Birner & Ward (2006) - Drawing The Boundaries

Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning
Studies in Language Companion Series (SLCS)

The SLCS series has been established as a companion series to Studies in Language, International Journal, sponsored by the Foundation Foundations of Language.
Series Editors Werner Abraham

University of Vienna
Michael Noonan
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Editorial Board Joan Bybee

University of New Mexico
Christian Lehmann
University of Erfurt
Ulrike Claudi
University of Cologne
Robert Longacre
University of Texas, Arlington
Bernard Comrie
Max Planck Institute For Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig
Brian MacWhinney
Carnegie-Mellon University
Marianne Mithun
University of California, Santa Barbara
William Croft
University of New Mexico
Edith Moravcsik
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
sten Dahl
University of Stockholm
Masayoshi Shibatani
Rice University and Kobe University
Gerrit Dimmendaal
University of Leiden
Russell Tomlin
University of Oregon
Ekkehard Knig
Free University of Berlin
Volume 80 Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning: Neo-Gricean studies in pragmatics and semantics in honor of Laurence R. Horn Edited by Betty J. Birner and Gregory Ward

Neo-Gricean studies in pragmatics and semantics in honor of Laurence R. Horn
Edited by
Betty J. Birner
Northern Illinois University
Gregory Ward
Northwestern University
John Benjamins Publishing Company

Amsterdam / Philadelphia
TM
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Drawing the boundaries of meaning : neo-Gricean studies in pragmatics and semantics in honor of Laurence R. Horn / edited by Betty J. Birner and Gregory Ward. p. cm. (Studies in Language Companion Series, issn 01657763 ; v. 80) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. 1. Pragmatics. 2. Semantics. I. Horn, Laurence R. II. Birner, Betty J. III. Ward, Gregory L. IV. Series. P99.4.P72D73 2006 306.44--dc22 isbn 90 272 3090 0 (Hb; alk. paper)
2006047726
2006 John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microlm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. P.O. Box 36224 1020 me Amsterdam The Netherlands John Benjamins North America P.O. Box 27519 Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 usa
Table of contents
Introduction Where have some of the presuppositions gone? Barbara Abbott The top 10 misconceptions about implicature Kent Bach Inferential relations and noncanonical word order Betty J. Birner Sherlock Holmes was in no danger Greg Carlson and Gianluca Storto Free choice in Romanian Donka F. Farkas Polarity, questions, and the scalar properties of even Anastasia Giannakidou Discourse particles and the symbiosis of natural language processing and basic research Georgia M. Green Saying less and meaning less Michael Israel I cant seem to figure this out Pauline Jacobson Referring expressions and conversational implicature Andrew Kehler and Gregory Ward Indexi-lexicography Steve Kleinedler and Randall Eggert
ix 1
21
31
53
71
95
117
137
157
177
195
vi
Why defining is seldom just semantics: Marriage and marriage Sally McConnell-Ginet Negation and modularity Frederick J. Newmeyer A note on Mandarin possessives, demonstratives, and definiteness Barbara H. Partee On a homework problem of Larry Horns Francis Jeffry Pelletier and Andrew Hartline Impersonal pronouns in French and Yiddish: Semantic reference vs. discourse reference Ellen F. Prince Motors and switches: An exercise in syntax and pragmatics Jerrold M. Sadock Fine-tuning Jespersens Cycle Scott A. Schwenter Index
217
241
263
281
295
317
327
345
Introduction
The Gricean program has never had a stronger, more eloquent, or more energetic champion than Laurence R. Horn, one of the most universally respected scholars working in linguistics today. Drawing upon Larrys own research, one might appropriately describe him (using a prototype-connoting lexical clone) as a scholar scholar although Larry himself is far too modest to describe himself in that way. With over 100 publications to his name (and a four-digit citation index which is climbing daily), Larry has contributed enormously to the field, from his early studies on the logical operators in English, through his unparalleled work on negation, to his status as the reigning defender of the neo-Gricean school of linguistic pragmatics. And he has pursued this multifaceted research program with both creative genius and razor-sharp wit (as witnessed by his production of such scholarly gems as Spitten image: Etymythology and fluid dynamics, Grisotto alla milanese, Boats, birds, and beans: The birth of pragmatics and the genealogy of morays: Allusion and reality in the Seussian epic, and Showdown at truth-value gap: Burton-Roberts on presupposition). And nobody has done more to clarify the elusive boundary between semantics and pragmatics. It started with his hugely influential 1972 UCLA Ph.D. thesis (On the Semantic Properties of Logical Operators in English), unquestionably one of the most important dissertations in the field. In it, Larry lays the groundwork for what would later become known as the classic Gricean analysis of logical operators. The theory of scalar implicature presented in his thesis has changed the way people (and not just linguists, but philosophers, psychologists, and computer scientists as well) think about the boundary between semantics and pragmatics and the complex interplay between the two. The basic idea can be stated quite simply: Given a scale defined by entailment, a speakers use of a weaker (entailed) value on that scale implicates that the speaker was unable to commit to a stronger (entailing) value on the same scale. The genius behind the basic observation lay in showing how that principle plays out in natural language in subtle yet systematic ways. As added testimony to Larrys influence, these scales despite Larrys vigorous protestations have come to be called Horn scales, an eponymous nod to the profound influence of Larrys work in this area. His book A Natural History of Negation (University of Chicago, 1989; reprinted by CSLI, 2001) is the most scholarly and comprehensive work on the subject of natural language negation ever written. Drawing on over two millennia of studies in logic, philosophy, psychology, and of course linguistics, it assembles under one roof a vast
history of past and current work on the form, meaning, and use of negative expressions in natural language, and reexamines it from a neo-Gricean perspective. With his theory of Q- and R-based conversational implicature, Larry has defended and preserved the spirit of the (neo-)Gricean program against a host of alternative analyses. The insight behind his theory was that Grices original set of maxims and submaxims (setting Quality aside as an overarching principle) could be collapsed into two competing forces: the hearer-oriented Q Principle, requiring that what is said be sufficient for interpretation, and the speaker-oriented R Principle, requiring that what is said be no more than is necessary for interpretation. His influential theory known as the Division of Pragmatic Labor shows how the interplay of these two opposing forces accounts for a broad range of natural-language phenomena. The role of such pragmatic principles in shaping the lexicon has become increasingly clear over the years, due in large part to Larrys contributions in this area. Larrys current work explores how the Q and R Principles hold sway over the structure and use of lexical items, including such phenomena as euphemism, pragmatic strengthening, scalar implicature, polarity items, and lexical choice in general. Through a detailed analysis of diachronic, synchronic, and developmental data, Larry provides further support for his neo-Gricean view of the role of pragmatics in our understanding and use of language. At the heart of Larrys research program lies one of the most hotly contested issues in contemporary linguistic theory: the treatment and delineation of the boundary between semantics and pragmatics. Given the extent to which Larrys career has been spent delimiting the boundary between the two, it is only fitting that a festschrift in his honor focus on issues at this boundary. Currently, boundary phenomena are caught in the crossfire between competing theoretical approaches, which can be broadly termed the neo-Gricean camp and the Relevance-theoretic camp. What is at stake in the battle between these two pragmatic theories is not only the delineation of the boundary between semantics and pragmatics, but also the treatment of a wide range of border phenomena. This volume is intended to bring together the best of current work at the semantics/pragmatics boundary from a neo-Gricean perspective. The papers included cover topics such as implicature (Bach), inference (Birner), presupposition (Abbott), lexical semantics (Green, Kleinedler & Eggert, McConnell-Ginet), negation (Jacobson, Newmeyer, Schwenter), polarity (Farkas, Giannakidou, Israel), implicit variables (Carlson & Storto), definiteness (Partee), reference (Kehler & Ward, Prince), and logic (Pelletier & Hartline, Sadock). Each one draws on, and contributes to, current theory at the semantics/pragmatics border. The contributors represent some of the most eminent researchers in the field, each of whom enthusiastically and immediately responded yes when asked to contribute to a festschrift in Larrys honor. We thank them for their efforts, which together convey the fields deep appreciation to Larry for his many past, present, and future contributions.
Introduction
xi
And so we offer you a veritable Hornucopia of neo-Gricean perspectives on drawing the boundaries of meaning. Betty J. Birner Gregory Ward
Where have some of the presuppositions gone?*1

Barbara Abbott
Michigan State University
The problem is to explain why some presupposition triggers (discover, win) are soft, in the sense that their presuppositions are easily neutralized (i.e., they disappear), while others (regret, clefts) are hard. Before attacking that problem, I try to clarify the difference between presuppositions and conventional implicatures; as those terms were used historically, presuppositions were entailed while conventional implicatures were not. I also try to clarify the differences among suspension, cancellation, filtering, and neutralization of presuppositions and conventional implicatures. Then I explore the hypothesis that neutralization correlates with nondetachability, the idea being that if a particular presupposition or conventional implicature is easily detached it should not be neutralizable (and thus its trigger should be a hard trigger), but if it is nondetachable it should be neutralizable. The correlation works well for many cases, including the apparent fact that all conventional implicature triggers are hard triggers, but ultimately does not succeed for factive verbs.
1.
Introduction
Some presuppositions seem to be weaker than others in the sense that they can be more easily neutralized in some contexts. For example some factive verbs, most notably epistemic factives like know, be aware, and discover, are known to shed their factivity fairly easily in contexts such as are found in (1).
* An earlier version of this paper was read at the Workshop on Philosophy and Linguistics held in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan, November 2003. I am grateful to the participants in that workshop for their comments, especially David Beaver, Craige Roberts, Rich Thomason, and Gregory Ward. I am also grateful to Betty Birner, Gene Cline, Larry Hauser, Matt McKeon, Myles McNally, Gregory Ward, and especially Larry Horn and Carol Slater for their helpful comments on more recent versions.
(1) a. if anyone discovers that the method is also wombat-proof, Id really like to know! b. Mrs. London is not aware that there have ever been signs erected to stop use of the route c. Perhaps God knows that we will never reach the stars. (The examples in (1) are all naturally occurring ones, discovered by David Beaver with the aid of Google; cf. Beaver 2002, exx. 32, 43, and 51, respectively.) On the other hand some other factives, e.g. regret, matter, and be surprised, do not exhibit the same type of behavior: (2) a. If any of the students regrets behaving badly, theyll let us know. b. It doesnt matter that the chimpanzees escaped. c. Was Bill surprised that spinach was included? Unlike the examples in (1), those in (2) could not be used appropriately in contexts where the speaker was not assuming that the complement clause was true. Our main concern will be trying to find the cause of this difference. However, before we get to that, we will look more closely at the concept presupposition itself, as well as its close neighbor in the linguistic literature, conventional implicature (section 2), and also at various ways of getting rid of presuppositions (section 3). In section 4 we will investigate two possible explanations for differences in presupposition triggering the lexical alternative approach of Abusch (2002, 2005), and a suggestion of Ladusaws involving detachability of presuppositions. The final section contains concluding remarks.
2. Presuppositions vs. conventional implicatures

A number of researchers construe presupposition in a way that accords naturally with the everyday use of this word, i.e. as referring to a prior assumption, something which must belong to the common ground in order to make an utterance felicitous (see below). Although this may generally be true of presuppositions, I will not assume that it is definitional. Instead, we will start off with an ostensive characterization, and then fill in some criteria. Let us start by reminding ourselves that the term presupposition arose in the modern Anglo-American tradition shortly after Strawsons (1950) recapitulation of some of Freges (1892:68ff ) observations about definite descriptions namely that when they occur in subject position in a simple sentence, the existence of an entity meeting the description involved would not be asserted in utterances of that sentence but would rather be conveyed in a less direct way, and that this is also true for utterances of the negated sentence. That is, to use Strawsons example, assertion of either (3a) or (3b) would presuppose the truth of (3c).
Where have some of the presuppositions gone?
(3) a. The king of France is wise. b. The king of France isnt wise. c. There is a king of France. Thus the existence assumption associated with definite descriptions became a prototypical instance of the category of presuppositions. In the linguistics literature the discovery by Kiparsky & Kiparsky (1970) of factive predicates like the ones exemplified at the outset was the next breakthrough. The presupposition triggered by predicates like know, regret and be odd that, that their complement clauses are true, shares with the existential presupposition of definite descriptions the property of remaining constant under negation. That is, both (4a) and (4b) presuppose the truth of (4c). (4) a. Bill is sorry that it is raining. b. Bill isnt sorry that it is raining. c. It is raining. Factive predicates joined definite descriptions as prototypical instances of presupposition triggers expressions which give rise to presuppositions. Please observe that both (3a) and (4a) entail their respective presuppositions. That is, if (3a) is true (3c) must also be true, and similarly with (4a) and (4c).1 That being the case, we will need to be careful to distinguish entailments that are presupposed from what I will call ordinary, simple entailments, which are not also presuppositions. An ordinary simple entailment of (3a) might be that the king of France makes good decisions, and for (4a), that Bill feels bad about the rainy situation. These two types of presupposition (those associated with definite descriptions, and those associated with factive verbs) also have in common remaining constant under a variety of other sentence operators in addition to negation: possibility operators, conditional if, and questioning. Hence Chierchia and McConnell-Ginets happy coining of the phrase the S family, for the variants of a plain positive indicative sentence (S) obtained by embedding it under such sentence operators (Chierchia and McConnellGinet 1990:24). Examples (5a-c) give additional members of the The king of France is wise family, whose parental units are given in (3a, b).
1. Strawson proposed that the negative sentence ((3b)) also entails (3c), in the sense that if (3b) is true (3c) must also be true, and that falsity of (3c) means that both (3a) and (3b) are neither true nor false. This was also the view of Frege 1892, modulo choice of examples. We return briefly to this semantic view of presuppositions below. It should be noted that the sense of entailment involved here obviously cannot be the sense found in classical bivalent logic, since the latter supports modus tollens. This new relation has been termed necessitation by van Fraassen (1968:138) and weak entailment by BurtonRoberts (1989:11) and others. I will continue to use the term entailment in the text as neutral between classical entailment and weak entailment, since the issue of whether our logic is classically bivalent or not is not relevant for the topic of this paper.
(5) a. Its possible that the king of France is wise. b. If the king of France is wise, hell pay attention to his advisors. c. Is the king of France wise? As can be seen, each of these shares the presupposition given in (3c) above. As time went on a number of other instances of this type of presuppositional behavior were discovered. A list of triggers, with their associated presuppositions, is given in Table 1. Table 1. Some presuppositions and their triggers
Trigger Definite descriptions Factive predicates Change of state verbs Various lexical items (e.g. bachelor, win) Presupposition Existence (and uniqueness) of denotation Content of complement Prior condition Backgrounded components (e.g., ADULT, HUMAN, MALE; COMPETE) Existential generalization of sentence minus focus
Cleft constructions, other focussing constructions2 Manner adverbials (e.g. slowly, with a knife) Whatever is expressed by the rest of the sentence
This list shows a disconcerting lack of uniformity; presuppositions seem to spring up in a wide variety of circumstances. Meanwhile in the late 1960s Grice gave his famous series of lectures on logic and conversation, in which, among other things, he introduced the category of conventional implicatures: elements of meaning which on the one hand (so he said) are not part of the truth conditions of a sentence/utterance (not entailed), but which on the other hand are conveyed conventionally rather than conversationally. (As Kent Bach has pointed out, Grice, like Strawson, was anticipated by Frege 1892:73f, 1918:295f; cf. Bach 1999:329f.) These are the bits of meaning conveyed by words like therefore and even, prototypical triggers for conventional implicature.23 Thus (6a) (the tonguein-cheek example of Grice 1975:44) conveys the content of (6b), and (7a) will convey something like (7b). (6) a. He is an Englishman; he is, therefore, brave. b. His being brave is a consequence of his being an Englishman.
2. Ordinarily, wh questions would be included with this group. However it is not clear that they satisfy the criterion of entailing their presupposition (the existential generalization of the corresponding statement), since, arguably, questions lack a truth value and thus dont entail anything. 3. According to the adaptation of Grices notion developed in Potts 2005, therefore and even would not be considered conventional implicature triggers. For the purposes of this paper, I will stick with the more traditional view.
(7) a. Even George could solve this problem. b. George is the least likely person to be able to solve this problem. Although negating or questioning sentences with words like these is sometimes awkward, when their containing sentence is embedded under other sentence operators mentioned above these bits of meaning shine through just like the presuppositions of factive verbs and definite descriptions. This is illustrated in (8a, b) and (9a, b). (8) a. b. (9) a. b. Its possible that he is an Englishman, and is, therefore, brave. If he is an Englishman, and therefore brave, hell leap into the fray. Its possible that even George could solve this problem. If even George could solve this problem, wed better find a more difficult one for the comprehensive exam.
Like the presuppositions scouted above, the conventional implicatures associated with therefore and even are retained in these contexts. Karttunens (1970) category of implicative verbs provides other examples e.g. manage, which conveys that difficulty is involved, or forget to, which implies a prior intention. These bits of implied meaning behave similarly to Grices conventional implicatures in not being entailed by the sentence they occur in,4 and remaining constant under sentence operators. A list of conventional implicature triggers is given in Table 2. Table 2. Some conventional implicatures and their triggers
Trigger Connectives (e.g. therefore, but) Implicative verbs (e.g. manage, forget to) Iteratives (e.g. still, again, too, anymore) Honorifics (e.g. tu/vous) Nonrestrictive relatives Temporal clauses Other (e.g. even) Conventional implicature Various (e.g. cause, contrast) Various (e.g. effort, intention) Prior occurrence Social status of referent Content of clause Content of clause Various (e.g. unexpectedness)
Once again we have a rather heterogeneous list, although the items here may be felt to have somewhat greater unity than those on the list of presupposition triggers. I have in mind the fact that each of the items seems, in some sense, to be more peripheral to utterances in which it occurs than the presupposition triggers would be peripheral to
4 Here I am following Grice in describing conventional implicatures as not being entailed by the sentences or statements they occur in. However, it is probably more correct to see them as entailments that are felt to be less crucial to the truth of the whole sentence propositions whose falsehood would not lead one to judge that the statement as a whole is false, i.e. propositions which are not at issue. See below.
utterances in which they occur. Of course given the nature of conventional implicatures, that should probably not be too surprising. We must say a word or two about the special case of only. Consider (10a) below: (10) a. Only Muriel voted for Hubert. [= Horn 1969, ex. 4] b. Muriel voted for Hubert. c. No one other than Muriel voted for Hubert. Example (10a) seems to convey both (10b) and (10c). Most people agree that use of (10a) would involve asserting (10c), which would thus be entailed. However, there is an extensive literature debating the status of (10b) specifically whether it is asserted, (merely) entailed, presupposed, or conventionally implicated. (See Horn 1996 and Atlas 1996 for extensive discussion and references to holders of these various positions, plus a few more.) Note that (10b) does survive the S-family test, as shown in (11a-d). (11) a. Not only Muriel voted for Hubert/Its not true that only Muriel voted for Hubert. b. Its possible that only Muriel voted for Hubert. c. If only Muriel voted for Hubert, he didnt get elected. d. Did only Muriel vote for Hubert? All of (11a-d) seem to convey that Muriel herself voted for Hubert. As Horn has often pointed out (cf. Horn 1972:20, 1986:248ff, 1996), this argues against (10b) being either an assertion or an ordinary simple entailment of (10a), but we are left with the choice of presupposition vs. conventional implicature.5 This choice, as it has been presented here, rides on whether (10a) entails (10b) or not. We will return to only below. As noted, the prototypical presupposition types, as well as the rest of those indicated in Table 1, differ from conventional implicatures, as characterized by Grice and listed in Table 2, in that presuppositions are entailed by the matriarch of the S family (S herself) while conventional implicatures are not. However this difference apparently went unnoticed while their shared behavior remaining constant throughout the S family emerged as the more salient characteristic, and hence the category of conventional implicature became entwined with that of presupposition. Another factor possibly encouraging the blending of the two categories was a change in the preferred analysis of presuppositions. As mentioned in note 1 above, Strawson, following Frege, had held that presupposition failure results in lack of truth value for the presupposing statement. This would make presupposition a semantic phenomenon. However, Stalnaker (1974) urged that this semantic view give way to a pragmatic one, a line promoted by a number of others, including Bor and Lycan in their paper The myth of semantic presupposition (1976). (This is the view alluded to at the start of this section; see also Kadmon 2001:206, and the works cited there.) On this new view presuppositions should be considered part of the common ground,
5. Horn 2002 proposes another option unasserted entailment.
and presupposition failure means that the utterance in question is inappropriate rather than lacking a truth value. A background assumption of this debate was that semantics can be identified with truth conditions. (I should note that Stalnaker himself was careful not to make this identification.) As we have seen, conventional implicatures are by Grices definition not part of truth conditions, so on the background assumption just cited, conventional implicatures would be pragmatic too, making them that much more similar to presuppositions. Kent Bach, in The myth of conventional implicature (1999), presents himself as arguing that there is no such thing as a conventional implicature (as Bor and Lycan had argued that there was no such thing as a semantic presupposition). However, his main points are the obviously correct ones that what is expressed by conventional implicature triggers like even and therefore is both propositional in nature, and (contra Grice 1975) a part of what is said, which must therefore be taken to include not a single proposition but a bundle of propositions. The propositions expressed by conventional implicatures are felt to be secondary to the main assertion of a declarative utterance, hence our intuitive judgement that they are not entailed (because our utterance would be felt to be true even if its conventional implicatures were false). (I have argued for a somewhat similar position with respect to presuppositions (Abbott 2000); see also Potts 2005.) But to say this is not to say that the category of conventional implicature does not exist. So, it may be useful to retain the category of conventional implicatures, and to be clear on the difference between them and presuppositions. The crucial difference, one more time, is that presuppositions are entailed by S (i.e. are part of the truth conditions of S), and conventional implicatures are not. Or, to put it another way, the propositions conveyed as conventional implicatures are felt to be in some sense peripheral to an assertion of S, while the propositions conveyed as presuppositions are a more integral part of that assertion. Consider example (12) below. (12) Even the king of France is bald. This would be considered true if there were presently a bald king of France even if kings of France (and only they) tended to be bald, but it definitely could not be true if there is no king.
3. Neutralization behavior
We turn now to our main topic. We should start by noting that there are at least four ways to get rid of a presupposition. It is the fourth type, contextual neutralization, that will concern us; the first three will be discussed only in order to set them aside.
3.1 Four types of presupposition elimination

Horn (1972) was careful to distinguish suspension of a presupposition from its cancellation. When a presupposition is suspended, its truth is left hanging; when it is cancelled it is denied. Of course in general, either suspension or cancellation should be possible only in the case of members of the family other than S, since presuppositions are entailed by S. Horn gives the examples in (13). (13) a. John doesnt realize that Sue loves him if (indeed) she does. and (in fact) she may not. b. #and (in fact) she doesnt. (These are from Horn 1972, ex. 1.34; Ive replaced his * with the more up-to-date #.) The out-and-out denial in (13b) seems inconsistent with the speakers use of realize. When we turn to the cancellation of presuppositions, probably the most frequently cited example is (14): (14) The king of France isnt bald there isnt any (king of France)! Of course given Russells (1905) analysis of definite descriptions as quantificational expressions which can, therefore, vary their scope with other sentence operators such as negation, (14) ought to be perfectly natural. However, (14) is undeniably marked. Horn (1985) argues that the negation in (14) is not the truth functional operator of logic but is rather metalinguistic a device for registering objection to a previous utteranceon any grounds whatever. (Horn 1985:121). As such, metalinguistic negation displays a number of distinctive properties the requirement of a prior utterance to object to, the lack of triggering for negative polarity items which distinguish it from its logical cousin. As far as I know, all cases of outright cancellation of presuppositions are of this metalinguistic type. (Cf. Burton-Roberts 1989, chapter 10.) Next, we should mention the well-known phenomenon of filtering out of presuppositions in conditionals and conjunctions (Karttunen 1973a, 1974; Karttunen and Peters 1979). Some examples are shown in (15). (15) a. If Bill plays a trick on Jill, he will be sorry that he has done so. b. Bill played a trick on Jill, and he was sorry that he had done so. These are described as cases of filtering out presuppositions, since in each case the second sentence in the construction carries a presupposition which is not considered to be a presupposition of the utterance as a whole. This is because in each case the presupposition is added to the context in which the second sentence is evaluated. Note too that the presupposing sentence here is the matriarch S herself, i.e. the presupposition
is also entailed.6 In any case, this kind of filtering is irrelevant to our concerns since obviously any presupposition may be filtered out in this way without anomaly, as indicated by the examples in (16). (16) a. If there is a king of France, the king of France is bald. b. Sue loves John, but he doesnt realize that she does. c. If someone solved the problem, it was Lee who solved it. But this raises the question of the relation between if-clause filtering, as we have in (15a) and (16a, c), and Horns suspension device illustrated in (13a). Are these the same (as suggested by Levinson 1983:195)? Or are they different, as suggested by Horn (1972:30ff )? Horn mentions several characteristics of suspender if clauses that differentiate them from conditional antecedent if clauses. One is that suspender clauses require negative polarity items rather than their positive counterparts (e.g. any rather than some), whereas conditional clauses do not. Another is their failure to occur preposed, in the normal conditional antecedent location. These characteristics are illustrated in (17a, b). (17) a. The milk train doesnt stop here anymore, if it ever/#sometimes did in the past. b. #If the milk train ever stopped here in the past, it doesnt anymore. Example (17a) is Horns (1972) ex. 1.48d. The crosshatch on sometimes should be read with respect to the suspension reading. Of course sometimes is acceptable on the ordinary conditional reading of the if clause; however, on that reading the presupposition of prior milk train stoppage is not lifted but instead acknowledged. Similar remarks go for (17b). Another characteristic of suspender if clauses is that they may have their work accomplished by an and maybe not clause, as in (13a) above, repeated here as (18). (18) a. John doesnt realize that Sue loves him if (indeed) she does. and (in fact) she may not. Ordinary antecedent if clauses are not so paraphrasable. The nature of this paraphrase points to the essential difference between suspender if clauses and antecedent if clauses. Regular antecedent if clauses present hypothetical situations; in the case of examples like (16a, c), they introduce presuppositions of the consequent clauses for temporary consideration. However, the suspender if clauses suggest something about
6. However, there is a potentially important difference between the two cases. In the case of the conditional in (15a) the presupposed content (that Bill plays a trick on Jill) is introduced to the context temporarily, whereas because (15b) as a whole entails this content, it is a permanent addition. Hence it is strange to view the latter case as the filtering out of the presupposition, since it does not disappear.
10
what actually is the case namely, that the presupposition in question may not hold. So although (19a) is acceptable, (19b), with a suspender if clause, is not: (19) a. If there is a leader for your group, the leader has turned in a report. b. #The leader for your group, if indeed there is one, has turned in a report. (19b) sounds contradictory. There is another distinctive property of Horn-style suspension clauses, which also distinguishes them from filtering if clauses, and that is that in the examples given so far, suspension seems only to work with a negated sentence; it is less felicitous with other members of the S family, as shown in (20). (20) a. #Maybe the milk train still stops here, if indeed it ever did in the past. b. #If John realizes that Sue loves him (and in fact she may not), then hell tell us. This probably follows from a rhetorical constraint on this type of suspension. As Horn has pointed out, it is only possible when the resulting sentence is true in a wider range of cases than is the initial sentence with its presupposition intact (Horn 1972:18). Our main focus here will be contextual neutralization, which must be distinguished from Horn-style suspension, metalinguistic cancellation, and filtering out. The examples given at the beginning of this paper and repeated here in (21) are illustrative. (21) a. if anyone discovers that the method is also wombat-proof, Id really like to know! b. Mrs. London is not aware that there have ever been signs erected to stop use of the route c. Perhaps God knows that we will never reach the stars. One could successfully utter any of the examples in (21) while withholding conviction from either the truth or the falsity of the complement of the factive verb (although the significant occurrence of the negative polarity item ever in (21b) does suggest that the speaker leans toward falsity for the proposition in question there). But notice that there is no explicit use of a phrase such as if indeed it is wombat-proof, or and maybe we never will reach them, as was employed in the cases of suspension given above. It is this phenomenon of contextual neutralization which seems to distinguish some presupposition triggers from others, and our main purpose is to try to figure out why. The following section summarizes the received view on which are which.
3.2 Hard vs. soft triggers

