Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung
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Exclusivity and exhaustivity of disjunction(s): a cross-linguistic study
Full text linkMost natural languages have more than one linguistic form available to express disjunction. One of these forms is often reported by native speakers to be more exclusive than the other(s) and, in recent years, it has been claimed that some languages may in fact have dedicated exclusive disjunctions. In this paper, we report on a series of verification studies investigating the robustness of the exclusivity inference associated with different disjunction markers within and across five different languages and extend this investigation to another, related type of inference, namely the exhaustivity inference. In our results, we found that complex disjunctions were generally more likely to be interpreted exclusively than simplex ones and that, in some languages, further differences exist among the complex disjunctions. Exhaustivity inferences were much less robust and, by contrast, showed little-to-no difference among disjunction types. We lay out possible directions for interpreting these results
Two types of degree nominalizations: Degree concepts and qualities
Full text linkFrancez and Koontz-Garboden (2017) propose that in many languages, gradable predication is fundamentally about not degrees but qualities qua portions of an abstract substance, like wisdom or beauty, that an individual can be said to possess. Both notions—qualities and degrees—are crucial, we propose, to understanding an important distinction between two varieties of degree nominalization in English (e.g. height in Ingo is Bertha’s height vs tallness in Ingo has Bertha’s tallness). Building on Bochnak (2013) and Gobeski (2019), we marshal a range of unnoticed or under-noticed contrasts that we argue show that some nominalizations denote qualities and others denote what we’ll call \u27degree concepts\u27, which are intensionalized degrees
The semantics of specificity-marked indefinites: Evidence from Algerian Arabic
Full text linkIn this paper, I argue that specificity-marked indefinites function as referential expressions rather than existential quantifiers. Introducing a novel test, I demonstrate that they systematically lack all forms of existential readings—including narrow scope, wide scope, intermediate scope, and existential quantification over Skolem functions—while instead contributing reference to either individuals or Skolem functions. Based on these observations, I propose a semantics for specificity markers such as Algerian Arabic el (‘the’) and English certain, analyzing them as extreme domain restrictors. I then evaluate the implications of this analysis within both a classical existential generalized quantifier approach to indefinite determiners and a choice function approach
Redundancy under Discussion
Full text linkWe present novel data derived from a the structure (p ∨ p ∨ q) via the or-to-if tautology and core properties of disjunction (commutativity, associativity). The sentences at stake display unexpected felicity contrasts–posing a challenge for existing theories of oddness. Building on the QuD-informed model of oddness presented in the current volume (Hénot-Mortier, to appear), and much previous work, in particular Ippolito (2019) and Zhang (2022), we propose a solution covering the data, and which can extend to other classic cases of oddness, including Hurford phenomena (Hurford, 1974; Singh, 2008; Mandelkern and Romoli, 2018)
The maximality puzzle: Evidence from ʔayʔaǰuθəm
Full text linkThis paper examines the status of maximality for determiners in ʔayʔaǰuθəm (a.k.a. Comox-Sliammon, ISO 639-3: coo), an endangered Central Salish language traditionally spoken by four communities in British Columbia, Canada. Based on an experiment and original fieldwork, we propose that the ʔayʔaǰuθəm tə determiner encodes maximality, but not familiarity, while the kw determiner encodes neither. Furthermore, we argue that salience can play an important role in restricting the domain, thus giving rise to maximal readings in technically non-maximal contexts. These findings contribute to establishing the mechanisms modulating reference to plural individuals cross-linguistically
Lexical decomposition of verbs and the notion of an abstract state
Full text linkThis paper will propose a novel semantic and syntactic analysis of stative verbs, more specifically abstract state verbs. On that analysis, abstract state verbs have an underlying structure on which they are complex predicates consisting of the light verb HAVE and a noun for a trope-like thing, a trope or attitudinal, modal or intensional object. That structure is also input to semantic interpretation. Thus, need a coat is underlyingly have need (of) a coat. This analysis allows for an account of both the restrictions on modifiers of abstract states verbs (including the Stative Adverb Gap) and constraints on explicit property-referring terms, NPs of the sort the property of needing a coat
Disjunction with additives
Full text linkWe present compositional semantic analyses of complex disjunction involving an additive particle in Igbo and Thai. In Igbo, complex disjunction is constructed with an additive particle and a possibility modal in the first clause. We analyze this structure as involving conjoined possibilities, along the lines of Zimmermann’s (2000) analysis of disjunction. In Thai, the relevant construction involves a combination of negation and an additive particle which is independently observed in conditionals. We analyze this construction as an indicative conditional with a negated consequent of the form ‘if p, then not q’. We examine predictions of these analyses and discuss their implications, especially on the role of additive particles and modality in the realization of disjunctions cross-linguistically
\u27Only to forget it in the fridge\u27 – On the semantics of German \u27nur-um\u27 clauses
No full textThis paper presents a compositional account for the meaning of German Telic clauses with nur ‘only’ (Hugo hat einen Nudelsalat gemacht, nur um ihn im Kühlschrank zu vergessen. ‘Hugo made a pasta salad only to forget it in the fridge.’) I argue that the meaning of ‘unexpected outcome’ arises compositionally from (i) a mirative meaning for only and (ii) the connective um expressing an outcome. The account raises question about the meaning of Rationale clause connectives like German um or French pour
Building modifier questions from anaphors in Ktunaxa
Full text linkKtunaxa—a language isolate spoken in parts of British Columbia and Montana—asks questions about manners, locations, and times using two distinct grammatical elements in different positions: a particle that is structurally high and signals that a modifier question is being asked (the ‘wh kernel’) and a preverb that is low and signals the type of the modifier question (the ‘descriptive content marker’, or DCM). DCMs have an independent distribution as anaphors for properties of events. In questions, the wh kernel binds this variable and yields an alternative set. Ktunaxa’s two-part strategy for expressing modifier questions—one word dedicated to forming the question and one word dedicated to defining the question type—puts a new spin on the Japanese-style architecture of wh questions, with the second element an anaphor rather than an indefinite. That sheds light on the building blocks of questions more broadly
Main clause phenomena and discourse moves: Mandarin incompleteness in subordinate clauses
Full text linkThis paper identifies a tense-aspectual phenomenon called “incompleteness” (Kong, 1994; Tang and Lee, 2000; Gu, 2007) as a novel case of Main Clause Phenomenon (MCP) based on its distribution in various kinds of subordinate clauses. I show that an existing pragmatic analysis of incompleteness in matrix clauses (Sun, 2021; 2023) can be extended to capture the full data pattern, together with Djärv (2022)’s claim that root-like clauses that host MCP share the conventional discourse effects of putting an issue on the Discourse Table (Farkas and Bruce, 2010). By contrast, a strictly syntactic account cannot straightforwardly capture the distribution of incompleteness in subordinate clauses. I conclude that the case of Mandarin incompleteness implicates that, at least for some MCP, a semantic-pragmatic component is necessary in the analysis, supporting the long-existing idea that MCP is related to the so-called “asserted” clauses (Hooper and Thompson, 1973; Heycock, 2006; De Cat, 2012, among others)