UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Polarity and Modality A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics by Vincent Homer 2011 © Copyright by Vincent Homer 2011 The dissertation of Vincent Homer is approved. Timothy Stowell Philippe Schlenker, Committee Co-chair Dominique Sportiche, Committee Co-chair University of California, Los Angeles 2011 ii A` mes chers parents. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 Introduction ................................. 1 1.1 Chapter2:DomainsofPolarityItems . 2 1.2 Chapter3: PresuppositionsandNPILicensing . .... 5 1.3 Chapter 4: Neg-raising and Positive Polarity: The View fromModals. 7 1.4 Chapter 5: Actuality Entailments and Aspectual Coercion....... 9 2 Domains of Polarity Items ......................... 13 2.1 Introduction............................... 13 2.2 RevivingFlip-flop............................ 16 2.2.1 OperatorsorEnvironments? . 17 2.2.2 Flip-flopwithWeakNPIs . 22 2.2.3 Flip-flopwithStrongNPIs . 36 2.2.4 Flip-flopwithPPIs . .. .. .. .. .. .. 39 2.3 Dependency............................... 44 2.3.1 MultipleNPIs.......................... 45 2.3.2 MultiplePPIs.......................... 47 2.3.3 Co-occurrenceofNPIsandPPIs . 54 2.4 FurtherEvidenceforDomains . 61 2.4.1 MonotonicityDisruption . 61 2.4.2 Scope of Deontic must ..................... 72 2.5 Cyclicity................................. 77 iv 2.6 A Hypothesis about any asaPPIinDisguise. 81 2.7 Some isnotanIntervener ........................ 88 2.8 Szabolcsi2004 ............................. 97 2.9 OpenProblems ............................. 103 2.9.1 Computations Involving Non-monotonic Quantifiers . 103 2.9.2 Deontic must .......................... 109 2.10 Conclusion ............................... 110 3 Presuppositions and NPI Licensing .................... 112 3.1 Introduction............................... 112 3.2 TheApparentInnocuousnessofPresuppositions . ..... 113 3.3 DisruptionbyPresuppositions . 116 3.3.1 InDefenseofEnvironment-basedLicensing . 117 3.3.2 FrenchWeakNPIs . 118 3.3.3 PresuppositionofCognitiveFactives. 120 3.3.4 Presupposition of aussi ..................... 124 3.3.5 Further Evidence for Disruption with Weak and Strict NPIs . 133 3.3.6 DisruptiveInferences. 147 3.4 AgainstStrawson-entailment . 151 3.4.1 TheNotionofStrawson-entailment . 152 3.4.2 GenuineCounterexamples . 159 3.4.3 It-clefts: ADilemma(AgainstStrawsonUEness) . 162 3.5 ANewPicture.............................. 175 v 3.5.1 InterestingConsequences. 175 3.5.2 A Hypothesis about the Detachability of Presuppositions . 179 3.6 Gajewski2009: DoingAwaywithAnti-additivity? . .... 182 3.7 Conclusion ............................... 187 3.8 Appendix ................................ 188 3.8.1 AppendixI:DefiniteDescriptions . 188 3.8.2 Appendix II: Aussi andSubjectNPIs. 199 4 Neg-Raising and Positive Polarity: The View from Modals ........ 205 4.1 Introduction............................... 205 4.2 Background:Neg-raising . 206 4.2.1 Homogeneity .......................... 206 4.2.2 Cyclicity ............................ 211 4.2.3 LackofNeg-raising . 214 4.3 Deontic must isaPPI.......................... 217 4.3.1 SuperordinateNegation . 219 4.3.2 Rescuing ............................ 221 4.3.3 Shielding ............................ 224 4.4 TheDual Nature of should ....................... 230 4.4.1 Should isaNeg-raiser ..................... 230 4.4.2 Should isaPPI ......................... 232 4.4.3 Assessor Dependence of should ................ 234 4.5 Supposeddeon:APPIandaPart-timeNeg-raiser . 243 vi 4.5.1 DialectA:APurePPI . 244 4.5.2 DialectB:APart-timeNeg-raiser . 245 4.5.3 HypothesesabouttheSourceofNeg-raising . 249 4.6 Conclusion ............................... 253 4.7 Appendix ................................ 253 4.7.1 Appendix I: Does want HaveaDualNatureToo? . 253 4.7.2 AppendixII:IntermediateScopeorSplitScope? . 259 5 Actuality Entailments and Aspectual Coercion .............. 265 5.1 Introduction............................... 265 5.2 Background ............................... 269 5.2.1 AspectualClasses. 269 5.2.2 ViewpointAspect. 269 5.2.3 Modals Form Stative Predicates of Eventualities . 271 5.3 AspectualCoercion . 274 5.3.1 IngressiveInterpretation . 274 5.3.2 ComplexiveInterpretation . 276 5.3.3 ActualisticInterpretation . 277 5.3.4 Ambiguity ........................... 281 5.4 ComparisonwithHacquard2006. 285 5.5 Conclusion ............................... 292 Bibliography ................................. 292 vii LIST OF FIGURES 3.1 TimingofPresuppositionIncorporation . 180 viii LIST OF TABLES 2.1 IntuitiveVerificationofDEness. 20 3.1 LicensingDisruptioninEnglish . 147 3.2 LicensingDisruptioninFrench . 147 3.3 TheCurrentPictureaccordingtoGajewski2009. .... 184 3.4 Gajewski’s2009DivisionofLabor. 184 4.1 PropertiesofSomeModals . 