Dorit Abusch (2002) has coined the term soft trigger for those presupposition triggers, like the cognitive factives, whose presuppositions are relatively easily neutralized,
11
and hard trigger for the other ones. Other frequently cited examples of soft triggers are change of state verbs like stop, start, and continue, as in (22): (22) a. I notice that you keep chewing on your pencil. Have you recently stopped smoking? [= Simons 2001, ex. 1; attributed to Geurts 1994] b. If you stopped smoking in 2001, you are eligible for a payment from the Tobacco Indemnity Fund. [= Abusch 2002, ex. 5d; attributed to Kadmon 2001] Examples (22a, b) are easily understandable without an assumption that the respective addressees used to smoke.7 It is a little disturbing that the vast majority of examples used to show the soft triggerhood of change of state verbs have to do with somebody quitting smoking. However, Abusch also includes the example below: (23) After the first meeting, John will either continue missing meetings, or continue attending them. [= Abusch 2002, ex. 9] So I will assume that change of state verbs should be considered soft triggers. Abusch points out the category of achievement verbs like win which entail a preparatory activity (2002:2) and which also have easily suspendable presuppositions. For win, for example, the preparatory condition of participating in the event at all is presupposed, but this presupposition is easily suspended, as in (24). (24) If Alberto wins the 2003 Falmouth Roadrace, he will have more Falmouth Roadrace victories than anyone else in history. [= Abusch 2002, ex. 7c] As Abusch notes, it is clear that (24) could be uttered well in advance of the 2003 Falmouth Roadrace, say right after the 2002 race, and so before it will have become the case that Alberto has engaged in the preparatory activity of participating in that race. It is interesting, and perhaps significant, that when Abusch turns to the category of hard triggers, at least some of her examples come from what I have been calling the triggers of conventional implicatures e.g. also, even, again and too (Abusch 2002:4). In this her judgements agree with those of Simons 2001. Compare the examples in (25). (25) a. #I dont know if Jane ever rented Manhattan before, but perhaps shes renting it again. [= Simons 2001, ex. 6] b. #After the first meeting, John will either miss the second meeting too, or attend the second meeting too.
7. This observation actually goes back at least to Karttunen 1973b; see Horn 1990:487f, for discussion. I am grateful to the present festschriftee for reminding me of the existence of Karttunens paper.
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[= Abusch 2002, ex. 11] The conventional implicatures associated with therefore, manage, the honorifics, etc., do not seem easily neutralizable either, as illustrated in (26). (26) a. #I dont know whether English people are generally brave, but possibly Marcia is English, and therefore brave. b. #I dont know whether she is married, but perhaps Mrs. Smith would like to bake an apple pie for us. As a tentative hypothesis I suggest the following: all instances of expressions which contribute conventional implicatures fall into the category of hard triggers. If this hypothesis is true, it means that if only is a conventional implicature trigger, its conventional implicature should not be easily contextually neutralizable, and that does seem to be the case. (27) #I dont know whether Muriel voted for Hubert, but possibly only Muriel did. Example (27) is strained at best. What about the converse? Is it the case that all instances of triggers of presuppositions (where these are as characterized above, to exclude conventional implicatures) are soft triggers? Unfortunately, that does not appear to be the case. Presuppositions associated with focusing constructions (the cleft and pseudocleft constructions) are not easily lifted, as shown in (28). (28) I have no idea whether the problem has been solved, but a. #maybe it was Sue who solved it. b. #possibly the one who solved it was Sue. The presuppositions of manner adverbials similarly are not easily neutralized, although in some cases they can undergo Horn-style suspension. (29) a. #Possibly Mary didnt slice the carrots, but did she do so carefully? b. Millicent speaks quietly, if at all. [ Horn 1972, 1.54d] The attempt at neutralization in (29a) is unsuccessful, in contrast to the suspension in (29b). Notice that this is a positive example, but because of quietly, the rhetorical direction is negative, allowing the Horn-style suspension. The situation with definite descriptions is a little more complex. Abusch is apparently of two minds about the issue. In the text of her paper (2002:11) she seems to assume that they are hard triggers, but she comments in a footnote, Actually, it is not clear that the definite description is a hard trigger, since [its] presupposition is suspendable (2002:18, n. 10). Abusch 2005, n. 8 makes a similar comment, and provides the illustrative example in (30). (30) It is not true that Johns girlfriend does not like his children, because he has none.
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[= Abusch 2005, n. 8, ex. i] However, example (30) is similar to example (14) above, which I (following Horn) have suggested is a case of metalinguistic presupposition cancellation rather than suspension or neutralization. Possibly part of the ambivalence about definite descriptions is due to an interacting fact which complicates the picture, and that is the role of topic-focus structure in determining what is presupposed and what is not. Horn (1986) discusses this relation in detail, noting that topics tend to be presupposed. (Cf. also Partee 1996, and the works by Hajiov cited there.) When definite descriptions are functioning as predicate nominals, and thus as focus, they lose their presuppositional character to a great extent, as has been noted by a number of people. Donnellan observes the contrast in (31) (Donnellan 1966:284). (31) a. Is the king of France de Gaulle? b. Is de Gaulle the king of France? Example (31a) presupposes that there is a king of France, while (31b) could have been used simply to inquire whether France is a monarchy. Putting aside predicate nominal usage, examples like the following would indicate that definite descriptions are hard triggers. (32) #Possibly no one owns this book, but if I find the owner I will return it. So it appears to be only a proper subset of presupposition triggers that allow easy contextual neutralization and fall into the category of soft triggers. Table 3 sorts out the two categories. We must now turn to the task of trying to explain what determines this behavior. Table 3. Soft vs. hard presupposition triggers
Soft triggers Minimal cognitive factive predicates (e.g. be aware, discover, know) Change of state verbs (stop, start, continue) Some lexical items (e.g. win) Hard triggers Non-minimal factive predicates (e.g. forget, regret, be odd) Definite descriptions Cleft constructions Manner adverbials
4. Explaining neutralization
In Abuschs approach, the hard triggers trigger presuppositions which are semantically encoded and failures of which result in truth value gaps or undefinedness (Abusch
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2002:1). The presuppositions associated with soft triggers, on the other hand, are pragmatic. Abusch argues that the presuppositions of soft triggers are generated by lexical alternatives which in each case share the crucial entailment which is also the potential presupposition in question. For know the lexical alternative is be unaware, for stop it is continue, and for win it is lose. Her hypothesis is that the use of one of these alternatives introduces an alternative set of propositions into the discourse context the one asserted and the one containing the lexical alternative. In the typical case, this set of alternatives will be topical and hence it will be assumed that one of them is true. Since both entail the presupposition in question, that proposition will be pragmatically presupposed. See the example below (from Abusch 2002, ex. (29)), where C stands for the set of alternatives. (33) assertion: John knows it is raining. Alternative: John is unaware it is raining. C = {John knows it is raining, John is unaware it is raining} = {rain j believe rain, rain j believe rain} disjunction of alternatives: rain Thus the presuppositions associated with soft triggers are derived pragmatically, while (on this theory) the presuppositions associated with hard triggers are encoded semantically.8 There is much that is appealing about this approach, but it also raises a question: why is it specifically the lexicalization of the alternative that should be crucial? After all, to assert (34a) should call to mind (34b) just as much as (35a) calls to mind (35b). (34) a. It was Sue who solved the problem. b. It wasnt Sue who solved the problem. (35) a. John knows it is raining. b. John is unaware it is raining. And although (34b) may not be held to actually entail that the problem was solved, it certainly conveys it strongly. In fact, since we are speaking of pragmatically induced propositional content, it is even less clear that the lexicalization of the alternative
8. Note that if definite descriptions were soft triggers, as Abuschs footnote cited above suggests, her analysis would have a hard time accounting for them. The reason, in brief, is that exchanging the with its lexical alternative a gives a pair of propositions that are not the ones under discussion too much becomes presupposed. Compare (i): (i) a. The book is tattered. b. A book is tattered. c. C = {there is a book there is a unique book and it is tattered, there is a book it is tattered} d. Disjunction of alternatives: there is a book it is tattered On Abuschs analysis, The book is tattered should presuppose that there is a tattered book, and clearly this is not the case.
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should matter. Presumably the alternative propositions which belong to the set are couched in the language of thought, and not the outer language, so that the alternative set in the case of (34a) would be (36): (36) C = {problem solved s solve it, problem solved s solve it} But this looks entirely parallel to the fourth line of (33) above. Abusch would reply that in the case of the cleft construction, the presupposition is semantically encoded, by stipulation. However, that means her theory lacks some explanatory power, since it cannot tell us why the soft triggers are soft and the hard triggers are hard. Ideally this would depend on some kind of intrinsic properties of the triggers, so we could avoid the need for stipulation. Abusch 2002 was presented at SALT 12, and in the discussion following her presentation Bill Ladusaw made a remark to the effect that for some triggers, suspension was difficult since there was no other reason for including that expression in your utterance in the first place. Consider (37): (37) Sue yawned again. Why would you utter (37) if you did not want to acknowledge the fact that Sue had yawned previously? There is no other reason for the word again to be included in the utterance, and so we expect its bit of meaning not to be easily neutralizable. (After writing this paper I learned that Horn 1981:133f had made a similar suggestion with respect to clefts; Simons (2002) also alludes to this consideration, although for a somewhat different purpose.) Just for kicks, let us extract a hypothesis from Ladusaws remark: (H) A presupposition (or conventional implicature) p is neutralizable iff it is nondetachable. To the extent that this hypothesis is true, it would suggest a Ladusavian (or Hornesque, or Simonsy) explanation for the neutralization patterns we have found: If there isnt any ready way to detach the presupposition through rephrasing, language allows us to neutralize it, but if there is a handy alternative (and hence your only reason for using the trigger in question appears to be to convey that presupposition/conventional implicature), then you cant neutralize it. In general, of course, this explanation would work for all the conventional implicatures. As stressed by Grice, they are detachable, and so we expect the lack of neutralizability which we have observed. Let us turn to the presupposition triggers and see whether our hypothesis will correctly separate the hard triggers from the soft ones. In the case of the focusing constructions (clefts and pseudoclefts), which are hard triggers, this line of explanation seems to give us a plausible starting place. The speaker has chosen to use a marked, more complicated, construction for which there is no apparent reason other than focusing a particular constituent and putting everything else in the background. Why say (38a) rather than (38b), unless it is uncontroversial that the problem was solved?
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(38) a. It wasnt Sue who solved the problem. b. Sue didnt solve the problem. Here again, the presupposition is readily detachable simply by using the unmarked sentence form, and so we expect it not to be neutralizable, which it isnt. Perhaps what has just been said about the focusing constructions could be extended to manner adverbials, as in (39). (39) Mary sliced the carrots slowly/carefully/with a cleaver. In this case what happens is that the content of the manner adverbial becomes the main assertion, with the remainder of the sentence turning into presupposition. As indicated above in example (29a), repeated here as (40), manner adverbials also seem to be hard triggers. (40) #Possibly Mary didnt slice the carrots, but did she do so carefully? Though quite different from the typical conventional implicature triggers, which convey their own content as background information, the manner adverbial construction is in some ways similar to the focusing constructions in altering the information structure of a sentence to put forward a particular constituent. Definite descriptions, which also seem to be hard triggers, fall nicely into line too. Use of the presupposes the existence of an entity meeting the descriptive content of the NP whereas use of the indefinite article does not. Hence this presupposition is easily detachable and should not be neutralizable. The other side of the coin comes when we consider soft triggers. Lets start with the change of state verbs like stop, and the other lexical presupposers like win. Unlike the hard trigger cases, here we should not be able to say that the only reason to use that word was to convey that presupposition. The presupposition ought not to be detachable. And indeed, that seems to be true. Each word clearly incorporates at least two important semantic components. In the case of stop they are (i) that the eventuality referred to in the complement clause had been occurring, and (ii) that as of the event time referred to, it ceased. In the case of win they are (i) that the winner participated in the competitive event referred to by the object NP, and (ii) that that individual was the best in this competition. It is probably significant that each of these words is a verb. That means that when one of them occurs as the main verb of the sentence, typically one of the components expressed will be an essential part of the main point of the utterance, forcing the other component into presupposition (nonassertion) mode. It is when we have the sentence under an operator of some sort (negation, conditional, a possibility modal) which captures both of the semantic components that the presuppositions are suspended. Anyone who has been keeping careful score (or who has a good memory) will know that we are not home free. The problem is that presented by the factive verbs. As noted at the outset, we have two subcategories. Cognitive factives like know, be
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aware that and discover are soft triggers, easily losing their factivity. The other factives, e.g. regret, be significant, be odd, matter, count, ignore, be tragic, etc., are hard triggers, whose presupposition is not easily lifted. If our hypothesis were true, the presupposition of the cognitive factives should be nondetachable, and that of the regular factives should be detachable. However, the facts seem to be almost exactly the reverse! On the one hand it is easy to find close paraphrases for sentences with know and be aware that which differ only in lacking factivity, as shown in (41) and (42): (41) a. Bill knows that it is raining. b. Bill is confident/certain/sure that it is raining. (42) a. Mary is aware that she cannot trust you. b. Mary thinks/believes that she cannot trust you. So these stative cognitive factives show detachability and neutralizability. We might take some comfort from some of the other cognitive factives, like discover and realize, since these seem to lack detachability. Paraphrases which spring to mind, like come to know, learn that, stumble on, are equally factive. However our comfort is short lived, because when we turn to the non-cognitive factives, we find that these hard triggers also show nondetachability. All the near synonyms of regret, for instance be sorry that, be sad that, rue seem to share the presupposition of truth of the complement clause, and similarly for be odd that, be surprising that, matter, etc. Hence these presuppositions are not readily detachable, and so they should be neutralizable. However, this is not the case. As we noted at the outset, the examples in (2), repeated here in (43), couldnt be used appropriately in contexts where the speaker was not assuming that the complement clause was true. (43) a. If any of the students regrets behaving badly, theyll let us know. b. It doesnt matter that the chimpanzees escaped. c. Was Bill surprised that spinach was included? Perhaps some relevant difference between these factives and the cognitive factives can be found to explain their different behavior. Maybe the cognitive factives dont express as much more about the complement clause as the other factives do. To regret something, for example, you have to know it is the case and feel bad about it. Or maybe the components of the soft triggers are more closely related somehow, so that it is more natural for both to get caught together in the scope of a sentence operator. In any case, the definitive end to this story must await further exploration.
5. Conclusion
In this paper we have surveyed the neutralization behavior of a number of types of presuppositions and conventional implicatures. In the penultimate section we explored
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one particular line of inquiry into what differentiates hard triggers expressions whose presupposition or conventional implicature is not easily neutralized from soft triggers those expressions whose associated presupposition is easily neutralized. While to some extent the results are promising, the recalcitrant behavior of the factive predicates remains without an explanation. Most likely there are other factors which need to be taken into consideration. One which seems fairly obvious but which I have not had an opportunity to pursue is the extent to which an assertion can be successful despite the failure of its associated presupposition or conventional implicature. (This may account for some of the differences between the existence presupposition associated with definite descriptions, and the uniqueness (or exhaustiveness) aspect of their meaning, which we have ignored in this paper.) There is also a body of literature exploring the possibility of reducing at least some presuppositions to conversational implicatures (e.g. Wilson 1975, Grice 1981, Atlas and Levinson 1981, Levinson 1983, Chierchia and McConnell-Ginet 1990, Kadmon 2001, Simons 2001), which has not been given the attention it deserves in the foregoing. Finally, more careful consideration needs to be given to exactly what kind of behavior establishes a soft trigger as soft or a hard trigger as hard. Here for the most part I have followed the judgments and supporting examples of others, but the tests are not standardized and need to be investigated. Possibly that enterprise would shed more light on this subject.
References
Abbott, B. 2000. Presuppositions as nonassertions. Journal of Pragmatics 32:14191437. Abusch, D. 2002. Lexical alternatives as a source of pragmatic presuppositions. Semantics and Linguistic Theory 12. 119. Abusch, D. 2005. Triggering from alternative sets and projection of pragmatic presuppositions. Ms. Atlas, J. 1996. Only noun phrases, pseudo-negative generalized quantifiers, negative polarity items, and monotonicity. Journal of Semantics 13:265328. Atlas, J. and S. Levinson. 1981. It-clefts, informativeness and logical form: Radical pragmatics (revised standard version). In P. Cole, ed., Radical Pragmatics. New York: Academic Press. 161. Bach, K. 1999. The myth of conventional implicature. Linguistics and Philosophy 22:327366. Beaver, D. To appear. Have you noticed that your belly button lint colour is related to the colour of your clothing? In R. Bauerle, U. Reyle, and T. E. Zimmerman, eds., Presupposition: Papers in Honor of Hans Kamp. Bor, S. and W. Lycan. 1976. The Myth of Semantic Presupposition. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Linguistics Club. Burton-Roberts, N. 1989. The Limits to Debate: A Revised Theory of Semantic Presupposition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chierchia, G. and S. McConnell-Ginet. 1990. Meaning and Grammar. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Donnellan, K. 1966. Reference and definite descriptions. Philosophical Review 77:281304.
Where have some of the presuppositions gone? Frege, G. 1892. ber Sinn und Bedeutung. References are to the translation On sense and reference, in P. Geach and M. Black, eds., 1960, Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege, 2nd edition. Oxford: Blackwell. 5678. Frege, G. 1918. Der Gedanke: Eine logische Untersuchung. References are to the translation The thought: A logical inquiry by P. Geach, 1956, Mind 65:289311. Geurts, B. 1994. Presupposing. Universitt Osnabrck Ph.D. dissertation. Grice, H.P. 1975. Logic and conversation. In P. Cole and J. Morgan, eds., Syntax and Semantics, Volume 3: Speech Acts. New York: Academic Press. 4158. Grice, H.P. 1981. Presupposition and conversational implicature. In P. Cole, ed., Radical Pragmatics. New York: Academic Press. 183198. Revised and republished in H.P. Grice, 1989, Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 269282. Horn, L.R. 1969. A presuppositional analysis of only and even. CLS 5. 97108. Horn, L.R. 1972. On the Semantic Properties of Logical Operators in English. UCLA Ph.D. dissertation. Horn, L.R. 1981. Exhaustiveness and the semantics of clefts. Proceedings of NELS 11. 125142. Horn, L.R. 1985. Metalinguistic negation and pragmatic ambiguity. Language 61:121174. Horn, L.R. 1986. Presupposition, theme and variations. CLS 22:2. 168192. Horn, L.R. 1990. Showdown at truth-value gap: Burton-Roberts on presupposition. Journal of Linguistics 26:483503. Horn, L.R. 1996. Exclusive company: Only and the dynamics of vertical inference. Journal of Semantics 13:140. Horn, L.R. 2002. Assertoric inertia and NPI licensing. CLS 38:2. 5582. Kadmon, N. 2001. Formal Pragmatics. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Karttunen, L. 1970. On the semantics of complement sentences. CLS 6. 328339. Karttunen, L. 1973a. Presuppositions of compound sentences. Linguistic Inquiry 4:169193. Karttunen, L. 1973b. STOP is there a presupposition, or isnt there? Ms. Karttunen, L. 1974. Presupposition and linguistic context. Theoretical Linguistics 1:181193. Karttunen, L. and S. Peters. 1979. Conventional implicature. In C.-K. Oh and D. Dinneen, eds., Syntax and Semantics, Volume 11: Presupposition. New York: Academic Press. 156. Kiparsky, P. and C. Kiparsky. 1970. Fact. In M. Bierwisch and K. Heidolph, eds., Progress in Linguistics. The Hague: Mouton. 143173. Levinson, S. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Partee, B. 1996. Allegation and local accommodation. In B. Partee and P. Sgall, eds., Discourse and Meaning: Papers in Honor of Eva Hajiov. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 6586. Potts, C. 2005. The Logic of Conventional Implicatures. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Russell, B. 1905. On denoting. Mind 14:479493. Simons, M. 2001. On the conversational basis of some presuppositions. Semantics and Linguistic Theory 11. 431448. Simons, M. 2005. Presupposition and relevance. In Z. Szab, ed., Semantics vs. Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 329355. Stalnaker, R. 1974. Pragmatic presuppositions. In M. Munitz and P. Unger, eds., Semantics and Philosophy. New York: New York University Press. 197214. Stalnaker, R. 1978. Assertion. In P. Cole, ed., Syntax and Semantics, Volume 9: Pragmatics. New York, Academic Press. 315322. Strawson, P.F. 1950. On referring. Mind 59:320344.
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20 Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning van Fraassen, B. 1968. Presupposition, implication, and self-reference. Journal of Philosophy 65:136152. Wilson, D. 1975. Presuppositions and Non-Truth-Conditional Semantics. New York: Academic Press.
The top 10 misconceptions about implicature

Kent Bach
San Francisco State University
This paper identifies the following misconceptions about implicature and explains why they are misconceptions: (1) Sentences have implicatures; (2) implicatures are inferences; (3) implicatures cant be entailments; (4) Gricean maxims apply only to implicatures; (5) for what is implicated to be figured out, what is said must be determined first; (6) all pragmatic implications are implicatures; (7) implicatures are not part of the truth-conditional contents of utterances; (8) if something is meant but unsaid, it must be implicated; (9) scalar implicatures are implicatures; and (10) conventional implicatures are implicatures.
Ive known about conversational implicature a lot longer than Ive known Larry. In 1967 I read Grices (1975) Logic and Conversation in mimeograph, shortly after his William James lectures, and I read its precursor (Implication), section III of The Causal Theory of Perception, well before that (Grice 1961). And Ive thought, read, and written about implicature off and on ever since. Nevertheless, I know a lot less about it than Larry does, and thats not even taking into account everything he has uncovered about what was said on the subject long before Grice, even centuries before. So, now that Ive betrayed my ignorance, Ill display my insolence. Im going to identify the most pervasive and pernicious misconceptions about implicature that Ive noticed over the years. This wont be a natural history of them. I have neither the time, the space, nor the patience for such a scholarly endeavor. It would also be unseemly, as if what I am doing isnt. At any rate, Ill keep things short and to the point (ten points, actually), though this will make me seem a bit glib if not dogmatic. I wont target the sources of these misconceptions, much less delineate their paths of propagation or document the damage theyve wrought. Ill simply identify them and, with the help of a handy distinction or an overlooked possibility, suggest how each might arise. I wont follow David Letterman and present them in reverse order of magnitude. Nor will I present them in order of importance or frequency of manifestation. Rather, Ill put them in an easy-to-follow
22 Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning
sequence. Only the last two or three, I hope, will seem contentious. (Unless otherwise indicated, by implicature I will always mean conversational implicature). Heres the list: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Sentences have implicatures. Implicatures are inferences. Implicatures cant be entailments. Gricean maxims apply only to implicatures. For what is implicated to be figured out, what is said must be determined first. All pragmatic implications are implicatures. Implicatures are not part of the truth-conditional contents of utterances. If something is meant but unsaid, it must be implicated. Scalar implicatures are implicatures. Conventional implicatures are implicatures.
These formulations of the top ten misconceptions about implicature will appear as section headings in what follows. Please dont take that for an endorsement of any of them.
1.
Sentences have implicatures
It is in uttering sentences that speakers implicate things. Yet for some reason, implicatures are often attributed to sentences themselves. Perhaps thats because implicatures are often illustrated with the help of numbered sentences, which are then confused with utterances, which are then treated as if they are agents rather than as the actions that they are. Anyway, Grice was careful to use the verb implicate, not imply, for what speakers do, and he coined the term implicature to use instead of implication for what speakers implicate. The difference is fundamental. If a sentence is true, what it implies must be true, whereas a speaker can utter a true sentence and implicate something false. For example, you could say that theres a gas station around the corner and falsely implicate that its open and selling gas (maybe its closed for the night or maybe theres a gasoline shortage). If theres a gas station around the corner, it doesnt follow that the gas station is open and selling gas. But it does follow that the gas station is not directly across the street. This fundamental difference reflects the fact that what a sentence implies depends on its semantic content, while what a speaker implicates is a matter of his communicative intention in uttering the sentence. Thats why implicature is pragmatic in character, hence why in different situations one can utter a given unambiguous sentence and implicate different things. For example, you could say Johns command of English is excellent to implicate, depending on the situation, that John is a mediocre student, that he would make a fine translator, that he understood something he heard, or that he had no excuse for the sloppy paper he wrote. Of course, what a speaker could, in a given situation, plausibly be taken to implicate will be constrained by the seman-
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tic content of the sentence certainly it matters what the sentence means but this doesnt make implicature a property of the sentence itself. The tendency to attribute implicatures to sentences is greatest in the case of generalized conversational implicatures, which do not depend on special features of the conversational situation and thus are more directly associated with sentences themselves (but like particularized implicatures, GCIs are cancelable). For example, in uttering Bill is meeting a woman this evening you would normally (in the absence of special circumstances) be implicating that the woman in question is not Bills wife. So it makes sense, without considering actual speakers intentions, to talk about what is likely to be implicated when a certain sentence is uttered. This might suggest that the GCI is a property of the sentence itself, even though GCIs are not semantic in character but are pragmatic regularities. Even so, it is the speaker, not the sentence, that does the implicating. Unfortunately, taking GCIs to be properties of sentences leads to the spurious idea that they comprise some sort of intermediate level of meaning between linguistic meaning and speaker meaning.
2. Implicatures are inferences

For some strange reason, implicatures are often described as inferences. This misdenomer is but a slight variation on the vulgar conflation of implying with inferring. As observed in The American Heritage Book of English Usage,1 People sometimes confuse infer with imply, but the distinction is a useful one. When we say that a speaker or sentence implies something, we mean that information is conveyed or suggested without being stated outright. ... Inference, on the other hand, is the activity performed by a reader or interpreter in drawing conclusions that are not explicit in what is said. Similarly, people sometimes confuse infer with implicate and inference with implicature. Why is the difference important? One obvious reason is that the audience can take the speaker to be implicating something when in fact he isnt. A putative implicature need not be an actual one. Equally obviously, a speaker can implicate something even if the audience doesnt make the intended inference. Of course, this will not be a case of successfully conveying the implicature, but that doesnt mean the speaker didnt implicate anything, just as a speaker can hint at something without the audience getting the hint. Notice, by the way, that the inference here is not to the truth of the implicature but to its content. Its one thing to recognize what is being implicated and quite another to accept it.
1.
http://www.bartleby.com/64/C003/0174.html
3. Implicatures cant be entailments

It is commonly assumed that what a speaker implicates in uttering a sentence cant be entailed by the sentence itself. To be sure, most implicatures (by speakers) are not entailments (by sentences uttered by speakers), but there are exceptions. For example, suppose someone says to you, Nobody has ever long-jumped over 28 feet. You reply, Whadya mean? Bob Beamon long-jumped over 29 feet way back in 1968. Here you are clearly implicating that somebody has long-jumped over 28 feet. But this is entailed by the fact that Beamon long-jumped over 29 feet. The important point here is why, generally speaking, the truth of an implicature is independent of the truth of what is said. The reason is that its not what the speaker says but that he says it (or even that he puts it a certain way) which carries the implicature.
4. Gricean maxims apply only to implicatures

Grice introduced his maxims of conversation to explain how implicatures get conveyed, but this does not mean, as is often supposed, that theyre idle otherwise. To dispel this misconception we need first to get clear on the character of Grices maxims. They are not sociological generalizations about speech, nor they are moral prescriptions or proscriptions on what to say or communicate. Although Grice presented them in the form of guidelines for how to communicate successfully, I think they are better construed as presumptions about utterances, presumptions that we as listeners rely on and as speakers exploit. As listeners, we presume that the speaker is being cooperative (at least insofar as he is trying to make his communicative intention evident) and is speaking truthfully, informatively, relevantly, and otherwise appropriately. If an utterance superficially appears not to conform to any of these presumptions, the listener looks for a way of taking it so that it does conform. He does so partly on the supposition that he is intended to. As speakers, in trying to choose words to make our communicative intentions evident, we exploit the fact that our listeners presume these things. These presumptions should not be viewed as delivering a decision procedure for the hearer to figure out what the speaker means (they can clash, after all). Rather, they provide different dimensions of considerations that the speaker, given that hes trying to communicate something, may reasonably be taken to intend the hearer to take into account in figuring out what the speaker means. And speakers implicitly realize this when they choose what to say and how to say it. Its a common misconception that the Gricean maxims, or conversational presumptions, kick in only when the speaker is implicating something (or is speaking figuratively). In fact, they apply equally to completely literal utterances, where the speaker means just what he says. After all, even if what a speaker means consists precisely in the semantic content of the sentence he utters, this still has to be inferred. It
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might seem that these presumptions play a role only if the speaker is not being perfectly literal and fully explicit. After all, that is when the hearer has to figure out what the speaker means instead of or in addition to what he says. If an utterance appears not to conform to the presumptions, the hearer looks for a way of taking the utterance so that it does conform. But even if it is consistent with the presumptions that the speaker is being literal and means precisely what his words mean, the presumptions still play a role. Obviously, they arent needed to guide the hearer to a plausible candidate for what the speaker means, but taking the utterance just at face value still requires supposing that the speaker is conforming to them.
5. For what is implicated to be figured out, what is said must be determined first
In saying things, people can implicate other things. It might seem, then, that grasping what someone implicates requires first determining what they are saying. However, this is not true and not something that Grice was committed to. Its a mistake to suppose that what is said must be determined first or to suppose that Grice supposed this. This misconception forms the basis for various anti-Gricean arguments based on the premise that, if Gricean pragmatics were correct, a listener would have to determine what is said before inferring anything further as to what a speaker means. Arguments relying on this assumption have been used to defend such claims as that what is said is a theoretically useless notion or else that what is said is not a purely semantic notion but involves pragmatic intrusion, that the semantic-pragmatic distinction is blurry if not downright bogus, and even that truth-conditional semantics is hopeless and needs to be replaced by something called truth-conditional pragmatics. However, Grice did not even purport to give an account of the psychological processing involved in recognizing an implicature (or in forming the intention to implicate something). This misconception overlooks the difference between a real-time cognitive process and the information to which that process is sensitive. Grice did not intend his account of how implicatures are recognized as a psychological theory or even as a cognitive model. He intended it as a rational reconstruction. When he illustrated the ingredients involved in recognizing an implicature, he was enumerating the sorts of information that a hearer needs to take into account, at least intuitively, and exhibiting how this information is logically organized. He was not foolishly engaged in psychological speculation about the nature of or even the temporal sequence of the cognitive processes that implement that logic. There are cases in which it is pretty clear to the hearer well before the speaker finishes saying something that he does not mean what he will have said. For example, when the utterance is obviously going to be metaphorical, the hearer does not have to determine first that what the sentence means is not a likely candidate for what the speaker means before figuring out what the speaker does mean. Often that can be
done on the fly. For example, if in response to an utterance of No man is an island, someone says Some men are peninsulas, some men are volcanoes, and some men are tornadoes, in order to figure out what the speaker means you do not have to figure out first that he does not mean that some men are peninsulas, some men are volcanoes, and some men are tornadoes. Similarly, if youre discussing a touchy subject with someone and they say, Since it might rain tonight, Id better bring in the laundry, clean out my gutters, and find my umbrella, you could probably figure out before they were finished saying all this that they were implicating that they didnt want to discuss that touchy subject any further.
6. All pragmatic implications are implicatures

I doubt that very many people would own up to this misconception, and my impression of its prevalence may depend more on what people say than on what they actually believe. After all, almost everyone recognizes the difference between implicatures and pragmatic presuppositions. Even so, some people seem to think that anything that may be inferred from the fact that a speaker uttered a certain sentence is an implicature. Yes, such a thing is pragmatic because it is inferred not from the sentences content but from the fact that the speaker uttered the sentence, but that doesnt automatically make it an implicature, contrary to what is sometimes said. For example, there is the claim that if you assert something, you implicate that you believe it, you implicate that your audience should believe it, and you implicate that it is worthy of belief. This claim overlooks, among other things, the distinction between what a speaker means (has a communicative intention to convey), which is the content of an utterance (over and above its semantic content), and what the conditions are for making the utterance felicitously. Also, a speakers saying a certain thing might reveal information about him, such as that he craves attention, that he hates his father and loves his mother, or that he has a certain ulterior motive, but such bits of inferable information arent implicated unless theyre part of what he means. In general, what is meant and in particular what is implicated must be distinguished from anything else that may be inferred from the fact that the speaker made the utterance.
7.
Implicatures are not part of the truth-conditional contents of utterances
There is a tendency among those who speak of utterances as having truth-conditional contents to exclude implicatures from these contents. In fact, they even argue that something is an implicature precisely because it is not part of the truth-conditional content of an utterance. This is particularly common in connection with claims about conventional implicatures.
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Yet there is something rather strange about this way of talking. After all, implicatures are capable of being true or false. To be sure, if what a speaker says is true and what he implicates is false, we might still tend to judge his utterance as true. For example, if he accurately says that he saw Bill with a woman and falsely implicates that Bill was not with his wife, we might judge him to be speaking truly but misleadingly. If he were a witness in a divorce proceeding, he might be innocent of perjury. Even so, what he implicated is part of the total truth-conditional content of his utterance. So why do people talk as if an implicature is not part of the truth-conditional content of an utterance? I think theres an easy explanation. What they actually mean is that an implicature carried by an utterance of a sentence is not part of the semantic content of the sentence, or is not part of what is said by the speaker in uttering the sentence. Thats fine, but it does not suggest that the implicature isnt part of the truth-conditional content of the utterance, if by that we mean not the sentence but the act of uttering it. A possible source of confusion here is an often overlooked ambiguity involving the phrase utterance interpretation. Sometimes it is used to mean the psychological process whereby listeners figure out what speakers are trying to communicate, and sometimes it is used in a strict semantic sense to mean something more abstract, a mapping from syntactic structure to semantic contents. When these are confused, utterances are treated as if they are linguistic objects and yet whose interpretation is a matter of discerning speakers intentions. Probably the wisest course is to not attribute contents to utterances at all. The only sense in which an utterance has content over and above that of the uttered sentence is as an intentional act performed by a speaker. But in that sense, the content of an utterance is nothing more than the content of the speakers communicative intention in making the utterance. Utterances (considered as acts as opposed to sentences) dont really have contents in their own right, independently of that intention. There is no independent, objective content beyond that. There is what the hearer takes to be the utterance content (i.e., the content of the speakers communicative intention), there is what the hearer could, in the conversational situation, reasonably take that content to be, and there is what the speaker could reasonably expect it to be taken to be, but thats that.
8. If something is meant but unsaid, it must be implicated

One very common assumption is that what a speaker means can be divided exhaustively into what is said and what is implicated. Yet what a speaker means can go beyond what he says without being implicated. Speaking figuratively or obliquely are two familiar ways in which what you mean can depart from the semantic content of the sentence you utter. Either way, to succeed in communicating you exploit the listeners expectation that you are speaking truthfully, informatively, relevantly, and otherwise appropriately. Unfortunately, Grice classified figurative statements, such as You are the cream in my coffee, as implicatures.
Given his assumption that to say something is to mean it, this forced him to suppose that to speak nonliterally is merely to make as if to say something. But it seems obvious that in speaking figuratively one really is saying something (but meaning something else instead). At any rate, there is a different kind of case, which Grice seems not to have taken into account. We often use sentences in a way that is not strictly determined by their meanings but is not figurative or oblique (implicature-producing) either. There are other ways of not meaning just what you say. For example, if your spouse says I will be home later she is likely to mean that she will be home later that night, not merely at some time in the future. In such cases what one means is an expansion (as I call it) of what one says, in that adding more words (tonight, in the example) would have made what was meant more fully explicit. In other cases, such as Fanny has finished and Lanny is late, the sentence does not express a complete proposition. There must be something which Fanny is being claimed to have finished and something which Lanny is being claimed to be late for (or late to). In these cases what one means is a completion of what one says. In both sorts of case, no particular word or phrase is being used nonliterally and there is no indirection. Both exemplify what I call conversational impliciture since part of what is meant is communicated not explicitly but implicitly, by way of completion and expansion. Completion and expansion are both processes whereby the hearer supplies missing portions of what is otherwise being expressed explicitly. With completion a propositional schema is filled in, and with expansion a complete but skeletal proposition is fleshed out. Either way, what the speaker means is built up from what the speaker has made explicit. This is different from both figurative utterances and implicatures (and indirect speech acts generally), since the speaker builds directly on what he has made explicit. What he means is an embellished version of what he says. Confusion in this area has arisen because of a common but bewildering use of the phrase explicit content. Some people classify as part of the explicit content of an utterance elements that are not explicit, that is, elements that do not correspond to any syntactic constituents of the uttered sentence. So, on this usage, when Yogi Berra said No one goes there any more its too crowded, the explicit content of his utterance was that no one important goes to Ruggerios (in St. Louis) any more its too crowded. To confuse the issue even further, some people use the neologism explicature for this embellished content, as if there is no difference between somethings being explicit and its being made explicit (explicated).
9. Scalar implicatures are implicatures

People wouldnt call so-called scalar implicatures implicatures unless they thought that thats what they are. But generally theyre not; theyre mostly implic-i-tures. Why do I say that? Well, consider a simple example.
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A typical claim is that in uttering Some of the boys went to the party, the speaker implicates that not all of the boys went to the party. But this assumes that the speaker means not one but two things, that some of the boys went to the party and that not all of them did. Really, though, the speaker means only one thing, that some but not all of the boys went to the party. He could have spelled this out by including but not all after some. Similarly, if you say, I have two TV sets, you do not mean both that you have two TV sets and that you dont have more than two, you mean that you have exactly two, which you could have made explicit by putting exactly before two. Lest this seem like a merely terminological point, notice that there are special cases in which the speaker does mean two things. For example, suppose youre asked whether all the boys went to the party. You reply, Some of the boys went to the party. In this case, you are saying that some went and implicating that not all did. Similarly, suppose youre asked if you have three TV sets and you say I have two. In this case you are saying that you have two and implicating that you dont have three. These really are cases of implicature, unlike the above previous cases of impliciture. I am not suggesting that reclassifying most scalar implicatures as implicitures would have any great consequence for Larrys or anyone elses work on the subject, but I see no reason to keep calling them implic-a-tures.
10. Conventional implicatures are implicatures

As I see it, the category of conventional implicature needlessly complicates Grices distinction between what is said and what is implicated. Even worse, it includes under one heading two quite different phenomena, each of which is really a case of something else. The first involves expressions like but and still. Grice claimed, as had Frege long before him, that the conventional meanings of such terms make contributions to the total import of a sentence without bearing on its truth or falsity. In She is poor but honest, for example, the contrast between being poor and being honest due to the presence of but is supposedly implicated but not stated. Grice based his claim primarily on the intuition that one would be speaking truly even if the contrast does not hold, provided the conjunction does hold. But this implies that you would have said nothing less with She is poor and honest than with She is poor but honest. To me, thats counterintuitive. Grice observed that conventional implicatures are detachable but not cancelable, but thats no argument for them. It does distinguish them (if they are there to distinguish) from conversational implicatures, which are cancelable but not detachable (except for those induced by exploiting the maxim of manner, which are not detachable because they depend on how one puts what one says), and from entailments, which are neither cancelable nor detachable. However, detachability is not an independent test. If a putative implicature really were part of what is said, one could not leave it out and
still say the same thing. To use and rather than but, for example, really would be to say less. And thats how it seems to me. To say that she is poor and honest is to say less than that she is poor but honest. Similarly, to say that conventional implicature is widely accepted is to say less than that conventional implicature is still widely accepted. The second kind of case is connected to Grices suggestion that conventional implicature is involved in the performance of noncentral speech acts. He had in mind uses of such expressions as after all, by the way, for example, frankly, furthermore, in conclusion, in other words, and to digress to comment on the very utterance in which they occur its point, character, or place in the discourse. However, the second-order speech acts these utterance modifiers are used to perform dont seem to be mere implicatures. For example, in uttering Frankly, Dr. Payne is a quack, you are not implicating but explicitly indicating that you are speaking frankly.
The Obvious Conclusion

Ive enumerated and briefly explained what I take to be ten misconceptions about implicature. I havent tried to give full-blown arguments for why they are misconceptions, let alone to spell out their insidious consequences.2 Each depends on overlooking a fairly obvious distinction or possibility, at least obvious once you notice it. These misconceptions are best avoided by keeping those distinctions and possibilities in mind.
References
Grice, H.P. 1961. The causal theory of perception. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 35:121152. Grice, H.P. 1975. Logic and conversation. In P. Cole and J. Morgan, eds., Syntax and Semantics, Volume 3: Speech Acts. New York: Academic Press. 4158.
2.
But see the papers in the Semantics-Pragmatics Series at http://online.sfsu.edu/~kbach.
Inferential relations and noncanonical word order*1

Betty J. Birner
Northern Illinois University
This paper argues that the category of inferrable information in discourse comprises information resulting from three distinct types of inferences: identity, bridging, and elaborating inferences. The distribution of inferrable information in noncanonical constructions can be accounted for by redefining discourseold information (Prince 1992) as information that is inferentially linked to the prior context. Bridging inferrables, then, are discourse-old but hearer-new, while elaborating inferrables are both discourse-old and hearer-old, having been evoked by a previous trigger utterance. Finally, information that has been explicitly evoked in the prior discourse is classified as a type of discourse-old, hearer-old inferrable in which the inferential relation in question is that of identity. Thus, the category of inferrable information is argued to be coextensive with the category of discourse-old information while varying in terms of hearerstatus, an analysis that accounts for the distribution of the full range of inferrable information.
1.
Introduction
Felicitous use of preposing and postposing constructions has been shown to be sensitive to information status, in terms of the (assumed) familiarity of information both within the addressees knowledge store and within the prior discourse (Birner & Ward
* I would like to thank Barbara Abbott, Suzanne Birner, Jeanette Gundel, Larry Horn, Jeff Kaplan, Andy Kehler, Knud Lambrecht, Fritz Newmeyer, Scott Schwenter, and Gregory Ward for helpful comments and suggestions. I am also grateful to Gregory Ward and Beth Levin for providing naturally occurring data, and to Brittany Bergstrand and Theresa Kirner for help with database construction and coding; and I thank Don Hardy for the use of his Textant corpus analysis program. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the International Colloquium on Explorations in the Semantics/Pragmatics Interface, the Berkeley Linguistics Society Annual Meeting, and the Linguistic Society of America Annual Meeting. I am grateful to those audiences for their helpful comments and suggestions. Needless to say, all remaining errors are my own.
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1998). Reliable predictions can therefore be made regarding the distribution of information that is brand-new, previously evoked, or not yet evoked but assumed to be familiar. One category of information whose status has yet to be definitively resolved, however, is what Prince (1981, 1992) calls inferrable information, typically defined as information that has not been previously evoked and is not assumed to be known to the hearer, yet is inferentially related to information evoked in the prior discourse. In this paper I extend the framework of Prince 1992 and Birner and Ward 1998 to account for the distribution of the full range of inferrable information in preposing and postposing constructions. The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 reviews past work on information status and noncanonical syntactic constructions, illustrating the specific types of givenness and newness to which certain preposing and postposing constructions are sensitive. It then presents a preliminary discussion of the distribution of inferrable information in such constructions and what this distribution suggests about the status of inferrable information. In section 3, I draw on work in psycholinguistics to argue that there are in fact three distinct classes of inferrable information, resulting from three distinct types of inferences: bridging inferences, which relate a new entity to previously evoked information; elaborating inferences, which evoke a new entity immediately upon the utterance of some trigger; and identity inferences, which relate a currently evoked entity to a previous evocation of the same entity. I show that these three classes of inferrable information differ in their distribution in noncanonical syntactic constructions, and I use these distributional properties to argue for different informationstructural statuses, using Princes (1992) categories of hearer- and discourse-status. In section 4 I show how the mechanism that triggers bridging inferences in noncanonical constructions explains a difference in interpretation between certain noncanonical utterances and their canonical counterparts. Finally, section 5 summarizes my findings.
2. Noncanonical syntax and inferrable information

