Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung
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Contradiction and ellipsis licensing with voice mismatch and symmetry
Get PDFPrevious research has attributed differences in the acceptability of verb phrase ellipsis (VPE) with voice mismatch to processing effects (Arregui et al., 2006; Grant et al., 2012). This paper argues that they can instead be accounted for in terms of a standard, focus-based (Rooth, 1992a) condition on ellipsis (Rooth, 1992b), supplemented with the principle that ellipsis licensing cannot be contradictory. This perspective is compatible with voice-mismatched VPE being fundamentally grammatical (Merchant, 2013; cf. Hardt, 1993) rather than ungrammatical (e.g., Kim and Runner, 2018). It also encompasses other focus-based factors modulating voice-mismatched VPE, leading to conclusions regarding the interaction of implicit arguments with VPE (Overfelt to appear), and extends to an instance of VPE with symmetrical predicates (Stockwell, 2017, 2020)
Necessity modals, disjunctions, and collectivity
Get PDFUpward monotonic semantics for necessity modals give rise to Ross’s Puzzle: they predict that □ϕ entails □(ϕ ∨ ψ), but common intuitions about arguments of this form suggest they are invalid. It is widely assumed that the intuitive judgments involved in Ross’s Puzzle can be explained in terms of the licensing of ‘Diversity’ inferences: from □(ϕ ∨ ψ), interpreters infer that the truth of each disjunct (ϕ, ψ) is compatible with the relevant set of worlds. I introduce two pieces of data that this analysis fails to explain. Analyzing this data, I argue, suggests that necessity modals with embedded disjunctions license ‘Independence’ inferences: from the truth of □(ϕ ∨ ψ), interpreters infer that ϕ-without-ψ and ψ-without-ϕ are each compatible with the relevant set of worlds. I outline a bilateral inquisitive semantics for necessity modals that predicts the validity of the Independence inferences. I then argue that the resulting theory should be understood as one on which disjunctions denote pluralities of propositions, and necessity modals behave like collective predicates applied to these pluralities
German final clauses and attitude verbs
Get PDFThis paper explores the semantics of German final clauses introduced by um and damit against the background of their combinatorial potential with attitude verbs. While final clauses are usually seen as expressing the motivation behind some action, the frequent modification of preferential attitudes like hope or want presents a puzzle. This paper discusses two common paraphrases as a basis for a semantic analysis of final clauses. The attitude data turn out to be challenging for both of them. The paper proposes a tentative solution for the problem by assuming that intentional action implies the same kind of attitude holder that is evoked by preferential attitudes
Cumulativity without plural projection
Get PDFIt has been proposed that the part structures of denotations of plurals ‘project’ to the denotations of expressions including those plurals (e.g., Gawron and Kehler 2004, Kubota and Levine 2016, Schmitt 2019/2020). If such a plural projection is possible, not only plural DPs but also expressions including those plural DPs denote pluralities (e.g., type the two recipes denotes a plurality {TYPE(recipe1),TYPE(recipe2)} instead of a singularity {TYPE({recipe1,recipe2})}). One piece of support for plural projection comes from Schmitt’s (2019) observation about a type of cumulativity. In this paper, I examine a wider range of such cumulativity, and show that a source of cumulativity in the literature (e.g., Krifka 1989, Kratzer 2007) can capture all the relevant cumulativity data without plural projection while an analysis with plural projection can capture only a proper subset of those data. Therefore, this paper concludes that the relevant cumulativity does not support the need of plural projection
How to manage something in Bavarian German: The verbal prefix \u27der-\u27
No full textThe intuitive semantic contribution of the Bavarian German verbal prefix der- is usually paraphrased with either manage or be able to (e.g., Pia der-zieht den Wagen, ‘Pia {manages / is able}to pull the cart.’). While existing work has emphasized the relation of der- to its ability paraphrase (Sonnenhauser, 2009, 2012), we show that its semantic properties are much closer (though not identical) to that of manage: (i) der- gives rise to inference patterns that mirror those of manage and (ii) like manage but unlike be able to, predicates built from verbs prefixed by der- interact with temporal adverbials in the same way as achievement predicates. We take these results at face value and propose that der- introduces an event boundary to the event described by its semantic argument, thereby creating an achievement predicate. We argue that der- contributes projective content regarding the agent’s commitment and the difficulty of performing the event described by its argument
On \u27noch (ein)mal so\u27
