The paper investigates the discourse effects of bare nominal pseudo-incorporated objects in Persi... more The paper investigates the discourse effects of bare nominal pseudo-incorporated objects in Persian. Contrary to claims that such nominals cannot be antecedents to anaphora, experimental results show that that their anaphoric potential is only somewhat reduced, compared to indefinites. This is consonant with Krifka & Modarresi (2016), according to which they are interpreted like functional definites that are dependent on the event denoted by the verb that undergo existential closure.
The starting point of the present paper is the assumption that negative sentences introduce two p... more The starting point of the present paper is the assumption that negative sentences introduce two propositional discourse referents, one for the negative proposition and one for the negated, positive proposition. Both propositional discourse referents can be picked up by propositional anaphors, resulting in potential ambiguity (e.g. Ernie: Cookie Monster didn't eat the cookie. Bert: Kermit believes that[CM didn't eat the cookie / CM ate the cookie]). We report an explorative experimental study on the interpretation of propositional anaphors that are polarity-ambiguous between a resolution with the negative and the positive propositional discourse referent. We employed two different methods, a direct task (forced choice) and a more indirect task (acceptability rating), which yielded mixed results. Taken together, the findings of our study point to a preference for resolving polarity-ambiguous propositional anaphors with the negative propositional discourse referent and they dem...
The sentence With these three shirts and four pairs of pants, one can make twelve different outfi... more The sentence With these three shirts and four pairs of pants, one can make twelve different outfits does not entail that one can dress twelve persons. The article pro-poses an analysis of "configurational" entities like outfits as individual concepts. It investigates the interaction of noun phrases based on such nouns with temporal and modal operators and in collective and cumulative interpretations. It also dis-cusses a generalization from tokens to types, as in with the seven pieces of a tan-gram set, one can lay dozens of figures, suggesting an analysis of outfits and tan-gram figures in terms of properties.
This paper investigates the interpretation of the epistemic modal adjectives possible, certain an... more This paper investigates the interpretation of the epistemic modal adjectives possible, certain and their adverbial counterparts possibly, certainly, taking the perspective that the former express objective modality, whereas the latter express subjective modality. In support of this view, we report on two experiments that assess speakers’ acceptance of possible, certain, possibly, certainly in different contexts. Our results extend those of Lassiter (2016) in demonstrating a difference in interpretation between the adjectival and adverbial modals, with possibly less acceptable than possible but conversely certainly more acceptable than certain in the same situations. Furthermore, the results of our experiments suggest a new insight, namely that these differences depend, to some extent, on the probability of the eventuality in question and polarity of the prejacent sentence.
Hawkins' book is concerned with regularities of word order and word order change in the Green... more Hawkins' book is concerned with regularities of word order and word order change in the Greenberg and Vennemann tradition. In this review it is argued that H. offers some new data and ideas, but that his work does not constitute a substantial progress. My main points of criticism are that H.'s data do not warrant the conclusions he draws if one applies statistically sound methods, and that H. considers only a restricted set of possible explanations for word order regularities.
This paper explores an account of conservativity based on copy theory of movement, based on sugge... more This paper explores an account of conservativity based on copy theory of movement, based on suggestions in Chierchia (1995), Fox (2002), Ludlow (2002) and Sportiche (2005). In this approach, conservativity is not a constraint on the lexicon, but rather just a by-product of the syntax-semantics interface. The reason for the (apparent) absence of non-conservative determiners from natural languages is that in entering chain relations in the syntax, they would lead to quantificational clauses truth-conditionally equivalent to ones created by regular conservative determiners. When these clauses have non-trivial meanings (i.e., non-contradictory and non-tautological), then the relevant non-conservative determiner's meaning might very well exist, but we cannot be sure as we could obtain the same sentence meaning with some conservative function instead. In other cases, the clauses created would have trivial meanings, and this would be the reason for their absence (Gajewski 2002). I then...
The sentence With these three shirts and four pairs of pants, one can make twelve different outfi... more The sentence With these three shirts and four pairs of pants, one can make twelve different outfits does not entail that one can dress twelve persons. The article proposes an analysis of "configurational" entities like outfits as individual concepts. It investigates the interaction of noun phrases based on such nouns with temporal and modal operators and in collective and cumulative interpretations. It also discusses a generalization from tokens to types, as in with the seven pieces of a tangram set, one can lay dozens of figures, suggesting an analysis of outfits and tangram figures in terms of properties.
Quantified NPs in questions lead to three distinct interpretations that can be recognized in thei... more Quantified NPs in questions lead to three distinct interpretations that can be recognized in their congruent answers. Assume a potlatch party with three guests, Al, Bill and Carl. Ques-tion (1) is asked. The narrow-scope reading of (1) requires answers like (2a), the functional reading, answers like (2b), and the pair-list reading, answers like (2c). (1) Which dish did every guest make? (2) a. (Every guest made) pasta. b. (Every guest made) his favorite dish. c. Al (made) the pasta; Bill, the salad; and Carl, the pudding. Evidence that these are indeed three distinct readings of the question comes from the fact that in certain cases, one or two of the answers are ruled out. First, in certain syntactic configurations pair-list readings appear to be absent. This is the case, for example, if the quantified NP occupies the object position. Witness the following contrast: (3) Which person did every male guest like? a. Doris. b. His partner at table.