It has been known since the early days of the Prague School that word order choices are frequently made for functional reasons in particular, to place relatively familiar information toward the beginning of an utterance and relatively new information toward the end (Firbas 1966, Halliday 1967, Halliday and Hasan 1976, inter alia). However, though many binary distinctions have been proposed to distinguish between old and new information (given/new, topic/comment, presupposition/focus, etc.), no single such distinction has been shown to adequately account for the distribution of information in discourse. Prince 1992 suggests that in fact no single binary distinction is sufficient, and instead proposes three distinctions one that breaks the utterance down into presupposition and focus, and two that categorize individual constituents as being, on the
Inferential relations and noncanonical word order
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one hand, discourse-old or discourse-new, and on the other, hearer-old or hearer-new. These latter two distinctions cross-cut each other to create the matrix in Table 1: Table 1.
Hearer-old: Discourse-old: Discourse-new: Previously evoked Not evoked, but known Hearer-new: (Non-occurring) Brand-new
Discourse-old information, for Prince, is that which has been evoked in the prior discourse, while hearer-old information is that which the speaker assumes is familiar to the hearer (i.e., present in the hearers knowledge-store, whether or not it has been previously evoked in the discourse). Thus, consider (1): (1) Earlier this year, when Lt. Alicia Rice found out she was being deployed to the Middle East, she started a pretty lengthy to-do list. [Horseland Security, Americas Horse, July/August 2005, beginning of article] Here, Lt. Alicia Rice represents information that is both discourse-new and hearernew, since the reader cannot plausibly be assumed to have any previous knowledge of this person. Similarly, a pretty lengthy to-do list represents information that is likewise discourse-new and hearer-new, not having been evoked in the prior discourse and (presumably) not being previously known to the reader. The pronoun she, in both places in which it appears here, represents information that is both discourse-old and hearer-old, i.e. the previously evoked Lt. Rice. Finally, the Middle East represents information that is discourse-new but hearer-old; that is, although it has not been evoked in the prior discourse, the writer can reasonably assume that the reader already knows of the Middle East. Such discourse-new, hearer-old information is termed unused in Prince 1981. Prince assumes that the fourth logically possible status, i.e. discourse-old but hearer-new information, does not occur, since presumably an addressee who is attending to the discourse would be aware of previously evoked information. Princes categories of discourse-status and hearer-status have been shown in previous work to account for the distribution of information in a broad range of noncanonical syntactic constructions in English.1 Birner & Ward 1998 shows that preposing constructions require the preposed constituent to represent discourse-old information, while postposing constructions require the postposed constituent to represent either hearer-new or discourse-new information, and argument-reversing constructions require the preposed constituent to represent information that is at
1. The focus-presupposition distinction also affects the distribution of information in noncanonical English constructions, but this distinction is not relevant to this paper. The interested reader is referred to Birner and Ward 1998 for details.
least as familiar in the discourse as that represented by the postposed constituent. These constraints are illustrated in examples (2)-(5): (2) a. In the early days, our productions were cheap and cheerful, says producer John Weaver of London-based Keefco. Wed go into a seven-light studio, shoot the band in one afternoon and edit as we went along. The client would walk out with a tape that day. Todays tapes may still be cheerful, but cheap they are not. [Newsweek] b. In the early days, our productions were cheap and cheerful, says producer John Weaver of London-based Keefco. Wed go into a seven-light studio, shoot the band in one afternoon and edit as we went along. The client would walk out with a tape that day. Todays tapes may still be cheerful, but #commonly available they are not. (3) a. It was about 2.00 pm when we reached a favorite spot of mine. There was this fish farm complemented by a Banana plantation. Then there was this series of hills, filled [sic] numerous tracks that are long forgotten. My spot? The end of a jungle track reaching the foot of the Hills. [http://www.confluence.org/confluence.php?lat=3&lon=102] b. It was about 2.00 pm when we reached an enormous fish farm. #There was this fish farm complemented by a Banana plantation. (4) a. They have a great big tank in the kitchen, and in the tank are sitting all of these pots. [Jeff Smith, Frugal Gourmet, 6/17/89] b. They have all of these pots in the kitchen, and #in a great big tank are sitting all of the pots. (5) a. The mayors present term of office expires Jan. 1. He will be succeeded by Ivan Allen Jr.... [Brown Corpus] b. Ivan Allen Jr. will take office Jan. 1. #The mayor will be succeeded by him. The italicized clause in (2a) is a preposing. The preposed constituent, cheap, represents information that has been previously evoked in the discourse (i.e., it is discourse-old), and as predicted, the preposing is felicitous. Compare this with (2b), where the preposed commonly available has not been evoked in the prior discourse (i.e., it is discourse-new); here, the preposing is infelicitous. In the existential in (3a), the postposed this fish farm complemented by a Banana planation represents hearer-new information, and as predicted, it is felicitous; in (3b), on the other hand, where the fish farm is hearer-old, the existential is infelicitous. Both the inversion in (4) and the passive in (5) are argument-reversing constructions. In (4a), the preposed tank represents discourse-old information while the postposed pots represents discourse-new information, resulting
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in felicity, whereas in (4b) the preposed tank represents discourse-new information while the postposed pots represents discourse-old information, resulting in infelicity. Finally, in (5a) the subject pronoun he represents discourse-old information, whereas Ivan Allen Jr. represents discourse-new information, and the passive is felicitous, while in (5b) the subject the mayor represents discourse-new information while the postposed pronoun him represents discourse-old information, and the passive is infelicitous. Thus, Princes categories of discourse- and hearer-status successfully predict the distribution of information in preposing, postposing, and argument-reversing constructions in English. Notice also that while Prince (1992) restricts her discussion to the status of nominal referring expressions, the findings of Birner & Ward 1998 extend to other categories, as evidenced by the preposed cheap in (2a). Prince, however, leaves unresolved the status of what she terms inferrable information i.e., information that has not been evoked in the prior discourse but which can be plausibly inferred from information that has been evoked in the prior discourse (see also Haviland and Clark 1974, Clark 1977, Chafe 1987, and Lambrecht 1994). Evidence from inversion (Birner 1994) and preposing (Birner & Ward 1998) shows that for constructions that are sensitive to discourse-status, inferrable information shares the distribution of discourse-old information. This is illustrated in (6): (6) a. When he was 16, he and his brother headed for Las Vegas, where his real education began. Booked into the lounge at the Fremont Hotel, Wayne and Larry did six shows a night, six nights a week for five years. It was an education that has lasted up to this day. In the audience were hecklers and brawlers. Beer bottles were pitched at them. [Philadelphia Inquirer, 9/16/83] b. The 4 of us (Jeff, Austin, Jeff s roommate, and me) all sat in the Andrews lobby with our laptops and wireless doing the competition. It consisted of 3 different projects, scored 250, 500, and 1000 points, and getting harder with each one. The first one I got right, but took a bit too long on it (for some reason, Java wasnt being nice to me when I tried to divide integers instead of doubles). [http://jgold03.blogspot.com/2003_11_01_jgold03_archive.html] In (6a), the prior mention of being booked into a lounge and doing six shows a night renders inferrable that there was an audience, which in turn licenses the inversion with in the audience in preposed position. Similarly, in (6b), the mention of three different projects getting progressively harder renders inferrable that one of them would be first, which in turn licenses the preposing of the first one. Thus, the evidence from preposing and inversion indicates that inferrables represent discourse-old information. This would seem to entail that they likewise represent hearer-old information, given Princes argument that discourse-old information is necessarily also hearer-old if the addressee is assumed to have been attending to the prior discourse. This, however,
turns out to not be the case. As noted in Birner 2004, a corpus study of existentials shows that inferrable information can felicitously appear in postposed position in an existential: In a corpus of 232 naturally occurring existentials, trained coders judged that in 57, or 24.6%, of the tokens the postcopular NP represented inferrable information.2 This is illustrated in (7): (7) a. There werent the funds necessary for the project. [=Abbott 1992, ex. 31a] b. The audience did not think much of the new pastor, and what the new pastor thought of the audience he did not dare at the time to say. During the next weeks he looked over the situation. First of all there was the parsonage, an utterly impossible place for civilized people to live in, originally poorly conceived, apparently not repaired for years, with no plumbing or sewage, with rat-holes and rot. [Brown Corpus] c. If the farm is rented, the rent must be paid. If it is owned, taxes must be paid, and if the place is not free of mortgage, there will be interest and payments on the principal to take care of. [Brown Corpus] In (7a), the existence of a salient project licenses the inference that funds may be necessary;3 in (7b), mention of a new pastor licenses an inference to the parsonage; and in (7c), mention of a mortgage licenses the inference to interest and payments on the principal. Notice, moreover, that in (7a-b) these inferences license the use of the definite; that is, it is the inferential relationship between projects and funding, and between pastors and parsonages, that renders the funds and the parsonage sufficiently identifiable for felicitous definite reference. (See Ward and Birner 1994, 1998; Abbott 2004, inter alia, regarding constraints on definiteness.) Not all cases of inferrable entities are realized via definite NPs, however; in (7c), for example, the interest and pay-
2. The corpus data consisted of tokens drawn from the Brown A and R Subcorpora (Reportage and Humor, respectively) and the novel The Geranium, by Flannery OConnor. I am grateful to Don Hardy for the use of his Textant corpus-analysis tool, which greatly facilitated the building of the corpus. 3. In (7a), if the funds are inferred from the NP the project within the larger NP the funds necessary for the project, it constitutes a containing inferrable in the sense of Prince 1981. Notice, however, that in (7a) the use of the definite NP the project suggests that the project in question is already under discussion; (7a) would be infelicitous in the absence of a mutually known salient project. Thus, it is more plausible to assume that the funds referred to here are inferred from a prior mention of the project in question.
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ments on the principal are clearly inferrable in view of an evoked mortgage, yet the NP is indefinite.4 As shown in Ward and Birner 1995, the postposed NP in an existential is required to represent hearer-new information. Thus, the ability of inferrable information to appear in postposed position in an existential, illustrated in (7), suggests that inferrable information is treated as hearer-new. Yet notice that the same NPs may be felicitously preposed, showing that for purposes of preposing, they are treated as representing discourse-old information: (8) a. The deadline was looming, and they had found significant support, but the funds necessary for the project they hadnt yet found. b. The audience did not think much of the new pastor, and what the new pastor thought of the audience he did not dare at the time to say. During the next weeks he looked over the situation. The parsonage he could tolerate, but the church itself was in terrible disrepair. c. If the farm is rented, the rent must be paid. If it is owned or mortgaged, the owner pays the taxes. Interest and payments on the principal the owner may find harder to pay. This, however, means that inferrable information is treated distributionally as though it is simultaneously discourse-old and hearer-new, which is the one category that Prince 1992 suggests is disallowed. This raises the question, therefore, of how information that is familiar within the discourse can be new to the hearer. I propose that the answer lies in a reformulation of the notion of discourse-old information to encompass more than only information that has been explicitly evoked in the prior discourse. In Birner and Ward 1998, it is argued that both evoked and inferrable information provides a link to the prior discourse. In view of the findings described above, we can resolve the apparent contradictions in the data by hypothesizing that it is this link that defines the class of discourse-old information i.e., that the unifying factor is not in fact previous evocation within the discourse, but instead the existence of an inferential link to the information evoked in the prior discourse. In the case of explicitly evoked information, this inferential relation is one of identity, whereas in the case of what previous accounts have called inferrable information, the inference is based on some relation other than identity; however, in all cases an inferential relationship is present. Moreover, notice that the two cases identity vs. some other inferential relation are not as distinct as they appear. Identity itself is an inferential relation; that is, establishing identity of reference between two constituents requires an inference to be
4. Although some authors have argued that definites are disallowed in postcopular position in existentials (Milsark 1974, Safir 1985, Reuland & ter Meulen 1987, Lasnik 1992, inter alia), it is shown in Ward & Birner 1995 that definites are in fact permitted in this position when they represent hearer-hew information.
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made. For example, in (1) above, repeated here, an inference is needed to relate she to the previously evoked Lt. Alicia Rice via an identity relation: (1) Earlier this year, when Lt. Alicia Rice found out she was being deployed to the Middle East, she started a pretty lengthy to-do list. Here, she can be used to refer either to Rice or to some other contextually salient female; for example, if this sentence appeared in an article about Rices daughters enlistment and deployment, the first she in (1) could easily take the daughter as its referent (i.e., when Rice found out that her daughter was being deployed, Rice started a to-do list). It is an inference (albeit not a difficult one) that tells the reader that Rice is the intended referent. Slightly more complex identity relations may hold between two full NPs, as illustrated in (9): (9) a. I told the guy at the door to watch out, but the idiot wouldnt listen. [=Evans 1981, ex. 6] b. With a degree in Physical Education, Terri Lewis could be coaching a high school volleyball team. Instead, this ranch wife and mother has spent the last three years riding and roping with three other women.... [Cowgirl Up!, Americas Horse, July/August 2005] In (9a), an inference is necessary in order to relate the epithet the idiot to the previously evoked coreferential NP the guy at the door. Similarly, in (9b) an inference is necessary to interpret this ranch wife and mother as coreferential with Terri Lewis. In both cases, the inferred coreferentiality conveys additional attributes for a previously known entity: The coindexing of the guy at the door and the idiot tells the reader that the attribute idiot holds of this entity, while the coindexing of Terri Lewis and this ranch wife and mother gives the reader additional information about Lewis. Thus, all discourse-old information is in fact inferrable: Whether it has been explicitly evoked in the prior context or is related via some other set relation, the discourse-old element is in all cases inferentially related to the prior context. If we think of discourse-old information in this way, it is not quite parallel to hearer-old information. Instead, I will use the term discourse-old for information that is inferentially linked to the prior discourse, while hearer-old information continues to be defined as that which is assumed to be present in the addressees knowledge-store. (These correspond to the terms D-old and H-old in Birner 2004.) This results in the following preliminary revision to Princes matrix (Birner 2004):
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Table 2.
Hearer-old: Discourse-old: Evoked (inferentially linked and known to hearer) Unused (not inferentially linked, but known to hearer) Hearer-new: Inferrable (inferentially linked, but not known to hearer) Brand-new (not inferentially linked, and not known to hearer)
Discourse-new:
Discourse-old, hearer-old information, then, is that which has been previously evoked, and is therefore both inferentially linked (via the identity relation) to the prior discourse and assumed to be known to the addressee. Discourse-new, hearer-new information is that which is brand-new assumed to be unknown to the addressee, and not inferentially linked to the prior discourse. Discourse-new, hearer-old information is that which is not inferentially linked to the prior discourse but which is assumed to be known to the addressee what Prince 1981 calls unused. And finally, the new category of discourse-old, hearer-new information is that which is assumed to be unknown to the addressee (in that it is assumed not to exist in the addressees knowledge-store prior to utterance), yet is inferentially linked to the prior discourse. This approach to inferrable information has the effect of filling the previously empty quadrant of Princes matrix, as well as accounting for the distribution of inferrable information in noncanonical syntactic constructions. Nevertheless, as we will see in the next section, a new investigation shows that not all inferrable information belongs in this quadrant.
3. Three categories of discourse-based inferences

Under the redefinition of discourse-old information proposed in Birner 2004 and described above, the pronoun she in (1) and the NPs the idiot and this ranch wife and mother in (9) are discourse-old, in that each stands in an inferential relation to information evoked in the prior discourse. However, these clearly cannot be considered hearer-new in any sense. Instead, they must be categorized as both discourse-old and hearer-old, since they represent entities that are known to the addressee at the time of utterance. This is particularly clear in the case of the pronoun in (1), which adds no new information to the discourse-model representation of the entity in question, but it is also true of the definite descriptions in (9), each of which takes as its referent an entity already evoked in the discourse.5 In short, all inferrables for which the inferen-
5. See Birner 1994, 1996 for evidence that for referring expressions it is the status of the discourse entity, rather than the description encoded in the NP, that is relevant for information status.
tial relation is one of identity represent information that is not only discourse-old but also hearer-old. In addition, there exists a class of inferences that are not identity-based, but for which the utterance of the trigger element is sufficient to give rise to the inference at the point at which it is uttered. Consider the preposed inferrable constituents in the inversions in (10): (10) a. In one of the drawers there was a bundle of old letters, a dozen or more, tied together with a bit of rotten string. They were addressed Thomas Willingdon, Jr. Esq. at the Cordova Theological Seminary, in an emotional, flowery handwriting ornamented with Spencerian curlicues which began in a neat correct flourish and ended in a splatter of ink. Across the face of the top letter was written in The Old Mans handwriting, not to be forgotten. [L. Bromfield, The Farm, Grosset & Dunlap, USA, 1933, p. 262] b. The house was particularly spacious. Set well back from the road, it was almost surrounded by wide lawns on which, each side of the house, grew a huge palm tree. Beyond the right-hand palm could be seen a clothes line. [A.W. Upfield, The Widows of Broome, 1950; Charles Scribners Sons reprint, New York, 1985, pp. 110-111] c. She got married recently and at the wedding was the mother, the stepmother and Debbie. [conversation, 6/29/89] In (10a), the face of the top letter cannot be considered hearer-new, since the evocation of a bundle of letters simultaneously evokes the top, visible letter (and, in turn, its face).6 Similarly, mention of the pair of palm trees flanking the house in (10b) simultaneously evokes each of the individual trees, and in (10c) mention of someone getting married evokes the wedding that is typically involved in an act of getting married. Because the evocation of getting married also constitutes an evocation of a wedding (despite the absence of an explicit mention of a wedding i.e., despite the absence of an identity relation), the wedding at the time of its utterance can be assumed to be in the hearers knowledge store, and hence will be treated as hearer-old (and similarly for (10a) and (10b)). Contrast this with Haviland and Clarks (1974) classic example of a bridging inference: (11) Mary took the picnic supplies out of the trunk. The beer was warm. [Haviland and Clark 1974]
6. In the terms of Prince 1981, the inference from the top letter to the face of the top letter is a containing inferrable, in which the information represented by the entire constituent may be inferred from the information represented by a smaller constituent contained within it.
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Here, mention of picnic supplies does not automatically give rise to an inference involving beer; that is, the addressee cannot be plausibly assumed to have beer in mind upon encountering the mention of picnic supplies, since its not the case that a picnic generally involves beer. In (11), it isnt until the NP the beer is encountered that the addressee is cued (by the definite article) to search for an inferential connection between this NP and the prior context, leading to the inference that the beer in question constitutes part of the previously mentioned picnic supplies. Psycholinguists recognize two classes of discourse-based inferences forward or elaborative inferences, as in (10), and backward or bridging inferences, as in (11). As described by Keenan et al. (1990:3789), The distinction is not based on the type of information inferred but rather what motivates the inference. If the inference is drawn in order to establish coherence between the present piece of text and the preceding text, then it is a bridging inference. If an inference is not needed for coherence, but is simply drawn to embellish the textual information, then it is an elaborative inference. As indicated by the terms forward and backward, the crucial difference lies in when the inference is made; a forward inference (such as the inference from got married to wedding) takes place at the utterance of the first, trigger constituent (here, got married), whereas a backward inference (such as that from picnic supplies to beer) is not made until the utterance of the inferrable constituent, in order to establish coherence between it and the prior discourse. Although Clark 1977 uses the term bridging for both types of inference, later researchers (e.g., Keenan et al. 1990) have found it useful to reserve the term bridging for those cases in which the utterance of the inferrable constituent triggers the construction of a bridge to the prior context.7 In the case of elaborating inferences, the inferred information counts as already having been evoked, despite not having been explicitly mentioned, and therefore comfortably occupies the discourse-old, hearer-old quadrant in Table 2 along with the identity inferrables in (1) and (9). In the case of identity inferrables such as those in (1) and (9), the inference connecting the second evocation of the entity with its prior evocation can be considered a backward inference, since this inference is not made until the second evocation. That is, e.g., in (9a), the utterance of the guy at the door does not give rise to an inference that the referent is an idiot; rather, the utterance of the idiot licenses a backward
7. It should be noted that there is still considerable terminological variation among psycholinguists; for example, Long et al. (1990) use the term elaborative inference for a subtype of backward inference in which a reader infers some event that is not explicitly mentioned in the text, in order to provide coherence between the current and prior stretches of text. This clearly differs from the sense of elaborative inference in Keenan et al.s definition above. See also Sanford (1990) and McKoon and Ratcliff (1990), who, like Keenan et al., use the term elaborative inference for inferences that go beyond what is required to establish coherence; and van den Broek (1990a), who, like Long et al., uses the term elaboration for a subtype of backward inference. My terminology follows that of Keenan et al., Sanford, and McKoon and Ratcliff (inter alia), except that I use the term elaborating rather than the more common elaborative, for parallelism with bridging.
inference identifying this entity with the previously-evoked guy at the door. Because identity is an inferential relation, pronominal-resolution inferences and identity-ofreference inferences relating two full NPs constitute a single category of identity inferences. Moreover, in these cases the referent at its second evocation is already known to the hearer (even if by a different description), and thus represents information that is both discourse-old and hearer-old. With respect to its information status, then, the result of an identity inference differs from the result of a non-identity bridging inference (which, as we have seen, is discourse-old but hearer-new). For this reason, it is worthwhile to distinguish between two types of backward inference i.e., bridging inferences, in which the referent is not assumed to be already in the hearers knowledge-store, and identity inferences, in which it is. Now let us consider elaborating inferences. There is disagreement in the literature as to when these inferences occur. Keenan et al. (1990), for example, assume that they take place immediately upon utterance of a trigger; thus, in (10a) the mention of a bundle of old letters give rise to an immediate inference to the top letter, and from the top letter to its face. Sanford (1990) agrees that there is evidence for automatic elaborative inferential activity (1990:520). Other authors, however, take issue with the existence of immediate inferences of this sort. Swinney and Osterhout 1990, for example, argue that while bridging inferences are reliably and automatically generated (1990:17), the same is not true of elaborating inferences. They note that even in the cases for which researchers have suggested that automatic inference generation is most likely... there is no evidence that unequivocally establishes that they are elaborated immediately.... (1990:28). Swinney and Osterhout found in their study that the only inferences generated immediately were those connecting a syntactic trace or a pronoun with its antecedent. Long et al. (1990) found that superordinate goal inferences were an exception to accumulating evidence that bridging inferences (or coherence-based inferences) are the only inferences generated during comprehension (1990:100). Thus, these authors argue that elaborating inferences are generated primarily offline i.e., only when the subject is queried later, as opposed to during comprehension. One problem, noted by van den Broek (1990b), is that forward inferences are less clearly constrained than backward inferences. That is, it is generally relatively clear what sort of inference needs to be made to relate the current utterance to the prior context: The current utterance and the prior context conspire to jointly constrain what inferences may be drawn to relate them. A forward inference, on the other hand, is constrained only by the current utterance, resulting in what van den Broek terms the possibility of an explosion of expectations, thereby making the prediction and investigation of these inferences problematic (1990b:190). Thus, further research is needed to determine the limits of forward inferences and the semantic and pragmatic factors that reliably give rise to them. Nonetheless, evidence for the existence of such inferences can be found in the distribution of noncanonical constructions. In particular, there is evidence that in elaborating inferences, the inferred information counts as having been previously evoked,
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i.e. that it is both discourse-old and hearer-old. This means that its information status is the same as that of an identity inferrable, and that together identity inferrables and elaborating inferrables occupy a different location on Princes matrix from that occupied by bridging inferrables. Consider again existentials, which, as noted above, require the postcopular NP to represent hearer-new information. Compare the bridging inferrables in (7) (repeated here), which occur felicitously in existentials, with the elaborating inferrables in (12), which do not: (7) a. There werent the funds necessary for the project. b. The audience did not think much of the new pastor, and what the new pastor thought of the audience he did not dare at the time to say. During the next weeks he looked over the situation. First of all there was the parsonage, an utterly impossible place for civilized people to live in, originally poorly conceived, apparently not repaired for years, with no plumbing or sewage, with rat-holes and rot. c. If the farm is rented, the rent must be paid. If it is owned, taxes must be paid, and if the place is not free of mortgage, there will be interest and payments on the principal to take care of. (12) a. In one of the drawers there was a bundle of old letters, a dozen or more, tied together with a bit of rotten string. They were addressed Thomas Willingdon, Jr. Esq. at the Cordova Theological Seminary, in an emotional, flowery handwriting ornamented with Spencerian curlicues which began in a neat correct flourish and ended in a splatter of ink. #There was the face of the top letter easily visible. b. The house was particularly spacious. Set well back from the road, it was almost surrounded by wide lawns on which, each side of the house, grew a huge palm tree. #Behind a clothes line there was the right-hand palm. c. #She got married recently and there was the wedding in her hometown. In (12), because the elaborating inferrables constitute previously evoked information, they are hearer-old and therefore cannot appear in postcopular position in an existential. (Notice that the canonical-word-order variants The face of the top letter was easily visible, The right-hand palm was behind a clothes line, and The wedding was in her hometown are felicitous.) Notice, moreover, that the difference between the felicitous existentials in (7) and the infelicitous existentials in (12) is not due to a difference in definiteness, as five of the six examples involve definite NPs. Indeed, if we replace the definite inferrable NPs in (12) with indefinites, the result is equally infelicitous. In the case of (12c), replacement of the wedding with a wedding implicates that some other wedding is being referred to; such a replacement is odd if the referent of a wedding is the inferrable wedding that constitutes the previously mentioned event of getting married. Similarly, replacing the definite bridging inferrables in (7a) and (7b) with indefinites, or repla-
cing the indefinite in (7c) with a definite, has no effect on felicity. Thus, definiteness has no effect on the felicity of these examples; the postposed bridging inferrables in (7) are felicitous regardless of whether they are definite or indefinite, whereas the postposed elaborating inferrables in (12) are infelicitous regardless of whether they are definite or indefinite. Nonetheless, the interaction of definiteness, existentials, and inferrable information is an area requiring further study. Consider the examples in (13): (13) Mary took the picnic supplies out of the trunk. a. The beer was warm. b. #There was the beer in the cooler. c. There was beer in the cooler. d. ?In the cooler there was the beer. In (13a), which repeats (11) above, the definite NP the beer is rendered felicitous on the grounds that upon encountering it, one can infer that the beer constitutes part of the previously mentioned picnic supplies. Thus, in our terms, the beer is inferrable via a bridging inference. We might therefore expect it to be felicitous in postcopular position in an existential, just as the bridging inferrables in (7) are. However, in the case of (13b), the definite bridging inferrable in postcopular position is infelicitous, whereas the equally inferrable indefinite in (13c) is felicitous. Interestingly, preposing the PP, as in (13d), noticeably improves the use of the postposed definite. Therefore, while the ability of many bridging inferrables to appear in postcopular position in an existential is evidence of their hearer-new status, it is not the case that all bridging inferrables can appear in this position; there is a complex interaction between information status, definiteness, and positioning of other constituents within the existential that determines felicity. (See below for further discussion of inferential relations and definiteness.) To summarize, I have shown that there are three types of inferential relations in discourse bridging inferences, identity inferences, and elaborating inferences. A bridging inference is a backward inference that is not made until the utterance of the inferrable information itself. Bridging inferences, exemplified in (11), are the type most commonly discussed in the literature as inferrable. They differ from the other two categories in that, since the inference is not made until the utterance of the inferrable constituent itself, that constituent at its utterance is discourse-old (by virtue of the inferential link) but hearer-new.8 An identity inference is a backward inference that identifies the inferred entity with some prior evocation of the same entity; this is the type of inference we see in
8. One crucial question that remains to be answered is to what extent the bridging relations in question are semantic and to what extent they are pragmatic. Poesio et al. (2004) found that an algorithm combining lexical and salience-based features worked better for resolving mereological (whole-to-part) inferences (i.e., were better able to correctly identify the anchor in the prior discourse) than did either source of information in isolation.
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(1) and (9) above. These are the cases that Prince (1981) labels evoked, and as shown above, they too involve an inference. These identity inferrables are classified as discourse-old and hearer-old. An elaborating inference is a forward inference in which the inferential relation is not one of identity, and yet the evocation of the trigger element immediately and saliently evokes the inferrable entity, as in (10). These have sometimes been grouped together with bridging inferrables under the single umbrella category of inferrable; however, I have argued that these two types constitute distinct categories of information, and that elaborating inferrables group together with identity inferrables to constitute a single class of evoked information, classified as discourse-old and hearer-old. Thus, the final distribution of information in terms of Princes matrix is as shown in Table 3: Table 3.
Hearer-old: Discourse-old: Evoked: Identity/Elaborating Inferrable (inferentially linked and known to hearer) Unused (not inferentially linked, but known to hearer) Hearer-new: Bridging Inferrable (inferentially linked, but not known to hearer) Brand-new (not inferentially linked, and not known to hearer)
Discourse-new:
Here, the class of evoked information is understood to include information related to previously expressed information by either an identity inference or an elaborating inference, while bridging inferrables are related to previously expressed information by means of a bridging inference. There is one more distinction within the class of discourse-old information that merits discussion. Prince 1981 subdivides the class of evoked entities into those that are textually evoked (i.e., evoked in the prior discourse) and those that are situationally evoked (i.e., present in the situational context of the discourse). Because situationally evoked entities are related to the situational context much as textually evoked entities are related to the linguistic context (i.e., the prior discourse), I will argue that situationally evoked entities are treated as discourse-old. Notice, for example, that in a room containing a previously unmentioned bookcase, this situationally evoked bookcase can felicitously be mentioned in preposed position in a preposing or inversion: (14) a. I love shopping at garage sales. That bookcase I got for a hundred bucks. b. Okay, its poker time. On the bookcase is the deck of cards. In neither case is the bookcase evoked in, or inferrable from, the prior discourse, yet in both cases it is treated as discourse-old information in (14a) by being preposed, and in (14b) by being preposed in an inversion whose postposed constituent represents inferrable information (in that the cards are inferrable from the intention to play
poker, as additionally evidenced by their realization via a definite NP). Since the postposed constituent in the inversion represents discourse-old (inferrable) information, the preposed constituent is constrained to represent information that is discourse-old as well, as shown above (see also Birner 1996).9 Notice in particular that even if the bookcase has not been previously noticed by the hearer, (14a) and (14b) are felicitous; in that case, the treatment of the NP as discourse-old will cue the addressee to search the context for a bookcase. Whether situationally evoked information is treated as hearer-old or hearer-new, on the other hand, will depend on whether the speaker believes that the entity exists in the hearers knowledge-store. Thus, if a group of friends has been playing poker for three hours, it would be odd for the dealer to request the (unique, much-used but not yet explicitly mentioned) deck of cards by uttering the existential in (15), since the cards are hearer-old: (15) #Theres a/the deck of cards to your left; can you hand them to me?10 However, if no mention of cards or poker has yet occurred, a speaker could use such an existential to request a situationally present deck that the hearer may not yet be aware of and which is therefore treated as hearer-new. Notice that in this case the indefinite would typically be used, since the deck has not been rendered individuable in the context (see Birner and Ward 1994, 1998); the definite would be appropriate only if (15) were being uttered in one of a restricted set of contexts in which definites may represent hearer-new information, such as if the speaker has been asked, What should be do now, since the rain has spoiled our picnic?11 (See Ward and Birner 1995 for a discussion of the contexts in which existentials permit postcopular definites.)
4. Triggering inferences
While identity and elaborating inferences involve hearer-old information, the fact that a bridging inference involves hearer-new information brings up an interesting question: How does the addressee know to look for an inferential relation linking this information to something already present in the discourse model? That is, how does the addressee know, upon encountering a bridging inferrable, that it isnt simply a case of brand-new (discourse-new, hearer-new) information? What makes bridging inferrables interesting is that, in one sense, the inferrable constituent acts as its own trigger, in that it is the constituent whose utterance trig9. Cf. Kehler and Ward 1999, 2004, where situationally evoked information is treated as discourse-new. 10. As with all of the existentials in this paper, this claim holds only for the existential reading; (15) is obviously fine on the reading in which there is taken to have a locative meaning. 11. I thank Andy Kehler (p.c.) for pointing out that (15) permits the definite in such cases.
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gers the evocation of a new discourse entity. In (11) above, it is the use of the definite (the beer) that cues the addressee to search the discourse model for an existing entity that matches the definite description; when no such entity is found in the model, the addressee will search for an inferential link between this constituent and previously evoked information, and will individuate the newly evoked discourse entity by means of its inferential relationship with information in the prior discourse.12 Thus, the beer in (11) is individuated as the beer that constitutes a portion of the picnic supplies. In the case of the identity inference in (1), the pronoun serves a similar function, cueing the addressee to search for a salient, topical entity that matches the pronoun in number and gender. Interestingly, the use of noncanonical word order can also function in this way. Consider the examples in (16): (16) Last night I went out to buy the picnic supplies. a. I decided to get beer first. b. Beer I decided to get first. c. I decided to get the beer first. d. The beer I decided to get first. The continuation in (16a) is ambiguous between a reading in which the beer is part of the picnic supplies and a reading in which the beer is distinct from the picnic supplies. The two readings differ in the scope of first: In the former case, first has scope over beer; i.e., beer is the first of the picnic supplies purchased. In the latter case, first has scope over get beer; i.e., getting beer occurs before the purchase of the picnic supplies.13 In (16b), however, the second reading disappears; here, beer can only be interpreted as part of the picnic supplies. This is because the use of the preposing cues the addressee to the fact that the preposed constituent represents discourse-old information, and since there is no previously evoked beer in the discourse model, the addressee is directed to search for an inferential relation between beer and something in the prior discourse. In this case, the obvious candidate is the picnic supplies. Although not all picnics involve beer, there exists a plausible set/subset relation between picnic supplies and beer, in that beer may plausibly constitute a subset of the set of supplies for a picnic. In triggering this inference, the preposed constituent behaves much like a definite. Consider the canonical-word-order variant in (16c). Here, there is no preposing to indicate that the beer constitutes part of the picnic supplies; however, the definite article indicates that the beer is individuable within the discourse model, either by virtue of
12. This is of course an oversimplification of definiteness, which is an enormously complex issue (see Birner and Ward 1994, Abbott 2004, inter alia), but this brief characterization will suffice for current purposes. 13. Larry Horn (p.c.) notes that intonation can distinguish between the two readings. Focal stress on beer suggests a reading in which the beer is distinct from the picnic supplies, while focal stress on first suggests a reading in which the beer constitutes part of the picnic supplies.
being previously evoked, or by virtue of being hearer-old, or by virtue of exhausting the set of things describable as the beer that stand in an inferential relationship to previously evoked information.14 In the absence of previously evoked or hearer-old beer, the definite cues the addressee to search for an inferential relationship that will render the beer individuable within the model.15 Thus, the ambiguity present in (16a) is again absent. Finally, in (16d) both the definite and the preposing are present, and as expected, the ambiguity is absent and only the inferentially-linked reading is available. Because the constraints on the use of the definite and the constraints on the use of preposing have considerable overlap, cases such as (16d), in which the preposed NP is definite as well, are common in natural discourse. Thus, both the definite and the preposing in (16), for similar but not identical reasons, give rise to an inference that is absent when neither of these elements is present; each cues the addressee to look for an inferential relationship that in turn licenses a bridging inference. Finally, the phenomenon seen in (16b), in which the constraint on the preposed constituent cues the addressee to seek an appropriate inferential relationship, also helps to explain how we move from discourse constraints to discourse functions. One aspect of our competence in English is our knowledge of the constraint that requires a preposed constituent to represent discourse-old information. This in itself is not a function; i.e., it is not a goal in itself. However, because the speaker believes that the addressee knows this constraint, the use of a preposing can serve the function of cueing the addressee to search for the inferential connection between this constituent and the prior discourse (remembering that identity is also an inferential relation). That is,
14. Other accounts (e.g., Gundel et al. 1993) have argued that the referent of an NP containing the definite article must be uniquely identifiable. That term, however, suggests an identification of some already-existing unique discourse entity. The term individuable avoids this difficulty, and is intended to apply both to already-existing entities and to new entities that can be constructed in a way that renders them distinct from all other discourse entities. 15. In a similar vein, Gregory Ward (p.c.) observes that the use of the definite with inferrable information can result in a tighter inference than might otherwise be made; he provides the following examples: (i) Little Johnny ate his first cookie today. Crumbs were everywhere. (ii) Little Johnny ate his first cookie today. The crumbs were everywhere. He notes that in (i), the maxim of Relevance (Grice 1975) induces an inference relating the crumbs to the previously mentioned cookie; however, the crumbs in question might also plausibly include crumbs from other sources. In (ii), on the other hand, the definite indicates that the crumbs being referred to are the unique, individuable set of crumbs associated with the previously mentioned cookie and moreover that only these crumbs, and no others, are being referred to. Note also that the inference in (i), since it is the result of a conversational implicature, is both cancellable (Crumbs were everywhere, but not from the cookie; the cookie bits just added to the mess) and reinforceable (Crumbs were everywhere, and of course they were from the cookie). Since in (ii) the relationship between the crumbs and the previously mentioned cookie is conveyed in part by the definite, it is neither cancellable nor reinforceable. (I thank Andy Kehler for pointing this out to me.)
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it is the hearers knowledge of this constraint that tells him or her that such an inferential connection must exist and therefore must be sought; thus, the constraint that the preposed constituent must represent discourse-old information makes it possible for the use of a preposing to serve the function of directing the addressee to search for an inferential connection between this constituent and the prior discourse. In this way, more generally, a noncanonical construction can serve a particular discourse function by means of the interlocutors mutual knowledge of the constraint on the constructions use. In the case of preposing, the interlocutors mutual awareness of this constraint enables the construction to serve a processing function, that of helping the addressee to make the necessary connection between the preposed information and information evoked in the prior discourse.
5. Conclusion
Previous research has shown that the use of certain noncanonical constructions in English is sensitive to the discourse- and hearer-status of their constituents. However, the status of information that is inferentially related to the prior discourse has been a matter of debate. I have proposed that this so-called inferrable information can be classified into three distinct categories, distinguished by whether the inference in question is an identity inference, an elaborating inference, or a bridging inference. Based on its distribution in noncanonical-word-order constructions, I have argued that information related to the prior discourse via either an identity inference or an elaborating inference is discourse-old and hearer-old, while information related to the prior discourse via a bridging inference is discourse-old but hearer-new. This represents an extension of Princes (1992) notion of discourse-old/new and hearer-old/new information; under the account proposed here, discourse-old information includes not only that which has been explicitly evoked in the prior discourse, but in fact all information that is inferentially related to the prior discourse, with identity being simply one such inferential relation. This revision not only makes possible an account in which bridging inferences straightforwardly occupy the previously empty discourse-old, hearer-new quadrant of Princes matrix, but also renders the definition of discourseold status compatible with earlier research showing that explicitly evoked information and bridging inferrables have the same distribution in constructions that are sensitive to discourse-status. Finally, I have shown how this account of bridging inferences explains an asymmetry of interpretation between certain preposings and their canonical counterparts. It remains for future research to provide a more fine-grained typology of inferential relations and to consider which such relations give rise to elaborating vs. bridging inferences.
References
Abbott, B. 1992. Definiteness, existentials, and the list interpretation. Semantics and Linguistic Theory 2. 116. Abbott, B. 2004. Definiteness and indefiniteness. In L.R. Horn and G. Ward., eds., Handbook of Pragmatics. Oxford: Blackwell. 122149. Birner, B.J. 1994. Information status and word order: An analysis of English inversion. Language 70:233259. Birner, B.J. 1996. The Discourse Function of Inversion in English. New York: Garland. Birner, B.J. 2004. Discourse functions at the periphery: Noncanonical word order in English. In B. Shaer, W. Frey, and C. Maienborn, eds., Proceedings of the Dislocated Elements Workshop, Zentrum fr Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Berlin, November 2003, Volume 1 (ZAS Papers in Linguistics 35). Berlin: Zentrum fr Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft. 4162. Birner, B.J. and G. Ward. 1994. Uniqueness, familiarity, and the definite article in English. BLS 20:93102. Birner, B.J. and G. Ward. 1998. Information Status and Noncanonical Word Order in English. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Chafe, W. 1987. Cognitive constraints on information flow. In R. Tomlin, ed., Coherence and Grounding in Discourse. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 2151. Clark, H.H. 1977. Bridging. In P.N. Johnson-Laird and P.C. Wason, eds., Thinking: Readings in Cognitive Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 411420. Evans, D.A. 1981. A situation semantics approach to the analysis of speech acts. In Proceedings of the 19th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL-81). Morristown, NJ: Association for Computational Linguistics. 113116. Firbas, J. 1966. Non-thematic subjects in contemporary English. Travaux Linguistiques de Prague 2:239256. Grice, H.P. 1975. Logic and conversation. In P. Cole and J. Morgan, eds., Syntax and Semantics, Volume 3: Speech Acts. New York: Academic Press. 4158. Gundel, J., N. Hedberg, and R. Zacharski. 1993. Cognitive status and the form of referring expressions in discourse. Language 69:274307. Halliday, M.A.K. 1967. Notes on transitivity and theme in English, Part 2. Journal of Linguistics 3:199244. Halliday, M.A.K. and R. Hasan. 1976. Cohesion in English. London: Longman. Haviland, S.E. and H.H. Clark. 1974. Whats new? Acquiring new information as a process in comprehension. Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior 13:512521. Horn, L.R. 1984. Toward a new taxonomy for pragmatic inference: Q-based and R-based implicature. In D. Schiffrin, ed., Meaning, Form, and Use in Context: Linguistic Applications. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. 1142. Keenan, J.M., G.R. Potts, J.M. Golding, and T.M. Jennings. 1990. Which elaborative inferences are drawn during reading? A question of methodologies. In D.A. Balota, G.B. Flores dArcais, and K. Rayner, eds., Comprehension Processes in Reading. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. 377402. Kehler, A. and G. Ward. 1999. On the semantics and pragmatics of identifier so. In K. Turner, ed., The Semantics/Pragmatics Interface from Different Points of View (Current Research in the Semantics/Pragmatics Interface, Volume I). Amsterdam: Elsevier. 233256.
Inferential relations and noncanonical word order Kehler, A. and G. Ward. 2004. Constraints on ellipsis and event reference. In L.R. Horn and G. Ward, eds., The Handbook of Pragmatics. Oxford: Blackwell. 383403. Lambrecht, K. 1994. Information Structure and Sentence Form. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lasnik, H. 1992. Case and expletives: Notes toward a parametric account. Linguistic Inquiry 23:381405. Long, D.L., J.M. Golding, A.C. Graesser, and L.F. Clark. 1990. Goal, event, and state inferences: An investigation of inference generation during story comprehension. In A.C. Graesser and G.H. Bower, eds., Inferences and Text Comprehension. San Diego, CA: Academic Press. 89102. McKoon, G., and R. Ratcliff. 1990. Textual inferences: Models and measures. In D.A. Balota, G.B. Flores dArcais, and K. Rayner, eds., Comprehension Processes in Reading. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. 403421. Milsark, G. 1974. Existential Sentences in English. MIT Ph.D. dissertation. Poesio, M., R. Mehta, A. Maroudas, and J. Hitzeman. 2004. Learning to resolve bridging references. In Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL-04). Morristown, NJ: Association for Computational Linguistics. 143150. Prince, E.F. 1981. Toward a taxonomy of given/new information. In P. Cole, ed., Radical Pragmatics. New York: Academic Press. 223254. Prince, E.F. 1992. The ZPG letter: Subjects, definiteness, and information-status. In S. Thompson and W. Mann, eds., Discourse Description: Diverse Analyses of a Fundraising Text. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 295325. Reuland, E. and A. ter Meulen. 1987. The Representation of (In)definiteness. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Safir, K. 1985. Syntactic Chains. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sanford, A. 1990. On the nature of text-driven inference. In D.A. Balota, G.B. Flores dArcais, and K. Rayner, eds., Comprehension Processes in Reading. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. 515535. Swinney, D.A., and L. Osterhout. 1990. Inference generation during auditory language comprehension. In A.C. Graesser and G.H. Bower, eds., Inferences and Text Comprehension. San Diego: Academic Press. 1733. van den Broek, P. 1990a. The causal inference maker: Towards a process model of inference generation in text comprehension. In D.A. Balota, G.B. Flores dArcais, and K. Rayner, eds., Comprehension Processes in Reading. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. 423445. van den Broek, P. 1990b. Causal inferences and the comprehension of narrative text. In A.C. Graesser and G.H. Bower, eds., Inferences and Text Comprehension. San Diego, CA: Academic Press. 175196. Ward, G. and B.J. Birner. 1995. Definiteness and the English existential. Language 71:722742.
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Sherlock Holmes Was In No Danger*1

