This paper argues that multiple coordinations like tall, thin and happy are interpreted in a “flat” iterative process, but using “nested” recursive application of binary coordination operators in the compositional meaning derivation. Ample motivation for flat interpretation is shown by contrasting such coordinations with nested, syntactically ambiguous, coordinate structures like tall and thin and happy. However, new evidence coming from type shifting and predicate distribution with verb phrases show motivation for an independent hierarchical ingredient in the compositional semantics of multiple (...) coordination with no parallel hierarchy in the syntax. This establishes a contrast between operations at the syntax-semantics interface and compositional semantic mechanisms. At the same time, such evidence motivate the treatment of operations like type shifting and distributivity as purely semantic. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss a new perspective on the syntax-semantics interface. Semantics, in this new set-up, is not ‘read off’ from Logical Forms as in mainstream approaches to generative grammar. Nor is it assigned to syntactic proofs using a Curry-Howard correspondence as in versions of the Lambek Calculus, or read off from f-structures using Linear Logic as in Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG, Kaplan & Bresnan [9]). All such approaches are based on the idea that syntactic objects (trees, proofs, fstructures) (...) are somehow prior and that semantics must be parasitic on those syntactic objects. We challenge this idea and develop a grammar in which syntax and semantics are treated in a strictly parallel fashion. The grammar will have many ideas in common with the (converging) frameworks of categorial grammar and LFG, but its treatment of the syntax-semantics interface is radically different. Also, although the meaning component of the grammar is a version of Montague semantics and although there are obvious affinities between Montague’s conception of grammar and the work presented here, the grammar is not compositional, in the sense that composition of meaning need not follow surface structure. (shrink)

An important challenge in bilingualism research is to understand the mechanisms underlying sentence processing in a second language and whether they are comparable to those underlying native processing. Here, we focus on verb-particle constructions (VPCs) that are among the most difficult elements to acquire in L2 English. The verb and the particle form a unit, which often has a non-compositional meaning (e.g., look up or chew out), making the combined structure semantically opaque. However, bilinguals with higher levels of English proficiency (...) can develop a good knowledge of the semantic properties of verb-particle constructions (Blais and Gonnerman, 2013). A second difficulty is that in a sentence context, the particle can be shifted after the direct object of the verb, (e.g., The professor looked it up). The processing is more challenging when the object is long (e.g. The professor looked the student’s last name up.). This shifted structure favors syntactic processing at the expense of VPC semantic processing. We sought to determine whether or not bilinguals’ reading time (RT) patterns would be similar to those observed for native monolinguals (Gonnerman and Hayes, 2005) when reading VPCs in sentential contexts. French-English bilinguals were tested for English language proficiency, working memory and explicit VPC semantic knowledge. During a self-paced reading task, participants read 78 sentences with verb-particle constructions that varied according to parameters that influence native speakers’ reading dynamics: verb-particle transparency, particle adjacency and length of the object noun phrase (NP; 2, 3, or 5 words). RTs in a critical region that included verbs, NPs and particles were measured. Results revealed that RTs were modulated by participants’ English proficiency, with higher proficiency associated with shorter RTs. Examining participants’ explicit semantic knowledge of VPCs and working memory, only readers with more native-like knowledge of VPCs and a high working memory presented RT patterns that were similar to those of monolinguals. Therefore, given the necessary lexical and computational resources, bilingual processing of novel structures at the syntax-semantics interface follows the principles influencing native processing. The findings are in keeping with theories that postulate similar representations and processing in L1 and L2 modulated by processing difficulty. (shrink)

This volume presents studies on pronouns in embedded contexts, and offers fundamental insights into this central area of research. Much of the recent research on pronouns has shown that embedded environments, such as clausal complements of attitude predicates, provide a window into the nature of pronouns. Pronouns in such environments not only exhibit familiar distinctions such as that between bound and referential pronouns; if they refer to the attitude holder, they also participate in a broader range of phenomena, e.g., distinguishing (...) between a de se reading and a de re reading. Topics covered include: the semantics of attitude reports that contain pronominal elements, the semantics of pronominal features and their connection to indexicality, new insights in the connection of pronominal typology and logophoricity or anti-logophoricity, and finally, the localization of embedded pronouns within a bigger picture involving the nature of perspective and the analysis of quasi-pronominal phenomena such as sequence of tense. (shrink)

This paper examines the stage-level/individual-level hypothesis (Kratzer 1989; Diesing 1988) from the point of view of modern Scottish Gaelic. This language exhibits two syntactically distinct predicational structures, and in particular, two distinct subject positions distinguishable on the basis of word order. While the distinction between the two positions can be shown to support the stage/individual-level hypothesis in one sense, the picture is muddied by the fact that many habitual or ‘characteristic’ sentences seem to be formed according to the stage-level subject (...) construction type.The solution proposed relies on two novel elements. First, it distinguishes the classical Davisonian event variable from the Kratzerian one hypothesized to be the hallmark of the stage-level sentence type. And secondly, it makes a strict logical separation between two types of generics: generics proper, which involve quantifying over an individual variable; and habituals, which only involve quantification over an event variable. These are represented by two distinct logical types which may nevertheless give rise to similar truth conditions in context.I show that the analysis can be made to account for tense interpretation, the scope of genericity, and the facts of syntactic complementation in Scottish Gaelic. To the extent that the solution is successful, it is evidence for a quite direct mapping between syntactic and semantic representations and for the important intuitions behind the initial Kratzer/Diesing stage vs. individual-level hypothesis. (shrink)

