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Fronting a noun phrase changes the focus structure of a sentence. Therefore, it may affect truth conditions, since some operators, in particular quantificational adverbs, are sensitive to focus. However, the position of the quantificational adverb itself, hence its informational status, is usually assumed not to have any semantic effect. In this paper I discuss a reading of some quantificational adverbs, the relative reading, which disappears if the adverb is fronted. I propose that this reading relies not only on focus, but on B-accent (fall-rise intonation) as well. A fronted Q-adverb is usually pronounced with a B-accent; since only one element can be B-accented, this means that the scope of the adverb contains no B-accented material, hence no relative readings. Thus, the effects of fronting range more widely than is usually assumed, and quantificational adverbs are a useful tool with which to investigate these effects.
In this paper we develop an HPSG syntax-semantics of negative concord in Romanian. We show that n-words in Romanian can best be treated as negative quantifiers which may combine by resumption to form polyadic negative quantifiers. Optionality of resumption explains the existence of simple sentential negation readings alongside double negation readings. We solve the well-known problem of defining general semantic composition rules for translations of natural language expressions in a logical language with polyadic quantifiers by integrating our higher-order logic in Lexical Resource Semantics, whose constraint-based composition mechanisms directly support a systematic syntax-semantics for negative concord with polyadic quantification.
The so-called floating quantifier constructions in languages like Korean display intriguing properties whose successful processing can prove the robustness of a parsing system. This paper shows that a constraint-based analysis, in particular couched upon the framework of HPSG, can offer us an efficient way of analyzing these constructions together with proper semantic representations. It also shows how the analysis has been successfully implemented in the LKB (Linguistic Knowledge Building) system.
This dissertation is concerned with the phenomenon of intervention effects, observed in three different domains: wh-questions, alternative questions (AltQ) and Negative Polarity Item (NPI) licensing. I propose that these three domains share some common properties, namely, they all involve focus-sensitive licensing, and are thus sensitive to an intervening focus phrase. The overview of the dissertation is as follows. In chapter 2, I discuss the phenomenon of intervention effects in wh-questions, brought to light in the discussion of German in Beck (1996), and Korean in Beck and Kim (1997). The basic idea of their analysis is that quantifiers block LF wh-movement. I show that intervention effects are observed in many other languages, too, suggesting that the intervention effect has a universal character. I then point out some problems with the analysis proposed by Beck (1996) and Beck and Kim (1997). In chapter 3, I propose a new generalization of the wh-intervention effects, namely that the core set of interveners, which is crosslinguistically stable, consists of focus phrases (and not quantifiers in general). Furthermore, I argue that the wh-intervention effect is actually an instance of the more general intervention effect, the "Focus Intervention Effect", which says that in a focus-sensitive licensing construction, no independent focus phrase may intervene between the licensor Op and the licensee XP. The underlying idea is that the Q operator is a focus-sensitive operator and that wh-phrases in-situ are dependent (i.e., semantically deficient) focus elements, which must be associated with the Q operator in order to be interpreted. An intervening independent focus operator precisely blocks that association. I further propose that the domain of focus-sensitive licensing includes not only wh-licensing, but also AltQ-licensing and NPI-licensing. In chapter 4, I show that alternative questions are also subject to the focus intervention effect, just like wh-questions. I provide evidence that the intervention effect in wh-questions and in alternative questions should receive a parallel analysis, in terms of focus-sensitivity. In chapter 5, I discuss a third construction which is sensitive to the focus intervention effect: the licensing of Negative Polarity Items (NPIs). I show that focus consistently blocks NPI licensing, with data from German and Korean. I propose that NPIs are also semantically deficient focus elements, which need to be associated with a NEG operator. Finally, chapter 6 summarizes the intervention effects and suggests some topics for future research into the precise nature of the intervention effect.
The Japanese language is one of the languages where universal and existential quantification are expressed using wh-words with the conjunctive and disjunctive particles, respectively. In this paper, inspired by the syntactic and semantic parallelism found in Japanese between quantification, coordination, and question, we seek to analyze these constructions in a unified fashion. We investigate various phenomena of these constructions and show how these three constructions can be uniformly analyzed as cases where abstracted arguments are questioned or quantified for verbs. We then present an HPSG formalization of the analysis.
Quantifiers canonically attach to nouns or noun phrases as modifiers to specify the amount or number of the entity expressed by the noun. However, it has been observed that quantifiers can be positioned outside of the noun phrase. These so-called floating quantifiers (FQs) exhibit intriguing syntactic and semantic characteristics. On the one hand, they appear to have a closerelationship with a noun; semantically they quantify a noun in the same way as non-floating quantifiers, and quite often they exhibit agreement with the noun. On the other hand, their phrase structure distribution is very similar to that of VP-adverbs. In this paper, we argue that the distribution of FQs is constrained not purely by syntax, but also by information structure. We show that FQs play a focus role whereas modified nouns are reference-oriented topic expressions. Building upon Dalrymple and Nikolaeva's (2011) recent proposal, we formulate the interaction between syntactic, semantic and information structure features of FQs within LFG's projection architecture.
Modifiability by almost has been used as a test for the quantificational force of a DP without stating the meaning of almost explicitly. The aim of this paper is to give a semantics for almost applying across categories and to evaluate the validity of the almost test as a diagnosis for universal quantifiers. It is argued that almost is similar to other cross-categorial modifiers such as at least or exactly in referring to alternatives ordered on a scale. I propose that almost evaluates alternatives in which the modified expression is replaced by a value close by on the corresponding Horn scale. It is shown that a semantics for almost that refers to scalar alternatives derives the correct truth conditions for almost and explains selectional restrictions. At the same time, taking the semantics of almost seriously invalidates the almost test as a simple diagnosis for the nature of quantifiers.
In der Regel stehen Quantoren bei dem Nomen, das sie quantifizieren. Im Deutschen wie auch in einigen anderen Sprachen können Quantoren jedoch auch in Distanzstellung zu dem quantifizierten Nomen auftreten. In diesem Aufsatz soll die Fragestellung verfolgt werden, ob das Auftreten von Quantoren in Distanzstellung als Ergebnis von Extraktion aus Nominalphrasen erklä rt werden kann, d.h. ob die Distanzstellung durch eine Bewegung entsteht, bei der eine NP aufgespalten wird. Dabei wird sich zeigen, daß eine ganze Reihe von Daten gegen eine solche Extraktionsanalyse sprechen.
Early work on quantification in natural languages showed that sentences like 'Every ape picked different berries', on the reading that the sets of berries picked by any two apes are not the same, can be logically represented with a single polyadic quantifier for the two nominal phrases. However, since that quantifier cannot be decomposed into two quantifiers for the two nominal phrases, a compositional semantic analysis of this reading is not possible under standard assumptions about syntax and semantics. This paper shows how a constraint-based semantics with Lexical Resource Semantics can define a systematic syntax-semantics interface which captures the reading in question with a polyadic quantifier.
This paper addresses the syntax and semantics plurals, and then applies it to reciprocal expressions. In the course of this investigation, I address two problems for the conventional view that a reciprocal makes essentially the same semantic contribution to the sentence as other noun phrases, but has an interesting internal structure. I will show that both problems are properties of plurality in general, and can be successfully explained along these lines. As a result, the paper is more about plurality in general than reciprocals though the goal of the paper is to account for the two problems relating to reciprocals.