Locality in WH Quantification

Dayal, Veneeta

doi:10.1007/978-94-011-4808-5

Cited by 238 publications

(126 citation statements)

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“…3 See Abbott (2010) for an accessible overview of the main facts and proposals about definiteness and definite descriptions in general and about PDDs in particular; Schwarzschild (1996) and Landman (2000) for more technical presentations of the issues about PDDs and for specific proposals according to which PDDs refer to maximal sets of individuals rather than maximal individuals; and Link (1983) for the fully detailed version of the specific semantic analysis of PDDs we are adopting according to which PDDs refer to maximal individuals rather than maximal sets. 4 See Jacobson's (1995) seminal work and, among others, Rullmann (1995), Dayal (1996), and Caponigro (2003Caponigro ( , 2004. 5 It has also been suggested to us that salience may be a notion besides maximality that can account for the semantic properties of PDDs and FRs.…”

Section: Semantic and Syntactic Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Acquiring the Meaning of Free Relative Clauses and Plural Definite Descriptions

Caponigro¹,

Pearl²,

Brooks³

et al. 2016

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Plural definite descriptions (e.g. the things on the plate) and free relative clauses (e.g. what is on the plate) have been argued to share the same semantic properties, despite their syntactic differences. Specifically, both have been argued to be non-quantificational expressions referring to the maximal element of a given set (e.g. the set of things on the contextually salient plate). We provide experimental support for this semantic analysis with the first reported simultaneous investigation of children's interpretation of both constructions, highlighting how experimental methods can inform semantic theory. A Truth-Value Judgment task and an Act-Out task show that children know that the two constructions differ from quantificational nominals (e.g. all the things on the plate) very early on (4 years old). Children also acquire the adult interpretation of both constructions at the same time, around 6-7 years old. This happens despite major differences in the frequency of these constructions, according to our corpus study of children's linguistic input. We discuss possible causes for this late emergence. We also argue that our experimental findings contribute to the recent theoretical debate on the correct semantic analysis of free relatives.

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Section: Semantic and Syntactic Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Acquiring the Meaning of Free Relative Clauses and Plural Definite Descriptions

Caponigro¹,

Pearl²,

Brooks³

et al. 2016

Preprint

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“…This usually requires the help of a presuppositional element such as still: (39), John has to find out the true answer to at least one member of the set of relevant subquestions, in order to qualify as partly having fo und out who cheated. The definition of 'subquestion' in (4 1) relies on the definition of 'Ans' in (40) (which is based on similar notions in Lahiri 1991, Heim 1994, and Dayal 1996: 5 (40) Ans(Q)(w) is the unique proposition p in Q(w), if there is one, such that WE p, and fo r any q in Q(w) such that WE q, p �q. Otherwise, Ans( Q)( w )=0 .…”

Section: )mentioning

confidence: 99%

Embedded Quantifiers in 'Which'- and 'Whether'-Questions

Sharvit¹

2015

SALT

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Quantified noun phrases in WH-complements of find out-type verbs seem to exhibit exceptional wide scope. In this they diffe r from quantified noun phrases in complements of wonder-type verbs. This paper attributes this contrast to Quantificational Variability. The Main ClaimMany quantified noun phrases (henceforth, QNPs) in which-interrogative clauses embedded under verbs of the find out-class (i.e., find out, know, remember, discover, etc.) may have exceptional wide scope (Szabolcsi 1997). That is to say, they may be understood as having scope over the embedding verb. This is illustrated in (1) fo r the QNP exactly three men:John fo und out which woman exactly three men love. Can mean: "exactly three men are such that John fo und out which woman each of them loves."That the wide scope of exactly three men in (1) is truly exceptional can be inferred from (2), which shows that exactly three men cannot scope out of a which-interrogative when the embedding verb belongs to the wonder-class (wonder, ask, inquire, etc.; see Szabo lcsi 1997); from (3), which shows that exactly three men cannot have wide scope when embedded in a whether interrogative (c£ Karttunen and Peters 1980); and from (4), which shows that exactly three men cannot have wide scope when embedded in a declarative. (2)John wonders which woman exactly three men love. Cannot mean: "exactly three men are such that John wonders which woman each of them loves."John fo und out/wondered whether exactly three men left. Cannot mean: "exactly three men are such that John fo und out/wondered whether each of them left."John fo und out that exactly three men left. Cannot mean: "exactly three men are such that John fo und out that each of them left."Rather than claiming that which-complements of find out-type verbs are exceptional in that they allow QNPs to move out of them at LF (as opposed to

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“…But, as far as I can see, there is still no formally explicit semantic theory which can draw these parallels. To be sure, there are theories of maximization for defInite noun phrases (e.g., Sharvy 1980, Link 1983, Groenendijk et a1 1995 or individual-centered correlatives (e.g., Cooper 1979, Dayal 1996, Grosu & Landman 1998 or conditional correlatives (e.g., Frank & Kamp 1997, Stone 1997. But all of these theories are stated in domain-specific terms which make it difficult to capture the cross-domain parallels dramatically revealed by correlatives with ambiguous centers, such as Warlpiri (7).…”

Section: Dem-topmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As it stands, my theory does not cover multi-case readings, which involve additional universal quantification over 'cases' (see Kadmon 1990, Dayal 1996. In future work I hope to extend the story to these readings, by positing more abstract types of dref s -perhaps dynamic sa-dref s (a la Stone & Hardt 1997).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…4 Dayal (1996), who focuses on individual-centered correlatives, even goes so far as to deny the kinship with conditional correlatives. But her radical claim, that 'correlatives and conditionals encode fundamentally different dependencies ' (p. 198), is based on a gramm aticality contrast which only shows an orthogonal point -to wit, the contrast between topical vs. non-topical NP's (see (11)-(12) below).…”

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confidence: 99%

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