COLLOQUIUM
Semantics and Pragmatics Exchange (SemPrE)
Univ.-Prof. Dr.
Hana Filip, PhD
Lehrstuhl Semantik, Institut fŸr Sprache
und Information
Wednesday,
12:30 -2 pm
Building 23.32, Level 02,
Room 63
CRC (SFB) CONFERENCE ROOM
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January 9, 2019 Scott Grimm University of Rochester Plurality and Referentiality Certain uses of the plural
form of indefinite nouns, such as in (1), have long been puzzling because
they appear to include reference to singular entities. (1) a. Q: Do you
have children? A:
Yes, I have one. b. Ed didn't see dogs. (False if Ed saw one dog) Based on such examples,
many researchers have argued that plural indefinite nouns are actually
"inclusive", designating 'one or more' (including singular
entities), rather than "exclusive", designating 'more than one'
(excluding singular entities). Sauerland et al. (2005), among others, relate
the inclusive reading to downward-entailing environments (such as negation or
the antecedent of conditionals), claiming number Òmarking on indefinites in a
downward entailing environment does not affect truth conditionsÓ. This talk presents
experimental and empirical evidence that the inclusive readings (i) cannot be
causally related to downward-entailing environments, as this association both
under- and over-generates and (ii) cannot be associated with indefinites in
general, but only with non-specific/non-referential indefinites.
Instead, the experimental results indicate that the key factor is whether the
indefinite can be construed as non-referential/generic, which favors
inclusive readings, or referential, which resists them. The contexts which
permit inclusive readings, e.g. negation and interrogatives, are shown to be
just those which may in general block referential commitment. I argue this
lack of referential commitment promotes inclusive plural readings. I
then discuss the typological prediction of this account, namely that
inclusive plural readings should only occur in languages for which the bare
plural has non-referential/generic uses, a claim which receives support from
languages such as Armenian. |
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December 12, 2018 Jakub Kozakoszczak University of
Warsaw and Heinrich Heine University, DŸsseldorf Natural Negative Evidence in Formal Semantics The common type of negative evidence employed in formal semantics is the
judgment-based Òsomewhat elusive notion of semantic deviance –- a
notion that the field of formal semantics acknowledges but might lack the
right tools to modelÓ (Vecchi et al. 2011). Ò[W]e still do not have a precise
linguistic account of what it means for a linguistic expression to be
ÒnonsensicalÓ or semantically deviant, nor a clear relation between this
notion and that of being unattested in a corpus: Semantic deviance remains a
difficult and understudied phenomenonÓ (Vecchi et al. 2016). In this talk, I will present (i) an analytic procedure of translating
semantically unacceptable expressions to factorized comprehension sets (Katz
1964) via intended meaning and semantic hypothesis, and (ii) a statistical
test to tell whether the expression has zero probability of occurring in text
corpora given the meaning and the hypothesis. I will demonstrate this
treatment on starred expressions from the existing literature. The resulting
new type of evidence is the empirical probability that a given formalized
meaning is impossible to occur. I will discuss its limitations and argue for
its potential to address four flaws of the traditional judgment-based
evidence: 1. Volatility. The
differences in the judged acceptability among respondents can originate from
different meanings ascribed to the expression. 2. Causal
obliqueness. The psychological relation of unacceptability is equivocal in
that it can be caused by different flaws, suit different explanations, and
support unrelated hypotheses. 3. Unobservability.
Judgments are produced by respondents through introspection whereas text
corpora are intersubjectively observable. 4.
Theory-loadedness. Judgment reports are responses to designed questions
whereas language behavior documented in corpora occurs naturally without
interaction with the researcher. |
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December 5, 2018 Federico Silvagni Complutense
University of Madrid States, events and copulas: a Romance perspective This talk focuses on the aspectual distinction between States and
Events and its manifestations in Romance languages, with particular attention
to Spanish. The main goal of this study is to establish a satisfactory limit
between these two aspectual classes, by answering two main questions: (i)
what is an Event (and, as a consequence, a State)? (ii) How is this
distinction encoded in grammar? The need for this study derives from the puzzling (and long-standing)
observation that [dynamism], or any other equivalent criterion (Vendler 1957;
Kenny 1963; Comrie 1976; a.o.), is not a relevant primitive of eventivity,
since there are predicates that behave as Events despite the fact that they
are non-dynamic, i.e. static (Dowty 1979; Maienborn 2005, 2007, 2011; a.o.).
I observe that, once we abandon [dynamism], we reach a State/Event
distribution that is equivalent to the Individual-Level/Stage-Level
distinction (Milsark 1974; Carlson 1977), whose understanding, in fact,
represents another major unknown for the research on inner aspect (see Fernald
2000; F‡bregas 2012). I put forward the hypothesis that the State/Event and the
Individual/Stage distinctions are one and the same thing (see also Hoekstra
1992), and that the difference between the two classes rests merely on the
lack or the presence of inner aspect. Moreover, based on the concept of
ÔeventÕ adopted in modern (post-Einsteinian/Minkowskian) physics and
philosophy, where reality is taken as a 4D continuum (3 Space + 1 Time
dimensions), I propose that the aspectual primitive of eventivity is a
ÔSpacetime pointÕ, which I label as [Stage] (also Silvagni 2015, 2016, 2017). In order to find out how such a [Stage] primitive (and, thus, the
State / Event distinction) is encoded in grammar, I focus on non-verbal
predication in Romance languages; more in particular, I study the Spanish
copular alternation (ser/estar) and its relation to mono-copular languages,
such as French and Italian. I empirically show that [Stage] is a formal
feature (in the sense of Zeijlstra 2008, 2014), which is encoded in Event
predicates (that is, SLPs) as an uninterpretable instance [uS], and that
Eventive (or SL) structures are derived by an agreement operation between a
predicate and an Asp head endowed with an [iS] feature, which is realized as
estar in the case of Spanish. The study provides a more accurate understanding of the State/Event
distinction and, at the same time, the Individual/Stage contrast.
Additionally, it constitutes a detailed analysis of non-verbal predication
and copular alternation in Romance, which can also offer a comprehensive
explanation of typical controversial phenomena, such as coercion and the
IL/SL distinction in those languages that lack a SL-copula. |
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November 21, 2018 Radek
Šim’k Humboldt-UniversitŠt zu Berlin Interpreting
Slavic bare NPs: Empirical reflections on the null hypothesis The literature on bare NPs in
articleless languages has been dominated by the neo-Carlsonian view,
according to which bare NPs denote properties and can be type-shifted to
other meaning types, such as particulars (iota), kinds (cap), or quantifiers
(ex), whereby these type-shifts are restricted in various ways (Chierchia
1998, Krifka 2003, Dayal 2004, Geist 2010, a.o.). According to some versions
of this view, bare singulars end up being interpreted on a par with definite
descriptions, either essentially always (Dayal 2004) or always when they are
topical (Geist 2010). In my talk, I will offer an
alternative, inspired by HeimÕs work (Heim 1982, Heim 2011), according to
which bare NPs in articleless languages, including bare singulars, are
completely underspecified with respect to (in)definiteness. The idea is that
bare NPs denote restricted variables (or functions from situations to such
variables, being of type <s,e>), which either receive a value
contextually or are bound by intra-sentential quantifiers (Heim 1982).
Consequently, inferences typically associated with definite descriptions -
particularly uniqueness and/or maximality - never really arise for bare NPs
(contra the neo-Carlsonian view of ÒdefiniteÓ bare NPs). This return to what could be
considered the null hypothesis - namely that definiteness is not even a
relevant category in languages without articles - will be supported by corpus
and experimental evidence. Novel analyses based on Czech corpus data (from
Šim’k & Burianov‡ 2018) show that bare NPs are interpreted as
indefinite more often than some theories would expect. Also, they exhibit no
bias of singulars to be interpreted as definites (Dayal 2004) - the
proportion of definite and indefinite bare singulars vs. plurals is
identical. Furthermore, the majority of indefinite interpretations of Czech
bare NPs can be traced to particular expressions in the clause (e.g.
presentational verbs, negation, adverbs of quantification, etc.) - suggesting
that indefinite interpretations indeed arise from clause-internal
quantificational closure of the bare NP variable, contributed by a suitable
object language expression. Indefinite bare singulars are thus no longer
quirks requiring special treatment (Dayal 2004), but fall out naturally from
the analysis. Another portion of evidence comes from experiments on the
interpretation of Russian bare NPs, as compared to German (in)definite NPs
(Šim’k & Demian, submitted). These experiments show a weak but
consistent effect of definiteness on uniqueness (sg) and maximality (pl) in
German. Russian, on the other hand, exhibits no such consistent effect -
Russian bare NPs are interpreted as indefinite (or non-definite) even if such
an interpretation is primed by information structure (word order, prosody;
cf. Geist 2010 and many others), or grammatical number (Dayal 2004), making
the results fully consistent with the null hypothesis. |
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November 7, 2018 Halima Husič Ruhr-UniversitŠt
Bochum Towards a Formal Account of the Countability of Qualities and Events While abstract objects are a well-discussed topic in philosophy, in
linguistics this class of nouns has occasionally been investigated, usually
as part of a bigger linguistic issue, as e.g. derived nominals, countability
or polysemy. In standard analyses of the semantics of count and mass nouns
Ôabstract nounsÕ are usually left out. However, Ôabstract nounsÕ are frequent
in language and they can also be count or mass: (1) Have you noticed how much beauty goes
into dying? (2) One of the many
virtues of pumpkins is the ability to combine equally well with sugar and
spices or salt and cheeses, making them perfect for pies, cookies and cakes,
as well as for soups, side dishes and stews. In my talk I will discuss the polysemy of nouns that denote abstract
entities and tackle the question how countability is defined in such nouns. I
will present an empirical investigation of such nouns which includes (i) an
annotation of lexical properties that are responsible for a count and mass
interpretations, (ii) a specification of dependent senses of nouns and how
they are derived and (iii) a corpus study. Based on this research I will
propose an analysis to account for count and mass uses of Ôabstract nounsÕ. |
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October 24, 2018 David Nicolas CNRS, Institut
Jean Nicod (joint work with
Salvatore Florio, University of Birmingham) Plurals and mereology A
prominent tradition in linguistic semantics analyzes plurals by appealing to
mereology (e.g. Massey 1976,Link 1983, Link 1998, Gillon 1992, Champollion
2016, Champollion 2017). The mereological approach to the semantics of
plurals has attracted heavy criticisms, especially within philosophical logic
where many authors subscribe to an alternative framework based on plural
logic (e.g. Boolos 1984, Yi 1999, Rayo 2002, Rayo 2006, McKay 2006, Oliver
& Smiley 2013). Some of the criticisms target a broader class of
'singularist' semantics which interpret plural expressions in terms of
singular ones. The mereological approach is the most popular, and perhaps the
most plausible, of those analyses. These
criticisms have been very influential in philosophy. What has been overlooked
is that, once the mereological approach is properly understood, linguists
have the basic tools to respond. Our aim is to clarify and develop these
responses systematically, bringing together the linguistic and philosophical
literature. In the
first part of the talk, we offer a precise articulation of the mereological
approach and of the semantic background in which the debate can be
meaningfully reconstructed. We focus on the best-known implementation of the
approach, namely that of Godehard Link, but we comment on the relevance of
our discussion for alternative implementations. In the
second part, we deal with the criticisms and assess their logical,
linguistic, and philosophical significance. Our conclusion is that the
mereological approach fares no worse than plural logic and that it remains a
viable and well-motivated framework for the analysis of plurals. |
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October
17, 2108 Carol-Rose Little Cornell
University Numerals and quantification in ChÕol In this talk, I
investigate a set of underdescribed numeral constructions in ChÕol that I
call possessed numerals. Unlike the bare numerals in (1), these possessed
numerals in (2) occur with possessive prefix i- and relational suffix -el,
allowing both cardinal (2a) and ordinal (2b) interpretations. (1)
chaÕ-tyikil wi–ik two-CL man Ôtwo menÕ (2)
Possessed numerals a. tyi i-chaÕ-tyikl-el wi–ik
TYI
A3-two-CL-RS man Ôthe
two menÕ b. i-chaÕ-tyikl-el=bŠ wi–ik A3-two-CL-RS=REL
man Ôthe
second manÕ The cardinal
interpretation in (2a) contains tyi in
addition to the possessed numeral and the ordinal interpretation in (2b)
contains a relative clause marker =bŠ.
