Topic, Focus and Quantification

Partee, Barbara H.

doi:10.3765/salt.v1i0.2918

Cited by 163 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Quantifĳicational structures include three main parts: a modal operator (a quantifĳier over possibilities), a restrictor narrowing the range of the quantifĳier to a contextually-determined set of possibilities, further narrowed down by the contents of the if -clause, and fĳinally the nuclear scope of quantifĳicationthe condition that holds of the quantifĳied possibilities, expressed by the main (consequent) clause (Montague 1974;Partee 1991;Kamp and Reyle 1993, inter alia).…”

Section: Conditionals and Situations In Formal Semanticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Extending Iatridou (2000)'s analysis, we propose that on its modal use, the exclusion feature gives rise to a set of maximal non-actual topic situations-that is, to a set of non-actual topic worlds. Second, with respect to quantifĳication, topic denotations are part of the restrictor (Partee 1991), regardless of their position. Thus, even though it is not syntactically part of the conditional antecedent, the exclusion feature partially defĳines a modal base: a modal quantifĳier, such as ἄν, will range over worlds (maximal situations) that do not (necessarily) include the actual world.…”

Section: Semantics Of Counterfactual and Iterative Uses Of ἄνmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Semantics for the Particle αν in and outside Conditionals in Classical Greek

Beck¹,

Malamud²,

Osadcha³

2012

J Greek Linguist

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In this paper, we provide a uni ied semantics for the Classical Greek particle αν in its uses both in and outside of conditional sentences. Speci ically, working within the framework provided by formal semantic treatments of conditionals in Stalnaker (1968); Lewis (1973); Kratzer (1981) and subsequent work, we propose that αν is a universal quanti ier over situations—parts of possible worlds. We also detail the interactions between αν and the tense and mood features in a clause, arguing, for example, that the semantics of αν in combination with a 'fake' past tense morphology (Iatridou 2000), which reflects the presence of an exclusion feature in C, gives rise to a counterfactual implicature. Additionally, we address the issue of the surface distribution of αν in the antecedents of some types of conditionals and the consequents of others and argue that, despite its surface distribution, αν is always merged into the consequent of a conditional but sometimes undergoes displacement such that it appears to be located within the antecedent. Our proposal not only illuminates a complex phenomenon in Classical Greek, but also contributes to the understanding of the morpho-semantics of mood, conditionals, and counterfactuality in natural language.

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Section: Conditionals and Situations In Formal Semanticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Semantics Of Counterfactual and Iterative Uses Of ἄνmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Semantics for the Particle αν in and outside Conditionals in Classical Greek

Beck¹,

Malamud²,

Osadcha³

2012

J Greek Linguist

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“…' Semanticistsremainedlargelyunconcernedwiththedebate,apartfromintensiveinvestigationofthelicensingconfigurationforputatively'accentless'secondoccurrencefocus (e.g., Beaver & Clark, 2008;Kadmon, 2001;Partee, 1991;Rooth, 1996). Experimental studiesofthisphenomenon(e.g., Bartels,2004;Beaveretal.,2007;Bishop,2008;Howell, 2011)confirmedthatsignificantpitchcuesofprominencewereindeedabsent.However, otheracousticmeasuresofprominencerelatedtostress,suchasdurationandintensity, werepresentinsmallbutstatisticallysignificantamounts.…”

Section: Wecanrefertothisgeneralizationastheco-referencecriterion(4)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Acoustic classification of focus: On the web and in the lab

Howell

Rooth

Wagner

2017

Laboratory Phonology: Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology

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We present a new methodological approach which combines both naturally-occurring speech harvested on the web and speech data elicited in the laboratory. This proof-of-concept study examines the phenomenon of focus sensitivity in English, in which the interpretation of particular grammatical constructions (e.g., the comparative) is sensitive to the location of prosodic prominence. Machine learning algorithms (support vector machines and linear discriminant analysis) and human perception experiments are used to cross-validate the web-harvested and lab-elicited speech. Results confirm the theoretical predictions for location of prominence in comparative clauses and the advantages using both web-harvested and lab-elicited speech. The most robust acoustic classifiers include paradigmatic (i.e., un-normalized), non-intonational acoustic measures (duration and relative formant frequencies from single segments). These acoustic cues are also significant predictors of human listeners' classification, offering new evidence in the debate whether prominence is mainly encoded by pitch or by other cues, and the role that utterance-normalization plays when looking at non-pitch cues such as duration.

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“…It is questionable whether uttering (5) I might cut wood will add the unmodalized proposition I will cut wood to the set of commonly-accepted propositions. Faller highlights Potts's (2007) hesitation about the "twodimensional" meaning interpretation of evidentials: "it is generally hard to determine whether a sentence containing a hedging evidential counts as an assertion of its core propositional content".…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Aguaruna speculative clause: Evidentiality meets focus

Rozonoyer

2020

Proc Ling Soc Amer

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The speculative clause in Aguaruna presents us with two distinctive and interacting semantic phenomena – evidentiality and focus – both of which have been objects of recent interest cross-linguistically. Following the alternative semantics theory of focus developed by Rooth (1992), I analyze Aguaruna's alternating speculative focus enclitics, and incorporate the evidentiality-focus complex into a compositional semantics for Aguaruna. By formally modeling the interplay of evidentiality and focus, this analysis hopes to glean a more precise understanding of each phenomenon individually, and to contribute to a more complete typology of both.

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Topic, Focus and Quantification

Abstract: No abstract.

Cited by 163 publications

References 11 publications

A Semantics for the Particle αν in and outside Conditionals in Classical Greek

A Semantics for the Particle αν in and outside Conditionals in Classical Greek

Acoustic classification of focus: On the web and in the lab

Aguaruna speculative clause: Evidentiality meets focus

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