Multiple World Expression

Abstract

Linguists, logicians and literary theorists all have their own ways of explaining the interplay between real and non-real worlds. None of these explanations adequately accounts for the use of language in situations where both real and imagined worlds are manipulated and discussed simultaneously, such as roleplaying and acting. In this paper, I investigate the shortcomings of these theories when applied to referring expressions in these contexts. I suggest an approach to multiple world discourse to address these shortcomings by combining elements of possible worlds as presented by Saul Kripke literary fictional worlds and the mental space theory of Gilles Fauconnier.