DOCSLIB.ORG

Evidentiality and Mood: Grammatical Expressions of Epistemic Modality in Bulgarian

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

Evidentiality and mood: Grammatical expressions of epistemic modality in Bulgarian DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements o the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Anastasia Smirnova, M.A. Graduate Program in Linguistics The Ohio State University 2011 Dissertation Committee: Brian Joseph, co-advisor Judith Tonhauser, co-advisor Craige Roberts Copyright by Anastasia Smirnova 2011 ABSTRACT This dissertation is a case study of two grammatical categories, evidentiality and mood. I argue that evidentiality and mood are grammatical expressions of epistemic modality and have an epistemic modal component as part of their meanings. While the empirical foundation for this work is data from Bulgarian, my analysis has a number of empirical and theoretical consequences for the previous work on evidentiality and mood in the formal semantics literature. Evidentiality is traditionally analyzed as a grammatical category that encodes information sources (Aikhenvald 2004). I show that the Bulgarian evidential has richer meaning: not only does it express information source, but also it has a temporal and a modal component. With respect to the information source, the Bulgarian evidential is compatible with a variety of evidential meanings, i.e. direct, inferential, and reportative, as long as the speaker has concrete perceivable evidence (as opposed to evidence based on a mental activity). With respect to epistemic commitment, the construction has different felicity conditions depending on the context: the speaker must be committed to the truth of the proposition in the scope of the evidential in a direct/inferential evidential context, but not in a reportative context. Finally, the distribution of the evidential is sensitive to the temporal relations specified in the context. In the previous literature, the Bulgarian evidential is analyzed as encoding indirect sources of information; no mention ii is made of its temporal meaning (Izvorski 1997, Sauerland and Schenner 2007). I propose a uniform semantic analysis of the Bulgarian evidential, which incorporates both a temporal and a modal component, and accounts for the full range of evidential meanings. The central aspect of the analysis is the assumption that the proposition in the scope of the evidential is evaluated with respect to different sets of worlds, depending on the discourse context: the belief worlds of the speaker in inferential/direct evidential contexts, and the belief worlds of the original reporter in reportative contexts. My analysis of mood explains the distribution of the subjunctive and the indicative in Bulgarian as being dependent on the epistemic commitment of the attitude holder (cf. Giannakidou 1998). Previous analyses attribute mood distribution to semantic properties of the selecting verb alone (cf. Farkas 1992, Villalta 2008). These analyses cannot be extended to Bulgarian, where the distribution of mood is sensitive not only to the semantics of matrix verbs, but also to context. This is particularly clear in cases when the same verb can select both the subjunctive and the indicative, and the choice of mood correlates with the attitude holder’s epistemic commitment. The indicative is selected iff the attitude holder is strongly committed to the truth/falsity of the proposition expressed by the complement clause. The subjunctive is selected iff the attitude holder has a weaker epistemic commitment. My formal analysis uses the tools from the analysis of modals (Kratzer 1979) and specifies how the meaning of the matrix propositional attitude verb interacts with the meaning of mood in the embedded clause. This is the first formal semantic analysis of mood in Bulgarian. iii To my family iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation would not be possible without support and guidance of my dissertation committee members – Brian Joseph, Judith Tonhauser, and Craige Roberts. I am deeply grateful to my co-advisor Brian Joseph for mentoring me during the years that I spent at Ohio State. I am grateful to Brian for introducing me to the field of Balkan linguistics, and for showing me the beauty of historical and contact linguistics. Brian set high standards of academic scholarship and I was extremely lucky and honored to be able to work with him during these years. I am grateful to my co-advosor Judith Tonhauser for her constant support and feedback on absolutely every stage of the dissertation project, as well for taking such an active part in other linguistic projects that did not become part of this dissertation. I am grateful to Judith for teaching me to appreciate the value of the real data and be rigorous in formalizing my analysis. Most importantly, I thank both Brian and Judith for their graciousness and kindness. I am indebted to Craige Roberts for her