DOCSLIB.ORG

On the Veridicality of Perfective Clause-Embedding Verbs in Polish

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
On the Veridicality of Perfective Clause-Embedding Verbs in Polish On the veridicality of perfective clause-embedding verbs in Polish: A unified aspect-based analysis of incremental theme verbs with nominal and propositional complements Dissertation zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades Doktorin der Philosophie (Dr. phil.) eingereicht an der Sprach- und literaturwissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Humboldt- Universität zu Berlin von M.A. Karolina Zuchewicz Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr. Sabine Kunst Prof. Dr. Ulrike Vedder Präsidentin der Humboldt-Universität Dekanin der Sprach- und zu Berlin literaturwissenschaftlichen Fakultät GutachterInnen: 1. Prof. Dr. Luka Szucsich 2. Prof. Dr. Manfred Krifka 3. Prof. Dr. Hana Filip Tag der Verteidigung: 11.06.2020 Danksagung Ich möchte mich in erster Linie bei Luka Szuscich und Manfred Krifka bedanken, die die besten Betreuer sind, die ich mir je hätte wünschen können. Dank unserer vorbildlichen Zusammenarbeit, unzähliger Gespräche und enormer Unterstützung, die ich während der gesamten Vorbereitungs- und Schreibphase bekommen habe, konnte ich diese Dissertation in der vorliegenden Form einreichen. Auch möchte ich mich bei Hana Filip bedanken, die das dritte Gutachten angefertigt und mich bei mehreren Gelegenheiten fachlich unterstützt hat. Ich danke meinen KollegInnen vom Fachbereich III: Syntax und Lexikon vom Leibniz- ZAS: Werner Frey, Jens Hopperdietzel, Sybille Kiziltan, Thomas McFadden, André Meinunger, Fereshteh Modarresi, Zorica Puškar-Gallien, Frank Seifart, Torgrim Solstadt, Kasia Stoltmann und Tonjes Veenstra. Ich danke Anton Benz, Joanna Błaszczak, Ola Ćwiek, Nicole Gotzner, Ana Krajinović, Clemens Mayr, Roland Meyer, Oksana Rasskazova, Fabienne Salfner, Uli Sauerland, Dària Serés, Marcin Wągiel, Kata Wohlmuth and Tue Trinh. Auch möchte ich mich bei dem Publikum von SuB24 und SSPAM (TbiLLC 2019) bedanken, insbesondere bei Markus Egg, Daniel Hole und Malte Zimmermann. Ein ganz besonderer Dank geht an Artemis Alexiadou, Berit Gehrke, Dara Jokilehto, Paul Marty, Kerstin Schwabe, Radek Šimík, Carla Umbach und Kilu von Prince, die mir einen starken inhaltlichen Input gegeben haben. Felix Golcher danke ich für seine Hilfe bei der statistischen Auswertung. Für die Korrektur des Englischen möchte ich mich bei Una MacLean bedanken. Zuletzt möchte ich meinen Eltern Joanna und Tadeusz Zuchewicz sowie meiner Schwester Maja danken. Ohne deren Liebe und Glauben an mich wäre ich an diesem Punkt nie angekommen. 1 2 Abstract In my dissertation, I investigated a systematic interaction between the perfective aspect of a clause-embedding verb and a truth-oriented interpretation of embedded propositions in Polish. I demonstrated that the so-called reveal-type predicates (‘prove’, ‘reveal’, ‘show [that]’) are in complementary distribution with respect to triggering truth-related meaning of their sentential complements. Whereas perfective variants enforce embedded propositions to be true, imperfective counterparts are almost only compatible with false (or neutral) propositions. I further showed that clause-embedding reveal-type predicates exhibit an incremental structure and can therefore be treated by analogy to verbs that combine with nominal incremental themes. In the former case, we have a gradual creation of a proof, whereas in the latter case, we have a gradual creation of an object like ‘wardrobe’ (maximality of evidence = maximality of a wardrobe). I proposed a novel analysis of incremental theme verbs that combine with either nouns or clauses. According to my analysis, one possible realization of a partial-total affectedness of an incremental theme is a gradual creation of a proof for an embedded proposition. In order to obtain empirical evidence for the (non-)veridicality of (im)perfective reveal-type predicates in Polish, I conducted an acceptability judgement study with 51 Polish native speakers. I further conducted a corpus-based analysis of the frequency of investigated lexemes, which completed the interpretation of results. Apart from Polish, I provided evidence from other Slavic languages (Czech, Russian) and some non-Slavic languages (Austronesian languages, French, Hungarian). 