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  1. Scope splitting in Syrian Arabic.Peter Hallman - 2022 - Natural Language Semantics 30 (1):47-76.
    Sentences like _Mary needs to make the fewest mistakes on the upcoming test_ have a ‘split scope’ reading roughly paraphrasable as ‘Mary exceeds all others in terms of how many mistakes she must _not_ make’; that is, her situation is the most precarious. The structural approach to this phenomenon attributes to such sentences a logical form resembling this paraphrase, in which the superlative component of the meaning of _fewest_ scopes above the modal _need to_ and the negative component scopes below (...)
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  • Interpreting plural predication: homogeneity and non-maximality.Manuel Križ & Benjamin Spector - 2020 - Linguistics and Philosophy 44 (5):1131-1178.
    Plural definite descriptions across many languages display two well-known properties. First, they can give rise to so-called non-maximal readings, in the sense that they ‘allow for exceptions’. Second, while they tend to have a quasi-universal quantificational force in affirmative sentences, they tend to be interpreted existentially in the scope of negation. Building on previous works, we offer a theory in which sentences containing plural definite expressions trigger a family of possible interpretations, and where general principles of language use account for (...)
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  • Perspectival Plurality, Relativism, and Multiple Indexing.Dan Zeman - 2018 - In Rob Truswell, Chris Cummins, Caroline Heycock, Brian Rabern & Hannah Rohde (eds.), Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 21. Semantics Archives. pp. 1353-1370.
    In this paper I focus on a recently discussed phenomenon illustrated by sentences containing predicates of taste: the phenomenon of " perspectival plurality " , whereby sentences containing two or more predicates of taste have readings according to which each predicate pertains to a different perspective. This phenomenon has been shown to be problematic for (at least certain versions of) relativism. My main aim is to further the discussion by showing that the phenomenon extends to other perspectival expressions than predicates (...)
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  • Proceedings from SALT X.Brendan Jackson & Tanya Matthews (eds.) - 2000 - CLC Publications.
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  • Pronouns.Daniel Büring - 2011 - In Klaus von Heusinger, Claudia Maienborn & Paul Portner (eds.), Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning. De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 971-996.
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  • Children interpret disjunction as conjunction: Consequences for theories of implicature and child development.Raj Singh, Ken Wexler, Andrea Astle-Rahim, Deepthi Kamawar & Danny Fox - 2016 - Natural Language Semantics 24 (4):305-352.
    We present evidence that preschool children oftentimes understand disjunctive sentences as if they were conjunctive. The result holds for matrix disjunctions as well as disjunctions embedded under every. At the same time, there is evidence in the literature that children understand or as inclusive disjunction in downward-entailing contexts. We propose to explain this seemingly conflicting pattern of results by assuming that the child knows the inclusive disjunction semantics of or, and that the conjunctive inference is a scalar implicature. We make (...)
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  • Donkey pluralities: plural information states versus non-atomic individuals.Adrian Brasoveanu - 2008 - Linguistics and Philosophy 31 (2):129-209.
    The paper argues that two distinct and independent notions of plurality are involved in natural language anaphora and quantification: plural reference (the usual non-atomic individuals) and plural discourse reference, i.e., reference to a quantificational dependency between sets of objects (e.g., atomic/non-atomic individuals) that is established and subsequently elaborated upon in discourse. Following van den Berg (PhD dissertation, University of Amsterdam, 1996), plural discourse reference is modeled as plural information states (i.e., as sets of variable assignments) in a new dynamic system (...)
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  • Le implicature scalari.Salvatore Pistoia-Reda & Jacopo Romoli - 2015 - Aphex 11:1-35.
    Negli ultimi quindici anni la letteratura filosofico-linguistica ha registrato un rinnovato interesse per i meccanismi di implicatura, specialmente del tipo scalare. In buona parte, l’interesse stato suscitato dall’emergere di una prospettiva grammaticale, secondo la quale i fenomeni di implicatura scalare sarebbero conseguenza di un meccanismo interpretativo incassato nella logica delle lingue naturali, e quindi riferibile al componente semantico dell’architettura cognitiva umana. L’obiettivo di questo testo fornire una presentazione di alcuni tra gli argomenti che hanno motivato l’emergere della prospettiva grammaticale. Inizieremo, (...)
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  • Semantica e pragmatica linguistica. Tracce di normalità nelle implicature scalari.Salvatore Pistoia-Reda - 2014 - Carocci.
