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Decomposing coordination
(2014)
Natural languages display a surprising diversity of expression of elementary logical operations. The study of this variation is emerging as an important topic of cross-linguistic semantics. In this paper, we address the expression of coordination from this perspective, especially coordination of individual denoting expressions such as "John and Mary". We argue that there is an underlying universal structure for individual coordination, and that the cross-linguistic variation can be explained by assuming that languages pronounce different morphemes of this universal structure. In particular, we argue that there two main types of system for the expression of individual coordination: the J-type and the μ-type. In μ-type languages the morpheme used for individual coordination also has uses a quantificational or focus particle, while in the J-type languages it doesn't. Instead at least in many J-type languages the same morpheme is used for individual and propositional coordination. The evidence we present for our model comes from two sources: new data from specific data of the J-type and μ-type languages, and from a study of the historical development of the expression of individual coordination in Indo-European which switched from a μ-type to a J-type system.
Irene Heim in unpublished work proposed a new syntax-semantics interface for propositional attitude reports based on an ontology without transworld individuals, but counterpart functions instead. We show that the approach can capture the 'de re'/'de dicto' distinction, but makes different predictions from accounts with transworld individuals. Specifically, the account uses a non-invertible counterpart functions: a single individual in an alternative world can be the counterpart of many individuals of the real world. The directionality of counterpart functions predicts that a 'de dicto' interpreted DP cannot be an argument of a 'de re' interpreted predicate. We show that the predicted restriction is corroborated by existing work on restrictions on 'de re' interpretation. The derivation of constraints on 'de re' interpretation argues empirically for the counterpart ontology and Heim’s implementation thereof.
The paper presents an additional argument for a specific account of semantic binding: the flat-binding analysis. The argument is based on observations concerning sloppy interpretations in verb phrase ellipsis when the binder is not the subject of the elided VP. In one such case, it is important that one of the binders belong to the domain of the other. This case can be derived from the flat-binding analysis as is shown in the paper, while it is unclear how to account for it within other analyses of semantic binding.
"Je suis Charlie" was used over 619.000 times in the two days that have followed the attack of the editorial team of Charlie Hebdo (Le Progrès, The Huffington Post) and has regularly been taken up in both written and spoken form since. In this paper, we argue that the structure of this sentence actually clashes with its meaning. More specifically, whereas its word order and default rightmost sentence stress are compatible either with an all-focus reading or a narrow focusing of Charlie, the context of use of this sentence as well as the solidarity/empathy message it intends to communicate suggest that its subject is narrowly focused. We will propose that two strategies have emerged to solve this conflict: (i) various alternative forms have appeared that allow proper subject focusing and (ii) speakers have reinterpreted the structure so as to pragmatically retrieve the (additive) focused nature of the subject.
The paper starts with a semantic differentiation between the notions of sentence topic and discourse topic. Sentence topic is conceived of as part of a semantic predication in the sense of Y. Kim's work. Discourse topic is defined, as in N. Asher's Segmented Discourse Representation Theory, as a discourse constituent that comprises the content of (part of) the larger discourse.
The main body of the paper serves to investigate the intricate connection between the two types of topic. For restricting the context of investigation, a specific relation between discourse constituents, Elaboration, is chosen. If Elaboration holds between two discourse constituents, one of them can be identified as the explicit discourse topic with respect to the other one. Whereas an elaborating sentence - with or without a sentence topic - is used to infer a 'dimension' for extending the discourse topic, the role of the sentence topic if it occurs is to mark an 'index' for predication along that dimension. The interaction of elaborating sentences and their topics is modelled by means of channel theoretic devices.'
This paper argues for non-primary c- and s-selectional restrictions of verbs in computing nonprimary predicatives such as resultatives, depictives, and manners. Our discussion is based both on the selection violations in the presence of nonprimary predicates and on the cross-linguistic and language-internal variations of categorial and semantic constraints on nonprimary predicates. We claim that all types of thematic predication are represented by an extended projection, and that the merger of lexical heads with another element, regardless of the type of the element, consistently has c- and s-selectional restrictions.
Predication at the interface
(2001)
We try to show that predication plays a greater role in syntax than commonly assumed. Specifically, we wil argue that predication to a large extent determines both the phrase structure of clauses and trigger syntactic processes that take place in clauses. If we are on the right path, this implies that syntax is basically semantically driven, given that predication is semantically construed.
The paper shows that shared indefinite expressions in coordinative constructions may differ with respect to their referential properties. This is due to their being either in a focused or in a nonfocused shared constituent. Their different information-structural status follows from Rooth's theory on focus interpretation. Thus it follows that focused shared constitutents must be beyond the actual coordination and that coordinative constructions with unfocused shared constituents can be represented as ellipsis. In a focused shared constituent indefinite expressions may have a specific and an non specific unique reading as well as an non specific distributive one. For the latter we outline the idea that subjects and objects in the actual coordination form a pair of sets to which a distributing operator is attached. The set formation is further supported by plural pronouns referring to the respective set and by plural verb agreement in subsequent expressions.
