A syntactically-driven approach to indefiniteness, specificity and anti-specificity in Romance

In this paper we present an original approach to analyze the compositionality of indefinite expressions in Romance by investigating the relevance of their syntactic distribution in relation to their meaning. This approach has the advantage of allowing us to explore the question of how syntactic structure can determine the meaning of different forms of indefiniteness. To that end, we postulate a common derivation for bare plurals, bare mass and de phrases, whereby an abstract operator de is adjoined to definite determiners and shifts entities into property-type expressions. Quantificational specificity is proposed to be derived from a syntactic structure in which weak quantifiers select for indefinite de-phrases, no matter whether de is overt at Spell-Out or not; these quantifiers turn properties into generalized quantifiers. The anti-specificity meaning of some indefinites is derived by adjoining in the syntactic structure an abstract operator alg that encodes the speaker’s epistemic state of ignorance to a quantifier encoded for specificity, and it turns a generalized quantifier into a modified generalized quantifier. The paper also brings some general predictions on how indefiniteness is expressed in Romance, as it provides extensive support from five Romance languages: Brazilian Portuguese, Catalan, French, Italian and Spanish.

Evidence for generalized quantifier semantics in the interpretation of the English neuter singular pronoun

The English pronoun it can anaphorically take on the meaning of a salient generalized quantifier when it occurs in subject position followed by an elided Verb Phrase and (optionally) a VP-level operator. The extent to which theories of pronoun interpretation will have to be altered to take account of this finding will depend on whether the phenomenon is unique to English or part of a crosslinguistic pattern.

SOME OBSERVATIONS ABOUT GENERALIZED QUANTIFIERS IN LOGICS OF IMPERFECT INFORMATION

We analyse the two definitions of generalized quantifiers for logics of dependence and independence that have been proposed by F. Engström, comparing them with a more general, higher order definition of team quantifier. We show that Engström’s definitions (and other quantifiers from the literature) can be identified, by means of appropriate lifts, with special classes of team quantifiers. We point out that the new team quantifiers express a quantitative and a qualitative component, while Engström’s quantifiers only range over the latter. We further argue that Engström’s definitions are just embeddings of the first-order generalized quantifiers into team semantics, and fail to capture an adequate notion of team-theoretical generalized quantifier, save for the special cases in which the quantifiers are applied to flat formulas. We also raise several doubts concerning the meaningfulness of the monotone/nonmonotone distinction in this context. In the appendix we develop some proof theory for Engström’s quantifiers.

Determiners

Determiners are a nominal syntactic category distinct from both adjectives and nouns; they constitute a functional (aka closed or ‘minor’) category and they are typically located high inside the nominal phrasal structure. From a syntactic point of view, the category of determiners is commonly understood to comprise the word classes of article, demonstrative, and quantifier, as well as non-adjectival possessives and some nominal agreement markers. From a semantic point of view, determiners are assumed to function as quantifiers, especially within research informed by Generalized Quantifier Theory. However, this is a one-way entailment: although determiners in natural language are quantificational, their class contains only a subset of the logically possible quantifiers; this class is restricted by conservativity and other factors. The tension between the ‘syntactic’ and the ‘semantic’ perspective on determiners results to a degree of terminological confusion: it is not always clear which lexical items the Determiner category includes or what the function of determiners is; moreover, there exists a tendency among syntacticians to view ‘Determiner’ as naming not a class, but a fixed position within a nominal phrasal template. The study of determiners rose to prominence within grammatical theory during the ’80s both due to advances in semantic theorizing, primarily Generalized Quantifier Theory, and due to the generalization of the X' phrasal schema to functional (minor) categories. Some issues in the nature and function of determiners that have been addressed in theoretical and typological work with considerable success include the categorial status of determiners, their (non-)universality, their structural position and feature makeup, their role in argumenthood and their interaction with nominal predicates, and their relation to pronouns. Expectedly, issues in (in)definiteness, quantification, and specificity also figure prominently in research work on determiners.

Stop beating the donkey! A fresh interpretation of conditional donkey sentences.

We propose a new approach to conditional donkey sentences that allows us to face successfully the often called proportion problem. The main ingredients of the proposal are van Benthem's generalized quantifier approach to conditionals (van Benthem, 1984), and Barwise's situation semantics (Barwise, 1989). We present some experimental data supporting our proposal.

The syntax of correlatives in Isbukun Bunun

This paper investigates the correlative construction in Isbukun Bunun, an Austronesian language spoken in Taiwan. I show that in this language the correlative clause and its associated anaphoric element do not form a constituent at any point in the derivation. Drawing on evidence from island-insensitivity, the absence of Condition C effects and non-constituency facts, I propose that the syntactic relation between the correlative clause and the nominal correlate is derived by a base-generated adjunction structure. Moreover, I argue that the correlative clause, which behaves as a generalized quantifier, binds the nominal correlate phrase in the matrix clause, which is construed as a bound variable. The proposed quantificational binding view is further shown to capture the types of correlate phrases allowed in Isbukun Bunun correlatives.

Japanese comparatives are semantically conjuncts: a dynamic view

This paper develops the differential-based semantics of comparatives, arguing that no generalized quantifier-type degree operator is involved in Japanese comparatives, and the yori ‘than’-clause introduces a degree variable, which is dynamically bound by the existential quantifier associated with a dif- ferential in the main clause. This approach accounts for the Japanese stacking comparative such as ‘A is fat(ter) than B is fat than C is fat(ter) than D is fat than E is fat(ter) than D is fat,’ meaning [the difference between A’s fatness and B’s fatness] > [the difference between C’s fatness and D’s fatness] > [the difference between E’s fatness and F’s fatness].