Citation Context

...): (23) La soupe, elle est trop chaude. The-soup–ELLE-is-too-hot According to us, the relevant difference between ce and il/elle has to do with the type of denotation. Contrary to il/elle which refers to an entity which is identified and can be type-shifted as a set of properties, ce refers to an entity without identity. In other terms, the reference of ce is not strong, but weak (Dummett 1973, 1981), exactly as indefinite noun phrases can be weak, when they are incorporated (cf van Geenhoven 1996, McNally and van Geenhoven 1998) or when they appear in presentational sentences (Mc Nally 1997, Moltmann 2007). Dummett suggests that this and that in English refer to pre-individuated portions of reality, and thus involve reference without identity. They involve indeterminate reference that leaves open what entity exactly is being referred to. Our proposal is that ce, contrary to il/elle, has weak reference, and then can not be type-shifted from type e to type ((e,t),t). It is why ce can appear in identity sentences, but not in predicational sentences. Il/ Elle may refer to individual of type e, which can be type-shifted in set of properties (i.e. type ((e,t),t)). (24) Ce can only denote entities (ty...