To appear in Theoretical Linguistics Eventualities and different things: a reply

“Comments are very welcome! ” This basic attitude and the many ways of implementing it contribute immensely to the fascination of engaging in scientific research. I am grateful to Theoretical Linguistics for providing a public platform for this kind of scholarly exchange and I thank all commentators for their thoughtful, stimulating, and often challenging contributions to my target article. My response will address two main issues that are raised by the commentaries. The first issue is shaped by a cluster of questions relating to ontology. The second issue concerns questions of methodology pertaining in particular to the problem of judging data. 1. How much ontology? How much ontology do we need when doing semantics? How deep should we delve into ontology when explicating what notions such as ‘event ’ and ‘state ’ actually mean? In Higginbotham’s opinion my proposal of drawing an ontological distinction between eventualities (events, processes and D(avidsonian)-states) on the one hand and the entities expressed by copular constructions and stative verbs (K(imian)-states) on the other ventures out too far. Higginbotham advises caution in this respect: “Whilst insisting that our talk of events, states, and the rest is to be taken seriously, semantics should, in my view, be wary of embracing more in th