Double access and the semantics of attitude and speech reports

Abstract

Altshuler and Schwarzschild (2013a; 2013b), following arguments in Gennari (1999), propose an indexical analysis of embedded present tense in English, more precisly one in which the present tense in English is simultaneously indexical (utterance related) and relative (index related); their proposal yields a compositional semantics for so-called Double Access readings. But analyses like theirs have been objected to in the literature, thereby motivating a movement/de re analysis of Double Access. To my understanding, the objections rest on the premise that the very proposition denoted by the embedded clause is the object of the attitude. This paper points out that analyses based on that premise are too restrictive for entirely unrelated reasons, having mostly to do with ‘loose reporting’. An analysis of attitude/indirect discourse verbs that allows for loose reporting is, at the same time, not subject to the objections against indexical analyses of Double Access, like Altshuler and Schwarzschild (2013a, b)’s, potentially voiding the need for a de re component in the analysis of embedded present tense.