216 research outputs found
Focus presuppositions
This paper reviews notions related to focus and presupposition and addresses the hypothesis that focus triggers an existential presupposition. Presupposition projection behavior in certain examples appears to favor a presuppositional analysis of focus. It is argued that these examples are open to a different analysis using givenness theory. Overall, the analysis favors a weak semantics for focus not including an existential presupposition
The Chicago MaqlĂ» Fragment (A 7876)
AbstractThe fragment A 7876 (Oriental Institute, Chicago) occupies a special position among the cuneiform sources of the ritualMaqlû. The six-column tablet, inscribed in the Neo-Assyrian script of the 8th and 7th centuries BC, originally contained the complete text of the series with its nine canonical tablets. Taking into account the relevant duplicate manuscripts the article offers an annotated edition of this fragment and compares its style and format to other “large tablets” (dubgallu) of Babylonian literary texts.</jats:p
Epistemic NP Modifiers
The paper considers participles such as "unknown", "identified" and
"unspecified", which in sentences such as "Solange is staying in an unknown
hotel" have readings equivalent to an indirect question "Solange is staying in
a hotel, and it is not known which hotel it is." We discuss phenomena including
disambiguation of quantifier scope and a restriction on the set of determiners
which allow the reading in question. Epistemic modifiers are analyzed in a DRT
framework with file (information state) discourse referents. The proposed
semantics uses a predication on files and discourse referents which is related
to recent developments in dynamic modal predicate calculus. It is argued that a
compositional DRT semantics must employ a semantic type of discourse referents,
as opposed to just a type of individuals. A connection is developed between the
scope effects of epistemic modifiers and the scope-disambiguating effect of "a
certain".Comment: Final pre-publication version, 27 pages, Postscript. Final version
appears in the proceedings of SALT VI
MaqlĂ» III 1-30: Internal analysis and manuscript evidence for the revision of an incantation
no abstrac
Presupposition triggering from alternatives
Final prepublication version of a paper to be published in Journal of Semantics.This paper considers a set of presupposition triggers including focus, questions, 'contrastive' statives, and an 'affirmation/negation' construction involving and not, where presuppositions are cancelable. It is proposed that these constructions, rather than having strict semantic presuppositions, have representations involving alternative sets in the sense of alternative semantics of questions and focus, and that a default process generates a presupposition from the alternative set. Presupposition projection facts are dealt with by stating a default constraint referring to dynamic denotations. The analysis can be extended to other constructions and lexical items with defeasible presupposition triggering behavior, such as inchoatives, by hypothesizing a representation involving alternatives
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