Definiteness and determinacy

This paper distinguishes between definiteness and determinacy. Definiteness is seen as a morphological category which, in English, marks a (weak) uniqueness presupposition, while determinacy consists in denoting an individual. Definite descriptions are argued to be fundamentally predicative, presupposing uniqueness but not existence, and to acquire existential import through general type-shifting operations that apply not only to definites, but also indefinites and possessives. Through these shifts, argumental definite descriptions may become either determinate (and thus denote an individual) or indeterminate (functioning as an existential quantifier). The latter option is observed in examples like ‘Anna didn’t give the only invited talk at the conference’, which, on its indeterminate reading, implies that there is nothing in the extension of ‘only invited talk at the conference’. The paper also offers a resolution of the issue of whether possessives are inherently indefinite or definite, suggesting that, like indefinites, they do not mark definiteness lexically, but like definites, they typically yield determinate readings due to a general preference for the shifting operation that produces them.We thank Dag Haug, Reinhard Muskens, Luca Crnic, Cleo Condoravdi, Lucas Champollion, Stanley Peters, Roger Levy, Craige Roberts, Bert LeBruyn, Robin Cooper, Hans Kamp, Sebastian Lobner, Francois Recanati, Dan Giberman, Benjamin Schnieder, Rajka Smiljanic, Ede Zimmerman, as well as audiences at SALT 22 in Chicago, IATL 29 in Jerusalem, Going Heim in Connecticut, the Workshop on Bare Nominals and Non-Standard Definites in Utrecht, the University of Cambridge, the University of Gothenburg, the University of Konstanz, New York University, the University of Oxford, Rutgers University, the University of Southern California, Stanford University, and the University of Texas at Austin. Beaver was supported by NSF grants BCS-0952862 and BCS-1452663. Coppock was supported by Swedish Research Council project 2009-1569 and Riksbankens Jubileumsfond's Pro Futura Scientia program, administered through the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study. (BCS-0952862 - NSF; BCS-1452663 - NSF; 2009-1569 - Swedish Research Council; Riksbankens Jubileumsfond's Pro Futura Scientia program

It's not what you expected! The surprising nature of cleft alternatives in French and English

While much prior literature on the meaning of clefts—such as the English form “it is X who Z-ed”—concentrates on the nature and status of the exhaustivity inference (“nobody/nothing other than X Z”), we report on experiments examining the role of the doxastic status of alternatives on the naturalness of c'est-clefts in French and it-clefts in English. Specifically, we study the hypothesis that clefts indicate a conflict with a doxastic commitment held by some discourse participant. Results from naturalness tasks suggest that clefts are improved by a property we term “contrariness” (along the lines of Zimmermann, 2008). This property has a gradient effect on felicity judgments: the more strongly interlocutors appear committed to an apparently false notion, the better it is to repudiate them with a cleft.Published versio

Clefts: Quite the contrary!

Much of the previous literature on English it-clefts – sentences of the form ‘It is X that Z’ – concentrates on the nature and status of the exhaustivity inference (‘nobody/nothing other than X Z’). This paper concerns the way in which it-clefts signal contrast. We argue that it-clefts signal a type of contrast that does not merely involve a salient antecedent, as on more traditional characterizations of contrast such as those of e.g. Kiss (1998) and Rooth (1992), but also involves a conflict between the speaker’s and the hearer’s beliefs, as under the characterization of contrast given by Zimmermann (2008, 2011), which we term contrariness. Results of a felicity judgment experiment suggest that clefts do have a preference for contrariness, and one which has a gradient effect on felicity judgments: the more strongly interlocutors appear committed to an apparently false notion, the better it is to repudiate them with a cleft.https://4f669968-a-62cb3a1a-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/sinnundbedeutung21/proceedings-preprints/Destruel-Beaver-Coppock-SuB2016-FINAL.pdf?attachauth=ANoY7cpfzckWBy6psH6QCmbOCeXWS2nlL4bGgHHud2GpjKB1YQolksB00UtYzuvPRANOzWvWgfHdLZ7BP8zDYcT5wYIwr-1dBjw2g0-TC0Bic1ByVfjgj68pPdE9novwXm427ehkZI1E59JmiIvJnBKGxzYpI_AxMcKc-gEQuzu6DHXwJoLtzwm1FzFaHEX1LBq_yFSDgBzZajW2AHEFSiqmz1OVPTICm4zLB30AaHUxrtTBhWI1r0pmmX42IwVk9DtYfp0m6uvrsJLxJuvDhBPe-l3sJmHPcH2qhAtt6wqVMT7b-H6wX08=&attredirects=0Published versio

Infiltration in Stormwater Detention/ Percolation Basin Design

Investigations of soil parameters, infiltration testing, and storm observations are used to determine the infiltration characteristics for three Central Florida stormwater holding basins. Basic soil parameters are investigated and a value for available soil water storage is computed from these data. In-situ permeability and infiltration tests are used to obtain field permeability and infiltration rates. Infiltration test results may be applied to infiltration theory. Data from infiltration tests may be verified using available soil water storage computed from soil parameters. The effect of soil cover conditions is noted and investigated using the drum infiltrometer. Storm observations are used to confirm infiltration models. Infrequency of rainfall activity limited the number and reliability of observations. The effects of precipitation frequency and input intensity to the pond also noted in storm observations. A design procedure incorporating infiltration in stormwater retention basins is presented. This design procedure is based on infiltration theory and observed pond operation

The Quasimonotonicity of Linear Differential Systems - The Complex Spectrum

The article of record as published may be located at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00036810108840984The method of vector Lyapunov functions to determine stability in dynamical systems requires that the comparison system be quasimonotone nondecreasing with respect to a cone contained in the nonnegative orthant. For linear comparison systems in Rn with real spectra, Heikkilﾨa solved the problem for n = 2 and gave necessary conditions for n > 2. We previously showed a su_cient condition for n > 2, and here, for systems with complex eigenvalues, we give conditions for which the problem reduces to the nonnegative inverse eigenvalue problem

Days of Anger, Days of Tears: The Story of Two Kentucky Feuds - Millennium Edition

The millennium edition of Days of Anger, Days of Tears: The Story of Two Kentucky Feuds, a self-published book on the Rowan County War by Juanita Blair and Fred Brown Jr. printed in 2000. Illustrations by David Beaver

Social Language Processing: Arab Spring Twitterology and Beyond

David I. Beaver is associate professor of linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin. He researches and teaches on the semantics and pragmatics of natural languages, in particular on how information is organized at the sentence and discourse level. Within this, he has worked on presupposition, anaphora, topic and focus. He also has interests in temporal and event semantics, in simulations of language evolution, and in broader philisophical, psychological and computational themes from cognitive science.Ohio State University. Mershon Center for International Security StudiesEvent Web page, event photo

Is there a superlative rabbit in the ordinal hat? A study of ordinals vs. degree modifiers in nested definites

This study probes how the semantics of ordinals relates to the semantics of comparatives and superlatives. We examine this question with the help of a picture task in which participants are asked to locate objects described by nested descriptions like the candle on the first/closer/closest table, with an ordinal, comparative or superlative modifier in the inner noun phrase. We show that ordinals systematically lack the ‘relative readings’ observed for unmodified nested descriptions like the rabbit in the hat, in which the inner definite is understood with enriched content, as in the rabbit in the hat with a rabbit in it, in contrast to superlatives. Our explanation for this relies on the idea that an ordinal expects an ordering that can be provided by context

Uncovering and Interpreting

Student projects: two upper-level, and two student solutions to the same project, the Bayer Stone Competition