1,720,992 research outputs found
About determiners on event descriptions, about time being like space (when we talk), and about one particularly strange construction
No full textThis paper should be read against the backdrop of three lines of linguistic investigation: (1) the investigation of the Perfect construction, which has received considerable attention, going back to Reichenbach (Elements of symbolic logic, 1947); (2) the working hypothesis that certain verbal constructions can be described in terms of the semantics of determiners on nominal expressions, with which we are more familiar; (3) the common observation that we talk about time the way we talk about space. The focus of the paper is a particular construction in Greek. As always, however, the search for the solution of a particular question reveals many other questions in the process and this paper should be seen as being also about a number of related puzzles in English and other languages
Negation, Polarity, and Deontic Modals
No full textUniversal deontic modals may vary with respect to whether they scope over or under negation. For instance, English modals like must and should take wide scope with respect to negation; modals like have to and need to take narrow scope. Similar patterns have been attested in other languages. In this article, we argue that the scopal properties of modals with respect to negation can be understood if (a) modals that outscope negation are positive polarity items (PPIs); (b) all modals originate in a position lower than I[superscript 0]; and (c) modals undergo reconstruction unless reconstruction leads to a PPI-licensing violation
The Complex Beauty of Boundary Adverbials: In Years and Until
No full text© 2019 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In this article, we discuss two negative polarity item (NPI) adverbials: in years (and its cousins in days, in months, etc.) and until. We argue that much is to be gained by analyzing the two in juxtaposition. We first explore in years, following our approach in Iatridou and Zeijlstra 2017; on the basis of our analysis of this item, we then explore until. Our approach permits a unified account of until, whose behavior has led researchers to consider it lexically ambiguous. The commonalities between in years and our unified until also allow us to explain why both these boundary adverbials are strong as opposed to weak NPIs
Our even
No full textWe discuss a phenomenon that appears when ‘even’ occurs in questions. Specifically, an inference of what we call “extreme ignorance” is projected onto the speaker. We argue that this effect arises when the known unlikelihood ‘even’ focuses an entire question, resulting in the focused question being the least likely to be asked. Specific implicatures then conspire to bring about the inference that the speaker does not know the answer to the question that is most expected to be known. The environments explored are Wh-questions and Y/N questions, and the languages looked at primarily English, Greek, German and Russian
Negative DPs, A-Movement, and Scope Diminishment
No full textLasnik (1999) has claimed that NegDPs in derived subject position cannot be interpreted in the embedded clause and do not undergo A-chain reconstruction. We show that with a well-defined set of predicates, including deontic modals and raising predicates, scope diminishment of NegDP is observed. We argue, nevertheless, that scope diminishment in these cases is not produced by A-chain reconstruction. We also show that A-chain reconstruction of the indefinite part is possible. We conclude that the claim that NegDP does not undergo reconstruction reduces to the observation that the negative ingredient cannot reconstruct, and we suggest why this should be so. If we are correct, the analysis removes an obstacle to the view that A-chains exhibit syntactic reconstruction
Definiteness as Maximal Informativeness
Get PDFWe argue that definites are interpreted as denoting the maximally informative object that falls under the relevant predicate
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Formal Linguistics: the nature of the enterprise and why we believe that language is not taught
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