Building off the semantics of bare numerals in ChÕol (Bale and Coon, 2014), I
propose a compositional semantics for these possessed numerals. I argue that tyi in (2a) introduces a uniqueness
presupposition, supported by data from the ordinal construction and the
possessed numeral ÔoneÕ, which lack tyi.
The morpheme tyi shows up in other
quantificational phrases to derive strong quantifiers from weak quantifiers.
For instance, I present data from other quantifiers like pejtyel and its possessed form tyi i-pejtyel-el ÔallÕ that have similar entailment differences
as (2a) and (1) do. All data comes from my fieldwork in Chiapas, Mexico. |
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July 12,
2018
New York University Two switches in the theory of counterfactuals: A study of
truth conditionality and minimal change I report on a
comprehension experiment on counterfactual conditionals based on a context
involving two switches (joint work with Ivano Ciardelli and Linmin Zhang). We
found that the truth-conditionally equivalent clauses (i) switch A or switch B is down and (ii) switch A and switch B are not both up make
different semantic contributions when embedded in counterfactual antecedents.
Assuming compositionality, this contradicts the textbook view that meaning
can be identified with truth conditions. This finding has a clear explanation
in inquisitive semantics: truth-conditionally equivalent clauses may be
associated with different propositional alternatives, each of which counts as
a separate counterfactual assumption. Related results from the same
experiment challenge the common Stalnaker-Lewis interpretation of
counterfactuals as involving minimizing change with respect to the actual
state of affairs. We propose to replace the idea of minimal change by a
distinction between foreground and background for a given counterfactual
assumption: the background is held fixed in the counterfactual situation,
while the foreground can be varied without any minimality constraint. (This talk presents
work reported in a paper recently appeared in the journal Linguistics and Philosophy, available at http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/003200.) |
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July 4, 2018 Eytan Zweig University of York Semantic and Pragmatic
Effects on Bare Plurals in Questions It is
well established in the literature (see Sauerland et al. 2005 and Zweig 2009 among
others) that in the context of a polar question, bare plurals and singular
indefinites do not seem to be distinct; i.e., (1a) and (1b) will receive
identical answers, ÒYesÓ for at least one apple and ÒNoÓ only if there are no
apples whatsoever: 1a. Do we have apples in our pantry? 1b. Do we have an apple in our pantry? What is
less frequently discussed in the literature, however, is that this similarity
is modulated by a variety of pragmatic considerations, relating to both the
context in which the question was asked and the possible referents for the
noun phrase in question. In this talk, I will explore some of these effects,
presenting novel data from a visual world experiment and discussing the
theoretical implications of its results in the greater context of plural
semantics. |
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June 27, 2018 Luka Szucsich Humboldt‐University Berlin Obviation in North Slavic languages In many
languages, including Romance and some Slavic languages, subjunctive clauses selected
by volitional verbs allow for syntactic phenomena to occur in a less local
domain than it is the case with other types of subordinate clauses
(especially indicative clauses). One of these phenomena is so‐called ‛obviationÕ, i.e. obligatory disjoint
reference of subjects in the matrix clause and subjects in subjunctive
clauses, cf. (1) for Polish. (1)
Jareki chc‐e,
żeby
pro*i/j śpiewa‐ł.
Polish JarekM:SG:N wantPRS:3:SG thatSUBJ pro singLPT‐M:SG ‛Jarek wants
him to sing.Õ Obviation
is often attributed to ‛domain extensionÔ collapsing the tense domains
of the matrix and the embedded clause. The nature of domain extension,
however, is rarely explicitly analyzed. I will present an analysis of
obviation effects which relies on cross‐clausal feature dependencies. I assume that
(potentially cross‐clausal)
occurrences of features may constitute the relevant domains for construal
processes. Selectional properties of volitional verbs and the deficiency of
the clausal complementÔs T‐feature provide the prerequisite for cross‐clausal feature sharing, i.e. the matrix and the
complement clauseÔs T‐features
form one feature chain making the respective instances featurally identical.
I will show, however, that feature identity may be not only determined by
φ‐features
and referential indices, but also by features such as [±agentivity], or
features determining, whether a situation is subject to control by a
participant (SzabolcsiÕs RESP feature), or contrastive focus features. |
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June 13, 2018 Marcin Wągiel Masaryk University Brno Subatomic quantification in
natural language In
standard lattice‐theoretic
approaches to natural language (e.g., Link 1983, Landman 2000, Champollion
2017) singularities and pluralities are presumed to involve distinct
mereologies and it is commonly supposed that quantificational expressions do
not access subatomic part‐whole relations. In this talk, I explore three
hypotheses regarding natural language semantics: (i) natural language is
sensitive to topological relations holding between parts of singularities
(cf. Grimm 2012), (ii) there are general counting rules that presuppose such
relations, and (iii) quantification over parts is subject to identical
restrictions as quantification over wholes. I propose that Ôto be countable'
means Ôto be an integrated part of an integrated whole' where Ôpart' employs
the reflexive mereological ² relation, and thus covers both proper and
improper parts. In other words, only an entity conceptualized as a whole that
comes in one piece can be put in one‐to‐one correspondence with the natural numbers.
Similar, a proper part of such an entity that is conceptualized as an
integrated object is also countable. The evidence for the linguistic
relevance of this claim comes from the interaction between cardinal numerals
and partitives involving irregular plurals in Italian as well as distinct
classes of Polish Ôhalf', Ôpart' and Ôwhole' words and from the
quantificational behavior of multipliers such as the English ÔdoubleÕ. |
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May 30,
2018 John
Collins University of East Anglia The
Syntax-Semantics Interface and Its Ontological Significance The orthodoxy in semantic theory is that semantics carries various
presuppositions and entailments about ontology - the world. I shall suggest
that all the virtues of the orthodoxy may be retained while relinquishing the
ontological load. Semantics, on such a view, constitutes constraints upon
what can be said rather than determinants of how the world is. |
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May 2,
2018 Jon Ander Mendia Heinrich
Heine University, DŸsseldorf Epistemic Numbers Epistemic
Numbers (ENs) are complex cardinal numerals formed by combining a number with
a non‐numerical
expression, typically an indefinite. Unlike other cardinal numbers, ENs (i)
denote a range of possible values, and (ii) convey an epistemic effect of
uncertainty or vagueness about the exact number. For instance, a sentence
like twenty‐some people came is an acceptable answer to a question like How many people came?, and it can denote integers ranging from 21
to 29, conveying that the speaker is unsure about the exact number. I focus
on three main cross‐linguistic
facts: (i) some languages allow ENs with a variety of quantifiers, not just
indefinites akin to some or wh‐indefinites; (ii) in some languages ENs can
either precede or follow the numeral; and (iii) the interpretation of ENs
depends on the numerical base of the language, and cannot combine with just
any numeral. Giving prominence to this cross‐linguistic variability, in this talk, I provide
an initial semantic analysis flexible enough to account for a variety of
languages, and a pragmatic account of the epistemic effect. |
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April
25, 2018 Henk Zeevat University
of Amsterdam & Heinrich Heine University, DŸsseldorf Quantification in Frames In earlier
work, I discussed the Stat'imc'ets quantifier system in which no generalised
quantifier can take scope over another and which therefore only has
cumulative readings for QNP V QNP sentences. This gives an argument for
frames as the basis for NL semantics rather than (extensions of) FOL, since,
in the latter systems, quantifiers are predicted to have scope over each
other by default and cumulative readings that have to be painfully
reconstructed. The Stat'imc'ets data seem to show that rather than scope
taking readings, cumulative readings are the typologically unmarked case for
QNP V QNP sentences. Stat'imc'ets
has however a category of formally distinct dependent NPs which together with
possessive NPs allow for readings dependent on quantifiers. These readings
need to be accounted for, just like the possibility of the Stat'imc'ets
system leading to a system like English in which all quantifiers can be
dependent. The talk will present a new treatment of this using the attribute
domina which links dependent NPs to their dominant NP or operator (this is
just the easiest way of dealing with quantifier scope in dependency grammar).
