeact' (this would not be Searle-Vanderveken but it is just as good) consists of an illocutionary force F terminology, and a propositionalcontent P. Then you are guilty of the Declarative Fallacyif you suppose that interrogative acts, or imperativeacts (as we might call them), can have the same propositionalcontent, P, as a declarativeact. Of course the whole drivingidea of speech activistsis that a single content can be clothed in a varietyof differentforces, and it is not this crucial idea about which I am now complaining.I am objecting only to the DeclarativeFallacy, which here emerges as the special case of supposing that interrogativeacts and imperativeacts have the same content as declarativeacts. I understandthat there are many speech acts that share a propositional content but differ in illocutionaryforce; good. And there are many other speech acts that share an interrogativecontent but differ in illocutionaryforce, and others that sharean imperativecontentbut differin illocutionary force. So the programis a healthyone; the only - but serious - mistakeis to suppose that you can identify the content of all speech acts with propositionalcontent, that is, with the content of declarativespeech acts or assertions. One way to avoid this mistakeis to take the content of a speech act to consist not of a propositionall by itself, but instead to consist of a proposition togetherwith a marker of mood or perhaps force - to count the force, so to speak, as part of the content.6But after all this strategy re-commits the Declarative Fallacy, for even with its mood

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marker,at bottom each speech act is construedas based on a proposition, situated,so to speak, at the core of its core. Strictavoidanceof the DeclarativeFallacy, however, requires the recognitionthat interrogatives and imperativesare not just markeddifferentlyfrom declaratives, different contentstructures. underlying butpossessfundamentally In a word,propositions arenot enough. I have to make good on an implied promise to distinguishthe conacts and imperativeacts from that of declarative tent of interrogative acts,butnot now.7 so far: declaratives, assertions,and propositions Again, summarizing are not enough. They do not provide enough variety of content to of speechact theory. supportthe content/forcedistinction Are Not Enough Conditions 1.3. Truth There are yet more who thriveby committingthe DeclarativeFallacy. There is an enormous school with an even more enormousgroup of hangers-onthat says that what we ought to pay attentionto are truth conditions,and that to have a theoryof truthconditionsis to have it all - well, most of them say, grudgingly, that perhapswe also need a small auxiliarytheory of reference,just in case the languageis non-canonical enough to contain a few singularterms. The reason this school is so in fact there is tremendous large is not entirelya matter of charisma; to be had by thinkingof various pieces of languageas enlightenment resultingby grammatical combination,and seeing how the meaningof the grammatical wholes arise out of the meaningsof their parts.Tarski was a genius. Nevertheless,the slogan that meaningis truthconditions is flawedin more thanone way, not least becauseit seems to force us to take the concept of truthmuch more seriouslythanwe should,nor least because it appearsto suggestthat our understanding of languageresults from internalizing the recipes that Tarski invented for the first-order functional calculus. But I am puttingthese flaws aside in order to call to your attention that the only items that can possibly have truthconditionsare declarative sentences,or at least items with a propositional content.Davidson's short transition from famous and deceptively meaning to truth8 is remotelyplausible only for the meaningof declarativesor their ilk. If,

NUEL BELNAP

as arising however,we wantto understand the meaningof interrogatives as by compositionfrom the meaningsof theirgrammatical constituents, we should, then truthconditionsare not enough.What we want when we want to become clear on an interrogative is what question it asks, and what counts as a possible answerto it; and in the frameworkthat approachesthis problemin the spiritof Tarski,we wantan accountthat combination. sees this dimensionof meaningas arisingby grammatical Furthermore, and with equal importance, just as with Tarskiwe investigatethe ways that declarativesentencesare grammatical parts as well as wholes, so that they contributetheir meaningto largercontexts,just we should expect them, so we should expect the same of interrogatives; in an adequatelanguage,to contributetheirmeaningto otherinterrogaor whatever.We should ask or to imperatives, tives, or to declaratives, for a Tarskiaccountof the declarative, How importanttruth conditional semantics is said to be dependson whomyou ask that makes it clear that in that declarativethere are embedded two ingredientinterrogative sentences, each of which should contributeits distinctivemeaning.Let me emphasizethe point:interrogatives occur as compositional elements in declarativesjust as truly as declaratives occur as compositionalelements in interrogatives. Therefore,whether you believe that understanding climbs the grammatical tree compositionally, or descends the grammaticaltree contextually,you should agree that interrogativesand declarativescannot have independent theories. There is of course more to interrogatives, indeed a great deal more. Here is a tiny samplethat arose in the work that some of us, including Bennett9 and Thomason, did together a number of years ago: in about thinking Michael wonderedwhere each adequate theory of imperativesispublished, we shouldsee the embeddedandthereforecontributory interrogative, whereeach adequate ispublished, theoryof imperatives as itselfarising by a universal

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each adequatetheoryof imperatives into the open interrogative, quantification wherex ispublished. That is, we have here a quantifier expression transformingnot a but an interrogative into an interrogative. declarativeinto a declarative, these transformations, For understanding truthconditionsarenot apt. It is also obvious that the nature of the complaintsI am making counts againstthe sufficiencyof 'verification conditions,'such as those urgedby Dummett,'0 just as much as they do againstthe sufficiencyof It is the very typeof the conditionsthatis wrong. truthconditions. The same holds for imperatives,though to a lesser extent, for the content of an imperative act is certainly more closely allied to a propositionthan is the content of an interrogative, and thereby more or verification-conditional mold. Also easily fits the truth-conditional much less is known about the compositionalsemanticsof imperatives. In the first place, not much is knownof how the meaningof an imperative arises out of the meaning of its constituents,although various to this essays in action theorycan perhapsbe takento be contributions theory. In the second place, philosophers have almost universally ignored the obvious fact that imperativesembed in largercontexts as readily as do declaratives,so that no one at all has studied how the meaning of an imperative contributes to those larger combinations. Whatis it exactlythatyou haveto knowaboutan imperative suchas John,giveus a lectureon truthconditions in order to say something interesting about its contributionwhen embedded,as in the following: Johnto giveus a lectureon truthconditions? Mary,request A signalweaknessof the speech act program- not in its essence but in its present state - is its failure,in spite of its attentionto imperatives andinterrogatives, to focus on the problemsof compositionality. Summary so far of what is not enough: declaratives;assertions; truthconditions;verification conditions.None of them are propositions; enoughfor a compositionaltheory of meaning.In part the thesis is that understandinghow such a theory works - or doesn't work - for