Many authors who subscribe to some version of generative syntax account for the two readings of [...] sentences [...] in terms of LF-ambiguity. There is assumed to be covert quantifier raising (QR), which results in two distinct possibilities for the indefinite quantificational expressions involved to take scope over each other [...] In this paper, an alternative account is proposed which dispenses with the idea that there are different scope relations involved in the readings of […] sentences [...] and, consequently, with QR as the syntactic operation to be assumed for generating the respective LFs. I argue that it is rather focus structure in connection with type semantic issues pertaining to the indefinite quantificational expressions involved which result in the different readings associated with [...] sentences.
Sluicing phenomena
(2001)
The paper shows that in various sluicing types, the wh-phrase in the sluicing sentence as well as its relatum in the antecedent clause must be F-marked, and it explains this observation with Schwarzschild's (1999) and Merchant's (1999) focus theory. According to the semantics of the wh-phrase, it will argue that the relatum of the wh-phrase is an indefinite expression that must allow a specific interpretation. Following Heusinger (1997, 2000), specificity will be defined as an anchoring relation between the discourse referent introduced by the indefinite expression and a discourse given item. Because specific indefinite expressions are always novel, contexts like the scope of definite DPs, the scope of thematic matrix predicates, and the scope of downward-monotonic quantifiers which all exhibit non-novel indefinites do not allow sluicing.
Specificity distinction
(2001)
This paper is concerned with semantic noun phrase typology, focusing on the question of how to draw fine-grained distinctions necessary for an accurate account of natural language phenomena. In the extensive literature on this topic, the most commonly encountered parameters of classification concern the semantic type of the denotation of the noun phrase, the familiarity or novelty of its referent, the quantificational/nonquantificational distinction (connected to the weak/strong dichotomy), as well as, more recently, the question of whether the noun phrase is choice-functional or not (see Reinhart 1997, Winter 1997, Kratzer 1998, Matthewson 1999). In the discussion that follows I will attempt to make the following general points: (i) phenomena involving the behavior of noun phrases both within and across languages point to the need of establishing further distinctions that are too fine-grained to be caught in the net of these typologies; (ii) some of the relevant distinctions can be captured in terms of conditions on assignment functions; (iii) distribution and scopal peculiarities of noun phrases may result from constraints they impose on the way variables they introduce are to be assigned values.
Section 2 reviews the typology of definite noun phrases introduced in Farkas 2000 and the way it provides support for the general points above. Section 3 examines some of the problems raised by recognizing the rich variety of 'indefinite' noun phrases found in natural language and by attempting to capture their distribution and interpretation. Common to the typologies discussed in the two sections is the issue of marking different types of variation in the interpretation of a noun phrase. In the light of this discussion, specificity turns out to be an epiphenomenon connected to a family of distinctions that are marked differently in different languages.
In this squib, I want to argue that the morphological structure of words is, at least to some extent, motivated. As an example I have choosen the partonomic (and for the less part taxonomic) nomenclature of the human body. While important work by Brown et alii (1973), Anderson (1978) and Schladt (1997) exists on this topic, these analyses focus on the conceptualization of body-parts and their semantics, but not on their morphological representation.
In the following, I want to check two predictions about the morphological complexity of lexical items denoting parts of the human body. The first assumption is that the most canonical body-parts are always expressed by mono-lexematic items. The second one consists in the assumption that body-parts of the lowest levels in the hierarchy are always morphologically complex. A set of six body-parts has been analysed in 27 languages. The set consists of two canonical (HEAD and EAR) and of one from the lowest level of the hierarchy (TOENAIL). For this I have adopted a sample from Schladt (1997) and a small one compiled by myself
The present investigation is concerned with German participles II (past participles) as lexical heads of adjuncts.
Within a minimalist framework of sound-meaning correlation, the analysis presupposes a lexicalist conception of morphology and the differentiation of Semantic Form and Conceptual Structure. It is argued that participles II have the same argument structure as the underlying verbs and can undergo passivization, perfectivization and conversion to adjectives. As for the potential of participles to function as modifiers, it is shown that attributive and adverbial participle constructions involve further operations of conversion. Participle constructions are considered as reduced sentences. They do not have a syntactic position for the subject, for an operator (comparable to the relative pronoun in relative clauses) or for an adverbial relator (as in adverbial clauses). The pertinent components are present only in the semantic structure.
Two templates serve the composition of modifiers - including participle constructions - with the modificandum. It is necessary to differentiate between modification which unifies two predicates relating to participants or to situations and frame setting modification where the modifier is given the status of a propositional operator.
The proposed analysis shows that the high degree of semantic underspecification and interpretative flexibility of German participle II constructions resides in the indeterminacy of participles II with respect to voice and perfect, in the absence of certain constituents in the syntactic structure and in the presence of corresponding parameters in the Semantic Form of the participle phrases.
