In this article, I address the question of the semantic analysis of structured plurals, that is, expressions like these children and those children, which seem to refer to pluralities of individuals divided into groups. In the first half of the article, I describe a variety of structured plural expressions and predicates they can combine with and I point out the difficulties faced by two extant approaches to the semantics of plurals: inflationary and cover-based semantics. In the second half of the article, I propose an alternative account which combines elements from both of them. The main novelty of my proposal is that, by capitalising on the background operation of certain pragmatic principles, it correctly formalises the fact that some interpretations of ambiguous sentences involving structured plurality are more accessible than others.
{"title":"Structured Plurality Reconsidered","authors":"Berta Grimau","doi":"10.1093/jos/ffaa012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/ffaa012","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In this article, I address the question of the semantic analysis of structured plurals, that is, expressions like these children and those children, which seem to refer to pluralities of individuals divided into groups. In the first half of the article, I describe a variety of structured plural expressions and predicates they can combine with and I point out the difficulties faced by two extant approaches to the semantics of plurals: inflationary and cover-based semantics. In the second half of the article, I propose an alternative account which combines elements from both of them. The main novelty of my proposal is that, by capitalising on the background operation of certain pragmatic principles, it correctly formalises the fact that some interpretations of ambiguous sentences involving structured plurality are more accessible than others.","PeriodicalId":15055,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Biomedical Semantics","volume":"510 1","pages":"145-193"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2020-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75231825","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We present a compositionally transparent, unified semantic analysis of two kinds of so…wie-equative constructions in German, namely degree equatives and property equatives in the domain of individuals or events. Unlike in English and many other European languages (Haspelmath & Buchholz 1998, Rett 2013), both equative types in German feature the parameter marker so, suggesting a unified analysis. We show that the parallel formal expression of German degree and property equatives is accompanied by a parallel syntactic distribution (in predicative, attributive, and adverbial position), and by identical semantic properties: Both equative types allow for scope ambiguities, show negative island effects out of context, and license the negative polarity item überhaupt ‘at all’ in the complement clause. As the same properties are also shared by German comparatives, we adopt the influential quantificational analysis of comparatives in von Stechow (1984ab), Heim (1985, 2001, 2007), and Beck (2011), and treat both German equative types in a uniform manner as expressing universal quantification over sets of degrees or over sets of properties (of individuals or events). Conceptually, the uniform marking of degree-related and property-related meanings is expected given that the abstract semantic category degree (type $d$) can be reconstructed in terms of equivalence classes, i.e., ontologically simpler sets of individuals (type $langle e,trangle $) or events (type $langle v,trangle $). These are found in any language, showing that whether or not a language makes explicit reference to degrees (by means of gradable adjectives, degree question words, degree-only equatives) does not follow on general conceptual or semantic grounds, but is determined by the grammar of that language.
{"title":"Comparisons of Equality With German so...wie, and the Relationship Between Degrees and Properties","authors":"Vera Hohaus, M. Zimmermann","doi":"10.1093/jos/ffaa011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/ffaa011","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 We present a compositionally transparent, unified semantic analysis of two kinds of so…wie-equative constructions in German, namely degree equatives and property equatives in the domain of individuals or events. Unlike in English and many other European languages (Haspelmath & Buchholz 1998, Rett 2013), both equative types in German feature the parameter marker so, suggesting a unified analysis. We show that the parallel formal expression of German degree and property equatives is accompanied by a parallel syntactic distribution (in predicative, attributive, and adverbial position), and by identical semantic properties: Both equative types allow for scope ambiguities, show negative island effects out of context, and license the negative polarity item überhaupt ‘at all’ in the complement clause. As the same properties are also shared by German comparatives, we adopt the influential quantificational analysis of comparatives in von Stechow (1984ab), Heim (1985, 2001, 2007), and Beck (2011), and treat both German equative types in a uniform manner as expressing universal quantification over sets of degrees or over sets of properties (of individuals or events). Conceptually, the uniform marking of degree-related and property-related meanings is expected given that the abstract semantic category degree (type $d$) can be reconstructed in terms of equivalence classes, i.e., ontologically simpler sets of individuals (type $langle e,trangle $) or events (type $langle v,trangle $). These are found in any language, showing that whether or not a language makes explicit reference to degrees (by means of gradable adjectives, degree question words, degree-only equatives) does not follow on general conceptual or semantic grounds, but is determined by the grammar of that language.","PeriodicalId":15055,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Biomedical Semantics","volume":"237 1","pages":"95-143"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2020-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80378056","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper investigates cumulative readings of sentences in which some, but not all of the plural expressions have a de dicto reading, i.e. sentences where the lower plural is interpreted in the scope of an attitude verb like believe. I argue that such cases represent a problem for existing accounts of cumulativity, because the required cumulative relation cannot be formed. I then motivate and propose an alternative analysis where all plural expressions are interpreted in situ: I expand the ‘plural projection’ framework put forth by Haslinger & Schmitt (2018, 2019), Schmitt (2019), where embedded pluralities ‘project’ to the denotations of higher nodes in the sense that the latter reflect the part-structure of the former and where cumulativity is derived via a compositional rule in a step-by-step fashion. I show that if the denotations of the plurals with the de dicto construal are analyzed as pluralities of individual concepts, which project in the afore-mentioned sense to pluralities of propositions, the data can be explained straightforwardly. This proposal differs from treatments in terms of collective belief that don’t appeal to pluralities of propositions ( Pasternak 2018a, b), in that it (i) arguably generalizes to a larger number of examples and (ii) links grammatical plurality in the embedded clause to the availability of cumulative readings.