NUEL BELNAP

declarativesis not sufficientfor understanding the deepest featuresof It is past time for the dialectic about compositional compositionality. theoriesto move to a new andmorephilosophically adequate plane. Is Not Enough 1.4. Inference And there are the inferentialists. Instead of attemptinganalyticallyto see meaning as arising by composition, an inferentialistgives an of the meaningof a declarative form in termsof its role in a explanation larger context. Nor for the inferentialist will satisfactionbe found by confining attention to just the context of a single illocutionaryact, as you recall,as a 'minimalunit of definedby Searleand Vanderveken, humancommunication' (emphasissupplied).Insteadthe appealis to the larger context of inference,where the declarativecan figure either as as inheriting its conclusionor as premiss.Insteadof seeing a declarative from its parts,one sees a declarative as derivingits meaninganalytically meaningcontextually by the role it plays in inference.I have to tell you that this now-popularapproach,to the extent that it claims to tell us philosophicallythat we know our way aroundlanguage,is also miserit is ably guiltyof the DeclarativeFallacy,for, to a first approximation, only declaratives that can figurein inference,and we are therebygiven no purchaseon interrogatives or imperatives. My case is strongestfor premisses:for decades logiciansled astray by the Declarative Fallacy have tried out little, tiny examples of inferencesinvolving interrogatives, suchas Who has a good theory of interrogatives and who wants one?, therefore, Whohas a good theoryof interrogatives? But never, ever has anyone even suggested a long or interesting either in an idealizedlanguageor in inferentialchain of interrogatives, plain English. Nor has anyone ever suggested that we could learn somethingabout the meaningof an interrogative by its use in such a (I since the meaning Nor is it surprising; shudderwith quotes) 'inference.' of an interrogative is not essentiallypropositionalor truth-conditional, it is hardlylikelyto be inferential. Analogously, using imperatives as premisses can hardly be con-

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sidered idiomatic.Maybe we sometimessay with the deontic logicians fromA. Ross "Ito B. Chellas,12 so mail it or burnit. Mail the manuscript; But I hope not very often. Certainlynot often enough to enable us to its role as a premiss, work out what an imperativemeans by examining or, for those of us who thinkthat Gentzenwas on to something,to find a cut-elimination theoremfor imperatives. As a possible objection,accordingto a long-standing traditionin the theory of action, agents plan what they do by resortingto practical like or enthymemes syllogisms I shall burnthe manuscript; I shallset it onfire. therefore, While much of the talk about practicalreasoningtends to confuse me, this episode of practicalreasoningsurelyinvolves stand-alonedeclarative expressions of intentions rather than stand-alone first-person which is not to say that declaratives imperatives, that carryexpressions of intentionsdo not containembeddedimperatives. With respect to conclusions,the situationis not obviouslysymmetric On the one hand,it is perfectly betweeninterrogatives and imperatives. to place an imperativeas the conclusion of an inferstraightforward ence, sayin givingadvice.The consecution avoidthem Truth conditionscausecancer; therefore, is just fine. Interrogatives, on the other hand, when they appear as conclusions, seem never to contributeonly their content but also in additiontheirstand-alone force. Considerthe perfectlyidiomatic Quine does not avoid the declarative fallacy; therefore,who does? and contrastit with the precedingexample,in whichthe premissgives a reason for the content of the conclusion, a reason to avoid truth conditions. But the premissin the quine exampledoes not give a reason for the contentof the conclusion,who avoids the declarative fallacy,but only a reason for asking that question.'3To see this point more clearly,

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notice that the ostensible interrogative conclusion can be paraphrased the by followingimperative: Quine does not avoid the declarative fallacy, so tell me who does. Furthermore,even though imperatives can occur as conclusions in it is not a good strategyto pin all their inferentialtrainsof justification, meaning to such a role. The reason for this derives from a crucial observationof Hamblin:`4some among all imperativeacts are acts of advice or warning,say the advice or warningnot to ignore interrogativescarriedby Don'tignoreinterrogatives. Such imperativescall for justification.But other imperativeacts are what Hamblincalls 'willful,'being either for example the issuing of a or perhapsa plea or a requestnot rule againstignoringinterrogatives, to ignore them, also issued with exactly the same imperativesentence, Don't ignoreinterrogatives. Here, thoughtheremay be a call for reasons for the act of issuingthe imperative, there is no call for reasonsfor the content of the imperativeitself. And yet the content of the different imperative acts of advisingor warningor pleadingor requesting is quite the same, whetherwillfulor not, a samenessthat our theoryof imperatives should recognize by not looking to inference to confer all their meaning.It is easy to become confusedabout this if we are too swift to label imperatives'exit moves' in the languagegame;my advice is: don't becomeconfusedin thisway. Summaryof what is not enough: declaratives,assertions,propositions, truth or verificationconditions, and inference.No philosopher should be deluded into thinkingthat he or she knows the way around the declarativesof our languagewithout understanding their dependence on interrogativesand imperatives.And no philosopher should delude others into supposingthat a method such as that of compositional semantics,or that of conceptualor interpersonal contextualroledescriptions,can arguablybe defended as philosophically adequateor attackedas inadequate even as a program,unless it is shownhow
it works - or doesn't work - for interrogatives and imperatives.

