bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Explaining Predicate Inversion with a Clause-Internal FocP
Authors: Selvanathan Nagarajan
Published: June 2015

Specificational copular clauses, in one school of thought, are considered to be inverted predications from an underlying small clause (Moro 1997, Mikkelsen 2004, den Dikken 2006 etc). One aspect of specificational copualr clauses that is often neglected is the fact that such clauses have a unique information structure profile in requiring an obligatorily focused post-copular constituent. In this extended abstract, I argue that the reason for this does not lie in movement of the pre-copular phrase to a topic position (as argued by Mikkelsen 2004) but rather because of movment of the post-copular phrase to a clause internal FocP (a position argued for independently by Jayaseelan 1999 a.o). I provide data from Tamil scrambling facts in support of this.
Convergence through divergence: compensatory changes in phonetic accommodation
Authors: Heath Jevon
Published: June 2015

In phonetic accommodation, talkers talk differently based on their interlocutors' speech. This is generally convergence, but simultaneous convergence along incompatible dimensions is not always possible. In the current study, I found that when exposed to artificially extended VOT, speakers shortened their stop closures, in divergence from the model talker. I interpret these adjustments as compensatory changes resulting from individual learned patterns of articulation. Individual differences in the phonetic features adjusted in accommodation may reflect constraints on the potential pathways of sound change. Additionally, accommodation studies must take multiple dimensions of phonetic similarity into account in assessing how much accommodation occurs.
Rescuing Broken Dependency in Korean Fragments
Authors: Park Bum-Sik , Kim Hyosik
Published: June 2015

◊ Korean FAs with/without their morphological markers can be captured by ellipsis approach.

◊ The presence and absence of trouble makers encoded with offending *s determines the acceptability of FAs.

◊ The proposed analysis extends to the variability of postposition-stranding and a certain asymmetry in   island-violating fragments. 
Boundedness of verbal and adjectival predicates in Mandarin
Authors: Lam Charles
Published: June 2015

This study extends the boundedness account for ba-construction in Mandarin to transitive comparatives and hypothesizes that the selection in ba-construction and transitive comparatives constrained by boundedness, where boundedness can be manifested in terms of telicity of VPs, quantization of internal arguments or measure phrases.

This generalized account shows how formal semantic properties affect syntactic selection and explains some sentences that existing accounts do not. Also, the proposal implicates a homomorphic syntax-semantics mapping across V and A categories, which is superior than category-specific theories.
Hedging arguments
Authors: Zaroukian Erin , Tieu Lyn
Published: June 2015

Hedges such as loosely speaking and sorta indicate a mismatch between what is
said and what is actually meant. As demonstrated by the example in (1), sorta is often used when
a speaker doesn’t know a more appropriate word or phrase at the time of utterance (Anderson
2014).

(1) I was running on concrete and accidentally sorta kicked the ground – that is to say, I didn’t
really kick the ground, but it was like kicking the ground. (Anderson 2014:02, ex.2)

In this study, we investigated the readings that arise from sorta-hedging. We present results
indicating the possibility of hedging objects, verbs, and whole sentences, and we show that verb
type, definiteness of the object, and stress on sorta all influence the availability of an object hedge
reading.
Cliticization and Old Chinese word order
Authors: Aldridge Edith
Published: June 2015

This paper addresses the controversial question of whether Old Chinese was an OV or VO language. Evidence frequently cited for the OV analysis is the fact that objects sometimes surface in preverbal position. In this paper, I argue that basic word order in Old Chinese was uniformly VO. Preverbal objects achieved their position via movement. This is unsurprising, given that preverbal objects were typically wh-words and pronominal clitics. The primary evidence for the movement analysis, however, comes from the demonstration that it accounts for constraints on pronoun positioning which would be mysterious on a base-generation approach.
Creak in the Rain: Phonation in Oregon English
Authors: Riebold John Matthew
Published: June 2015

No abstract.
Evidence for the Syntactic Diversity of Numeral Classifiers
Authors: Jenks Peter
Published: June 2015

I propose a syntactic typology of numeral classifier languages based on the observation that the order of nouns and numeral classifiers correlate with substantial differences in the syntactic uses of classifiers. In languages where classifiers precede nouns, they have an article-like use marking definiteness. We take this as evidence that classifiers are functional projections of the NP there, forming a constituent with that noun. In languages where classifiers follow nouns, they do not form a constituent with the head noun, explaining why these languages almost universally exhibit quantifier float of a quantifier+classifier constituent.
Feature Inheritance and Object Raising in Epistemic Modal Constructions in Mandarin Chinese
Authors: Chou Chao-Ting
Published: June 2015

We present evidence to argue that the object raising in epistemic modal constructions in Chinese is A-movement. The consequence of this claim is the apparent violation of Minimal Link Condition. Following Chomsky’s (2007 & 2008) feature inheritance hypothesis, we argue that the T of the TP complement of epistemic verbs does not contain any unvalued phi-features due to the absence of the CP-layer, and contains only the inherent EPP structural requirement, which, in itself, does not impose minimality restriction on the search of the goal. The implication of this analysis is three-fold: (i) the checking-based approach to A-movement does not hold in Chinese, (ii) Chinese employs the delayed version of Phase Impenetrability Condition, and (iii) activity condition in Chinese is subject to factor(s) other than Case.
Hainan Cham and the Chamic noun classifiers: New data on an old system
Authors: Thurgood Graham W
Published: June 2015