Greg Carlson Gianluca Storto
University of Rochester
This paper examines the semantics and pragmatics of certain context-sensitive lexical items, such as the word protection in This deodorant offers you 24 hour protection. Here, the word is understood as protection from the physical and social effects of perspiration. However, this is not the only interpretation we find for the term, for in other contexts it could mean protection from burglars, from illness, etc. We examine the most commonly-assumed analysis of this variation in meaning, in which a covert contextual variable is posited and pragmatically assigned a value in context (e.g. Mitchell 1986; Partee 1989; Stanley 2000). Thus, protection would be represented in the logical form as protection from x. Our evaluation of the present arguments for the existence of such underlying variables is quite mixed. Our conclusion is that there is certainly enough room to consider alternative ways of trying to handle the phenomenon. The concluding section attempts to sketch how an alternative might be formulated, and how it promises an account of the phenomena dealt with under the implicit variable approach while hopefully avoiding some of its less appealing consequences.
1.
Introduction
Consider the following sentences: (1) a. b. c. d. This takes you to a whole new level. Charters take people seeking protection to Canada. An FBI agent was arrested for selling documents. Sherlock Holmes was in no danger.
An important ingredient in understanding such sentences is resolving the question of: level in/of what? protection from what? what sort of documents? danger from what?
* This material is based upon work supported by the NSF under Grant No. 0328849 and by the NIH under Grant No. T32 DC35 - 09. We wish to thank the editors for their many improvements and comments.
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Each of these is an example coming from novels, television commercials, or news reports. In the first instance, it is from a commercial for a brand of computers. In the commercial, which is pushing the most recent version of that computer, the voice-over announces (1a) just as a teenager exults after having apparently accomplished something worthy of jubilation in a computer game. The message is intentionally interpretable in multiple ways: You are taken to a new level in the game, you are taken to a new level in computing power/speed, and, being a commercial, one also reads that it takes you to a new level in life. The second example is a story caption in a local newspaper. The article is about the shortage of flu shot vaccine in the U.S., and the people are going to Canada for flu shots, seeking protection from contracting the flu. The third example, also from a newspaper report,1 requires not just that the FBI agent sold some documents or other, but rather that they were sensitive confidential documents, likely purloined from the FBI itself. The final instance is from a novel. In the novel the protagonist, in seeking to solve a crime, has overlooked something which in retrospect appears terribly obvious. The characters self-deprecation thus reads: Sherlock Holmes reputation as a master sleuth was in no danger of being diminished. Each example, in context, reads seamlessly and poses little challenge to attentive or even inattentive readers and listeners. However, each of the words highlighted in (1), in a different context, easily reads as something else: (2) a. This elevator takes you to a new level (of the building, not in a computer game). b. Right Guard [an underarm deodorant] offers you 24-hour protection (from that embarrassing underarm wetness and odor, not the flu). c. The state police arrested an illegal immigrant who was unable to produce documents (of citizenship, etc., not documents stolen from the FBI). d. During the forest fire, the Johnsons home was never in danger (of being consumed by the fire, not of losing its reputation as a master sleuth). We are going to use the neutral term understanding to describe this phenomenon. It is clear from the outset that each of these understandings is not a separate lexeme or dictionary entry; there are too many of them and the understandings are quite clearly relatable to one another, unlike the ambiguity of words like bank, ruler, watch, hide, etc. It appears we are thus dealing with a type of systematic polysemy (Nunberg and Zaenen 1992). It seems these understandings, however, must be represented at some level in the semantics, pragmatics, or psychology, for failing to achieve such an understanding leaves one without an adequate apprehension of the sentences as a whole, as presumably reading the title of this paper alone demonstrates. Suppose we take the extension of a word like protection to be the entire set of objects, structures, and actions that of1. The original reads FBI agent arrested for selling documents.
Sherlock Holmes was in no danger
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fer protection of any sort whatsoever. What does this extension look like? It includes insurance policies, weaponry, skin care products, many dogs, few cats, burglar alarms, anti-virus programs, the National Guard, bicycle helmets... certain payments to bullies, good advice from your mother... and so on. Its not at all clear what would be excluded, in the long run. Perhaps clearer examples are the words clue and problem. We take the point of view that anything whatsoever is (potentially) a clue (to something else) or a problem (for some reason), and the denotations are roughly as inclusive as a word like thing. However, if Sherlock is on the scene and has yet to find any clues, surely he noticed the wood floor, which is a clue e.g., that a tree was cut down, or noticed the poorly painted ceiling, which is a problem (if selling the house), yet he found no clues, and encountered no problems.2 Can we just leave things at that, where we assign such nouns at all points of reference an extension that is so general? It would appear this would give rise to problems. Suppose were outdoors and concerned about harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun. You claim that applying underarm deodorant, which we will assume is virtually transparent to UV radiation, provides protection. I say it does not. We both agree that it provides protection against that embarrassing underarm odor and wetness (and social ostracism), but when I say It is not protection! it would appear Im asserting something true. Our sense is very strong that this is not like saying something false to convey something true, e.g. I note that your latest book is fifteen feet thick (which is false, we both know its only about three inches thick) to convey that youve written a lot, perhaps a little too much (which may, or may not, be true). If this judgment has the merit we believe it to have, there is a serious problem with an approach that provides for generalized, all-inclusive intensions.
2. Implicit Variables
Almost anyone steeped in current semantic theory would immediately consider implicit variables as a solution to the problem just noted. Since Davidson 1967, for instance, it has been a popular move to countenance an implicit event-argument variable into verb meanings (Kratzer 1995, Diesing 1992), while in the domain of nominals, an implicit variable analysis has been considered by a broad range of researchers.
2.1 Theoretical Parsimony (Take 1)

Partee (1989), building on work by Mitchell (1986), makes many of the basic observations that may motivate implicit variables. She points out that many types of contentful context-dependent expressions behave similarly to overt pronouns in that they display
2. An attested example is the headline Physicist, student uncover cosmic clue. Reading on, one learns that the discovery concerned clues about how top quarks decay.
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bound variable uses, in addition to deictic and discourse anaphoric uses. Examples are given below: (3) a. John visited a local bar. b. Every sports fan in the country was at a local bar watching the playoffs. (4) a. John faced an enemy. b. Every participant had to confront and defeat an enemy. Partee argues that expressions like local and enemy have to be anchored to some reference location (in the case of local) or individual (in the case of enemy). Anchors can be provided by the non-linguistic or the linguistic discourse context, but can even be provided by quantificational contexts: (3b) and (4b) can be interpreted as depicting a situation in which, respectively, each sports fan was at a bar local to him/her and each participant had to confront one of his/her own enemies. In these cases, the interpretation of the context-dependent expression covaries with the choice of an individual in the domain of the quantificational expression.3 Once the existence of a bound reading for these context-dependent expressions is acknowledged, the argument in favor of the implicit variable analysis follows from considerations of theoretical parsimony. The semantic formalism already provides such tools as variables, assignments and lambda abstraction in order to account for the interpretation of overt pronouns, and the same tools can be employed in order to derive the interpretation of contentful context-dependent expressions as long as it is assumed that these expressions contain implicit variables of some sort. As in the case of pronouns, the covarying interpretation displayed by words like local and enemy in (3b) and (4b) is treated as an instance of (semantic) binding, involving lambda abstraction on the implicit variable associated with these words.4 Stanley (2000, 2002) and Stanley and Szab (2000), among others, generalize the use of implicit variables to all nominal expressions not just those context-dependent expressions Partee considered in order to account for the phenomenon of quantifier domain restriction. The choice of the domain with respect to which quantificational expressions in natural language are interpreted is dependent on their context of use. For example, the quantifier everyone in (5) is normally interpreted as quantifying on
3. Other expressions discussed by Partee that display similar behavior are the intransitive version of the verb notice, locative and temporal expressions like away, ahead, farther on, nearest, and later, adjectives like foreign and opposite, and nouns like foreigner and stranger. 4. It is possible that such variety of understandings noted above (in 1) may only appear when one has something greater than a one-place predicate, i.e., quite possibly this phenomenon should only appear with relational terms (Barker 1995, Partee and Borschev 2003), an interesting question but one we do not take up here. Another related topic we also leave aside is the question of whether the implicit argument structure provided in qualia structures (Pustejovsky 1995, Vikner and Jensen 2002) provides a fruitful avenue of exploration.
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the dinner guests mentioned in the first sentence (actually, on those who had dessert) rather than on the whole set of humans in D (von Fintel 1994, 1998). (5) The dinner guests had rhubarb pie for dessert. Everyone developed a rash. Interestingly, even in this case of context dependence, covarying interpretations can be built that seem to parallel the bound interpretation of overt pronouns. Consider the example in (6), which is modeled after an example presented by Heim (1991): (6) Most classes were so bad that no student passed the exam. The most obvious understanding of this sentence can be paraphrased as for most classes x it was the case that x was so bad that no student in x passed the exam, a paraphrase that highlights how the choice of the domain over which no quantifies is dependent on the choice of an object in the domain of the quantifier most (i.e. on the choice of classes). Following the implicit variable approach, this understanding of (6) can again be treated as an instance of semantic binding: in general, an implicit variable associated with the quantificational expression no student contributes to the determination of the quantification domain for no, and in the particular case of (6) this variable can be bound by the higher quantifier most. Once implicit variables are postulated, quantifier domain restriction can be accounted for in terms of the formal machinery that is independently needed to deal with the interpretation of pronouns.
2.2 Locality (Take 1)

Another benefit of resorting to implicit variables to account for the context dependence of interpretation comes from the local nature of the process of quantifier domain restriction. Von Fintel (1998) borrowing examples from Westersthl (1984) and Soames (1986) argues that contextual restrictions on sentences containing quantifiers cannot be reduced to global restrictions of the discourse domain. For example, there is no way of restricting the discourse domain so that every tennis player in (7) quantifies only on Swedish players while at the same time foreign tennis players denotes a non-empty set. (7) Sweden is a funny place. Every tennis player looks like Bjrn Borg, and more men than women watch tennis on TV. But most people really dislike foreign tennis players. On the other hand, if quantifier domain restriction follows from the assignment of value to an implicit variable in the logical form of phrases like every tennis player in (7), the relevant restriction is not expected to affect other phrases in the sentence.
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2.3 Weak crossover (Take 1)

Since Partee 1989, the literature has considered whether the implicit variables postulated for the interpretation of context-dependent expressions trigger Weak Crossover violations. The Weak Crossover (WCO) Principle is a constraint on the interpretation of pronouns to the effect that a pronoun can only receive a bound variable interpretation if it is c-commanded by a quantified expression in its base position. So, for example, the pronouns his in (8a) and (9a) can be interpreted as a variable bound by the quantificational expression who and everyone, but the same interpretation is not available for the pronoun his in (8c) and (9c): Comparing the (simplified) logical forms which would derive these interpretations given in (8b)/(9b) and (8d)/(9d) it can be seen that the LFs in (8b)/(9b) respect the WCO Principle, while the LFs in (8d)/(9d) violate it. (8) a. b. c. d. (9) a. b. c. d. Who1 admires his1 boss? [Who 1 [t1 admires his1 boss]] *Who1 does his1 boss admire? *[Who 1 [his1 boss admires t1]] Everyone1 admires his1 boss. [Everyone 1 [t1 admires his1 boss]] *His1 boss admires everyone1. *[Everyone 1 [his1 boss admires t1]]
Partee (1989) notices that similar interpretive restrictions seem to hold of context-dependent expressions like local, as evidenced in (10). (10) a. Every untenured professor1 in the state received a letter from the leader of the local1 union. b. #The leader of the local1 union sent a letter to every untenured professor1 in the state. The contrast in (10) shows that a bound variable interpretation in which the anchor of words like local covaries with the choice of individuals in the domain of a quantificational expression is unavailable when (the base position of) the quantifier does not ccommand the context-dependent expression. This restriction on the interpretation of context-dependent expressions thus follows from independently motivated constraints that apply to variables in general; no additional ad hoc principles are required. Mart (2003a,b) extends the WCO argument to the case of quantifier domain restriction. Some interpretive constraints that hold of the choice of domain for quantificational expressions can be interpreted as resulting from the restrictions imposed by
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the WCO Principle on the interpretation of the implicit variable that is associated with these quantificational expressions. Marts basic contrast is given in (11): (11) The business professors gathered in the faculty room. The meeting was about companies with which the School of Business has close contacts. Several professors are in contact with several representatives from those companies. One of the professors asked a. Who 1 t1 admires every1 representative from Kodak? b. *Who 1 does every1 representative from Kodak admire t1? So, suppose there are three professors in contact with say three Kodak representatives each (though a different three representatives for each professor). Example (11a) can be understood as asking, for each of the professors in contact, whether that professor admires each of the three Kodak representives he or she is in contact with (and not any others). On the other hand, (11b), which would violate WCO, has no such relativized reading, but only a reading about which professors all nine Kodak representatives admire. In a way parallel to the examples in (10), it is clear that the LF in (11a) abides by the WCO Principle while the one in (11b) violates it.
3. Some Issues
Summarizing, three types of arguments have been proposed in the literature in favor of the implicit variable approach to context dependence of meaning: (i) the theoretical parsimony argument, which claims that covariation between context-dependent expressions and quantifiers can and thus should be treated using the independently required machinery of lambda abstraction, variables and assignments; (ii) the locality argument, which claims that contextual effects should be intertwined with the recursive semantics given their local nature and maintains that implicit variables in the linguistic representation straightforwardly provide for the required locality; and (iii) the Weak Crossover argument, which claims that the attested restrictions on the interpretation of context-dependent expressions are an immediate consequence of well-formedness principles that can be independently argued to hold of variables at LF. Taken together, these arguments support the conclusion that context dependence should be treated in terms of covert pronoun-like elements. However, some facts and open questions cast doubt on the full generality of these arguments.
3.1 Weak Crossover (Take 2)

While the Weak Crossover argument is generally thought to be the strongest argument in favor of the implicit variable strategy, it too raises issues. For instance, Partee (1989) notes the WCO effects in the case of context-dependent expressions seem to be mild-
er than the effects determined in the same configurations by overt pronouns, calling into question the parallelism. And Percus (2004) mentions (in a footnote) examples of quantifier domain restriction that appear to violate the Weak Crossover Principle. Also, Blair (ms.) points out another failure of the alleged parallelism between implicit variables and overt pronouns with respect to the WCO Principle. In the sentences in (12), the NP in subject position can be interpreted as if it were bound by the quantifier in object position; on the other hand, this is not an option for overt pronouns, as shown by the parallel examples in (13), which lack the corresponding interpretations presumably because the Logical Forms that would derive them violate the WCO Principle. (12) a. A grandparent accompanied every student to graduation. b. A favorite story helped to put every toddler to sleep. (13) a. His grandmother accompanied every student to graduation. b. His favorite story helped to put every toddler to bed.
3.2 Locality (Take 2)

Sentences like (7) show that the process of domain restriction seems to be closely intertwined with semantic composition, the choice of a particular domain having often just a very local effect. The assumption is that this state of affairs is extremely problematic for analyses that try to account for context dependence without resorting to pronoun-like lexical items that are locally present in the linguistic representation of a sentence. But is this really so? The locality argument in favor of the implicit variable approach seems to presuppose a very static conception of interpretation with respect to a context, namely that Logical Forms are interpreted as a whole with respect to the same unchanging context. This is highly implausible: Given the nature of linguistic communication (a sentence begins to be uttered at a certain point in time t and is completely uttered only at a later point) the interpretive procedure must be by definition incremental, allowing for the knowledge state of the speakers and hence for the context of utterance to be updated in a very rapid way. Of course, the burden of proof that the local nature of domain restriction can be captured once a more dynamic notion of context and context update is adopted lies mostly on those who want to propose such a theory. But at the same time, we would argue, part of that burden lies (in reverse) on those who claim that this locality can be captured in a straightforward way only in terms of implicit variables. In our opinion, the issue is not yet settled either way. Furthermore, once pronoun-like elements are postulated to appear in the semantic representation of context-dependent expressions, their nature and location must be explicitly described. The simple hypothesis, suggested by Partees (1989) original observations, that implicit variables are arguments of nouns does not seem to generalize. For one thing, there are cases like (14) in which the domain restriction that char-
61
acterizes the interpretation of a quantificational expression cannot be accounted for in terms of an implicit variable in argument position of the noun that combines with the determiner. (14) In most countries I visit, many tennis players try to be like Monica Seles. The interpretation of (14) requires the quantifier many to be restricted to the domain of tennis players in each given country that is being considered. On the other hand, it seems plausible that if the noun tennis players subcategorizes for any location argument, this should denote the place where the playing takes place, rather than the place where the player was born or resides (von Fintel 1998). Similarly, examples like (15) are problematic not just for theories that propose that the implicit variable involved in quantifier domain restriction is an argument of the noun the quantifier combines with, but more generally for all theories that assume that the implicit variable is introduced by the noun. (15) Most summers were so bad that, if it rained, I always missed the bus. No noun combines with the adverbial quantifier always in (15), but this is still easily interpreted as being restricted to a domain that covaries with the choice of summers induced by the higher quantifier most (Mart 2003b).
3.3 Theoretical Parsimony (Take 2)

The current debate concerning the nature and location of implicit variables (Stanley 2002; Breheny 2003; Mart 2003a,b; Kratzer 2004; among others) points towards the conclusion that implicit variables differ from overt pronouns in certain important respects. These differences weaken considerably the argument from theoretical parsimony: Special provisions must be made in the syntactic/semantic machinery for the kind of implicit variables needed in order to derive the desired contextual effects. And it should be noted that, without the argument from theoretical parsimony, the availability of bound understandings for context-dependent expressions does not by itself lead to the conclusion that context dependence of meaning is a by-product of the contextual determination of a value for implicit variables. True, it may as well be the case that semantic covariation between context-dependent expressions and quantificational expressions should be treated in terms of syntactic/semantic binding of a variable. But as Recanati (2003) argues, concluding from this that an implicit variable is present in the LF of context-dependent expressions even when these are uttered in isolation is by no means necessary. Partee (1989) already notes that expressions with implicit variables and the corresponding ones with overt variables display different behavior. The contrast between the well-formedness of the sentences in (16a,c) and the ill-formedness of the sentences in (16b,d) seems to argue that while an implicit variable can be bound by an antece-
dent (a child-rearing method, or a strategy, respectively) that is evoked only indirectly in the sentence, this is not possible for overt pronouns. (16) a. Not everyone who thinks their parents did a bad job bringing them up actually switches to the opposite child-rearing method. b. *Not everyone who thinks their parents did a bad job bringing them up actually switches to the child-rearing method opposite to it. c. Every beginning general who loses his first battle switches to a different strategy in the second. d. *Every beginning general who loses his first battle switches to a strategy different from that/it in the second.5 Mart (2004) attempts a response but, to our minds, does not really address the fundamental issue raised by Partees original criticism. Something special must be said for implicit variables that does not hold for overt pronouns, and the proponent of the implicit variable approach is left with the burden of having to argue for the linguistic reality of the postulated special properties of implicit variables and to explain why no language seems to provide for overt pronouns that share these special properties. No author, to our knowledge, successfully tackles either task. In addition, as pointed out by Cappellen and Lepore (2002), implicit variables do not lend themselves to functioning as antecedents of subsequent anaphoric expressions (17a), thus differing from the behavior of overt pronouns, which can function as antecedents (17b). (17) a. ?Many students failed, and its a big domain. b. Heis a senator, but nobody respects himi. Possibly, whether a pronominal element is phonologically realized or not might have an effect on its ability to introduce an antecedent for anaphoric relations, but why null elements which have the same full semantics of overtly expressed elements should fail to support subsequent anaphora remains completely unexplained at this point. Whatever one may think of the persuasiveness of the particular examples in (17), the fact remains that the failure of implicit arguments to set up antecedents for overt forms undercuts some of the force behind the parsimony arguments resting on parallelisms between overt pronouns and implicit variables. We note that not all null forms automatically fail to make accessible antecedents (e.g., see Hankamer and Sag 1976). But it is a characteristic of this class of proposed null forms.
5. Gregory Ward notes that such examples seem to improve with the use of a demonstrative anaphor (as opposed to a simple pronoun). Contrast (i) and (ii) to (16b,d): (i) ?Not everyone who thinks their parents did a bad job bringing them up actually switches to the child-rearing method (that is) opposite to that (one). (ii) ?Every beginning general who loses his first battle switches to a strategy (that is) different from that (one) for the second battle.
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3.4 Summary Evaluation

While we have not been able to provide a complete review, arguments in favor of implicit variables in nominal expressions are at best a mixed case, since doubt may be cast upon any of the positive arguments put forth thus far. On the other hand, truly decisive objections remain out of reach as well. What is important to us, however, is that the case for implicit variables is not without its issues, and that there remains room for exploring other alternatives in dealing with the examples in (1). In the next section we turn to a sketch of what one such analysis might look like.
4. Situations
Let us return to a consideration of our lead examples. It seems clear that they share some central properties we have been discussing, which would make them primary candidates for an implicit variable analysis. There is, first of all, an intuitive sense of understanding in context, an understanding that may vary from one context to another, as already noted. Quantificational binding effects are possible, as illustrated in (18): (18) Every virus presents a danger. (i.e. for each virus v, there some danger to someone x such that danger(to x, from v)) We also get indirect types of binding, similar to Each man went to a local tavern, where the quantification is over men, and not places: (19) Each man was alerted to some danger. (i.e. for each man x there is some causeof-danger y such that danger(to x, from y) Note in (19) that the understandings can differ from man to man. That is, one man is alerted to the fact he has an illness, another that hes being sought by the police, etc. Given the discussion above, however, we wish to explore an alternative to the implicit variable approach. The alternative is based on situations as explanatory devices, but instead of treating situations as value-assigned targets of implicit anaphoric devices, we instead consider treating them as parameters of evaluation. Our aim here is not to argue the superiority of any alternative, but rather simply to sketch out a viable alternative.
4.1 Situations are rich

We take situations to be parts of worlds, as in Barwise and Perry 1983 and Kratzer 1989, 1998. They may be characterized by sets of propositions and, if two situations are describable by the same set of propositions, they are of the same situation type. Further, situations themselves are localized (Barwise and Perry 1983). Not just any arbitrary subset of propositions one can imagine describes a situation; they have a co-
herence of sorts brought together by locatedness. Like events, however, locating them precisely in time and space is an uncertain enterprise. On the view we take here, situations have a structure that is rich. Lets illustrate this in the following way. Take a really, really simple situation, in which there is a horse, and thats it. One can take the point of view that this alone fully describes a pretty minimal situation. But were going to take another point of view, namely, that even seemingly minimal situations come loaded with a lot of attendant structure. This structure is typically expressed in natural language by generic and habitual sentences. So, for instance, if you answer the following questions regarding this spare situation where theres just a horse, youll see where were headed. We have a horse: Does it eat meat? (no); How many legs does it have? (four); Does is go woof woof ? (no); Is it bigger than a breadbox? (yes); Does it have a mane? (yes). That is, there simply being a horse brings along with it the set of propositions that characterize the structure and characteristics of a (typical) horse. Attribution of these properties to the horse in the scenario is accomplished defeasibly; that is, its so unless we are informed otherwise. There are of course many properties that are simply unspecified, e.g. whether it has eaten more than three pounds of oats in the past half hour. And then there are others that are specified, but only vaguely. This horse weighs more than a large dog, but less than a full-grown rhinoceros. We are also going to assume, for sake of convenience and without further comment, that the set of generalizations is to be found in common ground (Stalnaker 1978), presupposed by all interlocutors. Now lets take a slightly different scenario. We have here before us a real live actual horse. Someone has taken the time to remove its mane. Since we know this about this individual horse, what is true about whether it has a mane is what we see, not what we defeasibly assume. We may (or may not) also know its precise weight, and whether it has, or has not, eaten oats in the past half hour. It has individual characteristics as well, which are also expressible as generalizations. For instance, if you speak too loudly, itll try to bite you, or it likes to eat green apples but not red ones. All these things too then may become a part of even this very spare situation. Episodic, rather than generic or habitual sentences, describe events, states, or processes that occur at a definite location in a world. Thus, episodic propositions anchor the situation. If one omits all propositions describing a situation that anchor the situation to some time and space, we believe, one does not have a situation. In the above, if we failed to tell you that there is a horse (an episodic sentence), or that we have one right here (also episodic), and listed only the generalizations governing horses, wed have no situation at all. Thus, a situation on our enriched view is a set of pairs of the sort s=E, G where E is a non-null set of episodic propositions locating and describing s and G is a set of generalizations governing elements of s (characterized by individuals and types that compose in the propositions of E). The information derives from varying sources, among them what we perceive, what were explicitly told, what we defeasibly assume, and what is out there in the world we know about (realworld knowledge).
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To see how this works a little more, lets consider the following situation: Bob, here and now, is standing in the path of an avalanche. This is the sole proposition in E, with Bob and the avalanche as composing values. What is in G? Were defeasibly assuming Bob is an adult human male with all the typical physical strengths and frailtieshes not Superman. About the avalanche, were assuming it consists of many tons of onrushing snow, rock, and/or other debris sliding down an incline at a fairly rapid rate, and like all bulky things propelled by gravity is not inclined to stop or change direction. As for generalizations governing relations between humans and avalanches, humans suffer damage if suddenly slammed into by avalanches. This all has the tiresome ring of the obvious, but it expresses our understanding of the structure of the situation based on what weve been told about the (episodic) relation between Bob and the avalanche, and without all this additional understanding, there would be no cause for concern. That is, in the E, G situational structure, the G part is often, even normally, taken for granted.
4.2 Interpreting lexical items

The proposal we wish to explore here is that situations provide parameters of evaluation for lexical items, and not localized composing values assigned to variables. What is special about lexical items on this view is that they are the elements operated on by the interpretation function F in the model. We are proposing that F be not simply a function from world-time pairs to appropriate denotations, but rather that the function be relativized to situations in assigning denotation. For a lexical item W and its extension D, F(W) (s) = D. In a Montagovian approach, intensions are functions from world-time pairs to appropriate extensions. However, in the parameterized model we suggest here, intensions of lexical items are defined only for those world-time pairs that fall within the situational restriction, i.e. only if w,t E or w,t G in s, and undefined otherwise (these are partial functions). To give a flavor for the proposal, let us return to Bob, who we left standing in the path of an avalanche. Now, suppose we comment on Bobs current prospects as follows: (20) Bob is in danger. In the current situation, we have Bob standing there and information about avalanches and people. In that type of situation, what constitutes, or counts as, the danger? Clearly the potential causer of harm to another constituent of the situation (in this case, Bob). The interpretation of danger will then be limited to avalanches; in the situation there are no viruses, daggers, secret police, etc., around. Thus, (21a,b) would be synonymous with respect to the situation at hand: (21) a. Bob avoided the danger b. Bob avoided the avalanche.
How could such an approach deal with the locality effects mentioned above? One vehicle for defining the situations that serve as evaluation parameters is to present a proposition. Different propositions distinguish different situation-types. Bob standing over there is a different situation from Tom standing over there (assuming Tom and Bob are different individuals). The generalizations governing Tom are, under normal circumstances, known to differ from those governing Bob (e.g., Bob can swim, Tom cant, Bob works at a car wash, Tom at a bank, etc.). Now consider a situation, as Bob contemplates the on-rushing avalanche, in which Tom, a short distance away, is being pursued by a pack of ravenous wolves (and the wolves dont see or care about Bob). Now we have generalizations about wolves, why they pursue other creatures, how they act when ravenous, how fast humans (vs. wolves) can run etc., and nothing about tons of sliding debris, or Bob. Of our observations, we can say (22): (22) Tom is in danger. And it should now be clear why that is so. In the larger situation, the one that contains Tom and Bob, they are the only two men. On this understanding, we can say; (23) Every man is in danger. The direct binding effect arises because the presumed logical form of the interpretation is approximately as follows: (24) [Every x: man(x) [x is in some danger]] When the value Bob is assigned to x, we now have a proposition Bob is in danger, which gets evaluated exactly as (20), and when Tom is assigned as the value it is evaluated as (22). While we do not present an explicit account of distributivity (as opposed to quantificational binding), we note that distributivity too defines a series of distinct propositions in instances such as (on the distributive, not the group, reading): (25) Tom and Bob are in danger!6
6. Whether the various senses of being in danger are more or less closely related plays a role in the acceptability of sentences like (25). For example, note that the way in which Sherlock Holmes is not in danger in (1) is pretty distant from the ways in which Tom and Bob are in danger in the above scenario. And indeed, (i) below sounds rather odd as a description of what we know about Tom, Bob, and Sherlock: (i) #Tom and Bob are in danger, but Sherlock Holmes is not! Intuitively, this seems to indicate that some (cognitive?) restriction holds of the situations that support the interpretation of words like danger, requiring these to be coherent to a certain extent i.e. describing more than a random collection of unrelated facts. How this intuition should be formally cashed in is unclear to us, at this point. As far as we can see, the implicit variable approach does not provide any straightforward way of accounting for these intuitions either.
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So the general moral is that whenever one has a propositional structure, one has the opportunity to introduce a new situational structure into the evaluation. Locality then derives from propositional interpretations, and not directly from the number of quantifiers found in a sentence. A similar line of reasoning is employed to understand why in sentences like those below, one gets apparent direct binding: (26) Each of the men was in danger. But most of them found protection. With appropriate background, different sets of generalizations come into play for each value assigned to x in [x is in danger]. With appropriate background, this may lead to distinct interpretations assigned to danger for each individual. This situational information serves to evaluate the instances of [x found protection] for the values of x. So, if one of the values is Bob, and crawling into a cave to avoid the avalanche preserves him, then the cave is protection in that situation. The value Tom, in [x found protection], might lead to noting that he climbed a tree to successfully avoid the wolves, and therefore the tree was his protection (and not the cave). We do wish to point out that the context does not always provide such a strong story as to eliminate all understandings but one. In these instances, the meaning of the phrase is something close to its generalized intension (i.e. its existential closure on an implicit variables approach). Consider the following scenario: Nostradamus and Bob are good friends. One night, Nostradamus has a highly obscure dream, or perhaps just an urgent premonition. Nostradamus wakes up and says to his wife: Omigosh! Bob is in danger! I just KNOW it! When questioned, he cannot provide any hint of the source of the danger he just...knows. A more prosaic type of example is when such words function as subjects in generic or copular sentences of some sort. For example, in saying: (27) a. Every danger presents an opportunity. b. Protection is something that almost always incurs its own costs. c. Most clues get overlooked.
4.3 Ubiquity
The proposal made here is that situational parameterization applies to the interpretation of all lexical items (i.e. non-logical expressions). In one way, this broad claim is a good thing, for we know that effects occur not only with respect to nouns, but also with regard to adjectives like local or opposite, prepositions like away or near, and verbs like notice, leave, or see, illustrated below: (28) Gee, its nice to be able to see again. (Recovered from eye surgery? Get your glasses cleaned? Fog finally lift? The flashlight working? The spectator in front of you finally sit down...?)
Probably the most interesting issue that ubiquity raises, however, is that we simply do not have a sense of understandings with most concrete lexical items, as we do with the more abstract clue, protection, etc. We just dont seem to see anything different in meaning between (29a,b): (29) a. Millie bought a cat. b. Mike bought a cat. The sameness of meaning is preserved even under circumstances in which the cats bought were of very different types (e.g. a Burmese, and a Persian, or a large orange one and a small grey one...). Even something as widely varied in form as the extension of (hand)tool does not lead to similar intuitions (consider what, e.g., a hammer and an electric saw have in common in form, or in dedicated function). From the standpoint of at least some implicit variable approaches, the answer to this is an easy one: There is no implicit variable associated with cat, though there is with protection. But ubiquity prevents us from claiming likewise; all words are interpreted situationally. Our sense is that, with nouns, the difference is not variety in form, but rather it has to do with three related properties, which well call ontological stability, persistence, and causality. The extension of a word like protection is ontologically unstable, in that it does not always designate a material object, an event, a proposition, a substance, etc. Depending on the situation, protection might be something as concrete as a baseball bat, or as ethereal as a persons oath. A clue can be as concrete as a lead pipe, or as wispy as a false claim someone made. A level can be as concrete as a concrete floor, or as abstract as a number (Grade level). Related to this is a lack of persistence on the part of those words we feel give rise to multiple understandings. Persistence is the property of entities such that if they fall into category X with regard to situation s, then they also fall into category X with respect to situation s where s<s. (In our convenient terms, s<s iff s = E,G and s = E,G and EE and GG. Intuitively, s provides the same or more information than s.) It is fairly clear that additional information added to our knowledge states can change assessment of whether an entity is a member of a category, for those types of things that also engender different understandings. While some things in a situation (e.g., that a cat is there, or that a lead pipe is there) are going to stay that way whatever information we add, with danger for instance, it can come and go as we add more information. Ravenous wolves are chasing Bob; hes in danger. The wolves are the very, very slow-running variety, so hes not. The slow-running-variety wolves chasing Bob have taken speed drugs hes in danger again! and so forth. But throughout, the wolves are animals, Bob is a human, running is a variety of locomotion, etc. But not all cases we examined exhibit instability and lack of persistence. Example (1c), an FBI agent being arrested for selling documents, is one such case. Here, the reader tends to make the assumption that the documents in question were secret, sensitive documents, and probably stolen from the FBI. In this instance, the forms of documents is ontologically stable (typically paper or electronic form), but the identity
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of the documents helps make sense of why the FBI agent was arrested, the cause of his or her arrest. Different types of documents play different causal roles in different legal and social interactions, and it would appear that these distinguished causal roles are behind our understanding of documents in this example.
5. Conclusion
Examples such as those found in (1) would appear to be interpretable in various ways, depending upon the context in which they are found. It also appears that the number of ways in which they can be interpreted is not confined to a relatively small number of senses that could be enumerated in a lexicon; rather, the possibilities for varying interpretations appear open-ended. The implicit variables approach can give a natural account of this open-endedness and the possibilities of varying interpretations, but we believe that the approach should be explored in the context of viable alternatives, as the positing of implicit variables has its problematic aspects. In this paper we have attempted to point up what just some of those problematic aspects might be, and to sketch a direction one might take in providing an alternative approach which promises an account of the main semantic phenomena covered by implicit variables, without incurring the costs.
References
Barker, C. 1995. Possessive Descriptions. Stanford, CA: CSLI. Barwise, J. and J. Perry. 1983. Situations and Attitudes. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Blair, D. Remarks on weak cross-over, relational nouns and domain restriction. Ms. Breheny, R. 2003. A lexical account of (implicit) bound contextual dependence. Semantics and Linguistic Theory 13. 5572. Cappellen, H. and E. Lepore. 2002. Indexicality, binding, anaphora and a priori truth. Analysis 62:271281. Davidson, D. 1967. The logical form of action sentences. In N. Rescher, ed., The Logic of Decision and Action. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. 8195. Diesing, M. 1992. Indefinites. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hankamer, J. and I. Sag. 1976. Deep and surface anaphora. Linguistic Inquiry 7:391428. Heim, I. 1991. Artikel und Definitheit. In A. von Stechow and D. Wunderlich, eds., Semantik: Ein Internationals Handbuch der Zeitgenssischen Forschung. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. 487535. Kratzer, A. 1989. An investigation into lumps of thought. Linguistics and Philosophy 12:607653. Kratzer, A. 1995. Stage-level and individual-level predicates. In G. Carlson and F.J. Pelletier, eds., The Generic Book. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 125175.
70 Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning Kratzer, A. 1998. Scope or pseudo-scope: Are there wide-scope indefinites? In S. Rothstein, ed., Events in Grammar. Dordrecht: Kluwer. 163196. Kratzer, A. 2004. Covert quantifier restrictions in natural languages. Paper delivered at the 2004 Milan Meeting, Gargnano, Italy. Mart, L. 2004. The syntactic presence of contextual variables. Ms. Mart, L. 2003a. Contextual Variables. University of Connecticut Ph.D. Dissertation. Mart, L. 2003b. Contextual variables as pronouns. Semantics and Linguistic Theory 13. 240257. Mitchell, J. 1986. The Formal Semantics of Point of View. University of Massachusetts Ph.D. Dissertation. Nunberg, G. and A. Zaenen. 1992. Systematic polysemy in lexicology and lexicography. In H. Tommola, K. Varantola, T. Salmi-Tolonen, and J. Schopp, eds., Proceedings of Euralex II. Tampere, Finland: University of Tampere. 387396. Partee, B. 1989. Binding implicit variables in quantified contexts. CLS 25:1. 342365. Partee, B. and V. Borschev. 2003. Genitives, relational nouns, and argument-modifier ambiguity. In E. Lang, C. Maienborn, and C. Fabricius-Hansen, eds., Modifying Adjuncts. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 3366. Pelletier, F.J. 2003. Context dependence and compositionality. Mind and Language 18:148161. Percus, O. 2004. Context-dependence and quantifier domains. Lecture delivered for the class Covert Variables at LF, Eastern Generative Grammar (summer school), Cluj, Romania. Pustejovksy, J. 1995. The Generative Lexicon. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Recanati, F. 2003. Literal Meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Soames, S. 1986. Incomplete definite descriptions. Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 27:349375. Stalnaker, R. 1978. Assertion. In P. Cole, ed., Syntax and Semantics, Volume 9: Pragmatics. New York: Academic Press. 315332. Stanley, J. 2000. Context and logical form. Linguistics and Philosophy 23:391434. Stanley, J. 2002. Nominal restriction. In G. Peters and G. Preyer, Logical Form and Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 365388. Stanley, J. and Z.G. Szab. 2000. On quantifier domain restriction. Mind and Language 15:219261. von Fintel, K. 1994. Restrictions on Quantifier Domains. University of Massachusetts Ph.D. Dissertation. von Fintel, K. 1998. The semantics and pragmatics of quantifier domains. Paper delivered at the Vilem Mathesius Lecture Series 12, Prague. Vikner, C. and P.A. Jensen. 2002. A semantic analysis of the English genitive: Interaction of lexical and formal semantics. Studia Linguistica 56:191226. Westersthl, D. 1984. Determiners and context sets. In J. van Benthem and A. ter Meulen, eds., Generalized Quantifiers in Natural Language. Dordrecht: Foris. 4571.
Free choice in Romanian*1