So, you might ask, what is enough?In my opening remarksI asked

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you not to ask me that.Instead,permitme to use this list of what is not enough as an indication of what more is needed. Needed for what? Needed to make us see that nowhere in that part of philosophy that relies on theories about language can what we know so far about declarativesreasonablybe taken as a comfortingparadigm givingus to believe that 'the rest is somethinglike that';so that if only we underwe can be sure we know our way aroundour mode stand declaratives, of being as it is exhibitedin language.Interrogatives and imperatives are not 'somethinglike declaratives.' What they share with declaratives is this:that unless we bringthem to the light,or the light to them, there is much else of philosophicalimportancethat will also remainin the dark. My plan for the following sections is to say a few things about grammar,semanticsand pragmaticsof interrogatives and imperatives, hoping by their inadequacyto push you to include these neglected forms in all your orisons, and never again carelesslyto say 'sentence' when more narrowly you mean 'declarative,'or 'proposition'when more widely you mean 'contentof a speech act.'And so to move down closerto the tacksthatarebrass.
2. INTERROGATIVES MAY NOT BE ENOUGH, BUT THEY HELP

I have had my say about interrogatives in variousplaces, and here wish only to fill out the current withsome briefremarks.'5 perspective 2.1. GrammarforInterrogatives Independentlyof whateverkind of grammarwe endorse for declaratives, we should articulatedifferent grammaticalstructuresfor interrogatives.A few logiciansin the last thirtyyears or so have worked a little at laying out normatively what a good grammarof interrogatives should be, and a few good linguists have worked at the descriptive grammaticaltheory of interrogatives,whereby it is crucial that by I signify not only stand-aloneinterrogatives 'interrogatives' capable of carryingspeech acts, but also constituentinterrogatives,16 sometimes called 'indirectquestions,'capable of being embedded in larger contexts. The chief point to stress is that the grammarof interrogatives

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ought to resist oversimplification by tired philosophersout to make a quickreduction, or a career.Let a singlebriefexamplesuffice: Whowasthe authorof How to do thingswithwords? is, for all its apparentsimplicity,grammatically ambiguous,and that in at least two ways.In the firstplace, the scope of the definitedescription operator, the, could be either wide or narrow,just as Russell would have said; but this sort of thing is familiarand I wish to leave it. The other grammatical is this: Whowas the authorof How to do ambiguity thingswith words? can derive by the introduction of the questionword who into eitherof two quite differentdeclarative matrices.Considerthe following, x wasthe authorof How to do thingswithwords, and the authorof How to do thingswithwords wasF, in which I intend that x occupy the place of a nominal singularterm, and that F occupy the place of a predicate adjective or a predicate nominal.That is, who may be thoughtto be proper-name-like, or termlike, or adjective-like, since all of these may be sensiblycombinedwith is. We should not assume that these differentderivationsgive rise to exactly the same question. On the first grammaticalderivation,the interrogative invitesas an answer, Russellwasthe authorof How to do thingswithwords, while on the second grammatical derivation,what is invited is somethinglike The authorof How to do thingswith words was a fat, early fourteenth century Frenchauthorfrom Provence. On the first derivationthe question asked amounts(for a logician)to like something Whichperson - and please confine yourself to canonical and very rigid designators- is identical to the author of How to do thingswithwords?

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On the secondderivation, the questioncomes to Whatare a few interesting properties of the authorof How to do thingswithwords? It is the fact that interrogativesinvert word-order that causes this particulargrammatical- I stress that it is a matter of grammarWhetheror not you agree that I have correctlyrepresented ambiguity. the differencebetween the two interrogatives, you will certainlyagree thatwhatI sayis basedon grammar. This point is both contentiousand tiny, and it was meantto be both, so thatit could become more palpablewithoutthe need of a substantial apparatuswith which firmlyto grasp it; but I hope the point is at least large and brightenough to suggestthe error of thinkingthat we clearly understandwhat is meant by an arbitrarywho-question(much less a what-questionor a why-question),and the error of supposingthat we have no need for a grammatical theory of a philosophically suggestive thatcontainsan embeddedinterrogative declarative suchas George IV did not know who the author of How to do thingswithwords was. We should all be saddened,incidentally, by how many of us have been trained to think about the meaning of that declarativeor one of its cousins without being brought to notice that it contains a constituent interrogative. So much for the claim that philosophy needs a grammarof interrogatives as much as it needs its endlessly elaborated grammarof
declaratives.'7

2.2. Semantics for Interrogatives Interrogativesdeserve a compositional semantics that is not piggybacked on the semanticalcorrelatesof declaratives. But if truthconditions won't do, what else should a semantic theory for interrogatives draw on? The answergoes back at least to Hamblin,18 and more than once I myself have helped to spread his word: instead of truth conditions, interrogatives need answerhoodconditions.If you are persuaded that there is enlightenmentto be had about a declarativeby learning

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how its truth conditions arise out of the meaningsof its constituents and if you are persuadedthatit is the truthconditions and its structure, of declaratives that are needed when it comes to embeddingthem in yet largerstructures,then with perfect analogy,you should expect to find in seeing how what counts as an answer correspondingenlightenment arises out of the meaningsof its constituentsand its to an interrogative structure,and you should correspondingly expect that it is the answerhood conditionsof an interrogative that are needed when it comes to themin yet largerstructures. embedding Let me illustratewith a small problematic.What if anythingis the difference between the meaning of the following two interrogatives, whetherstand-alone or embedded? Which herdog? logicianusesdeclaratives for training Whichperson who uses declaratives for trainingher dog is a logician? I tell you by the method of authoritythat people disagreeas to whether or not these two interrogatives differin meaning,and I am not going to try to convinceyou one way or another.Rather,I simplysubmitthat if we are to find a differencein meaningbetween these two, we should forget about truth conditions or verification conditions. The best strategyis to look to see if they have differentanswerhoodconditions; thatis all I wishto urge. If we like to reify the resultsof semanticinquiry,as indeed I thinkis always helpful in keeping us clear and even honest, then we need a contentfor interrogatives, a content that is distinctfrom theirforce. As a word I like 'question' for the contentof an interrogative, but for those disinclined towards any new words, I am happy for now with just 'interrogativecontent' for the content of an interrogative.I see it possible to have as many theories about interrogative content as there are theories about content of answers, includingjust as many nominalistic theories or non-theories.Certainlymany and many, including manyfalse or unhelpfulones, have been triedout over the decades;but, and this is the reason for the being of my present remarks,the vast philosophicmajority just ignoresthe matteraltogether,and that is what is really bad philosophy. My own view is that we should take the
content of an interrogative to be
-