3 Zusammenfassung Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der wahrheitsbasierten Bedeutung perfektiver satzeinbettender Prädikate im Polnischen, i.e. mit dem Zusammenhang zwischen Aspekt und Wahrheitsinferenz. Den Kern meiner Dissertation bilden sogenannte ‚reveal-type predicates‘ wie ‘beweisen’, ‘zeigen’ oder ‘offenbaren [dass]’. In Abhängigkeit von deren aspektueller Markierung bringen sie entweder eine maximale (bei perfektiven Verben) oder eine partielle Evidenz (bei imperfektiven Verben) für die Wahrheit einer eingebetteten Proposition mit sich. Nur wenn die Evidenz maximal ist, wird der dass-Satz notwendigerweise als wahr interpretiert. Ich habe gezeigt, dass maximale Evidenz einer totalen Affiziertheit eines nominalen inkrementellen Themas (wie z. B. in ‘einen Schrank bauen.PFV’) entspricht (Maximalität von Evidenz = Maximalität vom Schrank). Somit sind reveal-type predicates inkrementell. Außerdem habe ich eine Akzeptabilitätsstudie mit 51 polnischen MuttersprachlerInnen geplant und durchgeführt, die die Veridikalität des Perfektivs und die Neutralität des Imperfektivs bestätigt hat. Die Interpretation der Ergebnisse wurde um eine Korpusuntersuchung ergänzt. Basierend auf den theoretischen Beobachtungen und den Studienergebnissen habe ich eine einheitliche Analyse für inkrementelle Verben vorgeschlagen, die entweder ein nominales oder ein propositionales Objekt verlangen. Die von mir für das Polnische entdeckten Korrelationen gelten auch für andere slawische (Tschechisch, Russisch) und einige nicht-slawische Sprachen (austronesische Sprachen, Französisch, Ungarisch). 4 Contents Danksagung ...................................................................................................................... 1 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 9 2 Truth-presupposition, truth-entailment and truth-implicature ................................ 11 2.1 Truth-presupposition ........................................................................................ 11 2.1.1 Semantic definition of presupposition adopted in this dissertation .......... 11 2.1.2 Pragmatic definition of presupposition .................................................... 16 2.2 Truth-entailment .............................................................................................. 17 2.3 Truth-implicature ............................................................................................. 19 3 The category of aspect: Overview ........................................................................... 23 3.1 Perfectivity ....................................................................................................... 24 3.1.1 Comrie (1976) .......................................................................................... 24 3.1.2 Klein (1994) .............................................................................................. 26 3.2 Telicity ............................................................................................................. 28 3.2.1 Vendler (1957) on four verb schemata ..................................................... 29 3.2.2 Telicity tests .............................................................................................. 31 3.3 The relationship between perfectivity and telicity ........................................... 32 3.4 What is the actual trigger of truthfulness? ....................................................... 34 4 Aspect and the interpretation of nominal complements .......................................... 37 4.1 Aspect-dependent interpretation of bare objects in Slavic languages ............. 37 4.2 Theoretic implementation by Krifka ................................................................ 41 4.2.1 Nominal reference .................................................................................... 41 4.2.2 The influence of nominal reference on the interpretation of complex verbal expressions in languages that lack the grammatical category of aspect ...... 44 4.2.3 The role of thematic relations in triggering the reference transfer: The notion of an incremental patient applied to both nominal and propositional complements............................................................................................................ 47 4.2.4 Two subtypes of an incremental patient in the case of the perfective and the imperfective reveal-type verbs in Polish ........................................................... 55 4.2.5 The influence of aspect on the interpretation of nominal complements in Slavic languages ...................................................................................................... 