Natural Language Semantics最新文献

Operationalizing focus-sensitivity in a cross-linguistic context. 跨语言语境下焦点敏感性的操作化。

IF 0.9 1区文学

Natural Language Semantics Pub Date : 2026-01-01 Epub Date: 2025-12-09 DOI: 10.1007/s11050-025-09243-w

Deniz Özyıldız, Ciyang Qing, Floris Roelofsen, Wataru Uegaki, Maribel Romero

引用次数: 0

Distributive kind predication. 分配类预测。

IF 0.7 1区文学

Natural Language Semantics Pub Date : 2026-01-01 Epub Date: 2026-03-02 DOI: 10.1007/s11050-025-09245-8

Janek Guerrini

{"title":"Distributive kind predication.","authors":"Janek Guerrini","doi":"10.1007/s11050-025-09245-8","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11050-025-09245-8","url":null,"abstract":"This paper makes two contributions to the study of the interpretation of nominals across Germanic and Romance languages. First, it shows that plural kind terms, such as English bare plurals (e.g., lions) and Italian definite plurals (e.g., i leoni), have definite, non-generic uses in sentences expressing generalizations that were traditionally thought to uniformly involve generic quantification. These non-generic uses explain why the distribution of kind-denoting plurals in sentences expressing generalizations is wider as compared to singular indefinites, which can only appear in generalizations that have a genuinely generic Logical Form (Sects. 3-5). Second, the paper draws on a contrast between English and Italian (and to a minor extent French) plural forms, both bare and definite (Sect. 5). This yields a new approach to the mapping between the form and the interpretation of nominals that combines elements from Chierchia's (Natural Language Semantics 6:339-405, 1998) and Longobardi's (Natural Language Semantics 9:335-369, 2001) frameworks. On the approach I present, English bare plurals can alternatively be mapped to kinds or to properties; Italian definite plurals, when not referential, can only be mapped to kinds; and Italian bare plurals only to properties. This explains the behavior of these expressions in a wide number of contexts, most importantly in episodic sentences, which raise puzzles for extant accounts.","PeriodicalId":47108,"journal":{"name":"Natural Language Semantics","volume":"34 1","pages":"85-136"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12995984/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147487735","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

From state to change of state by type-shift. 通过类型转换从状态转换到状态。

IF 0.9 1区文学

Natural Language Semantics Pub Date : 2025-01-01 Epub Date: 2025-05-28 DOI: 10.1007/s11050-025-09234-x

Ryan Walter Smith, Jens Hopperdietzel, Andrew Koontz-Garboden

{"title":"From state to change of state by type-shift.","authors":"Ryan Walter Smith, Jens Hopperdietzel, Andrew Koontz-Garboden","doi":"10.1007/s11050-025-09234-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11050-025-09234-x","url":null,"abstract":"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.","PeriodicalId":47108,"journal":{"name":"Natural Language Semantics","volume":"33 3","pages":"329-361"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12354558/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144875963","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Decomposing logophoric pronouns: a presuppositional account of logophoric dependencies. 意指代词的分解：意指依赖关系的预设解释。

IF 0.9 1区文学

Natural Language Semantics Pub Date : 2025-01-01 Epub Date: 2025-10-30 DOI: 10.1007/s11050-025-09242-x

Itai Bassi, Imke Driemel, Abigail Anne Bimpeh, Silvia Silleresi, Johnson Fọlọrunṣọ Ilọri, Anastasia Nuworsu, Gerald Okey Nweya

{"title":"Decomposing logophoric pronouns: a presuppositional account of logophoric dependencies.","authors":"Itai Bassi, Imke Driemel, Abigail Anne Bimpeh, Silvia Silleresi, Johnson Fọlọrunṣọ Ilọri, Anastasia Nuworsu, Gerald Okey Nweya","doi":"10.1007/s11050-025-09242-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11050-025-09242-x","url":null,"abstract":"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.","PeriodicalId":47108,"journal":{"name":"Natural Language Semantics","volume":"33 4","pages":"663-702"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12680770/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145702476","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Copular asymmetries in belief reports 信念报告中的共性不对称

IF 1.1 1区文学

Natural Language Semantics Pub Date : 2024-08-16 DOI: 10.1007/s11050-024-09222-7

Orin Percus, Yael Sharvit

引用次数: 0

Mental states via possessive predication: the grammar of possessive experiencer complex predicates in Persian 通过占有式谓词了解心理状态：波斯语中占有式经验者复合谓词的语法

IF 1.1 1区文学

Natural Language Semantics Pub Date : 2024-04-05 DOI: 10.1007/s11050-024-09221-8

Ryan Walter Smith

{"title":"Mental states via possessive predication: the grammar of possessive experiencer complex predicates in Persian","authors":"Ryan Walter Smith","doi":"10.1007/s11050-024-09221-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11050-024-09221-8","url":null,"abstract":"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.","PeriodicalId":47108,"journal":{"name":"Natural Language Semantics","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2024-04-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140589291","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Eventive modal projection: the case of Spanish subjunctive relative clauses 事件模态投射：西班牙语从句相对从句的情况

IF 1.1 1区文学

Natural Language Semantics Pub Date : 2024-02-19 DOI: 10.1007/s11050-023-09218-9

Luis Alonso-Ovalle, Paula Menéndez-Benito, Aynat Rubinstein

{"title":"Eventive modal projection: the case of Spanish subjunctive relative clauses","authors":"Luis Alonso-Ovalle, Paula Menéndez-Benito, Aynat Rubinstein","doi":"10.1007/s11050-023-09218-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11050-023-09218-9","url":null,"abstract":"How do modal expressions determine which possibilities they range over? According to the Modal Anchor Hypothesis (Kratzer in The language-cognition interface: Actes du 19e 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.","PeriodicalId":47108,"journal":{"name":"Natural Language Semantics","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2024-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139910426","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Force shift: a case study of Cantonese ho2 particle clusters 力的转移：粤语ho2粒子群案例研究

IF 1.1 1区文学

Natural Language Semantics Pub Date : 2024-02-05 DOI: 10.1007/s11050-023-09219-8

Jess H.-K. Law, Haoze Li, Diti Bhadra

引用次数: 0

Direct evidentiality and discourse in Southern Aymara 南艾马拉语中的直接证据性和话语

IF 1.1 1区文学

Natural Language Semantics Pub Date : 2024-01-22 DOI: 10.1007/s11050-023-09220-1

Gabriel Martínez Vera

{"title":"Direct evidentiality and discourse in Southern Aymara","authors":"Gabriel Martínez Vera","doi":"10.1007/s11050-023-09220-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11050-023-09220-1","url":null,"abstract":"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.","PeriodicalId":47108,"journal":{"name":"Natural Language Semantics","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139518487","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Is degree abstraction a parameter or a universal? Evidence from Mandarin Chinese 程度抽象是参数还是普遍现象？来自普通话的证据

IF 1.1 1区文学

Natural Language Semantics Pub Date : 2024-01-17 DOI: 10.1007/s11050-023-09217-w

Ying Gong, Elizabeth Coppock

引用次数: 0