put circularly

the property of

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being an answer to the interrogative.What will count as an answer varies from context to context, so that, for instance,what counts as an answer to the question of which logician uses imperativesfor training her dog depends on who, in a given context,qualifiesas a logician,but does not depend on who in that context uses declarativesfor training her dog. Onlythe trueanswerdependson that. 2.3. Pragmatics of Interrogatives Inference,as I pointed out above, does not suffice to characterizethe meaning of interrogatives.But what can possibly be enough for if inferenceis not? We have to stop to introduceat this interrogatives point a subtlety depending on force versus content, a subtlety that We know throughtrial by Gentzen that alreadyarises for declaratives. if all that we are interested in is content as it is passed through embedding,then a ratherabstractnotion of inferencewill do; we need little more thanthe divisioninto premissesand conclusion,and thatit is meaningfulto separate good inferences from bad. But if we want enlightenmentabout force, say assertive force, and especially if our to derive content from force, philosophicalinclinationis pragmatically to follow Brandom's lead in seeing then we shall need Sellars-inspired inferenceas more than a mere abstractsemanticrelation,and as rather and a part of a normativestructureinvolvingat least the undertaking The analogyis that for a purelysemantic attribution of commitments."9 theory of interrogatives,hardly more is needed than the abstract concept of the answerhoodrelationin place of the inference relation; but that for a decent understandingof the force of interrogatives, whetheror not we can thereby derive an account of their content, we shallneed an appropriate normative structure. I am describing seldom trod territory, and certainly territory in which I am myself not at home, but territoryworth exploring. Of we commit ourcourse, when we put a question with an interrogative if any;that'seasy. And surelywe put on the selves to its presupposition, conversational table, whateverthat means, the-possible answersto the questionwe ask. What else we do seems to be variousin the extreme; let me observe just for example that an interrogative act can be either an injunction- occasionallyeven a 'command' if you like, as when the

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DistrictAttorneyquizzes a sworn witness - or a request,as when you ask the time of a passer-by;and in fact it may be that the varietiesof interrogative act are not fewer than the varietiesof imperative,which are legion. Nevertheless,I cannotleave this topic withoutone last piece of the manifesto:it seems to me extremely unlikely that one can develop a philosophicallyadequate interpersonalnormativestructure for assertionswithoutsimultaneously treatingof questionsin the sense of interrogative acts. The inferentialist, and Hamblinexplicitlyin his theory of dialogs,2" pictureseach person as carryinga slate on which is inscribeda list of declarativesrepresentingthose propositions to which the person is committed.But propositionalcommitment, either undertaken or attributed, is not enoughexhaustively to characterize the contentof the slate. For one thing,there is just too much non-trivialtruthin R. G. Collingwood's slogan that every propositionis an answer to a question.2'At some point in describingthe game of conceptualthoughtyou are going to have to make room on the slate for a differentkind of statement representinga differentkind of content, not declarativesrepresenting
propositions at all, but interrogatives representing the questions in

which that person is privatelyinterested,or the questionsthat person is asking,or has been asked. There seems no conceivablepossibilityof a conversation or even a private train of thought unless there is an expressionof the limits of what can be said next, not inferentially but with regardto the categoryof importance. Whatis Annie interestedin? Well, in who will lectureon truthconditions.That questionis what she cares about, the answersto that question is what she wishes to gather evidence about, and that questionis indeed what she is thinkingabout. She will not assert anythingever, nor profit from the assertions of others, withoutat least the traces of such interestsas can be expressed by interrogatives (the point is due to Harrah).22 Interestin questions, like commitmentto propositions,will need to be declaredfor oneself and attributedto others and investigatedinterpersonally. One cannot make sense of a paradigmof canonicallinguistictransactionwithout,I am saying,keeping track of which questions are at issue for whom. It may even be true that whatcounts as evidencefor an assertion,or what counts as a 'rigiddesignator,'or whethera term is being used attributively or referentially (as they say) should canonicallydepend on what

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questionsare there to be addressed.If so, then inferenceis not enough even for assertions!I hope it is but a harmlessexaggerationto assert that there can be no mental motion, not even inference, without the existenceof some question- not a propositionbut a question- as its finalcause.
3. IMPERATIVES MAY NOT BE ENOUGH, BUT THEY HELP

There is so incredibly much to say about imperatives,and I have learnedwhat little I know so recently,that it is hard to know where to make a beginning.23 It is certainlymy view that our philosophicalcommunity is scandalouslynaive about imperatives,that our community wallows in non-Socratic ignorance of imperatives, thinking that it knows when it does not know, and that it mattersfor its own best purposes whether it knows or not. It is, that is, all unknowingly enmeshedin the Declarative Fallacy. WhatI have to say about imperatives comes againunderthe familiar heads, grammar, with regardto the latter I semantics,and pragmatics; will keep in mind both the speech activistsand the linguisticgamesmen, those that before I called 'inferentialists' because, indulging in the DeclarativeFallacy,they proceeded as if inferencewere the only game in townthatis presupposedby everygame. 3.1. Grammar of Imperatives The grammar of imperatives, especiallythe logical grammar of imperatives, is in its infancy,and whateverI say today will be gone tomorrow; but of course that is not going to stop me for a moment. Let me proceedby enumerating. 1. Imperatives can be either stand-aloneor embedded.In English, just as for declarativesor interrogatives, this is a complicated grammaticalmatter. The deepest comment is this: embedded imperatives are in truth embedded imperatives,that is, constituent or embeddable forms of the very same imperative sentences.In a logicallyperspicuouslanguage, they would be the very same sign designs. Considerthe followingexamplesof the

