A Principled Explanation on the Quantifier Scope Phenomena

This article explores Robert Southey's pessimistic re-appropriation of the popular revolutionary symbol of the hydra in the closet drama The Fall of Robespierre (1794). Challenging the prevailing view that Southey was an enthusiastic revolutionary throughout the 1790s, the study progresses from an exploration of the hydra's ubiquitous use in revolutionary and loyalist propaganda to an account of Southey's damning re-appropriation of the monster as a symbol for recurrences of tyranny in France's revolutionary governments. Analyses of The Fall of Robespierre, Southey's closet drama Wat Tyler (1794) and epic Joan of Arc (1796) demonstrate that Southey acquired an early conviction that tyranny was a recurrent obstacle to democracy, which rendered revolution futile. Arguing that Southey's revolutionary zeal had largely abated by 1793, I contend that his youthful incredulity about the plausibility of establishing a republic informed, and constitutes a principled explanation for, his notorious apostasy and conservatism in later life.

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ON THE RELEVANCE OF HEAD GOVERNMENT TO QUANTIFIER SCOPE

ENGLISH LINGUISTICS ◽

10.9793/elsj1984.9.223 ◽

1992 ◽

Vol 9 (0) ◽

pp. 223-243

Author(s):

TOMOYUKI TANAKA

Keyword(s):

Quantifier Scope

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Argument ellipsis in Colloquial Singapore English and the Anti-Agreement Hypothesis

Journal of Linguistics ◽

10.1017/s0022226713000303 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 50 (2) ◽

pp. 365-401 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

YOSUKE SATO

Keyword(s):

Strong Evidence ◽

Recent Theory ◽

Argument Position ◽

Comparative Syntax ◽

Argument Ellipsis ◽

Principled Explanation ◽

The Subject

This paper provides new data from Colloquial Singapore English (CSE) showing a hitherto unnoticed subject–object asymmetry: empty objects, but not empty subjects, exhibit sloppy/quantificational readings. According to a recent theory of argument ellipsis in Japanese/Korean (Oku 1998; S. Kim 1999; Takahashi 2007, 2008a, b, 2010), these readings obtain as a result of the LF-Copy of an overt argument from a full-fledged clause onto the corresponding empty argument position in an elliptical clause. Şener & Takahashi (2010) and Takahashi (2010) hypothesize that this operation is blocked by ϕ-agreement. This hypothesis provides a principled explanation for the subject–object asymmetry in CSE, coupled with the new observation that primary substrates of CSE – Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien and Malay – exhibit the same asymmetry as CSE. My analysis has significant implications for the comparative syntax of argument ellipsis and for theories of contact genesis. Among others, the analysis supports the claim (Miyagawa 2010) that Chinese possesses ϕ-agreement despite the lack of morphological manifestations. The results in this paper also provide strong evidence for the general substratist explanation on the emerging grammar of CSE (Bao 2005).

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Utilitarianism and the Meaning of Life

Utilitas ◽

10.1017/s0953820800003769 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 15 (1) ◽

pp. 50-70 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Thaddeus Metz

Keyword(s):

Meaning Of Life ◽

The World ◽

Principled Explanation ◽

Kantian Theory ◽

The Universe ◽

Utilitarian Theory

This article addresses the utilitarian theory of life's meaning according to which a person's existence is significant just in so far as she makes those in the world better off. One aim is to explore the extent to which the utilitarian theory has counter-intuitive implications about which lives count as meaningful. A second aim is to develop a new, broadly Kantian theory of what makes a life meaningful, a theory that retains much of what makes the utilitarian view attractive, while avoiding the most important objections facing it and providing a principled explanation of their force.I have been very much puzzled as to the meaning of the question ‘What is the meaning or purpose of life?’ … But at last it occurred to me that perhaps the vague words of this question are often used to mean no more than ‘What is the use of a man's life?’ … A man's life is of some use, if and only if the intrinsic value of the Universe as a whole (including past, present, and future) is greater, owing to the existence of his actions and experiences, than it would have been if, other things being equal, those actions and experiences had never existed.G. E. Moore

