Lisa Matthewson
UBC, Linguistics, Faculty Member
Over the 100 years since IJAL's inaugural issue, research on semantics in indigenous languages of the Americas has advanced the field in at least three major ways. It has greatly expanded our empirical knowledge of semantics in... more
Over the 100 years since IJAL's inaugural issue, research on semantics in indigenous languages of the Americas has advanced the field in at least three major ways. It has greatly expanded our empirical knowledge of semantics in non-European languages, it has provided methodological breakthroughs, and it has had significant impact on linguistic theory. This paper provides an overview of contributions and progress in these three areas over the past century, focusing in particular on languages of the Pacific Northwest. It concludes with thoughts about what needs to be done in the next century.
There is a long-standing debate on the nature of definiteness in natural language: does it involve familiarity, uniqueness, or both? This paper contributes to the debate by providing a semantic analysis of the definite article nʊ in Akan... more
There is a long-standing debate on the nature of definiteness in natural language: does it involve familiarity, uniqueness, or both? This paper contributes to the debate by providing a semantic analysis of the definite article nʊ in Akan (Kwa). We provide evidence that nʊ strictly encodes familiarity; it introduces a presupposition that the relevant discourse referent is present in the common ground between speaker and hearer. In almost every respect it parallels German 'strong' definite articles as analyzed by Schwarz (2009), and thus provides cross-linguistic support for Schwarz's claim that there are definite articles which encode pure familiarity. Following other researchers, we observe that nʊ can also be used as a third-person singular (animate) pronoun. We argue that in both its determiner and pronominal uses nʊ contributes the same core semantics: familiarity. This is in line with the close parallel between determiners and third person pronouns (cf. Postal, 1966).
Research Interests:
The Salish language family is of special interest for syntactic and semantic theory because it has been argued to differ radically from Indo-European languages in both structure and interpretation (see, eg, Kinkade 1983; Jelinek and... more
The Salish language family is of special interest for syntactic and semantic theory because it has been argued to differ radically from Indo-European languages in both structure and interpretation (see, eg, Kinkade 1983; Jelinek and Demers 1994; Jelinek 1995; Ritter and Wiltschko ...
Research Interests:
... An epistemic modal, on the other hand, is something which introduces quantification overepistemically accessible possible worlds. ... In all stereotypical worlds compatible with the speaker's knowledge, Maria is at... more
... An epistemic modal, on the other hand, is something which introduces quantification overepistemically accessible possible worlds. ... In all stereotypical worlds compatible with the speaker's knowledge, Maria is at school. We see that evidentials and epistemic modals have ...
It is interesting and surely non-coincidental that the semantic primitives proposed by NSM researchers include some of the most hotly-debated topics in the formal semantics literature. There is a large body of formal semantic research... more
It is interesting and surely non-coincidental that the semantic primitives proposed by NSM researchers include some of the most hotly-debated topics in the formal semantics literature. There is a large body of formal semantic research (too large to be cited here) on each of the following ...
Research Interests:
The St'át'imcets (Lillooet Salish) subjunctive mood appears in nine distinct environments, with a range of semantic eects, including weakening an imperative to a polite request, turning a question into an... more
The St'át'imcets (Lillooet Salish) subjunctive mood appears in nine distinct environments, with a range of semantic eects, including weakening an imperative to a polite request, turning a question into an uncertainty statement, and creating an ignorance free relative. The St'át'imcets subjunc- tive also diers from Indo-European subjunctives in that it is not selected by attitude verbs. In this paper I
Research Interests:
Wiltschko (2003) proposes that Halkomelem Salish possesses interpretable T features on D, and as a consequence lacks both nominative Case and a TP projection. In this reply to Wiltschko's paper, I argue instead that... more
Wiltschko (2003) proposes that Halkomelem Salish possesses interpretable T features on D, and as a consequence lacks both nominative Case and a TP projection. In this reply to Wiltschko's paper, I argue instead that Salish languages have tense and Case systems which are ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This paper investigates an element in St'át'imcets (Lillooet Salish) which appears to straddle the divide between weak and strong quantifiers. This element, nukw, is described by van Eijk (1997:131; 263) as being an indefinite... more
This paper investigates an element in St'át'imcets (Lillooet Salish) which appears to straddle the divide between weak and strong quantifiers. This element, nukw, is described by van Eijk (1997:131; 263) as being an indefinite quantifier meaning 'some' or 'other'. Some ...
