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In my paper, I show that the so-called German right dislocation actually comprises two distinct constructions, which I label 'right dislocation proper' and 'afterthought'. These differ in their prosodic and syntactic properties, as well as in their discourse functions. The paper is primarily concerned with the right dislocation proper (RD). I present a semantic analysis of RD based on the 'separate performative' account of Potts (2004, 2005) and Portner (forthc.). This analysis allows a description of the semantic contribution of RD to its host sentence, as well as explaining certain semantic constraints on the kind of NP in the RD construction.
Complex focus versus double focus : investigations on multiple focus interpretations in Hungarian
(2006)
The main aim of this paper is to point out several problems with the semantic analysis of Hungarian focus interpretation and 'only'. For current semantic analyses the interpretation of Hungarian identificational/exhaustive focus and 'only' is problematic, since in classical semantic analyses 'only' is identified with an exhaustivity operator. In this paper I will discuss multiple focus constructions and question-answer pairs in Hungarian to show that such a view cannot be applied to Hungarian exhaustive focus. Next to this I will discuss possible interpretations of Hungarian sentences containing multiple prosodic foci: complex focus versus double focus. My claim is that in order to interpret multiple focus (in Hungarian) we have to take into consideration the different intonation patterns, the occurrence of 'only', and the syntactic structure as well.
Dog after dog revisited
(2006)
This paper presents a compositional semantic analysis of pluractional adverbial modifiers like 'dog after dog' and 'one dog after the other'. We propose a division of labour according to which much of the semantics is carried by a family of plural operators. The adverbial itself contributes a semantics that we call pseudoreciprocal.
Der vorliegende Aufsatz gibt einen Überblick über das syntaktische, prosodische und semantische Verhalten sowie die textuelle Funktion kausaler Konnektoren im heutigen Deutsch. Im ersten Abschnitt wird Textkohärenz in räumliche, zeitliche und kausale Kohärenz unterteilt. Räumliche und zeitliche Kohärenz werden zu einem erheblichen Teil durch grammatische Sprachmittel kodiert, während kausale Kohärenz vor allem durch lexikalische Mittel ausgedrückt wird: durch Präpositionen, Konjunktionen und Adverbien. Im zweiten Abschnitt werden die wichtigsten kausalen Konnektoren des Gegenwartsdeutschen vorgestellt und in ihren syntaktischen und semantischen Haupteigenschaften beschrieben. Der dritte Abschnitt behandelt das linguistische Konzept der Ursache vor dem Hintergrund allgemeinerer philosophischer Reflexionen über Kausalität. Das Konzept der Verursachung wird zurückgeführt auf die zugrundeliegenden Konzepte der Situation und der Bedingung. Der vierte Abschnitt ist der Unterscheidung zwischen drei Arten kausaler Verknüpfungen gewidmet, die als dispositionelle, epistemische und deontisch-illokutionäre bezeichnet werden. Empirisch erlauben kausale Verknüpfungen häufig mehr als eine dieser Lesarten. Die folgenden Unterabschnitte untersuchen im Detail die syntaktischen, prosodischen und semantischen Bedingungen, durch die epistemische und deontische Lesarten kausaler Verknüpfungen möglich werden. Als wichtigste Faktoren, die die Interpretation beeinflussen, werden herausgestellt: syntaktische, prosodische und informationelle Integration der verknüpften Ausdrücke, Definitheit der Ursache sowie modale Umgebungen.
The paper investigates the interpretation of the Romanian subjunctive B (subjB) mood when it is embedded under the propositional attitude verb crede (believe). SubjB is analyzed as a single package of three distinct presuppositions: temporal de se, dissociation and propositional de se. I show that subjB is the temporal analogue of null PRO in the individual domain: it allows only for a de se reading. Dissociation enables us to show that subjB always takes scope over a negation embedded in a belief report. Propositional de se derives this empirical generalization. The introduction of centered propositions (generalizing centered worlds), together with propositional de se, dissociation and the belief 'introspection' principles, derives the fact that subjB belief reports (unlike their indicative counterparts) are infelicitous with embedded probabil.
In this paper I discuss four type of bare nominal, and note that, in some sense, all of them appear to imply stereotypicality. I consider an account in terms of Bidirectional Optimality Theory: unmarked (bare) forms give rise to unmarked (stereotypical) interpretations. However, it turns out that, while the form of bare numerals is unmarked, the interpretation sometimes is not. I suggest that the crucial notion is not unmarkedness, but optimal inference: unmarked forms give rise to interpretations that are best used for drawing inferences. I propose a revision of Bidirectional Optimality Theory to reflect this.
Mention some of all
(2006)
In the interpretation of natural language one may distinguish three types of dynamics: there are the acts or moves that are made; there are structural relations between subsequent moves; and interlocutors reason about the beliefs and intentions of the participants in a particular language game. Building on some of the formalisms developed to account for the first two types of dynamics, I will generalize and formalize Gricean insights into the third type, and show by means of a case study that such a formalization allows a direct account of an apparent ambiguity: the ‘exhaustive’ versus the ‘mention some’ interpretation of questions and their answers. While the principles which I sketch, like those of Grice, are motivated by assumptions of rationality and cooperativity, they do not presuppose these assumptions to be always warranted.
Russian and Spanish each have two variants of the predicational copular sentence. In Russian, the variation concerns the case of the predicate phrase, which can be nominative or instrumental, while in Spanish, the variation involves the choice of the copular verb, either ser or estar. It is shown that the choice of the particular variant of copular sentence in both languages depends on the speaker’s perspective, i.e., on whether or not the predication is linked to a specific topic situation.
In a recent contribution to a long-standing discussion in semantics as to whether the neo-Davidsonian analysis should be extended to stative predicates or not, Maienborn (2004, 2005) proposes to distinguish two types of statives; one of them is said to have a referential argument of the Davidsonian type, the other not. As one of her arguments for making such a distinction, Maienborn observes that manner modification seems to be supported only by certain statives but to be excluded by others (thus linking the issue to the use of manner modification as one major argument in favour of event semantics, cf. Parsons 1990). In this paper, it is argued that the absence of manner modification with Maienborn's second group of statives is actually due to a failure of conceptual construal: modification of a predicate is ruled out whenever its internal conceptual structure is too poor to provide a construal for the modifier; hence, the effects observed by Maienborn reduce to the fact that eventive predicates have a more complex conceptual substructure than stative ones. Hence, the issue of manner modification with statives is shown to be orthogonal to questions of logical form and event semantics. The explanatory power of the conceptual approach is demonstrated with a case study on predicates of light emission, adapting the representation format of Barsalou's (1992) frame model.