    In this book an introduction to the grammatical view of the scalar implicature phenomenon is presented. A detailed overview is offered concerning the embeddability of the exhaustivity operator, and the contextual dependance of the alternatives generation process. The theoretical implications of the grammatical view with respect to the abductive character of the scalar implicature are also discussed. A pragmatic account of the assertive content is proposed in correlation with a blindness-based account of the semantic content carried by scalar sentences, in (...)
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  • Reciprocals are Definites.Sigrid Beck - 2001 - Natural Language Semantics 9 (1):69-138.
    This paper proposes that elementary reciprocal sentences have four semantic readings: a strongly reciprocal interpretation, a weakly reciprocal interpretation, a situation-based weakly reciprocal reading, and a collective reading. Interpretational possibilities of reciprocal sentences that have been discussed in the literature are identified as one of these four. A compositional semantic analysis of all of these readings is provided in which the reciprocal expression is uniformly represented as 'the other ones among them' (recasting Heim, Lasnik and May 1991a, b). A reciprocal (...)
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  • Modals as distributive indefinites.Hotze Rullmann, Lisa Matthewson & Henry Davis - 2008 - Natural Language Semantics 16 (4):317-357.
    Modals in St’át’imcets (Lillooet Salish) show two differences from their counterparts in English. First, they have variable quantificational force, systematically allowing both possibility and necessity interpretations; and second, they lexically restrict the conversational background, distinguishing for example between deontic and (several kinds of) epistemic modality. We provide an analysis of the St’át’imcets modals according to which they are akin to specific indefinites in the nominal domain. They introduce choice function variables which select a subset of the accessible worlds. Following Klinedinst, (...)
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  • No more shall we part: Quantifiers in English comparatives.Peter Alrenga & Christopher Kennedy - 2014 - Natural Language Semantics 22 (1):1-53.
    It is well known that the interpretation of quantificational expressions in the comparative clause poses a serious challenge for semantic analyses of the English comparative. In this paper, we develop a new analysis of the comparative clause designed to meet this challenge, in which a silent occurrence of the negative degree quantifier no interacts with other quantificational expressions to derive the observed range of interpretations. Although our analysis incorporates ideas from previous analyses, we show that it is able to account (...)
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  • Friends and colleagues: Plurality, coordination, and the structure of DP.Caroline Heycock & Roberto Zamparelli - 2005 - Natural Language Semantics 13 (3):201-270.
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  • From N to N: The anatomy of a construction. [REVIEW]Joost Zwarts - 2013 - Linguistics and Philosophy 36 (1):65-90.
    This paper develops a detailed and unified analysis of semantics of the from-N-to-N construction, based on a small number of ingredients, none of which are specific to this construction itself, but which are idiomatically packaged in this construction. Letting the construction uniformly apply to the product of the two nouns not only captures their strong relation, but it also obviates a role for a ‘reduplicative’ mechanism of some sort in this particular construction.
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  • Tolerance and Mixed Consequence in the S'valuationist Setting.Pablo Cobreros, Paul Egré, David Ripley & Robert Rooij - 2012 - Studia Logica 100 (4):855-877.
    In a previous paper (see ‘Tolerant, Classical, Strict’, henceforth TCS) we investigated a semantic framework to deal with the idea that vague predicates are tolerant, namely that small changes do not affect the applicability of a vague predicate even if large changes do. Our approach there rests on two main ideas. First, given a classical extension of a predicate, we can define a strict and a tolerant extension depending on an indifference relation associated to that predicate. Second, we can use (...)
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  • Tolerant, Classical, Strict.Pablo Cobreros, Paul Egré, David Ripley & Robert van Rooij - 2012 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 41 (2):347-385.
    In this paper we investigate a semantics for first-order logic originally proposed by R. van Rooij to account for the idea that vague predicates are tolerant, that is, for the principle that if x is P, then y should be P whenever y is similar enough to x. The semantics, which makes use of indifference relations to model similarity, rests on the interaction of three notions of truth: the classical notion, and two dual notions simultaneously defined in terms of it, (...)
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  • On the interpretation of disjunction: Asymmetric, incremental, and eager for inconsistency. [REVIEW]Raj Singh - 2008 - Linguistics and Philosophy 31 (2):245-260.
