Revisiting aspectual se in Spanish: telicity, statives, and maximization

This paper addresses aspectual se in Spanish. Building on the previous analyses that have been proposed in the literature to account for constructions with aspectual se that mainly focus on the syntax of these (see, e.g., MacDonald, Jonathan E. 2017. Spanish aspectual se as an indirect object reflexive: The import of atelicity, bare nouns, and leísta PCC repairs. Probus. International Journal of Romance Linguistics 29(1). 73–118), this paper provides a semantic account that makes explicit (i) why dynamic predicates must be telic in the presence of se, and (ii) why the very same se can appear with a limited number of stative predicates, which are atelic. The account is implemented in the Figure/Path Relation model in Beavers, John. 2011. On affectedness. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 29(2). 335–370, Figure/Path Relation model. I propose a maximization strategy that captures that dynamic predicates in constructions with se are always telic by indicating the conditions under which the theme has a fixed quantity and the scale/path that may be associated with the verb is bounded. This maximization strategy is then compared to and distinguished from the event maximization strategies proposed for Slavic languages (Filip, Hana. 2008. Events and maximalization: The case of telicity and perfectivity. In Susan Rothstein (ed.), Theoretical and crosslinguistic approaches to the semantics of aspect, 217–256. Amsterdam: John Benjamins) and Hungarian (Kardos, Éva. 2016. Telicity marking in Hungarian. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics 1(1). 1–37), and to the scale/path maximization strategy proposed for Southern Aymara (Martínez Vera, Gabriel. 2021a. Degree achievements and degree morphemes in competition in Southern Aymara. Linguistics and Philosophy 44. 695–735).

Asymmetric anaphoric dependencies determine available readings for VP-ellipsis

Dalrymple et al. (1991) was a landmark contribution to the theory of ellipsis. In addition to providing an elegant semantic account of the interaction between ellipsis and quantification, it demonstrates how strict and sloppy readings can be generated without having to posit an ambiguity between bound and free pronouns in antecedent clauses. A weakness of the theory, however, is its lack of representational sensitivity to choice of referential form: the fact that pronouns and names are represented the same way causes the account to overgenerate sloppy readings in some cases. In this chapter, Kehler discusses a set of examples that provide adequacy criteria for theories of ellipsis with respect to their treatment of anaphoric dependencies. These cases reveal that a more generalized notion of dependency needs to be represented beyond the more limited notion captured by syntactic binding relations, including dependencies that cross clause boundaries and that involve eventualities. A provisional account is offered that captures these cases.

Potentials for grammaticalization

This paper discusses the grammaticalization of motion verbs in Mandarin. A class of motion verbs in Mandarin that regularly appears at either V1 or V2 position in the V1+V2 construction is only grammaticalized at the V2 position, where the verb becomes a directional complement. We provide a cognitive semantic account and propose a new hypothesis that we call the syntactic position and event type sensitivity hypothesis in grammaticalization. We analyze corpus data across five historical stages for 11 simplex directional complements. The analysis draws on Talmy’s macro-event theory and Lehmann’s grammaticalization parameters. It is concluded that motion verbs at the V1 position are most likely to have agentive subjects, which foregrounds the idea of motion in V1, while V2 focuses on the Agent’s purpose. Motion verbs at V2 are relatively more likely to have non-agentive subjects, which foregrounds the Path element in V2 and complements the action of V1, rather than the purpose of the Agent. What triggers the grammaticalization of the V2 is the foregrounding of the Path element in V2, which complements the action of V1, and its non-agentive subject.

THE ‘POLITE’ AORIST: TENSE OR ASPECT?

This article investigates the semantics and pragmatics of the ‘hortative’ aorist (the aorist indicative in questions with τί οὐ ‘why don't …’) and the ‘tragic’ or ‘performative’ aorist (for example ὤμοσα ‘I swear’). Lloyd argued in 1999 that the tragic aorist is a more polite alternative for the corresponding present (ὄμνυμι ‘I swear’). Recently, he has extended this view to the hortative aorist, suggesting that, for example, τί οὐκ ἐκαλέσαμεν; is a polite alternative for τί οὐ καλοῦμεν; Lloyd argues that the politeness value of the aorist derives from its being a past tense, comparing the so-called ‘attitudinal’ past (as in I wanted to ask you something instead of I want to ask you something). The present article, building on work by Colvin, Bary and Nijk, argues instead that the semantic value of the aorist is purely aspectual in these cases: the hortative and tragic aorists serve to construe the designated event as bounded, while the corresponding present forms serve to construe the designated event as unbounded. An extensive discussion of the evidence for the hortative aorist and present is presented, as well as a case study concerning the aspectual behaviour of the verb ὄμνυμι. Moreover, I argue that the proposed semantic account of the hortative and tragic aorists in terms of aspect can be unified with Lloyd's pragmatic account in terms of politeness: the difference in tone between the present and the aorist can be derived from their respective aspectual values, rather than from their temporal values.

Inverse number in dagaare

This chapter examines the inverse number system in Dagaare (Gur; Niger–Congo). Inverse number systems possess a number morpheme which for some nouns encodes the plural interpretation while for others it encodes the singular interpretation. This chapter argues that a principled lexical semantic classification underlies the inverse number strategy in Dagaare, guiding whether for a particular noun the inverse morpheme codes the singular or the plural interpretation. The chapter further explores the functional grounding of inverse number, in terms of frequency and individuation, and presents a formal semantic account of the inverse number system.

