Dayal’s (1996) account of the presuppositions of wh-questions makes faulty predictions for languages which draw number distinctions in the domain of simplex wh-expressions: Dayal predicts that a singular wh-expression should always give rise to a Uniqueness Presupposition; the Anti-Singleton Inference associated with its plural counterpart is expected to be parasitic on the uniqueness presupposition. We provide new data from Spanish and Hungarian, where simplex wh-expressions inflect for number. We claim that singular simplex wh-expressions do not give rise to a Uniqueness Presupposition, but plural simplex wh-expressions nonetheless give rise to an Anti-Singleton Inference. We provide an analysis of these facts that is consistent with Dayal’s account of constituent questions, by assigning simplex wh-expressions a type-flexible denotation.
{"title":"Who and What Do Who and What Range Over Cross-Linguistically?","authors":"P. Elliott, A. Nicolae, U. Sauerland","doi":"10.1093/jos/ffac008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/ffac008","url":null,"abstract":"Dayal’s (1996) account of the presuppositions of wh-questions makes faulty predictions for languages which draw number distinctions in the domain of simplex wh-expressions: Dayal predicts that a singular wh-expression should always give rise to a Uniqueness Presupposition; the Anti-Singleton Inference associated with its plural counterpart is expected to be parasitic on the uniqueness presupposition. We provide new data from Spanish and Hungarian, where simplex wh-expressions inflect for number. We claim that singular simplex wh-expressions do not give rise to a Uniqueness Presupposition, but plural simplex wh-expressions nonetheless give rise to an Anti-Singleton Inference. We provide an analysis of these facts that is consistent with Dayal’s account of constituent questions, by assigning simplex wh-expressions a type-flexible denotation.","PeriodicalId":46947,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Semantics","volume":"2 1","pages":"551-579"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"61594110","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper provides an investigation of Ignorance Inferences by looking at the superlative modifier at least . The formal properties of these inferences are characterized in terms of the epistemic conditions that they impose on the speaker, thereby establishing how much can and must be inferred about what the speaker is ignorant about. The paper makes two main contributions. First, it argues that the form of these inferences depends solely on the structural properties of the expression that at least is modifying, which do not necessarily coincide with semantic entailment. Rather, rank and order seems to matter: with totally ordered associates, at least triggers Ignorance Inferences that may be formally different than those obtained with partially ordered associates (Mendia 2016b). Second, it builds on neo-Gricean double alternative generation mech-anisms (like Schwarz 2016) arguing that one of them must be provided by focus. on the Ignorance Inferences that arise with the modifier at least across these different types of associated scales. The first part of the is devoted to scrutinizing the exact form of Ignorance Inferences with at least with different types of scales and what they tell us about epistemic state in each case. Three key empirical points emerge from this investigation:
{"title":"Structural Effects on Implicature Calculation","authors":"Jon Ander Mendia","doi":"10.1093/jos/ffac004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/ffac004","url":null,"abstract":"This paper provides an investigation of Ignorance Inferences by looking at the superlative modifier at least . The formal properties of these inferences are characterized in terms of the epistemic conditions that they impose on the speaker, thereby establishing how much can and must be inferred about what the speaker is ignorant about. The paper makes two main contributions. First, it argues that the form of these inferences depends solely on the structural properties of the expression that at least is modifying, which do not necessarily coincide with semantic entailment. Rather, rank and order seems to matter: with totally ordered associates, at least triggers Ignorance Inferences that may be formally different than those obtained with partially ordered associates (Mendia 2016b). Second, it builds on neo-Gricean double alternative generation mech-anisms (like Schwarz 2016) arguing that one of them must be provided by focus. on the Ignorance Inferences that arise with