    Hurford’s Constraint (Hurford, Foundations of Language, 11, 409–411, 1974) states that a disjunction is infelicitous if its disjuncts stand in an entailment relation: #John was born in Paris or in France. Gazdar (Pragmatics, Academic Press, NY, 1979) observed that scalar implicatures can obviate the constraint. For instance, sentences of the form (A or B) or (Both Aand B) are felicitous due to the exclusivity implicature of the first disjunct: A or B implicates ‘not (A and B)’. Chierchia, Fox, and Spector (...)
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  • Generalized quantifiers.Dag Westerståhl - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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  • A puzzle about ontology.Thomas Hofweber - 2005 - Noûs 39 (2):256–283.
    Ontology is the philosophical discipline that tries to find out what there is: what entities make up reality, what is the stuff the world is made from? Thus, ontology is part of metaphysics, and in fact it seems to be about half of all of metaphysics. It tries to establish what (kinds of) things there are, the other half tries to find out what the (general) properties of these things are and what (general) relations they have to each other. Settling (...)
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  • Vagueness and grammar: The semantics of relative and absolute gradable adjectives.Christopher Kennedy - 2007 - Linguistics and Philosophy 30 (1):1 - 45.
    This paper investigates the way that linguistic expressions influence vagueness, focusing on the interpretation of the positive (unmarked) form of gradable adjectives. I begin by developing a semantic analysis of the positive form of ‘relative’ gradable adjectives, expanding on previous proposals by further motivating a semantic basis for vagueness and by precisely identifying and characterizing the division of labor between the compositional and contextual aspects of its interpretation. I then introduce a challenge to the analysis from the class of ‘absolute’ (...)
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  • Stanley Peters and Dag Westerståhl: Quantifiers in language and logic: OUP, New York, 2006, 528 pp. [REVIEW]Edward Keenan & Denis Paperno - 2010 - Linguistics and Philosophy 33 (6):513 - 549.
    Quantifiers in Language and Logic (QLL) is a major contribution to natural language semantics, specifically to quantification. It integrates the extensive recent work on quantifiers in logic and linguistics. It also presents new observations and results. QLL should help linguists understand the mathematical generalizations we can make about natural language quantification, and it should interest logicians by presenting an extensive array of quantifiers that lie beyond the pale of classical logic. Here we focus on those aspects of QLL we judge (...)
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  • The Psychology of Vagueness: Borderline Cases and Contradictions.Sam Alxatib & Francis Jeffry Pelletier - 2011 - Mind and Language 26 (3):287-326.
    In an interesting experimental study, Bonini et al. (1999) present partial support for truth-gap theories of vagueness. We say this despite their claim to find theoretical and empirical reasons to dismiss gap theories and despite the fact that they favor an alternative, epistemic account, which they call ‘vagueness as ignorance’. We present yet more experimental evidence that supports gap theories, and argue for a semantic/pragmatic alternative that unifies the gappy supervaluationary approach together with its glutty relative, the subvaluationary approach.
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  • 'Might' Made Right.Kai von Fintel & Anthony S. Gillies - 2011 - In Andy Egan & Brian Weatherson (eds.), Epistemic Modality. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press. pp. 108–130.
    The simplest story about modals—might, must, possibly, necessary, have to, can, ought to, presumably, likelier, and the rest—is also the canon: modals are context-dependent quantifiers over a domain of possibilities. Different flavors of modality correspond to quantification over different domains of possibilities. Logical modalities quantify over all the possibilities there are, physical modalities over possibilities compatible with the..
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  • Decomposing generalized quantifiers.Dag Westerståhl - 2008 - Review of Symbolic Logic 1 (3):355-371.
    This note explains the circumstances under which a type 1 quantifier can be decomposed into a type 1, 1 quantifier and a set, by fixing the first argument of the former to the latter. The motivation comes from the semantics of Noun Phrases (also called Determiner Phrases) in natural languages, but in this article, I focus on the logical facts. However, my examples are taken among quantifiers appearing in natural languages, and at the end, I sketch two more principled linguistic (...)
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  • Economy and embedded exhaustification.Danny Fox & Benjamin Spector - 2018 - Natural Language Semantics 26 (1):1-50.
    Building on previous works which argued that scalar implicatures can be computed in embedded positions, this paper proposes a constraint on exhaustification which restricts the conditions under which an exhaustivity operator can be licensed. We show that this economy condition allows us to derive a number of generalizations, such as, in particular, the ‘Implicature Focus Generalization’: scalar implicatures can be embedded under a downward-entailing operator only if the scalar term bears pitch accent. Our economy condition also derives specific predictions regarding (...)