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BELNAP

stand-alone imperatives 'Jack, explain sincerity conditions to Alfred': Mary,askJackto explainsincerity conditionsto Alfred. Jackto explainsincerity Maryordered conditionsto Alfred. Jack carriedout Mary'sorderto explainsincerityconditions; or at leastJackexplained conditionsto Alfred. sincerity Did Mary advise Jack to explain sincerity conditions to Alfred? Mary demanded that Jack explain sincerity conditions to Alfred. Mary demanded that sincerity conditions be explained by Jackto Alfred. Jackrefused to explainsincerity conditionsto Alfred. Jack refusedMary'srequest (order, advice) to explain sincerityconditionsto Alfred. Jack is obligated (permitted, forbidden)to explain sincerity conditionsto Alfred. 2. The grammatically crucial thing about imperatives,aside from their embeddability, is that they display an agent. As Castafieda24 and others have urged, they have the deep grammaticalform, a to verb. In this respect an imperativeis unlike a declarativein general, whichmay or may not expressan agentiveproposition,and even when it does, may not wear its agent on its surface, as the linguistssay. But imperativesmust show forth an agent, at least in the sense that to be understood,and (the point is crucial)to be used in largercontexts, the agent must be uniquelyrecoverable from the surface(for example,as the addresseeof a standaloneimperative).25 3. There are various grammaticaltests for agentive declarative sentences,butnone thatI knowdistinguish between Thefire destroyed the manuscript
and

Jackdestroyed the manuscript.

DECLARATIVES ARE NOT ENOUGH

19

I propose the following, which although it is 'my' proposal, derives directly from Perloff, and of course depends on the workof others,not least on thatof Anderson.26 Thesis1. No matterthe declarative Q,27 the sentence a sees to it that Q is 'agentivein a.' It may be false, true, or nonsense, but it is alwaysagentivein a. Thesis2. A declarativesentence, Q, expresses a proposition as: a sees to it 'agentivein a' iff Q is accuratelyparaphrasable thatQ.28 Thatis, Q is agentivein a if Q [a sees to itthatQ].

it suffices to Therefore,for the purposes of 'logical grammar,' picture all agentive declaratives,and also all imperatives,as carriedby some suchnotationas
[a stit: Q], 4. where we read this piece of notation

say -

'stit-sentence,' as I shall in Englishdependingon how it is used.29 Here differently are some examples.
-

Readingsinto Englishof [a stit: Q].

As a stand-alone imperative: a, see to it that Q!

declarative: As a stand-alone a sees to it that Q a is seeingto it that Q a sawto itthat Q. As an embeddedimperative: a to see to it that Q for a to see to it that Q that a see to it that Q30 a 'sseeingto it that Q. As an embeddeddeclarative:

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a sees to it that Q that a sees to it that Q. Thus the outstandinglyimportant grammaticalstit-facts are these, where[a stit:QIis anystit-sentence. 1. The first blank in a stit-sentencemust receive a term for an agent. 2. The second blank in a stit-sentence can receive an arbitrary declarative. 3. A stit-sentenceitself is both a declarativeand an imperative:3' it can be embeddedwherevera declarativeor an imperative can be embedded. For example, with regard to the former, a stitsentencecan be embeddedundera negation. a. The result of such an embeddingis on the face of it not itself a stit-sentence;for the special (and, to a logician, prominent)case of negationthe resultof embeddinglooks at leaston the surfacelike
- [a stit:Q],

not like Q]. la stit: b. But more deeply, for the special case of negation, the resultof embeddingis not even any kind of agentive;that is, by our test, to which I hope you have agreed, the declarative it isfalse that a sees to it that Q is not invariablyparaphrasable (or indeed equivalentin truthvaluewith) a sees to it thatit isfalse that a sees to it thatQ. c. Negationwas just an example;there is no impliedwarrant to generalizeto otherembedding contexts. 4. Because stit-sentencesare imperativesas well as declaratives, they can be embedded in those special contexts fit to receive only imperatives.

DECLARATIVES ARE NOT ENOUGH

21

5. Many contexts of serious interestto philosopherscan take only imperatives.By our test it follows that in logical grammarwe can withoutloss requirethat these contextsbe filled only by stitsentences. Among such contexts, the stand-alone imperative form itself is perhaps primary.I am claiming,therefore,that if you understand Be at the lectureon truthconditions at nine as uttered with the force of, say, advice - with, that is, one of - then you are those forces we might want to call 'imperative' Be at the lectureon truthconditionsat nine as an understanding as agentive,andhence as paraphrasable See to it that you are at the lecture on truth conditionsat nine. if you understand 6. Furthermore, either conditionsto Alfred, Don'texplainsincerity or sincerity conditionsto Alfred Refrain from explaining as an imperative(as of course it is ordinarilyand even paraso taken),then you must understand it as equivalent digmatically to See to it that you do not explain sincerity conditions to Alfred; or even better,since conditionsto Alfred you explainsincerity is doubtless an agentive and hence paraphrasableas a stitfrom explainingsincerity sentence,you must understandRefrain conditionsto Alfredas See to it that it is false that you see to it that you explain conditionsto Alfred. sincerity 7. Thus, by being careful to avoid the Declarative Fallacy, we

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become convincedof the accuracyof the paraphrase of refraining from acting in terms of a negated stit-sentenceembedded withina stit-sentence: Q] Refrain[astit: [a stit: [a stit: Q]] 8. The grammaticalfact, and one that should guide us philosophically, is that obligation and permission and prohibition An immediateconsequenceof this train alwaystake imperatives. of grammatical thought is some modest light on deontic logic. Hence,in logicalgrammar we shouldneverwrite Obligated Q for arbitrary Q, but only Obligated[astit:Q], Permitted[astit:Q], Forbidden[astit:QJ, etc. It makes all the difference,and leads us to numeroussmall insights driven by our desire to avoid the DeclarativeFallacy. Standard deontic equivalences, for example, which wholly dependon the declarative fallacy,mustbe refined.Take Forbidden [a stit:Q] Obligated -[a stit:Q].

This is surely Bad Grammarsince it embeds an arbitrary and probably non-agentivedeclarativeinto the obligation context, whereit cannotgo. And a possiblealternative, Forbidden[astit:Q] - Obligated[astit: - Q], is just false when Q is not an agentive.32 What is wanted is precisely (if you think about it in your new-foundcommitment to avoidthe Declarative Fallacy)
Forbidden[a stit:Q]

QII* Obligated[a stit: - [a stit:

For example,the followingare preciselyequivalent: You are forbidden to see to it that our room is filled with smoke; You are obligatedto see to it that you do not see to it that our roomisfilled withsmoke.

