Generalized Quantifiers

Partee, Barbara H.; Meulen, Alice Ter; Wall, Robert E.

doi:10.1007/978-94-009-2213-6_14

Cited by 8 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…Proportional readings in the nominal domain have mainly been discussed in the literature on the basis of examples with many and few. It is known since at least Westerståhl (1985a) that next to a cardinal reading, as in, e.g., (4a) (Partee 1989), which requires that the cardinality of the faculty children who attended the party is below a contextually determined standard, few (and many) can give rise to a proportional reading, as in, e.g., (4b) (Partee 1989), according to which the ratio of the cardinality of egg-laying mammals who suckle their young to the cardinality of all egg-laying mammals is below a contextually determined standard. Next to this forward proportional reading, however, proportional uses are also known to give rise to a reverse proportional reading (Westerståhl 1985b), as in, e.g., (4c) (Herburger 1997) according to which the proportion of the cardinality of cooks who applied to the cardinality of all applicants lies below a contextual standard.…”

Section: Forward and Reverse Proportionalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

On the source of proportionality in nominal measurement: evidence from Greek

Spathas¹,

Αλεξιαδου

2023

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics

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A large array of nominal measurement structures can give rise to proportional readings, i.e., readings which specify the proportional relation of two measurements. Two key questions in the analysis of such readings is (a) whether nominal measurement structures are (or can be) in some sense inherently proportional or whether proportionality comes to be part of the meaning of nominal measurement via some external factor, like the manipulation of a contextual standard, the choice of a proportional measure function, or the presence of a relative modifier, and (b) to what extent it is possible to attribute proportionality to a single source across different nominal measurement structures. This paper addresses these questions by investigating the proportional readings of three nominal measurement structures in Greek (comparatives, juxtaposed measurement structures, and partitive measurement structures) as they arise in the presence of precise proportions specified by percentages like n tis ekato ‘n percent’. We argue that even in the presence of such relative modifiers, it is necessary to assume a second source of proportionality. We provide novel evidence for the necessity of proportional measure functions for both comparatives and juxtaposed measurement structures. Partitives are the only case at hand that seems to necessitate inherent proportionality. Moreover, a unified analysis of precise proportions is shown to be possible as long as we move away from a standard analysis of differential comparatives.

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Section: Forward and Reverse Proportionalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

On the source of proportionality in nominal measurement: evidence from Greek

Spathas¹,

Αλεξιαδου

2023

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics

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“…For D in (19) we assume the semantics in (16), while (20) is a semantic entry for R. This is a function which takes two properties, and returns a property of individuals that has these two properties. In case the second argument of R happens to be of type e, as in (19), it is turned into a property by an (intensional version of a) type-shifting operation ident (Partee 1987) which maps an individual to a property of being identical to that individual 23 = λ P 〈 e , σt 〉 .…”

Section: Towards a Semantico-pragmatic Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Between demonstrative and definite: A grammar competition model of the evolution of French l-determiners

Simonenko

Carlier

2020

Can. J. Linguist.

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This article investigates the spread of the le/la/les-forms in the diachrony of French on the basis of large-scale corpora. It focuses on the issue of their “mixed” distribution viz. the observation that during a long period of time the le/la/les-forms in French do not pattern as either (anaphoric) demonstratives from which they originate (Late Latin ille), nor as (uniqueness-based) definites, which they end up becoming in Modern French. We model the phenomenon as a competition between two grammars which ascribe different Logical Forms to the l-forms and test model predictions in contexts which differ with respect to whether they satisfy the relevant conditions for either demonstrative or definite semantics. We also suggest that this change was part of a larger change involving the spread of presupposition triggers within noun phrases. We show that our model correctly predicts the relative rates of determiner spread in various contexts.

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“…For the purposes of this paper, I will assume that shifting the murderer from e to 〈 e , t 〉 is accomplished by an IDENT operator (cf. Partee 1987). 17 The SC in (82) and (81), then, has the following CT-F structure: The murderer is you. Focus: you CT: IDENT Given/presupposed: the murderer …”

Section: The Contrastive Topic Requirement On Sc Subjectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The contrastive topic requirement on specificational subjects

Milway

2020

Can. J. Linguist.

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This paper offers a discourse-pragmatic account of the constraint on indefinite DPs as subjects of specificational copular clauses (a doctor is Mary). Building on Mikkelsen's (2004) proposal that specificational subjects are topics, I argue that they must be contrastive topics which properly contain F-marked constituents. I show that this can account for the absolute ban on simple indefinite subjects, and allow for more complex indefinites to be subjects. Finally, I discuss the syntactic analysis that would be predicted given my pragmatic analysis, and the puzzles that arise from it.

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Generalized Quantifiers

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

On the source of proportionality in nominal measurement: evidence from Greek

On the source of proportionality in nominal measurement: evidence from Greek

Between demonstrative and definite: A grammar competition model of the evolution of French l-determiners

The contrastive topic requirement on specificational subjects

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