the modifier at least across these different types of associated scales. The first part of the is devoted to scrutinizing the exact form of Ignorance Inferences with at least with different types of scales and what they tell us about epistemic state in each case. Three key empirical points emerge from this investigation:","PeriodicalId":46947,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Semantics","volume":"39 1","pages":"409-442"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"61594027","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Classical semantics for counterfactuals is based on a notion of minimal change: If A, would C says that the worlds that make A true and that are otherwise minimally di erent from the actual world are C-worlds. This semantics su ers from a well-known di culty with disjunctive antecedents (see e.g. Alonso-Ovalle 2009, Willer 2018, Santorio 2018, a.o.). In a recent study, Ciardelli, Zhang, and Champollion (2018b; henceforth, CZC) present new, related di culties for the classical approach having to do with unpredicted di erences between counterfactuals with De Morgan-equivalent antecedents, and related pattern of inferences. They propose a new semantics for counterfactuals, which builds on inquisitive semantics (see Ciardelli et al. 2018a) and gives up on minimal change. Building on this debate, we report on a series of experiments that investigate the role of overt negation in this data. Our results replicate CZC’s main e ects, but they also indicate that those e ects are linked to the presence of overt negation. We propose a novel account, based on three key assumptions: (i) the semantics for counterfactuals does involve a notion of minimal change, after all; (ii) the meanings of disjunction and negation are associated with alternatives, which interact with the meaning of counterfactuals; (iii) the alternatives generated by negation are partially determined by the question under discussion (QUD). We compare our account with other existing accounts, including CZC’s own proposal, as well as Schulz’s (2019) and Bar-Lev & Fox’s (2020) ones. ∗ We would like to thank Maria Aloni, Moysh Bar-Lev, Fabrizio Cariani, Ivano Ciardelli, Lucas Champollion, Julie Gerard, Matthew Mandelkern, Paul Marty, and Yasu Sudo for very helpful discussion, and audiences at NELS 50 at MIT, the Amsterdam Colloquium 2019, Ulster University, University of Maryland, University of California San Diego, University of Chicago, and UCL. Work on this project was partially supported by the Leverhulme trust grant RPG-2018-425 to Jacopo Romoli. The authors equally contributed to the project and are listed in alphabetical order.
反事实的经典语义是基于最小变化的概念:如果a，会C说使a为真并且与实际世界差别最小的世界是C世界。这种语义来源于一个著名的析取先行词(参见Alonso-Ovalle 2009, Willer 2018, Santorio 2018, a.o.)。在最近的一项研究中，Ciardelli, Zhang和Champollion (2018b;因此，CZC)为经典方法提出了新的、相关的难题，这些难题与具有De morgan等效前提的反事实之间的不可预测的差异以及相关的推理模式有关。他们提出了一种新的反事实语义，该语义建立在好奇语义的基础上(见Ciardelli et al. 2018a)，并放弃了最小变化。在这场争论的基础上，我们报告了一系列调查公开否定在这些数据中的作用的实验。我们的结果重复了CZC的主要影响，但它们也表明这些影响与公开否定的存在有关。基于三个关键假设，我们提出了一个新的解释:(i)毕竟，反事实的语义确实涉及最小变化的概念;(ii)分离和否定的意义与替代相关联，后者与反事实的意义相互作用;(iii)否定所产生的替代方案部分取决于所讨论的问题(QUD)。我们将我们的方案与其他现有方案进行了比较，包括CZC自己的方案，以及舒尔茨(2019年)和Bar-Lev & Fox(2020年)的方案。*我们要感谢Maria Aloni, Moysh Bar-Lev, Fabrizio Cariani, Ivano Ciardelli, Lucas Champollion, Julie Gerard, Matthew Mandelkern, Paul Marty和Yasu Sudo在麻省理工学院的nel 50，阿姆斯特丹学术研讨会2019，阿尔斯特大学，马里兰大学，加州大学圣地亚哥分校，芝加哥大学和伦敦大学学院的非常有帮助的讨论。该项目的工作部分由Leverhulme信托基金向Jacopo Romoli授予RPG-2018-425。作者对该项目的贡献相同，并按字母顺序列出。
{"title":"Alternatives in Counterfactuals: What Is Right and What Is Not","authors":"Jacopo Romoli, P. Santorio, E. Wittenberg","doi":"10.1093/jos/ffab023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/ffab023","url":null,"abstract":"Classical semantics for counterfactuals is based on a notion of minimal change: If A, would C says that the worlds that make A true and that are otherwise minimally di erent from the actual world are C-worlds. This semantics su ers from a well-known di culty with disjunctive antecedents (see e.g. Alonso-Ovalle 2009, Willer 2018, Santorio 2018, a.o.). In a recent study, Ciardelli, Zhang, and Champollion (2018b; henceforth, CZC) present new, related di culties for the classical approach having to do with unpredicted di erences between counterfactuals with De Morgan-equivalent antecedents, and related pattern of inferences. They propose a new semantics for counterfactuals, which builds on inquisitive semantics (see Ciardelli et al. 2018a) and gives up on minimal change. Building on this debate, we report on a series of experiments that investigate the role of overt negation