A comparison of the Hainan Cham classifiers with the systems in the other Chamic languages makes it clear that the various noun class system are not just typologically similar but are of common descent, dating from proto-Chamic.This paper sketches the noun classifier system of Hainan Cham, compares it with the known cognate systems in the Chamic languages, and speculates briefly on the likelihood that the Chamic noun class system developed under Mon-Khmer influence.
How to read easily
Authors: Jones Charles
Published: June 2015

I outline and discuss a somewhat novel reading of the adverbial element in the English middle, This bread cuts easily, in which it relates directly to the subject NP. A subject-oriented reading of easily is suggested by the non-middle This wire conducts (electricity) easily, where easily characterizes the conductive property of the wire, i.e., having low resistance. The proposed general semantic representation of the middle implicates neither the implicit agent nor the genericity often claimed for the middle.
Language ID for a Thousand Languages
Authors: Xia Fei , Lewis Carrie , Lewis William
Published: June 2015

ODIN, the Online Database of INterlinear text, is a resource built over language data harvested from linguistic documents (Lewis, 2006). It currently holds approximately 190,000 instances of Interlinear Glossed Text (IGT) from over 1100 languages, automatically extracted from nearly 3000 documents crawled from the Web. A crucial step in building ODIN is identifying the languages of extracted IGT, a challenging task due to the large number of languages and the lack of training data. We demonstrate that a coreference approach to the language ID task significantly outperforms existing algorithms as it provides an elegant solution to the unseen language problem. We also discuss several issues that make automated Language ID and the maintenance of ODIN very difficult.
Reduplication in Itawes
Authors: MacKenzie Laurel
Published: June 2015

This paper examines reduplication in Itawes, a language of the Philippines. In addition to providing the first overview of reduplication in this language, I examine the interactions between reduplication and three phonological processes: Vowel Laxing, Vowel Reduction, and Glottal Stop Insertion. Vowel Laxing---which laxes /i, u, e, o/ in closed syllables---and Vowel Reduction---which raises /a/ to schwa in non-primary-stressed syllables---interact with reduplication differently: Vowel Laxing shows Base–Reduplicant Identity, applying at the stem level (Inkelas and Zoll, 2005), while Vowel Reduction, applying at the word level, does not. Glottal Stop Insertion may apply at either level.
Regularity and vowel harmony: Statistical learning and rule abstraction
Authors: LaCross Amy
Published: June 2015

No abstract.
Southern Min Post-verbal Negation
Authors: Gillon Carrie , Yang Hui-Ling
Published: June 2015

In this paper, we examine the structure of Southern Min (SM) post-verbal negation. Contra Wang (2008), we analyze postverbal negation as an instance of a Serial Verb Construction (SVC), rather than a Resultative Verb Construction (RVC), based on a comparison between the behavior of RVCs and SVCs in SM.
What Is n’t Doing There?: French Expletive Negation in Comparative Clauses
Authors: Rich Patrick Leslie
Published: June 2015

This paper explores expletive ne in subordinate comparative clauses in French. I limit the discussion to (reduced) clausal comparatives, since expletive negation does not occur in (direct) phrasal comparatives. I show that expletive ne is favored in all comparative clauses, and argue that this provides direct evidence that it is still a part of synchronic French grammar. I propose that French comparatives should be analyzed as A-not-A constructions, and that expletive ne is a formally negative head that is licensed by a truth-value operator. Expletive ne thus functions concordally to mark the comparative subordinate clause as containing a negation.
A phonetic study of the tongue root contrast in Buriat and Ewen
Authors: Kang Hijo , Ko Seongyeon
Published: June 2015

Compared to the relatively well-studied West-African languages, there have been rare acoustic studies on the tongue root contrast in Altaic languages. This study analyzes the seven/eight vowel phonemes of Buriat/Ewen to find the acoustic correlates of the contrast in Altaic languages. The results show that F1 (height) and the normalized A1-A2 (spectral slope) are the most reliable acoustic cues. However, in Buriat, the normalized A1-A2 was higher in retracted vowels than in their advanced counterparts, which is the opposite of the findings in the West-African ATR languages. This may support the idea of differentiating ATR and RTR as two distinct features.
Aspect under (and out of) control in Mandarin Chinese
Authors: Grano Thomas
Published: June 2015

This paper proposes a restructuring analysis of the phenomenon of aspect marking in controlled complements in Mandarin (e.g., wo qing ta [chi-guo fan] ‘I invite him [eat-PRF food]’). This approach explains why only suffixal aspect markers participate in the construction, and explains the effect noted by Xu (1985-1986) and Hu et al. (2001) that such constructions sometimes entail realization of the subordinate event. It furthermore supports the view that aspect markers in controlled complements are (when grammatical at all) interpreted at the matrix level (Huang 1982, 1989; Li 1985, 1990), and hence the view that Mandarin has a finite/nonfinite distinction.
Fast mapping from argument structure alone
Authors: Arunachalam Sudha , Waxman Sandra R.
Published: June 2015