This survey explores interactions between syntax and discourse, through a case study of patterns of extraction from coordinate structures. The theoretical breadth of the volume makes it the most complete account of extraction from coordinate structures to date: at first glance, it appears to be a syntactic matter, but the survey raises theoretical and empirical questions not just for syntax, but also across semantics, pragmatics, and discourse structure. Rather than promoting a single analysis, Daniel Altshuler and Robert Truswell outline reasonable (...) hypotheses that allow theoretical conclusions to be deducted from empirical facts. The theoretical conclusions show that coordinate structures have the potential to discriminate between current syntactic theories, and to inform work on the interfaces between syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and discourse. In many cases, however, the necessary empirical work has not yet been carried out, and too much of the literature revolves around the same handful of primarily English examples. The volume offers a starting point for further research on extraction from coordinate structures, particularly in understudied languages, and provides a guide to how to tease out the theoretical implications of empirical findings. (shrink)

This introduction to the role of information structure in grammar discusses a wide range of phenomena on the syntax-information structure interface. It examines theories of information structure and considers their effectiveness in explaining whether and how information structure maps onto syntax in discourse. Professor Erteschik-Shir begins by discussing the basic notions and properties of information structure, such as topic and focus, and considers their properties from different theoretical perspectives. She covers definitions of topic and focus, architectures of grammar, information (...) structure, word order, the interface between lexicon and information structure, and cognitive aspects of information structure.In her balanced and readable account, the author critically compares the effectiveness of different theoretical approaches and assesses the value of insights drawn from work in processing and on language acquisition, variation, and universals. This book will appeal to graduate students of syntax and semantics in departments of linguistics, philosophy, and cognitive science. (shrink)

In this volume leading researchers present new work on the semantics and pragmatics of adjectives and adverbs, and their interfaces with syntax. Its concerns include the semantics of gradability; the relationship between adjectival scales and verbal aspect; the relationship between meaning and the positions of adjectives and adverbs in nominal and verbal projections; and the fine-grained semantics of different subclasses of adverbs and adverbs. Its goals are to provide a comprehensive vision of the linguistically significant structural and interpretive properties of (...) adjectives and adverbs, to highlight the similarities between these two categories, and to signal the importance of a careful and detailed integration of lexical and compositional semantics. The editors open the book with an overview of current research before introducing and contextualizing the remaining chapters. The work is aimed at scholars and advanced students of syntax, semantics, formal pragmatics, and discourse. It will also appeal to researchers in philosophy, psycholinguistics, and language acquisition interested in the syntax and semantics of adjectives and adverbs. (shrink)

Current research on the syntax-semantics interface demonstrates the dramatic extent to which syntactic structures constitute transparent reflections of well-defined semantic regularities. As this paper shows, the empirical results accumulated within this framework strongly suggest that a theoretical distinction should be made between two distinct levels of meaning representation: A level of conceptual meaning on the one hand, and a uniquely linguistic level of meaning — Linguistic Semantics — on the other. The semantic notions and regularities which turn out to (...) determine major syntactic phenomena are best interpreted as belonging to the level of Linguistic Semantics, rather than to the level of conceptual meaning. This view helps characterize language as a unique and functional system — a cognitive system whose function is defined at the level of Linguistic Semantics. It explains the fact, most recently highlighted by Levinson, that the expressive power of language, as a tool for the communication of meanings, is constrained in non-trivial ways. (shrink)

Quantification, Negation, and Focus: Challenges at the Conceptual-Intentional Semantic Interface Tista Bagchi National Institute of Science, Technology, and Development Studies (NISTADS) and the University of Delhi Since the proposal of Logical Form (LF) was put forward by Robert May in his 1977 MIT doctoral dissertation and was subsequently adopted into the overall architecture of language as conceived under Government-Binding Theory (Chomsky 1981), there has been a steady research effort to determine the nature of LF in language in light of (...) structurally diverse languages around the world, which has ultimately contributed to the reinterpretation of LF as a Conceptual-Intentional (C-I) interface level between the computational syntactic component of the faculty of language and one or more interpretive faculties of the human mind. While this has opened up further possibilities of research in phenomena such as quantifier scope and scope interactions between negation, quantification, and focus, it has also given rise to a few real challenges to linguistic theory as well. Some of these are: (i) the split between lexical meaning – a matter supposedly belonging to the phase-wise selection of lexical arrays – and issues of semantic interpretation that arise purely from binding and scope phenomena (Mukherji 2010); (ii) partially relatedly, the level at which theta role assignment can be argued to take place, an issue that is taken up by me in Bagchi (2007); and (iii) how supposedly “pure” scopal phenomena relating to quantifiers, negation, and emphasizing expressions such as only and even (comparable to, e.g., Urdu/Hindi hii and bhii, Bangla –i and –o) also have dimensions of both focus and discourse reference. While recognizing all of these challenges, this talk aims to highlight particularly challenge (iii), both in terms of scholarship in the past and for the rich prospects for research on languages of south Asia with the semantics of quantification, negation, and focus in view. The scholarship of the past that I seek to relate this issue to is where, parallel to (and largely independently of) the research on LF that had been happening, Barwise and Cooper were developing their influential view of noun phrases as generalized quantifiers, culminating in their key 1981 article “Generalized Quantifiers and Natural Language” while, independently, McCawley, in his 1981 book Everything that Linguists have Always Wanted to Know about Logic, established through argumentation that all noun phrases semantically behave like generalized quantified expressions (further elaborated by him in the second – 1994 – revised edition of his book). I seek to demonstrate, based on limited data analysis from selected languages of south Asia, that our current understanding of quantification, negation, and focus under the Minimalist view owes something significant to the two major, but now largely marginalized, works of scholarship, and that for the way forward it is essential to adopt a more formal-semantic approach as adopted by them and also by later works such as Denis Bouchard’s (1995) The Semantics of Syntax, Mats Rooth’s work on focus (e.g., Rooth 1996, “Focus” in Shalom Lappin’s Handbook of Contemporary Semantic Theory), Heim and Kratzer’s Semantics in Generative Grammar (1998), and Yoad Winter’s (2002) Linguistic Inquiry article on semantic number, to cite just a few instances. (shrink)

