Natural Language Semantics最新文献

This paper proposes a type-shifting analysis of state/change-of-state lability (Koontz-Garboden et al. in Verbhood and state/change of state lability across languages, Ms., 2023): in languages with no overt inchoative morphology, a type-shifting operation, which we dub Inchoative Shift, introduces inchoative semantics where type mismatches would otherwise occur. In combination with a Blocking Principle, drawing on Chierchia's (Natural Language Semantics 6:339-405, 1998) proposal, the analysis explains the restricted distribution of change-of-state meaning in labile languages, and the fact that change-of-state readings of stative predicates are in complementary distribution with inchoative morphology cross-linguistically. Furthermore, once we augment the Blocking Principle with a notion of structural alternatives (Katzir in Linguistics and Philosophy 30:669-690, 2007), we can provide an explanation for the fact that the presence of periphrastic inchoative constructions does not always block inchoative type-shifting in a language. Our account improves on previous approaches to state/change-of-state lability, such as Koontz-Garboden's (Journal of Linguistics 43(1):115-152, 2007) coercion analysis, by virtue of making broad and, as we argue, correct predictions about the distribution of state/change-of-state lability and its interaction with other change-of-state expressions cross-linguistically.

Logophoric pronouns in West African languages occur in attitude environments and are anaphorically linked to an attitude holder in a superordinate clause. This has motivated theorists to treat logophoric pronouns semantically as an obligatorily bound variable (bound from the edge of an embedded complement clause). Culy (Linguistics 32:1055-1094, 1994) and Bimpeh and Sode (in Proceedings of TripleA, vol. 6 pp. 1-16, 2021), however, point out that logophoric pronouns in Ewe do not behave like obligatorily bound variables, allowing both sloppy (bound) and strict (non-bound) readings in focus contexts involving 'only' and ellipsis. We strengthen this line of criticism by providing novel cross-linguistic data that indicate that logophoric pronouns in Ewe, Igbo and Yoruba support strict readings. We offer an alternative formal account to existing approaches that builds on Bimpeh et al. (in Proceedings of the 40th WCCFL, pp. 1-10, 2024) and can capture both strict and sloppy interpretations, while preserving the requirement that a logophoric pronoun be anaphoric to an attitude holder. The main novelty involves decomposition of logophoric pronouns into two syntactic components at LF-a variable that can in principle be free and refer strictly, and a semantic presuppositional feature log that can be ignored in ellipsis and focus sites, following similar ideas in the literature on pronominal features (Sauerland in Proceedings of SALT 23, pp. 156-173, 2013). Our analysis implies that in terms of their syntactic and semantic make up, logophors are essentially no different from other pronouns, consisting of a referential index plus semantic features.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11050-025-09242-x.

We argue that copular constructions that relate two referring expressions are based on small clauses with an asymmetrical semantics. The small clauses in question are headed by a relational item that selects for an individual and an individual concept, along the lines proposed by Heycock (Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique 57: 209–240, 2012). Our analysis allows us to explain the asymmetric properties of these constructions when they occur as complements to think. Additional motivation comes from facts that involve questions based on copular clauses.

Persian possesses a number of stative complex predicates with dâshtan ‘to have’ that express certain kinds of mental state. I propose that these possessive experiencer complex predicates be given a formal semantic treatment involving possession of a portion of an abstract quality by an individual, as in the analysis of property concept lexemes due to Francez and Koontz-Garboden (Language 91(3):533–563, 2015; Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 34:93–106, 2016; Semantics and morphosyntactic variation: Qualities and the grammar of property concepts, Oxford University Press, 2017). Augmented with an analysis of prepositional phrases introducing the target of the mental state and an approach to gradability in terms of measure functions (Wellwood in Measuring predicates, PhD dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park, 2014), the analysis explains various properties of possessive experiencer complex predicates, including the behavior of target phrases, the ability of the non-verbal element to be modified by a range of adjectives, the direct participation of the non-verbal element in comparative constructions, and the ability of degree expressions to modify both the non-verbal element and the VP containing the complex predicate. Theoretically, the analysis ties transitive mental state expressions to the grammar and semantics of property concept sentences, which are expressed via possessive morphosyntax cross-linguistically, and connects with syntactic proposals that independently argue for a universal underlyingly possessive morphosyntax for mental state predicates (Noonan in Case and syntactic geometry, PhD dissertation, McGill University, 1992; Hale and Keyser in Prolegomenon to a theory of argument structure, MIT Press, 2002). The work here also motivates modifications to Francez and Koontz-Garboden’s original proposal, and opens new questions in the original empirical domain of the analysis of possessive predicating strategies for the expression of property concept sentences.