Donka F. Farkas
University of California, Santa Cruz
This paper analyzes the Romanian equivalents of the determiner uses of English any within an indefinitist theory whose starting point is Lee and Horn 1994 and Horn 2000a. The main points of the approach are the following: (i) Free choice determiners require all alternatives satisfying the descriptive content of their NP to verify the expression in which the item occurs; (ii) these alternatives have the special property of involving strict co-variation between the value assigned to the variable introduced by the NP and its modal/situational parameter; (iii) the latter requirement is responsible for the special distribution constraints these determiners are subject to; and (iv) the quantificational force of these items depends on whether they are caught by an existential quantifier (in which case they are existential) or not (in which case they are universal).
1.
Introduction
1.1 Preview
This paper explores the determiner corner of the any land in Romanian, taking Lee and Horn 1994 and Horn 2000a as tour guides. The immediate interest of the task lies in the fact that the work done in English by the over-employed determiner any is carried out in Romanian by a host of more specialized (and, one fears, lower paid) morphemes, which I review in the rest of this section. My aim is to introduce the details of the Romanian facts onto the scene and to show that an indefinitist view that generalizes the scalar approach advocated in Horns work is useful in helping us understand the much more crowded Romanian field. The theory of any that serves as my starting point is summarized in Section 2. Section 3 proposes a generalization of the scalar view advocated by Horn in terms of an alternative-based approach in the spirit of Krifka 1995, Giannakidou 2001 and Kratzer and Shimoyama 2002, based on a novel way of defining alternatives. Section 4 looks at the consequences of the proposal, Sec* I am grateful to Cleo Condoravdi, Michela Ippolito, Gregory Ward, Lynsey Wolter, Larry Horn himself, and an anonymous reviewer for useful discussions and comments on previous drafts.
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tion 5 considers ways of extending it, and Section 6 is a brief conclusion. The approach suggested here falls under what Horn calls quodlibetic theories. Its claim is that the unifying characteristic of both existentially and universally flavored free choice-like items is that they denote a maximal set of alternatives that verify the expression in which the item occurs. The scalar view is the important special case in which these alternatives form an implicational scale with respect to verifying the relevant expression.
1.2 The Romanian workers in the any field

For reasons of space I deal only with determiners. The ordinary singular indefinite article, whose forms are un Masc.Sg and o Fem.Sg, is exemplified below: (1) A sosit un biat. has arrived a boy A boy arrived. NPs with these articles are least marked in that they have the widest distribution. The special determiners studied here are special in that they have limited distribution as well as special morphology. Morphologically, they are complex in that they have the ordinary singular article or an interrogative/relative pronoun as subparts, a situation that is quite common across languages. (See Haspelmath 1997 for a wealth of cases.) (i) N-words Romanian, like its Romance sisters, is a negative concord language with a large inventory of n-words, both pronouns and determiners. N-determiners are made up of nici followed by the singular form of the indefinite article, which agrees with the head N in gender: (2) Nu am vzu nici un biat. not have seen n a boy I havent seen any boy. N-determiners are negative concord items in that they must be licensed by a negative element, i.e., negation in their own clause, negation in a superordinate clause under special circumstances, and negative items such as fr without.1 (3) a. * Am vzut nici un biat. have seen n a boy b. * Fiecare fat care a vzut nici un biat a plecat. every girl who has seen n a boy has left Every girl who saw any boy left.
1. The details of the licensing conditions of nici items and other n-words in Romanian have to be left for the next Horn Festschrift.
Free choice in Romanian
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c. *Dac vezi nici un biat, spune-mi. if see.II n a boy tell me If you see any boy, tell me. d. Nu cred c a vzut nici un biat. not think that has seen n a boy I dont think he/she saw any boy. e. *Nu a spus c a vzut nici un biat. not has said that has seen n a boy f. A plecat fr nici un ban. has left without n a penny (ii) Existential any Lee and Horn 1994 calls existential occurrences of any in negative and downward entailing contexts polarity sensitive or PS any. In Romanian, the work of existential any is done by the special determiner vreun/vreo. (See Farkas 2002a for discussion.) I will use the term existential in order to distinguish vreun from its n-word sister nici un. (4) Dac vezi vreun student trind, spune-mi. if see.II v-a student cheating tell me If you see any student cheating, tell me. Here vreun student can only be interpreted existentially and, just like existential any and unlike ordinary indefinites, can only have narrow scope relative to the conditional. (iii) Universal any The work of the universal determiner any (Free Choice any in standard terminology), exemplified in (5), (5) Any owl hunts mice. is done in Romanian by morphologically complex determiners whose first part is ori and whose second part is an indefinite/interrogative pronoun: (6) a. Orice bufni vneaz oareci. o-any owl hunts mice Any owl hunts mice. b. M deranjeaz orice zgomot. me disturbs o-any noise Any noise disturbs me. Within the ori series, there is a necessarily discourse-linked (D-linked) subset, made up of ori followed by the interrogative pronoun care which: (7) Oricare student dintre tia doi poate pleca. any-which student of these two may leave
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Any student of these two may leave. There are two more incarnations of any discussed in Horns work: Supplementary any, exemplified in (8), and indiscriminative any, exemplified in (9) (see Horn 2000b). (8) Caut pe cineva pe oricine cu care s se cstoreasc look Acc. somebody Acc. anybody with whom Subj. Ref. marry He is looking for someone anyone to marry. (9) Nu snt un btrn oarecare; snt domnul rii. not am an old man o-which am king-Def country.Pos I am not just any old man; I am the king of the country. Because of space and insight limitations, I leave these items outside the scope of the discussion. Partitive versions of ordinary indefinites and vreun indefinites will also be ignored here. The variety of any words in Romanian poses a challenge to univocal treatments of English any. The account we seek is one that is able to capture what is common to these items, as well as to point to the joints along which to differentiate them.
2. The scalar approach for English and Romanian 2.1 The scalar approach for English
I start from the scalar indefinitist account of any in Lee and Horn 1994 and Horn 2000a, the latter of which should also be consulted for the kind of whirlwind tour of the great land of any studies that only Horn can conjure up. The scalar indefinitist view treats any in all its uses as the ordinary indefinite article a modified by even. The scalar part is brought in by even, which contributes a presupposition requiring the existence of a pragmatic likelihood (or unilateral entailment) scale associated with the sentence and the further requirement that the element in its scope denote its lowest rung. Assuming x.P(x) to be the predicate obtained by abstracting over the variable associated with the any-NP in the sentence, the presupposed scale is made up of entities a, b, c which are possible values of x. The ordering is determined by an entailment relation such that if P(i) is true of some entity i on the scale, P(j) is (likely to be) true of all entities j to the left of i. The sentence asserts that x.P(x) is true of the lowest element on this scale, the denotation of the any-NP, and implicates that x.P(x) holds of all the higher rungs as well. Under this analysis, it is the contribution of even that is responsible for the differences between ordinary indefinites and any indefinites, and in particular for the distributional constraints it obeys, as well as for the widening effect of any first discussed in Kadmon and Landman 1993. In this approach, the dual nature of any follows from the fact that the ordinary indefinite article can be generic or not, combined with the fact that there are two types
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of scales, quantity and quality scales. With a quantity scale, the rungs are quantities chosen from the denotation of the NP, while in the case of quality scales, the rungs are kinds. If the presupposed scale is a quantity scale, the any-NP term is paraphrasable by even a single/a bit; if the presupposed scale is a quality scale the any-NP term is paraphrasable by even the most Adj, where the adjective is contextually supplied. Instances of NPI any are existential indefinites associated with a quantity scale. Instances of FC any are generic indefinites associated with a quality scale. Whether an any term is generic or existential depends on the presence of an Existential or Generic feature of the indefinite article subpart of any. In what follows I depart from Lee and Horns terminology but not the spirit of their approach. As an umbrella term for both existential PS any an universal FC any I will use the term undifferentiated choice item (UCI). These items are a subclass of special indefinites, indefinites that impose special requirements on the variable they introduce. In English then, any is a UCI coming in two flavors, existential and universal. The restrictions on the occurrence of any-NPs follow from the presence of even and the scales it brings in. There are two negative conditions on scale formation that Lee and Horn 1994 suggests, namely (i) no particular value or witness for x should be required and (ii) the sentence should not assert the existence of a witness for x. The non-occurrence of any-NPs in episodic sentences and in positive existential assertions is thus accounted for. What remains an open issue is the justification of these conditions.
2.2 The scalar approach for Romanian

I turn to the question of how well this Procrustean position works for a profligate language like Romanian. The short answer is: pretty well. Let us look at the details. UC existentials The existential part of the any spectrum in Romanian is occupied by vreun, and the set of n-determiners. The universal part of the spectrum is occupied by the items in the ori series, which I call UC universals. Before sketching a scalar account of these special indefinites, I state some relevant assumptions about determiners in general and about ordinary indefinite determiners in particular. I assume a representational semantics in which determiners are responsible for the introduction of variables (or discourse referents) in semantic representation. Ordinary indefinite articles (a(n) in English, un/o in Romanian) are the least marked determiners in that they do not contribute anything else.2 Special determiners are special in that they come with various restrictions on the variable they introduce, which are responsible for their special interpretation and distribution. These restrictions may be domain restrictions, referring to the properties
2. I assume the treatment of number in Farkas and de Swart 2003, according to which singular forms do not come with any special requirement and get atomic interpretations by default.
of the set denoted by the descriptive content of the NP, or various types of interpretive restrictions, referring to characteristics of the way the variable is assigned values. Ordinary indefinite NPs in Romanian, just like their English counterparts, may occur in episodic, generic and conditional sentences: (10) Te-a cutat o student azi. You-have looked for a student today A student looked for you today. (11) O bufni vneaz oareci. an owl hunts mice An owl hunts mice. (12) Un copil care e bolnav nu se poart aa. a child who is sick not Ref. behave thus A child who is sick does not behave this way. (13) Dac m caut un coleg nu snt acas. If me look for a colleague not am home If someone/anyone looks for me, I am not home.
(a) N-determiners As mentioned before, n-words are on the other side of the spectrum: They are most marked in the sense that they must be licensed by a negative element. Romanian nwords may occur both in explicitly negated clauses, when the predicate is negated by the clausal negation morpheme nu, exemplified in (2), and in implicitly negated clauses, as in (14), where the clause is within the scope of a negative adverb:
(14) A plecat fr s ne dea nici o scuz. has left without Subj. us give n an excuse He/she left without giving us any excuse. N-items are negative concord indefinites, i.e., indefinites subject to licensing by negation (see Ladusaw 1992). In present terms, the contribution of such items is a variable subject to the relevant licensing condition, a condition encoded in the feature [Neg]. Under a scalar view of nici a further requirement is imposed, namely the presupposed existence of a quantity scale associated with the set denoted by the descriptive content of the NP. The indefinite would denote the item on the lowest rung of this scale.3
3. Nici un/o can only be used with individuated (count) nouns, and therefore the quantity scale has to be a cardinality scale. This is due to the presence of un/o, which cannot occur with mass nouns. With mass nouns a bare NP is used under negation and the quantity ceva some is used elsewhere.
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(b) Vreun indefinites What is left within the existential area of the English determiner any is the special indefinite determiner vreun:
(15) Ai vzut vreun porc care zboar? have.II seen v-a pig that flies Have you seen any pig that flies? Under the scalar analysis, the use of vreun comes with the requirement that there be a cardinal quantity scale whose lowest rung is one pig, rendering (15) equivalent to Have you seen even a single pig that flies? So far, we have seen that the existential corner of the English determiner any is occupied by n-determiners and vreun. A unified scalar treatment of these items would run as follows: N-words are existential indefinites associated with a quantity scale and the extra requirement of being negative concord items. Vreun NPs are existential indefinites associated with a quantity scale not subject to further requirements. They acquire their existential force from the existential closure of the VP in which they find themselves. What is special to negative concord items and vreun NPs is that they are associated with a presupposed quantity scale whose lowest rung they denote. What differentiates them is that the former but not the latter are negative concord items.4 Universal UCIs Universal UCIs are Free Choice items in standard terminology. The switch is motivated by the attempt to bring under one terminological umbrella the universal and existential flavored any and its cross-linguistic relatives. In the scalar view, FC any NPs are generic indefinites associated with a kind scale whose lowest rung is occupied by the kind whose realizations are least likely witnesses, and it is within this kind that the any item denotes. As we saw above, in Romanian, the universal UCIs are those in the ori series. They fall into two categories: D-linked and unmarked UCIs. The former require their domain (the set from which their values are chosen) to be contextually established, while the latter do not impose this requirement. An example of a non Dlinked universal UC NP is given in (16) and further examples in (17): (16) Dac (absolut) orice copil poate traversa lacul, pot i eu. if (absolutely) o-any child can cross lake.Def. can and I If (absolutely) any child can cross the lake, I can too. (17) a. Orice pisic poate sri peste zidul sta. o-any cat can jump over wall.Def. this Any cat can jump over this wall.
4. A problem I cannot go into here is that in Romanian all three existential indefinites may occur in negated clauses, with subtle differences in interpretation. Accounting for these is a complex matter that deserves a separate paper.
b. Bob a fugit mai repede dect orice copil. Bob has run more fast than o-any child Bob ran faster than any child. c. Ia orice/oricare mr. take o-any/o-any.D-link apple Take any apple. The domain constraint that comes with D-linked UCIs is met either when the domain of the NP is contextually present or when it is defined relative to a contextually present entity. In the D-linked version of (17c), the domain must be a contextually present set of apples. If the non-D-linked version is used, the domain may be completely open or it may be implicitly restricted to a salient relevant set, as in (17b), where Bob is assumed to have had a set of competitors. Thus, non-D-linked UCIs, in both English and Romanian, are like their ordinary indefinite counterparts in allowing implicit D-linked uses: One may use the non-D-linked version of (17c) to invite the addressee to pick any apple from a basket one presents. And if one proffers such a basket, one can justifiably object if the addressee goes out and picks an apple from a tree in the orchard.5 The existence of explicit D-linked universally flavored UCIs is theoretically significant because it shows that the widening associated with these items cannot essentially involve a ban against implicit or explicit contextual domain restrictions: We have seen that non-D-linked universal UCIs allow the former while D-linked universal UCIs require the presence of either the former or the latter. Free choice cannot, therefore, be seen as a ban against contextual restrictions. Note now that the widening that is involved in the scalar treatment of these items proposed by Lee and Horn is compatible with contextual restrictions. In contextually restricted cases, the potential values for the relevant variable are chosen from contextually present realizations of the kind that occupies the lowest rung of the presupposed kind scale. The picture of scalar determiners in Romanian that emerges from the above discussion is given below.
Figure 1. Scalar determiners in Romanian

5. Interestingly, the domain of any, just like that of every, may be restricted to accommodate a presupposition in its scope, further showing that a ban on contextual restrictions is not essential to FC any. (i) Every American sold his house. (ii) Any American should sell his house. Both (i) and (ii) make statements about Americans who own houses.
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One question that arises at this point is the connection between type of scale and quantificational force. An attractive possibility is to connect existential force with quantity scales and universal force with quality scales. Then all that needs to be said is that vreun presupposes the former kind of scale and ori the latter, and have quantificational flavor follow. The connection appears intuitive but deriving it is beyond what I can do at present. A feature-based scalar analysis of Romanian, in a nutshell, would treat nici as a scalar existential negative concord determiner, marked by the features [Neg] and [Existential scalar], vreun would be marked as [Existential scalar], while ori determiners are marked as [Generic scalar] with a further subdivision depending on whether the feature [D-link] is present or not. Two further connections (that I leave out of the current discussion) need to be made: (1) that between being an indefinite within the immediate scope of negation and existential scalarity; and (2) that between generic scalarity and wide scope. I turn now to reasons for why a scalar approach might have to be generalized.
2.3 Limitations of the scalar approach

2.3.1 Subtrigging and modal differentiation Subtrigging, noticed first in LeGrand 1975, and discussed in detail in Dayal 1998, is the name given to the intriguing phenomenon of acceptable universal any NPs within nonmodal, apparently episodic clauses in the presence of explicit (or even implicit) modification, normally of the postnominal sort. I exemplify with both Romanian and English: (18) #Ieri, Ion a vorbit cu orice student. #Yesterday, Ion talked to any student. (19) Ieri, Ion a vorbit cu orice student care s-a prezentat n biroul lui. Yesterday, Ion talked to any student who came by office his. Within the scalar approach to universal UCs, there is no immediate explanation for why this sort of modification would make a difference; it is not clear why modification would make the NP more prone to denoting an ordered set than when the NP is unmodified. The issue is, of course, crucially connected to the ban of scalar items from episodic sentences. Dayal 1998 proposes an account of subtrigging couched, however, within an ambiguist theory of any. FC any, for Dayal, is a universal quantifier over situations and individuals within the denotation of the descriptive content of the NP. In the absence of the right type of modification, the set of situations quantified over is open-ended and therefore not appropriate as an argument of episodic predicates because such predicates denote temporally and locally bounded situations. The problem in (18) then is one of incompatibility between the open-ended nature of the argument and the necessarily bounded nature of the predicate. This, I suggest, should be treated as a category mismatch between the requirements of the predicate on the one hand, and of its arguments
on the other, rather than as a problem leading to a necessarily false sentence or an ordinary presupposition failure. The situation variable of arguments of predicates must be compatible with the situation variable contributed by the predicate. The presence of an explicit post-nominal modifier that narrows down the situations involved in the interpretation of the NP rescues the sentence in (19). Any here quantifies over all possible situations that involve a student coming by Ions office yesterday. Because of the modification, this set is now bounded and may serve as an argument to a bounded predicate.6 Another question Dayals universal analysis of UC any tackles is the differentiation between modal contexts when it comes to felicitous occurrence of FC any. Recall that FC any is acceptable with permission modals but not in necessity/command contexts: (20) a. b. c. d. You may pick any flower. #You must pick any flower. You must pick any flower you see. #You must pick any flower in this bed.
Dayals account of the contrast between (20a) and (20b) is based on the incompatibility of commands and the open-endedness of unmodified FCIs. Her account of the contrast between (20c) and (20d) is based on a vagueness condition associated with FC any, given in (21). (21) Revised Vagueness Requirement: Any (A) (Op B) is felicitous iff AOB is not contextually salient in any relevant world, where Op may be ,, !, or null. (Dayal 1998:459, (57b)) This condition does not crucially make reference to the universal force of FC any and therefore could be imported into any analysis. An open question, however, is why such a condition should obtain. The facts are parallel in Romanian: (22) a. Ai voie s culegi orice floare. have permission Subj pick o-any flower b. # Trebuie s culegi orice floare. must Subj pick o-any flower c. Trebuie s culegi orice floare vezi. must Subj pick o-any flower see.II d. # Trebuie s culegi orice floare din grdina asta. must Subj pick o-any flower from garden this
6. There is an open problem here, discussed in Giannakidou 2001, namely that of why implicit contextual restrictions cannot save (19). Giannakidous own solution treats sentences like (20) as implicit conditionals (see Quer 2000). The fact that (19) and its ilk have a natural conditional paraphrase should, however, be part of the explanandum, and not the explanation itself.
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Subtrigging and modal differentiation remain puzzles under a scalar account, though of course not necessarily unsolvable puzzles. Dayals (21), on the other hand, is somewhat ad hoc in that it is not connected to other nominal restrictions. 2.3.2 Non-scalar vreun items There are occurrences of vreun NPs in Romanian for which a scalar approach is not intuitive. Thus, while in questions involving existence, the quantity scalar flavor of vreun is particularly easy to detect, in conditionals it is much less obvious. In (23), for example, the issue of the number of colleagues who might be looking for me is immaterial: (23) Dac m caut vreun coleg, nu snt acas. if me look for v-a colleague not am home If any colleague looks for me I am not home. Situations in which one colleague is looking for me are not more or less likely than situations in which several are. The if-clause simply quantifies over situations in which there is such a colleague. Furthermore, as discussed in Section 5 below, the uses of vreun go beyond those of English existential any, venturing into the territory of English some N or other. A scalar approach to those cases is not appropriate. It would be desirable to find a common denominator for vreun indefinites in Romanian and scalarity cannot be it. In the next section I outline a univocal approach to existential and universal UCIs that capitalizes on their quodlibetic nature and of which scalar any is a special case. The approach generalizes the basic insight of the scalar view, namely that what is at stake is a set of alternatives.
3. Undifferentiated Choice
So far, we have seen that the scalar view goes a long way in explaining the distribution and use of any in English and UCIs and Romanian and that there are reasons to wish to generalize it. I offer below such a generalization, in which common to all UCIs (whether existential or universal) is the fact that their interpretation involves a set of maximal mutually exclusive verifying alternatives. Defining what the alternatives are is crucial for any alternative-based approach. The simplest view is to take them to be a set of entities. Under this assumption, however, the essential modal nature of UCIs is lost, and the distinction between UCIs with universal force and ordinary universally quantified NPs becomes problematic as well. Alternatives are defined here as a set of assignment function/situation pairs. The alternatives are maximal in that they include all possible values of the relevant variable within the limits of salient contextual restrictions. They are mutually exclusive in that each alternative excludes the other: Each alternative contrasts with all the others with respect to the values assigned to both
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individual and situation variables. This condition is meant to capture the intuition that each choice involved differs from all the other choices.7 Finally, the requirement that each alternative verify the expression in which the UCI occurs is what makes the choices undifferentiated, i.e., free. No matter which alternative is chosen, is verified relative to that alternative.8 The undifferentiated nature of these alternatives with respect to verifying is responsible for what Horn calls, following Hamilton 1858, the quodlibetic nature of FC any, and is at the basis of Vendlers 1967 characterization of FC any as issuing a blank warranty.9 In the current approach, a UCI acquires universal flavor (and thus qualifies as a FCI in standard terminology) if it has widest scope; then all the alternatives it brings along stay relevant to the interpretation of . A UCI acquires existential force when bound by an existential quantifier within the scope of some operator. Scalar interpretations are a special case in that the alternatives are ordered along some dimension. The difference between quality and quantity scales is importable into the alternative-based view as a difference between quality and quantity alternatives. The notion of alternatives used here is the same as the Dynamic Semantic notion of possibilities: It is a set of assignment function and situation pairs f, s such that f(x,s) satisfies the descriptive content of the NP, where x is the variable introduced by the UCI. I follow Krazter 1989 in treating worlds as maximal situations. To capture mutual exclusivity I assume that both individual and situation variable are indexed. Non-identity of index on the variable ensures distinctness of value. The index on the situation variable must be bound by a larger situation (or world) such that sj wj. (In what follows I will not treat as separate the case where the binding situation is not a world but a larger situation.) The set of alternatives provides a set of pairs of entities and situations vi, sj . The mutual exclusivity requirement, given in (24), requires strict co-variation between entity and situation for each pair in the set. (24) Mutual exclusivity A set of alternatives F is mutually exclusive iff for any two pairs vi, sj and vi, sj it provides, i i and j j.
7. The work done by this condition is done in Menndez-Benito 2005 by the Exhaustivity operator. 8. UC alternatives are different from the alternatives involved in the interpretation of focus in two respects: (i) for focus, the situation parameter is constant across alternatives, and (ii) one alternative, the focus value, contrasts with the others with respect to verifying the expression in question. These then, crucially, are differentiated alternatives. 9. Other alternative-based analyses that are close in spirit to the one proposed here are Krifka 1995, Kratzer and Shimoyama 2002, Giannakidou 2001, and Menndez-Benito 2005. The main difference is the way alternatives are defined. Space limitations do not permit a detailed comparison.
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The fact that the situation index in each alternative needs to be bound ensures that the variable contributed by the UCI must occur within the scope of an operator which ranges over a set of situations or worlds. The distinction between quantity and quality alternatives can be maintained. Quantity alternatives are such that x ranges over quantities and therefore distinctness involves distinct quantities; quality alternatives are sensitive to the identity of the items involved. The alternatives introduced by UCIs may be contextually restricted on the possible values for the individual variable. The restrictions may be implicit or explicit. An explicitly D-linked UCI such as any of you three brings in alternatives where the individual variable ranges over three possible choices while the situation variable remains free. Modification of the head noun may result in the internal binding of the situation variable. In the NP any flower you find the descriptive content contains a situation variable co-varying with the flowers. Finally, the UCI itself may be modified by almost, in which case the maximality of the set of alternatives is weakened: The alternatives that verify the expression in which the UCI occurs are a large proper subset of the alternatives introduced by the UC expression. I assume that morphemes in the Determiner position of NPs may signal that the NP is a UCI. This information is encoded in a feature, [UC], which imposes an interpretive restriction requiring the relevant variable to be verified by a set of maximal mutually exclusive alternatives. I assume that unless a UCI has widest scope it is interpreted existentially, and that quantity alternatives are compatible only with existential interpretations. Variables within the immediate scope of negation have in common with UCIs the fact that they involve a set of verifying alternatives. UCIs within the scope of negation introduce quantity alternatives. In Romanian, nici indefinites are marked by [Neg], a feature specific to negative concord items which requires them to be interpreted under (semantic) negation. Nici NPs therefore have the features [UC] and [Neg]. The former marks them as introducing a set of alternatives. The latter marks them as negative concord items. Existential interpretation is forced by the presence of [Neg], which renders wide scope impossible. The contribution of ori in Romanian is the feature [UC]. When this morpheme is combined with the interrogative/relative pronoun care, which, the feature [D-link] is added, signaling the requirement that the values of x be chosen from a contextually determined set. In the absence of [D-link], the domain of UCIs may be contextually restricted only if this restriction is salient in the context. Widest scope UCIs are what is known in traditional terminology as FCIs. The determiner vreun signals an existentially bound UCI, and thus it is marked by [UC] and []. The fact that morphemes in the ori series are used when the UCI is free, and therefore has universal force, need not be explicitly encoded as a requirement since the possibility of using vreun in the presence of existential binding can be seen as blocking the use of ori. The [] feature could be taken as requiring these items to introduce an existential quantifier, which would render them quantificational (as sug-
gested in Farkas 2002a), or as being essentially a licensing feature amounting to the requirement that the indefinite be within the scope of an existential quantifier that binds it. I follow here Lee and Horn 1994 and Kratzer and Shimoyama 2002 in assuming the latter approach. Whether all special existential indefinites should be treated this way is an open question. Singular some in English is existential only but differs from vreun in not occurring within the scope of negation. In Farkas 2002b the existential nature of some was encoded in an interpretive requirement, rather than as an existential feature. Given the richness of the field of existential indefinites, we have to make theoretical room for several kinds of existential requirements.10 More concretely now, a UCI in an expression introduces a variable xF, where the subscript marks the presence of the interpretive requirement associated with undifferentiated exclusive choice. The requirement involves the introduction of the maximal set of x-alternatives F such that for every f,sj in F, f(xi,sj) satisfies the descriptive content of the UCI and the mutual exclusivity requirement. This set may be implicitly constrained by salient discourse factors, whose workings remain mysterious for now. In the case of scalar UCIs these alternatives are arranged along a scale. Indeed, a good reason to use a UCI is to make sure all possible values are considered, even the least likely ones. The alternatives in F supply a value pool for the evaluation parameter set of xF in . The evaluation parameter set of a variable x in some expression is the set of function/situation pairs that assign values to x relative to some g,w such that [[]]g,w = 1. The alternatives in F are said to verify in the sense that each f,sj in F supplies an individual and a situation that may function as evaluation parameters of xF relative to some g,w such that [[]]g,w = 1. The alternatives are equal in that for any such g,w, any f,sj in F may supply values for the evaluation parameters of xF. In (25), I provide the definition of what it means for a set of x-alternatives to verify an expression . G(x,w,g) is the set of evaluation parameters of x in relative to g,w. (25) F verifies [ xF ] relative to some g,w such that [[]]w,g = 1, iff for every f,sj F there is g, wj G(x,w,g) such that f(x) = g(x) and sj wj. Intuitively, each alternative in F provides an individual ai and a situation sj such that ai is a verifying value for x in relative to some wj that contains sj. The subscripts are needed to ensure mutual exclusivity.
10. Having an existential feature associated with vreun and other necessarily existentially interpreted indefinites is not a particularly enlightening way of accounting for their necessarily existential interpretation, however. A more attractive road might be to take the essential nature of UCIs, namely that of involving undifferentiated alternatives, as rendering them compatible exclusively with a universal or an existential interpretation, since all other types of quantification require differentiated choices. The existential nature of vreun could also be derived by barring it from widest scope.
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Because of the mutual exclusivity condition, xF must be within the scope of a situation introducing operator O. The presence of this operator renders the situation variable brought in by the UCI relevant to the interpretation of the expression in which the UCI occurs. The two scopal possibilities that obtain are given in (26): (26) a. xF : [Ow xF ] b. Ow [xF : [ xF ] ] The representation in (26a) results in a widened universal interpretation for the UCI, while (26b) has a narrow scope existential interpretation. In the former case, every alternative in F must verify ; in the latter case, for every relevant wj, there must be an alternative in F that verifies . The semantic representation of (27) is given in (28), which puts together the contribution of orice student any student and the deontic interpretation of the rest of the sentence, where Dw is the set of deontically accessible worlds to w. (27) Orice student poate pleca. Any student may leave. (28) xF: student(xF) [wj Dw: leave(xF ,wj)] In the absence of contextual restrictions, F contains all entity-situation pairs in the model that satisfy the descriptive content of the NP, i.e., all situations containing a student. The truth conditions of (28) abstracting away from the subscript F are given below: (29) [[x: student(x) w Dw: leave(x,w)]]w,g = 1 iff there is an x version g of g such that g(x) Iw(student), and there is a w Dw such that [[leave(x)]]w g = 1 The fi,sj pairs that give value to x here are worlds wj in Dw and x-versions gi of g. (The subscript on assignment functions tracks the identity of value assigned to x.) The mutual exclusivity condition requires i and j to co-vary across the set of alternatives. The contribution of the subscript F is the requirement in (30): (30) For every fi,sj in F, there is an x-version gi of g, and a world wj in Dw such that sj wj, such that wj and gi can substitute for w and g in (29). Together, (29) and (30) require each student to be part of a different deontically permissible world in which that student leaves. In the absence of implicit or explicit contextual narrowing factors the permission is indeed wide open. The D-linked version of (27) is given in (31): (31) Oricare student poate pleca. any.Part student may leave Any student may leave.
This version involves an obligatory narrowing down of alternatives such that the entities involved have to be chosen from a set of contextually given students, but the situation variable is still unrestricted. Universal UCIs differ from universally quantified NPs with every, whose closest counterpart in Romanian is fiecare, in that the situation parameter of the latter is fixed (presumably to the topic situation) while the situation parameter of the former is open. It is this property that explains the relation of sentences involving universal FCI and conditionals. The reduced role of the situation parameter of ordinary universals explains their non-modal nature and therefore their lack of special interaction with modality. Scalarity in this approach is not part of the semantics of UCIs per se but rather the most likely pragmatic consequence of the drastic widening they effect. If all alternatives are verifying, the least likely ones are as well. Second, UCIs result in necessarily distributive interpretations, which is not the case for all universal DPs. When a UCI has narrow scope it must be existentially bound, which, I assume here, following Diesing 1992, occurs as a result of the NP remaining in the VP. Vreun indefinites must be existential; in (32) then, the UCI must stay within the VP and have narrow scope relative to the conditional. (32) Dac pleac vreun student, va fi ru. if leaves v-a student will be bad If a/any student leaves, it will be bad. The conditional involves universal quantification over situations that satisfy the antecedent. For each such situation s, there must be an extended situation s that satisfies the consequent. The VP of the antecedent is existentially closed. The logical form of (32) is given in (33): (33) s: [xF: student(xF) leave(xF, s)] [ s: s s bad(s)] The existential, in effect, quantifies over the alternatives in F, requiring there to be one verifying alternative in F for every s quantified over by the universal. Given that the alternatives are required to be equal, which alternative one chooses for which situations is immaterial. The variant of (32) with a wide scope UCI, given in (34), has the representation in (35): (34) Dac pleac orice student, va fi ru. if leaves o-any student will be bad If any student leaves, it will be bad. (35) xF : student(xF) [s: [student(xF) & leave(xF,s)] s: s sbad(s)]]
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Now every alternative in F has to verify the conditional.11 Under the present analysis, the account of generic sentences with orice, just like Dayals, involves the orice NP being outside the scope of the generic quantifier. The logical form of (36) is given in (37): (36) Orice bufni zboar. o-any owl flies Any owl flies. (37) xF: owl(xF) [Gs (fly(xF,s))] The expression in the scope of the UCI requires appropriately generic situations to be ones in which x flies. (The implicit restriction has been left out in (37) for simplicitys sake.) This expression has to be verified relative to all the alternatives introduced by the UCI, which brings its own situational variable. Every minimal situation including an owl must be extendable to a prototypical situation in which that owl flies. In generic statements involving ordinary indefinites, as in (38), the indefinite is within the scope of G and is bound by it. (38) O bufni vneaz oareci. an owl hunts mice An owl hunts mice. (39) Gs,x [owl(x,s)] [fly(x,s)] In (39) we have quantification over typical owls in typical situations. To sum up, the [UC] feature brings with it the requirement in (40): (40) UC requirement An item marked by [UC] occurring in an expression introduces a variable xF subject to the requirement that the alternatives in F are mutually exclusive and verify . The classification of UC determiners in Romanian that we arrive at is given in Figure 2:
Figure 2. UC determiners in Romanian
11. I have used here representations in which the scope of the UCI is structurally marked for the sake of convenience.
In terms of features, all these determiners are marked as UC; oricare is further marked as D-linked, and orice has no other features; vreun is marked as existential. The English determiner filling all the slots in Figure 2 is any, marked simply for being UC. When existentially bound, it is equivalent to vreun; when it has widest scope it is equivalent to ori-indefinites. In this analysis, any and orice NPs are equivalent. The use of orice is, however, more limited than that of any because of the existence, in Romanian, of the other UCIs. The negative concord determiner nici un is similar to UCIs in that all the values that satisfy the descriptive content of an indefinite under the scope of negation must be possible witnesses. It is different from these items in not having to involve strict co-variation across situations or worlds.
4. Consequences
The present account follows Lee and Horn 1994 and Horn 2000a in that UCIs are treated as special indefinites. It differs from the scalar approach in that the UC requirement concerns their evaluation relative to a maximal set of undifferentiated mutually exclusive alternatives. The quantificational force of a UCI depends on its environment, as with other indefinites. The evaluation of such items, however, brings them close to Dayals account one looks at all possible situations involving an entity that satisfies the descriptive content of the NP. The scalar use of UCIs comes out as a special case, the case where the alternatives form a likelihood/unilateral entailment scale. What we have done so far is spell out the alternatives involved in a scalar account in more detail and made scalarity less central. In the spirit of Dayal, we have made heavy use of situation variables in defining the type of alternatives involved. The consequences we arrive at combine the consequences of previous approaches. The widening effect associated with UCIs is the result of the type of alternatives they bring in, which necessarily include the least likely alternatives as well. Unlike in Lee and Horns account, however, the inference that the other values are verifying is not a pragmatic implicature but part of the semantics of undifferentiated choice. The type of widening involved with UCIs is compatible with D-linking: The alternatives introduced may be contextually restricted. Since these alternatives are pairs consisting of an assignment function and a situation, the contextual restrictions may restrict the former (delimiting the values of the individual variable) or the latter (delimiting the relevant situations). D-linked UCIs limit the former. UCIs whose descriptive content involves modification by a relative clause or a modifier that is situation specific limit the latter. The difference between possibility and necessity modals, as well as the subtle effects of subtrigging, follow from the mutual exclusivity condition. A UCI cannot be in the nuclear scope of a modal with universal force, as in (41), (41) #You must pick any flower (in this bunch).
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because the verifying values of xF hold constant across permissible worlds. The mutual exclusivity condition is incompatible with the necessity operator, which requires the flowers you pick to be the same in all deontically accessible worlds Note that, given our treatment of vreun and ori indefinites, we expect both to be sensitive to this distinction. Example (42) shows that this expectation is fulfilled: (42) # Trebuie s culegi vreo/orice floare. must Subj. pick v-a/any flower The descriptive content of the UCI may rescue such sentences by allowing variation in verifying values, as in (43): (43) You must pick any flower you find. Here the mutual exclusivity condition is satisfied given that the relevant situations are bound internally to the NP. The alternatives involve a pairing of flowers and situations in which you find that flower. Flowers you find differ across situations of finding them and thus the flowers you must pick vary as well. An appropriate descriptive content on an FCI may lead to its felicitous occurrence in an apparently episodic sentence, such as (44): (44) Yesterday, John talked to any student who came by his office. The alternatives supplied by the UCI here are pairs of students and co-varying situations in which that student came by Johns office yesterday and therefore mutual exclusivity is satisfied within the NP. The interpretation of John talked to x must be such as to be true of each of these situations. The account correctly predicts that a true episodic interpretation, where a single talking situation is involved will not be possible and that therefore (45) will not be acceptable: (45) #Yesterday at 5pm John talked to any student who came by his office. Finally, a further welcome consequence of the analysis is that it explains the connection between UCIs and conditional statements noted by Quer 2000. If every F-alternative of the UCI in (43) has to verify You must pick xF, if y is a flower you find, you must pick it.
5. Random choice indefinites: vreun and some