Dominated NPs will end up having functional denotations in an extension of a
standard satisfaction semantics for frames and will so also allow an
explanation of the paycheck sentences. Also, the Barry Schein mixed cases can
be adequately treated (cumulative but the tricks may be dependent on the
basketball players): Every basketball player learnt two new tricks
from these videos. Viola
Schmitt's pioneering work on conjunction and plurals can be constructed as an
argument against my frame analysis of cumulative quantification, showing that
it is much too simple and needs extension to most other categories. This is a
highly non‐trivial
business in frame semantics. An example is the cumulative reading (only Bill
sang, only John danced) of: John and Bill sang and danced. A new
generalisation is presented that overcomes the objection and that also deals
with collective readings. The Stat'imc'ets quantifier system is a special
case of the generalisation. A full treatment of conjunction in frames is
however definitely an open problem. |
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April
18, 2018 Daniel Gutzmann University
of Cologne I lost my damn watch! Expressive adjectives between syntax and
semantics Expressive
adjectives (EAs) received a lot of attention in the semantic literature,
which however treated their syntax mostly just like that of ordinary
descriptive adjective. However, as I show in this talk, EAs differ in many
and sometime puzzling aspects from descriptive ones. They cannot be modified
or carry degree morphology, for instance. Most crucially, they exhibit
interesting compositional behavior since they can be interpreted in a
position different than they appear. Arguing against a purely pragmatic
approach, both experimentally and conceptually, I propose a syntactic
solution for the constraints in the semantic interpretation of EAs that
builds on the assumption that expressivity is a syntactic feature, on par
with features like tense or number. I develop an (upwards) agreement‐based analysis according to which the expressive
content of an EAs is introduced by an uninterpretable expressivity feature
which agrees with a corresponding interpretable feature at some higher node.
This not only gets the restrictions about where EAs can be interpreted right
but can also derive a lot of their special behavior and leads to direct
mapping between syntactic structure and semantic interpretation. |
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January
24, 2018 Louise McNally Universitat
Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona 'Figurative' uses of verbs and grammar (joint
work with Alexandra Spalek) The goal
of this talk, based on work in progress with Alexandra Spalek, is to draw attention
to the contrastive study of 'figurative' uses of verbs as a way of gaining a
new perspective on the challenges that must be met when addressing the
interaction between conceptual content associated with words and their
grammatical properties. Specifically, I will present the results of a
comparison of the 'literal' and 'figurative' uses of six English verbs and
their Spanish counterparts. This comparison reveals that figurative uses are
strongly constrained by grammatical properties of the literal uses,
indicating that the two uses emanate from a single lexical entry for each
verb. Crucially, we find striking contrasts between figurative uses in the
two languages which correlate with independently identified contrasts in the
grammars of their verbal systems. However, at the same time, we find striking
similarities in the sorts of conceptual domains in which the figurative uses
are attested for each pair, even when the grammatical details differ,
pointing to important conceptual similarities between the English and Spanish
counterparts. The data will therefore force us to ask how contrasting
grammatical constraints are associated with similar conceptual content. I
will offer some preliminary reflections on this question, particularly in
relation to the debate over Levin & Rappaport Hovav's (1991)
Manner/Result Complementarity hypothesis. |
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January
17, 2018 Michael Daniel Linguistics Convergence
Laboratory National Research University Higher School of Economics,
Moscow ROOM: Building 25.13, Room
U1.24 (PLEASE NOTE THE CHANGE OF
VENUE) Associative plural as indexical category Animacy
Hierarchy was introduced as a cross-grammatical factor which governs, in
different languages, widespread splits of nominal categories, including case
or number marking. Among other phenomena, Animacy Hierarchy has been invoked
to describe the lexical distribution of associative plurals (APL). In this
paper I argue that APL as an interpretation of nominal plurality is motivated
not by the high position the respective noun holds on the Animacy Hierarchy
but is a combined effect of coercion by the unique reference inherent to
proper names and associative links easily recoverable for human referents.
Interpretation of APL relies upon activation of set relations its referent
holds to other entities in the speech act or in the speech participantsÕ
minds. APL is thus argued to be an indexical rather than a functional
semantic category. --- In the end, and if we have time, I will place APL in
the context of other interpretative, or 'vague' categories, such as flexible
relative clauses and genitives. |
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January
10, 2018 Curt Anderson Heinrich
Heine University ÒSomeÓ Exclamatives In previous work (Anderson, to appear, Proceedings of Sinn und
Bedeutung 21), I provide an analysis of what I call ÒsomeÓ-exclamatives, an
exclamative form in English using the determiner ÒsomeÓ along with an
intonational contour marking it as an exclamative (as in Òhe is some
lawyer!Ó). These exclamatives express a positive or negative evaluation of
how the referent of the ÒsomeÓ-headed DP exemplifies the property denoted by
the NP. In this talk, I present preliminary experimental data examining the
interaction of rising/falling intonation and speaker evaluation. From an
online judgement study, we find that listeners can use intonation to make
inferences regarding whether the speaker is making a positive or negative
evaluation. Additionally, we find interactions between bias and the semantic
class of the nominal complement of ÒsomeÓ (whether the noun denotes a human
or an instrument). I extend my prior analysis in order to account for some of
these findings. |
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December
13, 2017 CANCELLED WILL BE
RESCHEDULED John Collins The Syntax-Semantics Interface and Its Ontological Significance The
orthodoxy in semantic theory is that semantics carries various
presuppositions and entailments about ontology ‐ the world. I shall suggest that all the virtues of
the orthodoxy may be retained while relinquishing the ontological load.
Semantics, on such a view, constitutes constraints upon what can be said
rather than determinants of how the world is. |
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December
6, 2017 Keren Khrizman Heinrich
Heine University Russian Diminutives as Counting and Measuring
Operators: Implications for the Semantics of Counting, Measuring and the
Mass/Count Distinction Diminutive nominal suffixes occur in many
typologically diverse languages and have a varied interpretational pattern.
Crosslinguistic studies identify at least three uses of diminutives: (i)
expression of smallness; (ii) expression of individuation into small/minimal
units accompanied by a grammatical shift from mass to count noun; (iii)
emotional evaluation (Jurafsky 1996, Schneider 2003/13, Fortin 2011).
Previous research has focused on the contrast between proper diminutives
expressing small size/measure and emotive diminutives (e.g. Schneider
2003/13, Fortin 2011) and there has been little semantic study of the individuating
function of diminutives. The results of a few studies suggest that (at least
in some languages) there may be a categorial distinction between the two
types of suffixes: proper diminutives are adjectival (Fortin 2011, Wiltschko
& Steriopolo 2007) while individuating suffixes are either
quantificational (Jurafsky 1996, Fortin 2011) or classifiers (Wiltschko 2006,
Ott 2011). However, this has not been explored in detail. The present project
aims to explore the syntax and semantics of ÒproperÓ vs. individuating
diminutives in Russian (as in stolik Ôa small tableÕ and ris‐risinka Ôrice‐ a grain of riceÕ), focusing on the following
questions: (i) Why do diminutives individuate, i.e. why does smallness
facilitate grammatical individuation? (ii) Under what grammatical, lexical
and pragmatic conditions do they individuate? (iii) Is the semantic contrast
reflected in a syntactic, categorial distinction, and if so, then why? I
explore these issues in the context of recent work on counting, measuring and
the mass/count distinction (Chierchia 1998/2010, Krifka 1989/95, Landman
2004/16, Rothstein 2009/10/17, Filip & Sutton 2016) and hypothesize that
individuating and non‐individuating
diminutives belong to the class of counting and measuring operators respectively.
More specifically, proper diminutives are measure modifiers assigning measure
characteristics to entities, whereas individuating suffixes are counting
operators which allow parts of substances to be counted. I show that studying
diminutives in the proposed framework will lead to a better understanding of
diminutives, and, also, it will throw light on fundamental topics in
semantics including measuring, countability and individuation. |
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November
29, 2017 Kurt Erbach,
Peter R. Sutton, Hana Filip, and Kathrin Byrdeck Heinrich Heine University Object mass nouns
in Japanese ClassiÞer languages are commonly taken to have no grammaticized
lexical mass/count distinction, but rather have this distinction encoded
through the syntax and semantics of classiÞers (e.g. Chierchia 1998, 2010;
Muromatsu 2003; Rothstein 2010, 2017). We contest this claim by drawing on
data from Japanese, a typical classiÞer language. We provide novel empirical
evidence showing that Japanese quantiÞers (e.g. nan-byaku-to-iu Ôhundreds ofÕ) can be used as tests
for the mass/count status of Japanese nouns in the absence of classiÞers.
Such quantifiers can directly modify nouns like onna-no-hito (ÔwomanÕ) denoting inherently individuable
entities, but not nouns denoting undifferentiated
stuff like yuki (ÔsnowÕ).
Moreover, and more importantly, acceptability tests using these quantiÞers
lead to the identification of object mass nouns in Japanese, i.e. nouns that
have inherently individuable entities in their denotation and yet are
infelicitous in syntactic environments which are diagnostic of count nouns.
