Disjunction in a Predictive Theory of Anaphora

Elliott, Patrick D.

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-25894-7_4

Cited by 1 publication

(2 citation statements)

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“…Sentences like (7) are problematic for classical DS -this stems from the fact that in classical DS, negating a negative existential statement can't introduce a Discourse Referent (DR). Subsequently, some variants of DS have been developed which aim to address this problem; see, e.g., (Krahmer & Muskens 1995;Gotham 2019;Hofmann 2019;Elliott 2020Elliott , 2023.…”

Section: ∃/∀-Readings Beyond Donkey Anaphoramentioning

confidence: 99%

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Donkey disjunctions and overlapping updates

Elliott

2024

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This paper is devoted to an analysis of anaphoric dependencies in disjunctive sentences, and consequences for the understanding of the ∃/∀ ambiguity observed with donkey anaphora. The primary focus is on donkey disjunctions, which are sentences where a (negated) existential in an initial disjunct appears to bind a pronoun in a later disjunct, such as "Either there's no bathroom, or its upstairs". The main empirical focus is that donkey disjunctions, like donkey anaphora, exhibit the ∃/∀ ambiguity, and more generally oscillate between homogeneous and heterogeneous readings in a context-sensitive fashion. The paper then proceeds in two steps: first, a principled analysis of donkey disjunctions is developed in the context of a Bilateral Update Semantics (BUS). BUS, by default, generates heterogeneous readings for donkey anaphora/donkey disjunctions (i.e., ∃ readings, in a positive context). In order to account of homogeneous readings, the conjecture is that sentences may be interpreted exhaustively relative to their negations. This has non-trivial consequences due to the non-classicality of BUS — specifically, a failure of the Law of Non-Contradiction.

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Section: ∃/∀-Readings Beyond Donkey Anaphoramentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For some precursors to this strategy, see, e.g.,Krahmer & Muskens (1995);van den Berg (1996);Willer (2018Willer ( , 2019b;Elliott (2020).…”

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confidence: 99%