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
Verbal Symbols and Generalized Demonstrations Gillian Ramchand Abstract: In this talk I develop a new theory of the ingredients of semantic composition for the verb phrase, building on recent work (Ramchand 2018). I show that the central properties of the approach proposed there make possible a new rapprochement between the theoretical analyses of verbal … Read More
Crossover asymmetries Stefan Keine (joint work w/ Rajesh Bhatt) Abstract: We investigate and analyze a crossover asymmetry in Hindi scrambling: such scrambling is not subject to (secondary) weak crossover but at the same time shows clear (secondary) strong crossover effects. This asymmetry provides empirical evidence that the two types of crossover should be analytically decoupled … Read More