Parents often utter verbs when their referents are not co-present. We therefore ask whether toddlers can discover a verb’s meaning from its argument structure alone. Toddlers (21-months) heard a novel verb in either transitive or intransitive sentences. They then viewed two test scenes, a causative and a synchronous event, and heard, “Find dacking!” Within 2.5s of the novel verb’s onset, toddlers who had heard transitive sentences reliably preferred the causative scene. The results (1) indicate that 21-month-olds discover verb meaning using argument structure cues, even absent a co-occurring event, and (2) establish the time-course with which 21-month-olds process novel verbs.
Licensing of the NPI ʔumr and its implications for sentential negation in Cairene Egyptian Arabic
Authors: Soltan Usama
Published: June 2015

Like other Arabic dialects, Cairene Egyptian Arabic (CEA) exhibits a two-pattern negation system: the circumfixal maa…š-pattern and the independent miš-pattern. However, when the negative polarity item (NPI) ʔumr (=ever) occurs in pre-Neg position in the sentence, only the maa…š-pattern may be used, though crucially without the -š suffix if negation is hosted by the predicate, or, alternatively, with the -š suffix if negation is hosted by the NPI itself. This paper provides an account for the morphosyntactic properties associated with ?umr, how it is licensed as an NPI, and its implications for the general analysis of sentential negation in CEA.
Negative word-order patterns among Breton-speaking adults and children
Authors: Winterton Holly Jane
Published: June 2015

This paper compares word order in negative utterances among two generations of ‘native’ Breton speakers: 70-plus and 8-14 year-olds. Analysis of fieldwork data shows that speakers aged 70-plus generally maintain the expected order, which places the negative particle initially, followed by the finite verb (88% of instances), but younger speakers are divided. Schoolchildren educated entirely in Breton do the same as the 70-plus speakers, while those educated partly in French, without Breton input from home, place the subject initially. Additionally, speakers aged 20-plus also showed variability, indicating that this is not purely an age-based effect.
Nonlinear development of speaking rate in child-directed speech
Authors: Ko Eon-Suk
Published: June 2015

The current study investigated if the speaking rate in Child-Directed Speech (CDS) changes over the course of child language development, and, if so, what the nature of that change is. The developmental path of CDS speaking rate was analyzed in 25 mother-child pairs from longitudinal corpora in CHILDES database. The results were then compared with the developmental pattern of speaking rate in child-produced speech. A parallel analysis was made on the development of mean length of utterance (MLU) in mother and child. The findings suggest that CDS speaking rate dynamically changes with shifts occurring around the onset of child speech production and again during the multiword stage. A parallel pattern of nonlinearity was also observed in the speaking rate of the child and the MLU of both mother and child. Phonological precision effects in CDS (e.g. exaggerated VOT) are explained as a by-product of varying speaking rate. Implications of the findings for studies of language acquisition are discussed.
Parisitic Gap Constructions in Lebanese Arabic: Resumption as Pied-piping
Authors: Haddad Youssef A.
Published: June 2015

Aoun, Choueri, and Hornstein (2001) analyze certain instances of resumption in Lebanese Arabic as movement plus stranding. A resumptive pronominal undergoes first merge with an antecedent. The antecedent moves, while the resumptive pronoun is stranded. This paper presents evidence from parasitic gap constructions in Lebanese Arabic to show that resumption involves pied-piping. That is, the resumptive pronoun moves along with the antecedent.
Quantitative data as a clue to auxiliary contraction processes
Authors: MacKenzie Laurel
Published: June 2015

This paper is a quantitative corpus study of the variable contraction of English auxiliaries (e.g. John has ~ John’s been there all day). I examine auxiliaries after non-pronoun subjects, and find the following. First, auxiliaries often surface in an “intermediate” form, one which loses its initial consonant, but retains a reduced vowel (e.g. [?z] for has). After proposing an analysis of these forms, I examine the effect of subject weight on contraction, finding that contraction occurs less often after longer subjects. Finally, I discuss the implications of these findings for where contraction must be situated in the grammar.
Sentential adverb frankly as modifier of a deleted speech verb
Authors: Velasquez Hector
Published: June 2015

No abstract.
Severing Scale Structure from the Adjective
Authors: Husband Edward Matthew
Published: June 2015

The scale structure of adjectives, whether an adjective measures on an open or closed scale, has certain grammatical consequences and is traditionally captured by encoding scale structure into an adjective’s lexical representation and projecting it into the grammar. However, adjectives can exhibit scalar variability, suggesting that scale structure is not projected from the lexicon, but instead is constructed by the adjective’s structural environment. I review a recent analysis of adjectival scale structure, observing that an economy condition with a single pos morpheme requires polysemy for these variable-behavior adjectives, and propose that splitting the pos morpheme and severing scale structure from the adjective captures scalar variability within a unified lexical entry without economy.
Types of Degree Questions: Consequences of Different Adjective Classes
Authors: McKinney-Bock Katy
Published: June 2015

