What someone could have said sometime: protagonist projection and covert mixed quotation

Abstract

Abstract This paper offers an account of protagonist projection: cases where words or expressions are used from a perspective other than that of the speaker. The paper argues that protagonist projection is an instance of covert mixed quotation: the phenomenon by which expressions are both used and mentioned without overt quotation marks. I offer a quasi-monstrous account where expressions are evaluated relative to shifted contexts and times, but stopping short of full-blown monstrous shifting. The paper argues that mixed quotation, and hence protagonist projection, is modalized and temporalized. The resulting account explains some limits on mixed quotation and protagonist projection, first in the flexibility of non-verbatim quotes, and second in shifting indexicals outside metalinguistic environments.