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The article analyzes the system of focus-sensitive particles and, to a lesser extent, clefts in Vietnamese. EVEN/ALSO/ONLY foci are discussed across syntactic categories, and Vietnamese is found to organize its system of focus-sensitive particles along three dimensions of classification: (i) EVEN vs. ALSO vs. ONLY; (ii) particles c-commanding foci vs. particles c-commanding backgrounds; (iii) adverbial focus-sensitive particles vs. particles c-commanding argument foci only. Towards the end of the paper, free-choice constructions and additional sentence-final particles conveying ONLY and ALSO semantics are briefly discussed. The peculiar Vietnamese system reflects core properties of the analogous empirical domain in Chinese, a known source of borrowings into Vietnamese over the millennia.
Introduction
(2007)
Semantics
(2007)
Morphology
(2007)
Introduction
(2007)
The annotation guidelines introduced in this chapter present an attempt to create a unique infrastructure for the encoding of data from very different languages. The ultimate target of these annotations is to allow for data retrieval for the study of information structure, and since information structure interacts with all levels of grammar, the present guidelines cover all levels of grammar too. After introducing the guidelines, the current chapter also presents an evaluation by means of measurements of the inter-annotator agreement.
Information structure
(2007)
Traces
(2007)
The present tense is vacuous
(2002)
The meaning of chains
(1998)
This thesis investigates the mechanisms applying in the interpretation of syntactic chains. The theoretical background includes a translation of syntactic forms into semantic forms and a model theoretic explication of the meaning of semantic forms. Simplicity considerations apply to all three stages of the interpretation process: syntactic derivation, translation into semantic forms, interpretation of semantic forms. Three main results are achieved. The first is that trace positions can have semantic content beyond what is needed for the semantic dependency of trace and binder. This extra content is some or all of the lexical material of the head of the chain, as expected on the copy theory of movement. Two independent arguments support this conclusion. One, discussed in chapter 2, is based on the distribution of Condition C effects, where novel interactions between variable binding, antecedent contained deletion and Condition C are observed. The second, developed in chapter 3, is based on conditions on the identity of traces observed in antecedent contained deletion constructions. Both arguments lead to the same generalizations about what lexical material of the head is interpreted in the trace position. The second main result is that lambda calculus is superior to both standard predicate logic and combinatorial logic as the mathematical model for the semantic mechanism mediating the dependency of trace (or bound pronoun) and binder. Chapter 4 argues this on the basis of the distribution of focus and destressing in constructions with bound pronouns. The third main result is that quantification must be allowed to range over pointwise different choice functions. Chapter 5 shows that quantification over individuals is insufficient, and that pointwise different choice functions are required. The result entails that the syntactic difference of A-chains and A-bar chains predicts a semantic difference in the type of the variable involved, which is argued to explain weak crossover phenomena. Chapters 6 argues that the interpretation procedures developed in the preceeding chapters account for all cases. It is shown that only traces of the type of individuals arise, and that scope reconstruction is a phonological phenomenon. The latter result also supports the T-model of syntax.
The lemmings theory of case
(1995)
The epistemic step
(2005)
DP is not a scope island
(2005)
Presupposition
(2007)
The status of quantifier raising in German and other languages where scope is fairly rigid is debated. The first part of this paper argues that quantifiers in German can undergo covert extraction out of coordinations, and therefore that quantifier raising is available in German. The second part argues that quantifier raising in German is constrained to never move one DP across another. This result might provide part of an explanation of scope rigidity in German.
Alexopoulou (2008) argues that Greek provides new evidence for the concept of binding illusions that was hypothesized by Fox and Sauerland (1996). Of special interest from my perspective is Alexopoulou’s argument that binding illusions arise not only with existential and universal quantifiers, but also with negative and interrogative quantifiers. The purpose of this note is to speculate on how to account for these kinds of binding illusions semantically building on Alexopoulou’s argument. In the following I refer to Alexopoulou’s (2008) paper as BIRG (Binding Illusions and Resumption in Greek) and to Clitic Left-Dislocation as CLLD. BIRG’s argument is based on the generalization concerning CLLD in Greek. Generally, a left-dislocated noun phrase cannot bind a pronoun in its clause in Greek.
On embedded implicatures
(2004)
The Gricean approach explains implicatures by assumptions about the pragmatics of entire utterances. The phenomenon of embedded implicatures remains a challenge for this approach since in such cases apparently implicatures contribute to the truth-conditional content of constituents smaller than utterances. In this paper, I investigate three areas where embedded implicatures seem to differ from implicatures at the utterance level: optionality, epistemic status, and implicated presuppositions. I conclude that the differences between the two kinds of implicatures justify an approach that maintains Gricean assumptions at the utterance level, and assumes a special operator for embedded implicatures.
Intermediate cumulation
(2001)
Implicated presuppositions
(2008)
It is widely believed that existential quantifiers can bring about the semantic effects of a scope which is wider than their actual syntactic scope (See Fodor & Sag (1982), Cresti (1995), Kratzer (1995), Reinhart (1995) and Winter (1995), among many others.) On the other hand, it is assumed that the syntactic scope of universal quantifiers can be determined unequivocally by the semantics. This paper shows that this second assumption is wrong; universal quantifiers can also bring about scope illusions, though in a very specific environment. In particular, we argue that in the environment of generic tense, universal quantifiers can show the semantic effects of a scope which is wider than the one that is actually realized at LF. Our argument has four steps. First, we show that in generic contexts, universal quantifiers escape standard “scope-islands” (Section 1). Second, we show how the effects of wide scope in generic contexts can be achieved without syntactic wide scope (Section 2.1). Third, we show that this result is actually forced on us, once we take seriously certain independent issues concerning the interpretation of generic tense (Sections 2.2 - 2.4). Finally, the semantics of generic tense and, in particular, its interaction with focus, will yield some intricate new predictions, which, as we show, are borne out (Sections 3 - 5).
