Quantity superlatives in Germanic, or, ‘Life on the fault line between adjective and determiner'

This paper concerns the superlative forms of the words many, much, few, and little, and their equivalents in other Germanic languages (German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Dalecarlian, Icelandic, and Faroese). It demonstrates that every possible relationship between definiteness and interpretation is attested. It also demonstrates that agreement mismatches are found with relative readings and with proportional readings, but different kinds of agreement mismatches in each case. One consistent pattern is that a quantity superlative with adverbial morphology and neuter singular agreement features is used with relative superlatives. On the other hand, quantity superlatives with proportional readings always agree in number. I conclude that quantity superlatives are not structurally analogous to quality superlatives on either relative or proportional readings, but they depart from a plain attributive structure in different ways. On relative readings they can be akin to pseudopartitives (as in a cup of tea), while proportional readings are more closely related to partitives (as in a piece of the cake). More specifically, I suggest that the agreement features of a superlative exhibits depend on the domain from which the target is drawn (the target-domain hypothesis). When the target is a degree, as it is with adverbial superlatives and certain relative superlatives, default neuter singular emerges. Definiteness there is driven by the same process that drives definiteness with adverbial superlatives. With proportional readings, the target argument of the superlative is a subpart or subset of the domain indicated by the substance noun, hence number agreement. Subtle aspects of how the comparison class and the superlative marker are construed determine definiteness for proportional readings.http://eecoppock.info/germanic.pdfAccepted manuscrip

Outlook-based semantics

This paper presents and advocates an approach to the semantics of opinion statements, including matters of personal taste and moral claims. In this framework, 'outlook-based semantics', the circumstances of evaluation are not composed of a possible world and a judge (as in 'world-judge relativism'); rather, outlooks replace possible worlds in the role of circumstance of evaluation. Outlooks are refinements of worlds that settle not only matters of fact but also matters of opinion. Several virtues of the framework and advantages over existing implementations of world-judge relativism are demonstrated in this paper. First, world-judge relativism does not actually explain the 'disagreement' of 'faultless disagreement', while a straightforward explanation suggests itself in outlook-based semantics. Second, outlook-based semantics provides an account of subjective attitude verbs that can capture lack of opinionatedness. Third, outlook-based semantics unproblematically explains the connection-building role of aesthetic discourse and the group-relevance of discretionary assertions, while capturing the same effects in world-judge relativism obviates the purpose of the judge parameter. Finally, because the proposed circumstances of evaluation (outlooks) are entirely analogous to possible worlds, the framework is easy to use and extend.https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10988-017-9222-yAccepted manuscriptPublished versio

The proper treatment of egophoricity in Kathmandu Newari

We develop a theory of so-called 'conjunct-disjunct marking', also known as 'egophoricity', in Kathmandu Newari. The signature pattern of egophoricity looks a bit like person agreement: In declaratives, there is a special marker that goes on first person verbs, but not second or third person (e.g. 'I drank-EGO too much'). But in interrogatives, the same marker goes on second person (e.g. 'Did you-EGO drink too much?'). This is called interrogative flip. Egophoric marking also interacts interestingly with the presence of evidential markers, and comes with an implication of knowing self-reference (emphasized in Newari by a restriction to volitional action). Our paper discusses two previous approaches, which we label indexical and evidential, and motivate our account, which we label egophoric. Along the way, we develop a theory of how de se attitudes are communicated.http://eecoppock.info/egophoricity-oup.pdfAccepted manuscrip

'Most' vs. 'the most' in languages where 'the more' means 'most'

This paper focuses on languages in which a superlative interpretation is typically indicated merely by a combination of a definiteness marker with a comparative marker, including French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, and Greek ('DEF+CMP languages'). Despite ostensibly using definiteness markers to form the superlative, superlatives are not always definite-marked in these languages, and the distribution of definiteness-marking varies from language to language. To account for the cross-linguistic variation, we iden- tify conflicting pressures that all of the languages in consideration may be subject to, and suggest that different languages prioritize differently in the resolution of these conflicts. What these languages have in common, we suggest, is a mechanism of Definite Null Instantiation for the degree-type standard argument of the comparative. Among the parameters along which languages are proposed to differ is the relative importance of marking uniqueness vs. avoiding determiners with predicates of entities that are not individuals.http://eecoppock.info/CoppockStrand-DAL.pdfhttp://eecoppock.info/CoppockStrand-DAL.pdfAccepted manuscrip

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

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

Implicatures of modified numerals: quantity or quality?

We propose a new analysis of modified numerals that allows us to: (i) predict ignorance with respect to the prejacent of at least (and thereby avoid to Bernard Schwarz's recent criticism of Coppock and Brochhagen 2013), (ii) get a three-way contrast between superlative modifiers, comparative modifiers, and numerals, without appeal to a two-sided analysis of numerals, and (iii) avoid the prediction that at least should produce quantity implciatures when only is not a grammatical alternative. With it, we reconcile Westera and Brasoveanu's (2014) findings with the achievements of the Coppock and Brochhagen account, bring that work in line with recent theorizing in inquisitive semantics using downward-closed possibilities, and show that inquisitive sincerity can interact with Horn-based quantity in a non-trivial way, something that may be fruitful to consider in other domains as well.https://4f669968-a-62cb3a1a-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/sinnundbedeutung21/proceedings-preprints/modified-numerals-sub-2016-final.pdf?attachauth=ANoY7cp1Q88YF1lYnJLBxpbbMXxIReQLbjxbyfwsP3Dv0qStClh5zYCtiMY7oAffAskO4UIYw6zMQdQsLC51Szi9TVOkc2R-u24FpZ2Kxynell_DpHjqNGsvjzr4pn_sCZW_Zh7IuhuPtq1BvO_Qhr3GD0edCikCRvmXyduRelK7rMAl5SiQoQA4owH7XZgPb2UzcSrB-usqdQ5lUe6d4wevpSEM1M8AqgtmWwDMWfkSeWZ6iF5T_aAPRuLWJg5ate1CWzhwRqsS_gXl8hWNNKvB3-KRsLfRtw==&attredirects=0Published versio

Nielsen v. Preap / 5th grade grammar v. linguistics / Mass imprisonment v. human rights

In the Supreme Court case Nielsen v. Preap, ignorance about syntax and semantics led to tragic consequences. The ACLU lawyer defending thousands of non-citizens from being rounded up and put into prison indefinitely by ICE let it come across that her argument rested on the false premise that adverbs can modify nouns. The textualists claimed victory, even though the humane reading of the text was the literal one in this case. The final decision rested crucially on this error on her part, and was buffered by a misunderstanding about how definite descriptions work. The dissent failed to articulate a convincing rebuttal, making spurious reference to passive voice. This case clearly shows how staggeringly consequential linguistic knowledge can be

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

Division vs. distributivity: Is per just like each?

This paper argues that there are lexical items that conventionally express the idea of dividing one quantity by another, and per is one of them. In particular, the proposal is that there are three ratio-related senses of per: (i) a quotient function; (ii) a quotient operator; and (iii) quotient of measure functions. The ratio-based approach, which is built up here in order to handle a wider range of data than previous ratio-based approaches could, is contrasted with an opposing view, one on which per is a distributivity marker like each. Four types of evidence are used: (i) cases involving measurement of an object or an event whose measure is smaller than the unit given by per’s complement; (ii) uses in the differential argument of a comparative; (iii) uses modifying a measure function noun; and and (iv) uses modifying a gradable predicate. All of these are problematic for a distributivity- marker analysis, and support the idea that per expresses the concept of ratio. Along the way, we gain diagnostics for whether a given item conventionally expresses the concept of a ratio in a given language