Concept Types and Determination

Abstract

The paper offers a systematic account of four basic types of nouns, of four basic types of nominal determination, and of the interaction of noun type and determination type. The four basic noun types are sortal, individual, relational, and functional; they correspond to the four logical types áe,tñ, e, áe,áe,tññ, and áe,eñ on the one hand, and to four types of concepts on the other. The four basic types of nominal determination are singular definite, indefinite (a variety of determinations including simple indefinite), absolute, and relative, where possessive determination is a combination of relative reference and possessor specification. Only inherently unique concepts are available for singular definite reference, only nonunique ones for indefinite use, only nonrelational concepts for absolute reference, and only relational ones for relative use. However, determiners of each type can be combined with nouns of each lexical type: if the type restrictions are not met, the noun is shifted to an appropriate type. On this basis, congruent and incongruent determinations are distinguished. Statistical, typological, and historical evidence is presented that corroborates the hypothesis that incongruent determination is a marked option and involves type shifts of the noun. 2Logical types of nouns: basic distinctions Sortal, individual, relational, and functional nouns and conceptsNouns, including pronouns and proper names, have lexical meanings of different logical types. The four basic types are sortal, individual, relational, and functional:-Sortal nouns are unary predicate terms, of type áe,tñ. They characterize their potential referents in terms of properties. Their meanings are sortal concepts. In a given context of utterance, there may be zero, one, or more entities the noun denotes.Sortal nouns constitute the prototypical subtype of nouns. They occur with all modes 4 of determination; they naturally take adjectives and attributes; they are syntactically simpler in that they do not need complements such as possessor specifications. Sortal nouns include terms for natural kinds as well as for kinds of artifacts, but these are by no means the only lexical subtypes.-Individual nouns are individual terms, of type e. They include proper names and personal pronouns, along with nouns for unique institutions in a context of utterance: pope, US president, Georgia, weather, temperature. Their meanings are individual concepts which assign a unique referent to every appropriate context of utterance.Due to their inherent uniqueness 5 , the default use of individual nouns in argument position is singular definite; plural, indefinite, and quantificational use requires special contexts.-Relational nouns are binary predicate terms, of type áe,áe,tññ. 6 Their meanings are binary relational concepts, involving a further argument in addition to the referential argument. Relational nouns characterize their referents in terms of a particular relation to some other object. Since this object is usually specified by means of a possessive co...

Definiteness and determinacy

“…We may say that a DP denotation is determinate in a grammar if either (a) it is type e, or (b) it is a property of properties Q, but the context establishes that there is some individual which has all and only the properties of which Q holds. Löbner (2011) provides an extensive and instructive discussion of the typing of nominals, and talks of some nominals "behav [ing] like an individual term in predicate logic", an idea which he then substantiates with diagnostic tests (to which we return in Sect. 4).…”

“…This leaves open the possibility that there are none; hence the absence of an existence implication. For example, putting this lexical entry for the together with a common noun like moon gives us the following: Löbner (1985Löbner ( , 2011 So the moon denotes the property of being a moon, defined if there is no more than one. 19 Let us consider how this proposal compares to other approaches, summarized in Table 1.…”

“…The analysis advocated by Elbourne (2012) falls into this category, with the added twist that definite descriptions come with a situation variable in the syntax. A variant on this idea comes from Löbner (1985Löbner ( , 2011, who argues that common nouns like moon have denotations of type e, and hence that the phrase that definite descriptions combine with is already of type e.…”

“…One prima facie reason for believing that possessives are definite is that possessive descriptions with definite possessors in argument position typically behave like (constant) terms, i.e., behave as if they have denotations of type e. Löbner (2011), building on Löbner (1985) i.a., gives two tests for when an expression behaves as if it has a denotation of type e:…”

Stereotype negation in Frame Semantics

“…father of X), and this renders the study of the internal structure of nominals very difficult (Löbner 2013: 313). The work of scholars such as Löbner (1985Löbner ( , 2011, Pustejovsky (1995), and Lieber (2004) has, nevertheless, shown that nominals, like events, can be studied in their own right.…”