From: daj@reef.cis.ufl.edu (David A. Johns)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: NegV vs. NegQ
Date: 16 Apr 92 11:53:18 GMT
Article-I.D.: uflorida.35138
Organization: Univ. of Florida CIS Dept.

In article <12100@tamsun.tamu.edu> e343mh@tamuts.tamu.edu (Michael Hand) writes:

# Let me introduce some terminology: an s-interpretation (semantical
# interpretation, reading, etc.) is an interpretation of a sentence
# generated by a compositional semantics on the basis of the
# syntactic structure (LF, s-structure, whatever you like) of the
# sentence.

[...]

# My suggestion was that the preferred p-interpretation is not an
# s-interpretation, and that the only s-interpretation is negV.  Then
# pragmatics explains why the preferred p-interpretation is negQ
# despite the semantical fact.

This remains the crux of the problem.  You seem to believe that since
the verb is negated in the "surface" form of the sentence, that it is
then determined that the "s-interpretation" must involve a negation of
the verb.

I continue to claim that the syntax of the language can be such as to
define the scope of an element (in this case the negator) to be other
than what it appears to be.  I would assume that this is the same sort
of thing that happens in sentences like "I don't think it's going to
rain", "John is easy to please", and "Some people dropped by the
office that were asking about your tax returns".  It is also what
happens in Latin when the agent of an infinitive appears in the
accusative or in Russian where the agent of a passive appears in the
instrumental.

# A p-interpretation is what a hearer might take to be the "intended
# content" of the utterance.  (I know this is imprecise, but a huge
# amount of work is being devoted to these issues and it would be
# unfair to insist that I be perfectly precise.  If I'm not clear
# enough, I'll try to clarify.)
#
#         Now, you seem to think this is a *datum*: negQ is an
# s-interpretation (maybe the only s-interpretation) of thesentence
# in question.
#
#         But this isn't a datum.  The datum is that negQ is the
# preferred p-interpretation.

Only if all s-interpretations are also p-interpretations. Otherwise,
you have to justify your decision to make it a p instead of an s.
From what you've said above, this decision is based on "compositional
semantics", which in turn (in this sort of problem) is based on an
understanding of the syntax of the sentence.

But how do you determine the syntax of the sentence without knowing
what the sentence means?  What justification do you have for deciding
that the syntax of the sentence determines that the verb is being
negated other than your assumption that the s-interpretation is negV?

# But no *data* require that all p-interpretations be
# s-interpretations.  This is an issue about how to cut up semantics
# and pragmatics in the theory.          You can't argue against my
# suggestion by merely insisting, as if it is a matter of data alone,
# that negQ is an s-interpretation.

What in the world else would it be?  Do you have some principled way
of determining the division between p and s that does not involve the
native speaker's understanding of what the sentence means, independent
of context?  If so, you can simply assign whatever meanings you want
to any sentences whatsoever, and you might as well not call it
linguistics at all.

# You and I agree that it's the preferred p-interpretation -- we
# agree on the data.

I don't think so.  I believe that the normal meaning of that sentence
("All the students don't speak Spanish") is negQ.  As a statement of
negV it is malformed, and any native speaker would say, "Are you
trying to say 'None of the students speaks Spanish'?" By what I
understand of your definitions, this makes it an s-interpretation, not
a p-interpretation (unless p's include s's). As far as I can see, the
meaning of a sentence *is* a datum.

# The theoretical issue is whether this preferred p-interpretation is
# an s-interpretation, and that's a highly theoretical question.
#
#         So *please* stop suggesting that I'm ignoring data.  I
# grant all the data, I just refuse to grant certain theoretical
# claims that you cite as data (but aren't), such as that negQ is an
# s-interpretation.
#
#         One more time: yes, everyone interprets the sentence in
# question as negQ.  That's a datum.  It does not follow without
# nontrivial theoretical premises that negQ is therefore a (the?)
# s-interpretation. Okay?

No.

If you're not concerned here with natural language, or even English,
just say so and I'll go away.  But if you are, you will have to
explain why you can arbitrarily decide what the s-interpretation of a
given sentence is independently of the meaning assigned to it by
native speakers.

According to your definitions (*not* any theoretical claims on my
part), the s-interpretation of a sentence is derived from its
structure and the meaning of its elements.  Using this definition, the
s-interpretation of the sentence in question is negQ.

I think the *real* problem here is not whether s's can be p's or vice
versa, but that you have apparently assumed a grammatical system, and
a grammatical structure of the sentence in question, that gives you
the sentence as negV, so that the derived logical structure has to be
negV.

But this obviously begs the syntactic analysis.  The *data* we have to
account for are that sentences with "all ... not V" are normally,
independently of context, interpreted as negQ, while sentences with
"many ... not V" are interpreted as negV.  On the assumption that the
core meaning of a structure is derived through composition in some
sense -- i.e., from its structure and the meaning of its elements --
the difference in interpretation between these two types of sentences
must accounted for by the *grammar* of the language, not by
pragmatics.

David Johns
Newsgroups: sci.lang