in this data. Our results replicate CZC’s main e ects, but they also indicate that those e ects are linked to the presence of overt negation. We propose a novel account, based on three key assumptions: (i) the semantics for counterfactuals does involve a notion of minimal change, after all; (ii) the meanings of disjunction and negation are associated with alternatives, which interact with the meaning of counterfactuals; (iii) the alternatives generated by negation are partially determined by the question under discussion (QUD). We compare our account with other existing accounts, including CZC’s own proposal, as well as Schulz’s (2019) and Bar-Lev & Fox’s (2020) ones. ∗ We would like to thank Maria Aloni, Moysh Bar-Lev, Fabrizio Cariani, Ivano Ciardelli, Lucas Champollion, Julie Gerard, Matthew Mandelkern, Paul Marty, and Yasu Sudo for very helpful discussion, and audiences at NELS 50 at MIT, the Amsterdam Colloquium 2019, Ulster University, University of Maryland, University of California San Diego, University of Chicago, and UCL. Work on this project was partially supported by the Leverhulme trust grant RPG-2018-425 to Jacopo Romoli. The authors equally contributed to the project and are listed in alphabetical order.","PeriodicalId":46947,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Semantics","volume":"39 1","pages":"213-260"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"61594262","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Tagalog Ability/Involuntary Action (aia) verbal form conveys apparently unrelated modal meanings: that an action was within what an agent could do or that it was beyond what an agent could control, for instance. Recent analyses for the Malagasy and St’át’imcets counterparts of this form propose that this morphology contributes circumstantial modality and conveys, roughly, that the event described follows from a set of facts ( Davis et al., 2009; Paul et al., 2016). We discuss some challenges for extending this type of analysis to Tagalog and present an alternative proposal. We follow previous analyses in assuming that the aia form projects its domain of possibilities from a set of facts, but depart from these analyses by proposing (i) that the modal component of the Tagalog aia form is non-at-issue and (ii) that it conveys, via a presupposition, that this event was not expected given the facts that the described event is taken to causally depend on.
他加禄语的能力/非自愿行为(aia)动词形式传达了明显不相关的模态含义:例如，一个行为是在一个代理可以做的范围内，或者它超出了代理可以控制的范围。最近对马达加斯加和St ' át ' imcets的这种形式的对应分析表明，这种形态有助于间接情态，并大致传达了所描述的事件遵循一系列事实(Davis et al.， 2009;Paul et al.， 2016)。我们讨论了将这种类型的分析扩展到他加禄语的一些挑战，并提出了一个替代建议。我们遵循先前的分析，假设aia形式从一组事实中投射出它的可能性域，但通过提出(i)他加禄语aia形式的模态成分是非争议的，以及(ii)它通过预设传达，鉴于所描述的事件被认为是因果依赖的事实，这个事件是不被期望的，从而与这些分析不同。
{"title":"Causes and Expectations: On the Interpretation of the Tagalog Ability/Involuntary Action Form","authors":"Luis Alonso-Ovalle, Henrison Hsieh","doi":"10.1093/jos/ffab008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/ffab008","url":null,"abstract":"The Tagalog Ability/Involuntary Action (aia) verbal form conveys apparently unrelated modal meanings: that an action was within what an agent could do or that it was beyond what an agent could control, for instance. Recent analyses for the Malagasy and St’át’imcets counterparts of this form propose that this morphology contributes circumstantial modality and conveys, roughly, that the event described follows from a set of facts ( Davis et al., 2009; Paul et al., 2016). We discuss some challenges for extending this type of analysis to Tagalog and present an alternative proposal. We follow previous analyses in assuming that the aia form projects its domain of possibilities from a set of facts, but depart from these analyses by proposing (i) that the modal component of the Tagalog aia form is non-at-issue and (ii) that it conveys, via a presupposition, that this event was not expected given the facts that the described event is taken to causally depend on.","PeriodicalId":46947,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Semantics","volume":"84 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2021-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138514731","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
