Talk of linguistic universals has given cognitive scientists the impression that languages are all built to a common pattern. In fact, there are vanishingly few universals of language in the direct sense that all languages exhibit them. Instead, diversity can be found at almost every level of linguistic organization. This fundamentally changes the object of enquiry from a cognitive science perspective. This target article summarizes decades of cross-linguistic work by typologists and descriptive linguists, showing just how few and unprofound the (...) universal characteristics of language are, once we honestly confront the diversity offered to us by the world's 6,000 to 8,000 languages. After surveying the various uses of “universal,” we illustrate the ways languages vary radically in sound, meaning, and syntactic organization, and then we examine in more detail the core grammatical machinery of recursion, constituency, and grammatical relations. Although there are significant recurrent patterns in organization, these are better explained as stable engineering solutions satisfying multiple design constraints, reflecting both cultural-historical factors and the constraints of human cognition.Linguistic diversity then becomes the crucial datum for cognitive science: we are the only species with a communication system that is fundamentally variable at all levels. Recognizing the true extent of structural diversity in human language opens up exciting new research directions for cognitive scientists, offering thousands of different natural experiments given by different languages, with new opportunities for dialogue with biological paradigms concerned with change and diversity, and confronting us with the extraordinary plasticity of the highest human skills. (shrink)

In this paper we examine interactions of the reciprocal with distributive and collective operators, which are encoded by prefixes on verbs expressing the reciprocal relation: namely, the Czech distributive po and the collectivizing na-. The theoretical import of this study is two-fold. First, it contributes to our knowledge of how word-internal operators interact with phrasal syntax/semantics. Second, the prefixes po and na generate (a range of) readings of reciprocal sentences for which the Strongest Meaning Hypothesis (SMH) proposed by Dalrymple et (...) al. (1998) does not make the right predictions. The distributive prefix po prefers the Strong Reciprocity reading, although the SMH predicts that a weakening should take place, while with the prefix na we find cases where weaker reciprocal readings are preferable to the stronger ones predicted by the SMH. This behavior of po and na is, we propose, due to the way in which they modulate two factors that are crucial in the interpretation of reciprocal sentences: (i) the relevant subpluralities in the group denoted by the reciprocal's antecedent, and (ii) the strength of reciprocal relations. We provide a detailed analysis of the semantics of the prefixes po and na and their contribution to the meaning of reciprocal sentences within the general framework of event semantics with lattice structures. (shrink)

The animalist says we are animals. This thesis is commonly understood as the universal generalization that all human persons are human animals. This article proposes an alternative: the thesis is a generic that admits of exceptions. We defend the resulting view, which we call ‘generic animalism’, and show its aptitude for diagnosing the limits of eight case-based objections to animalism.

Standard theories of scope are semantically blind. They employ a single logico-syntactic rule of scope assignment quantifying in Quantifier Raising, storage, or type change etc which roughly speaking prefixes an expression \aplha.

In our opinion, the discontinuity between extant human and nonhuman minds is much broader and deeper than most researchers admit. We are happy to report that Evans & Levinson's (E&L's) target article strongly corroborates our unpopular hypothesis, and that the comparative evidence, in turn, bolsters E&L's provocative argument. Both a Universal Grammar and the “mental continuity” between human and nonhuman minds turn out to be modern myths.

Ways of Scope Taking is concerned with syntactic, semantic and computational aspects of scope. Its starting point is the well-known but often neglected fact that different types of quantifiers interact differently with each other and other operators. The theoretical examination of significant bodies of data, both old and novel, leads to two central claims. (1) Scope is a by-product of a set of distinct Logical Form processes; each quantifier participates in those that suit its particular features. (2) Scope interaction is (...) further constrained by the semantics of the interacting operators. The arguments are developed using Minimalist syntax, Generalized Quantify theory, Discourse Representation Theory, and algebraic semantics. The contributors (Beghelli, Ben-Shalom, Doetjes, Farkas, Gutiérrez Rexach, Honcoop, Stabler, Stowell, Szabolcsi and Zwarts) make tightly related theoretical assumptions and focus on related empirical phenomena, which include the direct and inverse scope of quantifiers, distributivity, negation, modal and intensional contexts, weak islands, event-related readings, interrogatives, wh/quantifier interactions, and Hungarian syntax. An introduction to the formal semantics background is provided. Audience: Linguists, philosophers, computational and psycholinguists; advanced undergraduates, graduate students and researchers in these fields. (shrink)

