Introduction Evidentials Assertion Questions Summary References Introduction: Hedges Hedged Assertions and Questions Lakoff 1973: hedges are \words whose meaning implicitly involves fuzziness { words whose job is to make things fuzzier or less fuzzy." Sarah E. Murray Cornell University Rutgers Semantics Workshop 21 September 2013 Slides available at: http://conf.ling.cornell.edu/sem/ S. E. Murray (Cornell) j Hedged Assertions and Questions j Rutgers, 21 Sep 2013 1 Introduction Evidentials Assertion Questions Summary References Introduction Evidentials Assertion Questions Summary References Sentential Hedges (Urmson 1952, Ross 1973, Slote 1979, a.o.) Sentential Hedges Sentential hedge: an element that affects the `force' of a sentence Not restricted to sentence-final parentheticals (Urmson 1952): (weakens the commitment made by a sentence) (5) I suppose that your house is very old. (somewhat different) Un-hedged sentences: (6) Your house is, I suppose, very old. (1) Shelly left yesterday. declarative (7) Your house is very old, I suppose. (2) Did Shelly leave yesterday? interrogative Hedged sentences: or to first person: (3) Shelly left yesterday, I think. declarative (8) Norma thinks (that) Shelly left yesterday. (4) Did Shelly leave yesterday, do you think? interrogative (9) Shelly, Norma thinks, left yesterday. A: Yes = I think she left A0: No = I think she didn't leave Verbs like suppose in (5) have a \assertion-qualifying use" (Horn 1978, also Urmson 1952, Slote 1979, Simons 2007, a.o.) Goal: A unified semantics for mood, compositional contribution of hedges S. E. Murray (Cornell) j Hedged Assertions and Questions j Rutgers, 21 Sep 2013 2 S. E. Murray (Cornell) j Hedged Assertions and Questions j Rutgers, 21 Sep 2013 3 Introduction Evidentials Assertion Questions Summary References Introduction Evidentials Assertion Questions Summary References Sentential Hedges Analysis Preview Not all parentheticals are hedges: (1) Shelly left yesterday. (10) Jones was, I conclude, the murderer. (Urmson 1952) (2) Did Shelly leave yesterday? (11) Jones was, it follows, the murderer. or I've shown (3) Shelly left yesterday, I think. (12) The Holland Tunnel is the quickest way (4) Did Shelly leave yesterday, do you think? to Manhattan, I've realized. I find (?) Main Not-at-issue Not all hedges are 1st person slifting parentheticals: Example proposition proposition Mood Analysis (13) Bob was the murderer, reportedly. (1) q declarative D(q) (14) Bob was the murderer, they say. (2) q interrogative I(q) (15) Bob was the murderer, it's said. (3) q think(i; q) declarative D(♦q) (16) Bob was the murderer, according to Dale. (4) q think(u; q) interrogative I(♦q) _ think(u; :q) (non-parenthetical) modals? adverbs? a bit more later... Where q = that Shelly left yesterday S. E. Murray (Cornell) j Hedged Assertions and Questions j Rutgers, 21 Sep 2013 4 S. E. Murray (Cornell) j Hedged Assertions and Questions j Rutgers, 21 Sep 2013 5 Introduction Evidentials Assertion Questions Summary References Introduction Evidentials Assertion Questions Summary References Analysis Preview Outline Main Not-at-issue Example proposition proposition Mood Analysis (1) q declarative D(q) 1 Introduction (2) q interrogative I(q) (3) q think(i; q) declarative D(♦q) 2 Evidentials and (Not)-at-issue Content (4) q think(u; q) interrogative I(♦q) _ think(u; :q) 3 Hedged Assertions On this analysis, hedges are not really `force modifiers' Mood semantically contributes a relation (here: D, I) 4 Hedged Questions What is modified is the argument of this relation This will affect the force of an utterance, but indirectly 5 Summary (1) and (3) are both declaratives, both typically used for assertions, but what is asserted is different main propositional content is unchanged S. E. Murray (Cornell) j Hedged Assertions and Questions j Rutgers, 21 Sep 2013 6 S. E. Murray (Cornell) j Hedged Assertions and Questions j Rutgers, 21 Sep 2013 6 Introduction Evidentials Assertion Questions Summary References Introduction Evidentials Assertion Questions Summary References Outline Background on Evidentiality (Willet 1988, Aikhenvald 2004, a.o.) 1 Introduction Evidentiality: the encoding of source of information marked on every sentence in many languages 2 Evidentials and (Not)-at-issue Content In declaratives, evidentials indicate the speaker's source of information for their utterance 3 Hedged Assertions can be direct: I saw, I witnessed or indirect: I guess, I infer, I was told 4 Hedged Questions In interrogatives, evidentials can indicate the expected source of information for the requested answer 5 Summary can be direct: given what you witnessed, ... or indirect: given what you were told, ... S. E. Murray (Cornell) j Hedged Assertions and Questions j Rutgers, 21 Sep 2013 6 S. E. Murray (Cornell) j Hedged Assertions and Questions j Rutgers, 21 Sep 2013 7 Introduction Evidentials Assertion Questions Summary References Introduction Evidentials Assertion Questions Summary References Cheyenne Evidential Distinctions Evidentials and Illocutionary Mood Cheyenne (Plains Algonquian, Montana and Oklahoma) data pri- Direct evidential Interrogative Optative marily from my fieldwork (since 2006), plus Cheyenne grammar, N´e-n´em´ene-? N´e-n´emene-he N´emene-ha texts, and dictionary (e.g., Leman 1980b,a, Fisher et al. 2006) 2-sing-dir 2-sing-he sing-hrt.3sg Direct evidential Narrative evidential `You (sg.) sang `Did you (sg.) sing?' `Let him sing!' (I witnessed)' (17) E-hoo´ 'koho-?. (19) E-h-hoo´ 'k_oh´o-neho. 3-rain-dir 3-pst-rain-nar.sg.b Reportative evidential Imperative `It's raining, I'm sure' `Long ago, it rained, it is said' N´e-n´emene-m_ase N´em´en_e-stse `Given my experience...' 2-sing-rpt.2sg sing-imp.2sg `You (sg.) sang, I hear' `(You (sg.)) sing!' Reportative evidential Inferential evidential Excerpt of the Cheyenne mood paradigm (18) E-hoo´ 'k_oh´o-n_ese. (20) M´o-hoo'k_oh´o-hane-he. Also: other evidentials, delayed imperative, and dependent 3-rain-rpt.sg.b inf-rain-inf-inf moods `It's raining, I hear' `It's raining, I take it' S. E. Murray (Cornell) j Hedged Assertions and Questions j Rutgers, 21 Sep 2013 8 S. E. Murray (Cornell) j Hedged Assertions and Questions j Rutgers, 21 Sep 2013 9 Introduction Evidentials Assertion Questions Summary References Introduction Evidentials Assertion Questions Summary References Direct Challengeability Sentences with Evidentials: Two Contributions ´ (21) E-n´emene-´ s_estse Andy. (26)A: E-n´emene-s_estse Andy. B: X No he didn't. 3-sing-rpt.3sg Andy 3-sing-rpt.3sg Andy # No you didn't. `Andy sang, I hear.' `Andy sang, I hear.' `propositional' contribution (q = Andy sang) (22) X That's not true. He danced. challengeable/deniable, up for negotiation (23) No he didn't. He danced. X the `main point' (e.g., Simons 2007) (24) # That's not true. You didn't hear that. at-issue proposition (25) # No you didn't (hear that). evidential contribution (speaker heard that q) diagnostics in Faller 2002, Matthewson et al. 2007, Simons not challengeable/deniable, not up for negotiation not the `main point', but new et al. 2011, a.o. not-at-issue proposition holds for grammatical evidentials crosslinguistically (Related ideas: Abbott 2000, Asher 2000, Potts 2005, a.o.) S. E. Murray (Cornell) j Hedged Assertions and Questions j Rutgers, 21 Sep 2013 10 S. E. Murray (Cornell) j Hedged Assertions and Questions j Rutgers, 21 Sep 2013 11 Introduction Evidentials Assertion Questions Summary References Introduction Evidentials Assertion Questions Summary References The Scope of the Reportative Can be False Evidentials and Polar Questions Evidentials can also affect the `force' of a sentence Questions with an interrogative clitic can contain an evidential: Scope of reportative evidential can be false, denied (28) Mo=´e-nemene-s_estse Andy? A: yes... (27) (i) E-h´o´ 't_aheva-s_estse Shelly naa+oha y/n=3-sing-rpt.3sg Andy 3-win-rpt.3sg Shelly but ...X 3-sing-rpt `Given what you heard, did Andy sing?' ...# 3-sing-dir (ii) ´e-s´aa-h´o't_ah´ev´a-he-? 3-neg-win-h(an)e-dir A `yes' answer carries with it the reportative evidential `Shelly won, they say, but (I was there and) she didn't.' Is this a \crazy language"? behavior typical of parenthetical-like evidentials (e.g., Quechua, Faller 2002, 2006) (29) Is Bob reportedly the murderer? A: yes cf. modal-like evidentials where parallel of (27) is infelicitous (4) Did Shelly leave yesterday, do you think? A: yes (e.g., in Lillooet, Matthewson et al. 2007) S. E. Murray (Cornell) j Hedged Assertions and Questions j Rutgers, 21 Sep 2013 12 S. E. Murray (Cornell) j Hedged Assertions and Questions j Rutgers, 21 Sep 2013 13 Introduction Evidentials Assertion Questions Summary References Introduction Evidentials Assertion Questions Summary References Analysis: Three Semantic Contributions Initial common ground: 3-sing-dir Andy (Murray 2010, forthcoming) Every sentence contributes: Initial context set (p0) Initial context set: at-issue proposition W set of candidate speech worlds p not-at-issue restriction (if there is not-at-issue content) 0 illocutionary relation (contribution of sentence mood) constrains, but does not determine, the force of an utterance information that the speaker and of a sentence hearer take for granted for the purpose of the conversation Modeled as: introduction of discourse referent direct update of the common ground (Analysis illustrated here with update that structures the context diagrams; update semantics in Murray 2010, forthcoming) (Related: Ginzburg 1996, Roberts 1996, Gunlogson 2001, Groenendijk and Roelofsen 2009, Farkas and