This paper observes that what constitutes an appropriate answer to a degree question differs for two types of gradable adjectives – dimension (e.g. big) and color (e.g. red). When we ask 'how big' something is, we are asking for that object’s size within some reasonable limits. When we ask 'how red,' we are asking to what degree of redness (appropriate to that object) the object has. I propose that the two types of adjectives merge with degree quantifiers that have different restrictors. This accounts for the differing interpretation/answerhood conditions of dimension and color degree questions.
Uncommon Common Grounds and the Korean Reportative Evidential –tay
Authors: Chung Joo Yoon
Published: June 2015

The Korean reportative evidential –tay has been analyzed as marking a presentative speech act. Analyzing –tay as such captures the observation that –tay utterances do not correlate with speaker belief in the truth of the embedded proposition. However, the presentative speech act analysis cannot account for unacceptability of certain sequences of –tay sentences. My proposal is that –tay instead shifts the context of evaluation from that of the discourse participants to that of a non-participant individual. I argue that this accounts for the unacceptability observed, and furthermore, that presentative force correlates with this shifting.
Cataphoric it and backgrounding from the point of view of coherence relations
Authors: Taboada Maite
Published: June 2015

Following Harris & Bates’ (2002) observation that cataphora is allowed in subordinate backgrounded clauses, we examine backgrounding at the discourse level, making use of the nucleus-satellite distinction in Rhetorical Structure Theory (Mann & Thompson 1988). We extract examples of cataphoric it in an RST-annotated corpus and conclude that there is no strict correlation between cataphora and backgrounding, as cataphoric it appears in both nuclei and satellites. Using diagnostics in Ariel (1990), we propose that the occurrence of cataphora in nuclei is explained by: (i) cohesion, and (ii) first mention versus continuation of a discourse referent.
Information structure and intonation in Andean Spanish
Authors: Muntendam Antje Gerda
Published: June 2015

This study examines information structure and intonation in Andean Spanish. The data come from picture-story tasks and an elicitation task with 22 Quechua-Spanish bilinguals from Peru. The target sentences were sentences with broad focus, (contrastive) focus on the subject, on the object, and on the VP. The duration of the stressed syllable/word, peak height, peak alignment, and intensity were measured. The results showed that in Andean Spanish pre-nuclear peaks are aligned early and there are fewer prominence-lending features than in non-Andean Spanish, possibly indicating a Quechua influence. The study contributes to research on intonation, bilingualism and language contact.
Paguettes & bastries: Novice French learners show shifts in native phoneme boundaries
Authors: Tice Marisa , Woodley Melinda
Published: June 2015

A cohort of five beginning learners of French (L1 English) completed perception and production tasks in French and English on a weekly basis for four to six weeks. All participants were enrolled in a French language immersion program in Paris, France for the duration of the study. As controls, we also tested nine native English speakers who were not learning an L2. Participants regularly completed two perception studies over the six week period: phoneme discrimination and semantic priming, both in English. We find that over the testing period, French and English phoneme perception appeared to be tightly linked to L1 behavior. But, in the 3-5 week L2 exposure range, participants learning French begin to show evidence of category confusion for VOT in English (their L1) due to their L2 exposure to French. These early cross-language effects corroborate recent findings of phonetic shift in speech production of VOT, but demonstrate that the shift may also occur in perception. This suggests that second language exposure may have an effect on first language perception earlier than was previously thought.
Prosodic Bootstrapping of Clauses: Is it Language-Specific?
Authors: Hawthorne Kara E , Mazuka Reiko , Gerken LouAnn
Published: June 2015

According to the Prosodic Bootstrapping Hypothesis, infants use prosody to support syntax acquisition (Morgan, 1986). Our previous work provides evidence that infants treat prosodically-marked units as moveable constituents. In order to investigate the mechanism underlying this effect, we tested Japanese-acquiring infants on their ability to use prosody to locate clauses in an English-based artificial grammar. The Japanese infants were able to learn from English prosody, suggesting that prosodic bootstrapping relies on prosody's general acoustic properties. It appears that prosodic cues to syntax are robust enough across languages to be used without extensive knowledge of language-specific prosody.
Reconciling neg-raising and NPIs in Korean
Authors: Tieu Lyn Shan , Kang Jungmin
Published: June 2015

Gajewski (2007) argues that neg-raising predicates (NRPs) introduce a set of alternatives that includes their internal negation, and trigger an excluded middle (EM) presupposition that projects through negation; he also shows that negated NRPs support anti-additive inferences, thus licensing strict NPIs. Since Korean exhibits neg-raising, we might expect licensing of strict NPIs such as amu-(N)-to, contrary to fact (Bošković, 2008). To capture this unavailability while preserving a unified account of NRPs, we propose that an even-like presupposition triggered by the emphatic particle 'to' (An, 2007) is crucially incompatible with the EM presupposition triggered by the NRPs.
Shifting modal domains: An imprecision-based account
Authors: Klecha Peter
Published: June 2015

