"Enough", "too", and causal dependence
- 'Enough'-/'too'-constructions (E/T constructions) have an implicative reading: e.g., "Mary was clever enough to leave early yesterday" entails Mary left early yesterday. I argue that this implicative reading is not due to the lexical semantics proper of 'enough'/'too', but due to its bi-clausal structure (e.g., the above-mentioned example is analyzed as "Mary left early yesterday because she was clever enough"). I analyze 'enough' and 'too' simply as degree modifiers that involve a comparison: 'enough' means reaching the lower bound of an interval, while 'too' means exceeding the upper bound of an interval. Then inspired by Schulz (2011), Baglini and Francez (2015), and Nadathur (2016), I relate the semantics of E/T constructions to causal dependence: due to some sufficiency/excess, the infinitival complement clause in E/T constructions is episodically or generically (depending on its aspect being perfective or imperfective) true/false. I also argue that this infinitive has its tense and aspect marked on the main predicate of sentences, resulting in the seeming correlation between aspect and implication in languages that overtly make a distinction between perfective and imperfective aspects (e.g., French).
Author: | Linmin Zhang |
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-559814 |
DOI: | https://doi.org/10.21248/zaspil.61.2018.508 |
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 |
Date of Publication (online): | 2020/09/15 |
Year of first Publication: | 2018 |
Publishing Institution: | Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg |
Release Date: | 2020/09/16 |
Tag: | causal dependence; comparatives; enough; implicatives; infinitives; necessary (but not necessarily sufficient) causes; sufficient (but not necessarily necessary) causes; too |
Page Number: | 18 |
First Page: | 481 |
Last Page: | 498 |
HeBIS-PPN: | 470274379 |
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 |