{"title":"Cumulation Across Attitudes and Plural Projection","authors":"V. Schmitt","doi":"10.1093/jos/ffaa008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/ffaa008","url":null,"abstract":"This paper investigates cumulative readings of sentences in which some, but not all of the plural expressions have a de dicto reading, i.e. sentences where the lower plural is interpreted in the scope of an attitude verb like believe. I argue that such cases represent a problem for existing accounts of cumulativity, because the required cumulative relation cannot be formed. I then motivate and propose an alternative analysis where all plural expressions are interpreted in situ: I expand the ‘plural projection’ framework put forth by Haslinger & Schmitt (2018, 2019), Schmitt (2019), where embedded pluralities ‘project’ to the denotations of higher nodes in the sense that the latter reflect the part-structure of the former and where cumulativity is derived via a compositional rule in a step-by-step fashion. I show that if the denotations of the plurals with the de dicto construal are analyzed as pluralities of individual concepts, which project in the afore-mentioned sense to pluralities of propositions, the data can be explained straightforwardly. This proposal differs from treatments in terms of collective belief that don’t appeal to pluralities of propositions ( Pasternak 2018a, b), in that it (i) arguably generalizes to a larger number of examples and (ii) links grammatical plurality in the embedded clause to the availability of cumulative readings.","PeriodicalId":15055,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Biomedical Semantics","volume":"53 1","pages":"557-609"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2020-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90679310","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The German Konjunktiv II is known for its reportative and irrealis uses. This paper argues for a third, realis, use which is independent of the other two uses. Thus by uttering ‘Da wäre Saft im Kühlschrank there is.[realis subjunctive] juice in the fridge’ a speaker can signal that not only is she certain that there is juice in the fridge, but also that she is offering the juice to an interlocutor. I show that the meaning contribution of the realis subjunctive is strictly not-at-issue, and I develop a multi-dimensional formal semantics that captures both the distribution of the realis subjunctive, and its interaction with operators such as negation and tense. The conditions of use of the construction are modelled in terms of decision theory.
德国的Konjunktiv II以其报道和非现实用途而闻名。本文论证了独立于其他两种用法的第三种用法，即现实用法。因此，通过说“Da wäre Saft im k hlschrank”，就有了。“果汁在冰箱里”说话者不仅可以表示她确信冰箱里有果汁，而且还可以表示她正在把果汁提供给对话者。我证明了现实虚拟语气的意义贡献是严格不存在争议的，并且我开发了一个多维形式语义，它既捕捉了现实虚拟语气的分布，也捕捉了它与否定和时态等操作符的相互作用。根据决策理论对结构的使用条件进行建模。
{"title":"A Realis Subjunctive in German","authors":"Eva Csipak","doi":"10.1093/jos/ffz005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/ffz005","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The German Konjunktiv II is known for its reportative and irrealis uses. This paper argues for a third, realis, use which is independent of the other two uses. Thus by uttering ‘Da wäre Saft im Kühlschrank there is.[realis subjunctive] juice in the fridge’ a speaker can signal that not only is she certain that there is juice in the fridge, but also that she is offering the juice to an interlocutor. I show that the meaning contribution of the realis subjunctive is strictly not-at-issue, and I develop a multi-dimensional formal semantics that captures both the distribution of the realis subjunctive, and its interaction with operators such as negation and tense. The conditions of use of the construction are modelled in terms of decision theory.","PeriodicalId":15055,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Biomedical Semantics","volume":"8 1","pages":"475-508"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2020-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84838669","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Polar interrogatives with preposed negation (e.g., Didn’t Cam help?) convey positive epistemic bias. Polar interrogatives with even-type expressions, including prosodically stressed NPIs and minimizer NPIs (e.g., Did Cam lift a finger to help?), convey negative epistemic bias and often have a rhetorical flavor. This paper examines hybrid PQ constructions with both preposed negations and even-type expressions (e.g., Didn’t Cam lift a finger to help?; henceforth even-PNQs). It first presents a series of experimental studies which reveal that even-PNQs are characterized by complex, dual dimensions of bias contributed compositionally by both the preposed negation on the one hand and the even-type expression on the other. It then explores the theoretical implications of these results. The emerging data are shown to impose certain constraints on and generate additional desiderata for both the analyses of preposed negation questions and the analyses of even-type questions. Building on this discussion, a compositional analysis of even-PNQs is proposed. The analysis supports the presence of inner vs. outer negation ambiguity in PNQs, and identifies even-PNQs as inner-negation PNQs. It also adopts an informativity-based approach to the meaning contribution of even, formulated around the settledness of alternative issues.
