Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung
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The semantics of Turkish numeral constructions
Get PDFThis paper explores Turkish numeral constructions, which have typologically two interesting properties: (i) the existence of an optional classifier, (ii) the incompatibility of plurals with them. I argue that numerals are modifiers of type <<e,t>,<e,t>> defined only for atomic properties (Ionin and Matushansky 2006). The explanation rests on the semantics of bare singulars proposed to denote sets of atoms (contra Bale et al. 2010), and the semantics of the classifier claimed to be a partial identity function presupposing atomic properties
Unifying the canonical, historical, and play-by-play present
Get PDFWhile the present tense is typically taken to index the reference time to the time of utterance, such a restriction cannot capture noncanonical uses of the present in English, such as the historical present or play-by-play present. We adopt a bicontextual semantics for present tense, in which the two time coordinates are mediated by pragmatics, allowing us to bring canonical, narrative, and play-by-play uses under a single denotation. Moreover, we show that such a treatment can also capture the novel observation that the historical use of the present tense can “anchor” the past perfect, while its other two uses cannot
Kinds, epistemic indefinites, and some-exclamatives
Get PDFAlthough exclamative sentences have garnered much attention over the years, most work has focused on understanding what have been called wh-exclamatives and nominal exclamatives, to the exclusion of other types of exclamative constructions. I focus on what I call some-exclamatives, clausal exclamatives where the predicate uses the determiner some. I provide an analysis of these exclamatives, showing how their existence is motivated by independent properties of exclamative constructions and some
Internal and external readings of same: Evidence for a uniform account
Get PDFSame is an anaphoric element that performs a comparison, which can either be external or internal to a sentence. Hardt and Mikkelsen (2015) show that same, unlike other anaphoric expressions, imposes a parallelism constraint, and they present three types of examples showing that same is infelicitous in the absence of parallelism. Hardt and Mikkelsen propose an account that applies uniformly to internal and external readings; however, the evidence they present largely targets external readings – they don’t offer empirical evidence that clearly supports the uniform approach. Furthermore, Barker (2007) argues that internal readings must be treated differently than external readings. In this paper, I show that the parallelism effects observed by Hardt and Mikkelsen in fact apply to internal readings as well. This provides support for a uniform treatment of internal and external readings of same. It also suggests that discourse relations, which typically apply to separate overt predications, also apply to the implicit predications that arise in distributional structures
“No, I AM”: What are you saying “no” to?
Get PDFThe English particle “no” can be used in a variety of contexts. We propose that “no” is three ways ambiguous, distinguished by the type of antecedent utilized: explicit, implicit and exophoric. The second type—“no” with an implicit antecedent—addresses a grounding misalignment caused by sources such as speaker’s bias. This type of “no” cannot be used bare. The current semantic theories on “no” as an answer particle to negative polar questions and assertions claim that “no” is ambiguous between confirming and rejecting the polar question or assertion. The preceding negative polar question or assertion licenses and therefore provides the content for “no” in answers like “No, I AM”. We argue instead that the ambiguity arises from whether “no” is picking an an explicit antecedent—the queried proposition—or an implicit one—the questioner’s bias. We offer three predictions and show that even positive antecedents with implied bias may license the “No, I AM” type of answer; in dialogue, bare “no”s only pick up explicit antecedents; the strength of the bias in a negative question influences the rate of the second type of “no” uses. We formalize our account in the KoS framework (Ginzburg, 2012). Our analysis highlights the importance of potential mismatches between the information states of different conversational participants in meaning resolution
Scalar implicatures processing: slowly accepting the truth (literally)
Get PDFThe processing of scalar implicatures has been extensively studied in recent years (Bott and Noveck 2004; Bott et al. 2012; Breheny et al. 2006; Huang and Snedeker 2009, Chemla and Bott 2013 among others). Following the work of Bott and Noveck (2004), there has been an ongoing discussion about whether scalar implicatures are delayed in online processing. A second question, discussed more recently, is whether so-called ‘indirect’ scalar implicatures (e.g., John didn’t always go to the movies ? John sometimes went) exhibit the same processing profile as the standard direct ones (e.g., John sometimes went to the movies ? John didn’t always go). Cremers and Chemla (2014) argue that they do, whereas Romoli and Schwarz (2015) find the reverse pattern for indirect scalar implicatures, with slower Reaction Times associated with literal responses. In this paper, we report an experiment investigating two key questions arising from this debate: first, do Reaction Times yield uniform evidence for delayed availability of implicatures? and second, do direct and indirect scalar implicatures display comparable or distinct processing properties? Using the covered picture version of a picture matching task (Huang et al. 2013) with reaction time measures, we look both at cases where the overt picture is rejected and where it is accepted. Our results provide a negative answer to the first question: while delays for implicature responses arise for rejections (Covered picture choices), the pattern flips for acceptances (Target choices). The cross-over interaction in the results is inconsistent with attributing delayed implicature-rejections to delays in the availability of the implicature, since Target choices compatible with the implicature are faster than ones that are only compatible with a literal interpretation. This yields a very different perspective on reaction time results for implicatures. As for the second question, our results show that once acceptance vs. rejection is factored in, the general reaction time pattern is the same for indirect and direct scalar implicatures and compatible with the different results found in the literature
Representing the effort in resolving ambiguous scope
Get PDFThis work proposes a way to formally model online scope interpretation in terms of recent experimental results. Specifically, it attempts to reconcile underspecified representations of semantic processing with results that show that there are higher-order dependencies between relative quantifier scope orderings that the processor may assert. It proposes a constrained data structure and movement operator that provides just enough specification to allow these higher-order dependencies to be represented. The operation reflects regression probabilities in one of the cited experiments
Ordering subjectivity and the absolute/relative distinction
Get PDFThis paper presents the results of an experimental investigation into faultless disagreement effects with the comparative forms of gradable adjectives. It is shown that subjective judgments regarding orderings are possible with a wide range of adjectival predicates, and furthermore that the presence of such subjectivity correlates with the distinction between absolute and relative gradable adjectives. A theory is developed in which both phenomena derive from the formal properties of adjectival measure functions
Focus Association and the Scope of Superlative -est
Get PDFWe offer evidence from Bulgarian that when the superlative quantifier -est undergoes QR from a DP into the clause, it obligatorily associates with focus, whereas when -est QRs internally to the superlative DP, it may but does not have to associate with focus
Deriving the most internal relative reading
Get PDFDefinite-marked constructions with adnominal quantity superlatives (most, least, fewest) give rise to both NP-external and NP-internal relative readings in English, while other adnominal superlatives allow only NP-external readings. Neither the movement approach to relative superlatives (Szabolcsi 1986, Heim 1999) nor Pancheva & Tomaszewicz’s (2012) combined movement-and-in-situ approach can account for this pattern of available readings. To explain how it is derived, I propose a novel constituency for constructions with adnominal quantity superlatives, which is motivated by findings in the parallel domain of measure phrases