In this article, I shall argue for a counterfactual analysis of the semantics of some ad-nominal ... more In this article, I shall argue for a counterfactual analysis of the semantics of some ad-nominal modifiers. This analysis formalizes the intuition that adnominal modifiers are always restrictive in some sense. Technically, the proposal is formalized with an opera-tor that applies to two intensional entities of type and returns as the value the same type of semantic entity (type: ). In terms of how the rule works, it resem-bles Predicate Modification since it requires a special rule. However, it does not inter-sect the two sets in question. Rather, the rule yields a set of entities that are not neces-sarily a subset of the entities specified by the common noun in the actual world. I call this semantic procedure Restrictive Modification (RM). Essential reasoning is given as follows: the property of being x that has the modifier property and if in all closest worlds w in which x had a crucial property that all CN entities have, then x would have the CN property in w. For example, in th...
This paper contends that Japanese counterfactual conditionals with a past tense in the consequent... more This paper contends that Japanese counterfactual conditionals with a past tense in the consequent always involve a counterfactual presupposition in that the proposition conveyed by the antecedent is required to be false. This observation reveals an important difference between English and Japanese and provides strong support to Iatridou’s (2000) contention that a “fake past tense ” (i.e. a past tense that does not indicate temporal anteriority) is used to exclude the actual world. The current literature on Japanese conditionals (including the papers collected in Masuoka 1993) does not espouse this generalization. English uses past tense to indicate counterfactuality, but not to the extent that the falsity of the antecedent is presupposed. Lewis’s (1973) analysis of counterfactuals is compatible with this fact. Examples like (1) (Anderson 1951) indicate that the falsity of the antecedent is not guaranteed in English counterfactual conditionals; it is merely implicated. (1) If a patie...
This dissertation makes substantial contributions to both the theoretical and computational treat... more This dissertation makes substantial contributions to both the theoretical and computational treatment of information structure, with an eye toward creating natural language processing applications such as multilingual machine translation systems. The aim of the present dissertation is to create a gram-mar library of information structure for the LinGO Grammar Matrix system (Bender et al. 2010b). Information structure consists of focus, topic, contrast, and background, and refers to how speakers package semantic content they wish to convey to listeners. The information structure of individual sentences is crucial to understanding the cohesiveness of larger segments of text. Despite the crucial role information structure plays in conveying meaning, there is insufficient research on how compu-tational language models might successfully incorporate information structure marking particularly from a multilingual perspective. Part I introduces the current study, and gives some background i...
This article discusses the semantics of before, with special reference to so called non-factual b... more This article discusses the semantics of before, with special reference to so called non-factual before and its interaction with adverbs of quantification. I will adopt a version of Anscombe's ( 1964) analysis of before and supplement it with a modal-temporal presupposition lexically induced by before. This account will be extended to quantificational cases as well within Rooth ' s ( 1 985) theory of association with focus. Distinct interpretations associated with so-called factual and non-factual before-clauses are explained in terms of pragmatic presuppositions. 1.
This paper contends that the so-called past tense morpheme -ta in Japanese is associated with eit... more This paper contends that the so-called past tense morpheme -ta in Japanese is associated with either [+exclude context time] or [+exclude context world] (after Iatridou 2000) when used in the main clause of a sentence. When the latter is used in the consequent (i.e., the main clause) of a conditional, the entire conditional receives a true counterfactual interpretation in that the antecedent is presupposed to be false. On the other hand, when the former is used in the consequent of a conditional, the entire conditional is an epistemic conditional about a past time. What this means is that if -ta is used in the consequent of a conditional and points to a future time, the entire conditional must be a counterfactual conditional about the future time. In other words, this occurrence of -ta must be associated with [+exclude context world]. At least in Japanese, this occurrence of -ta with the [+exclude context world] feature must be interpreted in such a way that it is truly counterfactu...
Let us start with a simple question. What does a tensed sentence mean? What is the semantic contr... more Let us start with a simple question. What does a tensed sentence mean? What is the semantic contribution of tense morphemes? Consider (1) first.
This paper argues with von Fintel (1994) and others that adverbs of quantification such as always... more This paper argues with von Fintel (1994) and others that adverbs of quantification such as always and usually are quantifiers over situations, not unselective quantifiers. However, our proposal differs from previous proposals in that it embraces the following ideas: (i) A sentence of the form δ if/when α, β (where δ is a QAdverb) means that δ-many of the maximal situations in which α obtains and throughout which β could conceivably obtain are also β-situations. The domain of quantification for an adverbial quantifier cannot be characterized in term of minimal situations, however the term inimality is defined. Moreover, each situation that serves as a counting unit may not be “extended” into a matrix clause situation. (ii) So-called E-type pronouns always receive a “weak” reading (= Indefinite Lazy Reading for Schubert and Pelletier (1989)) equivalent to an indefinite description, not the standard E-type reading. The proposal defended here is couched in Kratzer’s (1989) situation-the...