I turn now to two further environments where we find vreun indefinites that are, however, incompatible with a UC analysis. I argue that an alternative-based approach allows us to at least establish a link connecting them to UC vreun. First, consider the use of vreun indefinites in frequentative imperfectives, exemplified below:
(46) Din cnd n cnd trenul se oprea n vreo halt i cte un from when in when train Refl. stopped in v-a station and each a navetist deschidea un ochi. commuter open.Imp. an eye [Farkas 2002a:137, (15d)]
From time to time, the train would stop in some station and a commuter would open an eye. The choice of vreun over an ordinary indefinite here stresses the random nature of the pairing of occasions of the train stopping and the station. The vreun indefinite cannot, however, be a UCI because of the clash between the open-ended nature of UC and the restricted situations that are involved here. Note also that UC any is not acceptable in the English version of this example; some N (or other) is used instead, with the same effect as the use of vreun. Second, consider the use of vreun in (47): (47) In balta din spatele cantonului, ceva plesci scurt, In pond.Def. from back.the station.Gen. something splashed briefly vreun pete sau vreo ra. v-a fish or v-a duck In the pond behind the station, something splashed briefly, some fish or some duck. [Farkas 2002a:137, (15e)] Here too there is a clash between the episodic nature of the sentence in which the vreun NP occurs and the type of alternatives associated with UCIs. Note again that English resorts to some N (or other), and disallows any. The choice of vreun over the ordinary indefinite in (47) stresses the uncertainty of the existence of a verifying value in the world of evaluation there might well be no duck involved, and there might well be no fish involved. The two cases can be connected under the assumption that the non-UC use of vreun indefinites is subject to the requirement in (48): (48) Uncertain Existential Requirement (UER) Non-UC vreun indefinites are unacceptable in case the existence of a verifying value for the NP is entailed at all relevant worlds/situations.12 Example (46) meets (48) because of the type of quantification involved: There are several relevant occasions, and some are chosen (at random) where the train stops in a station. The domain of the adverb of quantification from time to time involves situations where the train doesnt stop, and therefore in which no witness for the indefinite
12. Requiring these items to be scopally non-specific is not enough since they cannot occur within the scope of universal quantifiers or want.
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exists. If we are on the right track, we expect universal quantification over situations to render this use of vreun infelicitous.13 This indeed is the case: (49) #De fiecare dat cnd trenul se oprea n vreo halt of each time when train.Def. Ref. stopped in v-a station The use of vreun in cases like (47) obviously satisfies the UER since the statement is compatible with both the existence and the non-existence of a witness. The UER renders vreun indefinites infelicitous within the scope of want under the assumption that the relevant situations here are worlds ranked relatively high according to the subjects priorities. Example (50) shows that this indeed is the case: (50) Vreau un/#vreun tablou de Schiele. want.I a/#v-a painting of Schiele I want a painting by Schiele. As further evidence that the uses of vreun we are dealing with here do not fall under the UC rubric, note that ori indefinites are acceptable within the scope of want: (51) Vreau orice tablou de Schiele. want.I any painting of Schiele I want any painting by Schiele. Example (51) is acceptable under a scalar interpretation, according to which even the least desirable painting by Schiele is one Id rather have than not have. The question that arises now is how this non-UC use of vreun NPs relates to its UC use, on the one hand, and how it relates to the special uses of singular some on the other. Have we reached a univocal account of ori and UC vreun (in the footsteps of a univocal account of any) but an ambiguous account of UC and uncertain existence vreun? Under the view in which various determiners impose different interpretive constraints on the variable they introduce, the question of ambiguity becomes spurious. Determiners may share some restrictions but not others. The question then is what the connection is between UC and non-UC vreun. To answer it, it is useful to look at the contrast between ordinary indefinites and singular some in English. In earlier work (Farkas 2002b), I treated some indefinites as introducing an unidentified variable, i.e. a variable requiring the presence of several alternatives that are consistent with the output context and which differ only with respect to the value they assign to the variable in question. The alternatives involved are formally identical to the alternatives required by UCIs: They are assignment function/situation pairs differing in the value that the function assigns to a particular variable. The role of the two types of alternatives, however, is different. UC alternatives must verify the expression in which the UCI occurs. The alternatives at play in the case of singular some are the live possibilities consistent with a particular context at a particular time, which are
13. Similar facts are discussed for Greek in Giannakidou 1995.
subject to being narrowed down as further information is added. I call UC alternatives verifying and the latter, contextual. Existential items requiring contextual alternatives will be called contextual choice (CC) items. The situational parameter of contextual alternatives ranges over the worlds in the context set but their individual variable does not have to exhaust the domain of the NP. Contextual alternatives are sensitive to a homogeneity parameter of their own. They are homogeneous if the actual value of the relevant variable (assigned to it by that contextual alternative which survives any amount of additional information) has no significant distinguishing characteristics that set it apart from values assigned to it by the other alternatives. Singular some is not sensitive to this latter distinction, but vreun indefinites are, requiring contextual alternatives to be homogeneous in this way. Thus, the referent of some candidate in (52) does not require candidates to be undifferentiated; vreun cannot be used in the Romanian equivalent of this example: (52) In target of opportunity cases the department identifies some candidate they want and they offer the position without search. [from Farkas 2002b] I call the subtype of CC items requiring this type of homogeneous alternatives random choice (RC) items. The common thread between UC and RC is, I suggest, the existence of alternatives that are treated as equal. The difference has to do with the nature of the alternatives and the type of equality they involve. UCIs require the existence of maximal verifying alternatives of equal contextual salience. Singular some and nonUC vreun require contextual alternatives. In addition, vreun is an RC item because it requires these alternatives to be non-differentiated. Common to the use of vreun as a UC and an RC item is the required presence of alternatives that count as equal. The proper formal treatment of this connection remains an open problem. Equally open is the connection, if any, between the types of alternatives involved and the types of extra existence or vagueness requirements imposed by particular determiners. The properties of the determiners we have discussed here are listed in (53): (53) a. b. c. d. e. un: unmarked orice: UC vreun: [existential UC] or [uncertain existential RC] oricare : UC, D-linked nici un: Neg, existential
The properties of English any, singular some and a(n) are given in (54): (54) a. a(n): unmarked b. any: UC c. some: CC
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6. Conclusion
There are several morals that emerge from this discussion. First, considering special types of indefinites as ordinary indefinites plus extra requirements, as proposed in Lee and Horn 1994, Horn 2000a, as well as much other work on indefinites, is a fruitful approach, which allows us to draw a complicated map of the indefinite land using simple tools. Approaching the understanding of particular NP types in a particular language from a paradigmatic perspective seems to be called for both for intralinguistic and especially for cross-linguistic semantics. The question that arises in this respect is what types of restrictions determiners may impose. Second, looking at particular NP types as requiring the presence of alternatives is a promising way of approaching FCIs and their kin. It has allowed us to approach FC any in a way that is different from the two standard approaches, namely as a wide scope universal with a modal in its scope or an existential within the scope of a modal. Defining alternatives as sets of assignment functions and situations, as done here, allows us to bring under one umbrella, namely that of undifferentiated choice, both the existential and the universal uses of any. It also promises help in building a useful bridge between UC and RC items. This approach opens the possibility of bringing together analyses of focus, indefinites and, possibly, questions (as discussed in Ladusaw 2004) and lexical presupposition (as discussed in Abusch 2002) by considering the role of (un)differentiated alternatives involved in their interpretation. It may also help in answering the first question raised above. Third, factoring out quantification from the contribution of indefinites, as pioneered in Kamp 1981 and Heim 1982, is fruitful as well. While this approach is successful in analyzing the chameleonic nature of ordinary indefinites, the stubbornly existential nature of some special indefinites becomes problematic. Among the many puzzles that remain, one that seems to me particularly salient is the relative wealth of distinctions we find within the realm of existential alternative-requiring items. How the existential force of these items is imposed, and what extra conditions they come with, are subject to as yet mysterious variation. Finally, the problems involved in subtrigging, a full account of which is, to my mind, the most notable open issue in the realm of FCIs, points to the importance of the role played by the situation variable in nominal interpretation, an issue that has had a relatively low profile in nominal semantics so far and which I hope will become central in the near future.
References
Abusch, D. 2002. Lexical alternatives as a source of pragmatic presupposition. Semantics and Linguistic Theory 12. 120. Dayal, V. 1998. Any as inherently modal. Linguistics and Philosophy 21:433476.
94 Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning Diesing, M. 1992. Indefinites. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Farkas, D.F. 2002a. Extreme non-specificity in Romanian. In C. Beyssade, R. Bok-Bennema, F. Drijkoningen, and P. Monachesi, eds., Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2000. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 127153. Farkas, D.F. 2002b. Varieties of indefinites. Semantics and Linguistic Theory 12. 5983. Farkas, D.F. and H. de Swart. 2003. The Semantics of Incorporation. Stanford, CA: CSLI. Giannakidou, A. 2001. The meaning of free choice. Linguistics and Philosophy 24:659735. Hamilton, W. 1858. Discussions on Philosophy and Literature. New York: Harper & Brothers. Haspelmath, M. 1997. Indefinite Pronouns. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Heim, I. 1982. The Semantics of Definite and Indefinite Noun Phrases. University of Massachusetts Amherst Ph.D. dissertation. Horn, L.R. 2000a. Any and (-)ever: Free choice and free relatives. Israel Association for Theoretical Linguistics 15:71111. Horn, L.R. 2000b. Pick a theory (not just any theory): Indiscriminatives and the free-choice indefinite. In L.R. Horn and Y. Kato, eds., Negation and Polarity: Syntactic and Semantic Perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 147192. Kadmon N. and F. Landman. 1993. Any. Linguistics and Philosophy 16:353422. Kamp, H. 1981. A theory of truth and semantic representation. In J. Groenendijk, T. Janssen, and M. Stokhof, eds., Formal Methods in the Study of Language. Amsterdam: Mathematisch Centrum. 277322. Kratzer, A. 1989. An investigation into the lumps of thought. Linguistics and Philosophy 12:607653. Kratzer, A. and Y. Shimoyama. 2002. Indeterminate pronouns: The view from Japanese. Paper delivered at the 3rd Tokyo Conference on Psycholinguistics, Tokyo, Japan. Krifka, M. 1995. The semantics and pragmatics of polarity items. Linguistic Analysis 25:149. Ladusaw, W. 2004. Biased questions. Talk given at University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA. Ladusaw, W. 1992. Expressing negation. Semantics and Linguistic Theory 2. 237259. Lee, Y.-S. and L. Horn. 1994. Any as indefinite plus even. Ms. LeGrand, J. 1975. Or and Any: The Syntax and Semantics of Two Logical Operators. University of Chicago Ph.D. dissertation. Menndez-Benito, P. 2005. Freedom of Choice. University of Massachusetts Amherst Ph. D. dissertation. Quer, J. 2000. Licensing free choice items in hostile environments: The role of aspect and mood. Ms. Vendler, Z. 1967. Linguistics in Philosophy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Polarity, questions, and the scalar properties of even*1

Anastasia Giannakidou
University of Chicago
This paper discusses the behavior of three lexically distinct Greek expressions which appear to be the counterparts of English even: akomi ke, oute, and esto. The behavior of these three expressions is examined in positive and negative sentences, and it is demonstrated that they all are polarity-sensitive. The distributional constraints of the three even items, crucially, are shown to follow from their distinct scalar associations. In particular, the low-scalar likelihood of positive even (akomi ke) remains problematic with negation as well as affirmation, a fact supporting the polarity approach to even and the lexical ambiguity that is associated with it. In further support of this conclusion, negative bias in questions is shown to arise not with negative polarity oute (which is ungrammatical in questions) or positive akomi ke (which is grammatical but creates no bias), but with esto a low scalar item defined on a context-dependent scale. This finding strengthens Kays (1990) and Horns (1989) observations that likelihood alone is not sufficient for capturing the scalar properties of even.
* Many thanks to the editors of this volume, Gregory Ward and Betty Birner, for giving me the opportunity to write this article in honor of Larry Horn. As expected, Larry has had thoughts about (almost) every topic discussed in the paper, and I am grateful to him both as a source of inspiration, as well as a challenging interlocutor, whose criticism I have benefited from on innumerable occasions. I wish to also thank my informants for their help, as well as Cleo Condoravdi, Jack Hoeksema, Larry Horn, Bill Ladusaw, Jason Merchant, Hotze Rullmann, and Keiko Yoshimura for comments and discussion. A special thanks goes to Chris Kennedy for his extensive written comments. Various versions of this material were presented at the 16th Linguistics Symposium at the University of Thessaloniki (May 2003), the Milan workshop on Polarity and Scalar Phenomena (June 2003), and the 14th Amsterdam Colloquium (December 2003). I am grateful to the audiences of these events for their comments, in particular Elena Guerzoni, Angelika Kratzer, Irene Heim, and Ianthi-Maria Tsimpli.
1.
Background: English even and its Greek counterparts
The status of English even has been under debate since Karttunen and Peters 1979 (henceforth K&P). The problem is that even has distinct presuppositions in positive and negative sentences (K&P 1979, Rooth 1985, Horn 1989, Kay 1990). To solve this problem, K&P posit scope ambiguity with respect to negation; Rooth 1985, however, argues that the ambiguity is lexical: Even has a negative polarity (NPI) incarnation which is licensed in the scope of negation (see also Horn 1989:148-150 for further criticism of K&P). To illustrate, in a positive sentence, even makes the following contribution: (1) The Dean invited even Bill. (2) i. x [x Bill C(x) invited (Dean, x)], and ii. x[x Bill likelihood (Dean inviting x) > likelihood (Dean inviting Bill)] The sentence asserts that the Dean invited Bill. As a focus particle, even introduces a set of alternatives that the context makes salient (C(x), a condition that I will henceforth drop in the notation but obviously continue assuming), and a scalar presupposition: that the value of even, i.e. the value indicated by the even phrase, is the least likely alternative, i.e., it is the lowest, or near-lowest ranked element of a scale (Horn 1989, Kay 1990), which, according to K&P, is one of likelihood. Likelihood should be understood as a Horn possibility scale. With negation the presupposition changes. Instead of invited individuals, a negative sentence with even makes us think of individuals that the Dean did not invite; and Bill appears to no longer be the (near-)least likely person, but the (near-)most likely one: (3) The Dean didnt invite even Bill. (4) i. x [x Bill (Dean invited x)] ii. x [x Bill likelihood (Dean inviting Bill) > likelihood (Dean inviting x)] Rooth (1985) proposed precisely this presupposition with negation; as a consequence, even is lexically ambiguous between a meaning with the presupposition in (2), and a negative polarity (NPI) incarnation with the presupposition in (4). Rooths lexical meaning for NPI-even as a propositional operator with the presupposition just described is given below: (5) Presupposition of NPI-even (Rooth 1985) a. p [C(p) not ( p) p ^ a], where a = assertion b. p [[ C (p) p ^a] likelihood (^ a) > likelihood (p)] = the proposition created by the even-phrase is the most likely alternative
Polarity, questions, and the scalar properties of even
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To avoid positing a lexical ambiguity, K&P and Wilkinson 1996 proposed instead that the ambiguity is scopal: even cannot be in the scope of negation, but must raise above it. In this analysis, the presupposition of non-NPI even looks identical to that of NPI-even: (6) i. x [x Bill invited (Dean, x)] ii. x [x Bill likelihood (Dean not inviting x)> likelihood (Dean not inviting Bill)] But there is a cost here too: We stipulate covert movement of even above negation, which can be shown to be problematic in many ways, and for which there is no actual empirical evidence (for extended discussion see Rullmann 1997, Heim and Lahiri 2002, and Giannakidou (to appear)). For one thing, the movement rule is posited specifically for even (as opposed to other focus particles that are not subject to it); and it must be covert as well as obligatory. In essence, the stipulation that even must move above negation renders it a positive polarity item (PPI), an obvious retreat from the unitary analysis of even. Greek provides empirical support for the polarity hypothesis. As we see below, there are three items that may be translated into English as even, only one of which can occur unproblematically in positive sentences: (7) a. I Maria efaje the Maria ate b. *I Maria efaje the Maria ate c. ?#I Maria efaje the Maria ate akomi ke even oute even esto even to pagoto. (positive EVEN) the ice cream. to pagoto. (NPI-EVEN) the ice cream to pagoto. (flexible scale EVEN) the ice cream
(I use EVEN to refer to the item crosslinguistically). The expressions oute and esto resist positive sentences; they are both PIs in this sense (though there is a clear difference in status between the two, as we see, discussed in detail in Giannakidou (to appear); I use ?# to indicate systematic deviance which is stronger that mere oddity, but still weaker than ungrammaticality). With negation, oute becomes good while esto remains bad; akomi ke, the positive EVEN, becomes unacceptable:1 (8) a. ?#I Maria dhen efaje the Maria didnt eat b. I Maria dhen efaje the Maria didnt eat c. ?#I Maria dhen efaje the Maria didnt eat akomi ke even oute (kan) even esto even to pagoto. (positive EVEN) the ice cream. to pagoto. (NPI-EVEN) the ice cream to pagoto. (flexible scale EVEN) the ice cream
1. The Greek data discussed in this paper were checked with a total of 14 native speakers of Greek, including myself, using an extensive questionnaire. I wish to thank my informants for their judgments. Most interestingly, some speakers actually starred instances of negation and esto like the ones I discuss here; however, all of the informants found them generally unacceptable.
Oute, as we see, can optionally occur with the particle kan. Comparing oute (kan) and esto, oute (kan) is an NPI proper because it improves with negation. Comparable items are Dutch eens, German mal (Kurschner 1983:121), and Spanish ni. Akomi ke, on the other hand, behaves like a PPI. Esto looks like a curious PI bad in both positive and negative sentences, while improving in polarity environments that are not negative, but nonveridical (Giannakidou 1998, 1999), e.g. questions, imperatives, protasis of conditionals, and with modal verbs. NPI oute (kan) is ungrammatical, as expected, without a negative licenser: (9) a. Efajes Did you eat b. *Efajes Did you eat (10) a. Fae Eat b. *Fae Eat esto even (=at least) oute (kan) even to pagoto? the ice cream? to pagoto? the ice cream?
esto even (=at least) oute (kan) even
to pagoto. the ice cream. to pagoto. the ice cream.
Notice that esto receives a reading paraphrasable by at least that we revisit later, unlike even, which always retains an additive meaning. Finally, mere downward entailment is not sufficient for licensing: (11) *To poli pende pedhia efagan {oute (kan)/esto} to pagoto. ??At most five children ate even the ice cream The above data give crosslinguistic support for an extension of the polarity hypothesis, in line with related observations in the literature for Dutch (Rullmann 1997, Hoeksema and Rullmann 2001) and German (von Stechow 1991, Kurschner 1983, Heim and Lahiri 2002); I will not compare the data here, but see the references above for details. The relevant notion for the description of polarity environments including negation seems to be nonveridicality (Giannakidou 1998, 1999, 2001), and not DE since DE cannot license NPI or flexible EVEN. The fact that we find EVEN items (akomi ke and esto) that remain bad with negation is hard to reconcile with the scope theory. The observed variation seems particularly problematic for proposals like Lahiris (1998), which employs an account of Hindi EVEN-containing PIs by using a single low likelihood EVEN. The evidence for NPIEVEN removes much of the strength of the enterprise, as Lahiri himself acknowledges (Lahiri 1998:85); and the fact that unambiguously low scalar EVENs are bad with negation and affirmation, as well as with the cardinality predicate one as we shall see later, adds considerably to the problem. In the rest of the paper, I will try to explain why bottom-of-scale EVENs are incompatible with negation. We will see that the explanation follows easily from the lexical approach I am pursuing. First, we take a look at the distinction between PPI and
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NPI-EVEN in sections 2 and 3. Greek akomi ke is shown to be an unambiguous PPIEVEN which indeed raises above negation. Oute, on the other hand, exhibits the typical behavior of an NPI. In section 4 we discuss the item identified here as flexible scale even esto. This item is incompatible with both negation and affirmation because of a clash between an expectation of a stronger statement that is created by its use, and the weak assertion that results from using a low value. Finally, in section 5 the difference between esto and akomi ke in questions is discussed. We see that our analysis correctly predicts negative bias with a low value on a variable scale only, thus undermining approaches that seek to explain negative bias by appealing to a low-likelihood even.
2. Evidence for a wide scope EVEN: akomi ke

In a positive sentence, Greek uses akomi (or akoma) ke lit. still/yet and, for even: (12) O Janis dhiavase akomi ke tis iposimiosis. John read even the endnotes. (Akomi ke attaches to various constituents, e.g. NPs, DPs, PPs, and others, but I will ignore this here; also note that ke, lit. the conjunction and, is obligatory, in accordance with crosslinguistic observations; cf. the use of German auch, Dutch ook, etc. in the formation of the respective EVEN items). The sentence above has presuppositions that are in all respects equivalent to those of the English sentence (1): (13) x [x endnotes read (John, x)], and x [x endnotes likelihood (J. reading x) > likelihood (J. reading the endnotes)] We can then adopt K&Ps analysis of even for akomi ke: (14) akomi ke (x) (P) = 1 iff P(x)= 1; y [y x P(y)] y[y x likelihood (P(y)) > likelihood (P (x))] (assertion) (presupposition)
With negation, akomi ke appears odd, and fronting doesnt seem to give a better result: (15) a. ?#O Janis dhen dhiavase akomi ke tis iposimiosis. John not read.3sg even the endnotes ?#John didnt even read the endnotes. b. #Akomi ke tis iposimiosis dhen dhiavase o Janis. #Not even the endnotes did John read. Notice also the oddity of the English examples. Why should this be so? The endnotes are, after all, the least likely thing to read, hence the low scalar presupposition should be OK in the scope of negation: The sentence should simply say that John did not read
the least likely item. It must be, then, that this bottom of the scale conjunct, namely that the footnotes are the least likely things to read, is problematic with negation. This will turn out to be a manifestation of a more generalized conflict that reappears later with esto. If, on the other hand, we move akomi ke above negation, the endnotes would be made the least likely thing not to read (thus the most likely things to read). This, of course, is not true in a normal context, hence the oddity of the overt scoping above negation in (15b). Notice that this oddity can indeed be fixed in examples like the following: (16) Akoma ke ti valitsa mou dhen prolava na ftiakso. even the suticase my not had-time.1sg to make Not even my suitcase did I have time to pack. Here akomi ke appears overtly above negation, following the pattern of other PPIs which typically have this property, e.g. some as in Some students, I dont like (them) at all. The presupposition is that, in preparation for a trip, my suitcase is the least likely thing not to have time to prepare, consistent with world facts. The Greek item, then, appears to be a positive EVEN with a low-likelihood presupposition that can indeed scope above negation, at least locally. But there is a strong tendency for this scoping to be overt; notice that the good sentence above becomes worse if we leave akomi ke in situ: (17) ?#Dhen prolava na ftiakso akoma ke ti valitsa mou. not had-time.1sg to make even the suticase my I didnt even have time to pack my suitcase. This sentence has been systematically judged as deviant by my informants. The pattern seems to be that an item which must scope above negation must do so overtly. This, obviously, contrasts with even, as we see. Before moving on, it is important to note the following. First, it is not the case that akomi ke is always problematic in the scope of negation, as the following example shows: (18) Den tou anagnorisan akoma ke ta pio stihiodhi dhikeomata. not him recognized even the most basic rights They didnt grant him even the most basic rights. In this sentence, the most basic rights are the least likely things not to grant to an individual, in accordance with the wide scope even analysis. Again, this fact further supports the PPI analysis of akomi ke; notice the parallel with some: John didnt talk to some students, where some students appears in the surface scope of negation but scopes above it at LF. And the fact that the sentence lacks the narrow scope reading supports our earlier observation that the narrow scope reading is somehow problematic with negation. Second, akomi ke is really worse with non-local negation through an indicative tensed complement; overt fronting of akomi ke is also impossible.
Polarity, questions, and the scalar properties of even 101
(19) a.
??/*O Janis dhen ipe oti o pritanis kalese akomi ke tin katharistria. ?John didnt say that the Dean invited even the cleaning lady. b *[Akomi ke tin katharistria]i o Janis dhen ipe oti o pritanis kalese ti. ??[Even the cleaning lady] i John didnt say that the Dean invited ti.
In (19a) akomi ke is found in an indicative complement and is judged as pretty bad;2 the corresponding English sentence, however, is judged better by native English speakers. This fact suggests that covert movement of PPI EVEN above negation respects the tense boundary and is not unconstrained, as the scope theory would allow. Even does seem to be different in this respect, though its overt movement is still prohibited, as we see in (19b). The impossibility of overt preposing in (19b) thus suggests that both akomi ke and even cannot raise overtly long distance above negation. Finally, there are instances of akomi ke which are unacceptable even in positive sentences. These are cases where akomi focuses on the cardinality predicate one: (20) ?#Akomi ke ENAS fititis irthe. ??Even ONE student arrived. The unacceptability extends to English, as we see, and must be due to the fact that one is the most likely and not the least likely cardinality. Note crucially that the incompatibility of positive EVEN with one persists with negation: (21) a. ?#Akomi ke ENAS fititis dhen irthe. ?Even ONE student didnt arrive. b. Oute ENAS fititis dhen irthe. Not even one student arrived. (22) a. #n [n one n students arrived] n [n one likelihood (n students arriving) > likelihood (one student arriving)] b. #n [n one it is not the case that n students arrived] n [n one likelihood (n students not arriving) > likelihood (one student not arriving)] The low scalar presupposition remains problematic with negation as well as affirmation, as we see. It is in fact more likely to see, or not to see, one student than to see (or not to see) more than one, because one is the weakest cardinality, i.e. entailed by every other numeral. Hence it makes no difference whether we have negation of affirmation; akomi ke ena will be odd in either case. Instead, we see that the NPI oute must be used. This suggests that we still need NPI-EVEN to explain these cases, and questions the viability of Lahiris (1998) enterprise by appealing to a single low likelihood EVEN.
2. Akomi ke is fine, however, in subjunctive na complements which lack tense and are the Greek equivalents to restructuring and infinitival domains (because Greek lacks infinitives); see Giannakidou (to appear) for more details.
To sum up, we saw in this section that Greek provides evidence for a PPI EVEN, akomi ke. This item must indeed scope above negation locally, which explains its PPIstatus; and it prefers to do so overtly. If akomi ke cannot move above negation, the sentence becomes problematic (either deviant, with local negation, or straightforwardly ungrammatical with long-distance movement). Crucially, the movement of PPI-EVEN above negation is not unconstrained, as expected by the original movement analysis; rather, it was shown to be prohibited across the tensed clause boundary, suggesting that it is a movement of the familiar kind. Given the fact that, unlike akomi ke, even is fine with local negation and indeed compatible with one under negation, we are forced to conclude that even cannot be a PPI, and need not raise above negation. Indeed, when it does so overtly, the result is ungrammatical, as suggested by (19b).
3. NPI even: oute kan

For EVEN with negation, Greek employs the expression oute (kan), literally not-and, plus optionally and-if (ke-an), itself a PI (Giannakidou (to appear)). Giannakidou 1998 notes the negative polarity status of oute kan: (23) O pritanis dhen proskalese oute (kan) ti Maria. The Dean did not invite even Mary. It has also been observed that oute is licensed only with negation and antiveridical operators, hence it is a proper NPI. Oute itself contains a negative element oute, ou being sentential negation in Ancient Greek. Oute is obligatory when an NP or a PP is modified, but it can be omitted in the case of V modification, yielding additional syntactic and pragmatic differences that we will ignore here (but see Giannakidou (to appear) for details on bare kan). Apart from the lexical distinction, there is evidence that we are dealing with an item that contributes the top-of-the scale presupposition of NPI-even and not the bottom-of-the-scale one of positive even, illustrated in (24): (24) #O pritanis dhen proskalese oute kan tin katharistria. #The Dean did not invite even the cleaning lady. The cleaning lady is not the most likely person for a Dean to invite, so (24) is odd, hence we can conclude that oute (kan) associates only with the most likely alternative. In further support of this, notice the contrast below:
(25) a. #I Maria dhen akouse oute kan ton paramikro thorivo. Maria didnt hear even the faintest sound.3 b. I Maria dhen akouse oute kan ton dinatotero thorivo. Maria didnt hear even the loudest sound. The superlative designates either the lowest or the highest element in the loudness scale. We see that oute (kan) is odd with the superlative of the lowest end, suggesting that it is a lexical property of oute to only associate with high values. I will take it therefore that oute (kan) has the content that Rooth proposed for NPI-even. (26) NOT oute (kan) (x) (P) = 1 iff P (x) = 1; (assertion) y [y x P(y)] y [y x likelihood (P(x)) > likelihood (P(y))] (presupposition) In Giannakidou (to appear), this semantics is coupled with a syntax where oute contains an uninterpretable negative feature [uNeg], realized morphologically in ou. This feature must agree (in the sense of Chomsky 2000) with a negative head. This condition is responsible for locality effects oute is licensed within a tensed clause boundary only and explains why failure of licensing with oute is a clear case of ungrammaticality and not just deviance (albeit systematic deviance). As the scalar properties of oute are fully compatible with negation, they require no further discussion.
3. Notice that sentences like (25a), where even associates with the faintest sound, are not totally unproblematic for some speakers of English. Gregory Ward actually suggests that they may be odd: (i) #Maria didnt hear even the faintest sound. This may be taken to suggest that that even indeed prefers low likelihood values rather than high likelihood ones. However, many English speakers still accept the English version of (25a), and examples of even the faintest sound can easily be constructed with without, if-clauses, and modal verbs with negation. I give below a few examples that resulted from a Google search (thanks to Jason Merchant): (ii) ... anything or even sensing him, Willow lay broken and crippled against her side and was unable to scream or cry out or make even the faintest sound. ... [www.stormsdream.com/pages/fictionFireDawnNight.html] (iii) ... For something like an hour I do not think there was even the faintest sound within those four walls and under the canopy of that vaulted roof. ... [www.gordon-fernandes.com/hp-lovecraft/ other_authors/nemesis_fire.htm] (iv) ... The idols cannot utter even the faintest sound, they cannot communicate with their worshippers, they can neither promise nor threaten, ... [www.spurgeon.org/treasury/ps115.htm] (v) ... That might have been happening on a different planet from this one where there wasnt even the faintest sound or glimmer of light. ... [www.sheilaomalley.com/archives/002018.html] (vi) ... our good fortune desert us, for we passed the outer purlieus of the dead city and came to our camp without hearing even the faintest sound of pursuit. ... [www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/etexts/n4281_16.htm]
Before moving on, let me offer a few comments on the akomi ke- oute alternation regarding another plausible description of it. It seems appealing, at first glance, to treat the lexical opposition as a case of allomorphy. For example, one could argue that there is one basic lexical item meaning EVEN with the semantics we have assigned to akomi ke, and assume further that this expression can be optionally associated with a negative feature. When this happens, EVEN is pronounced oute; if there is no association with a negative feature, the expression is pronounced akomi ke. In this analysis it looks like we can handle the facts, while at the same time being able to reduce the different instantiations to one common core. (Thanks to Chris Kennedy for discussion on this point.) Yet there may be reasons to be cautious about going this route. For one thing, there is a third instantiation of EVEN that we would still need to allow for: esto. Second, allomorphy typically comes with strict complementarity, which we do not have in this case; recall the fact that akomi ke can be good with negation given certain conditions, and certainly when it appears overtly above it. Given this case, and assuming, as we do (see Giannakidou (to appear) for more details), that for oute to check its negative feature it must be raised to Spec, NegP, we end up with free optionality after movement: We predict that we can either insert akomi ke or oute under negation, which doesnt capture the fact that the choice is not really free and that the use of akomi ke is marginal. In order to achieve this result we would need to posit an additional blocking mechanism, and I am not sure whether this would produce an account more explanatory than the one suggested here. Indeed, however, one would like to be able to bring about a sense of unitary source of the alternation akomi ke-oute kan, as well as esto, and the driving idea of the account I have in mind offers the following way (see Giannakidou (to appear) for more details). We envision alternatives and scalarity as predicting a limited set of potential presuppositions for items meaning EVEN crosslinguistically. This set consists of the propositions below, where x is the meaning of the constituent EVEN associates with. (27) Existential presuppositions a. y [y x P(y)] b. y [y x P(y)] (positive existential) (negative existential)
(28) Scalar presuppositions a. y [y x likelihood (P(y)) > likelihood (P (x))] (bottom-of-scale) b. y [y x likelihood (P(x)) > likelihood (P (y))] (top-of-scale) In addition, a variant on context dependent scales will be needed for esto, as I will suggest next. These propositions can combine in four distinct ways in order to produce
presuppositions for EVEN expressions, deriving also possibly distinct lexical items within and across languages, as is suggested in Table 1: Table 1. Combinatorics of presuppositions as realized in Greek
Scalar \ Existential bottom-of-scale top-of-scale positive akomi ke kan negative esto oute (kan)
In Greek, all four options are lexically distinct, as shown in Giannakidou (to appear), where it is also suggested that the English counterpart of the fourth option is so much as. I will not offer a more detailed analysis at this point, but I hope that it is clear that the typology of presuppositions briefly sketched here may offer a viable way of talking about a common core in the various lexicalizations of EVEN. Next, we turn to flexible scale EVEN.
4. Flexible scale EVEN: esto

Esto is in many cases paraphrasable by at least, but at least does not appear to be polarity sensitive: (29) a. ??O pritanis proskalese b. O pritanis proskalese The dean invited esto (ke) tous diikitikous ipalilous. tulaxiston tous diikitikous ipalilous at least the administrators.
The sensitivity of esto to polarity has thus far escaped attention in the literature. Addition of conjunction ke is possible following the pattern of the other focus particles (see Kalokerinos 1997 for some comments on the use of ke). The combination with ke seems to be more restricted than bare esto, but I will ignore this additional detail here. As I noted earlier, esto (ke) is good in nonveridical contexts (cf. Kalokerinos 1997 for preference to modal contexts). Here are some examples: (30) An diavasis esto ke mia selida ap afto to vivlio, kati tha mathis. (conditional) If you read even one page from this book, you will learn something. (31) Na lisis esto to provlima 1. (subjunctive) (Please) solve {even/at least} Problem 1. (32) Esto ke ena atomo bori na sikosi afto to trapezi. (modal verb) Even one person can lift this table. (33) Erxete stis sinandisis, esto ke me kathisterisi. (habitual) He comes to the meetings, even though with delay. (34) Tha ithela na mou egrafe esto ke mia leksi. (directive intensional verb) ?I would like it if he wrote to me even one word.
The crucial contrast in (34) is with epistemic verbs like believe or remember, which block esto, and likewise even: (35) a. ??Thimithika pu mou egrapse esto ke mia leksi. ??I remember that he wrote to me even one word. b. ??Pistevo oti mou egrapse esto ke mia leksi. ??I believe that he wrote to me even one word. We have, again, confirmation for the general pattern of PI-licensing regulated by nonveridicality described in earlier works (Giannakidou 1998, 1999, 2001). In the above contexts, esto shares its distribution with akomi ke; we discuss an example illustrating their differences later on. First, we discuss the presupposition of esto.
4.1 The presupposition of esto

