@article {39704, title = {The meaning of {\textquoteright}actually{\textquoteright}}, journal = {Dialectica}, volume = {64}, year = {2010}, pages = {153-185}, abstract = {The paper is an investigation into the concept of actuality from the standpoint of the philosophy of language. It is argued that expressions such as {\textquoteleft}actually{\textquoteright} and {\textquoteleft}in fact{\textquoteright} are not indexicals like {\textquoteleft}here{\textquoteright} and {\textquoteleft}now{\textquoteright}; when e.g. {\textquoteleft}Snow is actually white{\textquoteright} is uttered in a world, what proposition is conveyed does not depend on the world. Nor are such expressions ambiguous. The paper makes a suggestion about the role that {\textquoteleft}actually{\textquoteright} and its cognates do play. It is also argued that the sentence ⌜Actually S⌝ expresses a necessary truth only if S itself expresses one. In order to capture the necessitation of the proposition expressed in ⌜Actually S⌝ , it is not sufficient to prefix the word {\textquoteleft}necessarily{\textquoteright}.}, author = {Yannis Stephanou} }