detailed feedback and comments that significantly improved my analysis, for challenging me, and for teaching me to strategize. Thank you for being such a good mentor! My special thanks go to Anastasia Giannakidou. While Anastasia was not on my dissertation committee, her contribution to this and my other projects is significant. I thank Anastasia for her feedback and support over the years, for her enthusiasm, as well v for her hospitality in welcoming me to the linguistic community in Chicago. I benefitted from discussing different aspects of this dissertation with Elena Castroviejo, Stefan Kaufmann, Lisa Matthewson, Roumyana Pancheva, and Magdalena Schwager. I thank them for their detailed comments and feedback. The data presented in the dissertation was collected over the years, as I worked on different aspects of the phenomena discussed here. I am especially grateful to Tanya Ivanova-Sullivan, Rumen Iliev, and Temenužka Seizova for their judgments on Bulgarian examples presented here. For the Albanian and Greek examples presented here, I thank Arjola Hizmo and Vasilis Tsompalis, respectively. The data presented in this dissertation was collected under the Ohio State University IRB protocol 2004B0112. Angelo Costanzo, Matt Curtis, Greg Kierstead, Lauren Ressue, Sharon Ross, and Chris Worth proofread different parts of this dissertation. I gratefully acknowledge their help. I also want to mention people who played an active role in my life and thank them for their contribution. A word of gratitude is due to Peter Culicover, who took an active part in my education as a linguist and as a teacher, for sharpening my research skills and for mentoring me during my years at Ohio State. I am grateful to David Dowty for encouraging me to pursue graduate studies in linguistics, for showing me the beauty of formal semantic analysis, and for his detailed feedback on earlier projects. Charles Gribble and Daniel Collins made my transition from psychology to the field of linguistic smooth when I started the M.A. program in the Slavic Department at OSU. vi During my years in graduate school, I was surrounded by exceptional people, friends and colleagues. I want to particularly thank Veronica Gerassimova and Ivaylo Iliev for being sources of inspiration, Tanya Ivanova-Sullivan for her optimism and positive energy, and Yusuke Kubota for setting high standards. I also thank Yuliia Aloshycheva, Charlie Ji-Young Ann, Christopher Brown, Elena Castroviejo, Matt Curtis, Kathleen Currie Hall, Ivaylo Iliev, Oksala Laleko, Jungmee Lee, Lauren Ressue, Andrea Sims, Oxana Skornjakova, E. Allyn Smith, Larysa Stepanova, Barbara Tomaszewicz, and Marleen van de Vate for their friendship. Special thanks go to my family for tolerating my long absence and for their constant support over these years. I dedicate this dissertation to them. Last but not least, I thank Rumen Iliev for his love and for being my soul mate. Blagodarja! This dissertation was supported by a Presidential Fellowship (2010-2011) awarded to me by The Ohio State University. vii VITA June 2002 ……………………… B.A. + M.A. Psychology, Sofia University, Bulgaria June 2005 ……………………….M.A. Slavic Linguistics, The Ohio State University September 2005-March 2010…… Graduate Research Associate and Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of Linguistics, The Ohio State University April 2010-March 2011 ………….Presidential fellow, The Ohio State University March 2011-June 2011 …………..Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of Linguistics, The Ohio State University PUBLICATIONS 2010, Formal Studies in Slavic Linguistics, with Vedrana Mihaliček and Lauren Ressue (eds.). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2010,‘Cross-linguistic variation in the temporal domain: The meaning of the present tense in Bulgarian and Albanian.’ Balkanistica 23, pp. 333-370. 2009, ‘On cross-linguistic interpretation of embedded tenses’, with Yusuke Kubota, Jungmee Lee and Judith Tonhauser. Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 13, pp. 307-320. 2009,‘A Case against “defective” tense in the Bulgarian subjunctive’. In J. Reich, M. Babyonyshev, and D. Kavitskaya. Proceedings of Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics 17, The Yale Meeting. Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Publications, pp. 202-218. 2008, Issues in Slavic Syntax and Semantics, with Matthew Curtis (eds.). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2008, ‘Temporal interpretation of subjunctive complements in Bulgarian’. In A. Smirnova and M. Curtis (eds.). Issues in Slavic Syntax and Semantics. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 78-115. viii FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Linguistics ix TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract …………………………………………………………………………………...ii Dedication ………………………………………………………………………………..iv
Recommended publications
  • English Dative Alternation and Evidence for a Thematic Strategy in Adult SLA

