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Semantic Structures 2012 Henriëtte de Swart. Who is this course for? Students in the research...
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Transcript of Semantic Structures 2012 Henriëtte de Swart. Who is this course for? Students in the research...
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Semantic Structures 2012
Henriëtte de Swart
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Who is this course for?
Students in the research master in linguistics
Students in the MA CAI. Students in the one-year MA in
linguistics (linguistics, modern languages)
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What is this course about? Semantics: empirical knowledge,
theories, research skills, integration in ongoing research
Focus: ongoing NWO programme “Weak referentiality: bare nominals at the interface of lexicon, syntax and semantics” (2008-13).
http://www.hum.uu.nl/medewerkers/b.s.w.lebruyn/weakreferentiality/
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Organization
Group project collective teaching different perspectives
General intro (today) (Henriëtte) What are bare nominals? What is
weak referentiality? What are the research questions? Why do we worry about them? What is the approach? What are the results so far?
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What are bare nominals? I Bare nominals are nominal structures
that do not have an article or a quantifier.
In English we find lots of bare plurals and bare mass nouns: I read books, I drank milk.
‘Totally’ bare nominals do not have any functional morphology (plurality). Mass nouns are different from count nouns.
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What are bare nominals? II
In English, we cannot use bare, singular count nominals in regular argument position: *I read book, I ate apple.
But we find them elsewhere: at school, in hospital, the way to use knife and fork, door after door, Mary is chair of the department. WHY?
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What are bare nominals? III In other languages, the use of bare
count singular is much more free. WHY?
Wò kànjiàn xióng le. [Chinese] I see bear ASP ‘I saw a bear/some bears.’
dan ra’a namer. [Hebrew] Dan saw tiger ‘Dan saw a tiger.’
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Weak referentiality I We find bare nominals in English/Dutch
in contexts in which the referential force of the nominal is ‘weak’.
John is in prison. #It is a brick building. Ik weet dat Peter viool speelt. #Kan hii
‘m meenemen? [Dutch] I know that Peter plays violin. #Can he bring it?
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Lexical restrictions
John is major of NY/is a lawyer. In prison/at school/at the office. Why does English permit bare
predication only with nouns that somehow have a uniqueness feature?
Why does English permit bare PPs with prison, school, etc. but not office?
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Cross-linguistic differences.
In prison (E)/en prison (F)/in de gevangenis (D).
In hospital (Br.E.)/in the hospital (Am.E.)/ in het ziekenhuis (D).
At school (E)/ op school (D)/ à l’école (F).
There is overlap in nominal domains, but also differences: where? why?
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Weak definites/indefinites
We also find weakly referential nominals that are not bare.
John is a lawyer (cf. Jan is advokaat -- Dutch) Mary is listening to the radio (cf. Mary is watching television) How do we understand the def/indef
article in weakly referring contexts?
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Back to organization General intro: issues, approach, organization. Part I: cross-linguistic semantics of bare
nominals (literature review, corpus research, offline experiments) (Bert, Maartje).
Part II: processing weakly referential definites (offline and online-eyetracking) (Ana, Maartje).
Part III: lexical restrictions on bare PPs, corpus research and the syntax-semantics interface (Joost).
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Website
http://www.hum.uu.nl/medewerkers/b.s.w.lebruyn/semstruct2012/index.htm
Links to papers, other sources, exercises, results.
Please consult regularly for updates!
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Participation
Each part covers two weeks: intro by project researcher followed by students’ presentations of research on theme.
Workshop: meet other researchers working on the topic embedding the research in a broader context.
Student presentation & Final paper: more or less elaborate research paper (depending on credit).
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Languages
What languages do we speak?
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Nominal structure: data
Does your language use definite articles?
Does your language use indefinite articles?
Bare plurals? Bare singulars? Please give examples!
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Indefinite article: existentiality
A book, a student: existential quantification. GQ definition:
||a || = PQx[P(x) & Q(x)]
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Indefinite article in discourse
A child was playing in the park. The funny little creature wore a green hat, and purple socks.
New (in discourse perspective): a P introduces a new discourse referent u and the condition P(u).
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Definite article: uniqueness
What is the semantic contribution of a definite article? The sun, the queen of the Netherlands. GQ definition:
||the || = PQx[y[P(y) x=y] & Q(x)]
Uniqueness part is taken to be asserted (Russell) or presupposed (Strawson).
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Definite article in discourse
A child was playing in the park. The funny little creature wore a green hat, and purple socks.
Familiarity (in discourse perspective): the P introduces a discourse referent v and the condition P(v), and v = u, where u is an accessible discourse referent in the DRS.
