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Meanings of Determiners Heading Non-Topic Dps to the Meanings of the Corresponding Topics

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Meanings of Determiners Heading Non-Topic Dps to the Meanings of the Corresponding Topics Acknowledgements First of all, I would like to thank my teachers and supervisors Manfred Bierwisch and Reinhard Blutner. Without their sympathetic help in a personally very difficult situation, I would have been unable even to start writing this dissertation. Besides this, they patiently supported me with their advice and experience in every stage of my work. The people that inspired me with discussions and comments are so numerous that there is no hope to mention all of them. Among them are Kai Alter, Daniel Büring, Johannes Dölling, Bernhard Drubig, Hans Martin Gärtner, Edward Göbbel, Michael Herweg, Caroline Heycock, Helen de Hoop, Inga Kohlhof, Manfred Krifka, Annette Lessmöllmann, Christine Maaßen, André Meinunger, Marga Reis, Michal Starke, Markus Steinbach, Wolfgang Sternefeld, Anatoli Strigin, Hubert Truckenbrodt, Enric Vallduví, Ralf Vogel, Chris Wilder, Susanne Winkler, Werner Wolff, Henk Zeevat, and Ede Zimmermann. I am indebted to the "Max-Planck-Gesellschaft" for its financial support. Special thanks go to Elena Demke, Annette Lessmöllmann, Anatoli Strigin, and Chris Wilder for correcting my English. All remaining mistakes are of course subject to my own responsibility. Last but not least, I thank my parents and my brother for everything. Table of Contents 1 Introduction . 1 2 The Dynamic Framework . 5 2.1 Donkey Sentences and Cross-sentential Anaphora . 5 2.2 Montague Semantics and File Change Semantics: A Comparison . 7 2.2.1 Montague Semantics: The General Picture . 7 2.2.2 File Change Semantics: An Overview . 11 2.2.2.1 The Strategy . 11 2.2.2.2 Files . 13 2.2.2.3 LF-Construal . 13 2.2.2.4 The Interpretation of LF . 18 2.2.2.5 Comparing MS and FCS . 24 2.3 Extensional Dynamic Predicate Logic . 26 2.3.1 The Syntax of EDPL . 26 2.3.2 Contexts . 27 2.3.3 The Semantics of EDPL . 31 2.3.4 Truth and Entailment in EDPL . 38 2.4 Dynamic Extensional Type Theory . 42 2.4.1 The Syntax of DETT . 43 2.4.2 Models, Domains and Contexts . 45 2.4.3 The Semantics of DETT . 46 2.4.4 DETT and DIL . 54 2.5 Interpreting English with DETT . 55 3 Topic-Comment-Articulation and Definiteness . 68 3.1 Definiteness = Familiarity? . 68 3.1.1 Heim's Theory of Definiteness . 68 3.1.2 Anaphoric and Referential Definites . 70 3.1.3 Topics and German Scrambling . 71 3.1.4 Associative Anaphoric Definites . 74 3.2 A Dynamic Approach to Definiteness . 75 3.2.1 Flexible Domains: The Peg System . 75 3.2.2 Referential Definites . 82 3.2.3 Unifying the Anaphoric and the Referential Reading . 83 3.3 DETT Augmented with a Peg System . 87 3.3.1 Contexts and Updates . 88 3.3.2 The Semantics of DITT . 92 3.4 A Compositional Treatment of Topicality and Bridging . 95 3.4.1 Indefinites and Pronouns . 95 3.4.2 Referential Definites . 96 3.4.3 Anaphoric Definites . 99 3.4.4 Donkey Sentences with Definite Descriptions and the E-Type Strategy . 102 3.4.5 Bridging without Accommodation . 107 3.5 Summary . 112 3.6 Loose Ends . 116 3.6.1 Pronouns . 116 3.6.2 Definite Descriptions and Bridging . 117 4 Indefinite Topics . 122 4.1 Partitive Readings . 122 4.1.1 Enç's Proposal . 122 4.1.2 Plural . 125 4.1.3 Weak Quantifiers . 129 4.1.3.1 Syntax . 129 4.1.3.2 Semantics . 130 4.1.3.3 Intonation and Focus . 133 4.1.4 Summary and Discussion . 137 4.1.5 Appendix . 140 4.2 The Proportion Problem . 143 4.2.1 Ambiguities in Donkey Sentences . 143 4.2.2 A Situation-based Approach: Berman['87] . 147 4.2.3 Selective Binding: Chierchia['92] . 149 4.2.4 A Synthesis: Proportions in DITT . 152 4.3 Conclusion and Desiderata . 159 Bibliograpy . 162 Chapter One: Introduction This dissertation deals with several phenomena usually subsumed under the category of (in)definiteness. There are nearly as many proposals on how to describe this category semantically as there are semantic frameworks. In traditional truth-conditional semantics from Russell to Montague, it is assumed that indefinites express an existential statement, while definites additionally carry some uniqueness requirement. More recent approaches like Discourse Representation Theory (Kamp['81], Kamp & Reyle['93]) or File Change Semantics (Heim['82]) prefer to assume that definites and indefinites perform different actions on some discourse model. As a common integrator, most influential semantic frameworks consider definiteness to be a central issue of semantic theory. One might wonder whether this dichotomy is really that important after all. There is a considerable number of languages that do well without any marking of definiteness, and even in languages such as English and German, where the contrast is expressed morphologically, it is highly redundant. (I was once told a very illuminating story1 about