This mismatch between notional and grammatical categories and the existence
of object mass nouns in Japanese contradicts Chierchia's (2010) prediction
that such noun behavior should not exist in classifier languages. It follows
that Japanese lexical nominal system is endowed with a grammatical
mass/count distinction, which bears a certain resemblance to that which we
Þnd in number marking languages (e.g. English), therefore casting doubt on
the common view that classiÞer languages have no grammaticized lexical
mass/count distinction. We propose a novel semantic analysis of Japanese
lexical nouns and classiÞers, based on Sutton & Filip (2016), a framework
that unites notions of context in Rothstein (2010) and Landman (2011), and
motivates the idea that counting contexts can remove overlap so that count
nouns have disjoint counting bases while mass nouns do not. |
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November
22, 2017 Yasutada Sudo University
College London The semantic role of classifiers in Japanese In
obligatory classifier languages like Japanese, numerals cannot directly
modify nouns without the help of a classifier. It is standardly considered
that this is because nouns in obligatory classifier languages have
uncountable denotations, unlike in non-classifier languages like English, and
they need to be turned into countable denotations by classifiers before being
able to be modified by numerals. Contrary to this, it is proposed that what
makes Japanese an obligatory classifier language is not the semantics of
nouns but the semantics of numerals. Specifically, evidence is presented that
numerals in Japanese cannot function as predicates on their own, which is
taken as suggesting that numerals in Japanese are exclusively used as
singular terms. It is then proposed that the semantic function of classifiers
is to turn such singular terms into modifiers/predicates. |
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November
15, 2017 Laura Kallmeyer and Rainer Osswald Heinrich Heine University Polysemy, Coercion, and Quantification In this
work we model systematic polysemy and its interaction with quantification
within a framework that combines Lexicalized Tree Adjoining Grammar (LTAG) with
frame semantics and Hybrid Logic (HL). We first
present the proposal from Babonnaud et al. (2016) according to which an
inherently polysemous
noun such as `book', which provides referential access to both a physical and
an informational
object, is assumed to refer to entities of type physical‐object which have an attribute content whose
value is of type information. The physical aspect and the informational
aspect are then addressed in different ways in contexts such as `read the
book', `carry the book', `master the book' or `a heavy book on magic'. Treating
books as physical information carriers in this way gives rise to the
following Òquantification puzzleÓ as noted for instance in (Asher &
Pustejovsky, 2006). While 'John carried off every book in the library' poses
no problem since the domain of quantification consists of physical entities,
it not obvious how to cope with 'John read every book in the library', which
is naturally interpreted as quantifying over all contents of the books in the
library. Since the library may own more than one copy of a book, there is not
necessarily a one‐to‐one
correspondence between the physical books in the library and the book
contents. It is not even necessary that John used a copy from the library at
all. The
solution we propose retains the idea that books are treated as physical
information carriers, i.e., we quantify over these physical objects, while
using only the information components as arguments of the predicate in the
scope of the quantifier. This is possible due to the flexibility of the
chosen syntax‐semantics architecture, in particular,
underspecified use of Hybrid Logic and specific syntax‐semantics interface features. |
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November
8, 2017 Eleni Gregoromichelaki and Jon Ander Mendia Heinrich Heine University Continuation
and discussion of their respective talks on October 18 and 25, 2017. |
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October
25, 2017 Eleni Gregoromichelaki Heinrich Heine University Ad-hoc grammatical categorisation in DS-TTR I will
introduce a formalism, DS-TTR, motivated by the need to underpin dialogue
modelling and explain the role of language in human interaction. In DS-TRR,
the view of natural languages as codes mediating a mapping between
ÒexpressionsÓ and the world is abandoned to give way to a model where
utterances are taken as joint actions aimed to locally and incrementally
alter the affordances of the context. Such actions employ perceptual stimuli
composed not only of ÒwordsÓ and ÒsyntaxÓ but also elements like visual
marks, gestures, sounds, etc. Any such stimuli can participate in the
domain-general processes that constitute the ÒgrammarÓ, whose function is to
incrementally predict the next action steps via the dynamic categorisation
and integration of various perceptual inputs. One consequence of this view is
that specifically linguistic syntactic categories, representations or
constraints are eschewed and explained away as the effects of the dynamics of
interactive processing. Given these assumptions, a challenge that arises is
how to account for the reification of such processes as exemplified in
apparent metarepresentational practices like quotation, reporting, citation
etc. I will argue that even such phenomena can receive adequate and natural
explanations as ÒdemonstrationsÓ through a grammar that allows for the ad-hoc
creation of occasion-specific content through reflexive mechanisms. |
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October
18, 2017 Jon Ander Mendia Heinrich Heine University Some kind of relative clause Amount Relatives
(ARs) differ from restrictive relative clauses in that they have an
interpretation where what is referred to is not a particular object denoted
by the head of therelative clause, but an amount of such objects (Carlson
1977, Heim 1987). For instance, the sentence it will take us the rest of our
lives to drink the champagne they spilled that evening is ambiguous: on its
more salient interpretation, the sentence claims that what would take us long
to drink is a particular ÒamountÓ of champagne, not any ÒparticularÓ
champagne. Virtually
all extant analyses of ARs agree on one thing: the that-clause denotes a set
of degrees. This is usually implemented by covert movement of a degree
operator and abstraction over a degree variable. In this
talk I propose to reanalyze ARs. I suggest that the
"amount" interpretation is a special case of ÒkindÓ
interpretation. First, I show that both "kind" and ÒamountÓ
interpretations show the same distinguishing properties when we compare them to
ordinary (intersective) relative clauses. Second, I show that there is no
trace of the presence of degree quantification/abstraction in ARs, a fact
that, all else equal, is not expected if Ars were degree expressions. Then I
analyze "amount" interpretations as cases of ad hoc
ÒsubkindÓ interpretations: the that-clause contributes a way to determine a
particular subkind of the kind-level object provided by the head of the
relative clause (in the example above, an ad hoc subkind of champagne). Time
permitting, I will discuss the fact that other languages may possess ARs as
envisioned by traditional analyses -i.e. they must be treated as degree
expressions- and consider the cross-linguistic ramifications of this state of
affairs. |
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July 26,
2017 Shalom Lappin University of Gothenburg, King's College London and Queen Mary
University of London
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July 19,
2017 Anna
Czypionka University of Konstanz Temporal implicatures in sentence comprehension:
Evidence from acceptability ratings and self-paced reading times Implicatures
are inferences that go beyond the literal semantic meaning of an utterance.
In psycholinguistics, scalar implicatures are the most widely researched type
of implicature. These implicatures are triggered by scalar expressions, like
some (implying some, but not all), and have been investigated in a number of
paradigms. We present data on a new type of implicature, namely, temporal
implicatures. These are triggered by temporal expressions like this week
(implying this week, but not next). When combined with predicates that
ascribe a temporary property like be ill, this implicature makes sense: John
is ill this week implies that John is ill only this week. However, a
combination with predicates ascribing permanent properties like be tall is
less felicitous: # John is tall this week implies that John's size is not
constant; this implicature clashes with speakers' world knowledge about the
size of grown-ups. A series of judgment studies employing the
Literal Lucy paradigm show that just like scalar implicatures, temporal
implicatures are psychologically real and are independent from the semantic
meaning of the sentence. In addition, data from self-paced reading show that
temporal implicatures are routinely drawn during language comprehension, and
computed early. We argue that the infelicity of temporal modification with
permanent predicates (# John is tall this week) is due to a pragmatic
inference that conflicts with world-knowledge, rather than grammatical. |
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July 12,
2017 Agata Renans Ulster University Accounting for
inferences of pluralized count and mass nouns : Evidence from Greek Across languages, plural marking on count nouns typically gives rise to multiplicity inferences ,
indicating that there is more than one entity in the denotation of the noun.
Plural marking has also been observed to occur on mass nouns in Greek, giving
rise to a parallel abundance
inference, indicating that there is a large quantity of what is denoted by
the noun. Kane et al. (2016) propose a unified implicature account of
abundance and multiplicity inferences, which prima facie predicts a
uniform pattern across inferences, and standard implicatures. We tested this
prediction by comparing multiplicity inferences, abundances inferences, and
standard implicatures in Greek-speaking children and adults. The results
reflect an overall pattern of implicature calculation, supporting a unified
implicature analysis across the inferences. |
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July 5,
2017 Kurt Erbach Heinrich Heine University Fighting for a share of the covers: Accounting
for inaccessible readings of plural predicatesPlural predication presents a
challenge that remains unsettled despite the numerous attempts to present a
satisfying analysis (Moltman 2016, Farkas &de Swart 2010, Oliver &
Smiley 2006, Yi 2005, 2006, Landman 2000, 1989a,b, Schwarzschild 1996, Link
1993, 1983, Krifka 1990, 1989, Schein 1986, Scha 1981, to name a few). The
current discussion looks at a small part of this multi-faceted topic, namely
the available readings of certain plural predicates. Gillon (1987) argues
that certain plural predicates are ambiguous inrespect to the truth value of
their minimal covers—i.e. sets of subsets ofpluralities, in which none
of the subsets overlap with the sum of the others, and the sum of all subsets
is equal to the plurality itself. While GillonÕs (1987) argument is logically
sound, I present evidence that suggests that certain minimal covers are not
immediately accessible interpretations of cumulative predicates. Namely, following certain
plural predicates, the lexical modifiers together and individually cannot be
used in tandem to indicate which minimal cover of the predication is true.