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Bare plurals
Existential reading: I bought flowers, unicorns appeared on the horizon.
Generic reading: Cats hate dogs, Cats have four legs. (special semantics needed)
Semantics of existential reading: existential quantification + plurality (sums, sets)/new discourse referent (over sums).
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Form/meaning mapping
Farkas and de Swart (2003): plural morphology presupposes discourse referent accomodation takes care of discourse referential force.
Bare plural with existential reading: similar to singular indefinite, but no article.
Lack of article: where does the existential semantics of bare plurals come from?
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Cross-linguistic variation
Puzzle: semantics of definite/indefinite article alike across languages that have such an article.
But not all languages have a definite/indefinite article. Why?
Semantics of bare nominals in a language depends on presence/absence of plural morphology, definite/indefinite article. Why?
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Form-meaning mapping
Assume: all humans make the same conceptual disctinctions (atoms vs. sums, old vs. new, uniqueness, …).
Language variation resides in mapping of meanings unto forms.
Approaches: ‘covert’ projections, lexical variation, optimality theory.
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Covert projections Grammar is universal, some languages
project D above NP, so all languages have DPs ( Borer 2005).
Thus: bare plurals, bare mass nouns (in English) bare nominals (in Hebrew, Hindi, Mandarin Chinese) involve null D.
What licences a null D? How do we determine the interpretation
of the null D?
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Lexical variation
Some languages project a D, some don’t ( Boskovic 2008).
What will you have, NP or DP? Independent evidence: syntactic
criteria, semantic consequences. Problem: languages like English
have DPs and NPs (at surface level).
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Optimality Theory
No covert projections: wysiwyg. Cross-linguistic variation: some
languages project D, others don’t. Within language variations: some
nominals project D, others don’t. Context sensitivity: in some
contexts, nominals project D, in others not.
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Speaker and hearer economy
Languages can choose economy of form (‘bare’ nominals, less elaborate functional morphology). Easy to produce, hard to interpret (ambiguities)
Language can choose elaborate functional morphology to convey uniqueness, newness, etc. Easy to interpret (semantics hardwired into form), hard to produce (formal complexity).
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Markedness: economy
Basic markedness constraint: *FunctN.
*FunctN: avoid functional morphology in the nominal domain.
Markedness constraint bars formal complexity preference for bare nominals.
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Faithfulness: plurality
Faithfulness constraints encode form-meaning correspondence.
FPl: Plural predication on a discourse referent maps to expression in Num.
Conceptual distinction between atom/sum triggers syntactic reflex (English –s).
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Faithfulness: definiteness
Fdef: Uniqueness/familiarity of a discourse referent corresponds with a definite article in D.
Conceptual notion of uniqueness/ familiarity triggers reflex in D (English the).
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Faithfulness: reference
Fdr: the presence of a discourse referent in the semantics corresponds with a strong functional layer above NP.
English: plural morphology (-s) or article/quantifier in D (last resort: a).
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Ranking constraints
All constraints are universal; ranking is language specific.
Contraints are soft, violable. Ranking determines ‘weight’. Lower ranked constraints can be violated in order to satisfy higher ranked constraints.
Reranking constraints = language typology.
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Mandarin Chinese *FunctN >> {FPl, Fdef, Fdr} Wò kànjiàn xióng le.
I see bear ASP ‘I saw a bear/some bears.’
No plural morphology, no definite/ indefinite article: bare nominals are number neutral, but can introduce discourse referents.
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Hindi, Georgian, Russian, ..
FPl >> *FunctN >> {Fdef, Fdr} burtebi goravs.
[Georgian] balls.pl.nom roll.3sg ‘Balls/the balls are rolling.’
Plural morphology on the noun, no definite/indefinite article.
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Hebrew {FPl, Fdef} >> *FunctN >> Fdr dan ra’a namer.
Dan saw tiger ‘Dan saw a tiger.’
ha-yam-im ‘avru maher. The day.pl pass.past.3pl quickly ‘The days passed quickly.’
Sg/pl morphology, def./bare contrast.
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St’átimcets (Salish)
{Fpl, Fdr} >> *FunctN >> FDef Tecwm-mín-lhkan ti púkw-a lhkúnsa.
Buy.appl.1sg.sub det book.det today ‘I bought a/the book today.
Singular/plural morphology on noun, circumfixed determiner for discourse referentiality, but neutral for def/indef.
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English, Dutch, Italian, …
{Fdr, Fdef, FPl} >> *FunctN I bought a book/the
book/books/the books. Def/indef contrast, no bare
singulars in regular argument position, bare plurals OK (strong pl).
