Hyperintensional synonymies via linguistic ersatz worlds

Abstract We investigate how compositionality can be preserved when modeling semantic content within an impossible worlds framework based on linguistic ersatzism. After a critical assessment of an existing technique due to Francesco Berto and Mark Jago, we illustrate how to overcome its limitations. We introduce a general method for recovering compositionality across a broad range of alternative notions of content and synonymy, as induced by the syntactic characterizations of popular conceptivist logics. Finally, we discuss the advantages and limitations of the strategy, and conclude with some further critical remarks on linguistic ersatzism.