The paper investigates a recent proposal to resultativity by G. Jäger and R. Blutner (J&B). J&B say that the representation of result states of accomplishments by means of CAUSE and BECOME is not correct and should not be done in the syntax in terms of decomposition. They develop an axiomatic approach where each accomplishment/achievement is related to its result by a particular axiom. Modification of the result by "again" makes use of these axioms and the restitutive/resultative ambiguity is a matter of lexical ambiguity or polysemy. They argue that the classical decomposition theory cannot treat the restitutive reading of "A Delaware settled in New Jersey again" (there had been Delawares in New Jersey but not this particular one; and those earlier Delawares never moved to New Jersey but were borne there). I discuss (and dispute) these data and compare the two theories. J&B's contains an OT-part dealing with the disambiguating role of stress. While the decomposition theory cannot deal with the data mentioned, it can integrate the OT-part of J&B's theory.
Rethinking the adjunct
(2000)
The purpose of the present paper is twofold: first, to show that, when defining the adjunct, it is necessary to distinguish in a strict modular way between the syntactic level and the lexico-semantic level. Thus, the adjunct is a syntactic category on a par with the specifier and the complement, whereas the argument belongs to the same set as does (among others) the modifier. The consequence of this distinction is that there is no direct one-to-one opposition between adjuncts and arguments. Nor is there any direct one-to one relation between adjuncts and modifiers.
The second and main purpose of the paper is to account for the well-known difference between the position of a specific set of modifiers (cause, time, place etc.) in, on the one hand, English and Swedish, on the other, German. In English and Swedish the default position of these modifiers is postverbal, whereas in German it is preverbal. Further, in English and Swedish, these modifiers occur in a mirror order compared with their German counterparts, an order which, from a semantic point of view, is not the expected one. I shall demonstrate that this difference is due to the different settings of the verbal head parameter, the former languages being VO-languages and the latter being OV -languages. I shall further argue that in English and Swedish these modifiers are base generated as adjuncts to an empty VP, which is a complement of the main verb of what I shall call the minimal VP (MVP), whereas in German they are adjuncts on top of the MVP. Finally, I shall argue that the postverbal modifiers move at the latest at LF to the top of the MVP, in order to take scope over it, the restriction being 'Shortest move'. The movement results in the correct scope order of the postverbal modifiers.
The proposed structure also accounts for the binding data, in particular for the binding of a specific Swedish possessive anaphor 'sin'. This pronoun, which may occur within the MVP, must not occur within the postverbal modifiers in the empty VP. This supports the assumption that there is a strict borderline between the MVP and the assumed empty VP. The account is also in accordance with the focus data, the specific set of modifiers being potential focus exponents in a wide focus reading in English and Swedish, but not in German.
In this study, I investigate the positions and interpretations available to 'manner' adverbs in English. My central claim, contra Wyner (1994, 1998), is that an association does exist between 'manner' adverb positions and interpretations, which is best characterized in terms of Peterson's (1997) distinction between 'restrictive' and 'non-restrictive' modification. I also claim, however, that the association in question is not as general as commonly claimed; and, in particular, does not apply directly to 'manner' adverbs in 'fronted' and 'parenthetical' positions, which require special syntactic description.
This paper proposes that we can predict which adverbs cannot adjoin to the right in headinitial languages by means of a particular semantic property, that of being a "subjective" adverb, one which maps an event or proposition onto a scale with the high degree of indeterminacy and context-dependence. Such adverbs, such as 'probably' or 'luckily', cannot adjoin to the right with non-manner readings, while other adverbs (like 'politically', 'often', or 'deliberately') may. This supports the view that the distribution of adverbs depends heavily, and subtly, on their lexicosemantic properties.
In this paper I would like to show that the principles which have been proposed so far to account for the relationship between the informational level and the syntactic level in a Chinese utterance are unable to predict some interesting and regular facts of that language.
To my mind, the form and the position of the question operator in an interrogative utterance provide two distributional tests which univocally indicate where the new information lies. Hence, the pairing of affirmative and interrogative sentences might be a better approach to locate where the new information lies in a Chinese utterance.
Modern theorists rarely agree on how to represent the categories of tense and aspect, making a consistent analysis for phenomena, such as the present perfect, more difficult to attain. It has been argued in previous analyses that the variable behavior of the present perfect between languages licenses independently motivated treatments, particularly of a morphosyntactic or semanticsyntactic nature (Giorgi & Pianesi 1997; Schmitt 2001; Ilari 2001). More specifically, the wellknown readings of the American English (AE) present perfect (resultative, experiential, persistent situation, recent past (Comrie 1976)), are at odds with the readings of the corresponding structure in Brazilian Portuguese (BP), the 'pretérito perfeito composto' (default iterativity and occasional duration (Ilari 1999)). Despite these variations, the present work, assuming a tense-aspect framework at the semantic-pragmatic interface, will provide a unified analysis for the present perfect in AE and BP, which have traditionally been treated as semantically divergent. The present perfect meaning, in conjunction with the aspectual class of the predicate, can account for the major differences between languages, particularly regarding iterativity and the "present perfect puzzle", regarding adverb compatibility.