DECLARATIVES ARE NOT ENOUGH

23

9. I want you to see that the guidelinefor deontic logic that I am proposing is a powerful alternativeto two differentprograms. The first and dominantprogramjust wallowsin the Declarative Fallacyandlogicizesabout it is obligatory that Q for arbitrarydeclarativeQ. The second, for example in Casand some of von Wright'swork,34 sees that what has tanieda's33 to come afterobligation is a verb, to verb. Obligated This second programdoes not commit the DeclarativeFallacy, but it also does not offer us a logicalpoint of view from whichit is easy and naturalto see that obligation,etc., can in fact make at least subordinatereference to declaratives.The beauty of relyingon the schema
Obligated[a stit:Q]

is that we simultaneouslymake it easy to see that obligation truth must take an imperative, and also easy to see the important that any declarativewhatsoevercan give rise to an imperative, and thus indirectlygive rise to the content of an obligation,by meansof the conceptof stit. 10. There are at least dozens of other ways to embed imperatives, includingdozens of differentforces with which to utter a standalone imperativein a standardway. There is no such thing as which 'the imperative force.'ChapterI of Hamblin's rich book,35 is a marvelousantidoteto the Declaratives-are-enough Disease, gives a wonderfully helpful discussion and table. For brief remark below I mentiononly the following: Order[astit:Q] Advise[a stit:Q] Invite[a stit:Q] Request[a stit:Q]. An important thingto observeis that these are themselves,when spelled out, agentives,and hence each can be paraphrasedas stit-sentences. But we stop here because although certainly

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declaratives are not enough,on the other hand, enoughgrammar is, for now, enough.

3.2. Semantics of Imperatives Imperativesdeserve a rich compositionalsemantics.Such a semantics undoubtedlywill need to go beyond what is provided by anyone for declaratives. When working on the semantics of imperatives, the followingquestionsareto be kept on yourlist: 1. How does such meaningas they have depend on the meaningof their grammaticalparts? For stit-sentences, this is a rather definite question, and a good strategywill be to try to answer this question first; but one cannot in advance be sure that the stit-sentenceparaphraseis sufficientto reveal all of the complexities of imperativeswith which semanticswill need to deal. For example,whatabout all of the data and some of the theories about by, or about the time of a killing, or about the Davidsonian strategy of emphasizing our ontology of events and actions? 2. Here is as importanta question as any that semantictheorists shouldkeep before theirgroupmind:what sort of meaningmust we attributeto imperativesin order to make sense out of the compositionalrole they play in philosophicallyimportantcontexts?Among such contexts,especiallysalientare the forces that pertainto stand-aloneimperatives, such as advice,order, invitation, and request, but there are other embedding contexts of importancesuch as obedience and refusal.Again I recommend the strategyof dealingfirstwith stit-sentences, in slim hopes that thatwillbe enough. One thing I am sure of: the semantic representationof an imperativemust keep the agent as a separatepart of its structure, not to be lost, for example, amid some collection of possible worlds or truthconditionsor conditionsof correctness. The reason is based on reflectingwhat meaningan imperative must feed to the contexts into which it is embedded. For example, an obligationthat Jack explain sincerityconditions is

DECLARATIVES ARE NOT ENOUGH

25

not a simple valuingof the propositionthat sincerityconditions be explainedby Jack;it is an obligationon him. In this sense, even if we give them truth conditions,imperativesdo not have the samekindof meaningas declaratives. and the meaning(or philosophically 3. Lastly,whatis the grammar interesting range of grammarsand meanings) of the various locutions that embed imperatives,such as advice, order, invitation,request,obedience,andrefusal? There is a fantasticamountof data about these matters,but beyond just data, some helpful theories about some of these matters are possible; and we can all agree that numerous people have made contributionsto the enterprise,for example the speech activists, the deontic logicians, and Hamblinin his book on imperatives.To begin with, one may hope for a theory of the truth conditions of stitsentences, since after all they are advertisedas able to play a declarative role. One may entertainsuch a hope while being appalledby the view that truth conditionsof stit-sentencesconstituteenough semantic information about them in order to explainhow they embed.I wouldbe disingenuousif I did not note that I have some ideas on how at least one theory of their truthconditionsshould go, ideas that take seriously the agency of the agent. These ideas are not all that rich, but they at least suffice to suggest a possible explanationas to why there are just four modes of action (and of course four correlativemodes of inaction, by negation). seeingto it that Q:[a stit:Q] seeingto it that - Q: [a stit: - Q] and seeingto it that Q: [a stit: - [a stit:Q]], refrainingffrom - Q:[a stit: - [a stit: - Q]. seeing to it that refrainingffrom For example,the suggestedtruth-conditional semanticsexplainwhy, at leastin the contextof certainrestrictions, refraining from refraining from seeing to it that Q, that is, [a stit: - [a stit: - [a stit:Qfl] is not a new mode of action. And here is a furtherexercise:take the standardreadingof the action of giving an order as seeing to it that

26

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there is an obligationlaid on the addressedagent.Then the givingof an order has the followingcontent, expressedsomewhatredundantly36 so as to be ableto call attentionto some possibleblanks:

[-I [a

stit:

2[a stit:

