{"title":"Simplifying the evidential condition on asking polar questions","authors":"Daniel Goodhue","doi":"10.3765/zrth5z63","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3765/zrth5z63","url":null,"abstract":"In classic accounts of polar question semantics, positive polar questions like \"Did Mo sing?\", low negation questions like \"Did Mo not sing?\", and high negation questions like \"Didn't Mo sing?\" all denote the same set of answers: {that Mo sang, that Mo didn’t sing}. At the same time, it is well known that these three question types have different distributions. In particular, they have different requirements with respect to contextual evidence for the answers, the Evidential Condition on polar questions. Despite widespread discussion of this fact, no universally accepted explanation has emerged. In this paper, I make the novel argument that high negation questions do not have an Evidential Condition, and so only the conditions for positive and low negation questions need to be explained. I then argue that an explanation can be given based on general principles of markedness and information structure, even while maintaining a classic {p, not-p} semantics for both positive and low negation questions. I discuss ramifications for polar question semantics.","PeriodicalId":21626,"journal":{"name":"Semantics and Linguistic Theory","volume":"90 23","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139612918","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Movement and interpretation of quantifiers in internally-headed relative clauses","authors":"Rebecca Jarvis","doi":"10.3765/extbgy81","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3765/extbgy81","url":null,"abstract":"This paper addresses the semantic typology of internally-headed relative clauses using a case study of two West African languages, Atchan (Kwa) and Bùlì (Gur). Both languages exhibit syntactically-similar relatives, involving overt movement of the head. However, quantifiers on the head are interpreted differently in the two languages. In Atchan, quantifiers on the relative-clause head take the entire relative clause as their restriction; in Bùlì, quantifiers on the head take only the head noun as their restriction. I propose that the former is interpreted via NP reconstruction and Trace Conversion, the latter via DP reconstruction. The empirical difference between these two languages motivates a revision to the typology developed by Grosu (2012), which tightly links head movement and the Atchan-like quantifier interpretation pattern. This work further supports a a modular view in which languages can adopt different strategies to interpret movement-involving structures.","PeriodicalId":21626,"journal":{"name":"Semantics and Linguistic Theory","volume":"69 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139613376","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Alternative comparison in underspecified degree operators","authors":"Ang Li","doi":"10.3765/34cw2h84","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3765/34cw2h84","url":null,"abstract":"This paper proposes a new theory for the recurrent ambiguities between the meaning of comparison, additivity, and continuation (CAC) across languages. The theory has two pillars. One is a semantic reanalysis of CAC meanings. I will show that all three meanings can be cashed out via comparisons between alternatives, and that by doing so we can establish inherent logical connections between them. The second pillar is a de-compositional analysis of lexical items expressing CAC meanings (henceforth CAC operators), which makes use of their logical connections to derive the ambiguities as results of underspecification. ","PeriodicalId":21626,"journal":{"name":"Semantics and Linguistic Theory","volume":"2 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139525148","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Deriving the evidence asymmetry in positive polar questions","authors":"Kyle Rawlins","doi":"10.3765/pmbrcb47","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3765/pmbrcb47","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores a famous puzzle about English positive polar questions introduced by Buring and Gunlogson 2000: while in many contexts they seem to indicate nothing whatsoever about what the speaker takes for granted or thinks likely, in contexts that provide evidence against the content proposition of the question, they are infelicitous. This pattern, which I term the \"evidence asymmetry\", has been particularly troubling for standard accounts of polar questions that treat the positive and negative answers on par with each other. However, given that polar questions are felicitous in neutral contexts, it doesn't have an easy solution: polar questions in general don't seem to place constraints on evidence or context. I propose that polar questions have a fairly weak presupposition requiring just the content alternative to be possible (but say nothing about its negation), and (building on Trinh 2014) that this together with Maximize Presupposition-based reasoning about competitor questions (specifically\"or not\" alternative questions) can derive the evidence asymmetry. This account does not require the covert evidential marker of Trinh 2014, and essentially proposes that the evidence asymmetry follows from norms for English polar questions.","PeriodicalId":21626,"journal":{"name":"Semantics and Linguistic Theory","volume":"6 12","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139525622","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Decomposing 'As If'","authors":"J. Rett, W. Starr","doi":"10.3765/salt.v1i0.5423","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3765/salt.v1i0.5423","url":null,"abstract":"‘As if’ constructions have been analyzed as only verbal (Bücking 2017) or idiomatic (Bledin & Srinivas 2019, 2020). We argue that ‘as if’ constructions have the same distribution as any clausal similative (i.e. any ‘as’ construction): they can associate with verbal arguments or propositions. And we argue that ‘as if’ constructions are a common and productive cross-linguistic phenomenon, reliably formed with a relativizer; a question subordinator; and X-marking. We thus present a compositional analysis of the constructions based on extant analyses of as (and its cross-linguistic counterparts) as a relativizer (Rett 2013, among others); if as a question subordinator (Starr 2014b, among others); and X-marking as encoding a similarity relation across possible worlds (Schulz 2014; von Fintel & Iatridou 2020). In addition to being compositional, this