    English Dative Alternation and Evidence for a Thematic Strategy in Adult SLA

    UCLA Issues in Applied Linguistics Title English Dative Alternation and Evidence for a Thematic Strategy in Adult SLA Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/64d102q5 Journal Issues in Applied Linguistics, 5(1) ISSN 1050-4273 Author Davies, William D Publication Date 1994-06-30 DOI 10.5070/L451005171 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California English Dative Alternation and Evidence for a Thematic Strategy in Adult SLA William D. Davies University of Iowa INTRODUCTION A body of recent work in second language acquisition is concerned with applying constructs from Chomsky's conception of Universal Grammar in both constructing an overall theory of SLA and explaining various phenomena in L2 learners (e.g., Flynn, 1984, 1987; Hilles, 1986; Phinney, 1987; White, 1985a, 1985b; papers in Flynn and O'Neil, 1988). A key linguistic construct that has received relatively little attention in SLA research is thematic roles—notions such as AGENT, THEME, GOAL, LOCATION, SOURCE, and others that are believed to contribute to semantic encoding and decoding. Although thematic roles (alternatively, thematic relations, semantic roles, case roles, 9-roles) have long been part of modem linguistic theory (cf. Gruber, 1965; Fillmore, 1968; Jackendoff, 1972), they have enjoyed increased popularity in the recent linguistic literature owing in part to their central role in Chomsky's (1981) government and binding (GB) theory, as embodied in the G-Criterion.^ Various formulations of the 9-Criterion have been proposed, but the simple formulation in (1) will suffice here. (1) e-Criterion (Chomsky 1981, p. 36): Each argument bears one and only one H-role, and each H-role is assigned to one and only one argument.
  • Comparing Bulgarian and Slovak Multext-East Morphology Tagset1

    Comparing Bulgarian and Slovak Multext-East Morphology Tagset1

    Comparing Bulgarian and Slovak Multext-East morphology tagset1 Ludmila Dimitrovaa), Radovan Garabíkb), Daniela Majchrákováb) a) Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences 1113 Sofia, Bulgaria [email protected] b) Ľ. Štúr Institute of Linguistics, Slovak Academy of Sciences 813 64 Bratislava, Slovakia [email protected], http://korpus.juls.savba.sk Abstract We analyse the differences between the Bulgarian and Slovak languages Multext-East morphology specifica- tion (MTE, 2004). The differences can be caused either by inherent language dissimilarities, different ways of analysing morphology categories or just by different use of MTE design guideline. We describe all the parts of speech in detail with emphasis on analysing the tagset differences. Keywords: Bulgarian, Slovak, grammatical category, morphology specification, morphology tagset Introduction The EC project MULTEXT Multilingual Tools and Corpora produced linguistics resources and a freely available set of tools that are extensible, coherent and language-independent, for seven Western European languages: English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch, and Swedish (Ide, Veronis, 1994). The EC INCO-Copernicus project MULTEXT-East Multilingual Text Tools and Corpora for Central and Eastern European Languages is a continuation of the MULTEXT project. MULTEXT-East (MTE for short; Dimitrova et al., 1998) used methodologies and results of MULTEXT. MTE developed significant language resources for six Central and Eastern European (CEE) languages: Bulgarian,
  • PUMICE: a Multi-Modal Agent That Learns Concepts and Conditionals

    PUMICE: a Multi-Modal Agent That Learns Concepts and Conditionals

    PUMICE: A Multi-Modal Agent that Learns Concepts and Conditionals from Natural Language and Demonstrations Toby Jia-Jun Li1, Marissa Radensky2, Justin Jia1, Kirielle Singarajah1, Tom M. Mitchell1, Brad A. Myers1 1Carnegie Mellon University, 2Amherst College {tobyli, tom.mitchell, bam}@cs.cmu.edu, {justinj1, ksingara}@andrew.cmu.edu, [email protected] Figure 1. Example structure of how PUMICE learns the concepts and procedures in the command “If it’s hot, order a cup of Iced Cappuccino.” The numbers indicate the order of utterances. The screenshot on the right shows the conversational interface of PUMICE. In this interactive parsing process, the agent learns how to query the current temperature, how to order any kind of drink from Starbucks, and the generalized concept of “hot” as “a temperature (of something) is greater than another temperature”. ABSTRACT CCS Concepts Natural language programming is a promising approach to •Human-centered computing ! Natural language inter­ enable end users to instruct new tasks for intelligent agents. faces; However, our formative study found that end users would of­ ten use unclear, ambiguous or vague concepts when naturally Author Keywords instructing tasks in natural language, especially when spec­ Programming by Demonstration; Natural Language Pro­ ifying conditionals. Existing systems have limited support gramming; End User Development; Multi-modal Interaction. for letting the user teach agents new concepts or explaining unclear concepts. In this paper, we describe a new multi- INTRODUCTION modal domain-independent approach that combines natural The goal of end user development (EUD) is to empower language programming and programming-by-demonstration users with little or no programming expertise to program [43].
  • The Strategy of Case-Marking