According to the Interface Hypothesis in the field of bilingualism, the interface connecting a linguistic module with a language-external domain (e.g., syntax-discourse) will present prolonged difficulties for adult bilingual learners, as compared with the interface connecting language-internal modules (e.g., syntax-semantics). This study tested whether the Interface Hypothesis is applicable to the acquisition of Mandarin Chinese as a heritage language. An internet-based acceptability judgment task (AJT) was administered to 58 advanced and intermediate adult Chinese heritage speakers to (...) collect data in accuracy and reaction time to investigate the adult heritage speakers’ mastery of referential nominal expressions regulated at the syntax-semantics and syntax-discourse interfaces, respectively, in Mandarin Chinese. The target linguistic phenomena involved three nominal expressions (i.e., the bare N(oun), the [Cl(assifier)-N], and the [Num(eral)-Cl-N]) under four interface-regulated referential readings (i.e., type-denoting, quantity-denoting, indefinite individual-denoting, and definite individual-denoting). In terms of accuracy, the results showed that (i) for the N and the [Num-Cl-N], regardless of the interface type, the advanced group acquired the target phenomena to a nativelike level, who significantly outperformed the intermediate group; (ii) for the [Cl-N], the advanced group exhibited nativelike attainment at the syntax-discourse interface but not at the syntax-semantics interface, and performed significantly better than the intermediate group at both interfaces. Regarding reaction time, no significant differences were reported between the advanced group and the native group for the target structures at either the syntax-semantics or the syntax-discourse interface, while the advanced group performed significantly better than the intermediate group, regardless of the interface type and the structure type. The findings suggest that the nature of the language interface, i.e., whether it pertains to language-external domains (i.e., the external interface) or not (i.e., the internal interface), should not be a reliable factor for predicting the (im)possibility of nativelike attainment of bilingual grammar knowledge, contra the predictions of the Interface Hypothesis. The present study provides new empirical evidence to show that language-external interface properties are not necessarily destined for prolonged difficulties in heritage language acquisition, and that it is possible for adult heritage speakers to make developmental progress in both accuracy and processing efficiency at different types of interfaces. (shrink)

Propositional attitude verbs, such as think and want, have long held interest for both theoretical linguists and language acquisitionists because their syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic properties display complex interactions that have proven difficult to fully capture from either perspective. This paper explores the granularity with which these verbs’ semantic and pragmatic properties are recoverable from their syntactic distributions, using three behavioral experiments aimed at explicitly quantifying the relationship between these two sets of properties. Experiment 1 gathers a measure of 30 (...) propositional attitude verbs’ syntactic distributions using an acceptability judgment task. Experiments 2a and 2b gather measures of semantic similarity between those same verbs using a generalized semantic discrimination task and an ordinal scale task, respectively. Two kinds of analyses are conducted on the data from these experiments. The first compares both the acceptability judgments and the semantic similarity judgments to previous classifications derived from the syntax and semantics literature. The second kind compares the acceptability judgments to the semantic similarity judgments directly. Through these comparisons, we show that there is quite fine-grained information about propositional attitude verbs’ semantics carried in their syntactic distributions—whether one considers the sorts of discrete qualitative classifications that linguists traditionally work with or the sorts of continuous quantitative classifications that can be derived experimentally. (shrink)

In this paper, I utilise the growing literature on scientific modelling to investigate the nature of formal semantics from the perspective of the philosophy of science. Specifically, I incorporate the inferential framework proposed by Bueno and Colyvan : 345–374, 2011) in the philosophy of applied mathematics to offer an account of how formal semantics explains and models its data. This view produces a picture of formal semantic models as involving an embedded process of inference and representation applying indirectly to linguistic (...) phenomena. The final aim of the paper is directed at proposing a novel account of the syntax–semantics interface while shedding light on empty categories, semantically null forms, underspecified content and compositionality as a whole. (shrink)

Glue semantics is a theory of the syntax–semantics interface according to which the syntactic structure of a sentence produces premises in a fragment of linear logic, and the semantic interpretation of the sentence correspond to the proof derivable from those premises. This paper describes how Glue can be connected to a Minimalist syntactic theory and compares the result with the more mainstream approach to the syntax–semantics interface in Minimalism, according to which the input to semantic interpretation (...) is a syntactic structure derived by covert movement operations. I argue that the Glue approach has advantages that make it worth exploring. (shrink)

This volume presents the state of the art of recent research on the acquisition of semantics. Covering topics ranging from infants' initial acquisition of word meaning to the more sophisticated mapping between structure and meaning in the syntax-semantics interface, and the relation between logical content and inferences on language meaning (semantics and pragmatics), the papers in this volume introduce the reader to the variety of ways in which children come to realize that semantic content is encoded in word meaning (...) (for example, in the event semantics of the verbal domain or the scope of logical operators), and at the level of the sentence, which requires the composition of semantic meaning. The authors represent some of the most established and promising researchers in this domain, demonstrating collective expertise in a range of methodologies and topics relevant to the acquisition of semantics. This volume will serve as a valuable resource for students and faculty, and junior and seasoned researchers alike. (shrink)