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  • French future: exploring the future ratification hypothesis.Alda Mari - 2015 - Journal of French Language Studies:1-26.
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  • Relational domains and the interpretation of reciprocals.Sivan Sabato & Yoad Winter - 2012 - Linguistics and Philosophy 35 (3):191-241.
    We argue that a comprehensive theory of reciprocals must rely on a general taxonomy of restrictions on the interpretation of relational expressions. Developing such a taxonomy, we propose a new principle for interpreting reciprocals that relies on the interpretation of the relation in their scope. This principle, the Maximal Interpretation Hypothesis (MIH), analyzes reciprocals as partial polyadic quantifiers. According to the MIH, the partial quantifier denoted by a reciprocal requires the relational expression REL in its scope to denote a maximal (...)
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  • Pragmatic identification of the witness sets.Livio Robaldo & Jakub Szymanik - 2012 - Proceeding of the 8th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation.
    Among the readings available for NL sentences, those where two or more sets of entities are independent of one another are particularly challenging from both a theoretical and an empirical point of view. Those readings are termed here as ‘Independent Set (IS) readings'. Standard examples of such readings are the well-known Collective and Cumulative Readings. (Robaldo, 2011) proposes a logical framework that can properly represent the meaning of IS readings in terms of a set-Skolemization of the witness sets. One of (...)
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  • (1 other version)Dog After Dog Revisited.Sigrid Beck & Arnim von Stechow - unknown
    The topic of this paper is the semantic analysis of the sentences in (1). (1a,b) contain the adverbial modifiers 'one after the other' and 'dog after dog', respectively, which add to the simple (1') information on how the overall event of the dogs entering the room is to be divided into subevents based on a division of the group of dogs into individual dogs. We call these adverbials pluractional adverbials, following e.g. Lasersohn's (1995) use of the term pluractionality for the (...)
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  • Computational Complexity of Polyadic Lifts of Generalized Quantifiers in Natural Language.Jakub Szymanik - 2010 - Linguistics and Philosophy 33 (3):215-250.
    We study the computational complexity of polyadic quantifiers in natural language. This type of quantification is widely used in formal semantics to model the meaning of multi-quantifier sentences. First, we show that the standard constructions that turn simple determiners into complex quantifiers, namely Boolean operations, iteration, cumulation, and resumption, are tractable. Then, we provide an insight into branching operation yielding intractable natural language multi-quantifier expressions. Next, we focus on a linguistic case study. We use computational complexity results to investigate semantic (...)
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  • Quantification and non-existent objects.Thomas Hofweber - 2000 - In T. Hofweber & A. Everett (eds.), Empty Names, Fiction, and the Puzzles of Non-Existence. CSLI Publications.
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  • (1 other version)Designing Meaningful Agents.Matthew Stone - 2004 - Cognitive Science 28 (5):781-809.
    I show how a conversational process that takes simple, intuitively meaningful steps may be understood as a sophisticated computation that derives the richly detailed, complex representations implicit in our knowledge of language. To develop the account, I argue that natural language is structured in a way that lets us formalize grammatical knowledge precisely in terms of rich primitives of interpretation. Primitives of interpretation can be correctly viewed intentionally, as explanations of our choices of linguistic actions; the model therefore fits our (...)
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  • Singular donkey pronouns are semantically singular.Makoto Kanazawa - 2001 - Linguistics and Philosophy 24 (3):383-403.
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  • Monotonicity and collective quantification.Gilad Ben-avi & Yoad Winter - 2003 - Journal of Logic, Language and Information 12 (2):127-151.
    This article studies the monotonicity behavior of plural determinersthat quantify over collections. Following previous work, we describe thecollective interpretation of determiners such as all, some andmost using generalized quantifiers of a higher type that areobtained systematically by applying a type shifting operator to thestandard meanings of determiners in Generalized Quantifier Theory. Twoprocesses of counting and existential quantification thatappear with plural quantifiers are unified into a single determinerfitting operator, which, unlike previous proposals, both capturesexistential quantification with plural determiners and respects theirmonotonicity (...)
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  • Easy Solutions for a Hard Problem? The Computational Complexity of Reciprocals with Quantificational Antecedents.Fabian Schlotterbeck & Oliver Bott - 2013 - Journal of Logic, Language and Information 22 (4):363-390.