In this work, I propose a new semantic analysis of the Japanese progressive/resultative morpheme ... more In this work, I propose a new semantic analysis of the Japanese progressive/resultative morpheme -te iru, which also leads to an improved account of the English progressive and contributes to cross-linguistic theory of aspect. The proposal is based on the modal analysis of the English progressive proposed by Portner (1998) and Ferreira (2016), but it is modified to accommodate the Japanese data. Crucially, the target state (resultative) reading of -te iru is available when the subject entity is a theme/undergoer; this is not controlled by the length of the event being described. To implement this idea, this work develops a formal system in which each thematic role predicate has its own temporal argument, and this time does not necessarily equal the temporal trace of the event in question. Specifically, a theme bears the target state role associated with an event e at a time that immediately follows the temporal trace of e. In addition, to describe and explain the behavior of -te iru...
Japanese adnominal modifiers with no overt tense markings can produce “simultaneous readings” und... more Japanese adnominal modifiers with no overt tense markings can produce “simultaneous readings” under matrix predicates in the past tense. This article argues for the position that these adnominal phrases are not necessarily tenseless and that they can be gapped relative clauses that contain a phonetically empty present tense morpheme. The findings of this article reinforce the view presented in Ogihara (1996) and others that Japanese tense morphemes (both present and past) are instances of relative tense in the sense of Comrie (1985) and that this behavior is visible in both verb complements and adnominal modifier positions. In addition, the contention of this article indirectly refutes an alternative position, which claims the Japanese adnominal modifiers in question are tenseless phrases and do not involve gapped relative clauses (Kusumoto, 1999). I also offer a tentative and informal account of the semantic properties of the Japanese adnominal modifiers in question at the end of t...
In this chapter, we will consider tense morphemes in adjunct clauses. We will study relative clau... more In this chapter, we will consider tense morphemes in adjunct clauses. We will study relative clauses and temporal adverbial clauses. As pointed out in Chapter 3, some traditional grammarians such as Jespersen (1931) discuss the SOT phenomena in terms of the direct speech vs. indirect speech contrast. They analyze the SOT phenomena in terms of a “rule” that relates direct speech to indirect speech. Since adjunct clauses have no “direct speech source,” the possibility that SOT phenomena are found in such clauses would not be considered under such a rule. On the other hand, Curme (1931) characterizes the phenomena in terms of syntactic properties of tense morphemes. Some modern linguists such as Ross (1967), Costa (1972), and Ladusaw (1977) adopt the latter perspective. The SOT rule proposed in Chapter 4 is in fact defined solely in structural terms and is not sensitive to the type of clause in which the target tense morpheme is found. In this chapter, I will apply this structural interpretation of the SOT rule to adjunct clauses and will present supporting evidence for it.
In this article, I shall argue for a counterfactual analysis of the semantics of some ad-nominal ... more In this article, I shall argue for a counterfactual analysis of the semantics of some ad-nominal modifiers. This analysis formalizes the intuition that adnominal modifiers are always restrictive in some sense. Technically, the proposal is formalized with an opera-tor that applies to two intensional entities of type and returns as the value the same type of semantic entity (type: ). In terms of how the rule works, it resem-bles Predicate Modification since it requires a special rule. However, it does not inter-sect the two sets in question. Rather, the rule yields a set of entities that are not neces-sarily a subset of the entities specified by the common noun in the actual world. I call this semantic procedure Restrictive Modification (RM). Essential reasoning is given as follows: the property of being x that has the modifier property and if in all closest worlds w in which x had a crucial property that all CN entities have, then x would have the CN property in w. For example, in th...
This paper contends that Japanese counterfactual conditionals with a past tense in the consequent... more This paper contends that Japanese counterfactual conditionals with a past tense in the consequent always involve a counterfactual presupposition in that the proposition conveyed by the antecedent is required to be false. This observation reveals an important difference between English and Japanese and provides strong support to Iatridou’s (2000) contention that a “fake past tense ” (i.e. a past tense that does not indicate temporal anteriority) is used to exclude the actual world. The current literature on Japanese conditionals (including the papers collected in Masuoka 1993) does not espouse this generalization. English uses past tense to indicate counterfactuality, but not to the extent that the falsity of the antecedent is presupposed. Lewis’s (1973) analysis of counterfactuals is compatible with this fact. Examples like (1) (Anderson 1951) indicate that the falsity of the antecedent is not guaranteed in English counterfactual conditionals; it is merely implicated. (1) If a patie...
This dissertation makes substantial contributions to both the theoretical and computational treat... more This dissertation makes substantial contributions to both the theoretical and computational treatment of information structure, with an eye toward creating natural language processing applications such as multilingual machine translation systems. The aim of the present dissertation is to create a gram-mar library of information structure for the LinGO Grammar Matrix system (Bender et al. 2010b). Information structure consists of focus, topic, contrast, and background, and refers to how speakers package semantic content they wish to convey to listeners. The information structure of individual sentences is crucial to understanding the cohesiveness of larger segments of text. Despite the crucial role information structure plays in conveying meaning, there is insufficient research on how compu-tational language models might successfully incorporate information structure marking particularly from a multilingual perspective. Part I introduces the current study, and gives some background i...