This paper proposes that the interpretation of modals is subject to (im)precision (a la Lasersohn 1999), explaining certain contextual domain shifting effects observed by Lewis (1979). (1) Bryan: This must be a pen – I'm looking right at it. Alice: Not so; you could be the victim of a deceiving demon. I argue that Alice raises the standard of precision in (1), thereby widening the domain of have to to include otherwise ignorable worlds. This explains a number of similarities between domain shifting of the type in (1) and canonical cases of imprecision, and simplifies the modal semantics.
The role of elementary classroom discourse in the initial construction of student identities
Authors: Shepherd Michael A. , Wang Julia
Published: June 2015

Despite considerable sociolinguistic research on correlates of social identity in secondary schools, the initial discursive construction of social categories remains underexplored. A discourse analysis of third-grade lessons suggests teachers discursively position some students as weaker than others by framing their participation as tentative or reluctant, and are less likely to acknowledge such students' summonses and called-out contributions. Ultimately, we argue, students whose academic identity development is thus not nurtured and who are denied access to the discursive power to advance ideas may instead seek empowerment through resistance, developing oppositional relationships toward school and forming another generation of 'burnouts.'
Tone language experience enhances sensitivity to melodic contour
Authors: Bradley Evan David
Published: June 2015

Lexical tones are perceived along several dimensions, including pitch height, direction, and slope. Melody is also factored into several dimensions, key, contour, and interval, argued to correspond to phonetic dimensions. Tone speakers are expected to possess enhanced sensitivity to musical properties corresponding to properties of their tonal inventories. Mandarin- and English-speaking non-musicians took a melody discrimination test. Mandarin listeners more accurately discriminated melodic contour and interval, corresponding to relevant Mandarin tonal properties direction and slope. Groups performed similarly on other dimensions, indicating that tone language experience causes specific, rather than general, melody perception improvement, consistent with neural and perceptual learning theories.
Phonology of hunting signs in two Kalahari-Khoe speaking groups (Ts'ixa and ||Ani)
Authors: Mohr Susanne , Fehn Anne-Maria
Published: June 2015

Phonology of hunting signs in two Kalahari-Khoe speaking groups (Ts'ixa and ||Ani)
English Possessive ’s: Clitic and Affix
Authors: Lowe John J.
Published: June 2015

English Possessive ’s: Clitic and Affix
Critical discourse analysis of synchronic and diachronic variation in institutional turn-allocation
Authors: Shepherd Michael A.
Published: June 2015

Critical discourse analysis of synchronic and diachronic variation in institutional turn-allocation
Antireflexivization as a Causativization Strategy
Authors: Krejci Bonnie
Published: June 2015

Antireflexivization as a Causativization Strategy
Degrammaticalization in Northern Mao’s pronominal innovations: from subject prefix to full pronoun
Authors: Ahland Michael
Published: June 2015

Degrammaticalization in Northern Mao’s pronominal innovations: from subject prefix to
full pronoun
Age, ability, and awareness in implicit and explicit second language learning
Authors: Lichtman Karen
Published: June 2015

Age, ability, and awareness in implicit and explicit second language learning
Working Memory Capacity and the Cognitive Underpinnings of Syntactic Processing
Authors: O’Rourke Polly
Published: June 2015

Working Memory Capacity and the Cognitive Underpinnings of Syntactic Processing
Development of Coarticulatory Patterns in Spontaneous Speech
Authors: Fricke Melinda
Published: June 2015

Development of Coarticulatory Patterns in Spontaneous Speechy
Politics and dialect variation: A sociophonetic analysis of the Southern Vowel Shift in Middle TN
Authors: Schrimpf Natalie
Published: June 2015

Politics and dialect variation:
A sociophonetic analysis of the Southern Vowel Shift in Middle TN
Modifiers of Modal Auxiliaries: New Sources for Ordering
Authors: Klecha Peter
Published: June 2015

Modifiers of Modal Auxiliaries: New Sources for Ordering
The Person-Case Constraint: A Morphological Consensus
Authors: Runić Jelena
Published: June 2015

The Person-Case Constraint: A Morphological Consensus
Polar question intonation in five Ghanaian languages
Authors: Cahill Michael
Published: June 2015

Polar question intonation in five Ghanaian languages
Contextual conditioning and information structure
Authors: Birner Betty
Published: June 2015

Contextual conditioning and information structure
Parameters as Third Factor Timing Optionality
Authors: Obata Miki , Baptista Marlyse , Epstein Samuel
Published: June 2015

Parameters as Third Factor Timing Optionality
Diagnosing truth, interactive sincerity, and depictive sincerity
Authors: Coppock Elizabeth , Brochhagen Thomas
Published: June 2015

This paper presents two experimental findings pertaining to the semantics and pragmatics of superlative modifiers ("at least", "at most"). First, in a scenario with N objects of a given type, speakers consistently judge it true that there are ‘at least N’ and ‘at most N’ objects of that type. This supports the debated position that the ignorance conveyed by superlative modifiers is an implicature, not an entailment, and contrasts with results obtained using an inference-judgment paradigm, suggesting that truth-value judgment tasks are impervious to certain pragmatic infelicities that inference-judgment tasks are sensitive to. The second finding is not predicted by any previous theory: In a scenario with N objects, it is not consistently judged true that there are ‘at most N + 1’ objects, even though it is consistently judged true that there are ‘at least N − 1’ objects. To explain this, we propose a novel pragmatic principle requiring that the scenario depicted by a sentence must be considered possible by the speaker (the Maxim of Depictive Sincerity). Put together, the two findings show that truth-value judgment tasks are impervious to some aspects of pragmatics, but not all.
From change to value difference
Authors: Deo Ashwini Sharad , Francez Itamar , Koontz-Garboden Andrew
Published: June 2015