The informational content conveyed by utterances has two sources:meaning as it is encoded in words and rules of semantic composition (often called literal or semantic meaning) and further inferences that may be obtained by reasoning on the speaker's motives (the conjunction of these inferences with the literal meaning is often called the strengthened or pragmatic meaning of the sentence). While in simple cases the difference can seem obvious enough, in general this is not so, and the investigation of the semantics–pragmatics (...) interface has proven to be one of the most vibrant areas of research in contemporary studies of meaning. We will survey three domains – scalar implicatures, presuppositions, and conventional implicatures – in which there are considerable empirical benefits to be obtained from this enterprise. However, it is also of foundational and methodological interest: knowledge of semantic meaning is part of knowledge of language; by contrast, pragmatic inferences are derived in part from the assumption that the speaker obeys certain rules of behavior – typically ones dictated by rationality (which may, for instance, lead to the maximization of the utility of an utterance to the speaker or to others). Owing to foundational interest in the interaction between language and reasoning, the study of the semantics– pragmatics interface originated in philosophy; however, it quickly became a central topic within linguistics and psycholinguistics, and the convergence of results from these last two fields has resulted in rich cross-disciplinary exchanges. For reasons of space, we do not consider psycholinguistic results in this survey, but it should be said at the outset that they have changed the face of the field by providing new and more reliable data (for instance, on processing and language acquisition) and sometimes by challenging data that had too quickly become solidified on the basis of unsystematic introspection alone. -/- As we will see, the debates are more open than ever. Scalar implicatures, which were usually considered a staple of pragmatic reasoning, have recently been reassigned to the semantics or even to the syntax by proponents of locally computed implicatures (‘localists’ for short). (shrink)

This book examines how word order variations in language can be regulated by various factors in cyclic syntax. In particular, it offers a valuable contribution to the current debate concerning the effect of cyclic Spell-out on the (re-)ordering of elements in scrambling. Heejeong Ko provides in-depth discussion of the interaction of the syntax-phonology interface with operations at the syntax proper, as well as examining how the semantic meaning of a structure can be correlated with certain types of orderings in (...) cyclic edges of the syntax. The author's proposal accounts for a wide range of scrambling data in East Asian languages such as Korean and Japanese, with particular focus on the consequences of cyclic linearization for (sub-)scrambling, types of quantifier floating, variations in predicate fronting, and types of argument structure and secondary predicates. The book will be of interest to syntacticians from graduate level upwards, particularly those interested in the syntax-phonology and syntax-semantics interfaces. The range of novel data presented will make it a valuable resource for linguists studying Korean, Japanese, and scrambling languages in general. (shrink)

This book considers the semantic and syntactic nature of indexicals - linguistic expressions, as in I, you, this, that, yesterday, tomorrow , whose reference shifts from utterance to utterance.There is a long-standing controversy as to whether the semantic reference point is already present as syntactic material or whether it is introduced post-syntactically by semantic rules of interpretation. Alessandra Giorgi resolves this controversy through an empirically grounded exploration of temporal indexicality, arguing that the speaker's temporal location is specified in the syntactic (...) structure. She supports her analysis with theoretical and empirical arguments based on data from English, Italian, Chinese, and Romanian. Professor Giorgi addresses some difficult and longstanding issues in the analysis of temporal phenomena - including the Italian imperfect indicative, the properties of the so-called future-in-the-past, and the properties of Free Indirect Discourse - and shows that her framework can account elegantly for all of them. Carefully argued, succinct, and clearly written her book will appeal widely to semanticists in linguistics and philosophy from graduate level upwards and to linguists interested in the syntax-semantics interface. (shrink)

Formal semantics is an approach to SEMANTICS1, the study of meaning, with roots in logic, the philosophy of language, and linguistics, and since the 1980’s a core area of linguistic theory. Characteristics of formal semantics to be treated in this article include the following: Formal semanticists treat meaning as mind-independent (though abstract), contrasting with the view of meanings as concepts “in the head” (see I-LANGUAGE AND E-LANGUAGE and MEANING EXTERNALISM AND INTERNALISM); formal semanticists distinguish semantics from knowledge of semantics (Lewis (...) 1975, Cresswell 1978), which has consequences for the notion of semantic COMPETENCE. A central part of the meaning of a sentence on this approach is its TRUTH CONDITIONS, and most although not all formal semantics is model-theoretic, relating linguistic expressions to model-theoretically constructed semantic values cast in terms of truth, REFERENCE, and possible worlds. This sets formal semantics apart from approaches which view semantics as relating a sentence just to a representation on another linguistic “level” (LOGICAL FORM) or a representation in an innate LANGUAGE OF THOUGHT. The formal semanticist could accept such representations as an aspect of semantics but would insist on asking what the model-theoretic semantic interpretation of the given representationlanguage is (Lewis 1970). Formal semantics is centrally concerned with COMPOSITIONALITY at the SYNTAX-SEMANTICS INTERFACE, how the meanings of larger constituents are built up from the meanings of their parts on the basis of their syntactic structure, and with the relation between compositional SENTENCE MEANING and meaning in discourse. (shrink)

The expression ‘Like’ has a wide variety of uses among English and American speakers. It may describe preference, as in (1) She likes mint chip ice cream. It may be used as a vehicle of comparison, as in (2) Trieste is like Minsk on steroids.