The key idea is that esto, unlike the other EVENs which associate with likelihood, is flexible with respect to the scale on which it ranks alternatives. Esto relies on the context to make a scale salient (possibly among a number of available scales), and this property makes its distribution more variable than that of likelihood EVEN, with significant consequences in certain cases, e.g. questions, as we shall see later. Apart from this difference in the nature of the scale, the ordering of esto is similar to that of positive even: It associates with the lowest element(s), as shown below: (36) esto (ke) (x) (P) = 1 iff P(x)= 1; y [y x P(y)] Qscalar [C(Q) y [y x Q(y) > Q (x)]] (assertion) (presupposition)
The low scalar presupposition is reminiscent of akomi ke, but esto combines it with the negative existential presuppostion of oute. The negative presupposition of esto and oute is very much like the assertion of only (Horn 1996), a fact consistent with crosslinguistic practice to employ equivalents of only for PI-EVENs (e.g. German nur in auch nur). But why is a lexical item with the presupposition of esto unacceptable in positive sentences? To see why, consider first a non-PI with a similar meaning, at least, which is acceptable: (37) I Maria dhiavase tulaxiston to arthro tis Heim. the Maria read. 3past.3sg at least Heims article Maria read at least Heims article. As we know from Larry Horns work, at least P does not imply that you read only P (or exactly P), but it can certainly implicate it, as in the sentence above. When this happens, crucially, at least associates with a top-of-scale element: Heims article was among the most expected or desired by the speaker. The sentence asserts that some person read the most expected item, and implicates that nothing else was read.
In the absence of a scalar item altogether, again we have a well-formed sentence, but this time lacking the implicature of universal negation that is licensed with the scalar at least: (38) I Maria dhiavase to arthro tis Heim. the Maria read. 3past.3sg Heims article Maria read Heims article. Hence the use of a scalar item is decisive in allowing a defeasible inference of universal negation, as well as for ranking the NP along some dimension. Importantly, the stronger statement of universal negation is licensed when the scalar item places the NP on the higher end of the scale. One way of formulating this is to use Krifkas (1995) Scal.Assert operator. This operator is lexically inserted whenever we have a focus structure, and its semantic impact is that all propositions that are semantically stronger than the proposition made are negated (Krifka 1995:224): (39) Scal.Assert (<B, F, A>) (c) = (Krifka 1995:31b) {ic | i B(F) F A [[c B(F)] [c B(F)] i B(F)]} where <B,F,A> is a focus structure with B as the background, F the foreground (a polarity item, or an item in focus), and A is a set of alternatives to F of type identical to F but excluding F itself. Scal.Assert triggers a condition on the use of scalar items that says that such items will be felicitous only if their assertion B(F) is at least as strong as any of the alternatives, and strength is defined as entailment based on inclusion: (is stronger than) iff (Krifka 1995:219). Strength thus allows inference from the more general to the more specific information. It is obvious that Scal.Assert is an attempt to semanticize the usual quantity implicature we otherwise get purely pragmatically in neo-Gricean (i.e. Hornian) terms. I will remain neutral as to whether we want to talk about this inference (i.e. the underlined negative conjunct of (39)) in pragmatic or more representationalist terms like in Krifka. In a sentence without a PI or a focus item there is no universal negative quantity implicature or, in Krifkas terms, Scal.Assert is not inserted. This is what we have with sentence (38). In (37), on the other hand, we have a prototypical case illustrating the working of scalarity and the result of getting universal negation. Consider now what happens with esto, which typically associates with a low value: (40) ?#(Xthes to vradi), i Maria dhiavase esto (ke) tin ergasia tou xiroterou fititi tis. last night the Maria read.past.3sg even the paper of worst student her (?) Last night, Maria read at least her worst students paper.
In order to use the focal particle, the speaker must be in a position to derive the negative conjunct that would yield the expected stronger statement. However, this is not possible with esto, which has the following presupposition: (41) [[I Maria dhiavase esto (ke) tin ergasia tou xiroterou fititi tis]] = 1 iff Maria read her worst students paper Presuppositions: i. x [x the paper of Marias worst student read (Maria, x)] ii. x [x the paper of Marias worst student pleasant (x) > pleasant (the paper of Marias worst student)] The sentence asserts (B(F)) that Maria read the paper of her worst student (F); this paper, under standard assumptions, is at the bottom of a contextually salient scale of, say, pleasure, hence F is the weakest item. This means that there are no alternatives F that can be entailed or implicated by the asserted B(F), which in turn means that the universal negative conjunct of (39) is not satisfied. As a result, Scal.Assert is not defined in this sentence, and the sentence is odd. Recall that the weak assertion is fine if no focus particle is used (as in (38)) because the Scal.Assert is not inserted; and Scal. Assert is defined unproblematically if we have association with a high value (or simply with any higher value such that it would allow inference to a stronger statement), as is the case with at least. In other words, in a positive sentence esto creates a problematic assertion because of a tension between the bottom-of-scale ranking and the expectation of a stronger statement containing the universal negative conjunct. It is the use of a focus item that yields this expectation. Notice that I am talking about unacceptability here and not ungrammaticality, as the effect is weaker. This weaker effect is in fact predicted by the pragmatic explanation that we are offering and raises questions as to whether such an explanation is appropriate to rule out PIs like any where ill-formedness is much more robust, akin to ungrammaticality. Let us see now how this analysis explains the ill-formedness of esto with negation.
4.2 Flexible scale EVEN and negation

Consider an example with negation: (42) ?#O Janis dhen diavase esto (ke) tis iposimiosis. #John didnt read even the endnotes. Notice further that if instead of the endnotes we have the title, even becomes fine, and esto likewise improves (without becoming impeccable, however): (43) ?O Janis dhen diavase esto (ke) ton titlo. John didnt read even the title. Esto carries the following presupposition, for (42):
(44) i. Assertion: John didnt read the endnotes. ii. Presupposition: x [x endnotes John read x] x [x endnotes expected-to-read (x)> expected-to-read (endnotes)] The existential as well as the scalar conditions are met in a negative sentence; but again we have an assertion with ill-defined Scal.Assert. The sentence asserts that John did not read the least expected item, which would have been fine had no focus particle been used: (45) John didnt read the endnotes. This bare assertion does not say anything about having, or not having, read anything else, since in the absence of focus we have no alternatives. However, when esto is used, we have the expectation of a stronger statement, namely that John read nothing at all, i.e. a statement that would be consistent with Krifkas Scal.Assert. Scal.Assert will be defined in an assertion when we have association with a higher value, which is the case with NPI-EVEN; but the low value makes the sentence with esto anomalous. Recall that low-likelihood of akomi ke creates a similar problem inside the scope of negation (and drives the PPI-property of this item, as we noted in section 2). Now consider our sentence (43) with the title instead of the endnotes, which improved with esto. Here esto has shifted to a scale of ignorability: (46) i. Assertion: John didnt read the title ii. Presupposition: x [x title John read x] x [x title possible-to-ignore (x)> possible-to-ignore (title)] This combination produces an assertion very close to the one with NPI-even, since the least likely thing to ignore is the most likely thing to read, thus the improvement. We therefore make a further prediction: that a low value on a context-provided scale will occasionally be able to rescue low-scale EVEN if it produces, by reversal of entailment, a high value on a likelihood scale, rendering the presupposition of esto equivalent to that of NPI-EVEN. This explains why in such cases the readings with esto and NPI oute feel intuitively close. At any rate, we witnessed that what excludes esto in positive and negative sentences alike is the fact that it associates with low scalar values. The ill-formedness is due, as we argued, to a conflict between using a focus item that creates an expectation of a stronger statement (derived by the classical neo-Gricean reasoning (Horn 1989), or where Scal.Assert is defined in Krifkas terms) on the one hand, and the low value, on the other, that systematically blocks that stronger statement. In non-negative nonveridical contexts no such conflict arises, and esto can therefore be used unproblematically.
4.3 Nonveridical contexts

It is easy to show that non-negative nonveridical contexts are consistent with the presupposition and scalar structure of esto. Consider a request, where the low-scalar akomi ke is also acceptable: (47) a. Na lisis esto to provlima 1. (Please) solve {even/at least} Problem 1. b. Na lisis akomi ke to Provlima 1. (Problem 1 is the easiest) (Problem 1 is the hardest)
(48) Esto x [x Problem 1 (you solve x)] x [x Problem 1 difficult (x) > difficult (Problem 1)] Here esto ranks alternatives on a difficulty scale. The sentence presupposes that the speaker considers Problem 1 to be the least difficult to solve, and presumes that the addressee wont be able to solve any problems other than this one; so theyd be happy to see just that one problem solved. We will call this the at least reading. Of course, the least difficult problem must be the easiest one, hence the flavor of easiness that Problem 1 acquires in this context. Akomi ke presupposes a different context producing the opposite effects: Problem 1 now seems to be the hardest one, and the request seems to be about solving also this problem: (49) Akomi ke x [x Problem 1 solve (you, x)] x [x Problem 1 likelihood (you solving x) > likelihood (you solving Problem 1)] Here the context imposes an excess of problem solving. The addressee is now taken to be somebody smart, who would be able to solve, in addition to the problems they are solving, also the least likely problem to solve, which must be, of course, the most difficult one. We will call this the also reading. Hence, the contrast with esto in terms of the status of Problem 1 as the easiest or the hardest problem is a result of the fact that likelihood and difficulty have reverse entailments. This fact will be significant when we discuss negative bias in questions. Note that if akomi ke is forced to associate with a high-likelihood item, it becomes odd. This is what we see in the sentence below: (50) ??Na lisis akomi ke to efkolotero provlima. (Please) solve even (= at least/*also) the easiest problem. The easiest problem ranks HIGH on the likelihood scale, and this rules out low-likelihood EVEN. In English, although even is admitted, it only receives the at least reading; but in Greek, the incompatibility of akomi ke with high values produces ill-formedness since this item unambiguously associates with only low likelihood.
111
To sum up, in polarity contexts other than negation, esto and PPI akomi ke exhibit two distinct readings, what I call here the at least reading (esto) and the also reading (PPI). Even seems to be ambiguous in allowing both; with high-likelihood only the PPI also reading is licensed. This contrast between the even-at least and even-also readings is generally visible in the other contexts in which both items are admitted, but I will not illustrate with more examples here (see Giannakidou (to appear)). Instead, for the sake of completeness, we now turn to questions where we can see that negative bias is licensed only with the at least/esto reading.
5. Polar questions: negative bias revisited

The literature offers two observations: First, questions with even, and even-containing PIs (strong NPIs known as minimizers, e.g. lift a finger, sleep a wink) express negative bias (Ladusaw 1979, among others): (51) a. Did Beatrix lift a finger to help? Expected answer: No, she didnt. b. Have you talked to him even once? Expected answer: No, you havent. Negative bias surfaces in what counts as an expected answer: Negative propositions are expected. But the bias is a conversational implicature: We can still answer the questions positively without contradiction (see also Guerzoni 2002). The second observation is that the bias is due to the fact that strong NPIs contain even (Linebarger 1980, Heim 1984), and that this even is associated with minimal amount, thus making the NPI itself denoting minimal amount. We see in this section that the Greek facts confirm indeed that the original intuition that negative bias arises with expressions of minimal amount is correct, and extend it to include in general lower ranking elements on a contextually defined scale. The EVEN meaning we will need, then, will be that of esto. English even will show ambiguity between this reading and the true low-likelihood one of akomi ke, which, crucially, yields no bias. First, consider that, crosslinguistically, an overt even in a negative sentence may occur with bias-inducing minimizers, e.g. in Catalan, Spanish (Vallduv 1994; Herburger 2003), or Greek; this EVEN is indeed the NPI-one (see Vallduv 1994 and Herburger 2003 for the NPI status of ni): (52) a. No va dir *(ni) paraula en tota la tarda. b. No dijo (ni) palabra en toda la tarde. c. Dhen ipe (oute) mia leksi oli nixta. He did not say even a word all evening (Catalan) (Spanish) (Greek)
Crucially, these NPI-EVENs are disallowed in questions, suggesting that negative bias cannot be derived from NPI-EVEN:
(53) a. *Ipe b. *Va dir c. *Dijo Did he say
oute mia leksi? (Greek) ni paraula en tota la tarda? (Catalan) (ni) palabra en toda la tarde? (Spanish) even one word?
The ungrammaticality follows from the NPI status of oute and ni, and invalidates the arguments that try to assimilate wide scope and NPI-EVEN in questions (Wilkinson 1996, Guerzoni 2002). In questions, both esto and akomi ke can be used but negative bias, crucially, arises only with esto.
5.1 EVEN with minimal amount

Consider first the case of EVEN with an expression denoting a minimal amount: (54) a. Tu exis milisi esto ke mia fora? b. ?#Tu exis milisi akomi ke mia fora? Have you talked to him even once? Expected biased answer: No. Interestingly, akomi ke is unacceptable with low-frequency once, which we expect given our account. The low likelihood of akomi ke conflicts with the high likelihood of ONE, since ONE is the weakest, hence the most likely predicate (it is entailed by any other cardinality): (55) #n [n once you talked to him (n)] n [n once likelihood (talking to him n times)) > likelihood (talking to him once)] (akomi ke) This fact is problematic for Lahiris (1998) account of the occurrence of Hindi EVENone PIs in questions. According to Lahiri, the Hindi bhii that participates in the formation of these PIs is a low-likelihood one, but what the Greek facts show is that a true low likelihood EVEN, akomi ke, actually remains unacceptable with a high likelihood predicate like one. The explanation for why bhii-items are good in questions must therefore look elsewhere for an EVEN meaning that is in fact compatible with one esto. Generally, the prediction is that the combination of positive EVEN with inherently high likelihood items will be problematic; and we confirm again that this is the case. (56) ?#Boris na prosthesis akomi ke 1 + 1? Can you add even 1+1? (This addition is the easiest one to do, hence the MOST likely). But esto is fine with high likelihood, as long as it scores low on the context given scale: (57) Boris na prosthesis esto 1 + 1? Can you add even 1+1? (This addition is the least difficult one to do).
Likewise for the frequency once in the case of (54a): (58) n [n once (you talked to him n times)] n [ n once frequent (n-times) > frequent (once)] (esto) This explains the use of esto with the cardinality predicate one. Hence, we have to conclude that PPI-EVEN, which is indeed a wide scope low-likelihood even, cannot be responsible for negative bias in questions with expressions of minimal amount; flexible scale EVEN is. This conclusion supports the polarity theory of EVEN, and indicates that negative bias with EVEN in questions cannot be due to low likelihood. This result, as I said, challenges Lahiris attempt to account for EVEN-ONE PIs in questions by appealing to low likelihood only.
5.2 Variable likelihood

With predicates of variable likelihood, both esto and akomi ke are fine. But notice the difference in interpretation. (59) a. Elises esto to Provlima 1? (Problem 1 is the easiest; negative bias) Did you solve even (at least) Problem 1? b. Elises akomi ke to Provlima 1? (Problem 1 is the hardest; no bias) Did you solve even (also) Problem 1? Akomi ke has only the expected also reading: (60) x [x Problem 1 you solved x] x [x Problem 1 likelihood (you solve x) > likelihood (you solve Problem 1)] = Problem 1 is the least likely one to solve, hence the most difficult one. This presupposition does not create negative bias: The speaker assumes that other problems were solved. Additionally, because akomi ke must pick out the least likely element, Problem 1 must be the hardest one. This describes correctly the conditions under which a polar question with akomi ke can be used. Notice that if we force akomi ke to combine with high likelihood, the result will be unacceptable, in accordance with what has been observed so far: (61) ?#Elises akomi ke to efkolotero provlima? Did you solve even (= also) the easiest problem? This is odd, because the easiest problem is the most likely one to solve. With esto, on the other hand, we have the following presupposition: (62) x [x Problem 1 (you solved x)] x [x Problem 1 difficult (x) > difficult (Problem 1)] (esto)
This presupposition creates negative bias: The speaker assumes that there are other problems besides Problem 1 that were not solved; and if Problem 1 is the least difficult
one, then the question is about whether at least the least difficult problem is solved, hence the bias. As expected, esto will be impossible with the most difficult problem exactly because of a conflict with its scalar presupposition: (63) ?#Elises esto to diskolotero provlima? Did you solve even the most difficult problem? As an overall conclusion, then, we can say that the behavior of EVEN-items in questions supports the polarity hypothesis in its entirety. The scope theory of EVEN actually predicts no bias, and this is in fact what we have with Greek akomi ke, and other particles crosslinguistically that can be shown to have a PPI meaning (e.g. Japanese sae; Yoshimura 2004). Recall again that negative bias cannot be due to NPI-EVEN, because NPI-EVEN is ungrammatical in questions. The behavior of English even in questions thus suggests that even must be ambiguous between esto (the least) and akomi ke (also). An unambiguous analogue of the esto-at least reading can be identified in the item in the least, which is a V modifier in English: (64) a. Did you in the least solve the easiest problem? b. # Did you in the least solve the hardest problem? Just like esto, then, in the least cannot be associated with high scalar values. To sum up, the behavior of EVEN items in questions seems to be entirely predictable by the refined polarity analysis I have been arguing for. Negative bias is derived by the presupposition of minimal amount or low ranking at a scale other than likelihood that comes with esto, along with a negative existential presupposition that is also part of the contribution of this item. Crucially, low likelihood yields no bias in questions, but contributes the expected additive meaning that low likelihood items contribute in positive contexts in general.
6. Conclusion
In this paper, we have seen that the scalar properties of EVEN are much more complex than predicted by Karttunen and Peters original analysis. In a given language, there are (at least) three meanings identifiable as EVEN with distinct scalar properties. Positive EVEN, Greek akomi ke, is indeed a low scalar positive polarity item (PPI) that must scope above negation; oute, on the other hand, is a well-behaved high-scalar negative polarity item (NPI) licensed in the scope of negation; and flexible scale EVEN, esto, is a lowscalar polarity EVEN, defined not on likelihood but on a contextually specified scale. The scalar presupposition of bottom-of-scale EVENs (positive as well as flexible scale) was shown to remain problematic with respect to negation: The clash between the assertion with a bottom of scale item, and the expectation of a stronger statement that the use of the scalar focus particle creates seems irreparable. In the case of low-
115
likelihood EVEN (akomi ke) the problem can be fixed by overt raising above negation, an option apparently not available for esto, which therefore remains ill-formed inside negation. Yet, even after overt raising, low likelihood akomi ke is incompatible with the the cardinality predicate one. This result challenges the usefulness of bottom-of-thescale inferences in explaining the distribution of EVEN-one PIs that are impeccable in the scope of negation and in questions (Lahiri 1998). Rooths original idea, then, about the role of polarity in EVEN was shown to have far-reaching consequences. At the same time, by deriving the (in)compatibility with negation from the presuppositional content of the relevant polarity expressions, we made one step forward compared to earlier approaches, which stipulated PI-hood as a mysterious composition-external property of polarity items. In doing so, we have removed much of the conceptual appeal of the original scope analysis. One final question remains: Do we still need it for English even? The raising analysis of the scope theory renders even a PPI; but, crucially, there are important empirical differences between a true PPI-EVEN and even that cannot be glossed over. For example, akomi ke is odd in the scope of negation, remains odd in positive as well negative sentences when combined with the cardinality one, is incompatible with expressions of high-likelihood, and retains an additive meaning that does not produce negative bias in questions. These are all properties expected from an unambiguous wide scope low-likelihood EVEN. However, even is fine in the cases where akomi ke is bad: Its unproblematic occurrence with negation, the fact that it remains inside the scope of negation across tensed boundaries, and that it combines with expressions of variable likelihood, producing negative bias and additive readings in questions, cover the additional space of NPI-EVEN and flexible scale esto. I cannot see how we can correctly characterize this variable behavior without resorting to some sort of lexical ambiguity.
References
Chomsky, N. 2000. Minimalist inquiries: The framework. In R. Martin, D. Michaels, and J. Uriagereka, eds., Step by Step: Essays on Minimalist Syntax in Honor of Howard Lasnik. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 89155. Giannakidou, A. 1998. Polarity Sensitivity as (Non)veridical Dependency. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Giannakidou, A. 1999. Affective dependencies. Linguistics and Philosophy 22:367421. Giannakidou, A. 2001. The meaning of free choice. Linguistics and Philosophy 24:659735. Giannakidou, A. 2003. EVEN in questions revisited. In P. Dekker and R. van Rooy, eds., Proceedings of the 14th Amsterdam Colloquium. Amsterdam: Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, University of Amsterdam. 117122. Giannakidou, A. To appear. The landscape of EVEN. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 25. Guerzoni, E. 2002. Even-NPIs in questions. Proceedings of NELS 32. 153-170.
116 Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning Heim, I. 1984. A note on negative polarity and downward entailingness. Proceedings of NELS 14. 98107. Heim, I. and U. Lahiri. 2002. Lecture delivered for the seminar Polarity, MIT, Cambridge, MA. Herburger, E. 2003. A note on Spanish ni siquiera, even, and the analysis of NPIs. Probus 15:237 256. Hoeksema, J. and H. Rullmann. 2001. Scalarity and polarity: A study of scalar adverbs as polarity items. In J. Hoeksema, D. Forget, P. Hirschbuhler, F. Martineu, and M.L. Riveroet, eds., Perspectives on Negation and Polarity Items. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 129171. Horn, L.R. 1989. A Natural History of Negation. Chicago: Chicago University Press. (Reprinted and updated in 2001, Stanford: CSLI Stanford Publications.) Horn, L.R. 1996. Exclusive company: Only and the dynamics of vertical inference. Journal of Semantics 13:140. Kalokerinos, A. 1997. Akoma ke, esto ke: Exercises of semantic topology. Studies in Greek Linguistics 17:513526. Karttunen, L. and S. Peters. 1979. Conventional implicature. In C.-K. Oh and D. Dinneen, eds., Syntax and Semantics, Volume 11: Presupposition. New York: Academic Press. 156. Kay, P. 1990. Even. Linguistics and Philosophy 13:59111. Krifka, M. 1995. The semantics and pragmatics of polarity items in assertion. Linguistic Analysis 15:209257. Krschner, W. 1983. Studien zur Negation im Deutschen. Tbingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. Lahiri, U. 1998. Focus and negative polarity in Hindi. Natural Language Semantics 6:5723. Linebarger, M. 1980. The Grammar of Negative Polarity. MIT Ph.D. dissertation. Rooth, M. 1985. Association with Focus. University of Massachusetts Amherst Ph.D. dissertation. Rullmann, H. 1997. Even, polarity, and scope. University of Alberta Papers in Experimental and Theoretical Linguistics 4:40-64. Vallduv, E. 1994. Polarity items, n-words, and minimizers in Calatan and Spanish. Probus 6:263294. von Stechow, A. 1991. Current issues in the theory of focus. In A. von Stechow and D. Wunderlich, Semantik: Ein Internationales Handbuch der Zeitgenosssischen Forschung. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 804824. Wilkinson, K. 1996. The scope of even. Natural Language Semantics 4:193215. Yoshimura, K. 2004. Scope theory vs. polarity theory: the Japanese focus particle sae. Ms. University of Chicago.
Discourse particles and the symbiosis of natural language processing and basic research*1
Georgia M. Green
University of Illinois
Discourse particles like well and uh are far from being the meaningless pausefillers that they are sometimes made out to be. It has been known for over twenty years that these particles do not occur randomly in discourse. Rather, each conveys something distinct from the others, something non-truth-conditional that helps the hearer know how to take what is being said. Attitudinal discourse markers, which indicate something about how the speaker feels about (how the addressee feels about) what is being said, are distinct from structural discourse markers, which indicate a structural boundary and a hint of how what follows relates to what went before. Explicit knowledge of the pragmatics of such particles enables designers of natural language interfaces to imbue them with an appearance of personality. Once developed, such interfaces can be used in basic research, to help test hypotheses about exactly what the pragmatic contribution of a particle is.
1.
Introduction
Discourse particles (sometimes called discourse markers) are a closed class of expressions which generally add nothing truth-conditional to the sentence they inhabit. This is not to say they make no contribution, because in fact they all convey something about the discourse itself, whether it is the speakers concerns about communicating with the addressee or demarcation of boundaries of structural parts. Clear examples
* The computational and experimental work cited here was part of a collaborative effort with Jerry Morgan, Angela Bertino Nollett, Jong-Yul Cha, and Atsuko Fukada-Karlin, supported by the Yamaha Motor Corporation and the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois.
include words like well, gosh and uh, and collocations1 like I mean and you know which occur at the beginning of an utterance or important phrase: (1) a. b. c. d. e. f. Well, there are 59 restaurants that meet that description. There are well, 59 restaurants that meet that description. #There well, are 59 restaurants that meet that description. There are 59 restaurants well, that meet that description. There are 59 restaurants that meet that well, description. There are 59 restaurants that well, meet that description.
Expressions like in fact, frankly and actually fit this definition of discourse particles, but not ones like thus and unfortunately, which convey non-truth-conditional information that is not about the discourse. While there are constraints on where in a sentence any given discourse particle may occur (e.g., OK may occur in sentence-final position but well and uh never do), these constraints do not define them as a coherent syntactic category, either novel or familiar. They are a little like punctuation in that 1) they serve to help an interpreter integrate a bit of discourse they are adjacent to, 2) the bit of discourse can belong to practically any open class (N, V, A, P, NP, VP, AP, PP, S), and 3) the particle does not really form a syntactic constituent with that bit of discourse. If A tells B, We put the hashish in the, uh, commode for safekeeping, when the police ask B where it is, the response in the commode represents a full and complete answer. If B says in the, uh, commode, that represents his (Bs) own problem with word choice. The bit of discourse may be anything from a word to an entire argument extending over several paragraphs, which is another reason why one does not entertain for long the notion that discourse particles might form a syntactic constituent with the bit of discourse to which they are adjacent. Indeed, particles are so widely understood as not being part of the utterance they occur in that they are frequently omitted from official transcripts, whether as a matter of policy or simply because they go under the radar of the transcribers, even when they are perfectly audible. Although they dont have truth-conditional content, discourse particles do reflect an attitude of the speaker toward what is being said. Functionally, two basic kinds of discourse particles can be distinguished; both are conversational. Attitudinal discourse markers, such as well, uh, like, gosh, oh, OK, I mean, and yknow, indicate something about how the speaker feels about what is being said, as illustrated in (2): (2) a. Newsweek: If you had to start out today, would you write novels? Vidal: Well, I dont know how Id be brought up, you know. [Newsweek, Sept. 25, 2000, p. 70]
1. Technically, expressions like I mean and you know are not phrases in so far as they lack a required object.
Discourse particles: natural language processing and basic research 119
b. The word was goonya Franz says with a hearty laugh. It referred to uh a part of the female anatomy. [Interview with Dennis Franz, USA Weekend Feb. 18-20, 1994; p. 5] In (2a) Vidal does not answer the interviewers question directly, instead implicating that he doesnt know whether under different circumstances hed make the same choices. The well that prefaces the evasion implies that some thought went into the nonanswer response. (Compare how the response would sound without the well like the interviewer should have known better than to ask the question.) In (2b), uh serves the purpose of indicating Franzs awareness that he is referring to an unmentionable subject in an interview for a family magazine. The interviewer could have chosen to transcribe this sentence without the pauses and the uh, but this would not have given the readers the same impression of Franz as a human being like themselves. Among attitudinal particles, there are affective particles like gosh and oy, which convey an emotion that is evoked in the speaker by the content being expressed, and what for lack of a better word I will call, extending Schourups usage, evincive particles like well, uh, and like, which relate more to how the speaker feels about expressing the content which follows them. On the other hand, there are structural discourse markers like the sentence-initial uses of now, OK, and, but,2 which speakers use to indicate a structural boundary in the discourse, and a hint of how what will follow relates to what went before. (Unfortunately for the hearer, structural markers do not indicate what unit they mark the end of; the hearer has to figure that out from the hint and his understanding of whatever went before.) Since structural discourse particles are just brief non-truth-conditional and non-propositional expressions, they cannot contribute much more than a hint about how the indefinite stretch of discourse to come relates to the indefinitely bounded bit of preceding discourse. Now (and its Swahili counterpart cf. Dunn 1990) indicates that the discourse is returning to a previous thread. And prefaces a contribution that is to be considered along with something outlined in preceding discourse; but is used to emphasize contrast between the two sets of propositions.3 OK just indicates that the thread instantiated by immediately preceding discourse of unspecified length is now closed. The structural function is illustrated in this excerpt from an essay by Stephen Jay Gould about the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (Gould 1985:404407). On p. 406, Gould raises the difference between specific questions (e.g., whether intelligent life would have to be pretty much isomorphous with homo sapiens) and general questions (e.g., whether attributes that we would identify as intelligence might arise in crea2. Obviously not all uses of any of these in fact, only the sentence initial uses of and and but, and the non-temporal sentence-initial use of now. The most characteristic structural particle use of OK is as a complete utterance; sentence-internal and sentence-final uses of OK are attitudinal, and somewhat similar to those of you know. 3. The use conditions for the discourse particle uses of and and but are quite similar to those for their well-discussed uses as sentential operators and phrasal connectives.
tures of any conformation). After discussing a theory articulated by Gregory Bateson, he tells this story: Casey Stengel, one of the greatest gurus of our time, consciously committed Batesons fallacy of categories to avoid the heat of scrutiny in a tough moment. He was roundly criticized for blowing the Metss first pick in the expansion draft on a particular catcher of quite modest ability (one Hobie Landrith by name). Casey answered by invoking the class of catchers in general you have to have a catcher, because if you dont, youre likely to have a lot of passed balls. Now Ol Case, as usual, knew exactly what he was saying (never let the patter known as Stengelese fool you). He used humor to blunt criticism because he knew that we would all recognize the fallacy of reasoning and laugh at the conflation. The particle now marks the end of the Casey Stengel story, and also of a section (of indeterminate size) of Goulds argument. Close examination suggests it goes back to the claims of SETI proponents, discussed half a page earlier.
2. Our research on discourse particles

The research described here was concerned exclusively with attitudinal particles. It originated as part of an effort to make a friendlier interface to a database program. To have something concrete to work with, the group wrote an interactive restaurant finder that selected restaurants from a database of Champaign-Urbana area establishments, based on incrementally narrower search criteria. We had already made it useradaptable by allowing the user to select which of three registers would be used for reporting results. The Default Register, with text in a plain, sans-serif font, represents the usual language of computers addressing users. It is respectful but informal: It uses please, but has an informal vocabulary, and refers to the user as you; and it might use statements to implicate requests for action. The Casual Register (which has a casual font, Comic Sans) reflects the speech of intimates. It is personal: It uses I as well as you, and asks questions to implicate requests for action; with imperatives, it does not use please. Finally, there is a Formal Register which is even more impersonal than the Default Register. It has a more formal typeface (Times New Roman). Imperatives might be prefaced with please, there are no personal references, and the vocabulary is more formal (e.g., it asks how to proceed rather than what to do now). Thus, the same request to the user might show up variously as: Default: Casual: Formal:
You need to choose a location. What about location?
Please indicate a location.
We also gave the interface a graphic embodiment (with Microsoft Agent scripts) and a voice, using a commercially available text-to-speech utility. However, it still didnt seem sufficiently natural, and we sought ways to make it sound more like a human speaking. We realized that a prerequisite for constructing an interface that projected a personality (a congruent attitude, perspective, and expressive style) was constructing one that instantiated the quality of acting like a socialized human being who relates to her/his addressee as a(nother) human being whose self-image needs to be maintained. Basically, this meant constructing an interface that was consistent with the following observations, familiar from linguistic work on politeness and empathy over the last 30 years (Lakoff 1973a, Brown and Levinson 1978, Kuno 1973, inter alia). A. Using language that implies that the speaker is thinking about the addressee makes a speaker sound more human (and less institutional, corporate, or robotic). B. Usages that imply an understanding of the addressees point of view make the speaker sound concerned about the addressees welfare. C. Usages that reflect a state of mind of the speaker but not concern for the addressee make the speaker sound self-centered and even contemptuous of the addressee. We chose to work with discourse particles because they interact minimally with the syntax of the sentence they are attached to, while conveying a lot of information about the state of mind of the utterer. This allowed us to explore means of simulating a speaker with a specific mental state, without getting involved in full-scale natural language generation, plan recognition, and plan formation (cf. Allen and Perrault 1980; Cohen, Morgan and Pollack 1990). Because using an attitudinal particle always indicates something about the mental state or mental processes of the speaker, it necessarily implies that there is a mind behind the speech. This property alone should make incorporating particles into the natural language output of an interface a priority for applications where it is important to project an understanding presence behind the interface. With many particles, use implicates that the mind is taking into consideration the wants and needs of the addressee, which makes them especially suited for use in interfaces where it is desirable to project an empathetic, human-like personality. The intended result is the illusion of a mind behind the monitor screen that thinks and cares about the user whom it addresses. Each particle that appears in a machineuttered sentence may cause the user/addressee to make an inference about what the machine thinks about the users knowledge state and wishes. The sum of these inferences will reflect a personality that will be imputed to the machine.
3. A description of some attitudinal particles

In general, each attitudinal particle reflects a single attitude, but the effect of conveying that attitude varies widely, as Gricean principles would lead one to expect. One relevant factor is whether the particle appears in a declarative sentence that provides information, or a sentence that requests information. Another likely factor is the nature of the relationship between speaker and addressee. And a third variable is the degree to which the speech act in which the particle occurs can be considered to threaten the face of the addressee (cf. Kose 1997 and Dunn 1990). The interaction of these factors is best illustrated by examining the use of a few particles in diverse contexts.
3.1 Well and uh

