Linguistik
Refine
Year of publication
- 2018 (50) (remove)
Document Type
- Part of a Book (50) (remove)
Language
- English (50) (remove)
Has Fulltext
- yes (50)
Is part of the Bibliography
- no (50)
Keywords
- focus (4)
- alternative semantics (3)
- counterfactuals (3)
- relative clauses (3)
- tense (3)
- Japanese (2)
- comparatives (2)
- discourse particles (2)
- double access (2)
- kinds (2)
- lexical semantics (2)
- maximize presupposition (2)
- negation (2)
- presupposition projection (2)
- presuppositions (2)
- reconstruction (2)
- scalar implicature (2)
- type composition logic (2)
- uniqueness (2)
- (un)conditionals (1)
- -tari (1)
- -toka (1)
- Aymara (1)
- Cantonese (1)
- Estonian (1)
- Mandarin Chinese (1)
- MaxElide (1)
- Slovenian (1)
- Thai (1)
- Tiwa (1)
- acquisition (1)
- adjectival antonyms (1)
- adjectives (1)
- adjectives of completeness (1)
- alternative questions (1)
- amounts (1)
- appositives (1)
- as-phrases (1)
- aspect (1)
- assertion (1)
- assertions (1)
- at-issue content (1)
- atomicity (1)
- attitude reports (1)
- binding (1)
- bridge principles (1)
- causal dependence (1)
- causal sufficiency (1)
- causality (1)
- change of state verbs (1)
- choice functions (1)
- co-reference (1)
- coercion (1)
- coercions (1)
- coherence relations (1)
- common ground (1)
- comparative constructions (1)
- conditionals (1)
- conjunction (1)
- contemplation (1)
- conventional implicatures (1)
- conversational implicatures (1)
- cornering (1)
- counteridenticals (1)
- creation predicate (1)
- crosslinguistic semantics (1)
- dance semantics (1)
- de dicto (1)
- decomposition, (1)
- defaults (1)
- definite descriptions (1)
- definiteness (1)
- degree achievement (1)
- degrees (1)
- deixis (1)
- deontic modals (1)
- depiction verbs (1)
- differential verbal comparatives. (1)
- direct vs. indirect causation (1)
- discourse (1)
- discourse coherence (1)
- disjoint reference (1)
- disjunction (1)
- domain restriction (1)
- donkey sentences (1)
- dream reports (1)
- ellipsis (1)
- embedded clauses (1)
- embedded implicature (1)
- embedding (1)
- enough (1)
- entailment (1)
- epistemic 'modals' (1)
- epistemic indefinites (1)
- events (1)
- ever free relatives (1)
- exhaustivity (1)
- experiments (1)
- extreme nouns (1)
- factivity (1)
- familiarity (1)
- felicity conditions (1)
- frame semantics (1)
- frame theory (1)
- free choice (1)
- future (1)
- gestures (1)
- gradable adjectives (1)
- habitual (1)
- hard cases (1)
- hierarchy (1)
- higher-order quantification (1)
- iconic semantics (1)
- imperatives (1)
- imperfective (1)
- implicated presupposition (1)
- implicatives (1)
- implicature (1)
- imprecision (1)
- individual variation (1)
- inferencing task (1)
- infinitives (1)
- information structure (1)
- intensional quantifiers (1)
- intensional transitives (1)
- interrogatives (1)
- kind reference (1)
- language acquisition (1)
- lexical causative verbs (1)
- linear order (1)
- local context (1)
- logical form (1)
- manner implicature (1)
- maximality (1)
- maximizers (1)
- mention-some (1)
- miners puzzle (1)
- modal flavor (1)
- modal inferences (1)
- modification (1)
- monotonicity (1)
- movement (1)
- natural language metaphysics (1)
- necessary (but not necessarily sufficient) causes (1)
- negative strengthening (1)
- negative-islands (1)
- nominal nominal (1)
- non-intersective adjectives (1)
- non-restrictive relative clause (1)
- non-specific transparent (1)
- not-at-issue content (1)
- number neutrality (1)
- numerals (1)
- optional classifiers (1)
- parsing (1)
- performative modality (1)
- personal reference (1)
- perspective (1)
- picture semantics (1)
- plurality (1)
- pragmatic inference (1)
- pragmatics (1)
- preference predicates (1)
- presuppositional implicatures (1)
- priming (1)
- probabilistic theories of causation (1)
- probabilities (1)
- probability (1)
- progressive (1)
- projection (1)
- pronoun (1)
- pronoun movement (1)
- pronouns (1)
- properties (1)
- quantification (1)
- quantifier processing (1)
- quantifiers (1)
- quantity (1)
- reaction time (1)
- reasoning errors (1)
- relational adjectives (1)
- responsive predicates (1)
- restrictive relative clause (1)
- resumptive pronouns (1)
- rhetorical relations (1)
- salience (1)
- scalar changes (1)
- scalar diversity (1)
- scalar enrichment (1)
- scalar implicatures (1)
- scalar inferences (1)
- scale structure (1)
- scope (1)
- secondary focus (1)
- semantic types (1)
- semantic variability (1)
- semantics/pragmatics interface (1)
- sentence-final particles (1)
- similarity (1)
- similarity approach (1)
- simplification (1)
- speech acts (1)
- speech reports (1)
- speeded verification (1)
- split antecedent (1)
