Worlds in worlds: Assigning inferences to subdomains

Abstract

Abstract This article examines the question of when inferences we make from a text apply to a conceptual subdomain and not the main conceptual domain of the text. In the process of understanding a text, we make these determinations all the time, easily, intuitively. This would suggest underlying principles, rather than ad hoc judgments or a wide set of disparate factors. It is such underlying principles that this article investigates. The framework proposed here allows us to account not only for instances in which a space builder is crucial to assigning propositions to subdomains, but also for cases where there is no such explicit mechanism. It allows us to account in a systematic way for the fact that certain linguistic terms can function as space builders at certain times but not at others, as well as providing ways of understanding more complex phenomena related to metaphor and equivocation.