Papers by Lavi Wolf
This paper is inspired by two lines of thought in the semantic-pragmatic literature which are usu... more This paper is inspired by two lines of thought in the semantic-pragmatic literature which are usually discussed separately, namely the view that some epistemic modals at the propositional level (e.g. modal adjectives) are gradable and the view that speech acts are syntactically and compositionally active.
Integrating these two views we suggest that assertion speech acts should be themselves modeled as gradable, and more specifically, that the covert speech act operator ASSERT denotes a (credence) degree relation, and is modifiable by overt and covert degree modifiers, manipulating this degree. We show that such a view enables capturing novel parallels between overt and covert degree modification of adjectives at the propositional level and some overt and covert modifiers of assertion speech acts.
This paper analyses epistemic modal adverbs and adjectives, both theoretically and experimentally... more This paper analyses epistemic modal adverbs and adjectives, both theoretically and experimentally, while addressing the prevalent conceptions of modality and context update. While modality is standardly viewed and represented uniformly, we show that epistemic modal adverbs and adjectives differ in various linguistic environments, and present experimental evidence that supports the claim that epistemic modal adverbs and adjectives differ in terms of cognitive processing. While context update is standardly viewed as a two-stage process composed of assertion and acceptance/rejection, we present experimental evidence that supports the claim that there is also a stage of evaluation, in which the hearer considers the content of the assertion and the implications of adding this content to the common ground.
to appear in: Proceedings of the Israel Association of Theoretical Linguistics (IATL) 30
Olga Kagan & Lavi Wolf
The semantics of almost and its counterparts in other languages has attr... more Olga Kagan & Lavi Wolf
The semantics of almost and its counterparts in other languages has attracted considerable attention in the linguistic literature (cf. e.g. Sadock 1981, Sevi 1998, Horn 2002, Rotstein and Winter 2004, Penka 2005, Nouwen 2006, Greenberg and Ronen 2013 and references therein.) A number of analyses have been proposed, but certain questions still remain unanswered. The goal of this paper is to contribute to this investigation by proposing an analysis of a certain sub-use of almost (specifically, the counterfactual use) and by analyzing its Russian counterparts.
to appear in: van Wijnbergen-Huitink, Janneke & Cécile Meier (eds.): Subjective Meaning. Alternatives to Relativism. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Predicates of personal taste give rise to faultless disagreement, meaning that they encode a dual... more Predicates of personal taste give rise to faultless disagreement, meaning that they encode a duality that allows them to invoke objective disagreement and to subjectively refrain from assigning blame. The claim of this paper is that this duality interacts with the evidential step, a conversational move from an assertion that functions as a source of evidence pertaining to a proposition, to the context update of this proposition. PPT assertions fail to do the evidential step due to their irreducible perspective dependency, and are consequently reinterpreted and updated as an objectivized mixture model. The paper presents a conversational theory that is able to account for faultless disagreement as well as for new and old problems and puzzles previously unaccounted for.
in Paul Égré and Nathan Klinedinst (Eds.), "Vagueness and Language Use", Palgrave Studies in Pragmatics, Language and Cognition, Basingstoke. Palgrave Macmillan., 2011
International Journal for Language Data Processing, Sprache und Datenverabeitung, Vol.33.1-2. pp.169-177., 2009
Manuscripts by Lavi Wolf
Olga Kagan & Lavi Wolf
The present paper investigates the degree item čut' in Russian, which can... more Olga Kagan & Lavi Wolf
The present paper investigates the degree item čut' in Russian, which can be tentatively translated as 'slightly' or 'a bit'. Its properties are of interest because it can appear in range of different domains. We show that it can be found in the AP, VP, AspP and NegP areas. We argue that in all these domains, čut' makes the same semantic contribution. Specifically, it applies to a predicate that has a degree argument as part of its semantics and contributes the entailment that this degree slightly exceeds the standard of comparison on the relevant scale. When combined with negated VPs, čut' applies to a likelihood scale, which results in a reading comparable to that of the counterfactual almost. The investigation of this degree modifier points to the linguistic relevance of scale structure across domains.
Unpublished manuscript
Talks and posters by Lavi Wolf
Poster presented at Sinn und Bedeutung 20
Dissertation by Lavi Wolf
This dissertation raises the conceptually simple idea that one may assert a sentence with varying... more This dissertation raises the conceptually simple idea that one may assert a sentence with varying degrees of strength and shows that it has wide ranging applications to a variety of linguistic issues.
