Same but different

Abstract

In this paper, we argue that same is fundamentally different from different, in that same imposes a discourse condition on eventualities, while different compares individuals. This difference has not been noted in previous literature. Furthermore, in the literature on same, there has been a persistent puzzle about the contribution of the definite article with which same must co-occur. We show that this puzzle is resolved once the contribution of same is adjusted to apply to eventualities: then the definite article can be interpreted in the usual way, as generating a presupposition about individuals.

Gather/numerous as a mass/count opposition

“…If indeed gather and numerous differ in their mereological structure, we may expect evidence of this to be found elsewhere besides just with plural quantifiers like all. Here, I argue that this is indeed the case; I show that the adjective same, which is licensed by the existence of a plurality of events (Carlson 1987;Barker 2007;Hardt et al 2012;Hardt and Mikkelsen 2015), differs in its behavior with gatherand numerous-class collective predicates. This falls out immediately from the analysis proposed here.…”

Same and different are additive presupposition triggers

“…It emerges that the difference between external and internal readings is a reflection of the familiar distinction between presupposition binding and accommodation. Furthermore, we show that the parallelism effects observed by Hardt and Mikkelsen (2015) follow directly from the interaction between the scopetaking possibilities and the requirement that an additive presupposition must contrast appropriately with the host. Since our proposal relies entirely on standard mechanisms of presupposition resolution and scope-taking, it has evident conceptual advantages over previous proposals.…”

“…Brasoveanu (2011) proposes a uniform account of internal and external readings for different, but this account relies on added complexity in the analysis of distributive quantification. More recently Hardt and Mikkelsen (2015) observe a distinction between same and different in external readings, where same is subject to parallelism effects that do not apply to different. To account for this, Hardt and Mikkelsen (2015) propose some unusual complications to the lexical meaning of same, namely that it includes a discourse parallelism requirement which is not part of the meaning of different.…”

Pluractionality and distributive numerals

“…The adjective same shows striking parallels with pluractionals and distributive numerals. First, Hardt, Mikkelsen, and Ørsnes (2012) and Hardt and Mikkelsen (2015) observe that sentences with same necessarily involve multiple events-that is, they are pluractional. The sentence in (46) cannot be used to describe a single event in which Mary sold John a book.…”