What embedded counterfactuals tell us about the semantics of attitudes

We discuss German examples where counterfactuals restricting an epistemic modal are embedded under glauben ‘believe’. Such sentences raise a puzzle for the analysis of counterfactuals, modals, and belief attributions within possible-worlds semantics. Their truth conditions suggest that the modal’s domain is determined exclusively by the subject’s belief state, but evaluating the counterfactual separately at each of the subject’s doxastic alternatives does not yield the correct quantificational domain: the domain ends up being determined by the facts of each particular world, which include propositions the subject does not believe. We therefore revise the semantics of counterfactuals: counterfactuals still rely on an ordering among worlds that can be derived from a premise set (Kratzer, Angelika. 1978. Semantik der Rede: Kontexttheorie – Modalwörter – Konditionalsätze (Monographien Linguistik und Kommunikationswissenschaft 38). Königstein: Scriptor, 2012 [1981]a. The notional category of modality. In Modals and conditionals (Oxford studies in theoretical linguistics 36), 27–69. Oxford: Oxford University Press), but rather than uniquely characterizing a world, this premise set can be compatible with multiple worlds. In belief contexts, the attitude subject’s belief state as a whole determines the relevant ordering. This, in turn, motivates a revision of the semantics of believe: following Yalcin’s work on epistemic modals (Yalcin, Seth. 2007. Epistemic modals. Mind 116. 983–1026), we submit that evaluation indices are complex, consisting of a world and an ordering among worlds. Counterfactuals are sensitive to the ordering component of an index. Attitude verbs shift both components, relativizing the ordering to the attitude subject.Austrian Science FundPeer Reviewe

Scope-related cumulativity asymmetries and cumulative composition

Some elements in German and English, e.g. every DPs, give rise to cumulativity asymmetries: They allow for cumulative readings only if they occur in the scope of another semantically plural expression. We present a surface-compositional and event-less analysis of this pattern, expanding Schmitt's (2017) 'plural projection' framework. In this system, any constituent containing a semantically plural subexpression denotes a set of (possibly higher-type) pluralities. Cumulativity is built into the rules implementing this 'projection' of semantic plurality

The Walden String Quartet: Homer Schmitt, Violin; Bernard Goodman, Violin; William Magers, Viola; Robert Swenson, Cello; February 11, 1971

Capen AuditoriumFebruary 11, 19718:15 p.m

Restrictions on complement anaphora

This paper discusses the semantic status and the restrictions on complement anaphora, i.e. pronouns that are anaphorically related to quantifiers and seem to refer to the 'complement set' of the latter -- the set of those individuals that are in the restrictor but not in the nuclear scope of the quantifier. Our main empirical point, motivated by data from German, is that  contrary to the claims in  the literature, true complement set reference is not exclusively determined by the logical properties of the quantifier but also by its the syntactic context. Based on this observation, we argue that plural quantifiers provide anaphoric antecendents by a particular inference mechanism, which is sensitive to syntactic information: We submit that speakers employ verifying strategies for sentences with plural quantifiers where a 'test' discourse referent is inserted in the 'syntactic slot' the plural quantifier originally occurs in. If a discourse referent, when inserted in this slot, yields truth-conditions for the resulting sentence that are equivalent to those of the original sentence, it can be used as an antecendent for anaphora

When who and how matter: explaining the success of referendums in Europe

This article aims to identify the institutional factors that make a referendum successful. This comparative analysis seeks to explain the success of top-down referendums organized in Europe between 2001 and 2013. It argues and tests for the main effect of three institutional factors (popularity of the initiator, size of parliamentary majority, and political cues during referendum campaigns) and controls for the type of referendum and voter turnout. The analysis uses data collected from referendums and electoral databases, public opinion surveys, and newspaper articles. Results show that referendums proposed by a large parliamentary majority or with clear messages from political parties during campaign are likely to be successful

Formal approaches to number in Slavic and beyond

The goal of this collective monograph is to explore the relationship between the cognitive notion of number and various grammatical devices expressing this concept in natural language with a special focus on Slavic. The book aims at investigating different morphosyntactic and semantic categories including plurality and number-marking, individuation and countability, cumulativity, distributivity and collectivity, numerals, numeral modifiers and classifiers, as well as other quantifiers. It gathers 19 contributions tackling the main themes from different theoretical and methodological perspectives in order to contribute to our understanding of cross-linguistic patterns both in Slavic and non-Slavic languages

Formal approaches to number in Slavic and beyond

The goal of this collective monograph is to explore the relationship between the cognitive notion of number and various grammatical devices expressing this concept in natural language with a special focus on Slavic. The book aims at investigating different morphosyntactic and semantic categories including plurality and number-marking, individuation and countability, cumulativity, distributivity and collectivity, numerals, numeral modifiers and classifiers, as well as other quantifiers. It gathers 19 contributions tackling the main themes from different theoretical and methodological perspectives in order to contribute to our understanding of cross-linguistic patterns both in Slavic and non-Slavic languages

Formal approaches to number in Slavic and beyond

The goal of this collective monograph is to explore the relationship between the cognitive notion of number and various grammatical devices expressing this concept in natural language with a special focus on Slavic. The book aims at investigating different morphosyntactic and semantic categories including plurality and number-marking, individuation and countability, cumulativity, distributivity and collectivity, numerals, numeral modifiers and classifiers, as well as other quantifiers. It gathers 19 contributions tackling the main themes from different theoretical and methodological perspectives in order to contribute to our understanding of cross-linguistic patterns both in Slavic and non-Slavic languages

Formal approaches to number in Slavic and beyond

The goal of this collective monograph is to explore the relationship between the cognitive notion of number and various grammatical devices expressing this concept in natural language with a special focus on Slavic. The book aims at investigating different morphosyntactic and semantic categories including plurality and number-marking, individuation and countability, cumulativity, distributivity and collectivity, numerals, numeral modifiers and classifiers, as well as other quantifiers. It gathers 19 contributions tackling the main themes from different theoretical and methodological perspectives in order to contribute to our understanding of cross-linguistic patterns both in Slavic and non-Slavic languages