57 5 Factive interpretation of clause-embedding predicates ........................................... 61 5 5.1 Non-aspectual factors that enforce a factive interpretation of clause-embedding verbs 61 5.1.1 Correlates .................................................................................................. 61 5.1.2 Prosody ..................................................................................................... 66 5.1.3 Embedded questions and the notion of parts of propositions ................... 67 5.1.4 Exhaustivity of perfective question-embedding verbs in Polish .............. 77 5.2 Aspectual factors that enforce a factive interpretation of clause-embedding verbs 80 5.2.1
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Empirical Base of Linguistics: Grammaticality Judgments and Linguistic Methodology
    UCLA UCLA Previously Published Works Title The empirical base of linguistics: Grammaticality judgments and linguistic methodology Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/05b2s4wg ISBN 978-3946234043 Author Schütze, Carson T Publication Date 2016-02-01 DOI 10.17169/langsci.b89.101 Data Availability The data associated with this publication are managed by: Language Science Press, Berlin Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California The empirical base of linguistics Grammaticality judgments and linguistic methodology Carson T. Schütze language Classics in Linguistics 2 science press Classics in Linguistics Chief Editors: Martin Haspelmath, Stefan Müller In this series: 1. Lehmann, Christian. Thoughts on grammaticalization 2. Schütze, Carson T. The empirical base of linguistics: Grammaticality judgments and linguistic methodology 3. Bickerton, Derek. Roots of language ISSN: 2366-374X The empirical base of linguistics Grammaticality judgments and linguistic methodology Carson T. Schütze language science press Carson T. Schütze. 2019. The empirical base of linguistics: Grammaticality judgments and linguistic methodology (Classics in Linguistics 2). Berlin: Language Science Press. This title can be downloaded at: http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/89 © 2019, Carson T. Schütze Published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Licence (CC BY 4.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ISBN: 978-3-946234-02-9 (Digital) 978-3-946234-03-6 (Hardcover) 978-3-946234-04-3 (Softcover) 978-1-523743-32-2
    [Show full text]
  • Veridicality and Utterance Meaning
    2011 Fifth IEEE International Conference on Semantic Computing Veridicality and utterance understanding Marie-Catherine de Marneffe, Christopher D. Manning and Christopher Potts Linguistics Department Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305 {mcdm,manning,cgpotts}@stanford.edu Abstract—Natural language understanding depends heavily on making the requisite inferences. The inherent uncertainty of assessing veridicality – whether the speaker intends to convey that pragmatic inference suggests to us that veridicality judgments events mentioned are actual, non-actual, or uncertain. However, are not always categorical, and thus are better modeled as this property is little used in relation and event extraction systems, and the work that has been done has generally assumed distributions. We therefore treat veridicality as a distribution- that it can be captured by lexical semantic properties. Here, prediction task. We trained a maximum entropy classifier on we show that context and world knowledge play a significant our annotations to assign event veridicality distributions. Our role in shaping veridicality. We extend the FactBank corpus, features include not only lexical items like hedges, modals, which contains semantically driven veridicality annotations, with and negations, but also structural features and approximations pragmatically informed ones. Our annotations are more complex than the lexical assumption predicts but systematic enough to of world knowledge. The resulting model yields insights into be included in computational work on textual understanding. the complex pragmatic factors that shape readers’ veridicality They also indicate that veridicality judgments are not always judgments. categorical, and should therefore be modeled as distributions. We build a classifier to automatically assign event veridicality II. CORPUS ANNOTATION distributions based on our new annotations.
