Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung
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The number sensitivity of modal indefinites
Get PDFIn this study, I take up the interaction between modal flavor and the number morphology of existential wh-indefinites in Mandarin, a phenomenon first discussed in Lin (1998). I argue that there are three essential theoretical pieces to this interaction: (i) types of nominal reference (quantized vs. cumulative), (ii) degrees of modal variation (total vs. partial), and (iii) achieving modal variation by exhaustification. I show that while exhaustifying alternatives contributed by quantized wh-indefinites may give rise to either total or partial modal variation, exhaustifying alternatives contributed by cumulative wh-indefinites may only give rise to partial modal variation
Mandarin dou: The common core of distributivity, maximality, and EVEN
Get PDFThe paper presents a unified analysis of Mandarin dou as an alternative sensitive (sentential) operator whose semantics equals to Karttunen and Peters (1979)’s EVEN. Different ‘uses’ of dou are analyzed by associating dou with different types of alternative sets: even-dou involves non-entailment-based alternative sets, while distributive-dou entailment-based ones
I want to, but...
Get PDFI want to see the concert, but I don’t want to take the long drive. Both of these desire ascriptions are true, even though I believe I’ll see the concert if and only if I take the drive. Yet they, and strongly conflicting desire ascriptions more generally, are predicted incompatible by the standard semantics, given two standard constraints. There are two proposed solutions. I argue that both face problems because they misunderstand how what we believe influences what we desire. I then sketch my own solution: a coarse-worlds semantics that captures the extent to which belief influences desire. My semantic models what I call some-things-considered desire. Considering what the concert would be like, but ignoring the drive, I want to see the concert; considering what the drive would be like, but ignoring the concert, I don’t want to take the drive
Proportional comparatives and relative scales
Get PDFThis paper examines the proportional interpretation of comparatives such as More residents of Ithaca than New York City know their neighbors, taking these as the starting point for an investigation of relative or proportional measurement more generally. Two mechanisms for deriving mappings from individuals to degrees of proportion are considered, the first based on posited proportional entries for many/few, the second involving proportional measure functions. It is shown that only the measure function approach adequately accounts for the distribution of proportional expressions and proportional interpretations. A further consequence is to eliminate the need to analyze words such as many as lexically ambiguous
Completely Bare Swedish Superlatives
Get PDFThis paper shows that Swedish differs from both German and English with respect to the distribution and interpretation of definiteness-marking on superlatives: Bare degree and amount superlatives unambiguously receive a relative interpretation, definite-marked amount superlatives are unambiguously ‘proportional’ (although they do not always carry a ‘more than half’ interpretation), and definite-marked degree superlatives can have an absolute or a relative reading. We show that an analysis based on movement of the superlative morpheme accounts well for the Swedish pattern but does not provide the tools for a cross-linguistically valid framework, failing in particular to account well for relative readings in conjunction with definiteness-marking. We therefore propose an alternative, non-movement approach building on a very recent treatment of the superlative morpheme, giving it access to a contrast set and an association relation. The crucial difference between Swedish on the one hand and English and German on the other hand is proposed to lie in whether the association relation is saturated through semantic composition or by context
Use-conditional meaning and the semantics of pragmaticalization
Get PDFPragmaticalization is the diachronic process by which propositional, truth-conditional semantic content develops into expressive, use-conditional content. Against the background of a multidimensional hybrid semantics, which employs both truth- and use-conditions to capture the entire conventional meaning of natural language expressions, this change can be understood as a diachronic type shift from truth-conditional to use-conditional meaning.We suggest that in general such shifts do not happen directly, but via an intermediate stage in which a 2-dimensional expression with mixed content is formed, which in a final stage may develop into pure use-conditional content. These concepts are applied to two cases of pragmaticalization: the antihonorific aspectual marker shimau in Japanese, and the expressive negation marker neenu in Miyara Yaeyaman, a related language of the Southern Ryukyus. As the second case study shows, pragmaticalization may also involve a process which we call pragmatic fission, in which a mixed expression splits into two separate items, leading to a lexical ambiguity between a plain truth-conditional expression and a purely use-conditional item
Singular count pseudo-partitives
Get PDFInversion-constructions, like too tasty of a cake and a disaster of a conference, have generally been treated separately from superficially similar-looking pseudo-partitives, like three gallons of water. I argue for an analysis that unifies the syntax and semantics of the two constructions through a proposal about the head of that appears in both. Both constructions involve the composition of two properties: one is contributed by the head noun; the other is contributed by the modifier, i.e., the measure-phrase in pseudo-partitives and the noun phrase or degree phrase in inversion-constructions. Moreover, while pseudo-partitives involve the composition of two properties of individuals, inversion-constructions involve the composition of two properties of states. A single semantic constraint—non-divisiveness of the property denoted by the modifier—is seen to play a role in both types of constructions, and, in particular, to predict both the monotonicity of modifiers in pseudo-partitives and the gradability of modifiers in inversion-constructions
A signaling account of contrastive focus
Get PDFThis paper outlines a model of contrastive focus placement based on signaling games (Lewis 1969, Franke 2011). First, a simple model of sentence-level focus in question-answer situations is developed. Then, the model is extended to apply to sub-sentential phrases. Finally, an iterative procedure is developed for determining foci at each level of syntactic structure. This extends simple noise-based explanations of focus placement (Schmitz 2008, Bergen and Goodman 2014) to account for more difficult cases such as farmer sentences
The grammatical life of property concept roots in Malayalam
Get PDFWe provide an account of the morpho-syntax and semantics of property concept denoting expressions in Malayalam. We suggest that property concepts are lexicalized as uncategorized roots. Depending on the category of the functional heads they merge with, they participate in two types of predication. Both types are based on possession, overtly or covertly expressed. Our results add to recent work by Francez and Koontz-Garboden (2013) concerning variation in the lexicalization and grammar of property concepts cross-linguistically
Lexical vs. Pragmatically Derived Interpretations of Numerals
Get PDFThis paper shows that the pragmatically derived interpretations of the numerals such as ‘at least N’ or ‘at most N’ and the lexical counterparts are mutually exclusive with respect to language acquisition. Hence, children do not infer the meanings of the pragmatically derived meanings of the numerals based on the lexical counterparts and vice versa