Degree achievements and directed motion verbs are standardly taken to describe events in which an individual undergoes change over time. The spatial uses of these verbs, giving rise to what are known as their extent readings, indicate that a temporal change based semantics is not general enough to capture their behavior. In this paper, we introduce a further range of facts that argues for a fully general analysis of the meaning of degree achievements and directed motion verbs in terms of value difference rather than temporal change. These verbs are uniformly analyzed as intensional verbs that take functional arguments and encode a difference in the value of this argument over a contextually given ordered domain. This analysis accounts naturally for their interaction with a range of adverbial modifiers.
Indefinite Donkeys on Islands
Authors: Onea Edgar
Published: June 2015

In this paper I present a theory of indefinites which captures two of their natural properties: indefinites license donkey anaphora (Geach 1962) and they exhibit ‘specific’ readings in which they appear to scope out of scope islands. In various flavours of dynamic semantics (Kamp 1981, Heim 1982, Dekker (2004)), these properties can be captured to the detriment of compositionally. Other theories have employed more involved technical machinery like choice functions (Kratzer 1998, von Heusinger 2002), Hamblin-semantics (Kratzer & Shimoyama 2002) or independence friendly logics (Brasoveanu & Farkas 2011) to derive exceptional scope readings, but ignored donkey anaphora. Theories of E-type anaphora, on the other hand, generally do not consider exceptional scope readings (Heim 1990, Elbourne 2001). My own analysis combines insights from dynamic semantics with referential indexing in LF-semantics, resulting in a fully compositional, static system.
On the sentence-internal reading of French le même ('the same')
Authors: Charnavel Isabelle
Published: June 2015

This paper focuses on the sentence-internal reading of French 'le même' and addresses two main issues: a- the problem of definiteness ('le même' does not behave the way standard definites do); b- the problem of compositionality (the plural licenser that 'le même' needs to get interpreted is not adjacent to it). I propose that: a- 'le même' is a complex determiner with specific properties with respect to presupposition and specificity; b- 'le même' is an existential quantifier over a plural event that is partitioned along participants or times. This licensing condition (plural event distributed through participants or times) relates 'même' to the notion of pluractionality.
What projects and why
Authors: Simons Mandy , Tonhauser Judith , Beaver David , Roberts Craige
Published: June 2015

Projection is widely used as a diagnostic for presupposition, but many expression types yield projection even though they do not have standard properties of presupposition, for example appositives, expressives, and honorifics (Potts 2005). While it is possible to analyze projection piecemeal, clearly a unitary explanation is to be preferred. Yet we show that standard explanations of projective behavior (common ground based theories, anaphoric theories, and multi-dimensional theories) do not extend to the full range of triggers. Instead, we propose an alternative explanation based on the following claim: Meanings project IFF they are not at-issue, where at-issueness is defined in terms of the Roberts' (1995) discourse theory. Thus, and despite their apparent heterogeneity, projective meaning triggers emerge as a natural class on the basis of the not at-issue status of their projective inference.
A Montagovian treatment of modal subordination
Authors: Asher Nicholas , Pogodalla Sylvain
Published: June 2015

Epistemic modality involves complex contextual dependencies that linguists have studied (Roberts 1989; Veltman 1996). We show that they have a natural treatment within a continuation style semantics.
Degree Operators and Scope
Authors: Heim Irene
Published: June 2015

No abstract.
Pluractional Quantifiers: The 'occasional'-construction in English and German
Authors: Zimmermann Malte
Published: June 2015

I investigate a syntactic construction which raises an interesting question for compositionality: An adjective seems to be interpreted outside its containing DP, taking scope over the entire sentence. With Larson (1999), I assume that the adjective incorporates into the DP-determiner, forming a complex quantifier. I present independent evidence in favour of such an analysis. Furthermore, I argue that Larson's semantic account of D-A-incorporation is in need of revision. I propose an alternative, more empirically adequate analysis which treats D+A composites as Lasersohnian (1995) pluractional quantifiers.
Against 'Long' Movement of the Superlative Operator
Authors: Sharvit Yael , Stateva Penka
Published: June 2015

It is a matter of considerable debate whether degree operators are interpreted in their base position or in some higher position. Kennedy (1997) has shown that degree operators (e.g., the comparative operator) do not interact scopally with quantified expressions. On the other hand, Heim (1999) and Stateva (to appear) have presented evidence that the superlative operator (as in the highest grade) interacts scopally with intensional predicates. This paper argues that despite the fact that the superlative operator seems to interact scopally with intensional predicates, the facts receive a better account under an in situ analysis, rather than a movement analysis, of the operator. This point will be made by (a) looking at examples where a superlative expression is embedded under a propositional attitude verb, and focussing on readings which are neither de re (in the strict sense) nor de dicto (in the strict sense); and (b) examining negative superlatives (e.g., the least high grade) in extensional contexts. Our conclusion will be that Kennedy's claim that degree operator movement is highly restricted is correct.
Average Noun Phrases
Authors: Carlson Greg , Pelletier F. Jeffry
Published: June 2015