30bligated[F stit:-4 [P stit:-5Q11111

In each of the numbered blanks there is room for a negation. The exercise is to see how instructiveit is to fill these blanks in various ways, thus pulling together into a single schema some otherwise confusing observations.For example, filling 3 and 5 is the positive grantingof permission or authorization,while filling 2 and 5 is the positive act of refraining from laying on an obligation, which is sometimes thought of as a kind of permission,while filling 1 and 5 describesthe non-act of not laying on an obligation,which some also think of as fallingwithinthe precinctsof permission.Sans scribed stitsentences, thyself the troubledtempted thinkertemerouslytumblesto thrasonical tergiversantturpitude, treacherouslythroppling the true track thirlingthroughthese turbid teeming twizzles;the tongue twists too trickilytrippinglyto terminethese thorny termlesstwirlerstristily. So scrupulously scribestits. Stit-sentencesaside, hoever, here is a deceptively simple-sounding question to which I, at least, have not heard a careful and helpful answer:what is the meaningof a precative,that is, of a request?If you prefer to answerin terms of performatives or in terms of illocutionary force, fine: how is the world differentafter you have requestedyour boss to give you a raise, or Jack to explain sincerityconditions?Even though I do not have a theory about the matter, I will tell you somethingI think might be true: requests are de re ties that bind us person to person in the mode of caring, and are perhaps more necessaryto undergirdmoralityand our life togetherthan even those illocutionary actsthatcreatecommitments or obligations or rights. 3.3. Pragmatics of Imperatives Allow me to conveyjust one unifyingidea concerningthe pragmatics of sentences,whetherthey be imperatives, or even declarainterrogatives, tives. Addressing the pragmaticsof interrogatives, I adumbratedthe idea of picturingspeakersas carryinga slate listing their commitments

DECLARATIVES ARE NOT ENOUGH

27

(as membersof a linguisticcommunity,relativeto a specific situation), and I pointed out that the slate must not be restrictedto lists whose Now I want to stress that the slate'scontentmust contentis declarative. For example, not even be restrictedto declarativesor interrogatives. having mentionedcommitments,we need to insist that there ought to of a whollydifferentkind be on that slate at least a list of commitments from propositional commitments, namely, commitments to action, which we can happilyrepresentwith stit-sentences[I stit:Q]. But what we cannot do is representthese commitmentsto action by any conto suppose that we can is the last ceivable propositionalcommitment; dyinggaspof the Declarative Fallacy.For example, to explainsincerity conditions to Alfred Jack'scommitment is to be representedon the action-commitment portion of his slate by the stit-sentence I explainsincerityconditionsto Alfred]. [Istit: WhatI am sayingis that there is no propositionthat you can put on the list of propositionsto which he is committedthat will do the representationalwork required.Furthermore, since every normativeand interpersonal structureinvolves the creation of commitmentsto action, no contextualaccountof anythinghumanis possible that does not at least secretly rely on stit-sentences.Let us togetherassume the philosophic taskof making the secretpublic. I hope to have convincedyou that these three lists differnot just in what they representas lists, but more profoundly, that they differin the form of theircontent,and that they are interdependent. Along the way I hope to have emphasizedthat in developingour philosophicalunderstanding of topics touching on these contents we should include theoriesof grammar, of compositionalsemantics,of speech acts, and of largernormativeor interpersonal structures. And converselyand above all, I hope to have emphasized that every philosophical program touchinglanguagecan profit from recognitionof the separaterequireand imperatives. ments and importanceof declaratives,interrogatives, Each of these three forms of content37must be conceived as being all to do philosophical on the same slate, all interdependent; justice to any willrequiredoingjusticeto all.

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1 Thanksare due to the Universityof Pittsburgh Centerfor the Philosophyof Science, under the sponsorshipof which I read the antecedentof this paper in Februaryof 1988. I am profoundlyindebted to J. Seibt for knowledgeable,talented, and timeconsumingsubstantivecontributionsto this paper throughoutthe entire period of its composition. 2 Some speech act theoristsuse 'declarative' as part of their technicalterminology with a differentmeaning,to signify the sort of act in which we make somethingtrue by is used to help make the standardgramdeclaringit so. Here, however, 'declarative' maticalcontrastwithinterrogatives andimperatives. I See G. Frege, Foundationsof Arithmetic,tr. by J. L. Austin, Oxford,Basil Blackwell, 1959, sect. 60, 62, pp. 71e, 73. 4 This is certainlythe way that contemporaries understandhim. See M. Dummett, 'What is a theory of meaning? (II)', in: G. Evans/J. McDowell (eds.), Truth and Meaning,Oxford,ClarendonPress, 1981, ch. 19, pp. 428-472; or McDowell,'Truth G. Evans/J. McDowell, op. cit., p. 44. conditions, bivalence, and verificationism', Frege's position is that interrogativesand imperatives,unlike declaratives,lack a reference.See, for instance,Frege, 'On Sense and Reference',in: P. Geach/M. Black (eds.), TranslationsFrom the Philosophical Writingsof Gottlob Frege, Oxford, B. Blackwell,1960, p. 68. 5 See J. Searle/D. Vanderveken, Foundationsof illocutionary Camlogic, Cambridge, bridgeUniversity Press, 1985. 6 See M. Pendlebury,'Against the Power of Force: Reflections on the Meaning of Mood',Mind,vol. xcv, 1986, pp. 361-372. 7 I also have to make good on an impliedpromise to distinguish and relate the three differentcategoriesfor which I use the adjective'imperative': the grammatical category of imperativesentences(stand-aloneand constituent),the abstractcategoryof imperative contents, and the pragmaticcategory of imperativeacts. But this is beyond the scope of this paper. 8 See D. Davidson, 'Truth andMeaning', vol. 17, 1967, pp. 304-323; reprinted Synthese, in:Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation, Oxford,Clarendon Press, 1984, pp. 17-37. 1 See M. Bennett, Questionsin Montague-Grammar, Bloomington,IN, IndianaLinguisticsClub,1979. 10 See e.g.Dummett,op. cit. " See A. Ross, 'Imperatives and Logic', Theoria,vol. 17, 1941, pp. 53-71; also in: Philosophyof Science,vol. 11, 1944, pp. 30-46. 12 See B. Chellas, The Logical Form of Imperatives, Stanford,CA, Perry Lane Press, 1969. 13 Of course you can give a reasonfor the true answerto a questionbeingwhichone it is. Furthermore, reason why is a special case, obtainingbecause why-questionsthemselves ask for reasons.To give a reasonwhy truthconditionscause canceris just to give an answer to the question of why truth conditions cause cancer; it is not to give a reasonfor the questionitself of why truthconditionscause cancer- that appearsto be nonsense. 14 See C. Hamblin, New York,B. Blackwell,1987. Imperatives, 5 The best introductionto the theory of interrogatives is D. Harrah,"The Logic of Questions,"Handbook of PhilosophicalLogic, vol. II: Extensionsof ClassicalLogic, D. ReidelPub.Co., 1984, pp. 715-764. Dordrecht-Boston-Lancaster, 16 Elisabet Engdahl calls them 'constituentquestions'in Engdahl, Constituent QuesD. ReidelPub.Co., 1986. tions,Dordrecht-Boston, 17 In fact, not only some who-clausesbut also some if-clauses cannot satisfyingly be treatedwithinthe grammar of declaratives. J. L. Austin in his celebratedpaper 'Ifs and