This article discusses the semantics of before, with special reference to so called non-factual b... more This article discusses the semantics of before, with special reference to so called non-factual before and its interaction with adverbs of quantification. I will adopt a version of Anscombe's ( 1964) analysis of before and supplement it with a modal-temporal presupposition lexically induced by before. This account will be extended to quantificational cases as well within Rooth ' s ( 1 985) theory of association with focus. Distinct interpretations associated with so-called factual and non-factual before-clauses are explained in terms of pragmatic presuppositions. 1.
This paper contends that the so-called past tense morpheme -ta in Japanese is associated with eit... more This paper contends that the so-called past tense morpheme -ta in Japanese is associated with either [+exclude context time] or [+exclude context world] (after Iatridou 2000) when used in the main clause of a sentence. When the latter is used in the consequent (i.e., the main clause) of a conditional, the entire conditional receives a true counterfactual interpretation in that the antecedent is presupposed to be false. On the other hand, when the former is used in the consequent of a conditional, the entire conditional is an epistemic conditional about a past time. What this means is that if -ta is used in the consequent of a conditional and points to a future time, the entire conditional must be a counterfactual conditional about the future time. In other words, this occurrence of -ta must be associated with [+exclude context world]. At least in Japanese, this occurrence of -ta with the [+exclude context world] feature must be interpreted in such a way that it is truly counterfactu...
Let us start with a simple question. What does a tensed sentence mean? What is the semantic contr... more Let us start with a simple question. What does a tensed sentence mean? What is the semantic contribution of tense morphemes? Consider (1) first.
This paper argues with von Fintel (1994) and others that adverbs of quantification such as always... more This paper argues with von Fintel (1994) and others that adverbs of quantification such as always and usually are quantifiers over situations, not unselective quantifiers. However, our proposal differs from previous proposals in that it embraces the following ideas: (i) A sentence of the form δ if/when α, β (where δ is a QAdverb) means that δ-many of the maximal situations in which α obtains and throughout which β could conceivably obtain are also β-situations. The domain of quantification for an adverbial quantifier cannot be characterized in term of minimal situations, however the term inimality is defined. Moreover, each situation that serves as a counting unit may not be “extended” into a matrix clause situation. (ii) So-called E-type pronouns always receive a “weak” reading (= Indefinite Lazy Reading for Schubert and Pelletier (1989)) equivalent to an indefinite description, not the standard E-type reading. The proposal defended here is couched in Kratzer’s (1989) situation-the...
In this work, I propose a new semantic analysis of the Japanese progressive/resultative morpheme ... more In this work, I propose a new semantic analysis of the Japanese progressive/resultative morpheme -te iru, which also leads to an improved account of the English progressive and contributes to cross-linguistic theory of aspect. The proposal is based on the modal analysis of the English progressive proposed by Portner (1998) and Ferreira (2016), but it is modified to accommodate the Japanese data. Crucially, the target state (resultative) reading of -te iru is available when the subject entity is a theme/undergoer; this is not controlled by the length of the event being described. To implement this idea, this work develops a formal system in which each thematic role predicate has its own temporal argument, and this time does not necessarily equal the temporal trace of the event in question. Specifically, a theme bears the target state role associated with an event e at a time that immediately follows the temporal trace of e. In addition, to describe and explain the behavior of -te iru...
Japanese adnominal modifiers with no overt tense markings can produce “simultaneous readings” und... more Japanese adnominal modifiers with no overt tense markings can produce “simultaneous readings” under matrix predicates in the past tense. This article argues for the position that these adnominal phrases are not necessarily tenseless and that they can be gapped relative clauses that contain a phonetically empty present tense morpheme. The findings of this article reinforce the view presented in Ogihara (1996) and others that Japanese tense morphemes (both present and past) are instances of relative tense in the sense of Comrie (1985) and that this behavior is visible in both verb complements and adnominal modifier positions. In addition, the contention of this article indirectly refutes an alternative position, which claims the Japanese adnominal modifiers in question are tenseless phrases and do not involve gapped relative clauses (Kusumoto, 1999). I also offer a tentative and informal account of the semantic properties of the Japanese adnominal modifiers in question at the end of t...
In this chapter, we will consider tense morphemes in adjunct clauses. We will study relative clau... more In this chapter, we will consider tense morphemes in adjunct clauses. We will study relative clauses and temporal adverbial clauses. As pointed out in Chapter 3, some traditional grammarians such as Jespersen (1931) discuss the SOT phenomena in terms of the direct speech vs. indirect speech contrast. They analyze the SOT phenomena in terms of a “rule” that relates direct speech to indirect speech. Since adjunct clauses have no “direct speech source,” the possibility that SOT phenomena are found in such clauses would not be considered under such a rule. On the other hand, Curme (1931) characterizes the phenomena in terms of syntactic properties of tense morphemes. Some modern linguists such as Ross (1967), Costa (1972), and Ladusaw (1977) adopt the latter perspective. The SOT rule proposed in Chapter 4 is in fact defined solely in structural terms and is not sensitive to the type of clause in which the target tense morpheme is found. In this chapter, I will apply this structural interpretation of the SOT rule to adjunct clauses and will present supporting evidence for it.
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Papers by Toshiyuki Ogihara