- standard solution (1)
- subjectivity (1)
- subjunctive conditionals (1)
- sufficient (but not necessarily necessary) causes (1)
- syllogisms (1)
- symmetric predicate (1)
- telicity (1)
- temporal/modal operators (1)
- too (1)
- topic markers (1)
- traces (1)
- type shifting (1)
- type-shifting (1)
- unalternative semantics (1)
- underspecification (1)
- universal presupposition projection (1)
- update semantics (1)
- visusal representations (1)
- weak free adjuncts (1)
- wh-questions (1)
- wide scope indefinites (1)
Experimental studies investigating logical reasoning performance show very high error rates of up to 80% and more. Previous research identified scalar inferences of the sentences of logical arguments as a major error source. We present new analytical tools to quantify the impact of scalar inferences on syllogistic reasoning. Our proposal builds on a new classification of Aristotelian syllogisms and a closely linked classification of reasoning behaviors/strategies.
We argue that the variation in error rates across syllogistic reasoning tasks is in part due to individual variation: reasoners follow different reasoning strategies and these strategies play out differently for syllogisms of different classes.
Analyses of scope reconstruction typically fall into two competing approaches: 'semantic reconstruction', which derives non-surface scope using semantic mechanisms, and 'syntactic reconstruction', which derives it by positing additional syntactic representations at the level of Logical Form. Grosu and Krifka (2007) proposed a semantic-reconstruction analysis for relative clauses like the gifted mathematician that Dan claims he is, in which the relative head NP can be interpreted in the scope of a lower intensional quantifier. Their analysis relies on type-shifting the relative head into a predicate of functions. We develop an alternative analysis for such relative clauses that replaces type-shifting with syntactic reconstruction. The competing analyses diverge in their predictions regarding scope possibilities in head-external relative clauses. We use Hebrew resumptive pronouns, which disambiguate a relative clause in favor of the head-external structure, to show that the prediction of syntactic reconstruction is correct. This result suggests that certain type-shifting operations are not made available by Universal Grammar.
In this paper I argue for a new constraint on questions, namely that a question denotation (a set of propositions) must map to a partition of a Stalnakerian Context-Set by point-wise exhaustification (point-wise application of the function Exh). The presupposition that Dayal attributes to an Answer operator follows from this constraint, if we assume a fairly standard definition of Exh (Krifka, 1995). But the constraint is more restrictive thereby deriving the sensitivity of higher order quantification to negative islands (Spector, 2008).
Moreover, when combined with recent proposals about the nature of Exh - designed primarily to account for the conjunctive interpretation of disjunction (e.g. Bar-Lev and Fox, 2017) - Dayal’s presupposition follows only in certain environments. This observation allows for an account of the "mention-some" interpretation of questions that makes specific distributional predictions.
Counteridenticals are counterfactual conditional sentences whose antecedent clauses contain an identity statement, e.g. "If I were you, I’d buy the blue dress". Here, we argue that counteridenticals are best analyzed along the lines of dream reports. After showing that counteridenticals and dream reports exhibit striking grammatical and perceptual parallels, we suggest an analysis of counteridenticals with Percus and Sauerland’s (2003) analysis of dream reports. Following their proposal, we propose to make use of concept generators, realized as centered worlds. To this end, we argue that the presence of 'if' licenses the presence of an 'imagine'-operator, which constitutes the attitude the antecedent clause "x be-PAST y" is taken under. The speaker predicates, in the imagine mode, the consequent property to his/her imagined self.
To capture the different degrees of identification between the subject and the predicate of the identity statement of counteridenticals’ antecedents observed in the literature, we incorporate Percus and Sharvit’s (2014) notion of asymmetric be into the analysis. This proposal has several advantages over existing analyses (Lakoff, 1996; Kocurek, 2016) of counteridentical meaning, as it both explains the different degrees of identification observed for counteridenticals and correctly predicts the parallels between counteridenticals and dream reports.