... Download: http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/lmatthewson/pdf/presupp CACHED: Download as a PDF. by Lisa Matthewson. Add To MetaCart. ... MISC{Matthewson_presuppositionsand, author = {LisaMatthewson}, title = {Presuppositions and... more
... Download: http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/lmatthewson/pdf/presupp CACHED: Download as a PDF. by Lisa Matthewson. Add To MetaCart. ... MISC{Matthewson_presuppositionsand, author = {LisaMatthewson}, title = {Presuppositions and Cross-Linguistic Variation }, year = {} }. ...
The first goal of this paper is to determine whether superficially 'tenseless' sentences like (1b) contain a covert tense morpheme; I will argue that they do. The second goal is to determine what the semantics of that tense... more
The first goal of this paper is to determine whether superficially 'tenseless' sentences like (1b) contain a covert tense morpheme; I will argue that they do. The second goal is to determine what the semantics of that tense morpheme is. I will propose that (1b) contains a ...
The standard analysis of quantification says that determiner quantifiers (such as every) take an NP predicate and create a generalized quantifier. The goal of this paper is to subject these beliefs to crosslinguistic scrutiny. I begin by... more
The standard analysis of quantification says that determiner quantifiers (such as every) take an NP predicate and create a generalized quantifier. The goal of this paper is to subject these beliefs to crosslinguistic scrutiny. I begin by showing that in St'át'imcets (Lillooet Salish), ...
Research Interests:
This dissertation has three main goals: 1. To provide an analysis of the syntax and semantics of Salish determiners and quantifiers. 2. To provide an account of differences in the determiner and quantification systems of Salish and... more
This dissertation has three main goals: 1. To provide an analysis of the syntax and semantics of Salish determiners and quantifiers. 2. To provide an account of differences in the determiner and quantification systems of Salish and English which reduces cross-linguistic variation ...
This paper argues that in St'át'imcets (Lillooet Salish), modal notions are expressed via elements which have no inherent quantificational force (and thus allow both necessity and possibility interpretations), but which... more
This paper argues that in St'át'imcets (Lillooet Salish), modal notions are expressed via elements which have no inherent quantificational force (and thus allow both necessity and possibility interpretations), but which explicitly delimit the modal base. We focus on four modal ...
Every sentence we hear is instantly analyzed by an inner grammar; just as a prism refracts a beam of light, grammar divides a stream of sound, linking diverse strings of information to different domains of mindmemory, vision, emotions,... more
Every sentence we hear is instantly analyzed by an inner grammar; just as a prism refracts a beam of light, grammar divides a stream of sound, linking diverse strings of information to different domains of mindmemory, vision, emotions, intentions. In The Prism of Grammar, Tom ...
The goal of this paper is to investigate the expression of manner from a cross linguistic perspective. Our main concern is to investigate whether cross linguistic evidence supports an analysis of all manner adverbials as predicates over... more
The goal of this paper is to investigate the expression of manner from a cross linguistic perspective. Our main concern is to investigate whether cross linguistic evidence supports an analysis of all manner adverbials as predicates over events. We will approach this ...
Research Interests:
A compositional analysis is provided of temporal perspective and orientation (Condoravdi 2002) of modals in Dutch, English, Gitksan (Tsimshianic) and St'át'imcets (Lillooet Salish). Modals interact freely with the tense-aspect... more
A compositional analysis is provided of temporal perspective and orientation (Condoravdi 2002) of modals in Dutch, English, Gitksan (Tsimshianic) and St'át'imcets (Lillooet Salish). Modals interact freely with the tense-aspect architecture in each language. Temporal perspective is determined by an operator scoping over the modal, usually tense, while temporal orientation is determined by aspectual operators below it (and further restricted by the diversity condition). In contrast to much of the literature, it is argued that epistemic modals can scope under past tense. Modal-temporal interactions behave in predictable ways in Dutch, Gitksan and St'át'imcets, whereas the English system is more idiosyncratic and partly lexicalized. *