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French
{Fdr, Fpl, Fdef} >> *FunctN J’ai acheté un livre/le livre/des
livres/les livres. I bought a book/the book/indef_pl books/the books.
Def/indef contrast in sg and pl (weak pl morphology).
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OT typologyranking features example*FunctN >> {Fpl, Fdef, Fdr}
No number, no articles
Chinese, Japanese
Fpl >> *FunctN >> {Fdr, Fdef}
Sg/pl contrast, no articles
Hindi, Georgian, Russian
{Fpl,Fdef} >> *FunctN >> Fdr
Sg/pl contrast, def/bare contrast
Hebrew
{Fpl, Fdr} >> *FunctN >> Fdef
Sg/pl contrast, no bare nominals (weak Num)
St’átimcets
{Fpl, Fdr, Fdef} >> *FunctN
Def/indef contrast, bare plurals OK
English, Dutch, Italian
{Fpl, Fdr, Fdef} >> *FunctN
Def/indef contrast, no bare nominals
French
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Semantics of bare nominals
The semantics of the bare nominal: complement of the marked expression under strong bidirectional optimization.
Hindi/Mandarin bare sg: def/indef Hebrew bare sg/pl: indef (for def is
marked) English bare plural: indef (for def is
marked).
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English bare plurals
non-def def
bare pl
def pl
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Emergence of the unmarked
Bare nominal: satisfies *FunctN. Minimal form unmarked. Even in languages in which several
faithfulness constraints outrank *FunctN, we find bare nominal wherever we can.
Emergence of the unmarked
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Distribution bare singulars
Ranking *FunctN >> Fdr: bare singulars OK in regular argument position (Mandarin, Hindi, Russian, Hebrew..)
Ranking Fdr >> *FunctN: bare singulars blocked from regular argument position (English, French, St’átimcets,…).
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Semantic constraint: Arg Why do argument positions need
marking? Step 1: Argument positions require
referentiality (Arg). Step 2: Referentiality requires marking. (Fdr)
Semantic faithfulness constraint:Arg: parse an XP in argument position as a discourse referent (where X= N, Num or D).
Since Fdr requires discourse referents to be expressed by a strong functional layer, arguments will have marking.
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Semantic constraint: Arg
Arg relates presence of nominal projection (NP, NumP, DP) in regular argument position to discourse reference.
In non-argument position, we don’t need form to convey meaning: bare nominal in non-argument position non-referential (‘weakly referential’).
Where do we see bare nominals escaping Arg?
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Bare sg escaping Arg
John is in prison. #It is a brick building. Ik weet dat Peter viool speelt. #Kan hii
‘m meenemen? [Dutch] I know that Peter plays violin. #Can he bring it?
Lack of discourse anaphoric binding lack of discourse referent Fdr does not apply bare sg OK.
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Extension
Is this true for other environments in which bare nominals occur in languages like English, Dutch, French, ..?
Examples. Production experiments on discourse
anaphora see part III Corpus research see part II.
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Semantics of bare sg
What do bare singulars mean in ‘weakly referring’ environments?
Lack of discourse referentiality in languages that have a high ranking of Fdr.
Pragmatic ‘enrichment’ to set aside meaning of bare nominal from full nominal.
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Bare vs. marked I
John is in jail. John is in the jail. Full PP: location. Bare PP: location + activity sense
(John is a prisoner). Full PP: location – activity sense
(John is in the building, but not as a prisoner)
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Bare vs. marked II
Henriëtte is manager. [Dutch] Henriëtte is een manager. Henriëtte is (a) manager. Bare predication: professional
interpretation (‘capacity’ reading). Non-bare predication: general (minus professional reading).
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Horn’s division of pragm. labor
Unmarked forms pair up with unmarked meanings, marked forms pair up with marked meanings.
Minimal form preferred: bare nominal is unmarked form.
Stereotypical interpretation preferred: unmarked meaning.
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Bare location (weak biOT)
prisoner
visitor
bare PP
def PP
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Bare predication (weak biOT)
capacity metaphor
bare pred
indef pred.
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Bare vs. marked III
Is this contrast between bare and marked also seen in other constructions?
What about other distinctions between marked and bare (modification, number neutrality, idiomaticity)?
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Get to work.. We can account for the contrast between
bare/marked PPs/predication, but what are articles doing in these weakly referential environments and what do they mean?
Parts I and III: lexicon-syntax-semantics interface of bare nominals in a cross-linguistic semantics: corpus research and offline experiments (Bert, Joost).
Part II: processing weakly referential definites: online and offline experiments (Ana).