A note on the non-de se interpretation of attitude reports

In this short report, we show that some elements usually deemed as obligatory de se anaphors may be interpreted as non-de se in certain contexts. We argue that this non-de se reading cannot be subsumed under the category of de re , and suggest extending Kuno and Kaburaki’s theory of empathy (Kuno & Kaburaki 1977, Kuno 1987) to interpret these readings as indirect de se : namely, that the speaker empathizes with the attitude holder, helping the latter to do self-reference. Applying this idea to other anaphoric expressions like personal pronouns, we obtain a trichotomy of attitude reports—de se, de re, and indirect de se, contra the traditional de se and de re distinction. Our proposal can also help to account for Anand’s (2006) observation that only first-person attitude reports in the past tense may have the non-de se reading.