{"title":"Deriving Dual Dimensions of Bias: Preposed Negation Questions with EVEN","authors":"Sunwoo Jeong","doi":"10.1093/JOS/FFAA010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/JOS/FFAA010","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Polar interrogatives with preposed negation (e.g., Didn’t Cam help?) convey positive epistemic bias. Polar interrogatives with even-type expressions, including prosodically stressed NPIs and minimizer NPIs (e.g., Did Cam lift a finger to help?), convey negative epistemic bias and often have a rhetorical flavor. This paper examines hybrid PQ constructions with both preposed negations and even-type expressions (e.g., Didn’t Cam lift a finger to help?; henceforth even-PNQs). It first presents a series of experimental studies which reveal that even-PNQs are characterized by complex, dual dimensions of bias contributed compositionally by both the preposed negation on the one hand and the even-type expression on the other. It then explores the theoretical implications of these results. The emerging data are shown to impose certain constraints on and generate additional desiderata for both the analyses of preposed negation questions and the analyses of even-type questions. Building on this discussion, a compositional analysis of even-PNQs is proposed. The analysis supports the presence of inner vs. outer negation ambiguity in PNQs, and identifies even-PNQs as inner-negation PNQs. It also adopts an informativity-based approach to the meaning contribution of even, formulated around the settledness of alternative issues.","PeriodicalId":15055,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Biomedical Semantics","volume":"6 1","pages":"49-94"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2020-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78400733","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article offers a unified theory of the licensing of Negative and Positive Polarity Items (PIs), focusing on the acceptability conditions of PPIs of the some-type, and NPIs of the any-type. It argues that licensing has both a syntactic and a semantic component. On the syntactic side, the acceptability of PIs is checked in constituents; in fact, for any given PI, only some constituents, referred to as `domains', are eligible for the evaluation of that PI. The semantic dimension of licensing consists in the sensitivity of PIs to the monotonicity properties of the syntactic environments they find themselves in. Two pieces of evidence support the semantic dimension of what I call the ‘environment-based’ approach defended here: (i.) PIs are subject to flip-flop and (ii.) certain inferences affect their acceptability by modifying the monotonicity of their environment. A third property, called ‘entanglement’ and so far unnoticed, is described: the acceptability of PIs depends on the acceptability of other PIs in the same syntactic environment. The latter property is exploited to determine what semantic property some is sensitive to: it turns out that, contrary to the consensus among researchers, some is acceptable in the complement of the set of environments in which any is acceptable, and vice versa.