How do modal expressions determine which possibilities they range over? According to the Modal Anchor Hypothesis (Kratzer in The language-cognition interface: Actes du 19^e congrès international des linguistes, Libraire Droz, Genève, 179–199, 2013), modal expressions determine their domain of quantification from particulars (events, situations, or individuals). This paper presents novel evidence for this hypothesis, focusing on a class of Spanish relative clauses that host verbs inflected in the subjunctive. Subjunctive in Romance is standardly taken to be licensed only in a subset of intensional contexts. However, in our relative clauses, subjunctive is exceptionally licensed in extensional contexts. At the same time, the interpretation of these relative clauses still involves modality, a type of modality that targets the goals of the agent of the main event. We argue that the pattern displayed by these relative clauses follows straightforwardly if subjunctive is associated with a modal operator that, like modal indefinites (Alonso-Ovalle and Menéndez-Benito in Journal of Semantics 35(1):1–41, 2017), can project its domain from a volitional event. Overall, our proposal supports the event-based analysis of mood (Kratzer in Evidential mood in attitude and speech reports. Talk delivered at the 1st Syncart Workshop, Siena, July 13, 2016; Portner and Rubinstein in Natural Language Semantics 28:343–393, 2020) and extends its application beyond attitudinal and modal complements.

This paper investigates force shift, a phenomenon in which the canonical discourse conventions, or force, associated with a clause type can be overridden to yield polar questions with the help of additional force-indicating devices. Previous studies attribute force shift to the presence of a complex question force component operating on semantic content. Based on utterance particles and particle clusters in Cantonese, we analyze force shift as resulting from compositional operations on force-bearing expressions. We propose that a simplex force, such as assertion or question, denotes unanchored sentence acts, while a force-shifting particle like Cantonese ho2 is an anchoring function anchoring a sentence act to the speaker while querying whether or not the addressee can perform the sentence act. The proposed semantics makes predictions about ho2’s interactions with addressee-changing operations and imperatives, as well as about a larger family of force shift phenomena.

This paper discusses the discourse contrasts that arise in connection to direct evidentiality in Southern Aymara (henceforth, Aymara), an understudied Andean language. Aymara has two direct evidentials, the enclitic =wa and the covert morpheme -∅, which are used whenever the speaker has the best possible grounds for some proposition. I make the novel observation that a sentence with =wa can be felicitously uttered if the speaker attempts to update the common ground by addressing an issue on the table. In fact, the sentence with =wa that is uttered must be congruent with prior discourse; I tie this to the claim that =wa is a (presentational) focus marker (Proulx in Language Sciences 9(1):91–102, 1987). This paper thus claims that =wa is a marker that combines evidentiality and focus. In contrast, uttering a sentence with -∅ entails that the speaker’s contribution is already in the common ground, which likens this evidential to common ground management operators—there is no congruence requirement in this case. I identify which construction can be used in different discourse settings (conversation openers and telling anecdotes). I implement a formal analysis based on Farkas and Bruce (Journal of Semantics 27:81–118, 2010) and Faller (Semantics and Pragmatics 12(8):1–53, 2019) that links evidentiality and discourse.

Mandarin Chinese, along with Japanese, Yorùbá, Mòoré, and Samoan, has been argued to lack ‘degree abstraction’, a configuration at LF involving lambda abstraction over a degree variable. These languages are claimed to have a negative setting for a hypothesized ‘Degree Abstraction Parameter’. Recent work, however, has argued for degree abstraction in Japanese and Yorùbá, and degree abstraction has been detected in a number of additional languages. Could it in fact be universal? Here, we focus on the case of Mandarin, and argue that Mandarin has degree abstraction too. We offer three arguments in favor of degree abstraction in Mandarin, based on attributive comparatives, comparatives with embedded predicates, and scope interactions with modals. We also rebut prior arguments for the lack of degree abstraction in Mandarin, considering degree questions, measure phrases, and negative island effects. Taken together, these results show that degree abstraction is not a parameter along which Mandarin and English vary, and suggest rather that degree abstraction may be universally available.

In this paper, we show that native speakers spontaneously divide the complex meaning of a new word into a presuppositional component and an assertive component. These results argue for the existence of a productive triggering algorithm for presuppositions, one that is not based on alternative lexical items nor on contextual salience. On a methodological level, the proposed learning paradigm can be used to test further theories concerned with the interaction of lexical properties and conceptual biases.