In this paper, I shall explore a determiner in natural language which is ambivalent as to whether it should be classified as quantificational or objectdenoting: the determiner both. Both in many ways appears to be a paradigmatic quantifier; and yet, I shall argue, it can be interpreted as having an individual—an object—as semantic value. To show the significance of this, I shall discuss two ways of thinking about quantifiers. We often think about quantifiers via intuitions about kinds of thoughts. Certain (...) terms are naturally used to express singular thoughts, and appear to do so by contributing objects to the thoughts expressed. Other terms are naturally used to express general thoughts, and appear to do so by contributing higher-order properties to the thoughts expressed. Viewed this way, the main condition on whether a term is a quantifier or not is whether its semantic value is an object or a higher-order property. At least, these provide necessary conditions. Both can be interpreted as contributing objects to thoughts, and in many cases appears to express genuine singular thoughts. Thinking about quantifiers this way, both can appear object-denoting and non-quantificational. We also often think about quantifiers in terms of a range linguistic features, including semantic value, presupposition, scope, binding, syntactic distribution, and many others. Viewed this way, I shall argue, both can appear quantificational. In particular, it displays scope behavior that is one of the hallmarks of quantification. But, I shall show, it can do so even if given a semantics on which it denotes an object. Thus, both appears quantificational by some linguistic standards, and yet appears object-denoting by standards based on intuitions about the kinds.. (shrink)

Knowledge ascriptions seem context sensitive. Yet it is widely thought that epistemic contextualism does not have a plausible semantic implementation. We aim to overcome this concern by articulating and defending an explicit contextualist semantics for ‘know,’ which integrates a fairly orthodox contextualist conception of knowledge as the elimination of the relevant alternatives, with a fairly orthodox “Amherst” semantics for A-quantification over a contextually variable domain of situations. Whatever problems epistemic contextualism might face, lack of an orthodox semantic implementation is not (...) among them. (shrink)

Formal semantics has so far focused on three categories of quantifiers, to wit, Q-determiners (e.g. 'every'), Q-adverbs (e.g. 'always'), and Q-auxiliaries (e.g. 'would'). All three can be analyzed in terms of tripartite logical forms (LF). This paper presents evidence from verbs with distributive affixes (Q-verbs) in Kalaallisut, Polish, and Bininj Gun-wok, which cannot be analyzed in terms of tripartite LFs. It is argued that a Q-verb involves discourse reference to a distributive verbal dependency, i.e. an episode-valued function that sends different (...) semantic objects in a contextually salient plural domain to different episodes. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to elucidate the processes that characterize natural language interpretation. The basic hypothesis is that natural language interpretation can be characterized as an optimization problem. This innovative view on interpretation is shown to account for the crucial role of contextual information while avoiding certain well-known problems associated withcompositionality. This will become particularly clear in the context of incomplete expressions. Our approach takes as a point of departure total freedom ofinterpretation in combination with the parallel application (...) of soft constraints on possible interpretations. These constraints can be contextual, intonational or syntactic in nature. The integration of pragmatic andsyntactic/semantic information in a system of ranked constraints is proposed to correctly derive the optimal interpretations in cases of nominal anaphorization, determiner quantification and elliptical comparatives. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Natural language semantics is heir to two formalisms. There is the extensional machinery of explicit variables traditionally used to model reference to individuals, and the intensional machinery of implicit index parameters traditionally used to model reference to worlds and times. I propose instead a simple and unified extensional formalism – explicit semantics – on which all sentences include explicit individual, world and time variables. No implicit index parameters are needed.

Generics are exception-admitting generalisations, which find expression in apparently diverse linguistic forms. A standard claim is that there is a hidden linguistic unity to genericity in the form of a covert operator, Gen. This article surveys and rejects a range of considerations that purport to show Gen to be syntactically essential to the explanation of a range of linguistic phenomena connected to genericity. The conclusion reached is that genericity is not a specifically linguistic property insofar as it does not supervene (...) upon any especial linguistic device; rather, genericity supervenes on broader cognitive competencies within linguistic constraints. (shrink)

