Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung
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Reciprocating same
Get PDFsame can appear with a complement (the external construction) or associating with a plural element in the sentence (the internal construction). This type of alternation is observed with other relational modifiers as well (e.g. enemy, neighbor). However, same is unique in also being able to associate with the singular distributive quantifier every in the internal construction (e.g. every child read the same book). Here, I propose to derive this unique behavior from two independently evidenced phenomena: plural properties of every (Kratzer, 2000) and same’s scope-taking (Barker, 2007). Together, these two facts explain same’s behavior: by taking scope, same is able to enter levels of hierarchies where every behaves like a plural. The merit of this analysis is to provide a principled type-driven difference between same and other relational modifiers, which, I argue, is missed in other analyses
Demonstratives as dimension shifters
Get PDFDrawing on earlier work by Ebert and Ebert (2014), we argue that co-speech gestures contribute non-at-issue information by default (cf. Schlenker, 2018), flesh out their proposal that gestural content can be shifted via demonstratives (i.e. demonstratives function as dimension shifters from the non-at-issue to the at-issue dimension), and present experimental validation for this claim
Vowel quality and iconic lengthening
Get PDFIn spoken language it is possible to modulate the length of a given vowel in order to convey a strengthened meaning, e.g. in “looong talk” the denoted talk is longer than in “long talk". This very same lengthening is not felicitous for adjectives like short (* “shooort”). For this reason, the lengthening of “large”-type adjectives like “long” is usually held to be purely iconic (Schlenker, 2016; Fuchs et al., 2019), i.e. the result of a direct mapping from, e.g., the length of the talk to the length of the word “long”. However, for adjectives like “teeny”, iconic lengthening seems to be possible. Consequently, I argue that to account for iconic modulation of vowel length it is necessary to consider, alongside ‘pure’ iconicity, the back/front opposition of vowels, one of the most robust phenomena linked to sound symbolism. I submit that two mechanisms underlie modulation of vowel length: i) ‘Pure’ iconicity, mapping the length (or number of replications) of the vowel directly onto the size of the object of which the adjective is predicated, thus applying to “large”-type words only. ii) Intensification of the vowel symbolism, placing restrictions on the lengthenable vowel requiring the vowel type (back/ front) to ‘match’ with the semantic direction of the adjective (“large”-type/“small”-type respectively). I present two pilot studies that test acceptability judgments on scalar adjectives whose stressed vowel has been lengthened. The studies are underpowered, but there is a consistent trend that goes in the direction of our predictions
A vagueness based analysis of abstract nouns
Get PDFThe count/mass distinction is a widely discussed topic across languages and linguistic theories have covered a great part of peculiarities which appear in relation to this phe- nomenon. Abstract nouns have often been left out of consideration, possibly due to the fact that their reference is abstract and the application of some relevant features of count or mass reference, such as cumulativity, divisiveness or atomicity, does not seem to be possible. This paper presents a thorough study of lexical features of a subset of abstract nouns and their distribution in COCA which suggests that countability in abstract nouns has to be determined relative to their semantic category. Focusing on eventuality denoting nominals which comprise a substantial part of abstract nouns, I argue that these nouns resemble concrete nouns in that the countability distinctions are expressed in surprising similarity. I find that the core feature underlying the distinction between abstract count and abstract mass nouns is the vagueness of the minimal components, an approach pursued by Chierchia (2010) for concrete nouns. The minimal components of the count eventualities appear to be stable in all precisifications, unlike those of mass eventualities which are not determined and vary
Extent scales are licensed by atomic Incremental Theme objects: evidence from begin DP
Get PDFDynamic event predicates denote ordered change in some scalar property corresponding to the theme participant. In particular, Change of State predicates map onto property scales (e.g. TEMPERATURE), while Incremental Theme predicates are measured out by the extent of their objects. In terms of VP composition, Rappaport Hovav (2008) proposes that property scales are hard-wired into the lexical semantics of verbs (e.g. heat), whereas extent scales are licensed by Incremental Theme objects. In this paper, I provide new evidence for this hypothesis. The relevant data come from VPs like begin the book, which have only an underspecified Incremental Theme reading. I then turn to examples like begin eight films, which are obligatorily distributive. I use this fact to argue for an even stronger hypothesis: extent scales are licensed by atomic Incremental Themes
Incremental semantic restriction and subjectivity-based adjective ordering
Get PDFAdjective ordering preferences (e.g., big blue box vs. blue big box) are robustly attested in many unrelated languages (Dixon, 1982). Scontras et al. (2017) showed that adjective subjectivity is a robust predictor of ordering preferences in English: less subjective adjectives occur closer to the modified noun. In a follow-up to this finding, several authors have claimed that pressures from successful reference resolution and the hierarchical structure of modification explain subjectivity-based ordering preferences (Simonic?, 2018; Franke et al., 2019; Scon- tras et al., 2019). In cases of restrictive modification, adjectives that compose with the nominal later will classify a smaller set of potential referents (e.g., the set of boxes vs. the set of blue boxes). To avoid alignment errors where a listener might mis-characterize the intended referent, speakers introduce the more error-prone (i.e., more subjective) adjectives later in the hierarchical construction of nominal structure; the structure linearizes such that subjectivity decreases the closer you get to the modified noun. The current study explores the predictions of this reference-resolution story by examining adjective ordering cross-linguistically: when adjectives incrementally restrict a nominal denotation, there should be pressure toward subjectivity- based orderings, but, in the absence of incremental restriction, such pressures should not obtain
Not all gradable adjectives are vague – Experimental evidence from adults and children
Get PDFThis paper investigates whether absolute gradable adjectives such as clean show characteristics of vagueness, as do relative gradable adjectives such as big. We addressed this question by examining adults’ interpretation of the antonyms clean and dirty in a picture- selection task. Children between the ages of 3 and 5 were tested with the same task to see how early the interpretation pattern shown by the adults emerges in the course of acquisition. Our findings indicate that absolute gradable adjectives do not show characteristics of vagueness in either the adults or the children. Absolute gradable adjectives are interpreted as having a minimum or maximum standard of comparison, which is not context-sensitive, and they do not give rise to borderline cases
Condition C effects in VP fronting constructions and the mode of semantic composition
Get PDFThe paper studies Condition C effects in VP fronting constructions. The author explores new as well as known data that cannot be accounted for by current theories of reconstruction. He explores the mode of semantic composition by which the fronted verb composes with its sister in cases where Condition C effects are triggered and obviated. The author proposes that Condition C effects are triggered if a potential trigger inside a fronted VP is argument to a predicate that describes a situation that is identical to or co-varies with the Austinian topic situation described by the assertive content of the whole sentence
A scalar conditional in Greek: looking for the consequent
Get PDFThis paper discusses a construction with a conditional interpretation in Greek which differs from “typical” conditionals in interesting ways. I refer to this construction as pu- conditional, since it is always introduced with the particle pu whose semantic contribution is to be analysed. Pu-conditionals only appear with subjunctive mood and they do not combine with a consequent as typical conditionals. Instead, the meaning of the consequent is implied and indicates that if the prejacent holds, a contextually supplied scalar property will hold to a higher degree
Most, but not more than half, is proportion-dependent and sensitive to individual differences
Get PDFIn this study we test individual differences in the meaning representations of two natural language quantifiers – most and more than half – in a novel, purely linguistic task. We operationalized differences in meaning representations as differences in individual thresholds which were estimated using logistic regression. We show that the representation ofmost varies across subjects and its verification depends on proportion. Moreover, the choice of the representation of most affects the verification process. These effects are not present for more than half. The study demonstrates the cognitive differences between most and more than half and individual variation in meaning representations