    [Show full text]
  • Sentential Negation and Negative Concord
    Sentential Negation and Negative Concord Published by LOT phone: +31.30.2536006 Trans 10 fax: +31.30.2536000 3512 JK Utrecht email: [email protected] The Netherlands http://wwwlot.let.uu.nl/ Cover illustration: Kasimir Malevitch: Black Square. State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia. ISBN 90-76864-68-3 NUR 632 Copyright © 2004 by Hedde Zeijlstra. All rights reserved. Sentential Negation and Negative Concord ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam op gezag van de Rector Magnificus Prof. Mr P.F. van der Heijden ten overstaan van een door het College voor Promoties ingestelde commissie, in het openbaar te verdedigen in de Aula der Universiteit op woensdag 15 december 2004, te 10:00 uur door HEDZER HUGO ZEIJLSTRA geboren te Rotterdam Promotiecommissie: Promotores: Prof. Dr H.J. Bennis Prof. Dr J.A.G. Groenendijk Copromotor: Dr J.B. den Besten Leden: Dr L.C.J. Barbiers (Meertens Instituut, Amsterdam) Dr P.J.E. Dekker Prof. Dr A.C.J. Hulk Prof. Dr A. von Stechow (Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen) Prof. Dr F.P. Weerman Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen Voor Petra Table of Contents TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................ I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................V 1 INTRODUCTION................................................................................................1 1.1 FOUR ISSUES IN THE STUDY OF NEGATION.......................................................1
    [Show full text]
  • Like, Hedging and Mirativity. a Unified Account
    Like, hedging and mirativity. A unified account. Abstract (4) Never thought I would say this, but Lil’ Wayne, is like. smart. We draw a connection between ‘hedging’ (5) My friend I used to hang out with is like use of the discourse particle like in Amer- . rich now. ican English and its use as a mirative marker of surprise. We propose that both (6) Whoa! I like . totally won again! uses of like widen the size of a pragmati- cally restricted set – a pragmatic halo vs. a In (4), the speaker is signaling that they did not doxastic state. We thus derive hedging and expect to discover that Lil Wayne is smart; in (5) surprise effects in a unified way, outlining the speaker is surprised to learn that their former an underlying link between the semantics friend is now rich; and in (6) the speaker is sur- of like and the one of other mirative mark- prised by the fact that they won again. ers cross-linguistically. After presenting several diagnostics that point to a genuine empirical difference between these 1 Introduction uses, we argue that they do in fact share a core grammatical function: both trigger the expansion Mirative expressions, which mark surprising in- of a pragmatically restricted set: the pragmatic formation (DeLancey 1997), are often expressed halo of an expression for the hedging variant; and through linguistic markers that are also used to en- the doxastic state of the speaker for the mirative code other, seemingly unrelated meanings – e.g., use. We derive hedging and mirativity as effects evidential markers that mark lack of direct evi- of the particular type of object to which like ap- dence (Turkish: Slobin and Aksu 1982; Peterson plies.
    [Show full text]
  • Negation and Polarity: an Introduction
    Nat Lang Linguist Theory (2010) 28: 771–786 DOI 10.1007/s11049-010-9114-0 Negation and polarity: an introduction Doris Penka · Hedde Zeijlstra Accepted: 9 September 2010 / Published online: 26 November 2010 © The Author(s) 2010. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract This introduction addresses some key issues and questions in the study of negation and polarity. Focussing on negative polarity and negative indefinites, it summarizes research trends and results. Special attention is paid to the issues of syn- chronic variation and diachronic change in the realm of negative polarity items, which figure prominently in the articles and commentaries contained in this special issue. Keywords Negative polarity · Negative indefinites · n-words · Negative concord · Synchronic variation · Diachronic change 1 Background This special issue takes its origin in the workshop on negation and polarity (Neg- Pol07) that was held at the University of Tübingen in March 2007. The workshop was hosted by the Collaborative Research Centre 441 “Linguistic Data Structures” and funded by the German Research Council (DFG). Its aim was to bring together researchers working on theoretical aspects of negation and polarity items as well as the empirical basis surrounding these phenomena. One of the reasons to organize this workshop, and to put together this special is- sue, is that after several decades of generative research it is now generally felt that quite some progress has been made in understanding the general mechanics and mo- tivations behind negation and polarity items. At the same time, it becomes more and D. Penka () Zukunftskolleg and Department of Linguistics, University of Konstanz, Box 216, 78457 Konstanz, Germany e-mail: [email protected] H.
    [Show full text]
  • (2019). the Nature of Morphosyntactic Processing During Language
    1 The Nature of Morphosyntactic Processing during Language Perception. Evidence from an Additional-Task Study in Spanish and German. Annette Hohlfelda, Manuel Martín-Loechesa, and Werner Sommerb aCenter for Human Evolution and Behavior, UCM-ISCIII, Madrid bHumboldt-University at Berlin Address correspondence to: Annette Hohlfeld Neurologic Rehabilitation Center Wolletzsee Language Therapy Department Zur Welse 2, 16278 Wolletz Tel.: ++49-(0)33337-49-453 E-Mail: [email protected] 2 Abstract (250 words) The present study investigates in how far morphosyntactic processing is affected by an additional non-verbal task and whether this effect differs between German and Spanish, two languages with differences in processing grammatical gender (lexical vs. cue-based processing). By manipulating task load and language we aimed at getting an insight into subprocesses of morphosyntax and their dependence on resources of general and verbal working memory, respectively. In more general terms, this study contributes to the debate on the modularity of morphosyntax. Written German or Spanish sentences with or without gender violations were presented word by word to native speakers. The critical words temporally overlapped in different degrees with a non-linguistic stimulus (a high or low tone). In a single task (Experiment 1) participants judged sentence acceptability and ignored the tones. Experiment 2 required a response to the tones. Left-anterior negativity (LAN) and P600 components were analyzed in the ERPs to critical words. Whereas the LAN was not affected by any of the experimental manipulations, the P600 was modulated as a function of language during the single task conditions (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2 the additional task did not add up with this effect; instead, the differences between language groups vanished.
