Uncentered attitude reports

Abstract I argue for a semantic distinction between two classes of attitude complements. One class is best modeled in terms of possible worlds compatible with what the attitude holder believes/says, in the tradition of Hintikka. The other is best modeled in terms of centered worlds representing the de se perspective of the attitude holder, in the tradition of Chierchia (in turn inspired by Lewis). Much work has assumed that all attitude complements are to be treated semantically in this second manner. I refer to this hypothesis as Uniformity. Uniformity predicts that all attitude complements should be equally semantically able to host elements that must refer de se, such as shifted first person indexicals or relative tenses. Drawing on new evidence from Nez Perce, I demonstrate that this prediction is false, and argue that the best explanation for the distribution of dedicated de se elements comes from variation in whether attitude complements denote sets of centered tuples or rather sets of possible worlds.