    The Strategy of Case-Marking

    Case marking strategies Helen de Hoop & Andrej Malchukov1 Radboud University Nijmegen DRAFT January 2006 Abstract Two strategies of case marking in natural languages are discussed. These are defined as two violable constraints whose effects are shown to converge in the case of differential object marking but diverge in the case of differential subject marking. The strength of the case bearing arguments will be shown to be of utmost importance for case marking as well as voice alternations. The strength of arguments can be viewed as a function of their discourse prominence. The analysis of the case marking patterns we find cross-linguistically is couched in a bidirectional OT analysis. 1. Assumptions In this section we wish to put forward our three basic assumptions: (1) In ergative-absolutive systems ergative case is assigned to the first argument x of a two-place relation R(x,y). (2) In nominative-accusative systems accusative case is assigned to the second argument y of a two-place relation R(x,y). (3) Morphologically unmarked case can be the absence of case. The first two assumptions deal with the linking between the first (highest) and second (lowest) argument in a transitive sentence and the type of case marking. For reasons of convenience, we will refer to these arguments quite sloppily as the subject and the object respectively, although we are aware of the fact that the labels subject and object may not be appropriate in all contexts, dependent on how they are actually defined. In many languages, ergative and accusative case are assigned only or mainly in transitive sentences, while in intransitive sentences ergative and accusative case are usually not assigned.
  • On Root Modality and Thematic Relations in Tagalog and English*

    On Root Modality and Thematic Relations in Tagalog and English*

    Proceedings of SALT 26: 775–794, 2016 On root modality and thematic relations in Tagalog and English* Maayan Abenina-Adar Nikos Angelopoulos UCLA UCLA Abstract The literature on modality discusses how context and grammar interact to produce different flavors of necessity primarily in connection with functional modals e.g., English auxiliaries. In contrast, the grammatical properties of lexical modals (i.e., thematic verbs) are less understood. In this paper, we use the Tagalog necessity modal kailangan and English need as a case study in the syntax-semantics of lexical modals. Kailangan and need enter two structures, which we call ‘thematic’ and ‘impersonal’. We show that when they establish a thematic dependency with a subject, they express necessity in light of this subject’s priorities, and in the absence of an overt thematic subject, they express necessity in light of priorities endorsed by the speaker. To account for this, we propose a single lexical entry for kailangan / need that uniformly selects for a ‘needer’ argument. In thematic constructions, the needer is the overt subject, and in impersonal constructions, it is an implicit speaker-bound pronoun. Keywords: modality, thematic relations, Tagalog, syntax-semantics interface 1 Introduction In this paper, we observe that English need and its Tagalog counterpart, kailangan, express two different types of necessity depending on the syntactic structure they enter. We show that thematic constructions like (1) express necessities in light of priorities of the thematic subject, i.e., John, whereas impersonal constructions like (2) express necessities in light of priorities of the speaker. (1) John needs there to be food left over.
  • On Binding Asymmetries in Dative Alternation Constructions in L2 Spanish

    On Binding Asymmetries in Dative Alternation Constructions in L2 Spanish

    On Binding Asymmetries in Dative Alternation Constructions in L2 Spanish Silvia Perpiñán and Silvina Montrul University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 1. Introduction Ditransitive verbs can take a direct object and an indirect object. In English and many other languages, the order of these objects can be altered, giving as a result the Dative Construction on the one hand (I sent a package to my parents) and the Double Object Construction, (I sent my parents a package, hereafter DOC), on the other. However, not all ditransitive verbs can participate in this alternation. The study of the English dative alternation has been a recurrent topic in the language acquisition literature. This argument-structure alternation is widely recognized as an exemplar of the poverty of stimulus problem: from a limited set of data in the input, the language acquirer must somehow determine which verbs allow the alternating syntactic forms and which ones do not: you can give money to someone and donate money to someone; you can also give someone money but you definitely cannot *donate someone money. Since Spanish, apparently, does not allow DOC (give someone money), L2 learners of Spanish whose mother tongue is English have to become aware of this restriction in Spanish, without negative evidence. However, it has been noticed by Demonte (1995) and Cuervo (2001) that Spanish has a DOC, which is not identical, but which shares syntactic and, crucially, interpretive restrictions with the English counterpart. Moreover, within the Spanish Dative Construction, the order of the objects can also be inverted without superficial morpho-syntactic differences, (Pablo mandó una carta a la niña ‘Pablo sent a letter to the girl’ vs.
  • 2008. Pruning Some Branches from 'Branching Spacetimes'