The "doubt-whether" puzzle

The English predicate doubt is known to exhibit a distinctive selectional restriction: it is compatible with declarative as well as whether- complements but is incompatible with constituent wh-complements. The interpretation of a whether-complement under doubt is also puzzling, as ⌜doubt whether p⌝ is almost—but not completely—synonymous with ⌜doubt that p⌝. I will argue that these behaviors of doubt can be given a semantic account, by making use of the mechanisms of HIGHLIGHTING and EXHAUSTIFICATION. Doubt expresses an existential doxastic attitude toward the negation of the highlighted content of the complement while having pre- suppositions that are sensitive to the ordinary content of the complement. Given that ⌜that p⌝ and ⌜whether p⌝ are equivalent in the highlighted con- tent but non-equivalent in the ordinary content, the semantics explains fine-grained differences in interpretations between ⌜doubt whether p⌝ and ⌜doubt that p⌝. Furthermore, given the lack of a stronger scalemate, the interpretation of ⌜doubt that/whether p⌝ undergoes strengthening due to exhaustification, akin to the behavior of ‘scaleless’ modals reported in the literature.

Real-time processing of event descriptions for partially- and fully-completed events: Evidence from the visual world paradigm

The current study investigated non-culminating accomplishments through an experimental lens. We used a well-established paradigm for studying real-time language processing using eye-tracking, the visual world paradigm. Our study was modeled after Altmann and Kamide’s (2007) investigation of processing of aspectual information contained in a perfect verb form (e.g., has eaten). We compared English-speaking adults’ interpretations of sentences like ‘The girl has eaten a cookie’ and ‘The girl was eating a cookie’ in the context of one of two visual scenes. In the Full Completion condition, the scene depicted two referents that were compatible with the predicate: one was compatible with the expected end state of the event (e.g., an empty plate), the other with an unrealized version of the event (e.g., an uneaten cookie). In the Partial Completion condition, the scene depicted a referent that was compatible with a partially-completed version of the event (e.g., part of a cookie on a plate) and an unrealized interpretation (e.g., an uneaten cookie). For verb forms in the perfect (e.g., has eaten) but not in the progressive, we found a difference between conditions; listeners preferred to look at the fully-affected referent in the Full Completion condition as compared to the partially-affected referent in the Partial Completion condition. We take the results as suggestive in favor of a pragmatic rather than semantic account of non-culmination interpretations in English.

Revisiting Olga, the beautiful dancer: An intersective A-analysis

The paper presents a novel semantic account of the so-called "intersective/non-intersective" ambiguity of structures such as beautiful dancer. The proposal contrasts with Larson's (1998) famous N-analysis in taking the adjective as the ambiguity trigger and in unmasking the bracketing paradox perception of the non-intersective reading as a grammatical illusion. The adjective has no compositional access to the verbal root's event argument but is always linked to the referential argument of the noun. -er nominals are analyzed as a special kind of role noun (such as king, guest, judge). They introduce a social role r that manifests itself via the verbal root's e-argument. (However, neither r nor e are compositionally active.) An evaluative adjective such as beautiful introduces an underspecified trope variable, which calls for a pragmatic specification of the adjectival predicate's ultimate target. A general pragmatic parsimony condition ensures that referents introduced by linguistic material are chosen as best target candidates whenever possible. The -er nominal's social role r is an ideal choice in this respect. The linking of the adjective to the verbal root's e-argument is mediated via r and thus a secondary pragmatic effect. The proposal provides a unified analysis for modified -er nominals (beautiful dancer) and other instances of role- and event-related interpretations for adnominal modification such as, e.g., just king.

Essentializing Inferences

Predicate nominals (e.g., ‘is a female’) seem to label or categorize their subjects, while their predicate adjective correlates (e.g, ‘is female’) merely attribute a property. Further, predicate nominals elicit essentializing inferential judgments about inductive potential as well as stable explanatory membership. Semantic data and research from developmental and cognitive psychology support that this distinction is robust and productive. I argue that while the difference between predicate nominals and predicate adjectives is elided by standard semantic theories, it ought not be. I then develop and defend a psychologically motivated semantic account that takes predicate nominals to involve attributing kind membership and to trigger a presupposition that underpins our essentialist judgments.

Alternations of classificatory verb stems in Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì: a cognitive semantic account

This paper investigates the phenomenon of ‘classificatory verbs’, i.e. a set of motion and positional verbs that show stem alternations depending on the semantic features of one of their arguments in Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì (Dogrib), based on field notes and documentary sources of the language. The paper shows that Tłı̨chǫ classificatory verbal categories belong to four semantic subclasses which have inconsistent stem inventories caused by the presence or absence of some semantic features. Stem inventories of locative verb systems vary depending on the scalar [effort] feature, and those of motion verbs correlate with the scalar [agentive] feature. The paper explains why other semantically related verbs do not show stem alternations and proposes contrastive hierarchies to represent variations in stem inventories intra- and cross-linguistically assuming that the selection of a stem for a particular semantic category follows a series of binary choices that characterize the opposition’s active in the language.