The Semantics and Pragmatics of “some 27 arrests”

In this paper we examine the some + n construction, where the apparent quantifier some is used with a numerical expression, as in some 27 students were arrested. Contrary to previous claims in the literature, we show that while many speakers prefer an approximative interpretation for some + n, it is untenable to analyze “some as an approximator akin to about or roughly. We survey some constraints on the distribution of some + n, and propose a semantic analysis based on recent theories of indefinite determiners (e.g. Alonso-Ovalle and Menendez-Benito 2010) which is able to explain these constraints. On our account, some introduces a manipulation of the domain of quantification, either restricting it to contextually relevant pluralities or widening it to include pluralities whose cardinality is *approximately* that of the associated numeral. In contexts where approximation is disfavored and there is no obvious restriction on the domain, the meaning contribution of some is essentially vacuous. We claim that this vacuousness, in conjunction with Horn\u27s (1984) division of pragmatic labor, explains why some + n is most felicitous in emphatic contexts, e.g., some 17 Republicans ran in the primary! (where 17 is higher than expected) as opposed to ?Some 5 Democrats ran in the primary (where 4 is average)

Much support and more

Abstract. This paper examines the semantics of much when it occurs as a dummy element, in so-called much support (Fred is diligent; in fact he is too much so) and more comparatives (more intelligent, where more = much + -er ). It is shown that far from being anomalies, much support and more comparatives provide a clue to the correct analysis of much more generally: much is essentially contentless, serving only as a carrier of degree morphology. In short, much always acts as much support. These findings provide support for a theory of quantity adjectives (many, few, much and little) as predicates of scalar intervals, with the remainder of the content traditionally ascribed to them contributed instead by null syntactic elements and operations. The vacuous nature of much itself is also argued to account for its infelicity in unmodified form in many contexts (e.g. ??We bought much rice)

An alternative theory of imprecision

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.)

Some three students: Towards a unified account of some

This paper investigates the semantics of the some+numeral construction (e.g. Some 20 cars were involved in the accident). Contra previous analyses, we demonstrate that some+numeral is not inherently approximating, but instead can be aligned to the canonical use of some as an indefinite determiner. Drawing on established theories of the semantics of degree expressions and epistemic indefinites, we propose that on all of its uses, some encodes a domain-shifting function, which operates on sets of pluralities of some sort. We demonstrate that this analysis accounts for both the variable presence of an approximating effect as well as constraints on the distribution of some+numeral, and discuss some consequences for the semantics of number and degree, and for the treatment of some more generally

Experimenting with Degree

Semantic theories differ in the role they assume for degrees in the interpretation of gradable adjectives, and in the assumptions they make about the nature of degrees and the structure of the scales they comprise. We report on two experiments investigating speakers' use of gradable adjectives across varying contexts, with the goal of gaining insight into the nature of the degree ontology underlying their semantics. We find that the truth conditions for the positive form must be stated in terms of degrees rather than rankings of individuals, and further that the relevant scale structure is one where distances between scale points are meaningful, and not an ordinal scale derived from an ordering relation on a comparison class. We also find no evidence that scale structure depends on the presence or absence of a corresponding system of numerical measures

Antonym adjective pairs and prosodic iconicity: evidence from letter replications in an English blogger corpus

This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.While the general assumption has long been that natural languages exhibit an arbitrary pairing of form and meaning, there is increasing empirical evidence that iconicity in language is not uncommon. One example from spoken language involves iconic prosodic modulation, i.e. the changing of prosodic features such as duration and fundamental frequency to express meanings such as size and speed. In this paper, we use data from an English social media corpus, with 140 million words written by 19,320 bloggers, to investigate a counterpart to iconic prosodic modulation in written language, namely letter replications (e.g. loooong). We examine pairs of gradable adjectives such as short/long, tiny/huge and fast/slow, finding a higher frequency of letter replications for adjectives associated with greater size or spatial/temporal extent. We did not find an iconic effect on the number of replicated letters. Our results show evidence for iconic prosody in written language, and further demonstrate that social media databases offer an excellent opportunity to investigate naturalistic written language.Peer Reviewe

Adjectival scales and three types of implicature

In this work, we explore the relationship between three different inferences triggered by gradable adjectives. In particular, we look at scalar implicature and two competing inferences occurring under negation - scale reversal (indirect scalar implicature) and a type of manner implicature called negative strengthening. In a series of experiments, we test a variety of adjectival scales and explore correlations between different inferences. Our results show that some scales are more likely to generate scalar implicature while others lean more towards generating negative strengthening. The extent to which scalar implicature and scale reversal correlate for the same scales, in turn, is lower than expected. We discuss our findings with respect to the mechanisms underlying the three types of inferences and factors accounting for differences across scales, with a focus on semantic distance, boundedness, the type of standard of comparison and adjectival extremeness

Orthotopic Heart Transplantation in a Patient With Gitelman Syndrome and Dilated Cardiomyopathy

Gitelman syndrome (GS) is a rare hereditary tubulopathy affecting the distal tubule leading to significant electrolyte disturbances.1 Although generally a benign condition, rare associations with arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death have been reported. A paucity of literature exists associating GS with cardiomyopathy. We present a child with dilated cardiomyopathy and GS who was successfully treated with orthotopic heart transplantation

Register: Language Users’ Knowledge of Situational-Functional Variation

The Collaborative Research Center 1412 “Register: Language Users’ Knowledge of Situational-Functional Variation” (CRC 1412) investigates the role of register in language, focusing in particular on what constitutes a language user’s register knowledge and which situational-functional factors determine a user’s choices. The following paper is an extract from the frame text of the proposal for the CRC 1412, which was submitted to the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft in 2019, followed by a successful onsite evaluation that took place in 2019. The CRC 1412 then started its work on January 1, 2020. The theoretical part of the frame text gives an extensive overview of the theoretical and empirical perspectives on register knowledge from the viewpoint of 2019. Due to the high collaborative effort of all PIs involved, the frame text is unique in its scope on register research, encompassing register-relevant aspects from variationist approaches, psycholinguistics, grammatical theory, acquisition theory, historical linguistics, phonology, phonetics, typology, corpus linguistics, and computational linguistics, as well as qualitative and quantitative modeling. Although our positions and hypotheses since its submission have developed further, the frame text is still a vital resource as a compilation of state-of-the-art register research and a documentation of the start of the CRC 1412. The theoretical part without administrative components therefore presents an ideal starter publication to kick off the CRC’s publication series REALIS. For an overview of the projects and more information on the CRC, see https://sfb1412.hu-berlin.de/