Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung
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Composite measure phrases: Odds, scores, flavors of scales, and the taxonomy of MPs
Get PDFPurely numerical measure phrases (MPs) like three or two thirds, which lack a unit term, are often construed as denoting degrees on a single numerical scale. This paper examines an apparently unrecognized class of complex purely numerical MPs such as two in three and six to one, which we term COMPOSITE MPS. Such MPs demonstrate, we argue, that mathematically equivalent MPs aren’t always equivalent linguistically and that different purely mathematical MPs refer to degrees on different and incommensurable scales. Indeed, some, such as sports scores, seem to refer irreducibly to tuples or pluralities of degrees. We classify composite MPs into three varieties, each of which requires a distinct analysis
Implicatures in (non-)monotonic environments
Get PDFIt has been shown that some embedded under universal and existential quantifiers can locally be interpreted as some but not all. This implicature can be reliable if supported by pragmatic context. We present experimental evidence showing that this local implicature can also be understood reliably if some is embedded under non–monotonic operators like only and exactly. Moreover, these operators reliably lead to a others none interpretation. We present a decomposition analysis which splits non-monotonic operators into a positive upward entailing and a negative downward-entailing component, where the positive component is responsible for the local but not all implicature, and the negative one for the others none interpretation
German \u27zum\u27-PPs as adjective intensifiers
No full textIn this paper, we discuss a type of intensifiers that consists of a combination of the preposition zum with nominalised infinitives. We present an exploratory corpus study indicating that besides a small amount of highly lexicalised combinations, all components of the construction exhibit a high degree of flexibility in the material inserted. Based on this observation we argue that this is a productive pattern with some fully idiomatic representatives and propose a compositionally derived meaning constitution. The core meaning components are (i) a comparison of two adjectival properties conceptualised in terms of tropes, (ii) an attitudinal evaluative component and (iii) a modal operator accounting for non-referentiality effects of the internal PP-argument
Three factors in explaining scalar diversity
Get PDFRates of scalar inference, whereby the utterance of a weaker term (e.g., some) leads hearers to infer the negation of a stronger term (all), have been found to vary substantially across lexical scales. For instance, the some but not all scalar inference arises much more robustly than good but not excellent. This finding has been termed scalar diversity. In this paper, we first replicate scalar diversity on 60 different pairs of scalar expressions, which represent a better balance across grammatical categories than has been tested in previous work. We then turn to the open question of what can explain scalar diversity, proposing three factors: 1) a language production-based metric of how accessible the stronger alternative (all) is; 2) the distinctness of the two scalar terms (some vs. all), as measured by posterior degree estimates; and 3) the meaning of the negated strong scalar term (not all), again measured by degree estimates. We report on three experiments showing that these factors can indeed explain some of the observed variation in scalar inference rates
The latest take on intensional superlatives
Get PDFThis work presents a new solution to the debate whether superlative adjectives can reconstruct within relative clauses containing an intensional predicate. I propose that that- clauses can be construed as superlative clauses corresponding to the domain argument of -est and involving degree relativization. This approach provides new ways to address the various issues of the debate related to interpretation, intervention effects, NPI licensing, and specificity of superlatives as compared to other adjectival modifiers
Countability shifts in the normative dimension
Get PDFIn this paper, we discuss what we argue is a newly observed use of nouns like woman, man, and lawyer, in the sort of morphosyntax characteristic of count nouns. We argue that the relevant data constitutes normative uses of the relevant nouns, and we build an analysis on the assumption that such nouns are polysemous between descriptive and normative senses (Leslie, 2015), using the formal account of polysemy in Pustejovsky (1998) and the analysis of countability in Rothstein (2010). In doing so, we provide evidence in support of the aforementioned kinds of analyses of social terms and countability, as opposed to others which do not seem to be able to account for the data in a straightforward a way
Subatomic homogeneity without the excluded middle presupposition: An argument from conjunction
Get PDFWhile discussion of homogeneity effects usually focuses on examples involving pluralities, the effect is often taken to hold within atoms as well (e.g. Löbner 2000, Spector 2013, Križ 2015). This paper brings to the literature on homogeneity an independent difference between pluralities and atoms, namely their behaviour with conjoined predicates. I show that the theory of homogeneity based on an excluded-middle presupposition produces unwanted results for conjunctions predicated of atomic subjects. I suggest that subatomic homogeneity is in fact the result of covert exhaustivity, which strengthens predicates in positive sentences
Attenuating NPIs in indicative and counterfactual conditionals
Get PDFThe antecedent of conditionals is well-established as a licenser of weak negative polarity items (NPIs), but comparatively less attention has been paid to potential differences between indicative and counterfactual conditionals in this regard. Here, we argue that attenuating NPIs like English all that and German sonderlich (‘particularly’) are systematically degraded in indicative conditionals. We support this observation with experimental evidence from a naturalness rating task and attribute the degradation in indicative conditionals to an interaction between the licensing condition of attenuating NPIs, on the one hand, and the pragmatics of indicative and counterfactual conditionals, on the other
Negation, polarity and scale structure: Different inferences of absolute adjectives
Get PDFThis work investigates the interpretation of absolute gradable adjectives like clean in comparison with their stronger scalemates (pristine) and corresponding antonyms (dirty and filthy) in the scope of negation or in the absence of it. We find that participants distinguish between non-negated absolute terms differing in informational strength (e.g., clean vs. pristine). However, such distinctions are fewer in the scope of negation. Under negation, weak absolute adjectives entail the antonym of a given pair (e.g., not clean → ‘dirty’), while the fine granularity of the underlying measurement scale appears to be responsible for additional interpretations of absolute adjective expressions, such as middling interpretations (‘neither clean nor dirty’) and inferences to the antonym. Overall, our findings endorse both the standard ab- solute, contradictory effect of negation on the interpretation of absolute adjectives as well as the less typical attenuating effect of negation, mostly discussed in relation to relative gradable adjectives (Horn, 1989). We conclude that different properties of measurement scales—scale structure and scale granularity—as well as evaluative polarity, play an essential role in the derivation of different (pragmatic) inferences of gradable adjectives (see also Gotzner et al., 2018b)
Romanian 5-year-olds derive global but not local implicatures with quantifiers embedded under epistemic adverbs: Evidence from a shadow play paradigm
Get PDFOur paper investigates the rates with which Romanian 5years-olds and adults derive local and global implicatures. We test a novel combination of multiple scalar terms, where quantifiers are embedded under epistemic adverbs such as Poate cǎ unii câini sunt albaştri ‘It is possible that some dogs are blue.’ In our study, we employ a shadow play paradigm, where participants reward a baby dragon for his guesses about various silhouettes of animals hiding behind a curtain. Such a paradigm creates a situation of indirect access, which makes epistemics adequate in the context. Both Romanian adults and children derived few local implicatures but a considerable number of global implicatures, especially not-certain-some global implicatures, where possible is strengthened to not certain. We observed an interaction of group and implicature type with children deriving fewer global implicatures than adults. Our findings are more compatible with a pragmatic account of implicatures than a grammatical one. Moreover, they are in contrast with previous work by Bill (2017) and Bill et al. (2021), who found that children derived more local implicatures than adults (~50%), but few global ones. We take our results to suggest that local implicature rates may decrease when the embedded scalar terms do not belong to the same scale as the non-embedded ones, but rather to different scales (<certain, possible>, <all, some>). We also explore other possible explanations for the low local implicatures rates in terms of the role of uncertainty and the role of the possible/certain contrast as a question under discussion