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We offer a new account of the semantics of predicates of personal taste (PPTs) like tasty and fun which, unlike recent proposals (Lasersohn 2005; Stephenson 2007a, 2007b), does not appeal to a judge parameter as a component of the evaluation index. We identify empirical shortcomings of previous proposals, arguing that PPTs have a first-person-oriented meaning component even in cases that seem to involve an exocentric interpretation. We propose that the interpretation of PPTs involves first-person-oriented genericity in the sense of Moltmann (2006, 2010a). When I say This cake is tasty, I say roughly that for all worlds w and all individuals x such that x is relevant in w and I identify with x, the cake is tasty to x in w. We explain the shifting of the first person orientation from speaker to attitude holder in attitude reports by taking both matrix and embedded sentences to express properties rather than propositions (Stojanovic 2011). In both cases, an abstraction operator in the left periphery of the clause binds the variable responsible for the first-person-oriented interpretation of the sentence. The paper closes with a comparison with a similar proposal by Moltmann (2010b, forthcoming) and a discussion of the implications of our semantics for the analysis of attitudes de se. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article is a response to Sheen and O'Neill's (2005) critique of our paper entitled ‘Teachers’ stated beliefs about incidental focus on form and their classroom practice’ (Basturkmen et al., 2004). In addition, it seeks to clarify a number of common misunderstandings about focus on form (e.g. that ‘form’ refers exclusively to grammar and that it is entirely reactive/corrective in nature). We argue that the study of teachers’ beliefs about and practice of focus on form adds to our understanding of how the conditions for successful second language acquisition can be accomplished in the classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay corrects an error in the presentation of the Paradox of the Knowledge-Plus Knower (a variant of Kaplan and Montague's Knower Paradox) given in Cross 2001 ('The Paradox of the Knower without Epistemic Closure'). The correction adds a universally quantified transitivity principle for derivability as an additional assumption leading to paradox. This correction does not affect the status of the Knowledge-Plus paradox as a rebuttal to an argument against epistemic closure, since the quantified transitivity principle is true in the standard model of arithmetic and therefore innocuous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on Crispin Wright's "Reference Principle." It states that co-referential expressions can be substituted for one another in any context without producing an ungrammatical result. After discussing Wright's use of it to solve German philosopher Gottlob Frege's paradox of "the concept horse," the author shows that the Reference Principle is false, and draw wider morals from its failure. According to Wright, the relation between predicates and their semantic values is not the same as the relation between singular terms and theirs: predicates ascribe while singular terms refer. Also, the "ascriptum" of a predicate may also be the referent of a singular term. Using his terminology, an object is the referent of a possible singular term, a concept the ascrip turn of a possible predicate. The second part of Wright's package is obviously unFregean, since it permits concepts to be referents of singular terms, contrary to Frege's notion of them as essentially predicative.