This book combines insights from philosophy and linguistics to develop a novel framework for theorizing about linguistic meaning and the role of context in interpretation. A key innovation is to introduce explicit representations of context — assignment variables — in the syntax and semantics of natural language. The proposed theory systematizes a spectrum of “shifting” phenomena in which the context relevant for interpreting certain expressions depends on features of the linguistic environment. Central applications include local and nonlocal contextual dependencies with (...) quantifiers, attitude ascriptions, conditionals, questions, and relativization. The result is an innovative, philosophically informed compositional semantics compatible with the truth-conditional paradigm. (shrink)

This paper examines a type of discourse structure we here call ‘generic passages’. We argue that generic passages should be analyzed as sequences of generic sentences, each sentence containing its own GEN operator (Krifka et al. 1995). The GEN operators produce tripartite matrix/restrictor structures; the main discourse connection among the sentences is that the restrictor produced by each sentence in the sequence has as its contents the information in the matrix produced by the previous sentence in the discourse. We also (...) argue that an identity of reference times is required for this process to occur. In the end generic passages are a natural product of the interaction of generic operators in sentences with independently- established principles structuring ordinary extensional narrative. (shrink)

While generic generalisations have been studied by linguists and philosophers for decades, they have only recently become the focus of concentrated interest by cognitive and developmental psychologists, who propose the generics-as-default view. In this paper we focus on the ‘Generic Overgeneralisation’ (GOG) effect proposed by Leslie and colleagues and the native speaker judgments that have been used to support it, and by extension, the generics-as-default view. We take a step back to look at the history of the GOG effect in (...) order to contextualise it. We review existing experimental evidence and discuss four non-mutually exclusive explanations for the GOG effect: ignorance, subkind interpretation, atypical behaviour of all and quantifier domain restriction. We conclude that a closer look at the semantics and pragmatics of generics and universal quantifiers may provide a more nuanced explanation for the pattern of judgment data than that proposed by the generics-as-default view. (shrink)

In this paper, we discuss the fact that not only adverbially quantified sentences with singular indefinites or bare plurals but also ones containing plural definites show Quantificational Variability Effects, that is, they receive readings according to which the quantificational force of the respective DP seems to depend on the quantificational force of the Q-adverb. We show that if the Q-adverb is a frequency adverb like usually, there is strong evidence that QVEs come about as indirect effects of a quantification over (...) situations. This conclusion is based on the fact that in such cases the availability of QVEs is constrained in ways that have no parallel in sentences containing adverbs of quantity like for the most part or quantificational DPs instead of frequency adverbs. We show that these constraints can be derived from plausible assumptions about how the situations to be quantified over are constrained: they have to be located in time on the basis of the most specific locally available information, and their running times are not allowed to overlap. (shrink)

This paper gives an analysis of the Chinese distributivity marker dou 'all', which can occur not only with definite plural NPs but also with NPs whose determiner is a quantifier word such as mei 'every' or dabufen-de 'most'. Besides normal distributive predicates, it can also occur with certain types of collective predicates. The difficulties of giving a compositional interpretation to constructions of these kinds are discussed in detail. I show that we can solve those difficulties if we treat dou as (...) a generalized distributivity marker in the sense of Schwarzschild (1991, 1996), which distributes over the members of a plurality cover. Apart from the above topic, which is more narrowly a semantics topic, this paper also discusses some syntax-semantics interface issues related to the distribution of dou's associates. (shrink)

While generic generalisations have been studied by linguists and philosophers for decades, they have only recently become the focus of concentrated interest by cognitive and developmental p...

Our response takes advantage of the wide-ranging commentary to clarify some aspects of our original proposal and augment others. We argue against the generative critics of our coevolutionary program for the language sciences, defend the use of close-to-surface models as minimizing cross-linguistic data distortion, and stress the growing role of stochastic simulations in making generalized historical accounts testable. These methods lead the search for general principles away from idealized representations and towards selective processes. Putting cultural evolution central in understanding language (...) diversity makes learning fundamental in the cognition of language: increasingly powerful models of general learning, paired with channelled caregiver input, seem set to manage language acquisition without recourse to any innate “universal grammar.” Understanding why human language has no clear parallels in the animal world requires a cross-species perspective: crucial ingredients are vocal learning (for which there are clear non-primate parallels) and an intention-attributing cognitive infrastructure that provides a universal base for language evolution. We conclude by situating linguistic diversity within a broader trend towards understanding human cognition through the study of variation in, for example, human genetics, neurocognition, and psycholinguistic processing. (shrink)