Ungrammaticality from triviality: deriving selectional restrictions of attitude verbs It's commonly assumed that ungrammaticality is a syntactic notion and should receive a purely syntactic explanation. Yet there are many proposals appealing to squarely semantic considerations in order to account for certain cases of ungrammaticality. In this seminar meeting, we will first discuss one particular strategy … Read More
Witness protection: A unified semantics for additive particles in assertions and questions The English additive particle also can appear in assertions and polar questions, but not in canonical wh-questions: (1) Mary danced all night. a. John also danced. b. Did John also dance? c. #Who also danced? It has been suggested that when also appears … Read More
Rethinking Questions We are actively trying to understand how to account for the distribution and interpretation of embedded questions: Why do know and wonder embed them but not (usually) think? Why do we have to hedge and add (usually) to statements like the previous one? And why does know plus a question imply belief, when … Read More
The shape, meaning, and sound of factivity In this talk grounded in Turkish data, I present empirical evidence that the factive inference must be derived and not encoded in the meaning of verbs and complementizers, and propose a unified syntax and semantics that derives it. Finally, I show that a contrast in intonation between factive and non-factive attitude … Read More
Semantic research in the signed modality This seminar will provide an overview of aspects of the semantic research in sign languages, taking the recent discussions on indexical pointing used for referent tracking as a case study. We will identify and discuss the main challenges and limitations of research in this domain, as well as whether … Read More
A competition mechanism for anaphoric expressions This talk explores a competition-based analysis of anaphoric expressions, which refer to familiar entities. I propose a unified semantic account, where all anaphoric expressions such as pronouns and definite descriptions share an underlying semantic structure and differ only in the amount of restrictions they carry. The complexity of the … Read More
What do imperatives mean? We will examine some of the major questions surrounding the semantics of imperatives, exploring in particular the division of labor between semantics and pragmatics, connections to modality, and the kinds of empirical evidence that have been central to competing analyses.
Paths to exceptional wide scope: Choice functions in Tiwa Choice functions have been invoked in the analysis of indefinites and disjunction in order to explain their ability to take wide scope from within islands, and to explain cross-linguistic variation in whether a given indefinite can or must take wide scope (Reinhart 1997, Kratzer 1998, Matthewson … Read More
Genericity and Grammar Generic statements such as those in (1) express non-accidental, fundamental characteristics of some type of individuals and/or situations. 1) a. Birds fly. b. Liz smokes after dinner. c. This machine crushes oranges. Such generic statements are cross-linguistically ubiquitous, tend to be morphosyntactically simple, and provide essential means to express the ways in … Read More
Structuring ignorance Certain constructions in natural language are tied to an inference that the speaker cannot be more informative; they give rise to what is often referred to as 'ignorance inferences'. For instance, the sentences in (1) convey that the speaker doesn't know who/how many people came to the party. 1) a. Liz or Sue … Read More