    [Show full text]
  • (Non)Veridicality and Mood Choice: Subjunctive, Polarity, and Time
    (Non)veridicality and mood choice: subjunctive, polarity, and time Anastasia Giannakidou University of Chicago February 2009 Abstract In this paper, I consider the lexical parameters determining mood choice in Greek. The main questions to be addressed are: In what sense is the subjunctive dependent in main and embedded clauses? What is the meaning of the subjunctive itself, and how is this meaning compatible with the lexical property that licenses the subjunctive? In examining these questions we look at the patterns of mood choice in embedded clauses and adjuncts such as prin “before’ and xoris ‘without’, as well as what appears to be non-canonical “triggering” of the subjunctive, e.g. in relative clauses, and in the so-called polarity subjunctive after negation and other polarity contexts. I propose that nonveridicality allows us to capture both selection and triggering as lexical sensitivity to nonveridicality. Building on Giannakidou 2009 I further argue that we can explain the dependency of the subjunctive to nonveridicality if we assume that its tense is non- deictic, i.e. it cannot make reference to a contextually specified time, which is what ‘regular’ tenses normally do. 1 What is grammatical mood? The study of grammatical mood has a venerable tradition. In the study of classical languages, i.e. Ancient Greek and Latin, we talk about a number of moods: indicative, subjunctive, optative, imperative, at least— and these appear in main as well as embedded clauses. The indicative is typically the mood of assertions, and in this sense
    [Show full text]
  • A Two Dimensional Analysis of the Future: Modal Adverbs and Speaker’S Bias
    A two dimensional analysis of the future: modal adverbs and speaker's bias Anastasia Giannakidou1∗and Alda Mari2 1 University of Chicago, Chicago USA [email protected] 2 Institut Jean Nicod (CNRS/ENS/EHESS, Paris, France [email protected] Abstract Whether future morphemes in languages are temporal or modal operators is a central question in the semantics of the future. Most analyses (with the exception of [14]; see its rebuttal in [14]), agree that future morphemes do convey modality, and do not always make reference to future times. We study here the temporal (future time) reading of the future (John will arrive at 5pm), which we call `predictive'. The modality of the predictive reading is often assumed to be purely metaphysical (e.g. [13]). Based on novel Greek and Italian data with modal adverbs, we argue that prediction involves both a metaphysical and an epistemic dimension, and we offer an analysis that relies on knowledge of the speaker at the utterance time t0. This knowledge restricts the set of the futures (metaphysical branches) only to reasonable ones (in the sense of [18]). In these branches the prejacent comes out true. We also propose that when predicting the speaker has a degree of bias that the actual world-to-come at t0 will be reasonable. This bias, to our knowledge not observed before, is reflected in the use of adverbs, and although by default it expresses high confidence, it can be quite variable, from very strong to relatively weak{ as is evidenced by the wide range of modal adverbs that can co-occur with the future morpheme.
