Imperatives as Preferential Commitment #
@cite{condoravdi-lauer-2012} @cite{lauer-2013}
Worked examples exercising the substrate's force = .preferential axis,
which had no consumer prior to this file. Anchored on
@cite{condoravdi-lauer-2012} ("Imperatives: meaning and illocutionary
force", Empirical Issues in Syntax and Semantics 9, pp. 37–58).
Paper's central distinction (§§3.2–3.3) #
@cite{condoravdi-lauer-2012} argue that declarative and imperative utterances create commitments of different attitudinal types:
- Declarative utterance (e.g., "It's raining"): adds
PB_w(Sp, ⟦φ⟧)— public commitment to ACT AS THOUGH BELIEVING φ. - Imperative utterance (e.g., "Sit down!"): adds
PEP_w(Sp, ⟦φ⟧)— public commitment to ACT AS THOUGH PREFERRING φ to be a maximal element of the speaker's effective preference structure.
Both kinds are commitments to act (paper §3.2). They differ in the
attitude the speaker is committed to act under: doxastic vs preferential.
This is the substrate's CommitmentForce axis.
Coverage #
- §1 — World fixture and propositions
- §2 — Declarative-as-doxastic baseline (Krifka 2015 default)
- §3 — Imperative-as-preferential (the paper's central claim)
- §4 — Doxastic vs preferential CG divergence (the two projections see different things)
- §5 — vs Krifka 2015: same substrate, different force; Krifka's framework was purely doxastic
Out of scope #
- The paper's "four challenges" (§2: contextual inconsistency, speaker
endorsement, automatic sincerity, interlocutors' role) — these are
arguments that any imperative theory must meet; Condoravdi-Lauer's
apparatus passes them via PEP/PB closure properties (Lauer 2013
Ch. 5). The substrate doesn't yet model time-indexed PB/PEP closure
(per
CommitmentSpace.leansubstrate scope note); these challenges are deferred. - The paper's typology of imperative uses (§1: directives, wishes, permissions, disinterested advice, four groups) — formalized via varying the contextual conditions on the SAME PEP commitment; worked examples for each group would multiply the file. Single-case worked example here.
- Comparison with @cite{kaufmann-2012} and @cite{portner-2007} (paper
§6) — separate study files would cover these; the @cite{roberts-2023}
study at sibling
Studies/Roberts2023.leanalready engages the Kaufmann-Portner debate.
A 2-world model: addressee sits / doesn't sit.
- sitting : AddrPosture
- standing : AddrPosture
Instances For
Equations
- Phenomena.Directives.Studies.CondoravdiLauer2012.instDecidableEqAddrPosture x✝ y✝ = if h : x✝.ctorIdx = y✝.ctorIdx then isTrue ⋯ else isFalse ⋯
Equations
- One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.
Instances For
Proposition: the addressee is sitting.
Equations
Instances For
Speaker utters the declarative "The addressee is sitting". Creates a doxastic commitment (Krifka 2015 default; @cite{condoravdi-lauer-2012} paper §3.3 Convention applied to assertions).
Equations
Instances For
The declarative state has speaker doxastically committed to isSitting.
Therefore the doxastic context set narrows to sitting-worlds.
The preferential context set is unaffected by the declarative (no preferential commitments in root).
Speaker utters the imperative "Sit down!". The substrate's assert
operator with force := .preferential models the paper's
PEP_w(Sp, ⟦sit_down⟧) commitment.
Per @cite{condoravdi-lauer-2012} §3.3: the convention for imperatives parallels the convention for declaratives, but commits the speaker to a PREFERENCE rather than a BELIEF.
Equations
- One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.
Instances For
The imperative state has speaker preferentially committed to
isSitting. Same IndexedCommitment.commit constructor as the
declarative — only the force field differs.
The doxastic context set is unaffected by the imperative — the speaker has not committed to BELIEVE the addressee is sitting, only to prefer it.
The preferential context set narrows to sitting-worlds — the
speaker IS committed to act as though preferring isSitting.
The two projections see different things #
Paper §3.2: PB and PEP are independent attitudinal commitments. A
declarative engages only PB; an imperative engages only PEP. The
substrate's toDoxasticContextSet / toPreferentialContextSet
projections make this independence Lean-checkable.
Headline: declarative narrows doxastic but not preferential; imperative narrows preferential but not doxastic.
The conflated toContextSet is the conjunction of both projections
(substrate-level theorem toContextSet_eq_doxastic_and_preferential).
Specialised to imperativeState: the conflated CG narrows to
sitting-worlds even though only the preferential-CG component is
really committed. The conflated view loses information.
Krifka 2015 was purely doxastic; CL2012 adds preferential #
Per the chronological-dependency rule, this 2012 paper PRECEDES
Krifka 2015 — but Krifka 2015's framework, as formalised in
Phenomena/Assertion/Studies/Krifka2015.lean, only exercises
force = .doxastic (the substrate's default). Condoravdi-Lauer 2012
provides the missing imperative case via force = .preferential,
exercising the same substrate machinery on the same IndexedCommitment
constructor.
The interesting cross-framework observation: both Krifka 2015's
declarative-assertion and Condoravdi-Lauer 2012's imperative-assertion
produce a single-element root. They differ ONLY in the force field.