approach can better account for the wide distribution of ‘as if’ constructions both within a language and across languages.","PeriodicalId":21626,"journal":{"name":"Semantics and Linguistic Theory","volume":"55 4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83335274","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Locality in the Derivation of Cumulativity","authors":"M. Harada","doi":"10.3765/salt.v1i0.5425","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3765/salt.v1i0.5425","url":null,"abstract":"It has been proposed that the part structures of denotations of plurals ‘project’ to the denotations of expressions including those plurals (e.g., Gawron & Kehler 2004, Kubota & Levine 2016, Schmitt 2019/2020). If such a plural projection is possible, not only plural DPs but also expressions including those plural DPs denote pluralities (e.g., saw the two recipes denotes a plurality {SAW(recipe1),SAW(recipe2)} instead of a singularity {SAW({recipe1,recipe2})}). One piece of support for plural projection comes from Schmitt’s (2020) observation about ‘non-local’ cumulativity. In this paper, I further examine when cumulativity is available non-locally, and show that a source of cumulativity in the literature (e.g., Krifka 1989, Kratzer 2007, Harada 2022b) can capture all the relevant non-local cumulativity data without plural projection while an analysis with plural projection can capture only a proper subset of those data. Therefore, this paper concludes that the relevant non-local cumulativity does not support the need of plural projection.","PeriodicalId":21626,"journal":{"name":"Semantics and Linguistic Theory","volume":"36 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73384169","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"As strong as an NPI in LSF, NGT and LIS","authors":"C. Geraci, M. Oomen, M. Santoro","doi":"10.3765/salt.v1i0.5353","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3765/salt.v1i0.5353","url":null,"abstract":"Negative polarity items emerge from the interaction between some propertiesof the semantic module of human language and its lexicon. This leads tothe expectation that they should be equally common in spoken and sign language,contrary to what has been documented. We describe the sign UNTIL in French SignLanguage, Italian Sign Language and Sign Language of the Netherlands. We showthat under its punctual reading, UNTIL behaves as a strong negative polarity item,just like English until. We also discuss why more prototypical cases of polarityitems like any or ever are much harder to find in sign language","PeriodicalId":21626,"journal":{"name":"Semantics and Linguistic Theory","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85657089","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Restrictions on copredication: a situation theoretic approach","authors":"Peter R. Sutton","doi":"10.3765/salt.v1i0.5351","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3765/salt.v1i0.5351","url":null,"abstract":"This paper proposes a situation-theoretic account of polysemy: polysemous nouns denote situations that witness (i.e. contain) multiple entities of different types. For instance, lunch denotes situations that contain an eating event and some food where these stand in a patient relation. A puzzle regarding more than two ways polysemous nouns such as statement is the restrictions on copredication they exhibit, namely, where multiple, potentially incompatible predicates are applied based on a single antecedent, but not all combinations of readings are possible. Such restrictions fall naturally out of the situation-theoretic account of polysemy.","PeriodicalId":21626,"journal":{"name":"Semantics and Linguistic Theory","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76595750","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Chin as a Domain Widener in American Sign Language (ASL)","authors":"L. R. Nikolai, Ezra Keshet","doi":"10.3765/salt.v1i0.5385","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3765/salt.v1i0.5385","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, we investigate a grammaticalized facial expression in American Sign Language (ASL) called flat chin, which we propose functions as a general-purpose domain widener, targeting both quantificational domains as well as the scales used by gradable predicates. Our analysis allows for flat chin to target nearly any expression involving a domain, and is based on Morzycki's (2012) analysis of extreme degree modifiers. Such an analysis both expands our understanding of ASL as well Language more broadly, as few general-purpose domain wideners have yet been reported and fewer still are reported to occur as a non-manual (non-hand) markers in a sign language.","PeriodicalId":21626,"journal":{"name":"Semantics and Linguistic Theory","volume":"89 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80858414","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Expressives and argument extension","authors":"Nicolás Lo Guercio, Eleonora Orlando","doi":"10.3765/salt.v1i0.5334","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3765/salt.v1i0.5334","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, we discuss expressive adjectives ('the damn keys') and epithets ('that bastard John'). In recent literature (see Potts 2005 and Gutzmann 2019), these expressions have received a parallel semantic treatment. However, EAs and epithets present a remarkable difference, namely, only the former exhibit argument extension, an apparent mismatch between syntax and semantics whereby EAs affect a syntactic constituent other than the one they directly modify. After a brief introduction and the presentation of the puzzle (sections 1 and 2), we advance a novel semantico-pragmatic approach to EAs that explains this difference (section 3). According to this view, EAs are Isolated CIs, roughly put, expressions that bear propositional expressive meaning (and no at-issue meaning), and do not interact with the surrounding at-issue material in terms of functional application. In section 4, we present data that lends additional support to our proposal (and represents a prima facie challenge for some alternative approaches). Finally, in section 5 we discuss the alternative approaches to argument extension in Potts 2005 and Gutzmann 2019, and show some of their shortcomings.","PeriodicalId":21626,"journal":{"name":"Semantics and Linguistic Theory","volume":"63 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80314265","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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