253 4.2 SimpleIndefinite ............................ 261 4.3 ‘ExactlyOneMust’........................... 262 4.4 ‘ExactlyOneMustn’t’ . 263 5.1 Stative Predicates and their Coercion Potentials . ....... 282 ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Were it not for the tiredness and anxiety that overpower my mind as I write these lines, I suppose I would know how to express my gratitude towards Philippe Schlenker and Dominique Sportiche in the polite and restrained style that befits dissertation ac- knowledgments. Or would I? I cannot but put my heart into these acknowledgments: I am immensely grateful to them for their unfailing support, generosity and kindness through this odyssey; I am blessed to benefit, day after day, from their intelligence and knowledge, and hope I will always be worthy of the trust they put in me. Without them, I would not even have become a linguist. I also wish to thank Jessica Rett and Timothy Stowell, my committee members, for their insightful comments and ideas, and all my UCLA professors, who gave me the best education one can dream of. I wish to express my affection and my admiration to one of them in particular, Hilda Koopman. UCLA was a wonderful intellectual environment, that I will always remember fondly. I had the privilege to be a classmate with Nathan Porter, Chad Vicenik, Heather Burnett, Natasha Abner, Craig Sailor, Robyn Orfitelli, Isabelle Charnavel, Benjamin George, JiEun Kim, Ananda Lima, Victoria Thatte, Sarah VanWagenen, Jeffrey Heinz, Kristine Yu, Heather Willson, Asia Furmanska, J’aime Roemer, Byron Ahn, Sameer ud Dowla Khan, from whom I learned so much. I also owe UCLA the fortune to be friends with Tomoko Ishizuka, a very precious soul. Thank you also to my guardian angels: Ana Pastor, Susan Schweitzer, Matteo Residori, Anne Droixhe, and Melanie Levin. Lastly I would like to thank for their love my grandmother, my sister and my mother, who are proud and relieved. And my father, who would have been. x VITA 1975 Born, Metz, France. 1996 Licence(PhilosophyandClassics) Universit´ede Paris IV-Sorbonne, France. 1997 Maˆıtrise(Philosophy) Universit´ede Paris X Nanterre, France. 1999 Agr´egation(Philosophy). 2000 D.E.A.(Philosophy) Universit´ede Tours, France. 2001–2005 LecturerinPhilosophy Universit´ede Paris IV-Sorbonne, France. 2006–2008 TeachingAssistant Linguistics Department University of California, Los Angeles. 2007 M.A.(Linguistics) University of California, Los Angeles. 2007–2008 ResearchAssistant Linguistics Department University of California, Los Angeles. 2007–2008 During summer, instructor of the undergraduate introduction class to syntax Ling 120B University of California, Los Angeles. xi 2008–present Agr´eg´e-r´ep´etiteur Cognitive Science Department ENS-Paris, France. PUBLICATIONS AND PRESENTATIONS Homer, Vincent (March 2010). French Modals and Perfective: A Case of Aspectual Coercion. Paper presented at the 8th Journ´ees de S´emantique et Mod´elisation; INRIA, Nancy, France. Homer, Vincent (February 2010). Actuality Entailments in French: A Case of Aspec- tual Coercion. Paper presented at the West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics 28; University of Southern California, Los Angeles. In Proceedings of WCCFL XXVIII. Homer, Vincent (November 2009). Epistemic Modals: High ma non troppo. Paper presented at the North East Linguistic Society 40; MIT, Boston. In Proceedings of NELS XL. Homer, Vincent (May 2009). Backward Control in Samoan. Paper presented at the Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association 16; University of California, Santa Cruz. In Proceedings of AFLA XVI. Homer, Vincent (April 2009). Here and There: The Curious Case of Samaon Posses- sors. Paper presented at the 45th Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society; xii University of Chicago. In Proceedings of CLS XLV. Homer, Vincent (May 2008). Presuppositions Can Be Disruptors Too: A Case Against Strawson-Entailment. Paper presented at the West Coast Conference on Formal Lin- guistics 27; University of California, Los Angeles. In Proceedings of WCCFL XXVII. Homer, Vincent (March 2008). Disruption of NPI Licensing: The Case of Presupposi- tions. Paper presented at the Semantics and Linguistic Theory conference 18; UMass, Amherst. In Proceedings of SALT XVIII. Chemla, Emmanuel, Vincent Homer and Daniel Rothschild (June 2010). Negative Polarity Items: Language Meets Logic, Subjectively. Paper presented at the EURO- XPRAG Workshop; University of Leuven, Belgium. Homer, Vincent and Tomoko Ishizuka (April 2009). Only One (s)ase. Looking at Japanese Causatives from a French Perspective. Paper presented at the 45th Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society; University of Chicago. In Proceedings of CLS XLV. Homer, Vincent, Tomoko Ishizuka and Dominique Sportiche