1,720,992 research outputs found
Experimental evidence for the truth conditional contribution and shifting information status of appositives
No full textAppositive constructions (My friend Sophie, (who is) a classical violinist, performed a piece by Mozart) have stood at the center of debates concerning the range of possible meanings,and more specifically the status of not-at-issue entailments. However, it remains an open question what precisely their semantic and pragmatic contribution is to the sentence in which they appear. Here, we address this question head on experimentally. We first investigate the information status of appositives and find that while nominal appositives (e.g. a classical violinist) and sentence-medial appositive relative clauses (e.g. who is a classical violinist) are largely not at issue, sentence-final appositive relative clauses can become at issue, as witnessed in their becoming the target of a direct rejection and being associated with subsequent questions. We then investigate the truth conditional contribution of appositives to sentences in which they appear, and find that whenever an appositive is false, participants judge the entire sentence False. Reaction times complement truth value ratings to demonstrate that this decision is largely automatic. We discuss possible reasons for the difference among appositive types and sentential positions, and propose that the pattern of results we observe and the strong similarity with conjunction can best be accounted for in a unidimensional semantics which treats appositives as dynamic conjuncts but which also relates linguistic form to the timing of making assertions in discourse.Peer reviewe
On Quotational Indefinites
No full textThis paper discusses QUOTATIONAL INDEFINITES, an understudied variety of indefinites that is attested in languages like Bulgarian and German (see Cieschinger & Ebert 2011 on the latter), and are akin to Japanese wh-doublets (see Sudo 2008) and English placeholders like whatshisface or so-and-so (cf. Clark & Gerrig 1990). My major claim is that quotational indefinites existentially quantify over linguistic expressions and make reference to both expressions and their denotations. In addition, such indefinites require that the expressions they quantify over are of a certain type (a referential expression, a particular kind of adverbial, etc.) and originate in a previous conversation. This work uncovers important interactions between indefiniteness, quotation, and reportativity, and broadens our understanding of the typology of indefinites.publishe
On Quotational Indefinites
Get PDFThis paper discusses QUOTATIONAL INDEFINITES, an understudied variety of indefinites that is attested in languages like Bulgarian and German (see Cieschinger & Ebert 2011 on the latter), and are akin to Japanese wh-doublets (see Sudo 2008) and English placeholders like whatshisface or so-and-so (cf. Clark & Gerrig 1990). My major claim is that quotational indefinites existentially quantify over linguistic expressions and make reference to both expressions and their denotations. In addition, such indefinites require that the expressions they quantify over are of a certain type (a referential expression, a particular kind of adverbial, etc.) and originate in a previous conversation. This work uncovers important interactions between indefiniteness, quotation, and reportativity, and broadens our understanding of the typology of indefinites
Two puzzles about appositives: Projection and perspective shift
Get PDFThis paper solves two puzzles about the interpretation of appositive constructions in English: (i) it explains why appositives robustly PROJECT even though they are interpreted in situ with respect to order-dependent phenomena such as discourse anaphora; (ii) it analyzes certain non-projective readings of appositives as instances of PERSPECTIVE SHIFT, a phenomenon that bears striking similarities with the phenomenon of shifted indexical pronouns. To solve the first puzzle, I assume that appositives are interpreted in surface position but adopt a less standard mechanism of operator scope according to which operators can bind lexical predicates or other operators. Since appositives form ForcePs and Force operators cannot be bound, it follows that appositives project even when placed in the syntactic scope of a higher operator. With respect to the second puzzle, I argue that shifted appositives are evaluated with respect to a secondary speech context introduced by a verb of saying or inferred from the larger discourse. Since the two mechanisms of projection and perspective shift are independent, they can be given a uniform analysis
Strong beliefs, weak commitments
Get PDFThe standard Hintikkan semantics views believe as a universal quantifier over possible worlds (Hintikka, 1969). This semantics (i) fails to capture the fact that believe is gradable (cf. partially believe or fully believe) and (ii) makes no predictions about the degree of certainty of the belief agent toward the prejacent. To remedy these problems, I propose a scalar semantics along the lines of Kennedy and McNally’s (2005) analysis of gradable adjectives, arguing that believe is a maximum-degree predicate. While belief attributions are sometimes interpreted as hedges (e.g., I believe it’s raining can be taken as a statement of uncertainty), I point out that such uses are restricted to contexts in which the belief component is not relevant to the question under discussion. Following up on a suggestion made in Chemla (2008), I propose that the weak sense of believe arises as an antipresupposition, a scalar inference derived through competition with a presuppositionally stronger know-competitor. Contra Hawthorne et al. (2016), I argue that the intuition of weakness is due not to reduced modal force but rather to the subjectivity of modal content, amounting to a situation in which the agent has full subjective confidence in the prejacent but fails to publicly commit to it.publishe