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When All Linguists Did not Go to the Workshop, None of the Germans but Some of the French Did: The Role of Alternative Constructions for Quantifier Scope

Grammatical Approaches to Language Processing - Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics ◽

10.1007/978-3-030-01563-3_9 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 167-185

Author(s):

Barbara Hemforth ◽

Lars Konieczny

Keyword(s):

Quantifier Scope

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The Path to Neutralization: Image Schemas and Prefixed Motion Verbs

Poljarnyj vestnik ◽

10.7557/6.1315 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 10 ◽

pp. 61 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Tore Nesset

Keyword(s):

Motion Verbs ◽

Image Schemas ◽

Principled Explanation ◽

Image Schema

This paper investigates the path image schema in Russian motion verbs. It is argued that this image schema provides a principled explanation why Russian has a contrast between unidirectional and non-directional unprefixed motion verbs, but no such contrast for prefixed verbs.

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Glue semantics for HPSG

Proceedings of the International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar ◽

10.21248/hpsg.2001.1 ◽

2002 ◽

Author(s):

Ash Asudeh ◽

Richard Crouch

Keyword(s):

Recent Work ◽

Semantic Interpretation ◽

Alternative Form ◽

Quantifier Scope ◽

Functional Grammar ◽

Scope Ambiguity ◽

Lexical Functional Grammar ◽

Highly Efficient ◽

Glue Semantics ◽

Syntactic Theories

‎The glue approach to semantic interpretation has been developed principally for Lexical Functional Grammar. Recent work has shown how glue can be used with a variety of syntactic theories and this paper outlines how it can be applied to HPSG. As well as providing an alternative form of semantics for HPSG, we believe that the benefits of HPSG glue include the following: (1) simplification of the Semantics Principle; (2) a simple and elegant treatment of modifier scope, including empirical phenomena like quantifier scope ambiguity, the interaction of scope with raising, and recursive modification; (3) an analysis of control that handles agreement between controlled subjects and their coarguments while allowing for a property denotation for the controlled clause; (4) re-use of highly efficient techniques for semantic derivation already implemented for LFG, and which target problems of ambiguity management also addressed by Minimal Recursion Semantics.

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Chapter 8. Focus and quantifier scope

Approaches to Hungarian ◽

10.1075/atoh.15.08sur ◽

2017 ◽

pp. 209-238 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Balázs Surányi ◽

Gergő Turi

Keyword(s):

Quantifier Scope

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Evidence motivating consideration of an alternative approach

Speech Timing ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198795421.003.0003 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 49-63

Author(s):

Alice Turk ◽

Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel

Keyword(s):

Motor Control ◽

Speech Rate ◽

Speech Motor Control ◽

Articulatory Phonology ◽

Fitts Law ◽

Alternative Approach ◽

Principled Explanation ◽

Spatial Interference ◽

Normal Speech ◽

Speech Motor

This chapter begins to motivate the development of an alternative approach to speech production by pointing out three potential difficulties with the highly-successful Articulatory Phonology/Task Dynamics approach. First, it discusses the extensive nature of modifications to AP/TD default specifications required to account for the wide variety of surface phonetic forms. The need for a large number of adjustments in AP/TD raises questions about the appropriateness of the AP/TD default-adjustment approach, which would have been more appropriate if the default, non-prominent, phrase-medial, normal-speech-rate specifications could be used most of the time. Second, it discusses the lack of a principled explanation for behaviors described by Fitts’ law. While the theory can accommodate some aspects of Fitts’ law, others are not explained or accommodated. Finally, it suggests that AP/TD’s gestural score architecture raises the risk of spatial interference among overlapping, independent gestures. These three challenges taken together set the stage for the discussion of additional challenges in Chapter 4, which further motivate consideration of phonology-extrinsic-timing-based approaches to speech motor control.

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