No full textThis paper discusses the expression “nochmal so” (occurring with a gradable adjective) which is translated either as “twice as” or as “that ..., too”. It is argued that “nochmal” in these sentences is a contraction of “noch einmal” (lit. “still/in addition once”), whereby “noch” (= “still”, “in addition”) is a phasal particle which can be used with a variety of different readings, e.g. a temporal reading as “still” and additive reading as “in addition”. A particular puzzle of the examples discussed in this paper is that, in contrast to the predictions of the standard account of “noch” which assumes that it merely contributes a presupposition, the presence of “noch” matters for the truth conditions of the sentence. In order to account for this, I will adopt and adapt Thomas (2018)’s differential account of additive “noch” and argue that the “noch” in “nochmal so” is additive
Dependent pluractionality in Piipaash (Yuman)
Get PDFPiipaash is a Yuman language spoken in Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community (SRPMIC) and Gila River Indian Community (GRIC), both of which are located near Phoenix, Arizona. This work, based on text and other secondary sources, presents a novel analysis of a pluractional affix in Piipaash. In particular, Piipaash has what, at first pass, look like standard dependent definites (e.g., Balusu 2006; Farkas 1997; Henderson 2014). Looking more broadly we see that the marker of such indefinites, -xper-, has a wider distribution than markers of dependent indefinites in other languages discussed in the literature. Moreover, this distribution introduces two puzzles that we will solve in this paper by proposing a unified account of -xper- in terms of a novel kind of pluractionality that we dub “dependent pluractionality”. The core proposal is that in most previously discussed languages the relevant dependent indefinite morphology marks an individual variable as dependent (i.e., the variable quantified over by a numeral or indefinite). In Piipaash, -xper- marks an event variable as dependent. What is special about Piipaash is that a wide variety of expressions are verbal, including numerals, and have an event argument
Cumulative readings in focus contexts
Get PDFCumulative readings of sentences containing plurals involve universal inferences. Under a classical approach, those inferences are introduced by the predicate which takes the plurals as arguments (e.g. Sternefeld 1998, Beck & Sauerland 2000). Recent work, however, has proposed that plurals are associated with a core existential semantics, and that universal inferences are introduced external to the predication as a grammatical implicature (e.g. Magri 2014, Bar-Lev 2018, 2020, Chatain 2022). We provide new support for the implicature view by establishing that cumulativity patterns like an implicature in the way it interacts with the focus operator only. When only occurs with a scalar term, implicatures are in general observed just in the presupposition, and we show that cumulativity is likewise observed just as presuppositional in only data. While the data follow for free from the implicature analysis, the predicate analysis does not directly predict the observed readings
Two types of inference in evidentials: Efficacy vs. doxastic worlds
Get PDFIn this paper we propose that Korean evidential -te- requires the inference from directly perceived evidence, and this inference should be based on efficacy (Copley and Harley, 2015). Then we show that this proposal can explain the apparent variable evidentiality of -te- between direct evidentiality and inferential evidentiality (Chung, 2007; Lee 2013; a.o.) without assuming relative tense (Lee, 2013; Smirnova, 2013; Koev, 2017; a.o.). We also argue that this proposal can easily account for the differences between -te- and other closely related categories such as epistemic modals and predictive futures. In addition to this, given that -te- introduces he speaker’s weak commitment due to its inference, we try to explain this weak commitment in terms of the scoreboard semantics (Farkas and Bruce, 2010; Malamud and Stephenson, 2015; a.o.). We also discuss the implication of our proposal, especially with respect to the typology of evidentials
Directed motion entailments in the semantics of roots: A root-sensitive approach
Get PDFSyntactic, decompositional theories of verb meaning hold that verbs are created in the syntax by merging roots, which provide idiosyncratic information, with functional heads, which introduce structural components of meaning such as change or causation. In this paper, we examine the consequences of such a view for verbs of inherently directed motion like arrive, enter, ascend, descend, depart, leave, etc. (Levin, 1993; Rappaport Hovav, 2014). We show that this class of verbs does not show uniform behavior with respect to sub-lexical modi?cation with modi?ers like again and durative temporal modi?ers, which are well-established diagnostics for decompositional theories of verb meaning (e.g., Dowty, 1979; von Stechow, 1996; Beck and Johnson, 2004). This suggests that a syntactic, decompositional view may be appropriate only for some of these verbs, while others must contain all directed motion entailments within their verb roots. We argue that a root-sensitive approach to lexical decomposition of this verb class is necessary in order to account for their distinct grammatical properties