Assessment-contextual indexicals∗

In this paper, I consider whether tenses, temporal indexicals, and other indexicals are contextually dependent on the context of assessment (or a-contextual), rather than, as is usually thought, contextually dependent on the context of utterance (u-contextual). I begin by contrasting two possible linguistic norms, governing our use of context sensitive expressions, espe-cially tenses and temporal indexicals (sections 2 and 3), and argue that one of these norms would make those expressions u-contextual, while the other would make them a-contextual (section 4). I then ask which of these two norms are followed by English speakers (section 5). Finally, I argue that the existence of a-contextuality does not in any sense entail “relativism ” about truth (section 6).