Adverb classes and adverb placement

This contribution contains sections titled: (1) Introduction; (2) The categorial status of adverbs; (3) Adverb classes; (4) Issues of adverb placement; (5) Adverbs and movement; (6) Adverbs and adjunction; (7) Adverbs and the syntax/semantics mapping. It offers an overview of the contributions on the syntax and semantics of adverbs in theoretical linguistic

On the logical form of imperfective aspect

This contribution proposes that imperfectively marked predicates are uniformly mapped into subject-predicate logical formats. The basic insight is that the imperfective does not map telic predicates into durative predicates; rather, it adds a modal dimension to the semantics of the past tense. The author argues (i) that a predicational analysis of imperfective aspect permits an elegant unification of the logical form assigned to progressives and habituals; (ii) that, at least in the Romance and Germanic languages, grammatical aspect is the locus where the distinction between categorical sentences, consisting in the ascription of a property to a subject, and thetic sentences, consisting in the presentation of an eventuality, is grammaticality encoded; and (iii) that the predicational analysis of imperfective tenses provides an elegant solution to what the author dubs the "present tense paradox

Bare plurals

This contribution offers a detailed and in-depth analysis of the syntactic distribution and semantic interpretation of determinerless nouns (so-called "bare plurals") in a variety of languages, providing the reader with a critical discussion of the main theoretical approaches to this topic. It contains a careful discussion of the empirical and theoretical issues involved by any analysis of bare nouns, a detailed treatment of the so-called "kind-level" interpretation of bare nouns, a critical discussion of their indefinite reading, and some insights into the internal syntax of bare plurals. A number of open issues and topics for future research are also formulate

The structure and interpretation of nouns and noun phrases (part I): introduction

Theoretical and Experimental Linguistic

On the temporal interpretation of certain surprise questions

This article considers a special kind of surprise questions, i.e. those introduced by the adversative particle ma (but), and compares it with surprise exclamations. The main issue addressed here concerns the obligatory presence in the questions of the imperfect verbal form, versus the obligatory presence in exclamations of a non-imperfect indicative. It will be shown that the special semantics associated with these structures determines the presence of a certain verbal form. Some syntactic issues will be addressed in the final section, having to do with the representation in the syntax of properties connected to the context

Linguistica chomskyana e significato: valutazioni e prospettive

Questo contributo discute la relazione tra teoria della sintassi e teoria del significato. Vengono presentate le idee di Chomsky sul ruolo del significato nella teoria linguistica, in particolare la relazione fra la nozione di sintassi ristretta e quella di sintassi allargata. Viene inoltre discussa la possibile convergenza tra il programma di Chomsky e la tradizione di studi in sintassi logica, con particolare riferimento al programma di Davidso

Syntactic issues in aspectuality

This contribution addresses some issues related to the status of functional projections in the language design. In particular, it discusses the interpretable features which appear to be associated with substantive functional projections such as Tense and Aspec

Generics and variables in syntax

La tesi discute alcuni aspetti dell'interfaccia fra sintassi e semantica, e in particolare: (1) sintassi e semantica delle frasi generiche col 'si' impersonale; (2) alcuni aspetti della teoria del controllo; (3) condizioni formali e intepretative sull'anafora pronominlaThis dissertation revolves around some topics in the syntax/semantics interface: (1) syntax and semantics of generic sentences involving impersonal 'si'; (2) some aspects of the theory of control; (3) formal and interpretive conditions on different varieties of pronominal anaphor