No abstract.
Exceptive Constructions
Authors: Von Fintel Kai
Published: June 2015

No abstract.
Point of View as a Factor of Content
Authors: Doron Edit
Published: June 2015

No abstract.
Stativity and present tense epistemics
Authors: Ramchand Gillian Catriona
Published: June 2015

Some modals are ambiguous between epistemic and circumstantial interpretations, but allow epistemic readings only when they combine with stative verb phrases. For other modals, the epistemic reading is not so constrained. I propose a theory of modal semantics that is sensitive to height of merge position and by extension the properties of the situational description that the modal combines with. To capture the pattern, modals are argued to have two important dimensions of meaning: (i) they will describe a topic situation asserted to be either an exhaustive or non-exhaustive choice over live situational alternatives; (ii) they will either anchor that topic situation indexically, or anaphorically. Modal meaning can then systematically interact with situational descriptions to build different interpretations while keeping the underlying semantics of the modal the same. Epistemic readings emerge when a modal attaches above the height at which temporal parameters of the situation are bound, circumstantials attach below the temporal specification. State-constrained epistemic modals are those that have indexical anchoring properties. 
Amount semantics
Authors: Scontras Gregory
Published: June 2015

This paper presents a case study of the English noun amount, a word that ostensibly relies on measurement in its semantics, yet stands apart from other quantizing nouns on the basis of its EXISTENTIAL interpretation. John ate the apples that Bill ate does not mean John and Bill ate the same apples, but rather that they each ate apples in the same quantity. Amount makes reference to abstract representations of measurement, that is, to degrees. Its EXISTENTIAL interpretation evidences the fact that degrees contain information about the objects that instantiate them. Outside the domain of nominal measurement, the noun kind exhibits behavior strikingly similar to that of amount; both yield an EXISTENTIAL interpretation (Carlson 1977b). This observation motivates re-conceiving of degrees as nominalized quantity-uniform properties – the same sort of entity as kinds. Thus, the semantic machinery handling kinds also handles degrees (e.g., Derived Kind Predication; Chierchia 1998): As nominalized properties, degrees are instantiated by objects that hold the corresponding property; when instantiated by real-world objects, degrees (and kinds) deliver the EXISTENTIAL interpretation.
Gradable adjectives, vagueness, and optimal language use: A speaker-oriented model
Authors: Qing Ciyang , Franke Michael
Published: June 2015

This paper addresses two issues that arise in a degree-based approach to the semantics of positive forms of gradable adjectives such as tall in the sentence “John is tall” (e.g., Kennedy & McNally 2005; Kennedy 2007): First, how the standard of comparison is contextually determined; Second, why gradable adjectives exhibit the relative-absolute distinction. Combining ideas of previous evolutionary and probabilistic approaches (e.g., Potts 2008; Franke 2012; Lassiter 2011; Lassiter & Goodman 2013), we propose a new model that makes exact and empirically testable probabilistic predictions about speakers’ use of gradable adjectives and that derives the relative-absolute distinction from considerations of optimal language use. Along the way, we distinguish between vagueness and loose use, and argue that, within our approach, vagueness can be understood as the result of uncertainty about the exact degree distribution within the comparison class.
Presuppositions are Fast, whether Hard or Soft - Evidence from the visual world
Authors: Schwarz Florian
Published: June 2015

One focus of work on the processing of linguistic meaning has been the relative processing speed of different aspects of meaning. While much early work has focused on implicatures in comparison to literal asserted content (e.g., Bott & Noveck 2004, Huang & Snedeker 2009, among many others), the present paper extends recent efforts to experimentally investigate another aspect of meaning, namely presuppositions. It investigates the triggers again and stop using the visual world eye tracking paradigm, and provides evidence for rapid processing of presupposed content. Our study finds no difference in timing for the two triggers, which is of theoretical relevance given proposals for distinguishing classes of triggers, such as hard vs. soft (Abusch 2010). Whatever differences between these there may be are apparently not affecting the online processing time course. As a further comparison, again was also compared to twice, which expresses essentially the same meaning without a presupposition. Shifts in eye movements for these two cases also appear to be entirely on par, further supporting the notion that presupposed and asserted content are available in parallel early on in online processing.
Japanese alternative questions are disjunctions of polar questions
Authors: Uegaki Wataru
Published: June 2015

We discuss the syntax and semantics of Japanese alternative questions (AltQs), and argue that they are underlyingly disjoined polar questions (PolQs). The argument is based on the following three observations: (i) the minimum syntactic size of a disjunct in a Japanese AltQ is VP or clausal, (ii) sentential operators above the disjunction in an AltQ are never interpreted in both disjuncts, and (iii) the clause-final particle in an AltQ has to be matched with the particle at the end of the first disjunct. It will be shown that these facts receive straightforward explanations under the analysis that treats Japanese AltQs as disjoined PolQs while they are problematic in a scoping analysis. We also propose a compositional semantics associated with the analysis, and address a potential problem regarding the intervention effect.
Collective quantification and the homogeneity constraint
Authors: Dobrovie-Sorin Carmen
Published: June 2015