This paper argues for the hypothesis of direct compositionality (as in, e.g., Montague 1974), according to which the combinatory syntactic rules specify a set of well-formed expressions while the semantic combinatory rules work in tandem to directly supply a model-theoretic interpretation to each expression as it is "built" in the syntax. (This thus obviates the need for any level like LF and, concomitantly, for any rules mapping surface structures to such a level.) I focus here on one related group of (...) phenomena: the interaction of "paycheck" pronouns with Weak Crossover effects and i-within-i effects. These interactions were studied in Jacobson (1977) as they show up in Back-Peters sentences. There I argued that these interactions show that paycheck pronouns have a complex representation at LF; here I show that all of the observations in this earlier work are compatible with the hypothesis of direct compositionality. The key tool is the adoption of a variation-free semantics (a semantics which makes no use of variables as part of the semantic machinery). In addition to the general consequences for the syntax/semantics interface, there are two other main results. First, I provide new arguments for a variable-free semantics. For example, it will be shown that under this view the paycheck reading of a pronoun comes for free; most other theories posit additional mechanisms and/or an additional lexical meaning for pronouns, and thus paycheck and regular pronouns are only accidentally homophonous. Second, I reiterate one of the central points in Jacobson (1977): this is that the first pronoun in a Bach-Peters sentence is indeed a paycheck pronoun, and hence nothing special needs to be said about these sentences nor does any new machinery need to be invoked for them. (shrink)

This state-of-the-art guide to some of the most exciting work in current linguistics explores how the core components of the language faculty interact. It examines how these interactions are reflected in linguistic and cognitive theory, considers what they reveal about the operations of language within the mind, and looks at their reflections in expression and communication. Leading international scholars present cutting-edge accounts of developments in the interfaces between phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. They bring to bear a rich (...) variety of methods and theoretical perspectives, focus on a broad array of issues and problems, and illustrate their arguments from a wide range of the world's languages. After the editors' introduction to its structure, scope, and content, the book is divided into four parts. The first, Sound, is concerned with the interfaces between phonetics and phonology, phonology and morphology, and phonology and syntax. Part II, Structure, considers the interactions of syntax with morphology, semantics, and the lexicon, and explores the status of the word and its representional status in the mind. Part III, Meaning, revisits the syntax-semantics interface from the perspective of compositionality, and looks at issues concerned with intonation, discourse, and context. The authors in the final part of the book, General Architectural Concerns, examine work on Universal Grammar, the overall model of language, and linguistic and associated theories of language and cognition. All scholars and advanced students of language will value this book, whether they are in linguistics, cognitive science, philosophy, artificial intelligence, computational science, or informatics. (shrink)

We offer a syntax–semantics interface for a previously undiscussed type of event-external pluractional operator. While earlier literature discusses overt cases of such operators that act as derivational affixes and attach at the V-level, we here report evidence for a covert operator, which behaves like an inflectional affix at the level of Aspect. This analysis enriches our understanding of pluractional operators as markers of verbal plurality in languages where verbs are lexically cumulative and pluractionality as accounted for previously would (...) appear to be superfluous, at least at first sight. We formulate our claims on the basis of the Romanian supine, whose nominal form has previously been argued to carry a pluractional operator. (shrink)

There is a class of expressions which are perceived as ‘ungrammatical’ not because they are syntactically ill-formed but because they have interpretations which are informationally trivial. Triviality-driven unacceptability constrains the distribution of determiners, modals, attitude verbs, exhaustifiers, approximatives, among many other classes of logical terms. At the same time, many superficial tautologies and contradictions—pre-theoretically, the clearest examples of trivial expressions—are judged to be perfectly acceptable. This paper discusses two promising yet fundamentally opposed attempts to model triviality-driven unacceptability without over-generating ‘ungrammaticality’ (...) judgments. One approach combines the ‘Logicality’ view that the language system includes a deductive-inferential system (DS) that automatically identifies and filters out expressions with trivial interpretations, with the hypothesis that the DS runs on ‘modulated logical forms’, i.e., structures where all content-based terms and variables are subject to meaning-modulation operations. The other approach downplays Logicality and tries to reduce triviality-driven unacceptability to familiar kinds of pragmatic infelicities. The Logicality-based approach, I argue, is superior to the most sophisticated attempts to treat triviality-driven unacceptability as a species of pragmatic infelicity. This result suggests that our purely linguistic and logical competences are deeply intertwined, and sheds new light on the division of labor between syntax, semantics and pragmatics. (shrink)

Semantic roles have continued to intrigue linguists for more than four decades now, starting with determining their kind and number, with their morphological expression, and with their interaction with argument structure and syntax. The focus in this volume is on typological and historical issues. The papers focus on the cross-linguistic identification of semantic-role equivalents, on the regularity of, and exceptions concerning change and grammaticalization in semantic roles, the variation of encoding the roles of direction and experiencer in specific languages, presenting (...) evidence for identifying a new semantic role of speech addressee in Caucasian languages, on semantic roles in word formation, and finally a cross-linguistic comparison of the functions and the grammaticalization of the ethical dative in some Indo-European languages. The book will be of interest to anyone involved with case and semantic roles, with the syntax-semantics interface, and with semantic change and grammaticalization. (shrink)

Formal thought disorder (FTD) is a clinical mental condition that is typically diagnosable by the speech productions of patients. However, this has been a vexing condition for the clinical community, as it is not at all easy to determine what “formal” means in the plethora of symptoms exhibited. We present a logic-based model for the syntax–semantics interface in semantic networking that can not only explain, but also diagnose, FTD. Our model is based on description logic (DL), which is (...) well known for its adequacy to model terminological knowledge. More specifically, we show how faulty logical form as defined in DL-based Conception Language (CL) impacts the semantic content of linguistic productions that are characteristic of FTD. We accordingly call this the dyssyntax model. (shrink)

This book examines the hypothesis of "direct compositionality", which requires that semantic interpretation proceed in tandem with syntactic combination. Although associated with the dominant view in formal semantics of the 1970s and 1980s, the feasibility of direct compositionality remained unsettled, and more recently the discussion as to whether or not this view can be maintained has receded. The syntax-semantics interaction is now often seen as a process in which the syntax builds representations which, at the abstract level of logical form, (...) are sent for interpretation to the semantics component of the language faculty. In the first extended discussion of the hypothesis of direct compositionality for twenty years, this book considers whether its abandonment might have been premature and whether in fact direct compositionality is not after all a simpler and more effective conception of the grammar than the conventional account of the syntax-semantics interface in generative grammar. It contains contributions from both sides of the debate, locates the debate in the setting of a variety of formal theories, and draws on examples from a range of languages and a range of empirical phenomena. (shrink)