DECLARATIVES ARE NOT ENOUGH

29

Cans' (see Austin, 'Ifs and Cans', in: PhilosophicalPapers, Oxford, ClarendonPress, 1961, pp. 153-181) pointed out that in a sentence like I can if I choose, the if-clause cannot be taken as expressinga conditional.But while this negative observationof Austin's found ample response, nobody seems to have even reacted,neither affirmativelynor critically, to his positive thesis (see op. cit.,p. 160) that the clause'if I choose' expresses a question!The fact that we 'wonder'or 'ask' if such and such is the case of Austin'sconjectureand should make us wonderor ask why supportsthe plausibility philosophersstill indulge in declarativeslumber.For a discussionof embeddedinterrogativeswith if-clauses see Bolinger, 'Yes-No Questions Are Not AlternativeQuestions', in: H. Hiz (ed.), Questions,Dordrecht-Boston,D. Reidel Pub. Co., 1978, pp. 87-107. 18 See Hamblin, 'Questions',TheAustralasian journal of philosophy,vol. 36, 1958, pp. 159-168. 19 See B. Brandom, 'Asserting', Nous, vol. 17, 1983, pp. 637-651. 20 New York,B. Blackwell,1987, p. 229. See Hamblin,Imperatives, 21 See R. G. Collingwood, An Essay in Metaphysics, Oxford,Clarendon,1962, p. 23, and the Logic of Questionsand and the detailedworkingout in R. Manor,'Pragmatics vol. 29, 1982, pp. 45-95. Assertions',Philosophica, 22 See for instanceD. Harrah,Communication: a logical model, Cambridge MA, MIT Press, 1963. 23 The best introductionto the theory of imperativesis Hamblin'spreviously cited For a penetrating discussionthat avoids the DeclarativeFallacyand book, Imperatives. may very well be combinablewith some suggestionsmade below, see M. Huntley,'The of EnglishImperatives', Semantics Linguistics &Philosophy, 1984, pp. 103-133. and Doing, Dordrecht-Boston, D. Reidel Publ. Co., 24 See H. N. Castanieda, Thinking 1975,p. 169. 25 Those engaged in the descriptive grammarof English have and are entitled to differentviews on this matter.Perhapsthe work most pertinentto our concerns is W. and the Analysis of Infinitives, Bloomington,IN, Indiana Badecker,Formal Grammars UniversityLinguisticsClub, 1987. Badeckersurveyssome Chomskytheories,whichby of declarativesare deeply at deriving all infinitive constructionsby transformation variancewith the spirit of the present paper, thoughmy aims are so differentfrom his thatit is hardto call the variancea conflict.In healthycontrast,the lexicalisttheorythat Badecker offers in his chapter 3 awards infinitive constructionsindependencefrom and therebymore nearlysharesour direction;however,there remainsthe declaratives, questionof whetherin agentiveinfinitiveconstructionssuch as Jack refusedto explain sincerityconditionsto Alfred,we should or should not take it that there is a "trace" of Jack headingthe infinitivephrase. We certainlyneed Jack to get the semanticsright, but that far from settles the syntacticalquestion for English. In any event, Badecker for addressing suppliesa trulyhelpfulframework this andrelatedquestions. 26 See A. R. Anderson,'Logic,normsand roles',Ratio,vol. 4, 1962, pp. 36-49. 27 In particular, it just doesn'tmatterwhetheror not Q is itselfagentivein a. 28 I amignoring tense as a temporary anddangerous strategy. 29 On my proposal,if Q is agentive,then la stit: Ql is equivalentto Q. Obviouslythis is not to be taken as an analysis of Q, especially not as an analysis of Q in terms of propositionsthat are non-agentive. In this way the programis very differentfrom that of say Chisholm. See R. Chisholm, 'Evidence as Justification',The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 58, 1961, pp. 739-748, or 'The Ethics of Requirement',American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 1, 1964, pp. 147-154; or A. Kenny, Action, Emotion and Will,London,Routledge& KeaganPaul, 1963, ch. 8; both of these programs insist on replacingQ with a sentencedescribingsome terminalstate of affairs.In contrastwe clarifybutdo not analyze. 310 Note: subjunctive, not indicative,as in Mary demandedthat Jack explain sincerity conditions.

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I'mnot sure this use of overlapping grammatical categoriesis the best way to go. Let me emphasizeagain that the aim of applyingstit-notationis to clarify,not to analyse and, in particular, not to providea syntactical criterionfor when a certainsurfaceform mustbe consideredan imperative ratherthana declarative. 32 This equivalenceis fine for agentive Q; thus, to be forbidden to see to it that you explainsincerityconditionsto Alfred is indeed equivalentto being obligatedto see to it that you do not explain sincerityconditions to Alfred, precisely because you explain sincerityconditions to Alfred is agentive.This remarkis not ad hoc, but a straightforward,useful, and importantconsequenceof the analysis.Dialecticallywe use it to explainhow easy it is to confuse these mattersand thereforehow easy it has been for some (but far from all) investigators,trainedin the DeclarativeFallacy, to get things wrong. 33 See Castanieda, op. cit. 34 See for instanceG. H. v. Wright, 'DeonticLogic',Mind,1951, pp. 1-15. 35 See Hamblin,op. cit. 36 [a stit: [a stit: Q]lcollapses into [a stit: QJ. 17 And as few othersas possible.

Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Artsand Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, U.S.A.