piñón: doing it
abstract
Davidson (1980a) famously proposes that the it of do
it refers to an action, where actions (as a species of
events) are taken to be concrete particulars. I argue that Davidson's
idea faces linguistic difficulties and offer an alternative analysis in
which the it of do it refers to an action
type. This alternative analysis has the advantage of naturally
accounting for the problems that thwart Davidson's proposal.
note
I presented this on 30 April 2005 at Journée
Linguistique 2005, Cercle Belge de
Linguistique, Antwerpen, Belgium.
I have an earlier paper that this (updated) handout is based on: "Doing it deliberately".
reference
- Piñón, Christopher. Doing it. Handout,
Journée Linguistique 2005, Cercle Belge de
Linguistique, Antwerpen, Belgium, 30 April 2005. URL:
<http://pinon.sdf-eu.org/covers/di.html>.
download "Doing it" (handout)
go to my cover page for papers
piñón: doing it
last updated on 8 aug 07
christopher piñón (pinon AT sdf HYPHEN eu DOT org)
http://pinon.sdf-eu.org/covers/di.html