Following Gillon (1987), I assume these minimal covers must exist despite
their inaccessibility, so the issue at hand is determining how they come to
exist and why they are inaccessible from the initial interpretation of
certain plural predicates. LandmanÕs (2000) analysis of events and plurality
provides a multi-step process in which cumulative predicates are derived from
covers. This analysis can be used to show how the interpretations of
predicate that includes the relevant minimal covers come to exist, but leaves
the inaccessibility of such covers unexplained. I propose that complex
minimal covers are inaccessible because their derivation is simply too
complex to process on-line. This explanation accounts for the infelicity of
lexical modifiers, preserves the logic of minimal covers, and avoids the
introduction of further devices into the account. |
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June 28, 2017 Mojm’r Dočekal and Marcin Wągiel Masaryk
University, Czech Republic Counting degrees and events: A cross-linguistic perspective In this talk, we bring in novel data concerning distribution and semantic
properties of two classes of adverbs of quantification in Czech, i.e., event
numerals such as *dvakr‡t* ('twice/two times') as opposed to degree numerals
such as *dvojn‡sobně* ('doubly/twofold'). We explore the contrasts
between the expressions in question including the interaction with
comparatives and equatives as well as scope asymmetries. Furthermore, we
discuss their relationship with frequency adverbs and degree adverbs,
respectively, as well as cross-linguistic variation including data from typologically
distinct languages such as Vietnamese. We propose that degree numerals target
values on a provided scale and are, hence, best analyzed as degree
quantifiers resembling differentials whereas event numerals have a more
general semantics which primarily allows for quantification over individuated
events, but also enables to operate on degrees. |
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June 21, 2017 ƒva Kardos University of Debrecen, Hungary Telicity
across languages This talk is
concerned with how telicity arises across languages. More specifically, it
offers a semantic take on the encoding and calculation of telicity and
identifies two types of strategies in typologically such different languages
as English, Hungarian and Slavic languages. It promotes the idea that
telicity arises either (i) as a result of overt or covert maximalization over
events, as in the case of most predicates in Hungarian and Slavic languages,
or (ii) simply due to the co-occurrence of a verb encoding incremental
change, a theme participant whose quantity is known, and a bounded path that
is traversed in the course of the denoted event, as with most English verbal
predicates (Kardos 2012, 2016). Important ways in which the languages under
investigation differ is that they rely on these strategies to different
extents, which has significant interpretational and morphosyntactic
differences with respect to verbal predicates. Following
Filip and Rothstein (2006) and Filip (2008), I assume that telicity arises either
as a result of a maximalization operator MAXE mapping sets of partially
ordered events onto sets of maximal events. The application of MAXE is
contingent on a verb assigning a figure-path incremental relation, a
quantified theme DP, and a bounded path, an idea originating in Beavers
(2012). Alternatively, telicity can also arise without maximalization over
events with a verb assigning a figure path incremental role to a theme DP
whose quantity is known and a bounded path since in these cases for any event
that the verbal predicate describes, it does not describe any non-final
subevent of that event. An important difference between the two processes is
that the former leaves the predicate with quantized reference, and thus
telicity is guaranteed, whereas in the latter case it is not a necessary
consequence. This is
illustrated in Hungarian and Slavic languages, where event maximalization is
encoded in particle verbs and perfective verbs. In English, where event
maximalization is not necessary for telic interpretations in the case of most
predicates, degree achievements like warm and cool are well-known for
aspectual variability (Hay et al. 1999). Furthermore, in the case of
predicates containing a particle verb or a perfective verb, which arguably
encode event maximalization, the internal argument is semantically
constrained in a way that the quantity of its referent must be known, and
this satisfies a necessary condition for telicity (see above). As for how
the event maximalizing operator is encoded, there are different options to be
explored. It is either the case that it is encoded covertly in VPs, as in
some instances in English, or perfective verbs, as argued for by Filip (2008)
in her analysis of Slavic languages, or that it is encoded overtly in perfective
prefixes in Slavic languages or verbal particles in Hungarian. That particles
and prefixes seem to systematically turn stative predicates into telic
predicates in Hungarian and several Slavic languages may be taken as one
piece of evidence for their being overt event maximalization/telicity
markers. Yet another
question that is worth pursuing is whether bounded events must be marked in
Slavic languages similarly to Hungarian. If this requirement holds, the
expectation is that predicates that are inherently bounded (e.g. achievements
like die and break a vase and degree achievements associated with an endpoint
like empty the fridge and straighten the rope) must contain some marking
element (e.g. a particle or a prefix). In Hungarian, this expectation is met,
whereas in Slavic languages different patterns arise, making obligatory
telicity marking suspicious (cf. Di Sciullo & Slabakova 2005). |
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June 14, 2017 Łukasz
Jędrzejowski University of Cologne On (the diachrony of) jakoby-clauses in Polish In this talk, I will examine the
development and use of dependent clauses in Polish introduced by the
complementizer jakoby (lit. Ôas
ifÕ) and show which factors in the lexical meaning of jakoby were responsible for the semantic change that it
underwent. In
the Old Polish example given in (1), the dependent clause is introduced by
the hypothetical comparative complementizer jakoby (Ôas ifÕ) and it is embedded under the matrix predicate widzieć (ÔseemÕ), expressing
indirect inferential evidence:
Ôthe people on earth interpreted
it as if it wanted to slay all of themÕ (KG, Kazanie I: Na Boże Narodzenie 26-7) In Old Polish, jakoby-clauses can be embedded only
under verbs of seeming. In other words, the structure seem as if p is used instead of seem that p if what the available evidence suggests is somehow in
conflict with what the speaker believes or used to believe. In Present-day
Polish, in turn, as illustrated in (2), the jakoby‑clause is embedded under the speech verb zaprzeczać (ÔdenyÕ):
ÔThe company denied that there supposedly were any reports about faulty
prepaid cards.Õ (NKJP, Dziennik Zachodni,
27/9/2006) The complementizer jakoby is not interpreted as a
hypothetical comparative conjunction as
if any longer, but as a hearsay
complementizer (Åthat + allegedly). Interestingly, neither
Czech nor Slovak have experienced this change. Based
on Faller (2011) and Murray (2017), I will present account showing that the
change of jakoby involved two main
developments: First, the meaning of jakoby
was broadened to allow for inferences from reportative information
(compatible with, but not enforced by its seem-type
embedding verbs). Second, the reportative flavor acquired by jakoby licensed its use in complements
of speech verbs. Since these new contexts were no longer compatible with the
original inferential meaning, they ultimately lead to the inability to use jakoby in its original contexts, cf.
(3):
References Faller,
Martina (2011): A possible worlds semantics for Cuzco Quechua evidentials,
in: Proceedings of SALT 20 ed. by
Nan Li and David Lutz, eLanguage, 660‑683. Murray, Sarah E. (2017): The Semantics of Evidentials. Oxford:
Oxford University Press. |
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June 7, 2017 Stergios Chatzikyriakidis University of
Gothenburg In defence of lost causes? Type Theories
for Natural Language Semantics In this talk, I will
present an overview of the use of TTs for representing linguistic semantics.
A historical overview is first given that covers in brief the history of type
theory. Then, the discussion moves to the application of type theories,
mostly type theories within the tradition of Martin Lšf, to various issues in
linguistic semantics like common nouns, modification, belief intensionality
and copredication among others. Various alternatives are discussed when
needed while the differences with simple type theory, which is the basis of
Montague Grammar, are highlighted. Furthermore, the use of proof assistants
implementing constructive type theories in dealing with Natural Language
inference and checking the correctness of formal semantics accounts is
discussed arguing that constructive type theories combined with the
associated maturity in proof assistant technology can produce powerful
reasoning engines and effective Òsemantic account checkersÓ. Lastly, I
discuss the use of TTs within the new setting in computational linguistics,
namely Deep Learning, trying to see its usefulness or not, and potential
avenues of interaction between the two fields. |
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May 31,
2017 Natalia Gagarina Leibniz-ZAS Berlin Aspect (and other verb categories)
in monolingual and bilingual acquisition I trace the developmental
projection of the acquisition of aspect (and other verb categories) in
monolingual and bilingual children. Specifically, the goal is find out, how
children use the verb morphology to gain access to syntactic structure and to
identify differences in monolingual vs. (simultaneous and successive)
bilingual acquisition. Working within the general framework of
constructivism, I will show how the semantic structure of a predicate guides
the acquisition of the tense/aspect and agreement morphology. Our methodology is called
predicate tracking. Working within the lexicon of individual children, a
predicate is identified and then the emergence of the verb morphology is
tracked. Thus, the history of acquisition for each predicate is determined.
Minimal morphological contrasts as evidence for the productivity of
tense/aspect and agreement concepts are searched for. Prior research has
shown a relatively consistent frequency pattern cross-linguistically where
the following two configurations are highly probable: 1) telic verbs with
past tense and bounded aspectual morphology, and 2) atelic verbs with
non-past tense and unbounded aspectual morphology. This finding has prompted
the argument that aspect emerges prior to tense in child language. According
to some variations on the Principle and Parameters theme, this sequence is
required by the principle of economy. Our research with the predicate
tracking methodology indicates the following: 1) the precise pattern of
acquisition is determined by the properties of lexical aspect, i.e., the
logical structure of predicates, 2) the pattern varies cross-linguistically,
and 3) deictic tense is likely to be productive prior to viewpoint aspect. |
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May 24, 2017 Leda Berio, Anja Latrouite, Robert Van Valin, Gottfried Vosgerau Heinrich
Heine University DŸsseldorf Immediate and General Common Ground The traditional literalist account of meaning has been challenged by
several theories that stress the importance of context and of contextual
information in communication, especially for mechanisms of meaning
determination and reference fixing. However, the role of lexical meaning in
such contextualist accounts often remains only vaguely defined. In this paper,
we defend an account of communication that keeps the advantages of
contextualist theories, while a new element is introduced that we claim could
help solving some of the remaining issues. By differentiating Immediate and
General Common Ground in communica- tion, we draw a distinction between
mechanisms related to the situation at hand and those concerned with world
and language knowledge. We further argue that such a distinction can help
understanding cases of loose use and metaphors of which we provide some
examples. Finally, we claim that this distinction has grammatical reality, as
it is shown by the examples from Lakhota (North America), Umpithamu
(Australia), Kuuk Thaayorre (Australia) and Mongsen Ao (India) discussed in
the paper. |
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May 17,
2017 George Tsoulas University
of York How to pluralise a Mass noun: The
ingredients The relation
between mass terms and plurals is well known and well supported empirically
in terms, for example, of determiners that are common to the two classes of
nominals to the exclusion of the singular. At the same time it comes in
general as a surprise that given the notion that mass terms as "somehow
plural" they never show up in the plural. From this point I look
at a set of languages which do pluralise mass nouns and attempt to derive the
possibility of plural mass terms. The objective is to build a syntactic
and semantic framework with as minimal assumptions as possible, within which
they can naturally occur. More specifically I look a the set of required
morphosyntactic features, their position in the nominal extended projection
and their associated semantics. Then we try to understand where the
points of variation lie and what sort of variation is
predicted. |
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May 3, 2017 Stefan Heim Uniklinik RWTH Aachen &
Forschungszentrum Jülich If so many are "few", how few are "many"? The
neurocognition of quantifier processing |
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April 26, 2017 Kathrin Byrdeck & Kurt
Erbach Heinrich Heine University DŸsseldorf Object Mass Nouns in Japanese Classifier
languages are commonly assumed not to have a grammaticized
mass/countdistinction among nouns. In this talk we pursue two main goals.