The paper investigates the discourse effects of bare nominal pseudo-incorporated objects in Persi... more The paper investigates the discourse effects of bare nominal pseudo-incorporated objects in Persian. Contrary to claims that such nominals cannot be antecedents to anaphora, experimental results show that that their anaphoric potential is only somewhat reduced, compared to indefinites. This is consonant with Krifka & Modarresi (2016), according to which they are interpreted like functional definites that are dependent on the event denoted by the verb that undergo existential closure.
The starting point of the present paper is the assumption that negative sentences introduce two p... more The starting point of the present paper is the assumption that negative sentences introduce two propositional discourse referents, one for the negative proposition and one for the negated, positive proposition. Both propositional discourse referents can be picked up by propositional anaphors, resulting in potential ambiguity (e.g. Ernie: Cookie Monster didn't eat the cookie. Bert: Kermit believes that[CM didn't eat the cookie / CM ate the cookie]). We report an explorative experimental study on the interpretation of propositional anaphors that are polarity-ambiguous between a resolution with the negative and the positive propositional discourse referent. We employed two different methods, a direct task (forced choice) and a more indirect task (acceptability rating), which yielded mixed results. Taken together, the findings of our study point to a preference for resolving polarity-ambiguous propositional anaphors with the negative propositional discourse referent and they dem...
The sentence With these three shirts and four pairs of pants, one can make twelve different outfi... more The sentence With these three shirts and four pairs of pants, one can make twelve different outfits does not entail that one can dress twelve persons. The article pro-poses an analysis of "configurational" entities like outfits as individual concepts. It investigates the interaction of noun phrases based on such nouns with temporal and modal operators and in collective and cumulative interpretations. It also dis-cusses a generalization from tokens to types, as in with the seven pieces of a tan-gram set, one can lay dozens of figures, suggesting an analysis of outfits and tan-gram figures in terms of properties.
This paper investigates the interpretation of the epistemic modal adjectives possible, certain an... more This paper investigates the interpretation of the epistemic modal adjectives possible, certain and their adverbial counterparts possibly, certainly, taking the perspective that the former express objective modality, whereas the latter express subjective modality. In support of this view, we report on two experiments that assess speakers’ acceptance of possible, certain, possibly, certainly in different contexts. Our results extend those of Lassiter (2016) in demonstrating a difference in interpretation between the adjectival and adverbial modals, with possibly less acceptable than possible but conversely certainly more acceptable than certain in the same situations. Furthermore, the results of our experiments suggest a new insight, namely that these differences depend, to some extent, on the probability of the eventuality in question and polarity of the prejacent sentence.
Hawkins' book is concerned with regularities of word order and word order change in the Green... more Hawkins' book is concerned with regularities of word order and word order change in the Greenberg and Vennemann tradition. In this review it is argued that H. offers some new data and ideas, but that his work does not constitute a substantial progress. My main points of criticism are that H.'s data do not warrant the conclusions he draws if one applies statistically sound methods, and that H. considers only a restricted set of possible explanations for word order regularities.
This paper explores an account of conservativity based on copy theory of movement, based on sugge... more This paper explores an account of conservativity based on copy theory of movement, based on suggestions in Chierchia (1995), Fox (2002), Ludlow (2002) and Sportiche (2005). In this approach, conservativity is not a constraint on the lexicon, but rather just a by-product of the syntax-semantics interface. The reason for the (apparent) absence of non-conservative determiners from natural languages is that in entering chain relations in the syntax, they would lead to quantificational clauses truth-conditionally equivalent to ones created by regular conservative determiners. When these clauses have non-trivial meanings (i.e., non-contradictory and non-tautological), then the relevant non-conservative determiner's meaning might very well exist, but we cannot be sure as we could obtain the same sentence meaning with some conservative function instead. In other cases, the clauses created would have trivial meanings, and this would be the reason for their absence (Gajewski 2002). I then...
The sentence With these three shirts and four pairs of pants, one can make twelve different outfi... more The sentence With these three shirts and four pairs of pants, one can make twelve different outfits does not entail that one can dress twelve persons. The article proposes an analysis of "configurational" entities like outfits as individual concepts. It investigates the interaction of noun phrases based on such nouns with temporal and modal operators and in collective and cumulative interpretations. It also discusses a generalization from tokens to types, as in with the seven pieces of a tangram set, one can lay dozens of figures, suggesting an analysis of outfits and tangram figures in terms of properties.
Quantified NPs in questions lead to three distinct interpretations that can be recognized in thei... more Quantified NPs in questions lead to three distinct interpretations that can be recognized in their congruent answers. Assume a potlatch party with three guests, Al, Bill and Carl. Ques-tion (1) is asked. The narrow-scope reading of (1) requires answers like (2a), the functional reading, answers like (2b), and the pair-list reading, answers like (2c). (1) Which dish did every guest make? (2) a. (Every guest made) pasta. b. (Every guest made) his favorite dish. c. Al (made) the pasta; Bill, the salad; and Carl, the pudding. Evidence that these are indeed three distinct readings of the question comes from the fact that in certain cases, one or two of the answers are ruled out. First, in certain syntactic configurations pair-list readings appear to be absent. This is the case, for example, if the quantified NP occupies the object position. Witness the following contrast: (3) Which person did every male guest like? a. Doris. b. His partner at table.
Uploads