This paper addresses the syntactic and semantic analysis of nominal measurement structures like two liters of black coffee in German. German allows the case-marking on the substance noun phrase black coffee to vary: it can appear in genitive case or in the same case as the measure noun liter. The choice of case lacks semantic import with absolute measures like liter, but a semantic distinction does arise for proportional measures like percent, with the interpretation in the case-matching configuration serving as a prima facie counterexample to Keenan and Stavi’s Conservativity Hypothesis of DP quantification. We argue that (i) measurement structures do not have different syntactic configurations depending on the choice of measure noun (e.g., liter vs. percent); (ii) genitive and case-matching structures do, however, have different syntactic configurations; (iii) the semantic contrast between absolute and proportional measure nouns can be traced to their lexical interpretations; and (iv) the apparent violation of the Conservativity Hypothesis is only a surface-level phenomenon, and at LF all DP quantification is conservative.
The nature of the semantic contribution of co-speech gestures has been the subject of recent theoretical and experimental investigation. Such gestures have been reported to give rise to cosuppositional inferences that can project out of certain linguistic environments, much in the way that presuppositions of verbal expressions do (Schlenker 2018a; b). For example, a sentence like "John will not [use the stairs]_UP", produced with a finger pointed upwards while pronouncing the verb phrase, is argued to give rise to the inference that if John were to use the stairs, he would go up the stairs. Tieu et al. (2017) investigated the projection properties of directional inferences associated with the gestures UP and DOWN, using a Truth Value Judgment Task and a Picture Selection Task, and reported the presence of existential projection of the gestural inferences out of quantified environments. We investigated the same gestural inferences using a method that more closely tracks the introspective judgments reported in the literature on gesture projection. Participants were presented with an Inferential Judgment Task, in which they had to rate the strength of inferences arising from UP and DOWN in six different linguistic environments. Using this task, we observed projection of the conditional inference from the scope of negation and universal projection of the inference from the scope of "none" and "exactly one", as well as suggestive evidence that the inference can be locally accommodated in the scope of negation and "none." These main findings would be difficult to explain if gestures were posited to make at-issue contributions; the finding of local accommodation is also not straightforwardly explained on the view that co-speech gestures contribute supplement-like meanings (Ebert & Ebert 2014). On the other hand, both main findings are compatible with the view that co-speech gestures trigger cosuppositions.
Two main analyses have been proposed to explain how co-speech gestures interact with logical operators. According to the Supplemental analysis (Ebert & Ebert 2014), co-speech gestures have the same semantic status as appositive relative clauses. According to the Cosuppositional analysis (Schlenker To appear a; b), co-speech gestures trigger a particular kind of presupposition. The sentence "John will not use the stairs", produced with an UP gesture (finger pointed upwards) is argued to give rise to the conditional presupposition that if John were to use the stairs, he would use the stairs in an upwards trajectory. Both the Supplemental and Cosuppositional analyses predict that inferences triggered by co-speech gestures should project out of the scope of operators, but not quite in the same way. We present an experimental investigation of the projection properties of the inferences arising from the co-speech gestures UP and DOWN in six different linguistic environments (plain affirmative and negative sentences, modal sentences containing "might", and quantified sentences containing "each", "none", and "exactly one"). Applying a reading detection analysis (Cremers & Chemla 2017) to the responses of a Truth Value Judgment Task and a Picture Selection Task, we find evidence for existential projection of the gestural inferences in the scope of "each", "none", and "exactly one", and, to some degree, local accommodation of the inferences. These results can be derived by the Cosuppositional analysis, in combination with an analysis of presupposition projection such as Beaver (2001), which predicts existential projection out of quantified structures; on the other hand, both findings are difficult to reconcile with the Supplemental analysis. Our projection results bring gestural inferences and verbal presuppositions closer together, but a remaining puzzle is why in quantified structures we obtain existential rather than universal inferences (Chemla 2009), the latter being the more standard finding in the presuppositional literature (though see Tieu et al. 2016 for evidence of universal projection of the same gestural inferences).
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Copyright © 2025 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.