This paper investigates the meaning adaptability of change of state (CoS) verbs. It
argues that both coercion and underspecification are necessary mechanisms in order to properly
account for the semantic adaptability observable for CoS verbs in combination with their
complements. This type of meaning adaptability has received little formal attention to date,
although some recent work has already led the way on this topic (Spalek, 2014; Lukassek and
Spalek, 2016; Asher et al., 2017). Our paper is part of a cross-linguistic case study of German
einfrieren and Spanish congelar (‘freeze’). We model the meaning adaptability of this test case
within Type Composition Logic (TCL) (Asher, 2011). We build on Asher’s coercion mechanism
and introduce an additional mechanism for underspecification that exploits the fine-grained type
system in TCL.
This paper compares the modal particle fei (Schlieben-Lange, 1979; Thoma, 2009) with the modal particle/sentence adverb aber (not to be confused with the conjunction aber, ‘but’). Intuitively, both items express some form of contrast and correction. We will show that both are special among discourse particles in the following sense: They make a contribution that is interpreted at a level distinct from the level where at-issue content (Potts, 2005) is interpreted, as is standard for modal particles (see Gutzmann, 2015 and the references therein). But more interestingly, they exclusively relate to propositions that have not entered the Common Ground via being the at-issue content of an assertion made by the addressee.
Questioning speech acts
(2018)
The function of mapping from the semantic content of an utterance to its convention of use (a division of labor first made by Frege (1956)) has been attributed to abstract speech act operators (also known as force operators), such as ASSERT, QUESTION, and COMMAND. These operators have been traditionally assumed to occupy the highest echelons of the clausal periphery. The precise formulation of these operators has attracted a lot of attention from semanticists, as they are crucial for formalizing the diverse discourse functions of speech acts (Farkas and Bruce, 2009; Farkas and Roelofsen, 2017; Malamud and Stepheson, 2015; Krifka, 2015). These high operators usually come packaged with two assumptions: i) they are not embeddable under other elements, and ii) they belong to the realm of pure pragmatics and not compositional semantics. Recent research in both semantics and syntax have challenged these assumptions (Krifka, 2015; Davis, 2011; Wiltschko, 2017; Heim et al., 2016). Based on evidence from a language with a rich array of sentence-final particles (SFPs), Cantonese, we argue in this paper that not only are abstract speech operators embeddable, it is also the case that we need compositional mechanisms in these high regions of the clause. We will investigate the SFP stacking phenomenon, and argue that such grammaticalized operations on speech act operators reveal the need for a system that can compose the content of an utterance with multiple particles that update the discourse in a number of different, non-trivial ways.
This paper argues that Double Access sentences in English (Smith, 1978) are a kind of loose talk. When the meaning of a Double Access sentence is computed literally, the result is infelicity. Double Access sentences can be used meaningfully only when rescued by pragmatics which intervenes to interpret the embedded clause loosely. A formal model for loose interpretation, building on Klecha (2018), is provided.
Schwager (2011) and Sudo (2014) argued that there are cases of the so-called third readings of attitude reports, initially discovered by Fodor (1970), that cannot be accounted for in terms of a theory of indexed world variables (Percus, 2000), which is often referred to as the Standard Solution. More complicated alternatives to the Standard Solution have been recently formulated in the literature in a number of papers. We argue that all the seemingly problematic cases can be naturally accounted for in terms of the Standard Solution, if we take into account the existence of previously unrecognized elided material in these reports.
This paper experimentally investigates presupposition projection from the scope of the quantifiers every and at least one, as triggered by the factive verb be aware and the iterative adverb again.
The first issue we are concerned with is whether presuppositions project universally or existentially from quantified sentences. Different theoretical accounts endorse opposing views here (e.g., Heim, 1983; Geurts, 1999; Beaver, 2001; Schlenker, 2008, 2009; Fox, 2012), while recent experimental work (Chemla, 2009; Tiemann, 2014) suggests that the force of the projected presupposition varies by quantifier.
The second issue we look at is how the descriptively observed readings arise—in particular, as a direct result output from the projection mechanism, or via additional, independent mechanisms such as domain restriction (e.g., Geurts and van Tiel, 2016): if the domain of the quantifier is restricted, this can yield what looks like non-universal inferences in light of the overall, unrestricted domain, even if the projection mechanism itself yields a universal presupposition. Finally, we test whether the presupposed content also forms part of the entailed content, at least for certain triggers (Sudo, 2012; Klinedinst, 2016; Zehr and Schwarz, 2016).
Our results yield clearly different patterns for every and at least one, with every giving rise to universal presuppositions, which, to a very limited extent, can be weakened by domain restriction, and at least one overwhelmingly giving rise to non-universal presuppositions. Our results also indicate the availability of presupposition-less readings for both triggers in the task at hand, apparently more prevalent than domain restriction. Thereby, we present novel evidence that helps to pinpoint which of the theoretical options can be substantiated experimentally.