So-called “depth charge” sentences (No head injury is too trivial to be ignored) are interpreted by the vast majority of speakers to mean the opposite of what their compositional semantics would dictate. The semantic inversion that is observed for sentences of this type is the strongest and most persistent linguistic illusion known to the field ( Wason & Reich, 1979). However, it has recently been argued that the preferred interpretation arises not because of a prevailing failure of the processing system, but rather because the non-compositional meaning is grammaticalized in the form of a stored construction ( Cook & Stevenson, 2010; Fortuin, 2014). In a series of five experiments, we investigate whether the depth charge effect is better explained by processing failure due to memory overload (the overloading hypothesis) or by the existence of an underlying grammaticalized construction with two available meanings (the ambiguity hypothesis). To our knowledge, our experiments are the first to explore the on-line processing profile of depth charge sentences. Overall, the data are consistent with specific variants of the ambiguity and overloading hypotheses while providing evidence against other variants. As an extension of the overloading hypothesis, we suggest two heuristic processes that may ultimately yield the incorrect reading when compositional processing is suspended for strategic reasons.
{"title":"Quadruplex Negatio Invertit? The On-Line Processing of Depth Charge Sentences","authors":"Paape D, Vasishth S, von der Malsburg T.","doi":"10.1093/jos/ffaa009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/ffaa009","url":null,"abstract":"<span><div>Abstract</div>So-called “depth charge” sentences (<span style=\"font-style:italic;\">No head injury is too trivial to be ignored</span>) are interpreted by the vast majority of speakers to mean the opposite of what their compositional semantics would dictate. The semantic inversion that is observed for sentences of this type is the strongest and most persistent linguistic illusion known to the field ( Wason & Reich, 1979). However, it has recently been argued that the preferred interpretation arises not because of a prevailing failure of the processing system, but rather because the non-compositional meaning is grammaticalized in the form of a stored construction ( Cook & Stevenson, 2010; Fortuin, 2014). In a series of five experiments, we investigate whether the depth charge effect is better explained by processing failure due to memory overload (the <span style=\"font-style:italic;\">overloading hypothesis</span>) or by the existence of an underlying grammaticalized construction with two available meanings (the <span style=\"font-style:italic;\">ambiguity hypothesis</span>). To our knowledge, our experiments are the first to explore the on-line processing profile of depth charge sentences. Overall, the data are consistent with specific variants of the ambiguity and overloading hypotheses while providing evidence against other variants. As an extension of the overloading hypothesis, we suggest two heuristic processes that may ultimately yield the incorrect reading when compositional processing is suspended for strategic reasons.</span>","PeriodicalId":46947,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Semantics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138542417","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The felicity, or acceptability, of IS generics, i.e. generic sentences with indefinite singulars, is considerably more restricted compared to BP generics, generics with bare plurals. The goal of this paper is to account for the limited felicity of IS generics compared to BP generics, on the one hand, while preserving the close similarity between the two types of generics, on the other. We do so by proposing a causal analysis of IS generics, and show that this corresponds closely with a probabilistic analysis of BP generics.
{"title":"A Causal Semantics of IS Generics","authors":"Robert van Rooij,Katrin Schulz","doi":"10.1093/jos/ffz023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/ffz023","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The felicity, or acceptability, of IS generics, i.e. generic sentences with indefinite singulars, is considerably more restricted compared to BP generics, generics with bare plurals. The goal of this paper is to account for the limited felicity of IS generics compared to BP generics, on the one hand, while preserving the close similarity between the two types of generics, on the other. We do so by proposing a causal analysis of IS generics, and show that this corresponds closely with a probabilistic analysis of BP generics.","PeriodicalId":46947,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Semantics","volume":"46 4","pages":"269-295"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138520222","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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