Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung
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What gerund complements tell us about deontic necessity modals
Get PDFThis work is an exploration of the interaction between deontic necessity modals and the obligatorily gerundive complements they take in South Asian languages, with a focus on Bangla. We investigate a novel semantic category of gerunds – which we call gen-gerunds –arguing that they contain special morphology that embodies a relation between a deontic neces-sity and a set of eventualities that this necessity holds over. This morphology turns gen-gerunds into de?nite descriptions, unlike regular gerunds. Focusing futher on the (in)compatibilities between regular and gen-gerunds and strong and weak deontic necessity, we argue that the composition is affected by the nominal or predicative status of the modals, and these effects directly inform the distribution of these elements. We connect our account to interaction with negation and copulas with strong and weak necessity as well, and argue that the combined fac-tors of the semantics of gerunds and the categorial semantics of the modals themselves provide the answers to our main questions
Rationalizing evaluativity
Get PDFMany degree constructions are evaluative in the sense that they require a measure of some sort to exceed a contextually-determined norm. We assume that this inference is always an implicature (Rett, 2015b), and we develop a game-theoretic pragmatic treatment to explain how and when it arises. Our analysis is couched in a Rational Speech Act (RSA) model of communication, building on the theory of vagueness-resolution proposed in Lassiter and Goodman 2014. To extend the Lassiter and Goodman model to a wider range of degree constructions, we do two things: ?rst, we incorporate insights from Barker (2002) about the role of comparison-class uncertainty in the interpretation of gradable predicates, and second, we adapt an independent RSA model of Manner implicature (Bergen et al., 2016) to capture the effects of linguistic markedness in degree constructions (Rett, 2015b). Combining these pieces provides the ?rst gradient model of evaluativity inferences, and we conclude by discussing some of its novel predictions
Licensing by Modification: Existential Readings of Bare Plurals in Farsi
Get PDFDayal (2004b) predicts a language in which bare plurals have more restricted existential readings than bare singulars, ‘Hindi-in-reverse’, to be impossible. In this paper, I provide novel data, showing that Farsi is, in fact, such a language. Nonetheless, I argue that Dayal’s account can be extended to Farsi. I propose that the unexpected pattern arises due tothe special property of Farsi plural marking as a MAX operator. Existential readings of Farsi bare plurals only become available when they are modified. I follow Dayal’s (1995) proposal, which takes modifiers to introduce a situation variable. I argue that this proposal, together with the assumption that Farsi bare plurals lack a situation variable, similar to Dayal’s suggestion for Italian bare plurals, can explain how the presence of modifiers makes the otherwise unavailable existential reading of Farsi bare plurals available
A variable force analysis of positive polarity neg-raising modals
Get PDFI develop a new analysis of “weak necessity” modals should and supposed to that is motivated by novel observations of extra-weak meanings in some environments. I argue that this evidence of weak readings suggests that these modal verbs exhibit a type of variable force. Sentences with weak necessity modals express universal force in positive sentences and existential force under negation. The analysis will build on an analogy with free choice disjunction that assumes a basic weak meaning that strengthens in upward-entailing environments (Fox,2007; Bassi and Bar-Lev, 2016). I hypothesize that the precise distribution of the strengthened readings is governed by the polarity-sensitive nature of the modals (cf. Iatridou and Zeijlstra, 2013; Homer, 2015). In particular, I argue that the polarity sensitivity of the modals is the result of the association of their domains with a covert even (cf. Lahiri, 1995; Crni?c, 2014, 2019 for NPI any). This hypothesis makes intricate predictions about the range of readings that should be observed in various logical environments that I show to be borne out. I also argue that the analysis provides a natural link between neg-raising and weak necessity
If pictures are stative, what does this mean for discourse interpretation?
Get PDFThe goal of this paper is to explore the consequences of adopting Abusch (2014)’s hypothesis about pictures—that they are stative depictions of the world—for the interpreta-tion of discourses. We focus on the phenomenon of narrative progression and reject Abusch’s proposal that aspectual differences between linguistic and pictorial narrative do not factor in providing a uniform analysis across media. Based on eventive-stative sequences in linguistic narrative, we develop a new answer within Segmented Discourse Representation Theory. We state a single pragmatic algorithm that exploits the aspectual differences between linguistic and pictorial narratives to derive the correct predictions
The effect of intonation on the illocutionary force of declaratives in child comprehension
Get PDFWe report on a novel experimental paradigm that investigates preschoolers’ inter-pretations of clause types, with a focus on the distinctions between polar interrogatives, falling declaratives, and rising declaratives. Prior research demonstrates that by about age three, children have acquired the links between the main clause types and their canonical speech acts, and shows that they are also aware of indirect requests. But as of yet, there is no work exploring their comprehension of rising declaratives. Our results suggest that children possess an adult-like understanding of pragmatics and prosody that allows them to uncover the intended illocutionary force of speakers’ utterances
Non-maximality and homogeneity: Parallels between collective predicates and absolute adjectives
Get PDFSentences with definite plurals such as The kids laughed are known to display non- maximality and homogeneity. This is manifested not only in distributive predication but also in collective predication. However, I observe that collective predicates differ with respect to these properties: predicates like gather are non-maximal and homogeneous, while predicates like fit in the trunk are maximal and non-homogeneous. I argue that this distinction is parallel to a distinction in absolute gradable adjectives with totally-closed scales: gather patterns with adjectives like open, which have both maximum and minimum standard, while fit in the trunk patterns with adjectives like full, which only have a maximum standard. I account for the observed parallelism by analyzing collective predication using proportional scales
On speakers in narrative fiction
Get PDFThe paper investigates aspects of the contribution of indexicals to sentence meaning when the context, specifically the speaker, is unknown. One typical instance is the interpretation of the first person pronoun I in anonymous messages, another case are first and second person indexicals in narrative fiction. Whereas the speaker of an anonymous message can be found out, first speaker protagonists in fiction are a priori elusive. The paper argues that the meaning of indexicals in fiction and in anonymous utterances should be captured by forming the union over possible utterance contexts. It defines the subjective meaning for the hearer/reader as an appropriate level of semantic representation
Licensing free choice any on an existential semantics for imperatives
Get PDFThis paper seeks to explain why free choice any is licensed in strong imperatives and weak imperatives but not under strong modals. It argues that this contrast can be accounted for on the assumption that, instead of a strong (universal) modal, strong imperatives contain a weak (existential) modal that is strengthened by exhaustification (Schwager, 2005; Oikonomou, 2016). On this view, strong and weak imperatives have an identical structure at the point where the licensing of any is checked
Explicit comparison in Fijian
Get PDFAcross languages, comparative constructions vary according to whether they are morphologically explicit or implicit, a cut based largely on the availability of a degree morpheme corresponding to English -er/than (Kennedy, 2007). Based on diagnostics from that work, it has been claimed that Fijian comparatives are always of the implicit type and, more strikingly, that the language therefore lacks degrees in its ontology (Pearson, 2009). I argue that neither of these are the correct conclusions to be drawn for Fijian. First, Fijian does in fact make use of an explicit comparative that makes use of a dedicated degree morpheme. Second, Fijian passes a variety of diagnostics for degreefulness that are not specific to comparatives, but whose presence are generally believed to require degrees in their semantics (Beck et al., 2009). In addition to presenting these arguments for the status of Fijian as a degreeful language, I also propose a preliminary direct phrasal analysis to account for the language’s explicit comparative