Responsive predicates are question-embedding: evidence from Estonian
- The proper semantic treatment of the complements of Responsive Predicates (ResPs), those predicates which may embed either declarative or interrogative clauses, is a longstanding puzzle, given standard assumptions about complement selection. In order to avoid positing systematic polysemy for ResPs, typical treatments of ResP complements treat their arguments either as uniformly declarative-like (propositional) or interrogative-like (question). I shed new light on this question with novel data from Estonian, in which there are verbs think-like meanings with declarative complements and wonder-like meanings with interrogative complements. I argue that these verbs’ meaning is fundamentally incompatible with a proposition-taking semantics for ResPs, and therefore a question-taking semantics is to be preferred.
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| Author: | Tom Roberts |
|---|---|
| URN: | urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-558459 |
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.21248/zaspil.61.2018.496 |
| ISSN: | 1435-9588 |
| ISSN: | 0947-7055 |
| Parent Title (English): | Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 22, Vol. 2 / eds. Uli Sauerland and Stephanie Solt. Berlin, Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft: ZAS papers in linguistics ; Nr. 61 |
| Publisher: | Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS) |
| Place of publication: | Berlin |
| Document Type: | Part of a Book |
| Language: | English |
| Year of Completion: | 2020 |
| Year of first Publication: | 2018 |
| Publishing Institution: | Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg |
| Release Date: | 2020/09/16 |
| Tag: | Estonian; contemplation; embedded clauses; interrogatives; responsive predicates |
| Page Number: | 18 |
| First Page: | 271 |
| Last Page: | 288 |
| HeBIS-PPN: | 470274204 |
| Dewey Decimal Classification: | 4 Sprache / 40 Sprache / 400 Sprache |
| 4 Sprache / 41 Linguistik / 410 Linguistik | |
| Sammlungen: | Linguistik |
| Linguistik-Klassifikation: | Linguistik-Klassifikation: Semantik / Semantics |
| Zeitschriften / Jahresberichte: | ZAS papers in linguistics : ZASPiL / ZASPiL 61 = Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 22, Vol. 2 |
| : | urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-559361 |
| Licence (German): |  Creative Commons - Namensnennung 4.0 |