a Japanese woman living in Germany who knew German superficially very well. She never used any articles. Her German colleagues not only failed to miss them, they even failed to notice it at all.) Of course the communicative redundancy of definiteness does not suffice to prove its theoretical marginality. There are quite many widespread phenomena in different languages that are prima facie related to definiteness. They are usually covered with the notion of "Definiteness Effect". We do not intend to investigate these systematically here, but it is questionable whether this term is really appropriate. As an example, the most prominent instance, English there-constructions, is obviously not related to definiteness at all. (1) a. There is only John in the garden. b. There was the biggest car I've ever seen in front of his house. (Chris Wilder, p.c.) I am not aware of any definition of indefiniteness that covers only John or the biggest car I©ve ever seen. Whatever the category is the coda of there-sentences is sensitive for, it is not definiteness. Similar considrations arise when we consider scrambling in German2 , another alleged 1by Manfred Pinkal (p.c.) 2To be precise, there are (at least) two kinds of scrambling in German. One is very similar to I- topicalization, i.e. the scrambled item receives a heavy rising accent, and if scope-bearing items are involved, we have an inverted interpretation. All kinds of maximal projections, including remnant VPs can be affected by (continued...) I P Chapter 1. Introduction instance of the Definiteness Effect. Several authors (Lenerz['77], Reis['87], and, more recently, Büring['94]) have proposed that in German, the surface position of arguments inside or outside VP is largely determined by definiteness. Provided that no focus- or animacy- effects intervene, definite subjects and objects have to occur in a VP-external position, while indefinites remain in situ. Most data support this view. (2) a. Peter hat gestern ein Buch gekauft. Peter has yesterday a book bought b.??? Peter hat ein Buch gestern gekauft Peter has a book yesterday bought 'Yesterday, Peter bought a book' (3) a.??? Peter hat gestern das Buch gekauft. Peter has yesterday the book bought b. Peter hat das Buch gestern gekauft Peter has the book yesterday bought 'Peter bought the book yesterday' If we assume that the adverb gestern 'yesterday' marks the VP-boundary, the indefinite object is preferred in the VP-internal position and the definite one in the VP-external position. Nevertheless, there are counterexamples. Name-like definites like die Bibel 'the Bible' are allowed in both positions equally well, and specific indefinites occur in scrambled positions. (4) a. Peter hat gestern die Bibel gekauft. Peter has yesterday the Bible bought b. Peter hat die Bibel gestern gekauft Peter has the Bible yesterday bought 'Yesterday, Peter bought the Bible' (5) a. Hans hat einen bestimmten Studenten noch nie gesehen. 2(...continued) this process. (i) (weil) das [ FREIwillig] / NIEmand \ t tun würde AP i i (since) this voluntarily nobody do would 'Since nobody would do this voluntarily' (ii) weil mit SIcherheit / NIEmand \ t die Wahrheit kennt i i since with security nobody the truth knows 'Since nobody knows the truth for sure' We are only interested in the second kind of scrambling which is restricted to DPs and some PPs, involves only deaccentuation of the scrambled item and does not give rise to scope inversion. Q Hans has a certain student still never seen b.* Hans hat noch nie einen bestimmten Studenten gesehen. Hans has still never a certain student seen 'There is a certain student that Hans never saw' As it turns out, there are other factors scrambling is sensitive to that usually coincide with definiteness, but sometimes the distinctions are orthogonal to each other. There is a lot of recent crosslinguistic work that shows that this property of scrambling is not a pure idiosyncrasy of German. Comparable observations can be made for Dutch (de Hoop['93]) and - more unexpectedly - Cashmerese (Rajesh Bhatt, p.c.). Meinunger['95] shows convincingly that for instance case alternation phenomena in Finnish and Russian and clitic doubling in Romance and Bantu-languages should be treated on a par with scrambling. This enables us to assume that there is another dichotomy besides (in)definiteness that is responsible for the mentioned contrasts. I decided to call those items that are marked by scrambling/ structural case/ clitic doubling Topic, but the nomenclature is of minor importance. Probably, there is a kind of feature specification default that requires definites to be Topics and indefinites to be non-Topics, but there are exceptions in both directions. It is very likely that the category Topic is universally present, while there is no need to assume that languages that do not express definiteness morphologically have that category at all.
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