This paper addresses one of the fundamental problems of the philosophy of information: How does semantic information emerge within the underlying dynamics of the world?—the dynamical semantic information problem. It suggests that the canonical approach to semantic information that defines data before meaning and meaning before use is inadequate for pre-cognitive information media. Instead, we should follow a pragmatic approach to information where one defines the notion of information system as a special kind of purposeful system emerging within the underlying (...) dynamics of the world and define semantic information as the currency of the system. In this way, systems operating with semantic information can be viewed as patterns in the dynamics—semantic information is a dynamical system phenomenon of highly organized systems. In the simplest information systems, the syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of the information medium are co-defined. It proposes a new more general theory of information semantics that focuses on the interface role of the information states in the information system—the interface theory of meaning. Finally, with the new framework, it addresses the debate between weakly semantic and strongly semantic accounts of information, siding with the strongly semantic view because the pragmatic account developed here is a better generalization of it. (shrink)

This paper reviews a series of experimental studies that address what we call ‘interface judgement’, which is the complex judgment involving integration from multiple levels of grammatical representation such as the syntax-semantics and prosody-semantics interface. We first discuss the results from the ERP literature connected to NPI licensing in different languages, paying particular attention to the N400 and the P600 as neural correlates of this specific phenomenon and focusing on the study by Xiang et al. (2016). The results (...) of this study show evidence that there are two distinct NPI licensing mechanisms, i.e., licensing and rescuing, in line with Giannakidou (1998, 2006). Then we discuss an acceptability judgement task on Greek NPIs which supports the negativity as a scale hypothesis (Zwarts 1995, 1996, Giannakidou 1998). For the semantics-prosody interface judgment, we discuss two types of findings on two different phenomena and languages: (i) the study by Giannakidou & Yoon (2016) on scalar and non-scalar NPIs in Greek and Korean, which serves as the foundation for Chatzikontantinou (2016)’s study of production data showing distinct prosodic properties in emphatic (scalar) and non-emphatic (non-scalar) Greek NPIs; (ii) a (production and perception) study by Etxeberria & Irurtzun (2015) on the prosodic disambiguation of the scalar/non-scalar readings of sentences containing the focus particle ‘ere’ in Basque. The main conclusion of the paper is that experimental methods of the kind discussed in the paper are useful in establishing physical, quantitative correlates of interface judgement. (shrink)

This article explores the basic assumptions of Generative Lexicon Theory (GL) and the implications for the general theory of the linguistic sign that arise from the generative mechanisms “selective binding,” “co-composition,” and “type coercion.” The article focuses on the assumption underlying GL that interpretation and polysemy are part of lexical structure. It is shown that encoded lexical meaning and inferred non-lexical knowledge cannot be clearly distinguished in GL. In order to be consistent, GL must also be supplemented by a theory (...) of “normal language use” and be able to account for semantic underspecification in a semiotically coherent way. (shrink)

Much ado – and increased complexity – is generally the case when it comes to checking formally the (intended) meaning of programs, as formal semantics for programs are typically extrinsic to both them and the formal grammars that generate the programming languages in which they are written. The van Wijngaarden grammars, on the contrary, have an intrinsic semantics in the sense that their rules contain or express the (intended) meaning of the terminal strings generated by them. This intrinsicness allows for (...) preservation of meaning both in syntactic change and context-sensitive conditions. In order better to show the intrinsicness of the semantics of the van Wijngaarden grammars I contrast them with the attribute grammars, a frequent choice when the semantic analysis of programming languages is called for (e.g., in compilation). (shrink)

One of the major arenas for debate within generative grammar is the nature of paradigmatic relations among words. Intervening in key debates at the interface between syntax and semantics, this book examines the relation between structure and meaning, and analyses how it affects the internal properties of words and corresponding syntactic manifestations. Adapting notions from the Evo-Devo project in biology (the idea of 'co-linearity' between structural units and behavioural manifestations) Juan Uriagereka addresses a major puzzle: how words can be (...) both decomposable so as to be acquired by children, and atomic, so that they do not manifest themselves as modular to adults. (shrink)

In Gradient Acceptability and Linguistic Theory, Elaine J. Francis examines a challenging problem at the intersection of theoretical linguistics and the psychology of language: the problem of interpreting gradient judgments of sentence acceptability in relation to theories of grammatical knowledge. This problem is important because acceptability judgments constitute the primary source of data on which such theories have been built, despite being susceptible to various extra-grammatical factors. Through a review of experimental and corpus-based research on a variety of syntactic phenomena (...) and an in-depth examination of two case studies, Francis argues for two main positions. The first is that converging evidence from online comprehension tasks, elicited production tasks, and corpora of naturally-occurring discourse can help determine the sources of variation in acceptability judgments and narrow down the range of plausible theoretical interpretations. The second is that the interpretation of judgment data depends crucially on one's theoretical commitments and assumptions, especially with respect to the nature of the syntax-semantics interface and the choice of either a categorical or a gradient notion of grammaticality. The theoretical frameworks considered in this book include derivational theories (e.g. Minimalism, Principles and Parameters), constraint-based theories (e.g. Sign-based Construction Grammar, Simpler Syntax), competition-based theories (e.g. Stochastic Optimality Theory, Decathlon Model), and usage-based approaches. While showing that acceptability judgment data are typically compatible with the assumptions of various theoretical frameworks, Francis argues that some gradient phenomena are best captured within frameworks that permit soft constraints-non-categorical grammatical constraints that encode the conventional preferences of language users. (shrink)

