There is,There are

Against the mainstream Quinean meta-ontology, Meinongians claim: “There are things that do not exist”. It is sometimes said that the “there are” in that sentence expresses “Meinongian quantification”. I consider two supposedly knock-down meta-ontological objections to Meinongianism from the literature: (1) an objection from equivocation, to the effect that the view displays a conceptual or semantic misunderstanding, probably of quantificational expressions; and (2) an objection from analyticity, to the effect that that sentence is Frege-analytically false i.e., it is synonymous with a logical falsity. Objection (1) is countered via a development of Williamson’s argument against epistemic conceptions of analyticity. Objection (2), which points at alleged linguistic evidence, is countered by resorting to linguistic counter-evidence. The upshot is a set-up of the debate between Quineans and Meinongians, in which the two parties disagree on substantive matters concerning de re the property of existence, taken as a natural property in the Lewis-Sider sense; and in which quick alleged refutations, such as objections from meaning-variance or analytic falsehood, rarely achieve their expected results.

Journal of Linguistics, 1972

Foundations of language, 1971

The term 'existential sentence' is used to refer to a specialized or non-canonical construction which expresses a proposition about the existence or the presence of someone or something. Because of their special structural and interpretive characteristics, existential sentences have offered a rich ground on which to test theories concerning the semantics of noun phrases and of predication, as well as theories concerning the role of non-canonical constructions in information packaging. This chapter begins by reviewing the basic structural, semantic and discourse functional properties of existential sentences. Since, across languages, existential sentences resemble copular, possessive and locative sentences, considerable debate has arisen about the extent to which their semantics are similar. The chapter therefore continues with an overview of the different analyses that have been proposed for the core existential proposition. The remainder of the chapter is devoted to two distinctive features of these sentences which have generated substantial discussion in the semantics and pragmatics literature: 1) the so-called defi niteness restriction, which limits the ability of defi nite and quantifi cational nominals to appear as the 'pivot' of the construction; and, 2) the predicate restriction, which has been claimed to restrict the expressions that can appear as the 'coda' to so-called stage-level predicates.

2012

In this paper, I will defend the claim that there are three existence properties: the second-order property of being instantiated, a substantive first-order property (or better a group of such properties) and a formal, hence universal, first-order property. I will first try to show what these properties are and why we need all of them for ontological purposes. Moreover, I will try to show why a Meinong-like option that positively endorses both the former and the latter first-order property is the correct view in ontology. Finally, I will add some methodological remarks as to why this debate has to be articulated from the point of view of reality, i.e., by speaking of properties, rather than from the point of view of language, i.e., by speaking of predicates (for such properties).

Oxford Handbooks Online, 2008

The semantic type of singular, plural and mass (in)definite descriptions......... §1.4.3. Monadic second-order logic and the language of the partitive construction. ... §2. Essential plurals in natural language.

Banking and risk are inseparable counterparts in the financial system of the economy of every country. While everything possible may be done by bankers and the regulators of the banking sector to reduce the effect of excessive risk-tasking, credit obviously includes the risk of loss. It is in fact risk that is the rationale for a lending bank's returns (profit) usually measured in interest rate spreads. Like in many spheres of life, risk can neither be avoided nor totally eradicated. It is proper planning and execution that holds the key to a banker's success; because, like Pierre Corneille (1604-1684) once wrote, " to conquer without risk is to triumph without glory ". Modern Banking in Sierra Leone, like everywhere else should be open to risk. Avoiding risk is like avoiding lending. Without lending with the attendant risks that go with it, returns to the bank will shrink. Besides that, non-risk taking banking will likely limit bankers to non-risk taking activities and products which are likely not to be attractive to the market and in turn not expand the impact of banking in the economy. On the other hand, while risk taking should not only be encouraged but expanded, the key concern of the savvy banker should be the methods that should be used to reduce or mitigate risks of counter-party moral hazard. To effectively contain risk, Credit Risk Management Departments of Sierra Leone's Banks would need both lawyers and finance experts to be able to effectively allocate risk and at the same time mitigate its effect on their operations. This can be done by properly drafted facility documentation and the guarantees or securities provided for the loans. Facility agreements are the biggest legal and economic fortresses against risk available to the banks. It is a common misconception to believe that guarantees and collaterals are the best mitigators of risk. While collaterals are great support devices to mitigate risk, it is usually the quality of documentation which supports their availability to the banks that provides the actual protection. Even unsecure transactions, if properly documented, will include clauses likely to mitigate risk; and a properly drafted loan agreement will be of as much use to the banker as will be collaterals secured by the banks.