    2008. Pruning Some Branches from 'Branching Spacetimes'

    CHAPTER 10 Pruning Some Branches from “Branching Spacetimes” John Earman* Abstract Discussions of branching time and branching spacetime have become com- mon in the philosophical literature. If properly understood, these concep- tions can be harmless. But they are sometimes used in the service of debat- able and even downright pernicious doctrines. The purpose of this chapter is to identify the pernicious branching and prune it back. 1. INTRODUCTION Talk of “branching time” and “branching spacetime” is wide spread in the philo- sophical literature. Such expressions, if properly understood, can be innocuous. But they are sometimes used in the service of debatable and even downright per- nicious doctrines. The purpose of this paper is to identify the pernicious branching and prune it back. Section 2 distinguishes three types of spacetime branching: individual branch- ing, ensemble branching, and Belnap branching. Individual branching, as the name indicates, involves a branching structure in individual spacetime models. It is argued that such branching is neither necessary nor sufficient for indeterminism, which is explicated in terms of the branching in the ensemble of spacetime mod- els satisfying the laws of physics. Belnap branching refers to the sort of branching used by the Belnap school of branching spacetimes. An attempt is made to sit- uate this sort of branching with respect to ensemble branching and individual branching. Section 3 is a sustained critique of various ways of trying to imple- ment individual branching for relativistic spacetimes. Conclusions are given in Section 4. * Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA The Ontology of Spacetime II © Elsevier BV ISSN 1871-1774, DOI: 10.1016/S1871-1774(08)00010-7 All rights reserved 187 188 Pruning Some Branches from “Branching Spacetimes” 2.
  • Layers and Operators in Lakota1 Avelino Corral Esteban Universidad Autónoma De Madrid

    Layers and Operators in Lakota1 Avelino Corral Esteban Universidad Autónoma De Madrid

    Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 36 (2015), 1-33 Layers and operators in Lakota1 Avelino Corral Esteban Universidad Autónoma de Madrid Abstract Categories covering the expression of grammatical information such as aspect, negation, tense, mood, modality, etc., are crucial to the study of language universals. In this study, I will present an analysis of the syntax and semantics of these grammatical categories in Lakota within the Role and Reference Grammar framework (hereafter RRG) (Van Valin 1993, 2005; Van Valin and LaPolla 1997), a functional approach in which elements with a purely grammatical function are treated as ´operators`. Many languages mark Aspect-Tense- Mood/Modality information (henceforth ATM) either morphologically or syntactically. Unlike most Native American languages, which exhibit an extremely complex verbal morphological system indicating this grammatical information, Lakota, a Siouan language with a mildly synthetic / partially agglutinative morphology, expresses information relating to ATM through enclitics, auxiliary verbs and adverbs, rather than by coding it through verbal affixes. 1. Introduction The organisation of this paper is as follows: after a brief account of the most relevant morpho- syntactic features exhibited by Lakota, Section 2 attempts to shed light on the distinction between lexical words, enclitics and affixes through evidence obtained in the study of this language. Section 3 introduces the notion of ´operator` and explores the ATM system in Lakota using RRG´s theory of operator system. After a description of each grammatical category, an analysis of the linear order exhibited by the Lakota operators with respect to the nucleus of the clause are analysed in Section 4, showing that this ordering reflects the scope relations between the grammatical categories conveyed by these operators.
  • CAS LX 522 Syntax I the Y Model

    CAS LX 522 Syntax I the Y Model

    CAS LX 522 The Y model • We’re now ready to tackle the most abstract branch of Syntax I the Y-model, the mapping from SS to LF. Here is where we have “movement that you can’t see”. θ Theory Week 10. LF Overt movement, DS Subcategorization Expletive insertion X-bar theory Case theory, EPP SS Covert movement Phonology/ Morphology PF LF Binding theory Derivations Derivations • We think of what we’re doing when we • The steps are not necessarily a reflection of what construct abstract structures of sentences we are doing online as we speak—what we are this way as being a sequence of steps. doing is characterizing our knowledge of language, and it turns out that we can predict our – We start with DS intuitions about what sentences are good and bad – We do some movements and what different sentences mean by – We arrive at SS characterizing the relationship between underlying – We do some more movements thematic relations, surface form, and interpretation in terms of movements in an order with constraints – We arrive at LF on what movements are possible. Derivations Derivations • It seems that the simplest explanation for the • Concerning SS, under this view, languages pick a complex facts of grammar is in terms of several point to focus on between DS and LF and small modifications to the DS that each are subject pronounce that structure. This is (the basis for) SS. to certain constraints, sometimes even things which • There are also certain restrictions on the form SS seem to indicate that one operation has to occur has (e.g., Case, EPP have to be satisfied).
  • Romani Syntactic Typology Evangelia Adamou, Yaron Matras

