scholarly journals Toward a unified semantics for English "either"

2022 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 446
Author(s):  
William Carl Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Inquisitive Semantics ◽  
Alternative Questions

This paper proposes that the additive and disjunctive uses of English either share a semantic core. Formulated in Inquisitive Semantics, this core involves a requirement that either apply to an inquisitive proposition, which accounts for either’s co-occurrence with disjunction. It also includes an additive presupposition that is more flexible than has previously been assumed in the literature, which allows the analysis to account for novel data in which additive either conveys that a proposition is unexpected or undesirable. The inability of either to appear in alternative questions is also pointed out and accounted for.

scholarly journals Disjunction, clause typing, and intonation

2018 ◽  
pp. 93-114
Author(s):  
Ivano Ciardelli ◽  
Jeroen Groenendijk ◽  
Floris Roelofsen
Keyword(s):  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Inquisitive Semantics ◽  
Pitch Contours ◽  
Alternative Questions

This chapter examines how disjunction interacts with clause typing (declarative versus interrogative) and intonation (intonational phrase structure and final pitch contours) in determining the meaning of various kinds of disjunctive sentence types, including disjunctive statements, polar disjunctive questions, open disjunctive questions, and alternative questions. In inquisitive semantics, disjunction is treated uniformly across all these sentence types as expressing the join operator on propositions (or more generally, on all semantic objects of a conjoinable type). It is shown that this treatment, together with an analysis of the semantic contribution of clause type marking and final pitch contours, yields an account of all the relevant constructions.

scholarly journals Questions

2018 ◽  
pp. 77-92
Author(s):  
Ivano Ciardelli ◽  
Jeroen Groenendijk ◽  
Floris Roelofsen
Keyword(s):  
Formal Analysis ◽  
Inquisitive Semantics ◽  
Analysis Question ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
Alternative Questions

Chapter 5 discusses how the meaning of various types of questions in English can be captured in the basic inquisitive semantics framework presented in the previous chapters. Several kinds of questions, including polar questions, alternative questions, and wh-questions, are given a formal analysis. Question coordination and conditional questions are also considered.

scholarly journals Focus and contrastive topic in questions and answers, with particular reference to Turkish

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beste Kamali ◽  
Manfred Krifka
Keyword(s):  
Algebraic Representation ◽  
Similar Role ◽  
Discourse Coherence ◽  
Dynamic Interpretation ◽  
Contrastive Topic ◽  
Questions And Answers ◽  
Alternative Questions

AbstractMuch recent research has recognized the importance of focus and contrastive topic in assertions for discourse coherence. However, with few exceptions, it has been neglected that focus and contrastive topic also occur in questions, and have a similar role in establishing coherence. We propose a framework of dynamic interpretation based on the notion of Commitment Spaces that show that a uniform interpretation of focus and contrastive topic is possible. The algebraic representation format is rich enough so that a separate introduction of discourse trees is not necessary. The paper discusses these phenomena for Turkish, a language with an explicit focus marker for polar and alternative questions, which distinguishes focus from contrastive topic.

scholarly journals When-questions and tense in Inquisitive Semantics

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 22
Author(s):  
Jos Tellings
Keyword(s):  
Present Perfect ◽  
Inquisitive Semantics ◽  
Tense And Aspect ◽  
Semantics Of Questions ◽  
Present Tense

Temporal questions with when and their counterparts in other languages display tense restrictions: they are incompatible with the present tense that is interpreted as 'currently ongoing', and English when-questions are incompatible with the present perfect. The existence of tense restrictions is one of the reasons why a theory of the semantics of questions should include an account of tense and aspect. I first propose an explanation of the tense restrictions based on the pragmatics of questions and partial answers. Then, I discuss how tense and aspectual operators can be added to Inquisitive Semantics (Ciardelli, Groenendijk & Roelofsen 2018).

What is Quantumness?

2020 ◽  
pp. 5-19
Author(s):  
Gershon Kurizki ◽  
Goren Gordon
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Physics ◽  
Quantum Object ◽  
Alternative Questions

Henry Bar is about to become the first quantum superhero, having discovered the incredible yet true principle that all things, large and small, are subject to the laws of quantum physics. He finds out that it may be possible, albeit extremely challenging, even for us humans to manifest “quantumness”. This principle underlies Henry’s implementation of his quantum suit that allows him to act as a quantum object. In order to understand this principle, the historical route from early atomism to the emergence of quantum mechanics (QM) as a revolutionary theory of radiation and matter is presented. The inception of QM was a landmark in the age-old quest for answers to the question: is reality, in its complexity, reducible to simple constituents? Alternative questions include: How far up the complexity ladder can QM be pushed as a framework for explaining reality? The appendix to this chapter introduces mathematical notations for QM phenomena.

Lifting conditionals to inquisitive semantics

2016 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 732 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivano Ciardelli
Keyword(s):  
Inquisitive Semantics

This paper describes how any theory which assigns propositions to conditional sentences can be lifted to the setting of inquisitive semantics, where antecedents and consequents may be associated with multiple propositions. We show that the lifted account improves on the original account in two ways: first, it leads to a better analysis of disjunctive antecedents, which are treated as introducing multiple assumptions; second, it extends the original account to cover two further classes of conditional constructions, namely, unconditionals and conditional questions. 

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