First, based on data from Japanese and some insights in Sudo (2016,
forthcoming), and Inagaki & Barner (2009), we provide new empirical
evidence that Japanese nouns for concepts like BOOK, DOG, SHOE (encoded by
prototypical count nouns in languages with a grammaticized mass/count
distinctions) and collective artifacts like MAIL, FURNITURE have individuated
counting bases. We provide empirical evidence in support of the claim that
Japanese nouns like yūbinbutsu (`mailÕ) have the hallmark properties of
object mass nouns: (i) they are compared according to cardinality in `more
thanÕ constructions (also Inagaki & Barner 2009), and (ii) they are
infelicitous in constructions associated with count nouns. To the extent that
the existence of object mass nouns can be established in the grammar of
Japanese, as we argue, it follows that Japanese has grammatical reflexes of
the mass/count distinction, rather than just exhibiting cognitive and
grammatical reflexes of individuation (atomicity) alone. Second, we offer a
new formal analysis of the Japanese mass/count distinction, building Sutton
& FilipÕs (2016) context-sensitivity driven account of the mass/count
distinction, and specifically of object mass nouns. Our results bolster a
nascent growing body of studies strongly suggesting that Japanese (and other
classifier languages) in fact do have direct grammatical reflexes of the
mass/count distinction. |
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April 19, 2017 Emar Maier University of Groningen Eventive vs. Evidential
Speech Reports In this
talk I argue for a distinction between eventive and evidential speech
reports. In eventive speech reports the at-issue contribution is the
introduction of a speech event with certain properties. Typical examples
include direct and free indirect speech. In evidential speech reports, by
contrast, the fact that something was said is not at issue, but serves to
provide evidence for the reported content. Typical examples include Quechua
and Bulgarian reportative evidentials, Dutch and German reportative modals
('schijnen', 'sollen'), and the German reportive subjunctive. Following up on
an observation by Von Stechow & Zimmermann (2005:fn.16), I argue that
English indirect discourse is ambiguous. In the current framework this means
it allows both an eventive reading, where a reported speech act is at issue,
and an evidential reading, where it is backgrounded. |
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January 11, 2017 Dolf Rami Georg-August UniversitŠt Gšttingen Names, Pronouns and
Demonstratives as use-sensitive expressions Kaplan
famously distinguished between pure indexicals and true demonstratives.
Nevertheless, he thought that these two kinds of expressions are only two
subvarieties of the same
semantic kind, namely the kind of context-sensitive expressions. I will argue
that Kaplan underestimated the significance of his distinction and that it is
in fact a distinction in semantic kind. In my opinion, there are two
different sorts of expressions whose reference depends in different ways on the occasion of their use and
which should semantically berepresented in different ways. Firstly, there are context-sensitive
expressions. The reference of these expressions depends on certain objective
factors that constitute a context of use. These expressions have a Kaplanian
character that determines their referent relative to a context of use.
Examples of this kind are expressions like ÒIÓ, ÒnowÓ and ÒtodayÓ. They all
share the following feature: It is impossible that two different uses of an
expression of these kind have different referents relative to the same context of use. Formally they can be
represented, as Kaplan did, by functions from contexts of use to
intensions. Secondly, there are
use-sensitive expressions. These expressions are neither sensitive to any
objective factors of a context of use nor can their linguistic meaning be
conceive of as a character. These expressions can have anaphoric or
referential uses. Some of them have bound and pragmatic anaphoric uses. The
reference of such an expression is determined relative to a referential or
pragmatic anaphoric use by accompanying referential intentions. Uses of use-sensitive expressions are
individuated by means of their accompanying referential intentions. Formally use-sensitive expressions
are represented as indexed
expressions that are semantically interpreted by means of an
index-sensitive assignment
function. Different indexes correspond to different referential
intentions. Co-referential use-sensitive expressions are semantically
interpreted by means of indexed-assignment-functions with the same output. In
this sense, the referent of a use-sensitive expression is determined by subject
factors that are independent of the parameters of a context of use. The
reference of use-sensitive expressions can additionally be constrained in
some cases by the use-conditional meaning of such an expression.
Use-conditional linguistic meanings can either be captured (a) as
restrictions on indexed-assignment-functions or (b) as restrictions on the
class of adequate possible uses of an expression. It is possible that any two
different uses of an expression of these kind have different referents
relative to the same or different contexts of use. Some use-sensitive
expressions also have bound uses and their corresponding assignment functions
can be shifted by the right sort of quantifiers. Bare demonstratives are
use-sensitives expressions without an additional use-conditional meaning and
they only have pragmatic anaphoric uses. Proper names are use-sensitives
expressions with an additional use-conditional meaning that restricts the
possible referents of a name to its bearer; but names only have pragmatic anaphoric
uses. Third person personal pronouns are use- sensitives expressions with an
additional use-conditional meaning that restricts the possible referents of them to male or female
individuals and they have both pragmatic and bound anaphoric uses. |
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December 14, 2016 Ruth Kempson King's College London Language as Mechanisms for
Interaction: the challenge of modelling dialogue My task is to
introduce and justify the formalism of Dynamic Syntax (DS), whose central
claim is that natural languages are mechanisms for interaction, defined by
grammars that articulate the online incremental process of growth of
interpretation/linearisation underpinning both production and parsing. The
talk will then argue that with this perspective, there is evidence that
language evolution could have been possible without having to presume rich
innateness, sudden-switch change, or prior availability of higher-order
inferential capacities such as mind-reading. My starting point is to
illustrate data from conversational dialogue which are a huge challenge for
syntax and semantics models, since sentence-based grammars are not at all
well suited to express the facts of
dialogue – and even for pragmatists, since dialogue dynamics
provide evidence that successful
communication does not have to involve reading othersÕ minds or grasping some propositional understanding
to be shared. Rather, what is
essential is speaker/hearer interaction. Then I will give a sketch of Dynamic Syntax sufficient to show
how the dynamics of dialogue will
emerge as an automatic consequence of the framework as well as
expressing universal constraints
on the process of structural growth. Finally I shall show how the individual mechanisms that
underpin anaphora, ellipsis, discontinuity effects, and scope dependencies, can all be seen to be
vehicles for interaction, in
virtue of generalisations across these phenomena which can only be expressed in dynamic,
interactive terms. |
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December 7, 2016 Kurt Erbach Heinrich Heine University DŸsseldorf Bare singular nouns in
Hungarian and the mass/count distinction I argue for an analysis of Hungarian in which notional singular count
nouns are semantically number neutral, and thus felicitous, with measure
constructions and the WH-quantifier mennyi
(Ôwhat quantity ofÕ). This provides an alternative analysis to Schvarcz
(2016) and Schvarcz & Rothstein (2015) who analyze the majority of
Hungarian notional count nouns as dual life—i.e. mass or count
depending on the context. They assume kšnyv (ÔbookÕ) is mass with mennyi & measure constructions, but it is count in
cardinality constructions. However, certain Hungarian constructions indicate
bare singular count nouns are interpreted as number neutral. Furthermore,
measure constructions sanction the occurrence of mass and bare plural count
nouns but disallow singular count nouns (Krifka 1989, Landman 2016).
Following Landman (2016) allows a more straightforward analysis that shows
the Hungarian nominal system is more like other mass/count languages has been
previously thought. |
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November 30, 2016 Todor Koev Heinrich Heine University DŸsseldorf Adverbs of Change, Aspect,
and Anaphoricity Adverbs of change,
such as quickly or slowly, have been known to give rise to a number of interpretations.
A sentence like Kazuko ran to the store quickly can describe the intensity of
the described action (a manner reading), the temporal extent of the entire
event (a duration reading), or the time between the culmination of the event
and some previous event (an anaphoric reading). It has also been noticed that
available interpretations are sensitive to thelexical aspect of the verbal
predicate; for example, The police quickly spotted the suspect is only
compatible with an anaphoric reading for quickly. Existing accounts of
adverbs of change (e.g. Cresswell 1978; Rawlins 2013) take manner readings as
primary and successfully extend these to duration readings, but struggle to
derive anaphoric readings. In contrast, I take anaphoric readings as primary
and argue that other readings are special cases of these. Adverbs of change
are claimed to modify the temporal distance between two instantaneous events
that are compositionally or anaphorically available. The proposed account,
couched in a dynamic semantic framework, does particularly well in predicting
anaphoric interpretations and demonstrates how adverbs of change interact
with lexical aspect to derive other available readings. It also correctly
predicts certain positional effects and can accommodate the idiosyncratic
behavior of adverbs like slowly, which appears to lack truly anaphoric
interpretations. |
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November 23, 2016 Maria Spychalska Ruhr University of
Bochum Scalar implicatures in context of full and partial information:
Evidence from ERPs A major part of the
psycholinguistic research on scalar implicatures has been focused on the
question of how scalar implicatures are generated: in a default and automatic
manner or as results of effortful reasoning processes. This so-called
default- vs. context-based controversy has been experimentally
operationalized in terms of processing costs of scalar implicatures: the
processing costs have been taken as a proxy of the implicatureÕs default vs.
