Abstract not found

this paper I examine a class of definite descriptions that I will call weak definites. One of my goals in doing so is to gain new insights concerning the conflict between the two semantic theories of definite descriptions just discussed. The data I will examine are exemplified by the sentences in (4). (4) a. John got these data from the student of a linguist. b. The village is located on the side of a mountain. c. I usually had breakfast at the corner of a major intersection. d. On Friday, a bomb exploded outside the offices of anAmerican corporation. Definite descriptions of the form [ NP The N of NP[-definite]] like the student of a linguist in (4a) are fairly common: (4b)--(4d) are not made up, but were found in existing texts. What's interesting about definites of this form is that they have a reading that is not predicted by either the Russellian theory of definite descriptions or Heim's theory. The reading of (4a) I am interested in can be paraphrased as: there is a linguist, and there is a student of that linguist, such that John got the data from that student. This reading can be tentatively characterized by the following expression. (5) (9 y linguist(y) (9 x student-of(x,y) got(j,d,x)))

This paper concerns focus sensitive constructions, and, in particular, the operators \always " and \only". We argue that previous researchers have erred by overemphasizing the similarities of these two operators, and, more generally, by analyzing the class of focus sensitive constructions as homogeneous. We will present a wide range of cross-linguistic evidence for giving dierent focus sensitive constructions quite dierent analyses.

In this paper I will present and defend an analysis of (a sample of) the English modal auxiliary verbs using a relevance-theoretic semantic and pragmatic framework. I will start by discussing previous analyses of modality in English with an eye to explaining how a cluster of related meanings- epistemic, root, and other- is expressed by the same set of lexical items. I will then go on to develop a unitary semantic approach to the English toodais, treating them as (mostly) incomplete propositional operators. After defending the details of my semantic account, I will show how the proposed semantics can give rise to the range of root interpretations modal verbs can receive in context. Epistemic interpretations require some further theoretical machinery, which will make crucial use of the notion of metarepresentation. Finally, I will sketch the differences between natural-language interpretations of modal operators and their alethic/logical uses.

Most studies of the so-called Proportion Problem seek to understand how lexical and structural properties of sentences containing adverbial quantifiers give rise to various proportional readings. This paper explores a related but distinct problem: given a use of a particular sentence in context, why do only some of the expected proportional readings seem to be available? That is, why do some sentences allow an asymmetric reading when other structurally similar sentences seem to require a symmetric reading? Potential factors suggested in the literature include the distribution of donkey pronouns, certain uniqueness implications, and focus structures. I argue here that a use of an adverbial quantifier presupposes HOMOGENEITY: all individual situations that get lumped into a single case for the purposes of evaluating the quantification must agree on whether they satisfy the nuclear scope. For instance, in order for a token of Usually, if a farmer owns a donkey, he beats it to be felicitous when construed under a farmer-dominant asymmetric reading, the context must be consistent with the proposition that each farmer either beats all or none of his donkeys. Thus proportional sentences are indeed systematically ambiguous, but only some readings will be felicitous in a given context.

We describe an approach to resolving de nite descriptions and pronominal anaphora as subcases of a general strategy for presupposition satisfaction. Generally, a presupposition is satis ed in a context if the context contains a speci c type of information and is organized in such away that this information can be retrieved by the interlocutors. The model of discourse context we develop assumes that discourse structure is organized around a stack ofquestions under discussion, which plays a crucial role in narrowing the search for referents and other presupposed information. The algorithms for maintaining the discourse structures and retrieving presupposed information are presented and illustrated by several example dialogues in which human users interact with an agent to make hotel reservations. 1

A second occurrence focus is an expression which is in the scope of a focus sensitive operator, is the semantic focus of that operator, and which is a repeat of an earlier focused occurrence. Second occurrence foci are intonationally distinct from the original occurrence of the material. Indeed, second occurrence foci are often claimed to lack any intonational marking, e.g. pitch accent. This apparent dissociation of semantic and intonational focus is commonly used as an argument against certain theories of focus; e.g., alternative semantics (Rooth, 1985) and structured meaning semantics (Jacobs, 1983; Krifka, 1992; von Stechow, 1989). Here we report on a production experiment designed to test whether second occurrence foci are prosodically marked. We find that while there is no significant pitch accent on second occurrence foci, there are other prosodic effects. In particular, we observe that second occurrence focus is marked by increased duration and intensity. This result is of significance to semanticists interested in the interpretation of focus and to intonational phonologists interested in the acoustic realization of focus.

come from the work done in recent years at MIT by Lisa Matthewson (as already mentioned), Philippe Schlenker, Julie Legate, and Uli Sauerland. I thank Irene Heim, Lisa Matthewson, Orin Percus, Philippe Schlenker, and Jason Stanley for illuminating discussions about this material. At this point, I see this talk as a report on the state of the art, exploring an intriguing possible connection, but I do not claim substantial intellectual property rights. Mistakes are certainly mine, achievements are probably not. 1. CONTEXT-DEPENDENCE OF QUANTIFIERS Consider a statement Everybody is having a good time. I assume that you understand the sentence well enough. Now assume also that you are omniscient with respect to people having a good time: you know for each person that ever lived and for each time up to now whether or not that person was having a good time at that time. Under these conditions, you may still be in doubt about the truth of the statement for at least two reasons: first,

this paper is to shed some light on this problem. In the next three sections I will introduce Czech data in which common noun phrases derive their quantificational force, and also a strong (definite) interpretation, from verb morphology. I will show that semantic Hana Filip, "Quantification, Aspect and Lexicon" 2 effects of verb morphology on common noun phrases have two sources: aspectual semantics of a given verb root or stem, and idiosyncratic lexical semantic properties of verb affixes that serve to derive perfective and imperfective verb stems.

Abstract not found