    We report two experiments which tested whether cognitive capacities are limited to those functions that are computationally tractable (PTIME-Cognition Hypothesis). In particular, we investigated the semantic processing of reciprocal sentences with generalized quantifiers, i.e., sentences of the form Q dots are directly connected to each other, where Q stands for a generalized quantifier, e.g. all or most. Sentences of this type are notoriously ambiguous and it has been claimed in the semantic literature that the logically strongest reading is preferred (Strongest (...)
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  • Generalized Update Semantics.Simon Goldstein - 2019 - Mind 128 (511):795-835.
    This paper explores the relationship between dynamic and truth conditional semantics for epistemic modals. It provides a generalization of a standard dynamic update semantics for modals. This new semantics derives a Kripke semantics for modals and a standard dynamic semantics for modals as special cases. The semantics allows for new characterizations of a variety of principles in modal logic, including the inconsistency of ‘p and might not p’. Finally, the semantics provides a construction procedure for transforming any truth conditional semantics (...)
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  • Distributivity, Collectivity, and Cumulativity in Terms of (In)dependence and Maximality.Livio Robaldo - 2011 - Journal of Logic, Language and Information 20 (2):233-271.
    This article proposes a new logical framework for NL quantification. The framework is based on Generalized Quantifiers, Skolem-like functional dependencies, and Maximality of the involved sets of entities. Among the readings available for NL sentences, those where two or more sets of entities are independent of one another are particularly challenging. In the literature, examples of those readings are known as Collective and Cumulative readings. This article briefly analyzes previous approaches to Cumulativity and Collectivity, and indicates (Schwarzschild in Pluralities. Kluwer, (...)
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  • Proceedings of the Sixteenth Amsterdam Colloquium.Maria Aloni & Paul Dekker - unknown
    The 2007 edition of the Amsterdam Colloquium is the Sixteenth in a series which started in 1976. Originally, the Amsterdam Colloquium was an initiative of the Department of Philosophy of the University of Amsterdam. Since 1984 the Colloquium is organized by the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC) of the University of Amsterdam.
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  • Anaphoric Conservativity.R. Zuber - 2022 - Journal of Logic, Language and Information 31 (1):113-128.
    The notion of anaphoric conservativity, that is a property of specific functions taking sets and binary relations as arguments is studied. Such functions are denotations of anaphoric determiners forming nominal anaphors. It is shown that anaphoric conservativity is strictly stronger that ordinary conservativity of this type of functions. In consequence some novel semantic descriptions of reflexive and reciprocal pronouns are provided and a semantic universal stating that reflexive and reciprocal non-possessive determiners denote anaphorically conservative functions is proposed.
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  • Un enigma per l’ontologia.Thomas Hofweber - 2006 - Rivista di Estetica 32 (32):41-69.
    1 Ontologia L’ontologia è la disciplina filosofica che cerca di scoprire che cosa c’è: quali entità costituiscono la realtà, di che materia è fatto il mondo? Dunque l’ontologia è parte della metafisica ed infatti sembra rappresentare all’incirca la metà della metafisica. Essa cerca di stabilire quali (generi di) cose ci siano, l’altra metà cerca di scoprire quali siano le proprietà (generali) di queste cose e quali relazioni (generali) intercorrano fra esse. La risoluzione di questioni nell’a...
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  • Plurals, all, and the nonuniformity of collective predication.C. Brisson - 2003 - Linguistics and Philosophy 26 (2):129-184.
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  • Inessential features, ineliminable features, and modal logics for model theoretic syntax.Hans-Jörg Tiede - 2008 - Journal of Logic, Language and Information 17 (2):217-227.
    While monadic second-order logic (MSO) has played a prominent role in model theoretic syntax, modal logics have been used in this context since its inception. When comparing propositional dynamic logic (PDL) to MSO over trees, Kracht (1997) noted that there are tree languages that can be defined in MSO that can only be defined in PDL by adding new features whose distribution is predictable. He named such features “inessential features”. We show that Kracht’s observation can be extended to other modal (...)
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  • Plural Predication and the Strongest Meaning Hypothesis.Yoad Winter - 2001 - Journal of Semantics 18 (4):333-365.
    The Strongest Meaning Hypothesis of Dalrymple et al (1994,1998), which was originally proposed as a principle for the interpretation of reciprocals, is extended in this paper into a general principle of plural predication. This principle applies to complex predicates that are composed of lexical predicates that hold of atomic entities, and determines the pluralities in the extension of the predicate. The meaning of such a complex predicate is claimed to be the truth-conditionally strongest meaning that does not contradict lexical properties (...)