Talks by Lavi Wolf
NELS49, 2018
The literature on the dynamics of discourse examines in detail response particles (e.g. English y... more The literature on the dynamics of discourse examines in detail response particles (e.g. English yes vs. no). But ‘intensified responses’ (e.g. Sure! / Absolutely! Vs. No way! / Hell no!) received almost no attention within this framework, although they are commonly used. We attempt to make first steps in this direction by examining one specific ‘intensifying response particle’: The Hebrew legamreyresp ( English absolutely / German absolut). We follow Greenberg & Wolf 2018 who argued that the assertion speech act operator ASSERT (e.g. Krifka 2014) is inherently gradable, denoting a degree relation between propositions and degrees of credence, and propose that legamreyresp is a degree modifier of ASSERT, which is anaphoric to a proposition asserted / questioned in a previous move in the discourse (cf. Krifka 2013), and (re)-asserts this proposition with a maximal degree of credence. This leads to an effect of “I am completely certain that the previously asserted / questioned proposition is true”. We further show that the proposal has two important advantages: (a) it captures the similarities and differences between the response particle - legamreyresp - and another, propositional use of legamrey (legmareyprop) - the standard ‘maximizing’ degree modifier of Upper-closed adjectives (completely) and (B) it correctly derives the mixed behavior of legamreyresp relative to that of two other response particles in Hebrew - ken (yes / ja) and naxon (right) - in responses to positive and negative assertions, to polar questions and in conditional antecedents.
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Papers by Lavi Wolf
Integrating these two views we suggest that assertion speech acts should be themselves modeled as gradable, and more specifically, that the covert speech act operator ASSERT denotes a (credence) degree relation, and is modifiable by overt and covert degree modifiers, manipulating this degree. We show that such a view enables capturing novel parallels between overt and covert degree modification of adjectives at the propositional level and some overt and covert modifiers of assertion speech acts.
The semantics of almost and its counterparts in other languages has attracted considerable attention in the linguistic literature (cf. e.g. Sadock 1981, Sevi 1998, Horn 2002, Rotstein and Winter 2004, Penka 2005, Nouwen 2006, Greenberg and Ronen 2013 and references therein.) A number of analyses have been proposed, but certain questions still remain unanswered. The goal of this paper is to contribute to this investigation by proposing an analysis of a certain sub-use of almost (specifically, the counterfactual use) and by analyzing its Russian counterparts.
Manuscripts by Lavi Wolf
The present paper investigates the degree item čut' in Russian, which can be tentatively translated as 'slightly' or 'a bit'. Its properties are of interest because it can appear in range of different domains. We show that it can be found in the AP, VP, AspP and NegP areas. We argue that in all these domains, čut' makes the same semantic contribution. Specifically, it applies to a predicate that has a degree argument as part of its semantics and contributes the entailment that this degree slightly exceeds the standard of comparison on the relevant scale. When combined with negated VPs, čut' applies to a likelihood scale, which results in a reading comparable to that of the counterfactual almost. The investigation of this degree modifier points to the linguistic relevance of scale structure across domains.
Unpublished manuscript
Talks and posters by Lavi Wolf
Dissertation by Lavi Wolf
Talks by Lavi Wolf
Integrating these two views we suggest that assertion speech acts should be themselves modeled as gradable, and more specifically, that the covert speech act operator ASSERT denotes a (credence) degree relation, and is modifiable by overt and covert degree modifiers, manipulating this degree. We show that such a view enables capturing novel parallels between overt and covert degree modification of adjectives at the propositional level and some overt and covert modifiers of assertion speech acts.
The semantics of almost and its counterparts in other languages has attracted considerable attention in the linguistic literature (cf. e.g. Sadock 1981, Sevi 1998, Horn 2002, Rotstein and Winter 2004, Penka 2005, Nouwen 2006, Greenberg and Ronen 2013 and references therein.) A number of analyses have been proposed, but certain questions still remain unanswered. The goal of this paper is to contribute to this investigation by proposing an analysis of a certain sub-use of almost (specifically, the counterfactual use) and by analyzing its Russian counterparts.
The present paper investigates the degree item čut' in Russian, which can be tentatively translated as 'slightly' or 'a bit'. Its properties are of interest because it can appear in range of different domains. We show that it can be found in the AP, VP, AspP and NegP areas. We argue that in all these domains, čut' makes the same semantic contribution. Specifically, it applies to a predicate that has a degree argument as part of its semantics and contributes the entailment that this degree slightly exceeds the standard of comparison on the relevant scale. When combined with negated VPs, čut' applies to a likelihood scale, which results in a reading comparable to that of the counterfactual almost. The investigation of this degree modifier points to the linguistic relevance of scale structure across domains.
Unpublished manuscript