Evidentiality and temporal distance learning
Get PDFThe grammatical category of evidentiality is traditionally defined as marking evidence type or related concepts (Anderson 1986, Willett 1988, Aikhenvald 2004). I argue against this received view as I show that evidential morphemes in Bulgarian mark the temporal distance between the time at which the speaker learned the described proposition and the topic time. I also demonstrate that Bulgarian evidentials represent projective/backgrounded content that is informative but does not affect the described proposition, which is plainly entailed. The latter fact especially has important typological and theoretical consequences. The proposal is formalized in a logic that extends Dynamic Predicate Logic by adding propositional variables (cf. AnderBois et al. 2010)
Probing the organisation and function of structured starch materials by advanced NMR techniques
Get PDFHydrogels have a complex and heterogeneous structure and organisation, making them promising candidates for applications in the biomedical, pharmaceutical and cosmetics industry. Starch is a particularly attractive material for producing hydrogels due to its low cost and biocompatibility, but the structural dynamics of polymer chains within starch hydrogels are not well understood, which has limited their development and utilisation. We employed a range of NMR methodologies to probe the structural organisation of these systems on various length scales, investigating the internal dynamics and intercomponent interactions within these heterogeneous systems. We report on a new level of structural organisation within starch gels – namely, highly dynamic solvated starch chains. Our findings provide new insights into the rationalisation of structure-function relationships governing the micro- and macroscopic properties of hydrogel assemblies.
Physiologically, starch hydrolysis by a-amylase occurs in several places in the human body and involves host’s salivary and pancreatic a-amylase enzymes, as well as amylolytic enzymes of bacterial origin. There has been some research on the impact of starch on the gut microbiota, but not much is known about the structure-function relationships governing starch hydrogels’ interaction and impact on the full extent of the gastrointestinal tract (GIT).
We demonstrate a quick and easy method for the preparation of pharmaceutical excipients from easily accessible materials, and their ability to provide targeted release of orally administrable physiologically relevant small molecules in the colon, with minimal to no release in the upper GIT. Our work provides important insights into the role and function of starch hydrogel structure on its drug delivery properties, probing guest-host interactions, and elucidating starch gels’ interaction with the human GIT. These insights provide important knowledge for the development of superior orally administrable targeted drug delivery systems with auxiliary physiologically relevant properties
Parentheticality, assertion strength, and discourse
Get PDFSentences with so-called SLIFTING PARENTHETICALS (e.g. The dean, Jill said, flirted with the secretary; Ross 1973) grammaticalize an intriguing interaction between speech act function and conventional meaning, one that is not found in regular embedding constructions (e.g. Jill said that the dean flirted with the secretary). In such sentences, the main clause is independently asserted and at the same time is interpreted in the scope of the parenthetical, which typically serves an evidential function. The discourse effect of this pragmasemantic setup is that slifting parentheticals modulate the strength with which the main part of the sentence is asserted (Urmson 1952, Asher 2000, Rooryck 2001, Davis et al. 2007, Simons 2007, Maier and Bary 2015). Building on Davis et al. (2007), this paper proposes a probabilistic discourse model that captures the role of parentheticality as a language tool for qualifying speaker’s commitments. The model also derives two empirical properties that set apart slifting parentheticals from regular embedding constructions, i.e. (i) the fact that slifting parentheticals invariably express upward entailing operators and (ii) the fact that they usually do not occur in subordinate clauses
Parentheticality, assertion strength, and discourse
No full textSentences with so-called SLIFTING PARENTHETICALS (e.g. The dean, Jill said, flirted with the secretary; Ross 1973) grammaticalize an intriguing interaction between speech act function and conventional meaning, one that is not found in regular embedding constructions (e.g. Jill said that the dean flirted with the secretary). In such sentences, the main clause is independently asserted and at the same time is interpreted in the scope of the parenthetical, which typically serves an evidential function. The discourse effect of this pragmasemantic setup is that slifting parentheticals modulate the strength with which the main part of the sentence is asserted (Urmson 1952, Asher 2000, Rooryck 2001, Davis et al. 2007, Simons 2007, Maier and Bary 2015). Building on Davis et al. (2007), this paper proposes a probabilistic discourse model that captures the role of parentheticality as a language tool for qualifying speaker’s commitments. The model also derives two empirical properties that set apart slifting parentheticals from regular embedding constructions, i.e. (i) the fact that slifting parentheticals invariably express upward entailing operators and (ii) the fact that they usually do not occur in subordinate clauses.publishe
- …