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  • Against ellipsis: arguments for the direct licensing of ‘noncanonical’ coordinations.Yusuke Kubota & Robert Levine - 2015 - Linguistics and Philosophy 38 (6):521-576.
    Categorial grammar is well-known for its elegant analysis of coordination enabled by the flexible notion of constituency it entertains. However, to date, no systematic study exists that examines whether this analysis has any obvious empirical advantage over alternative analyses of nonconstituent coordination available in phrase structure-based theories of syntax. This paper attempts precisely such a comparison. We compare the direct constituent coordination analysis of non-canonical coordinations in categorial grammar with an ellipsis-based analysis of the same phenomena in the recent HPSG (...)
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  • On the Identification of Quantifiers' Witness Sets: A Study of Multi-quantifier Sentences.Livio Robaldo, Jakub Szymanik & Ben Meijering - 2014 - Journal of Logic, Language and Information 23 (1):53-81.
    Natural language sentences that talk about two or more sets of entities can be assigned various readings. The ones in which the sets are independent of one another are particularly challenging from the formal point of view. In this paper we will call them ‘Independent Set (IS) readings’. Cumulative and collective readings are paradigmatic examples of IS readings. Most approaches aiming at representing the meaning of IS readings implement some kind of maximality conditions on the witness sets involved. Two kinds (...)
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  • Acceptable Contradictions: Pragmatics or Semantics? A Reply to Cobreros et al. [REVIEW]Sam Alxatib, Peter Pagin & Uli Sauerland - 2013 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 42 (4):619-634.
    Naive speakers find some logical contradictions acceptable, specifically borderline contradictions involving vague predicates such as Joe is and isn’t tall. In a recent paper, Cobreros et al. (J Philos Logic, 2012) suggest a pragmatic account of the acceptability of borderline contradictions. We show, however, that the pragmatic account predicts the wrong truth conditions for some examples with disjunction. As a remedy, we propose a semantic analysis instead. The analysis is close to a variant of fuzzy logic, but conjunction and disjunction (...)
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  • Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 15, Saarbruecken.Ingo Reich (ed.) - 2010 - Saarbrücken: Universitätsverlag des Saarlandes.
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  • The * hope-wh puzzle.Wataru Uegaki & Yasutada Sudo - 2019 - Natural Language Semantics 27 (4):323-356.
    Clause-embedding predicates come in three major varieties: responsive predicates are compatible with both declarative and interrogative complements; rogative predicates are only compatible with interrogative complements; and anti-rogative predicates are only compatible with declarative complements. It has been suggested that these selectional properties are at least partly semantic in nature. In particular, it has been proposed that the anti-rogativity of neg-raising predicates like believe comes from the triviality in meaning that would arise with interrogative complements. This paper puts forward a similar (...)
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  • Dynamics of Reflexivity and Reciprocity.Sarah E. Murray - 2007 - In Maria Aloni & Paul Dekker (eds.), Proceedings of the Sixteenth Amsterdam Colloquium. pp. 157--162.
    Plural reflexives and reciprocals are anaphoric not only to antecedent pluralities but also to relations between the members of those pluralities. In this paper, I utilize Dynamic Plural Logic (van den Berg 1996) to analyze reflexives and reciprocals as anaphors that elaborate on relations introduced by the verb, which can be collective, cumulative, or distributive. This analysis generalizes to languages like Cheyenne (Algonquian) where reflexivity and reciprocity are expressed by a single proform that I argue is underspecified, not ambiguous.
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  • Cumulation is Needed: A Reply to Winter (2000). [REVIEW]Sigrid Beck & Uli Sauerland - 2000 - Natural Language Semantics 8 (4):349-371.
    Winter (2000) argues that so-called co-distributive or cumulative readings do not involve polyadic quantification (contra proposals by Krifka, Schwarzschild, Sternefeld, and others). Instead, he proposes that all such readings involve a hidden anaphoric dependency or a lexical mechanism. We show that Winter's proposal is insufficient for a number of cases of cumulative readings, and that Krifka's and Sternefeld's polyadic **-operator is needed in addition to dependent definites. Our arguments come from new observations concerning dependent plurals and clause-boundedness effects with cumulative (...)
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