Context-Sensitivity by Way of Parameters

There is the sort of context-sensitivity that is hard-wired into particular lexical items, Kaplan-style; and then there is the sort of context-sensitivity that can enter into a sentence in virtue of the way that index parameters are ‘initialized’ by context. Call the former sort of context-sensitivity indexical, and the latter parametric. Philosophical thinking about context-sensitivity is dominated by a focus on the indexical variety. Indeed, ‘context-sensitive’ is often defined in ways that would make all context-sensitivity indexical. Yet parametric context-sensitivity is arguably the more pervasive phenomenon. Drawing together some themes in recent work by Dilip Ninan, Brian Rabern, and Paolo Santorio, this chapter offers a study of parametric context-sensitivity. Attention to it is important for thinking straight about the relation between compositionality and content, about monsters, and about what it takes to motivate the context parameter of Kaplan’s two-dimensional semantics.