Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung
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Metalinguistic Comparatives in Greek and Korean: Attitude Semantics and Expressive Content
Get PDFIn this paper, we present a parallel between Greek and Korean in metalinguistic comparatives (MCs), and propose an analysis for both languages that combines an attitudinal semantics (building on Giannakidou and Stavrou 2008) with expressive meaning. The comparative morpheme supplies the former, and the than-particle supplies the latter. We discuss also data from Korean showing a two way distinction between “regular” MCs, and antiveridical MCs.We argue that the use of MC than particles, in all variants, brings about an individual’s emotive state, and propose that the morphemes contain expressive indices in the sense of Potts 2007. Our analysis has two implications: first, it allows the hypothesis that all metalinguistic functions in language are indeed part of the grammar in the particular way formulated here; second, our use of expressive indices supports Potts’s view of the expressive component as separate, but interacting, with the descriptive content: the than particle is not vacuous, but the place where descriptive and expressive meaning interact
The polarity of clauses embedded under neg-raising predicates
Get PDFNeg-raising inferences, whereby negated attitude predicates like don?t want to p are strengthened to mean want to not p, have previously been derived assuming that negation is underlyingly positioned within the embedded clause, and undergoes movement into the matrix clause, being interpreted via reconstruction. These kinds of accounts contrast with accounts assuming that negation is interpreted in its surface position, and the neg-raising inference is derived via semantic/pragmatic inferential mechanisms, such as a homogeneity presupposition, without the use of movement. This paper constructs an argument for the latter approach based on the interpretation of multi-dimensional adverbial operators, i.e., adverbs with a not-at-issue meaning component, within neg-raising sentences. The paper suggests that such operators are invaluable tools for diagnosing the position and behavior of negation
Third readings by semantic scope lowering: Prolepsis in Tiwa
Get PDFTiwa (Tibeto-Burman; India) attitude reports allow for proleptic objects, base-generated in the matrix clause but semantically related to a bound pronoun in the embedded clause. Unlike prolepsis in German (Salzmann, 2017b) and Nez Perce (Deal, 2018), which only allow for classic de re readings of the proleptic object, Tiwa prolepsis supports both classic de re and third readings. We provide an analysis that derives third readings via semantic scope lowering, an analytical relative of semantic reconstruction, and consider cross-linguistic implications
A case for no Ks
Get PDFWe present a novel observation about modified numerals and discuss how it may pose a problem for the syntactic representation of speaker’s belief, hence the grammatical derivation of ignorance inferences
How to point at discourse referents: On anaphoric uses of complex demonstratives
Get PDFThe topic of this paper is an unexpected contrast between complex demonstratives and definite descriptions on their respective anaphoric or bound uses: While it is entirely natural to pick up two discourse referents introduced by indefinites in the preceding sentence via definite descriptions, picking them up via complex demonstratives leads to infelicity. If only one of the two discourse referents is picked up by a complex demonstrative, while the other is either not picked up at all, or by a definite description, in contrast, the resulting minitext is again felicitous. Finally, two complex demonstratives can co-occur in a sentence if their use is accompanied by a pointing gesture in the direction of a perceptually salient individual. I will show that this pattern can be accounted for if complex demonstratives not only on their deictic, but also on their anaphoric or bound uses are assumed to be accompanied by (abstract or concrete) demonstrations (Bühler, 1934; Roberts, 2002) that may not have overlapping trajectories
Spanish \u27unos\u27 and the Article Hypothesis
No full textThe main claim of this paper is that unos is the Spanish plural indefinite article. This claim will be motivated both from a diachronic and a synchronic perspective. I will furthermore motivate why indefinite articles are expected to lack partitive readings and bare nominal arguments needn’t be blocked by the existence of an article (cf. Chierchia’s Blocking Principle
On competing degree morphemes in verbs of change in Southern Aymara
Get PDFIn this paper, I address verbal predicates of change in Southern Aymara, an understudied Andean language. I concentrate on verbs that are derived with the suffix-cha. This suffix derives degree achievements and creation predicates. I propose that they should be analyzed uniformly as degree achievements. The main empirical point of this paper is that there are two degree morphemes that combine with verbs with-cha, namely, a covert positive morpheme v. POS and an overt suffix-su. The latter is a degree morpheme that restricts the standard of comparison to lexical or contextual maximal degrees. I propose an analysis in terms of Maximize Presupposition: v. POS and -su constitute lexical alternatives where the latter is preferred over the former when maximal values are reached. v. POS is thus felicitous when no maximum is reached. The discussion bears on how telicity is achieved cross-linguistically when degree achievements are considered, thus enriching our typologies on the topic
Roles and the compositional semantics of role-denoting relational adjectives
Get PDFThe semantics of adjectives related to nominals denoting societal roles, such as presidential (from president), have remained understudied. We examine the semantics of what we call role-denoting relational adjectives, providing a formal analysis using the notion of a frame, a unified representation for lexical knowledge, world knowledge, and context. The frames we propose are based on a constructivist philosophical understanding of social roles, leading us to posit a multi-tiered ontology of events and individuals. Using frames and our ontology, we provide a general semantics for role-denoting relational adjectives and roles
Event-related relative measurement
Get PDFThis paper is concerned with relative measurement, which is expressed by percentage nouns and fractions. It has been observed that in some languages a sentence with relative measurement is ambiguous between two readings. I argue that these two readings involve two types of measurement—individual-related measurement and event-related measurement. I also provide a compositional analysis for the ambiguity of relative measurement. My analysis is able to capture many intriguing contrasts between the two readings of relative measurement, including those related to counting recycled individuals, compatibility with verbal affixes, structural distribution and scope
One many, many readings
Get PDFThis paper pursues a unified analysis of the different readings that the so called quantifier many gives rise to. Adopting a degree-based semantics account, many is decomposed into a gradable cardinality predicate and the positive operator POS. The different readings are argued to result from different scope of POS and association with focus. This improves on alternative accounts, which either employ more than one lexical entry for many or do not specify a compositional implementation