non-default character. Yet, it has eventually become evident that the data
hardly fit this dichotomy. Many studies on the processing of scalar
implicatures brought contrastive results: some experiments provided evidence
that the processing of the pragmatically enriched interpretation is costly
relative to the processing of the semantic meaning, other studies found no
additional cost for the processing of scalar implicatures. It was further shown by Degen &
Tannenahus (2015) that scalar implicatures may be differently processed
depending on contextual support: in contexts that support the pragmatic
interpretation, scalar implicatures will occur as default and automatic,
whereas when the contextual support is weaker, listeners will take longer to
arrive at the inference. This results were integrated within a probabilistic
model of linguistic processing, called constraint-based account and
predicting that interlocutors may use information from multiple sources
during sentence comprehension to create expectations about the future
development of the utterance. In
my talk I will present results from EEG studies on scalar implicatures
processing arguing in favor of the constraint-based model. Comparing results
from two studies: where the scalar implicature processing was tested in
context of full information and in context of partial information, I will
discuss how the contextual support may determine the cognitive costs of the
implicature processing. |
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November 16, 2016 Willy Geuder Heinrich Heine University Manner adverbs, agentive adverbs, and adverbs in between
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November 9, 2016 Christian Wurm Heinrich Heine University The algebra of ambiguity We present an algebraic approximation to the
semantic content of linguistic ambiguity. Starting from the class of ordinary
Boolean algebras, we add to it an ambiguity operator and a small set of
(rather peculiar) axioms which we think are correct for linguistic ambiguity
beyond doubt. We then show some important, non-trivial results that follow
from this axiomatization, which turn out to be surprising and not fully
satisfying from a linguistic point of view. The results leave us with some
open questions, both on the linguistic algebraic side – like the nature
of intention in ambiguous statements, or the properties of disjunctive axioms
in universal algebra. |
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July 20, 2016 Barbara Tomaszewicz UniversitŠt
zu Kšln Focus
association in sentence processing The focus structure of a sentence reflects the
discourse context, but in the presence of various operators, such as only, even
and most, it has an effect on the truth-conditions or the presuppositions of
the sentence. Stolterfoht et al. (2007) and Carlson (2013) showed that only
facilitates the processing of focus structures during silent reading. When
(1) is read without preceding context, the first conjunct receives a wide
focus interpretation (marked as FI), and when the processor encounters the
ellipsis remnant (F2), it must revise the focus structure of the first
conjunct from wide to matching narrow focus (F3). The presence of only in (2)
requires narrow focus on its associate (FI), which is congruous with the
ellipsis remnant. Revision of the focus structure in (1) vs. (2) was
associated with an ERP signature in the Stolterfoht et al. study on German,
and with increased reading times in CarlsonÕs self-paced reading study on
English. 1) [Am Dienstag hat der Direktor [den SchŸler]F3
getadelt]F1, und nicht [den Lehrer]F2 On Tuesday has the principal.Nom the pupil.Acc
criticized and not the teacher.Acc 2) Am Dienstag hat der Direktor nur [den
SchŸler]F1 getadelt, und nicht [den Lehrer]F2 On Tuesday has the principal.Nom only the
pupil.Acc criticized and not the teacher.Acc Since Ôonly x ... and not yÕ is frequent in
discourse, the presence of only could create an expectation for an explicit
mention of excluded alternatives, and this bias alone could account for the
facilitation in (2). In self-paced reading experiments on Polish we showed
that the processing of replacive ellipsis ( Ôand not ... Õ ) is facilitated
in the presence of the three associators: only, even, most, which indicates
that it is indeed the focus association mechanism that explains the
facilitation in (2) (Tomaszewicz and Pancheva (2016)). The use of Polish
allowed us for a direct comparison between only, even and most, because (i)
like in German replacive ellipsis is unambiguous due to Accusative case
marking, and therefore any differences in ellipsis resolution can be
attributed to the processing of focus structure alone; (ii) with most the focus
on ÔsculptorsÕ yields a superlative reading that is unavailable in English or
German (in Pancheva and Tomaszewicz (2012) and Tomaszewicz (2015) we argue
that this reading arises via focus association). We found that in Polish only, even and most create
an expectation for narrow focus on the object, but the facilitatory effects
occur already on the conjunct Ôand notÕ with only and even, and on the
ellipsis remnant with most. This difference likely reflects the difference
between two types of focus association: obligatory and optional as identified
in the formal semantic research on focus. Obligatory focus association is
taken to be encoded in the lexical semantics of focus sensitive expressions
(only, even), whereas optional/free association is a result of the contextual
setting of the domain variable of an operator like most (Beaver and Clark
(2009)). While prenominai only and even have one syntactic associate (3),
most is free to associate either with the adverbial or the subject in English
(4a-b), or with the object in Polish (5). 3)a. John invited only/even [sculptors]F for
coffee. b. *John invited only/even sculptors [for
coffee]F 4)a. John invited the most sculptors [for
coffee]F. Reading: John invited more sculptors for coffee
than for any other relevant occasion, b. [John]F invited the most sculptors for coffee.
Reading: John invited more sculptors for coffee than for any other relevant
individual did. 5) John zaprosił najwięcej
[rzeźbiarzy]F na kawę. John invited most sculptors for coffee Reading: John invited more sculptors for coffee
than any other group of people that he invited. During incremental processing prenominai only and
even create a precise expectation for the location of focus, but most allows
association with either the object or the adverbial in Polish, which is
compatible with our results. Currently, we are extending these findings to
meisten in German, which like English most does not allow association with
the object, to show that optional associators facilitate the processing of
focus structures that are compatible with the semantics resulting from focus
association (and that it is not the case that the mere presence of a
prenominai modifier increases the salience of the contrast in the replacive
ellipsis). |
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July 6,
2016 Noortje Venhuizen UniversitŠt
des Saarlandes Projection in Discourse: A data-driven formal
semantic analysis In this
talk, I present a unified, data-driven formal semantic analysis of projection
phenomena, which include presuppositions, anaphoric expressions, and
conventional implicatures (as defined by Potts, 2005). The different
contributions made by these phenomena are explained in terms of the notion of
information status. Based on this analysis, I present a new semantic
formalism called Projective Discourse Representation Theory (PDRT). PDRT is
an extension of traditional Discourse Representation Theory (Kamp, 1981; Kamp
and Reyle, 1993), which directly implements the anaphoric theory of
presuppositions (van der Sandt, 1992) by means of the introduction of
projection variables. I show that PDRT captures the differences, as well as
the similarities between the contributions made by presuppositions, anaphora
and conventional implicatures. In order to illustrate PDRT's representational
power, I present a data-driven computational analysis of the information
status of referential expressions based on data from the Groningen Meaning
Bank; a corpus of semantically annotated texts (Basile et al., 2012).
Taken together, the results pave way for a more integrated formal and
empirical analysis of different aspects of linguistic meaning. |
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June 29, 2016 Markus Schrenk Heinrich-Heine-UniversitŠt
DŸsseldorf Causal Power and Modality as Stumbling Stones for a Semantic Analysis of Dispositional Predicates Attempts to give a semantic
analysis of dispositional predicates (like Òsolubility",
ÒinflammabilityÓ, etc.) in terms of (counterfactual) conditionals (for
example: Òif x were put in water it would dissolveÓ) saw a plethora of counterexamples:
void satisfaction, random coincidences, masks, finks, antidotes, etc. Already
on the (semantic/logical) surface the reasons for failure are pretty obvious.
Yet, there are also some deeper (metaphysical) reasons – Causal Power
and Modality – that can be unearthed. In this talk I will go through
all the above. |
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June 22, 2016 Higher School of
Economics, Department of Linguistics, Moscow A Typology of Falling Events Falling is a kind of
quite standard motion event with Source, Goal and a special manner of motion
which is usually reduced to the up-down (vertical) axis. The talk shows that
there are other semantic characteristics which build semantic
oppositions within the domain of falling and trigger its metaphorical
extensions. |
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June 15, 2016 Heinrich-Heine-UniversitŠt
DŸsseldorf The PoP approach to vector semantics
The use
of vector space models, however, is problematic due to the high
dimensionality of these vectors and due to the fact that co-occurrence
patterns often follow what is known as heavy-tailed distribution (as
exemplified by the Zipfian distribution of words in documents). For instance,
while a few words frequently occur in text (thus co-occur with other words,
such as the function word ÒtheÓ), many content words occur rarely.
Consequently, as the number of vectors/entities increases, the number of
co-occurring context elements (i.e., the dimensionality ofvectors) escalates.
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June 8, 2016 Suzi Lima Universidade Federal do Rio
de Janeiro Portions, individuation and measurement Container nouns (cup) are nouns that denote concrete objects that can be used as
receptacles for substances. It has been argued that in constructions with
numerals (as in Ôtwo glasses of waterÕ), container phrases can be interpreted
in at least two different ways (Selkirk 1977, Rothstein 2012, Partee and
Borschev 2012). Firstly, a container noun can be used to denote actual
containers filled with some substance; e.g. Ôglasses of waterÕ can denote
actual glasses filled with some quantity of water (individuation). Secondly,
a container noun can be used as the description of a unit of measurement. Based on the results of a felicity judgment task
with children and adults with Brazilian Portuguese, English and Yudja, it
will be argued that individuation precedes measure. Second, unlike in
English, container phrases in Yudja can be interpreted as locatives or
trigger a concrete portion interpretation that is different from measure.
Similar results were found for Brazilian Portuguese when the question
included a prepositional phrase (Eu
bebi dois copos com ‡gua ÔI drank two cups with waterÕ) as opposed to
pseudopartitive constructions (Eu bebi
dois copos de ‡gua ÔI drank two cups of waterÕ). |
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June 1, 2016 Jens Fleischhauer Heinrich-Heine-UniversitŠt
DŸsseldorf Animacy and affectedness (in Germanic languages)
(1)
a. Das MŠdchen schlug den
Jungen. Lundquist & Ramchand (2012)
argue that inanimate entities are conceived as less affected by processes
such as hitting or kicking than animate entities are. de Swart (2014), on the
other hand, argues that the alternation marks a difference in sentience. As
sentience presupposes animacy, the animacy contrast is merely epiphenomenal.
Both analyses have shortcomings: de SwartÕs analysis does not rely on
affectedness and therefore cannot explain the contrast between (1b) and (2).
Lundquist & RamchandÕs analysis is couched in the generative framework
and they define affectedness as a binary feature. Their analysis does not
give a principal explanation of why it is only a subset of contact verbs that
gives rise to the alternation illustrated in (1). An explanation of them
phenomenon requires two things: First, a graded concept of
affectedness, like the one proposed by Beavers (2011). Beavers notion of
affectedness provides an explanation of why contact verbs show an alternation
dependent on affectedness. According to him, these verbs entail potential
results and the alternation can be seen as a resolution of this potentiality.
If the referent of the second argument is animate, it is conceived as
affected. If it is inanimate, it is taken to be non-affected. Second, an
explication of the relationship between affectedness and animacy is needed.
Lundquist & Ramchand argue that inanimate entities are only affected, if
they are physically damaged. Beside physical affectedness, animate beings can
also be emotionally/psychologically affected. This allows combining the basis
insights of Lundquist & RamchandÕs analysis with the one of de SwartÕs. The aim of the talk is to present a
unified analysis of the phenomenon, which combines a gradual notion of
affectedness with the notion of
sentience. It will be shown that
such an approach allows explaining why the alternation arises with this
particular set of verbs. Furthermore, the analysis will shed light on the
relationship between affectedness and animacy. |
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May 25, 2016 Karoly Varasdi & Zsofia
Gyarmathy Heinrich-Heine-UniversitŠt DŸsseldorf A model of evidence and an
evidence-based analysis of progressive achievements In our
talk, we are going to outline a lattice-theoretic model of evidence and an
evidence-based approach to progressive achievements. Our starting point is
that an agent is justified in asserting a progressive sentence if the agent
has enough evidence supporting the base sentence in that specific scenario.