The main theoretical claim of the paper is that a slightly revised version of the analysis of mass quantifiers proposed in Roeper 1983, Lønning 1987 and Higginbotham 1994 extends to collective quantifiers: such quantifiers denote relations between sums of entities (type e), rather than relations between sets of sums (type ). Against this background I will explain a puzzle observed by Dowty (1986) for all and generalized to all quantifiers by Winter 2002: plural quantification is not allowed with all the predicates that are traditionally classified as ”collective”. The Homogeneity Constraint – as well as the weaker requirement of divisiveness - will be shown to be too strong (for both collective and mass quantifiers). What is required is that the nominalization of the nuclear-scope predicate denotes a maximal sum (rather than a group). Divisiveness is a sufficient, but not a necessary condition for this to happen. Non-divisive predicates such as form a circle, which denote sets of ‘extensional’ groups are allowed, because extensional groups are equivalent to the maximal sum of their members. It is only intensional group predicates that block collective Qs.

Keywords: collective quantification, mass quantification, homogeneous, cumulative, divisive, groups, sums, maximality operator, plural logic
A superlative argument for a minimal theory of definiteness
Authors: Coppock Elizabeth , Beaver David
Published: June 2015

This paper concerns the interpretation of the definite article with superlatives on a relative interpretation. Previous work has suggested that definite superlative noun phrases like the fewest letters in Gloria received the fewest letters (relative superlative DPs) are semantically indefinite. This paper argues that such DPs are definite (presupposing uniqueness) but not determinate (denoting an individual). We provide new evidence that they are not determinate, and undertake a critical review of the evidence that has previously been used to argue for their indefiniteness, arguing that it is consistent with the hypothesis that they are definite. We argue furthermore that a movement analysis of relative superlatives is not consistent with a treatment of the determiner as definite. We therefore offer an analysis of relative superlative DPs on which they are definite but indeterminate, and the superlative morpheme is interpreted in situ.
Ignorance in context: The interaction of modified numerals and QUDs
Authors: Westera Matthijs , Brasoveanu Adrian
Published: June 2015

We argue for a purely pragmatic account of the ignorance inferences associated with superlative but not comparative modifiers (at least vs. more than). Ignorance inferences for both modifiers are triggered when the question under discussion (QUD) requires an exact answer, but when these modifiers are used out of the blue the QUD is implicitly reconstructed based on the way these modifiers are typically used, and on the fact that "at least n", but not "more than n", mentions and does not exclude the lower bound "exactly n". The paper presents new experimental evidence for the context-sensitivity of ignorance inferences, and also for the hypothesis that the higher processing cost reported in the literature for superlative modifiers is context-dependent in the exact same way.

Keywords: superlative vs. comparative modifiers, ignorance inferences, questions under discussion, experimental semantics and pragmatics
The grammar of discourse: The case of then
Authors: Biezma Maria
Published: June 2015

This paper presents an analysis of then that appeals to discourse structure. I argue that then does not make any truth-conditional contribution but rather coordinates an anaphoric relation between consecutive discourse-moves. The meaning contribution of then is captured in terms of felicity conditions: then requires that two propositions enter into a ‘causal explanatory claim’-relation in which one (the antecedent) provides the ‘reasons’ for the other (the consequent). This proposal targets then within conditionals and across discourse and considers discourse structure as a key factor in explaining its behavior.
An alternative theory of imprecision
Authors: Solt Stephanie
Published: June 2015

Numerical expressions are often used imprecisely or approximately. This paper defends a novel analysis of numerical imprecision based on the notion of scale granularity, construed here in terms of sets of alternatives. I apply this approach to account for new facts relating to the interaction of (im)precision and comparison, in particular the necessarily precise interpretation of measure expressions in compara- tives, and the negative polarity status of overt approximators in comparatives (e.g. Mabel owns *(no) more than about one hundred sheep.) 
Deriving Hurford's Constraint
Authors: Meyer Marie-Christine
Published: June 2015

I show that the infelicity of disjunctions in which one disjunct entails the other (“Hurford disjunctions”), as well as the felicity of a subclass of Hurford disjunctions (e.g., some or all), can be derived from a general principle of Brevity under the independently motivated assumption that uncertainty implicatures are generated in the grammar. 
On Telescoping
Authors: Poesio Massimo , Zucchi Alessandro
Published: June 2015

No abstract
The Singular-Plural Distinction in Hindi Generics
Authors: Dayal Veneeta Srivastav
Published: June 2015

No abstract.
VP Ellipsis and Semantic Identity
Authors: Hardt Daniel
Published: June 2015

No abstract.
A Semantic Analysis of Negative Concord
Authors: Van der Wouden Ton , Zwarts Frans
Published: June 2015

No abstract.
The Interplay of Syntax and Semantics in Complement Control
Authors: Farrell Patrick
Published: June 2015

The main goals of this paper are to argue that a syntactic command constraint on complement control is neither necessary nor desirable and to show that apparent evidence for such a constraint is better handled otherwise