    Romani Syntactic Typology Evangelia Adamou, Yaron Matras

    Romani Syntactic Typology Evangelia Adamou, Yaron Matras To cite this version: Evangelia Adamou, Yaron Matras. Romani Syntactic Typology. Yaron Matras; Anton Tenser. The Palgrave Handbook of Romani Language and Linguistics, Springer, pp.187-227, 2020, 978-3-030-28104- 5. 10.1007/978-3-030-28105-2_7. halshs-02965238 HAL Id: halshs-02965238 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-02965238 Submitted on 13 Oct 2020 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Romani syntactic typology Evangelia Adamou and Yaron Matras 1. State of the art This chapter presents an overview of the principal syntactic-typological features of Romani dialects. It draws on the discussion in Matras (2002, chapter 7) while taking into consideration more recent studies. In particular, we draw on the wealth of morpho- syntactic data that have since become available via the Romani Morpho-Syntax (RMS) database.1 The RMS data are based on responses to the Romani Morpho-Syntax questionnaire recorded from Romani speaking communities across Europe and beyond. We try to take into account a representative sample. We also take into consideration data from free-speech recordings available in the RMS database and the Pangloss Collection.
  • (2012) Perspectival Discourse Referents for Indexicals* Maria

    (2012) Perspectival Discourse Referents for Indexicals* Maria

    To appear in Proceedings of SULA 7 (2012) Perspectival discourse referents for indexicals* Maria Bittner Rutgers University 0. Introduction By definition, the reference of an indexical depends on the context of utterance. For ex- ample, what proposition is expressed by saying I am hungry depends on who says this and when. Since Kaplan (1978), context dependence has been analyzed in terms of two parameters: an utterance context, which determines the reference of indexicals, and a formally unrelated assignment function, which determines the reference of anaphors (rep- resented as variables). This STATIC VIEW of indexicals, as pure context dependence, is still widely accepted. With varying details, it is implemented by current theories of indexicali- ty not only in static frameworks, which ignore context change (e.g. Schlenker 2003, Anand and Nevins 2004), but also in the otherwise dynamic framework of DRT. In DRT, context change is only relevant for anaphors, which refer to current values of variables. In contrast, indexicals refer to static contextual anchors (see Kamp 1985, Zeevat 1999). This SEMI-STATIC VIEW reconstructs the traditional indexical-anaphor dichotomy in DRT. An alternative DYNAMIC VIEW of indexicality is implicit in the ‘commonplace ef- fect’ of Stalnaker (1978) and is formally explicated in Bittner (2007, 2011). The basic idea is that indexical reference is a species of discourse reference, just like anaphora. In particular, both varieties of discourse reference involve not only context dependence, but also context change. The act of speaking up focuses attention and thereby makes this very speech event available for discourse reference by indexicals. Mentioning something likewise focuses attention, making the mentioned entity available for subsequent dis- course reference by anaphors.
  • Definiteness and Determinacy

    Definiteness and Determinacy

    Linguistics and Philosophy manuscript No. (will be inserted by the editor) Definiteness and Determinacy Elizabeth Coppock · David Beaver the date of receipt and acceptance should be inserted later Abstract This paper distinguishes between definiteness and determinacy. Defi- niteness is seen as a morphological category which, in English, marks a (weak) uniqueness presupposition, while determinacy consists in denoting an individual. Definite descriptions are argued to be fundamentally predicative, presupposing uniqueness but not existence, and to acquire existential import through general type-shifting operations that apply not only to definites, but also indefinites and possessives. Through these shifts, argumental definite descriptions may become either determinate (and thus denote an individual) or indeterminate (functioning as an existential quantifier). The latter option is observed in examples like `Anna didn't give the only invited talk at the conference', which, on its indeterminate reading, implies that there is nothing in the extension of `only invited talk at the conference'. The paper also offers a resolution of the issue of whether posses- sives are inherently indefinite or definite, suggesting that, like indefinites, they do not mark definiteness lexically, but like definites, they typically yield determinate readings due to a general preference for the shifting operation that produces them. Keywords definiteness · descriptions · possessives · predicates · type-shifting We thank Dag Haug, Reinhard Muskens, Luca Crniˇc,Cleo Condoravdi, Lucas