The Complex-First Paradox regards the semantics of nouns and consists of a set of together incompatible, but individually well confirmed propositions about the evolution and development of language, the semantics of word classes and the cortical realization of word meaning. Theoretical and empirical considerations support the view that the concepts expressed by concrete nouns are more complex and their neural realizations more widely distributed in cortex than those expressed by other word classes. For a cortically implemented syntax–semantics interface, (...) the more widely distributed a concept’s neural realization is, the more effort it takes to establish a link between the concept and its expression. If one assumes the principle that in ontogeny and phylogeny capabilities demanding more effort develop, respectively, evolve later than those demanding less effort, the empirical observation seems paradoxical that the meanings of concrete nouns, in ontogeny and phylogeny, are acquired earlier than those of other word classes. (shrink)

We present Logical Description Grammar (LDG), a model ofgrammar and the syntax-semantics interface based on descriptions inelementary logic. A description may simultaneously describe the syntacticstructure and the semantics of a natural language expression, i.e., thedescribing logic talks about the trees and about the truth-conditionsof the language described. Logical Description Grammars offer a naturalway of dealing with underspecification in natural language syntax andsemantics. If a logical description (up to isomorphism) has exactly onetree plus truth-conditions as a model, it completely specifies (...) thatgrammatical object. More common is the situation, corresponding tounderspecification, in which there is more than one model. A situation inwhich there are no models corresponds to an ungrammatical input. (shrink)

Our study examines the expression and position of subjects in L2 acquisition, two phenomena that are studied within the framework of the Interface Hypothesis. The first version of the IH predicts that interface properties involving syntax and another cognitive domain may not be fully acquirable in a second language. The second version of the IH predicts that formal properties involving the syntax-semantics interface are unproblematic to acquire in L2 grammars compared to the vulnerable properties integrating syntax with (...) the higher level of pragmatics. We test these IH versions in L2 Spanish as acquired by L1 Greek speakers, a language combination understudied in the literature. Both languages share the null subject parameter, but still the IHs predict incomplete command at the syntax-pragmatics interface. Two acceptability judgment tasks were designed for Spanish: the first task tested null/overt subjects in referential contexts and the second task tested preverbal/postverbal subjects in informational contexts. Participants were L1 Greek intermediate and advanced learners of Spanish and native speakers of Spanish. In the first task, both experimental groups showed target-like distribution of null/overt subjects in most non-contrastive and contrastive contexts, except for the advanced group in unambiguous referential contexts. In the second task, the respective groups accepted felicitous preverbal subjects with unergative verbs, but diverged from native-like distribution of postverbal subjects with unaccusative verbs in neutral contexts. The L2 groups showed a high preference for unfelicitous preverbal subjects with both intransitive verbs in informational contexts, contrary to the subject inversion patterns of the control group. The results obtained were not consistent with the IH predictions, and other factors such as the type of subject, verb class and context played a role in L2 performance. (shrink)

Recent work on the acquisition of number words has emphasized the importance of integrating linguistic and developmental perspectives [Musolino, J. (2004). The semantics and acquisition of number words: Integrating linguistic and developmental perspectives. Cognition93, 1-41; Papafragou, A., Musolino, J. (2003). Scalar implicatures: Scalar implicatures: Experiments at the semantics-pragmatics interface. Cognition, 86, 253-282; Hurewitz, F., Papafragou, A., Gleitman, L., Gelman, R. (2006). Asymmetries in the acquisition of numbers and quantifiers. Language Learning and Development, 2, 76-97; Huang, Y. T., Snedeker, J., (...) Spelke, L. (submitted for publication). What exactly do numbers mean?]. Specifically, these studies have shown that data from experimental investigations of child language can be used to illuminate core theoretical issues in the semantic and pragmatic analysis of number terms. In this article, I extend this approach to the logico-syntactic properties of number words, focusing on the way numerals interact with each other (e.g. Three boys are holding two balloons) as well as with other quantified expressions (e.g. Three boys are holding each balloon). On the basis of their intuitions, linguists have claimed that such sentences give rise to at least four different interpretations, reflecting the complexity of the linguistic structure and syntactic operations involved. Using psycholinguistic experimentation with preschoolers (n=32) and adult speakers of English (n=32), I show that (a) for adults, the intuitions of linguists can be verified experimentally, (b) by the age of 5, children have knowledge of the core aspects of the logical syntax of number words, (c) in spite of this knowledge, children nevertheless differ from adults in systematic ways, (d) the differences observed between children and adults can be accounted for on the basis of an independently motivated, linguistically-based processing model [Geurts, B. (2003). Quantifying kids. Language Acquisition, 11(4), 197-218]. In doing so, this work ties together research on the acquisition of the number vocabulary with a growing body of work on the development of quantification and sentence processing abilities in young children [Geurts, 2003; Lidz, J., Musolino, J. (2002). Children's command of quantification. Cognition, 84, 113-154; Musolino, J., Lidz, J. (2003). The scope of isomorphism: Turning adults into children. Language Acquisition, 11(4), 277-291; Trueswell, J., Sekerina, I., Hilland, N., Logrip, M. (1999). The kindergarten-path effect: Studying on-line sentence processing in young children. Cognition, 73, 89-134; Noveck, I. (2001). When children are more logical than adults: Experimental investigations of scalar implicature. Cognition, 78, 165-188; Noveck, I., Guelminger, R., Georgieff, N., & Labruyere, N. (2007). What autism can tell us about every. . . not sentences. Journal of Semantics,24(1), 73-90. On a more general level, this work confirms the importance of integrating formal and developmental perspectives [Musolino, 2004], this time by highlighting the explanatory power of linguistically-based models of language acquisition and by showing that the complex structure postulated by linguists has important implications for developmental accounts of the number vocabulary. (shrink)