{"title":"Domains of Polarity Items","authors":"Vincent Homer","doi":"10.1093/jos/ffaa006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/ffaa006","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article offers a unified theory of the licensing of Negative and Positive Polarity Items (PIs), focusing on the acceptability conditions of PPIs of the some-type, and NPIs of the any-type. It argues that licensing has both a syntactic and a semantic component. On the syntactic side, the acceptability of PIs is checked in constituents; in fact, for any given PI, only some constituents, referred to as `domains', are eligible for the evaluation of that PI. The semantic dimension of licensing consists in the sensitivity of PIs to the monotonicity properties of the syntactic environments they find themselves in. Two pieces of evidence support the semantic dimension of what I call the ‘environment-based’ approach defended here: (i.) PIs are subject to flip-flop and (ii.) certain inferences affect their acceptability by modifying the monotonicity of their environment. A third property, called ‘entanglement’ and so far unnoticed, is described: the acceptability of PIs depends on the acceptability of other PIs in the same syntactic environment. The latter property is exploited to determine what semantic property some is sensitive to: it turns out that, contrary to the consensus among researchers, some is acceptable in the complement of the set of environments in which any is acceptable, and vice versa.","PeriodicalId":15055,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Biomedical Semantics","volume":"59 4","pages":"1-48"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2020-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/jos/ffaa006","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72537153","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Following a recent discussion in Fox & Spector 2018, this paper provides an argument for a particular view of the theory of scalar implicatures and exhaustification where exhaustification is only allowed if it alters the overall sentence meaning without weakening it. I show that this idea is helpful to make sense of the so-called dependent plural interpretations, addressed within the theory of scalar implicatures in Zweig 2009 (see also Zweig 2008). Even though Zweig’s account is based on insightful and plausible assumptions (most crucially, the idea that the multiplicity component of the meaning of plurals is a scalar implicature), it ultimately fails to derive dependent plural readings. The main reason for this is the use of the Strongest Candidate Principle of Chierchia 2006 that happens to filter out the needed interpretation. Replacing the Strongest Candidate Principle with a weaker constraint on exhaustification along the lines of Fox & Spector 2018 resolves the issue, while keeping most of Zweig’s insights intact.
{"title":"Dependent Plurality and the Theory of Scalar Implicatures: Remarks on Zweig 2009","authors":"N. Ivlieva","doi":"10.1093/jos/ffaa004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/ffaa004","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Following a recent discussion in Fox & Spector 2018, this paper provides an argument for a particular view of the theory of scalar implicatures and exhaustification where exhaustification is only allowed if it alters the overall sentence meaning without weakening it.\u0000 I show that this idea is helpful to make sense of the so-called dependent plural interpretations, addressed within the theory of scalar implicatures in Zweig 2009 (see also Zweig 2008). Even though Zweig’s account is based on insightful and plausible assumptions (most crucially, the idea that the multiplicity component of the meaning of plurals is a scalar implicature), it ultimately fails to derive dependent plural readings. The main reason for this is the use of the Strongest Candidate Principle of Chierchia 2006 that happens to filter out the needed interpretation. Replacing the Strongest Candidate Principle with a weaker constraint on exhaustification along the lines of Fox & Spector 2018 resolves the issue, while keeping most of Zweig’s insights intact.","PeriodicalId":15055,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Biomedical Semantics","volume":"28 1","pages":"425-454"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2020-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84481686","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A sentence with an adverbial modifier under negation like Mike didn’t wash the window with soap gives rise to an inference that Mike did wash the window. A sentence with a plural noun like Mike washed windows gives rise to a so-called ‘multiplicity’ inference that Mike washed multiple windows. In this note, we focus on the interaction between these two inferences in sentences containing both an adverbial modifier and a plural noun under negation, like Mike didn’t wash windows with soap. We observe that this sentence has a reading conveying that Mike didn’t wash any window with soap but that he did wash multiple windows (albeit not with soap). As we discuss, this reading is not predicted by any version of the implicature approach to the multiplicity inference, in combination with the implicature treatment of the inference of adverbial modifiers. We sketch two solutions for this problem. The first keeps the implicature approach to adverbial modifiers but adopts a non-implicature approach to multiplicity based on homogeneity. The second solution holds on to the implicature approach to the multiplicity inference but accounts for the inference of adverbial modifiers as a presupposition. In addition, it adopts the idea that presuppositions can be strengthened via implicatures, as proposed recently in the literature. Either way, the interaction between multiplicity and the inference of adverbial modifiers suggests that we cannot treat both as implicatures: if we want to treat either one as an implicature, we need to do something different for the other. We end by comparing the case above to analogous cases involving different scalar inferences and showing that the ambiguity approach to the multiplicity inference does not provide a solution to our problem.