In our framework, evidence for a proposition is that which justifies the
speaker in asserting the proposition. We will argue that the set of all
potential pieces of evidence ordered by containment form a lattice, and is
connected with the lattice of propositions in a specific way based on the
notion of (partial) justification. We will show how this evidence-based
framework can be used to predict felicitous progressive uses of achievements,
such as "Mary is arriving at the station" and still exclude
unacceptable progressive achievements like "*Mary is noticing the
picture". To this end, we exploit the fact that sentence entailment and
evidence containment go in opposite directions in our framework and that
achievements that can appear in the progressive are those that describe the
right boundaries of extended events. |
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May 4, 2016 Zsofia Gyarmathy Heinrich-Heine-UniversitŠt DŸsseldorf Achievements and
presuppositions This
session will include i) a presentation of a theoretical idea about the activity
presupposition of a subclass of Vendler's achievements (called
culminations by Bach 1986), ii) outlining some ideas for three experiments to
test the theoretical assumptions, and iii) an open discussion where I would
be happy to hear comments and feedback especially about the experimental
design. The basic theoretical idea I propose is that culminations like win or arrive have an existential presupposition that is of a
hitherto not recognized kind that I call an extra soft presupposition, which
is cancellable even when the trigger is not embedded under any operators, but
is more similar to presuppositions than implicatures in other respects. |
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April 27, 2016 Daniel Lassiter Stanford
University Time: 16:30-18:00 Location: Building 24.91. Room 01.22 Must, might, knows, and the rest of the epistemic system Linguists and philosophers have long been torn between the intuition
that must is 'weak'
– expressing reduced commitment vis-a-vis the unqualified expression
– and the intuition that it expresses some fairly strong epistemic
relation, such as knowledge. Recently von Fintel & Gillies (2010) have
argued that the latter hunch is correct – must picks out a strong epistemic necessity modal ˆ la modal
logic S5 – and that the intuition of weakness can be explained by
reference to a little-noticed evidential meaning component of must. Using corpus and experimental
data I'll show that must does
not express knowledge, certainty, or anything of this form: speakers
routinely use must to
mark out a proposition p when
they are explicitly uncertain about the truth of p, say that they do not know p, and consider not-p a
possibility. The experimental results also illuminate the relationship
between might and
epistemic possible, which are
(contrary to the usual assumption) not synonymous. I'll discuss the
implications of these results for a variety of epistemic items, arguing that
they problematize Kratzer's (1991) influential proposal as well and favor a
theory where epistemic modals are given a semantics built around the
probabilistic support of a proposition. |
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April 21, 2016 Todor Koev Heinrich-Heine-UniversitŠt DŸsseldorf Countability and the
Diminutive in Bulgarian This technical report briefly explores the count/mass distinction in
Bulgarian. It pays particular attention to diminutive modification and its
ability to achieve a mass-to-count shift when applied nouns that describe
granular aggregates. |
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April 14, 2016 Michael Daniel National Research University, Moscow Higher
School of Economics Centre
for Fundamental Studies / Laboratory of the Caucasian Languages Mass and
Class: Number,
nominal classes and mass nouns in East Caucasian In many ways,
East Caucasian languages manifest a complex interaction between the
categories of grammatical number and gender as nominal classification. One
obvious example of such interaction is that the inventory of nominal classes
in the singular (usually three to five classes) is reduced to only two
classes in the plural – human vs. non-human. Not less important, though
probably somewhat less salient, is the treatment of mass nouns as P(luralia)
T(antum). Thus, in Dargwa languages, mass nouns show non-human plural
agreement. That mass nouns are PT is, of course, by no means typologically
unexpected. What is peculiar is that the mass nouns show this agreement
though being morphologically singular, while, at least for some of them,
morphologically plural forms are also available. Similar but more complex is
the situation in Archi, an outlier of the Lezgic branch of the family. In
Archi, mass nouns are usually described as fourth class (singular).
Incidentally, agreement pattern for this class is identical to non-human
plural. Many of these nouns show plural inflectional morphology. This
morphology is however not consistent and is coupled with singular agreement
on the attributes. I suggest that mismatches between morphology and agreement
are explained by a more general morphosyntactic property of East Caucasian
languages that do not ascribe agreement pattern to a lexical item as a whole
but do this separately to its singular and plural forms, and that the
ascription is governed not only by lexicon but is partly driven by semantics
of the respective morphologically singular and plural forms. |
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February 10, 2016 Simon Dobnik University of
Gothenburg Interfacing
Language, Spatial Perception and Cognition in Type Theory with Records |
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January 27, 2016 Fabienne Martin The imperfective in
subjunctive conditionals: fake or real aspect? This
talk aims to provide a 'real aspect' approach of the 'fake' imperfective in subjunctive
conditionals (SCs) and a new account of the (non)-cancellability of the
counterfactual inference in SCs, largely based on IppolitoÕs 2013. It is
argued that PAST and PRES above MODAL in conditionals compete the same way as
in non-modal stative sentences, see Altshuler and Schwarzschild 2012. On this
view, the counterfactual inference of SCs, when cancellable, is nothing else
than the cessation implicature routinely triggered by past stative sentences. |
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January 20, 2016 Fred Landman Tel Aviv University and University of
TŸbingen Aspects of Event Semantics for Aspect |
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January 13, 2016 Todor Koev Parentheticality
and Discourse
(i)
the backgrounded status and projection/scopal properties of implications
triggered by slifting parentheticals, (ii)
the often weakened assertion strength of the main clause, (iii)
the requirement that slifting parentheticals create an upward-entailing
environment (cf. #*The dean, Susan doubts, flirted with the secretary*). I will
argue against the idea that the main clause is interpreted in the scope of
the slifting predicate. Rather, I suggest that the strength of the main
clause depends in a quasi-pragmatic way on the slifting parenthetical, as the
latter can lower the assertability threshold for the main clause. I will also
try to derive the informational properties and the polarity restrictions on
slifting parentheticals from their role as providing grounds for the main
claim of the sentence. |
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December 9, 2015 Paul Gaus Result States in the Perfect
Time Span - Combination of two Theories of the Perfect The Perfect Time Span approach (PTS) is an
approach which tries to capture perfect meanings by locating the
Reichenbachian Event Time (E) within a time span. I found that in German
certain accomplishment constructions cannot be captured by this approach. In
this thesis I will show a solution to this problem by combining the PTS
approach with the so called Result State approach. My modi |
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December 3, 2015 Todor
Koev Heinrich Heine University Appositive
Projection and Its Exceptions This paper has two major goals. The first is to offer a comprehensive
account of the projection properties of appositive constructions. Appositives
posit a challenge to traditional assumptions about form and meaning because
they are interpreted in situ with respect to order-dependent phenomena like
discourse anaphora but nevertheless escape the scope of entailment-canceling
operators like negation or modals. Accounting for this pattern requires an
innovative way of looking at propositional operators and how they interact
with appositives. The second goal of the paper is to address various claimed
exceptions to the otherwise robust projectivity of appositives. I argue that
in some cases the construction under consideration is most likely not an
appositive at all. In other cases, the observed non-speaker-oriented readings
can be derived by pragmatic reasoning or are due to a perspective shift.
Although genuine instances of semantically embedded appositives do seem to
exist, I point out that such data have a limited empirical scope. I conclude
that appositive projection is a pervasive phenomenon and is part and parcel
of the semantics of appositives. |
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November 25, 2015 Peter Sutton
and Hana Filip Heinrich Heine University DŸsseldorf Mass/Count
Variation: A Mereological 2d Supervaluationist Semantics We propose a
novel analysis of the mass/count distinction, within a new framework:
2-dimensional mereological supervaluationism. While the notions akin to
VAGUENESS [1], SEMANTIC ATOMICITY [4] and OVERLAP [3] are needed to ground
this distinction, no single notion is sufficient to fit the whole range of
data, especially intra- and crosslinguistic variation in mass [-C] vs. count
[+C] encoding. We make this variation tractable by treating it as following
from the interaction of all three of the above notions. We formally derive
four semantic classes of nouns (which closely match those in [2]) to explain
these form-denotation mappings and overcome challenges faced by [1; 3; 4]. References [1] Chierchia, G., 2010. Mass nouns, vagueness & semantic
variation. Synth. 174, 99-149. [2] Grimm, S., 2012. Number & Individuation. PhD Diss., Stanford
University. [3] Landman,
F., 2011. Count nouns, Mass nouns, Neat nouns, Mess nouns. In: The Baltic
International Yearbook of Cognition: Vol. 6. pp. 1-67. [4] Rothstein, S., 2010. Counting & the mass/count distinction.
JoS 27 (3), 343-397. |
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November 19, 2015 Susan Rothstein Bar Ilan University
(Israel) & TŸbingen University Object mass nouns from a crosslinguistic
perspective Rothstein 2010,
Schwarzschild 2011 show that nouns like furniture denote sets of individuable
entities. Barner and Snedeker (2005) show further that comparisons such as
who has more furniture? typically are answered by comparing cardinalities. On
this basis they suggest that object mass nouns have essentially the same
denotations as count nouns. In the first part of the talk, I will show that
the conclusions drawn by Barner and Snedeker (2005) are too strong: while
comparisons of object mass nouns may involve comparing cardinalities, they
need not do so. There is thus a basic contrast between object mass nouns and
count nouns: count nouns require comparison by cardinality while object mass
nouns allow it, but also allow comparisons along other, continuous
dimensions. I will support this with data from English, Brazilian Portuguese,
Hungarian and Mandarin. This means that object mass nouns and count nouns
must have different semantic interpretations, contra e.g. Bale and Barner (2009).
But whatever semantics we give for object mass and count nouns, we need to
answer the obvious question: If object mass nouns are not countable, how can
they be compared in terms of cardinality? In the second part of the talk, I
offer a solution to this problem, proposing that there are cardinality
scales, which allow us to evaluate and compare quantities in terms of their
perceived or estimated number of atomic parts without actually counting the
atoms. This allows us to clarify the distinction between counting and
measuring, and to maintain the general principle that only count nouns have
countable denotations. |
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November
11, 2015 Henk Zeevat Heinrich
Heine University Presupposition Blocking by Causal Inference The talk develops an
account of causal inferences in update semantics. A typical case would be the
inference of a causal relation in: When John pushed the
button, the bomb exploded. While cause inferences
have many applications, the talk applies it to presupposition projection. It
shows that the effects of Karttunen's satisfaction theory are better captured
by causal inferences than by the logical satisfaction relation employed by
Karttunen. E.g. blocking is not predicted by satisfaction in: If Marie is French,
she has stopped eating snails. It is after all just
false that every French person eats snails. But there is a plausible causal
inference that being French can lead to eating snails. In: If John has
grandchildren, his children are happy. most people infer that
John has children, contra the satisfaction theory. And of course, children
are the cause of grandchildren and not inversely.The talk also adds a new
class of presupposition blocking that is unreducible to the satisfaction
theory, based on identity inferences. |
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November
4, 2015 Rainer Osswald Heinrich
Heine University Quantification in Frame Semantics with Hybrid Logic |