This book presents a novel analysis of concealed-question constructions, reports of a mental attitude in which part of a sentence looks like a nominal complement, but is interpreted as an indirect question. Such constructions are puzzling in that they raise the question of how their meaning derives from their constituent parts. In particular, how a nominal complement, normally used to refer to an entity ends up with a question-like meaning. In this book, Ilaria Frana adopts a theory according to which (...) noun phrases with concealed question meanings are analysed as individual concepts. The traditional individual concept theory is modified and applied to the phenomena discussed in the recent literature and some new problematic data. The end result is a fully compositional account of a wide range of concealed-question constructions. The exploration of concealed questions offered in the book provides insights into both issues in semantic theory, such as the nature of quantification in natural languages and the use of type shifter in the grammar, and issues surrounding the syntax-semantics interface, such as the interpretation of copy traces and the effects on semantic interpretation of different syntactic analyses of relative clauses. The book will interest scholars and graduate students in linguistics, especially those interested in semantics and the syntax-semantics interface, as well as philosophers of language working on the topic of intensionality. (shrink)

1. Formal semantics in linguistics -- 2. Generalized quantifier theory -- 3. The interface between syntax and semantics -- 4. Anaphora, discourse, and modality -- 5. Focus, presupposition, and negation -- 6. Tense -- 7. Questions -- 8. Plurals -- 9. Computational semantics -- 10. Lexical semantics -- 11. Semantics and related domains.

This paper gives an analysis of the Chinese distributivity marker dou 'all', which can occur not only with definite plural NPs but also with NPs whose determiner is a quantifier word such as mei 'every' or dabufen-de 'most'. Besides normal distributive predicates, it can also occur with certain types of collective predicates. The difficulties of giving a compositional interpretation to constructions of these kinds are discussed in detail. I show that we can solve those difficulties if we treat dou as (...) a generalized distributivity marker in the sense of Schwarzschild (1991, 1996), which distributes over the members of a plurality cover. Apart from the above topic, which is more narrowly a semantics topic, this paper also discusses some syntax-semantics interface issues related to the distribution of dou's associates. (shrink)

This book is the most comprehensive, integrated explanatory account yet published of the properties of question formations and their variation across languages. It makes an important contribution to the current debate over whether syntax should be understood derivationally, arguing that the best model of language is one in which sentences are constructed in a series of operations that precede or follow each other in time. The central problem it addresses is the nature of the difference between languages in which all (...) wh-words move overtly to a clause-initial position ; languages in which one wh-phrase moves per clause but all others remain in situ ; and languages in which there is no overt movement at all. Professor Richards focuses on the nature of syntactic movement in order to see what this reveals about the syntactic derivation. He considers the nature of interactions between movement operations and investigates the behaviour of multiple overt wh-movement, scrambling, cliticization, and object shift. His general conclusions about the relationship between movement and multiple specifiers follow straightforwardly from basic principles of Shortest Move and Shortest Attract. He develops a PF-imposed well-formedness condition on movement chains, which allows for the development of theories of anti-agreement, the that-trace effect, and the conditions on participial agreement in Romance, among other phenomena. He defends the claim that well-formed dependencies can improve the status of ill-formed dependencies created later in the derivation, illustrating the explanatory power, under certain structural conditions, of his Principle of Minimal Compliance. He uses data on the locality of wh-movement to argue that the Principle of Minimal Compliance is responsible for a number of the apparent distinctions between overt and covert movement. This book will interest syntacticians at graduate level and above as well as linguistic theorists concerned with the syntax-semantics interface. (shrink)

Meaning addresses the fundamental question of human language interaction: what it is to mean, and how we communicate our meanings to others. Experienced textbook writer and eminent researcher Betty J. Birner gives balanced coverage to semantics and pragmatics, emphasizing interactions between the two, and discusses other fields of language study such as syntax, neurology, philosophy of language, and artificial intelligence in terms of their interfaces with linguistic meaning.

Many languages allow for “fake” uses of their past tense marker: the marker: can occur in certain contexts without conveying temporal pastness. Instead it appears to bear a modal meaning. Iatridou :231–270, 2000) has dubbed this phenomenon Fake Tense. Fake Tense is particularly common to conditional constructions. This paper analyzes Fake Tense in English conditional sentences as a certain kind of ambiguity: the past tense morphology can mark the presence of a temporal operator, but it can also signal a specific (...) modal operator. The ambiguity is proposed to be the result of recategorization: the Simple Past develops a second, modal meaning because of structural similarities between the temporal and the modal/epistemic domain. The proposal is spelled out in the generative semantics framework, using the restrictor approach to conditionals Semantics from different points of view, 1979; in: A. von Stechow and D. Wunderlich Semantics: an international handbook of contemporary research, 1991), and building on von Stechows et al.’s recent work on the English tense system The expression of time in language, 2010; Romero and von Stechow, Tense: introduction, 2008). (shrink)

The present volume contains a selection of papers presented at the conference Mapping Parameters of Meaning, an event organized by the GReG (Groupe de Rèflexion sur les Grammaires) linguistics research group in the Language Department of the University of Paris Ouest Nanterre on November 19-20, 2010. The book addresses the description of meaning construction processes, and the necessity for new linguistic interface-tools to analyze it in its dynamic and multi-dimensional aspect. Syntax, grammar, prosody, discourse organization, subjective and situational filters (...) are not considered as autonomous systems; on the contrary, they are shown to systematically converge in the process of meaning construction and interpretation. The notion of context is discussed throughout the volume, a major concern being to try and define the precise nature of the link between variable contextual parameters and stable linguistic systems. The book will be of value to anyone interested in the interaction between syntax, semantics and pragmatics in the gradual construction and interpretation of meaning in natural languages, including researchers, students and scholars of formal linguistics, cognitive linguistics and discourse analysis. (shrink)