一个带有否定状语的句子，比如Mike didn 't wash the window with soap，会引出Mike确实洗过窗户的推论。一个带有复数名词的句子，如Mike washed windows，会产生所谓的“多重性”推论，即Mike洗了多个窗户。在这篇文章中，我们将重点关注这两种推论在同时包含状语和复数名词的否定句中的相互作用，比如Mike didn 't wash window with soap。我们观察到，这个句子的读作传达了迈克没有用肥皂洗任何一扇窗户，但他确实洗了多个窗户(尽管不是用肥皂)。正如我们所讨论的那样，这种阅读并不是由任何版本的多重推理的含意方法所预测的，结合状语修饰语推理的含意处理。我们对这个问题提出了两种解决方案。第一种方法对状语修饰语采用隐含方法，但对基于同质性的多重性采用非隐含方法。第二种解决方案坚持了多重推理的隐含方法，但将状语修饰语的推理作为前提。此外，它采用了一种观点，即假设可以通过含义得到加强，正如最近在文献中提出的那样。无论哪种方式，多样性和状语修饰语推理之间的相互作用表明，我们不能把两者都当作含意:如果我们想把其中任何一个当作含意，我们需要对另一个做一些不同的事情。最后，我们将上述情况与涉及不同标量推理的类似情况进行比较，并表明多重推理的模糊性方法并不能解决我们的问题。
{"title":"Multiplicity and Modifiers","authors":"Jacopo Romoli, Agata Renans","doi":"10.1093/jos/ffaa005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/ffaa005","url":null,"abstract":"A sentence with an adverbial modifier under negation like Mike didn’t wash the window with soap gives rise to an inference that Mike did wash the window. A sentence with a plural noun like Mike washed windows gives rise to a so-called ‘multiplicity’ inference that Mike washed multiple windows. In this note, we focus on the interaction between these two inferences in sentences containing both an adverbial modifier and a plural noun under negation, like Mike didn’t wash windows with soap. We observe that this sentence has a reading conveying that Mike didn’t wash any window with soap but that he did wash multiple windows (albeit not with soap). As we discuss, this reading is not predicted by any version of the implicature approach to the multiplicity inference, in combination with the implicature treatment of the inference of adverbial modifiers. We sketch two solutions for this problem. The first keeps the implicature approach to adverbial modifiers but adopts a non-implicature approach to multiplicity based on homogeneity. The second solution holds on to the implicature approach to the multiplicity inference but accounts for the inference of adverbial modifiers as a presupposition. In addition, it adopts the idea that presuppositions can be strengthened via implicatures, as proposed recently in the literature. Either way, the interaction between multiplicity and the inference of adverbial modifiers suggests that we cannot treat both as implicatures: if we want to treat either one as an implicature, we need to do something different for the other. We end by comparing the case above to analogous cases involving different scalar inferences and showing that the ambiguity approach to the multiplicity inference does not provide a solution to our problem.","PeriodicalId":15055,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Biomedical Semantics","volume":"48 1","pages":"455-474"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2020-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73018104","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper presents a novel cross-linguistic exploration of the phenomenon of Interrogative Flip at the semantics-pragmatics interfaces. Most previous studies describe an obligatory shift in the anchor of an evidential from the speaker to the addressee in interrogatives, across a diverse set of languages. In this work, we discuss a lesser-studied set of facts, which show that in many languages this shift does not take place. Modeling the contribution of evidentials with ‘judge’-sensitivity in the semantics and with newly refined notions of commitment and sourcehood in an extended dynamic pragmatics framework, the presence or absence of Interrogative Flip is shown to lie in an evidential’s ability to license a commitment update operator $uparrow $. All attested evidential systems are shown to fall in either the class of $uparrow $ licensors or not, with apparent exceptions explained across a heterogeneous array of data. A dynamic polar question operator is formulated and its interaction with $uparrow $ explored. Finally, a novel link between evidentiality and bias is established, by arguing that the lack of the Flip results in biased questions.
{"title":"The Semantics of Evidentials in Questions","authors":"Diti Bhadra","doi":"10.1093/jos/ffaa003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/ffaa003","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper presents a novel cross-linguistic exploration of the phenomenon of Interrogative Flip at the semantics-pragmatics interfaces. Most previous studies describe an obligatory shift in the anchor of an evidential from the speaker to the addressee in interrogatives, across a diverse set of languages. In this work, we discuss a lesser-studied set of facts, which show that in many languages this shift does not take place. Modeling the contribution of evidentials with ‘judge’-sensitivity in the semantics and with newly refined notions of commitment and sourcehood in an extended dynamic pragmatics framework, the presence or absence of Interrogative Flip is shown to lie in an evidential’s ability to license a commitment update operator $uparrow $. All attested evidential systems are shown to fall in either the class of $uparrow $ licensors or not, with apparent exceptions explained across a heterogeneous array of data. A dynamic polar question operator is formulated and its interaction with $uparrow $ explored. Finally, a novel link between evidentiality and bias is established, by arguing that the lack of the Flip results in biased questions.","PeriodicalId":15055,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Biomedical Semantics","volume":"33 1","pages":"367-423"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2020-06-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87913167","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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