    [Show full text]
  • In Defence of the Veridical Nature of Semantic Information
    EUJAP VOL. 3 No. 2007 ORIGinal SCienTifiC papeR UDK: 65 :8 IN DEFENCE OF THE VERIDICAL NATURE OF SEMANTIC INFORMATION LUCIANO FLORIDI University of Hertfordshire University of Oxford ABSTRACT Cominius: “Where is that slave which told me they had beat you to your trenches? This paper contributes to the current debate on the nature of semantic information by offering Where is he? Call him hither.” a semantic argument in favour of the veridical Marcius (Coriolanus): “Let him alone; he thesis according to which p counts as informa- did inform the truth”. tion only if p is true. In the course of the analy- sis, the paper reviews some basic principles and Shakespeare, Coriolanus Act I, Scene VI. requirements for any theory of semantic infor- mation. Key words: Bar-Hillel-Carnap paradox; data; Introduction semantic information, veridical thesis In recent years, philosophical interest in the concept of information and its logi- cal analysis has been growing steadily. One of the current debates concerns the veridical nature of semantic informa- tion. The debate has been triggered by the definition of semantic information as well-formed, meaningful and veridical data, which I proposed a few years ago (see now Floridi 2004b). Such a defini- tion – according to which semantic infor- mation encapsulates truth, exactly as the concept of knowledge does – has attract- ed some criticism for being too strong.2 For an updated overview and guide to the literature see Floridi 2005b. 2 See for example the discussion in Fetzer 2004, with a 31 EUJAP Vol. 3 No. 2007 In this paper, I offer an argument, which I hope will be conclusive, in favour of the ve- ridicality thesis.
    [Show full text]
  • Evidentiality and Mood: Grammatical Expressions of Epistemic Modality in Bulgarian
    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.
    [Show full text]
  • Near-Death Veridicality Research in the Hospital Setting: Problems and Promise
    Near-Death Veridicality Research in the Hospital Setting: Problems and Promise Janice Miner Holden, Ed.D. Northern Illinois University Leroy Joesten Lutheran General Hospital, Park Ridge, IL ABSTRA CT: We attempted to conduct near-death veridicality research in the hospital setting, the rationale for which (we presented previously (Holden, 1988).) This paper describes problems, both anticipated and unanticipated, that we encountered. Based on the successes and failures of this undertaking, we present recommendations for future research of this type. The biggest hurdle in research, it has been said, is the formulation of the research question and the refinement of the research design. Our experience, in the case of near-death (ND) research in the hospital setting, suggests that even the researcher armed with a well-developed question and design faces numerous obstacles. This article describes our experience with research of this type. At the time of this study, Dr. Holden was a candidate for the Ed.D. degree at the Northern Illinois University Graduate School; she is now Assistant Professor of Coun selor Education at the University of North Texas. Chaplain Joesten is Director of Parish Relations at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, IL. This study was funded in part by a Dissertation Completion Award granted to Dr. Holden by the Northern Illinois University Graduate School. The authors also express gratitude to Robert Stromberg, Chaplain of the Lutheran General Hospital CCU at the time of this study, for his assistance in this research. Reprint requests should be addressed to Dr. Holden at the Department of Counselor Education, College of Education, P.O.
    [Show full text]
  • Discovering the Factivity of Know*
    Proceedings of SALT 27: 600–619, 2017 Discovering the factivity of know* Rachel Dudley Meredith Rowe Institut Jean-Nicod (ENS - EHESS - Harvard University CNRS), Département d’Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure, PSL Research University Valentine Hacquard Jeffrey Lidz University of Maryland University of Maryland Abstract How do children discover which linguistic expressions are associated with presuppositions? Do they take a direct strategy of tracking whether linguistic expressions are associated with particular speaker presuppositions? This strategy may fail children who are trying to learn about the presuppositions of so-called “soft” presupposition triggers, which can be readily used even when the relevant would-be presupposed content is not part of the common ground. We present a corpus study with the soft trigger know and the related, but non-presuppositional think. We find that a direct learning strategy would indeed run into problems for such a soft trigger given the nature and availability of evidence in children’s linguistic input. Keywords: presuppositions, soft triggers, factivity, veridicality, attitude verbs 1 Introduction How do children discover which linguistic expressions are associated with presup- positions? The acquisition literature typically focuses on when children master presupposition triggers (Falmagne, Gonsalves & Bennett-Lau 1994; Berger & Höhle 2012; Jasbi 2015; among many others), and remains mostly silent on how children might achieve this (see Schulz 2003 for a notable exception). In the formal semantics * We thank Pranav Anand, Peter Carruthers, Daniel Harris, Paul Harris, Nick Huang, Shevaun Lewis, Paula Rubio-Fernandez, Evan Westra and Alexander Williams for helpful discussion, as well as audiences at University of Maryland, University of Pittsburgh, ZAS, Central European University, Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania, MACSIM 6, BUCLD 41, LSA 2017, MINSIM, and the members of the UMD Project on Children’s Language Development.
    [Show full text]