Wie formt sich die Sprache im Kopf? : Kognitive Linguistik: Sprache, Grammatik und die Wissenswelten
(2005)
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.
Guess how?
(1996)
Quantificational determiners in Japanese can be marked with genitive case. Current analyses (for example by Watanabe, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, to appear) treat the genetive case marker in these cases as semantically vacuous, but we show that it has semantic effects. We propose a new analysis as reverse partitives. Following Jackendoff (MIT-Press, 1977), we assume that partitives always contain two NPs one of which is phonologically deleted. We claim that, while in normal partitives the higher noun is deleted, in reverse partitives the lower noun is deleted.
We consider evidentials embedded in complement clauses with new data from Bulgarian. For Tibetan, Garrett has shown that embedded evidentials are always shifted to the perspective of the reported speech. In Bulgarian, we show that such a shift is almost never possible. This shows that Bulgarian evidentials should not be analyzed as modals, but rather as presuppositional.
This paper advances a purely presuppositional analysis of intonation. I first show that a inspiring recent article by Geurts and van der Sandt (Theoretical Linguistics, 2004) that pursues the same goal cannot account for multiple foci. Then, I show that if it is assumed that destressed rather than focussed material is semantically marked, multiple foci are accounted for correctly.
Decomposing questions acts
(2006)
Compositionality
(2007)
Beyond unpluggability
(2007)
"A team", definitely
(2004)
A new semantics for number
(2003)
If we want to develop a semantic analysis for explicit performatives such as I promise you to free Willy, we are faced with the following puzzle: In order to account for the speech act expressed by the performative verb, one can assume that the so-called performative clause is purely performative and provides the illocutionary force of the speech act whose content is given by the semantic object denoted by the complement clause. Yet under this perspective, the performative clause that is, next to the performative verb, the indexicals I and you that refer to the speaker and to the addressee of the utterance context is semantically invisible and does not contribute compositionally its meaning to the meaning of the entire explicit performative sentence. Conversely, if we account for the truth conditional contribution of the performative clause and deny that the meaning of the performative verb is purely performative, then we have to find a way to account for the speech act expressed by the performative verb. Of course, there is already the widely accepted and very appealing indirectness account for explicit performative utterances developed by Bach & Harnish (1979). Roughly, Bach and Harnish solve this puzzle in deriving the performativity by means of a pragmatic inference process. According to them, the important speech act performed by means of the utterance of the explicit performative sentence is a kind of the conventionalized indirect speech act. However, the boundary between semantics and pragmatics can be drawn in many various ways. Therefore, I think there could be other perspectives regarding the interface between the truth-functional treatment of the declarative explicit performative sentences and the speech acts performed with their utterances and which are expressed by the performative verbs. Hence, this thesis consists in the experiment to develop a further analysis and to check out its consequences with respect to the semantics and pragmatics of explicit performative utterances and the new interface emerged. Briefly, the experiment runs as follows: First, I develop an analysis for explicit performative sentences framed by parenthetical structures such as in (1)(a). In a second step, this parenthetical analysis is applied to the proper Austinian explicit performative sentences in (1)(b). (1) a. Tomorrow, I promise you this, I will teach them Tyrolean songs. b. I promise you that I will teach them Tyrolean songs. To analyze at first explicit performatives framed by parenthetical structures bears the convenience that we are faced with two utterances of two main clauses. In (1)(a) there is the utterance of the host sentence Tomorrow I will teach them Tyrolean songs, and the utterance of the explicit parenthetical I promise you this, where the demonstrative this refers to the utterance of Tomorrow I will teach them Tyrolean songs. Since speakers perform speech acts with utterances of main clauses, I assume that the meaning of the explicit parenthetical I promise you this specifies that the actual illocutionary force of the utterance of Tomorrow I will teach them Tyrolean songs is the illocutionary force of a promise. Hence, instead of deriving an indirect illocutionary force by means of a pragmatic inference schema, we can deal with an ordinary direct speech act that is performed with the utterance of the host sentence. This kind of analysis stresses the particular discourse function of explicit performative utterances. Performative verbs are used whenever the contextual information is not sufficient to determine the illocutionary force of the corresponding implicit speech act. The resulting consequences of the parenthetical analysis are interesting since they cast a different light on performative verbs. Surprisingly, the performative verbs are not performative at all. They do not constitute the execution of a speech act, but are execution supporting. Instead of constituting the particular illocutionary force, they merely specify the illocutionary force of the utterance of the host sentence. For instance, the speaker utters the explicit parenthetical I promise you this for specifying what he is simultaneously doing. Hence the speaker does not succeed in performing the promise simply because he is uttering I promise you this. Rather, by means of the information conveyed by the utterance of I promise you this, the potential illocutionary forces of the utterance of the host sentence are disambiguated. Thus, it is not the case that explicit parentheticals are trivially true when uttered. Their function is more complex. Their self-verifying property (‘saying so makes it so’) is explained by means of disambiguation. Furthermore, according to the parenthetical analysis, instead of being purely performative, the performative verbs contribute compositionally their meanings to the truth conditions of the entire explicit performative sentence. Together with its consequences, this analysis is applied to the proper Austinian performatives, which display subordination. I assume that regardless of their structure, explicit performatives always semantically and pragmatically behave as the parenthetical analysis predicts.