We set up the interface to insert a particle at the beginning or end of a sentence, or before a position where information retrieved from one of its databases could be reported (e.g., before the number in a report like There are 3 places like that), and learned a number of things very quickly. First, most discourse particles cannot occur at the end of a sentence, although that is an unremarkable position for actually and in fact. Second, utterances with discourse particles in more than one position prompted rather complex inferences (see Sec. 4.5 below). Third, particles that seemed interchangeable in some contexts had distinct effects in others. Well and uh are a case in point. As Schourup (1982) and Lakoff (1973b) describe it, the use of well implies that the speaker has had to reflect on exactly what to say. The so-called vocalized pauses uh and um share this property.4 It didnt take long to discover, by systematically comparing uses of uh and well in different positions, that they have different effects depending on both the syntactic form and the illocutionary force of the sentence they are in. For example, in declarative sentences intended as responses (e.g., search reports), initial well and uh seem to indicate that the information to follow may not be as helpful as the addressee is expecting it to be. (3) Well/Uh, there are 3 places like that. This makes for a very human-sounding response, but if the information is in fact satisfactory, initial well or uh may inappropriately induce the inference that the information is still in some way unsatisfactory. For example, even though three restaurants is a nice tractable set size, these restaurants might be all very pricey or in a bad part of town.
4. As far as I can tell everything said here about uh is also true of um; they can be interchanged in every context I have examined without altering the effect. This is not to say that there is no difference between them. In fact, a couple of facts suggest that there may indeed be a difference: The same speaker may use both at separate points in the same discourse. In a given discourse, substituting the sequence uh, um for um, uh radically alters the effect. Discovering exactly what this difference is will take a research protocol of extreme subtlety.
Preceding the focused position of a there-sentence, as in (4), well and uh again imply that the information following is not very helpful. (4) a. There are, uh/well, 87 places like that. b. #There are, uh/well, 3 places like that. [implies assumption that this information still does not meet addressees needs] This fact makes these particles particularly suitable for use when the report indicates an unhelpfully large or an unhelpfully small number of results. Since well and uh normally indicate that the speaker is giving some thought to exactly what to say or how to say it, when they preface an imperative sentence that has the force of a directive (e.g., something that begins with choose, select, or indicate), well and uh suggest that what is troubling the speaker is some shortcoming on the part of the addressee. (5) Well/Uh, indicate a cuisine. The unadorned directive Indicate a cuisine comes across as a routine request that follows (naturally, in brusque mode) from information previously exchanged. Prefacing it with well or uh makes it sound less than empathetic, so those particles were not suitable in that position for the kind of interface we wanted to build. As with directives, unparticled declarative sentences like You need to specify a location just sound like a routine next step in the conversation. Prefacing them with well or uh suggests that some non-routine event or inference prompts the discourse that follows. (6) Well/Uh, you need to indicate a location. Thus, they might be appropriate for error messages, but not for instructions on steps necessary to complete the restaurant search. Likewise, plain interrogative sentences like What about price? or Could you specify a location? are unremarkable in a dialogue where the questioner needs information to better help the addressee. Prefaced by well or uh, they suggest that what is troubling the speaker is some inadequacy or conflict in the information she is basing her assessment of the situation on, or perhaps a fear that the anticipated report will be displeasing to the addressee. (7) Well/Uh, could you specify a location? Insofar as all of these possibilities are likely to inspire apprehension, these particles are unsuitable when the goal is to project empathy with the addressee. Just what is the difference between well and uh? I have treated them together so far, because they are both used when the speaker is thinking (for any of a number of possible reasons) about how to say what must be said, and this fact invites the same inferences in both cases. But using well indicates that the speaker is weighing how much to say, or deciding what propositions need to be articulated to convey an idea and, as a consequence, well is unremarkable in the speech of mature and thoughtful adults.
The conditions for uh, on the other hand, are less restrictive, and allow it to be used when the speaker is just searching for a word, or dealing with the logically prior task of determining the general strategy of a conversational turn. It is this latter condition that allows uh to be used as a vocalized pause. Well is never used this way by native speakers; the effect of substituting well for uh in discourses like those in (8) is distinctly odd. (8) a. Then you had two more justices, uh Souter and uh Ginsburg who took the position that because of a statute that Congress passed uh 30 years ago that says that no American citizen that was sufficient reason uh not to allow the detention of Mr. uh Hamdi as an enemy combatant So they reached the same result as as uh uh Scalia and Stevens, but they did so on the basis of And therefore, they said, uh, the president had uh authority from Congress to detain American citizens as enemy combatants [Doug Cassell, Director of the Center for International Human Rights, Northwestern University School of Law, interviewed on Focus 580 (radio call-in show) 8-3-04] b. deemed by the administration to be enemy combatants, being held uh, some of them being held at uh Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, and the others being held, the other two uh being held at uh a Navy prison in uh Charleston, S.C. Uh, questions welcome 333-9495 [David Inge, host, Focus 580 (radio call-in show) 8-3-04] Some speakers choose to fill with some sort of low vowel the pauses that happen while they are putting the next words into the pipeline to be produced; others, at the risk of being interrupted before they are ready to relinquish the floor, and of producing choppy-sounding speech, do not. Even though well is a syllable of sonorants, capable of being prolonged as much as uh, it is not exploited in these contexts because of its non-truth-conditional baggage. The speaker who says they reached the same result as well, well Scalia and Stevens may indicate that Scalia and Stevens are a considered choice from among a number of contemplated true completions to the phrase, or that he is reluctant to acknowledge Scalia and Stevens here as the standard to which others are being compared, or perhaps some other such thing, but well will always convey more than that he just is having a hard time accessing their names. Most likely, it is from its use when the speaker is figuring out what content to convey that uh gets its reputation as a mark of ignorance, and that reputation is why high school teachers rail against its use. One consequence of this difference is that where well sounds thoughtful, uh may just sound embarrassed. The greeting card with the verse in (9) is amusing because it implies that the speaker felt constrained not to say what he wanted to say (which of course we can reconstruct from the rhyme pattern), and had to find something else to say.
(9) Valentine, my love for you is greater than all the dewdrops on the grass all the detergent in your gas all the freckles on your [half-page image] uh, nose. The corresponding verse with well is quite odd because it implies that the speaker knew he had to say nose, and had some problem with that. Another consequence is that because of the vagueness of the conditions for its use the use of uh conveys only that the speaker is thinking about what s/he will say uh can be used to soften the impact of a statement that implies some inadequacy on the part of the addressee, by inviting, or at least allowing, the inference that the speaker was concerned about what words to use in communicating the sentiment to the addressee. This is illustrated in (10), from an October 2000 David Letterman list of Top Ten things you dont want to hear at the bottom of a World Series pile-on. (10) uh guys its only the third inning. With uh, this is a cautious approach to a delicate subject; with well, it would have been more of a rebuke because well would draw attention to the fact that the speaker had to put some thought into exactly how much to say, or how exactly to spin it. (11) Well, guys its only the third inning. This may be exactly what makes uh more suitable than well for an error message in an interface with pretensions to having a personality as illustrated in (12). (12) a. Uh, you need to provide an email address. b. Well, you need to provide an email address. In the context of a machine-generated error messages, uh leaves room for interpretation as an attempt to spare the addressees feelings, but well, intimating that there is even more the speaker could criticize, has more the effect of rubbing the addressees nose in the error. The fact that writers consciously choose to use these particles is the strongest sort of evidence that they have communicative value and are much more than strategic space fillers (Shuy 1997) or meta-discourse about pauses (cf. Clark and Fox Tree 2002). Such examples can be found in virtually any newspaper on any day of the week; those in (13) are illustrative. (13) a. Do you dare buy stocks? When the fed slashes rates aggressively, the market usually rises um, eventually. [Headline and subhead, Newsweek April 2, 2001, p. 61] b. So learn to keep it crisp and professional, and leave the theater for, well, the theater.
[Bob Rosner, Working Wounded column, Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette, Dec. 18, 2001, p. D-2.] Corroborating this evidentiary fact is the fact that these particles can be used in selfdirected discourse, something that other performance-oriented theories of discourse particles are hard put to explain: Holding the floor (Shuy 1997) or alerting the addressee to an imminent pause (Clark and Fox Tree 2002) would not seem to be a relevant motivation when one is talking to oneself. And yet, one can use well with an utterance to oneself, out loud e.g., uttering well, shit! upon discovering, as you leave the classroom, that the reading you have assigned is outstandingly inappropriate.5 I end this section with the observation that the corresponding utterance with uh is so patently ridiculous that the mental states these particles reflect must be very distinctly specified in our internal grammars. Precisely what they are remains a matter for further empirical research.
3.2 Like
Schourup (1982) characterizes several uses of like as indicating a thought process along the lines of: Whats coming next might not be not exact because Im not saying it exactly, because its difficult to say it in an exact way.6 As he notes, there are at least three syntactically distinguishable uses of like. The two particle uses are discussed in this paper. (The third use is as a predicate in the pseudo-quotative be like, as in Were like, Man, he really means it. This construction is used for representing the gist of a thought or utterance in the form of a not necessarily accurate direct quotation. As Schourup points out, such partially fictitious direct quotes are often marked by an initial particle.) Siegel (2002) demonstrates truth-conditional effects of a use before weak NPs, and formalizes it, concluding that compositional semantics ultimately has to incorporate at least some pragmatic effects. All three of the uses Schourup describes relate to a notion of inexactitude, all are ubiquitous in the oral discourse of adolescents (with predictable results), and all are used (at least occasionally, and some more than others) by many articulate and respectable adults when they are engaged in casual conversation. The results of ubiquity that are predictable from the meaning that Schourup assigns to like are that people who use it noticeably frequently present themselves as too intellectually challenged to be more exact, or perhaps just too lazy. This is taken as a reflection on their character,
5. I do not understand why self-directed discourse exists, but it clearly satisfies a human need at the very least in the language-specific exclamation words that register pain (Ow! Ouch!) as well as in much more elaborate and creative grammatical constructions of indeterminate length that serve the same purpose. 6. In Schourups words (1985:42), like is used to express a possible unspecified minor nonequivalence of what is said and what is meant.
and as a sign of disrespect when addressed to someone who is entitled to expect more effort from them (say, a teacher or a prospective employer). Thus, the effect is very much the same as that of adolescent uptalk, where a remarkable percentage of declarative sentences have a question intonation, which (unintendedly) represents the speaker as needing confirmation or reassurance for each utterance it is attached to. Of course, well-educated and articulate adults (even sophisticated people like American Heritage Dictionary usage editor Geoffrey Nunberg (Nunberg 2004:266)) use this linguistic resource as well, for example, when they want to diminish the overbearing effect that making a suggestion can have. Again, what distinguishes adolescents use of this from their elders is the much greater frequency in adolescent speech. As with well and uh, uses of like vary in nuance and function with the discourse context in which they appear. At the beginning of a clause, like introduces a more specific instance of a general case just mentioned, as in the lyrics to Gee, Officer Krupke from West Side Story (1957). (14) Dear kindly social worker, they say go earn a buck, Like be a soda jerker, [which means like, be a schmuck]. Im no good. Were no good, were no earthly good. Like the best of us is no damn good! [Sondheim, West Side Story (1957)] Without an initial like, the relation between go earn a buck and be a soda jerker is much less constrained. In lieu of being an example of a way to earn a buck, Be a soda jerker could be understood as a consequence of earning a buck, or an alternative to earning a buck, or as a directive in addition to the one to earn a buck, among other possibilities. (Contrary to popular opinion, the specific instance use of like did not originate with California Valley Girls in the 1980s.) Here is another example, from a conversation between a smallish woman and her adult daughter. (15) Sizing of womens clothing is crazy. You cant extrapolate from one calibration to another. Like, dresses and pants are 3/4, 5/6, 7/8, 9/10, 11/12, 13/14, 16, 18 and then youre into Plus sizing. Large starts at 13, or maybe 11. And underwear is 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, , and 8 is the lower bound of Large. Without a prefatory like, the sentence about dress and pants sizes might invite interpretation as a second piece of evidence why the sizing of womens clothing is crazy. Prefaced by like, it is clearer that it is intended as a demonstration of the claim made in the second sentence. Between phrases, like hedges responsibility for the next expression, conveying that it only approximates what the speaker wants to convey. Often it CANNOT be paraphrased by approximately, around, or about.
(16) a. Hes like maybe, what? Ten or something? [from Schourup radio call-in show corpus] b. Weve written like, uh, quite a few songs, yknow? [from Schourup radio call-in show corpus] c. which means like be a schmuck. [Sondheim, Gee, Officer Krupke] d. by then they had seen the tape from the first audition. It was smoldering, says producer Martha Griffin. I thought, Can you imagine that, like, blown up?7 [Newsweek, Oct. 2, 2000] The caller who says Hes like maybe, what? Ten or something? is not asking if the referent is approximately 10 or around 10 or about 10; he is saying that he supposes him to be 10, and is not concerned that he might be wrong by an inconsequential amount. Admittedly, the difference here is subtle. It is less so with the songwriting caller, who is not making the (ridiculous) claim that his group has written approximately quite a few, around quite a few or about quite a few songs. As the uh suggests, the caller probably cannot come up with even a ball park number, but the like before it indicates that he only ever intended to give a suggestive figure. Whatever the figure was, he knows it is an exact number. Even more clearly, the Jets are not saying parenthetically that to work as fountain help means approximately to be a schmuck (means around and means about are ungrammatical with a non-numerical complement), but they consider that it amounts to that. I dont know what imagining a tape or a performance approximately blown up would refer to, but Griffin in the Newsweek citation appears to be referring to the effect of a videotaped performance seen on a television monitor being intensified in its translation to film and the big screen. People who use this like do not put it just anywhere. The fact that like conveys there is a minor nonequivalence between what Im saying and what I mean entails that it will not be used before phrases representing information that it is important not to hedge. So we might overhear the following conversation: (17) a. Mother: Mrs. Kramer told me you were at the mall this afternoon. Teenager: But Mom, I couldnt have been, because I was at basketball practice then. But we wouldnt expect to hear one where the teenager says: b. #But Mom, I couldnt have been, because I was like, at basketball practice then. c. #But Mom, I couldnt have been, because I was at, like, basketball practice then.
7. This is another example of gist-reportage (self-reportage in this case). I dont think that even people who believe thought is linguistic assume that thought involves such addresseeoriented usages as rhetorical questions and discourse particles.
If the teenager uses like here, the mother has good reason to suspect that the teenager was not actually at basketball practice. And Nunberg (2004) reports that in press interviews with California high school students after shootings at their school, while their speech was punctuated by ums and ers and you knows [], of the dozen students that I listened to, not one used the word like (2004:264).
4. Discourse particles in Natural Language Processing 4.1 Speech generation in question-answering systems
As indicated, our research on discourse particles was prompted by a desire to see if we could make a question-answering system sound friendly.8 Consequently, in designing the language output of the Restaurant Finder, we used particles that reflect the speakers state of mind to construct speech that would make a dumb computer sound interested and engaged with the user of the system. (It would, of course, be possible to use knowledge about particles to design a self-centered character, or one that seemed defensive. Im not sure what commercial value they would have, but perhaps they could be used to model client behavior in the training of clinical social workers or other healthcare professionals, and it could surely make a more interesting Eliza program.)
4.2 The problem of intonation

One problem with a natural language interface that uses particles is that some particles (e.g., well and yknow) express different attitudes according to the intonation contour they bear when they are pronounced. Since punctuation does not always adequately represent intonation, this can lead to misinterpretation, and this is an even greater possibility with off-the-shelf voice output systems. The particle well, for example, occurs in a variety of speech acts. It can be either in sentence-initial position, or just before a phrase which the speaker considers somehow problematic. Pronounced with level pitch and comma intonation (well,), it indicates that the speaker is reflecting on how informative or direct to be. (18) Q: Did you like the personality projected by the responses? A: Yes. Q: Why? A: Well, as far as talking characters go, he was fine. (Dan K) [survey response directed to member of the research team]
8. On the basis of my own prejudices, I doubted that users would really be comfortable getting information from a computer system that was talking like a real conversational partner. I was wrong. See concluding section.
With low pitch, a reduced vowel (wll,) and clitic-like close juncture, well suggests that the unspoken information that causes the speaker to consider her response may in fact contradict an assumption being made by the addressee. Perhaps the rapid-speech pronunciation of well reflects the speakers immediately registering the conflicting assumptions as its content prepares the addressee for the fact that the discourse to follow does not directly address the addressees stated concerns. (An initial well is a good fit with all of the classic examples of Gricean implicature.) (19) Dale: Then we can go to the 8:00 show. Dana: Wll our dinner reservations are for 7:30. In sentence initial position, with a high, level pitch and more drawn-out vowel nucleus (welllll,) well reflects a belief by the speaker that a completely adequate response might entail saying something that (the speaker believes) the addressee does not want to hear, for example, something that contradicts a strongly held belief, or shatters an expectation. (20) A mother comes across her 7-year-old daughter looking worriedly in a kitchen cupboard and upon inquiring is told, We were playing hide-and-seek with the baby, and, well Mikey forgot where he hid her. [Adapted from Baby Blues, by Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott, 12/1/04] Quite a different effect is achieved if the intonation is changed in any of these examples, as one can see by switching them around. This means that it is necessary to control prosodic output accompanying text output if there is a concern for exactly what message is received. Similarly, the phrasal particle you know has at least three pronunciations. Because two of them have reduced vowels, there is no consistent distinction between them in writing; either may be written as yknow or as ya know or as you know. With equal stress on both syllables (yinnow), you know reflects a speakers attitude that explicitness is not required, because the addressee already knows or can easily figure out what the speaker intends to say or convey, from what has already been said. Typically, the particle yinnow prefaces an expression which the speaker knows does not adequately express the intended meaning. (21) a. I saw it at, yinnow, the radio station last week. Consequently, it sounds distinctly odd in contexts where you expect speakers to be confident that their choice of words is adequate to convey what is intended. b. #Tackle the damn, yinnow, quarterback! In a context where (21a) is appropriate, saying at the radio station is not sufficiently informative for the addressee to tell which radio station.
With stress on the second syllable (ya KNOW,), and declarative rise-fall intonation, you know is used in presenting information that the speaker assumes is new to the addressee, but wishes to present as if it were already known. (22) a. Ya KNOW, I saw it at the radio station last week. This pretty much follows from the fact that the vowel stressed is in know; when you is stressed (YOU know,), the effect is to rebuke the addressee for not remembering something she should be aware of. As this analysis predicts, both YOU know and ya KNOW are incongruous where the speaker is presenting information that could not plausibly be already known. b. #Ya KNOW, I will announce my decision concerning my candicacy for that position at a news conference to be held at 6 PM Eastern. c. #YOU know, I hereby withdraw my candidacy. The use of ya KNOW is pretty strictly sentence-initial, while (maybe unsurprisingly) the opposite stress pattern seems to have the same distribution as yinnow. (23) a. YOU know/Yinnow, I saw it at the radio station last week. b. I saw it at, YOU know/yinnow, the radio station last week. In both phrase-final and sentence-final position, with rising intonation, the particle you know? occurs as a tag, querying whether the addressee does indeed know what the speaker means, despite the inadequate form of expression. This is, of course, exactly what the literal meaning of you know would lead one to expect. (24) a. I saw it at the radio station last week, you know? b. I saw a red one, you know? at the radio station last week. Naturally, you know? will sound bizarre whenever the addressee couldnt possibly be expected to know the information conveyed by the expression to which it is attached. c. #I promise Ill buy you a mockingbird, you know? d. #No one will cough during the Presidents press conference, you know? And if the addressee must obviously know the information, attaching you know? to it makes the utterance it is in predictably insulting. e. You just bought a new car, you know? These particles can be interchanged, with precisely predictable effects, as long as distributional constraints are observed. These recorded instances are probably both examples of yinnow. (25) a. The issue that year was the interventionists versus the so-called isolationists, who were depicted as, you know, redneck fools, as indeed they were not. [Gore Vidal, interviewed in Newsweek, September 25, 2000, p. 70.]
b. Even if he didnt intend to, he did. You know, I might not intend to promise you something, but if I say something that entails that promise, I have made that promise. [Jeffrey Kaplan, discussing speech acts. Unedited transcript of Northwestern University/Washington University Law and Linguistics conference, eventually published, purged of most discourse particles, 1995, Washington University Law Quarterly 73, No. 3.] The bottom line is that trying to make a user interface sound more human by using particles will not yield predictable effects unless there is both voice output and a way of controlling the intonation contour the particle receives.
4.3 The challenge for Natural Language Processing

Because the use of discourse particles, whether spoken or written, is simultaneously conditioned by ineluctable matters of intention intended illocutionary effect, the nature of the personal relation of speaker to addressee, and the degree to which the speech act in its context can reasonably be expected to threaten the face of the addressee the use of discourse particles in natural language interfaces will require very fine-grained classification of use conditions until such time as we have the ability to program computers to reason accurately about other minds.
4.4 NLP as a test-bed for linguistic theories

Crude as the output of natural language generators might seem when compared to the discourse of human speakers, they are nonetheless valuable to linguists. For as long as computational linguistics has existed, it has provided linguists with a convenient, if under-utilized, test bed for grammatical hypotheses. It is always instructive to get an algorithm to take a lexicon and a grammar (even applying the term grammar loosely, to apply to any consistent rule system that defines sentences) and output random sentences defined by that grammar. And it is usually humbling. In the case of the Restaurant Finder, we extended this technique to pragmatic issues, where it provides a healthy counterbalance to the temptation to confuse the content of a particle with the content of the sentence in which it occurs, a temptation that particle investigators who work primarily from corpora seem especially susceptible to. (Of course, when its not practical to build an interface to test a pragmatic analysis, substituting one particle for another, or one construction for another, in the same natural context (this is critical) is a low-cost way of getting the same job done.)
4.5 Co-occurrence constraints

To illustrate, we had predicted that when the Restaurant Finder returned its result (i.e., the cardinality of the set of restaurants meeting the desired criteria), the acceptability of affective attitudinal particles like uh-oh, oy, damn, and yes! (i.e. those particles that relate to emotions the speaker projects for the addressee) would be dependent on the number of results reported, insofar as the addressee would be expected to consider the number to be promising or not. Thus, we expected that getting a handful of results (say, 3-8) would be considered good, while none or only one or two would be considered as undesirable as getting dozens. It only took a few trial runs to discover that the appropriate use of affective particles also depended on where in the search the large or small number was reported. So, a huge number early in the search would not be particularly bad, while a handful early in the search would be, since it would make all the more salient the possibility that restricting the search with further criteria will yield no results at all. We also expected that more than one or two particles per sentence would sound bad, that two instances of the same particle would sound unnatural, and that there would be some pairs of particles that would sound odd when used in the same sentence. We had a lot to learn. After the first set of runs, it was clear that the position of the particle in the sentence made a difference, even though the focused information it relates to is the same. Example (26) seems odd because it is not clear whats so bad about getting fifteen results. (26) #I know of, oy, 15 places like that. (If this were the first set of results, and 15 was deemed too few, it would be OK with oy in initial position, but before a medium-small number, it is hard to figure out what would motivate it.) Sometimes three particles is not too many, as (27) illustrates, if we ignore the register clash between damn and gosh. (27) Damn, I know of, gosh, 125 places like that, in fact. And sometimes two instances of the same particle is acceptable, as in (28a), while other times, it sounds terrible (28b,c). (28) a. Uh, I know of, uh, 96 places like that, out of 247. b. #Gosh, I know of, gosh, 96 places like that, out of 247. c. #Oy! I know of, oy! 96 places like that, out of 247. As predicted, however, particles that convey inconsistent information provoke a sort of cognitive dissonance, and are not easily used in the same sentence. In (29a), heck implies certainty, due to familiarity with the domain, while gosh implies information is new to the speaker; (29b) is less than felicitous because Yes! implies desired results, and oy disappointing results.
(29) a. #Heck, I know of, gosh, 144 places like that in fact. b. #Yes! There are oy, 37 places that meet your criteria. Systematizing observations like this and refining the particle-conditions database to reflect a better understanding was an ongoing process.
5. Summary and conclusion

To learn whether any of the communicative styles, or the fact that they were user-adjustable, were actually appealing to users, we did a small pilot study with a beta version of the Restaurant Finder. Users considered the cartoon agent to be helpful, and felt from his language that he seemed to care about their search. All appreciated the ability to switch his register to another one, and most found him entertaining, especially in the particlerich casual register. A few were offended by the personal tone of his casual speech. I dont speak for anyone else, but I was surprised to see that there was not much of a correlation between disliking a chatty interface, and using search engines frequently. Whether there is actually a market for interfaces that display the kind of emotional intelligence that particle use simulates is for others to determine. It is certain that further testing of the sort described here will tell us a lot more about particles, both individually and in interaction with each other.
References
Allen, J.F. and C.R. Perrault. 1980. Analyzing intention in dialog. Artificial Intelligence 15:143178. Brown, P. and S. Levinson. 1987. Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cohen, P., J. Morgan, and M.E. Pollack. 1990. Intentions in Communication. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Dunn, A. 1990. The Pragmatics of Selected Discourse Markers in Swahili. University of Illinois Ph.D. dissertation. Clark, H.H. and J.E. Fox Tree. 2002. Using uh and um in spontaneous speaking. Cognition 84:73111. Gould, S.J. 1985. SETI and the wisdom of Casey Stengel. In The Flamingos Smile. New York: W. W. Norton. 403413. Kose, Y.S. 1997. The Pragmatics of Japanese Sentence-Final Particles. University of Illinois Ph.D. dissertation. Kuno, S. 1973. The Structure of the Japanese Language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lakoff, R. 1973a. The logic of politeness: Or Minding your Ps and Qs. In C. Corum, T.-C. SmithStark, and A. Weiser, eds., Papers from the Ninth Regional Meeting, Chicago Linguistic Society. 292305.
Discourse particles: natural language processing and basic research 135 Lakoff, R. 1973b. Questionable answers and answerable questions. In B.B. Kachru, R.B. Lees, Y. Malkiel, A. Pietrangeli, and S. Saporta, eds., Issues in Linguistics: Papers in Honor of Henry and Renee Kahane. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. 453467. Nunberg, G. 2004. Going Nucular. New York: PublicAffairs Press. Schourup, L. 1982. Common Discourse Particles in English Conversation. The Ohio State University Ph.D. dissertation. Siegel, M.E.A. 2002. Like: The discourse particle and semantics. Journal of Semantics 19:3571. Shuy, R. 1997. Discourse clues in coded language in an impeachment hearing. In G.R. Guy, C. Feagin, D. Schiffrin, and J. Baugh, eds., Towards a Social Science of Language: Papers in Honor of William Labov, Volume 2: Social Interaction and Discourse Structures. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 121138.
Saying less and meaning less*1

Michael Israel
University of Maryland
This paper blends elements of Neo-Gricean Pragmatics and Cognitive Semantics to develop an account of the ways speakers may effectively minimize the content of what they say, and the ways linguistic constructions themselves may be conventionally uninformative. Two kinds of uninformativity (or meaning-lessness) are distinguished: The first, attenuation, simply involves the expression of a relatively uninformative proposition; the second, understatement, involves the use of an uninformative proposition to implicate something more. Corpusbased and lexicographic evidence suggests that many English constructions are conventionally attenuating or understating, and that such conventional uninformativity is a primary cause of polarity sensitivity. The apparent paradox of conventional understatement is shown to be a kind of short-circuited implicature and its consequences for NPI licensing are analyzed. Finally, evidence from childrens spontaneous discourse reveals the naturalness of uninformativity as a discourse strategy, since it is often easier for a speaker to say less and let a hearer infer more.
1.
Some nice things about minimization
Understatement might not seem like a big deal, but it is a force to be reckoned with. The phenomenon is paradoxical on the face of it: minus dicimus, plus significamus, say less and mean more. An understatement is a statement which, somehow, because it is conspicuously less informative than some other statement, can be used to express the meaning of the more informative statement. It is not a particularly cooperative sort of figure of speech. Such purposeful uninformativity runs counter to the Gricean principle that one should do what one can to make oneself understood, but it is consistent with the contrary principle that one should do no more than one has to (cf. Horn 1984, 2004; Levinson 1987, 2000). Like its figural cousins euphemism, allusion, meiosis, and
* I would like to thank Elizabeth Traugott, Gregory Ward, Tess Wood, and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. What foolishness remains is my fault alone.
irony, understatement depends on a hearers ability to enrich the content of some indeterminate meaning. Such figures can be difficult to understand, but they have real advantages as well. Saying less means less work for a speaker: fewer words articulated and fewer explicit constraints on meaning construction. And saying less and meaning more frees both the speaker from assuming full responsibility for what she communicates, and the hearer from any undue strain on his credulity. But why would anyone want to mean less? In fact, understatement is only possible because speakers do sometimes both say and mean very little. In this sense understatement depends on a more general phenomenon of attenuation, or semantic weakening. While understatement says less and means more, attenuation simply says less. But funnily enough, in order to say less, a speaker may have to do more. People regularly go out of their way to express themselves in ways that are less than fully forthcoming, and to do so, they can use a variety of linguistic devices which effectively minimize the content of what they say. The phenomenon is a mainstay of work on rhetoric and linguistic pragmatics (cf. inter alia, Spitzbardt 1963; Lakoff 1973; Brown & Levinson 1987; Huebler 1983; Caffi 1999), but it is easily underestimated. Attenuating constructions may seem insignificant, and in a real sense they are only their insignificance is in fact central to their meaning. This paper examines some of the ways meaning less can be part of what a construction means. Section (2) develops a framework to resolve this apparent paradox by blending elements of cognitive semantics and mental space theory with a neo-Gricean view of implicature. Section (3) examines a class of constructions, attenuating polarity items, which are conspicuously uninformative and conventionally used for meaning less. Section (4) considers what happens when such constructions are further conventionalized as expressions of understatement, and the types of complex discourse configurations they may come to evoke. Finally, section (5) considers the problem in a developmental perspective, and examines why it is that children seem to be exceptionally tolerant of speakers being less than fully informative. The reason, I suggest, is that children naturally prefer to say less and mean more. The hard thing to master is just the opposite: how to say more and mean less.
2. Neo-Gricean Cognitive Grammar

Why would a speaker go out of her way to minimize the meaning she expresses? There are in fact a number of reasons. Some are generous in nature (e.g. a desire not to give offense or to impose on others credulity). Others are more selfish (e.g. a desire not to incriminate oneself or to appear foolish). The overriding reason, however, is that the expression of meaning is often an inherently risky affair, and if meaning is risky, minimizing meaning is bound to be attractive. None of this, as far as I can tell, is particularly controversial in pragmatics, where hedging, mitigation, and indirectness are staples of research. It is nonetheless puz-
Saying less and meaning less 139
zling, and even paradoxical, from the perspective of semantic representation. If, as I am suggesting here, many constructions make an essentially negative contribution to the significance of an utterance if they effectively limit what a hearer may infer from an utterance how is such a contribution to be represented? How can the meaning of a construction consist in an absence of meaning? The paradox is, I think, more apparent than real, and it stems from a common misconception about the nature of meaning that meaning can be equated with informativity. I assume, on the contrary, that meaning is not so much a matter of information as one of imagination, and that it has as much to do with the ways conceptual contents are construed as with the truth conditions they impose. In this perspective, the phenomena of understatement and attenuation reflect common strategies speakers use to frame the content of what they say. On the other hand, figures like these are all about informativity or more precisely, about its absence. To construe something as attenuating, and a fortiori to construe something as an understatement, is to see it as lacking some informational content. In effect, then, understatement and attenuation involve different ways of framing the content of what is said against the background of some informationally stronger content which might have been said, but wasnt. My goal in this section is to sketch out some basic theoretical machinery to motivate this characterization of the two figures. In doing so I draw liberally from the disparate traditions of cognitive semantics and neo-Gricean pragmatics. While the resulting blend may strike some as incongruous, I think the two traditions may be more compatible than is often assumed. In effect, I propose a compromise between those who would place a clear boundary between semantics and pragmatics, and those who view meaning construction in general as a dynamic process which is in some sense pragmatic from start to finish. The solution is to accept the basic distinction between two kinds of meaning (what is said vs. what is implicated), but to refuse the assumption (common among those who enforce this distinction) that either sort of meaning has any ontological priority over the other. As I will argue below, both sorts of meaning can coexist in the conventional content of a single construction, and both are essential features of ordinary linguistic communication: Neither could exist without the other. But we are getting ahead of ourselves. As a cognitive linguist, I take the grammar of a language to be a structured inventory of conventional linguistic units (Langacker 1987:54), and I take the most basic sort of linguistic unit to be the construction that is, the arbitrary pairing of some form, or signifier, with some semantic/pragmatic content, or signified (cf. Fillmore, Kay & OConnor 1988). On the formal side, a construction may be something as simple as a phonological variable (e.g. a rising tone or a deleted segment) or something as complex and schematic as a productive pattern of verb phrase formation. On the semantic side, a construction is a convention for coordinating joint attention among speakers toward some conceptual content (cf. Croft 2000), and functions pragmatically (if you will) as a schematic prompt for imaginative processes of meaning construction. Meaning, on this view, consists essentially of a profiled content construed against one or more background frames (Fillmore 1982; Langacker
1987), and meaning construction involves the dynamic elaboration of propositional contents in a densely interconnected network of mental spaces (Fauconnier 1997). Given all this, it is not surprising that many cognitive linguists are skeptical about any easy distinction between semantics and pragmatics. Langacker, for example, suggests the distinction is largely artifactual and based on the sort of false dichotomy one should probably avoid (1987:154). In a usage-based theory of grammar, it makes little sense to draw too sharp a line between meaning and use. Dichotomies oversimplify, but a nice dichotomy can sometimes be quite useful. A good one, I think, is the Gricean distinction between two kinds of non-natural meaning, what is said and what is implicated. In the simplest case, one imagines that speakers might simply say what they mean. But even the plainest speaking has layers of meaning (cf. Haiman 1998). Meaning is inherently complicated, and what is said is just the starting point for a larger interpretive process. An implicature is a kind of meaning one which departs in some way from what is literally said. By literally said, here, I mean simply whatever propositional content a speaker explicitly commits herself to by saying what she says. Implicatures are propositions which a speaker conveys without such explicit commitment. The notion of explicit commitment is probably vexed itself, but in general implicatures can be distinguished from other expressed propositions by at least four properties (Grice 1989:39): They are not conventional; they are non-detachable; they are, in principle, calculable; and they are defeasible, either by suspension or denial (Horn 1972). I assume, as a sort of gross simplification, that an implicature minimally involves three mental states corresponding to the canonical three steps a hearer must follow to calculate it, which I model here as three mental spaces (cf. Fauconnier 1997): a context, or common ground, in which something is said (C); a focus space (S), featuring the content of what is said; and a secondary, or implicated space (I), which a hearer may infer on the basis of hearing S in C.
Figure 1. The Implicational Circuit Figure 1 depicts the basic process. In this figure, and those which follow, I employ the following conventions. Upper-case letters denote different kinds of mental spaces: C (common ground), S (said), U (unsaid), I (implicated). Spaces in focus are drawn
in bold. Lower case letters denote propositions: What is said is a proposition in focus; what is implicated is a proposition out of focus and shown here in parentheses. A solid arrow represents the flow of consciousness from one space to another. A dashed arrow from any space into C denotes the conversational uptake of a proposition into the common ground. Implicatures arise when a speaker deliberately exploits a pragmatic principle to lead a hearer to make some inference. In this sense, implicatures are always derived; they can only appear in a subordinate mental space. Implicatures are also unlike ordinary, arbitrary meanings, since they are based on general principles of rational behavior. In standard neo-Gricean fashion, I distinguish two basic kinds of implicature based on two antithetical principles of pragmatic inference: (i) the Q-Principle, that a speaker should say enough to achieve her communicative goals, and (ii) the R-Principle, that a speaker should say no more than is necessary to achieve her goals (Horn 1984;1989:194). The Q-principle invites upper-bounding inferences: If a speaker says p, and it would have been just as easy to say some stronger q, one may infer that q is not the case, or that the speaker cannot commit herself to the truth of q. Common Q-implicatures include the use of some to mean some and not all, of may to mean permitted but not obligated, and of or to be interpreted exclusively. The R-principle invites lower-bounding inferences: If a speaker says p, and the context is such that where p is true q is typically (or stereotypically) true as well, one may infer that q is the case. Common R-implicatures include the use of if to mean if and only if , of can to mean can and will, of a N to mean a prototypical N, and more generally the use of vague expressions as euphemisms for what one would prefer to leave unsaid (Horn 2004:15). With these basics behind us, we are now in a position to define the figures of attenuation and understatement in terms of the logical relations holding between propositions in a lattice of mental spaces. An attenuating expression is one which somehow says less; the question is, less than what? The answer, I suggest, is less than might otherwise have been said. Attenuation in general is a way of framing an expressed proposition, t, against the background of a saliently unexpressed proposition, u, where it is understood that u unilaterally entails t. Attenuation differs from mere uninformativeness in that u is not just unsaid, but salient in the context as something which could easily have been said. This is depicted diagrammatically in Figure 2, where the straight line linking S and U marks U as a background to the focus space S, and where the context, C, includes the fact that the unsaid proposition u is stronger than the focus proposition t.
Figure 2. The Attenuation Frame The difference between attenuation and understatement is a difference between what is said and what is implicated. What is left conspicuously unsaid in one figure is what is implicated in the other. To say that someone is not a genius is relatively uninformative, and so counts as attenuating with respect to other more specific ways of characterizing their intelligence; but if by not a genius one means positively unintelligent, one has shifted from attenuation to understatement. Both figures present a proposition in a scalar frame as contrasting with some stronger alternative, but understatement actually implicates the stronger alternative. Basically, an understatement is just the kind of R-based implicature which can be triggered by the use of an attenuated proposition. Thus far, I have defined understatement and attenuation as figures of meaning construction. The question now is what role, if any, these figures play in the conventional meanings of ordinary linguistic constructions. The answer I suggest in this and the following section is that both play significant roles with stark grammatical consequences in the realm of polarity sensitivity.
3. Attenuation and polarity sensitivity

Polarity sensitivity seems to be one of those phenomena which somehow become more controversial as they come to be better understood. The part of polarity that is perhaps best understood concerns the conditions under which polarity items are licensed. There is now substantial agreement that polarity items are sensitive to the inferential, and particularly logical, properties of the contexts in which they occur (though there remains substantial disagreement over how to characterize those contexts). Given such a consensus it is tempting to consider why such a sensitivity might arise in grammar. The conventional wisdom these days seems to be that polarity items are inherently emphatic, and that the constraints on negative polarity items (NPIs) stem from their need to appear in contexts where they will be maximally informative. Kadmon & Landman (1993), for instance, in their influential analysis of any, suggest that it is
a very prominent characteristic of any as well as other NPIs that they make the statement they are in stronger (1993:369, emphasis added ). The implication here seems to be that it is a prominent characteristic of all other NPIs. The same intuition has motivated a succession of otherwise quite different analyses (Jackson 1994; Krifka 1995; Lahiri 1998; Chierchia 2001; van Rooy 2003; Zepter 2003), which take some notion of informative strength or strengthening as the essence of polarity sensitivity. Zepter puts it succinctly: The actual licensing condition of NPIs is the requirement to be contained in a particularly strong statement (2003:235). There is, of course, substantial empirical support for this thesis. The English constructions in (1) and (2), for example, are notably strong NPIs and positive polarity items (PPIs), respectively. All of these forms occur only where they are maximally informative, and many are well-known for this property: Horn (1989) provides over a century of references on this point. (1) any, the least bit, in the slightest, a living soul, a damn thing, jack, squat, ever, even once, can possibly, can believe, can fathom, have a hope in hell, can make heads or tails of (2) a great many, a bunch of, a ton of, a heap of, piles of, scads of, loads of, the whole deal, the whole shebang, the whole kit and caboodle, the whole nine yards, the whole megillah, the whole ball of wax, the long and the short of it, galore, must, gotta, had better On the other hand, there is also quite a bit of empirical support for the opposite thesis. Many polarity items, both NPIs and PPIs, are constrained to appear where they are conspicuously uninformative. The PPIs in (3) and the NPIs in (4) are all attenuators; they are a motley syntactic set, including auxiliaries, determiners, degree modifiers, and idiomatic predicative constructions. What they share, I think, is a certain modesty: They are only appropriate where they weaken the force of the proposition to which they contribute. (3) some, somewhat, sort of, kind of, a tad, a mite, a smidgen, a handful, a hint, a couple, one or two, a while, a whiff, a ways, might, may well (4) much, a whole hell of a lot, all that much, all that many, much of a N, exactly a N, overmuch, all that, any too, so very, be great shakes Such constructions have long been known in the literature on positive and negative polarity items. Baker (1970) mentions several attenuating polarity items, including both NPIs and PPIs. And Linebarger (1980), von Bergen & von Bergen (1993), and van der Wouden (1997) explicitly mention understatement as a defining property of at least some NPIs. In my own work (Israel 1996, 1998, 1999, 2001, to appear) I have argued that attenuating polarity items are the grammatical mirrors of their emphatic counterparts, and that the pragmatics of emphasis and attenuation in general provide a deep explanation for the grammar of polarity sensitivity. Very quickly, the explanation is that
polarity items constitute a special class of scalar operators (cf. Fauconnier 1975; Kay 1997) which prompt the construal of an expressed proposition in the context of a scalar model, and which further constrain the informative value of the expressed proposition with respect to some ordered set of alternative propositions (i.e. a scalar model). This is why polarity items are sensitive to the inferential properties of the contexts they occur in. Items like those in (1) are NPIs because they profile elements at the low end of a scalar ordering, and are conventionally used to express emphatic propositions; items like those in (3) are PPIs because while they too denote low scalar values, they are conventionally used to express weak or attenuated propositions. Because of their conventional meanings, such forms only make sense when they are construed against the right sort of scalar background. The basic claim then is that polarity sensitive constructions as a class divide into four basic types based on the interaction of two very general scalar semantic parameters: informative value, which can be either strong (emphatic) or weak (attenuating), and quantitative value, which can be either low or high in a scalar ordering. The basic scheme can be summarized as follows in Figure 3:
Figure 3. Four Sorts of Polarity Items Part of the reason why processes of attenuation may sometimes be given short shrift is that work on sensitivity has tended to focus on negative polarity items to the exclusion of their positive polarity brethren, and it appears that emphatic NPIs are significantly more common, both in English and crosslinguistically, than their attenuating counterparts. Attenuating PPIs are, however, quite widespread, and most of the most frequent PPIs are in fact weak adverbials and determiners (e.g. some, somewhat, sorta, so-so), or weakly intensive ones (e.g. fairly, pretty, rather; cf. Horn 1989:402).
One common sort of attenuator is the diminisher (Bolinger 1972), which is essentially the PPI counterpart of the NPI minimizer. A minimizer (e.g. a wink in I didnt sleep a wink) is an indefinite NP which denotes a minimal measure or degree of some sort, and which conventionally contributes to the expression of an emphatic proposition. A diminisher (e.g., a bit in I could use a bit of sleep) is an indefinite NP which denotes a small (or smallish) degree of some sort, and which conventionally contributes to the expression of an attenuated proposition. For a construction to be polarity sensitive, it is not enough for it simply to denote a low quantitative value; it must also conventionally encode a particular informative value. The point is perhaps clearest in some of the English constructions which use the word bit as a minimal sort of measure. The phrase a bit can be more or less freely used either as a degree modifier or a quantifier in both negative emphatic and positive attenuating contexts. It occurs 17,653 times in the British National Corpus (BNC), mostly in affirmative contexts with a hedging or diminishing function, as in (5). (5) a. Yeah, cos it looked a bit heavy I thought, on top didnt it? b. Im a bit of a disappointment to you, he said eventually. Of course, most constructions tend to occur mostly or almost entirely in positive contexts, but a bit also occurs 104 times directly following not, most often in the elliptical rejoinder not a bit of it, but also with a variety of gradable predicates (e.g. not a bit interested, not a bit nice, not a bit like Plato). On its own, a bit is therefore not polarity sensitive. But while a bit swings both ways between negative emphasis and positive attenuation, in certain constructions it can get stuck at one extreme or the other. Thus the phrase a wee bit appears 200 times in the BNC, always in positive contexts with an attenuating (or understating function), as in (6). The phrase the least bit occurs 64 times 63 as a negative emphatic, 61 of those having an explicit negation, and once as a positive attenuator (7c). (6) a. We have been lacking a wee bit of professionalism recently. b. Foreigners can be a wee bit difficult about it sometimes. (7) a. Robbie wasnt feeling the least bit humorous. b. Furthermore she doesnt seem to be the least bit worried c. And youve got the least bit too much lipstick. While many indefinite measure constructions (a tad, a trifle, a touch, a smidgen, a soupon, a whiff...) almost never occur under negation, some of the best evidence that a construction really is a PPI can come when it does. For example, where the complex determiner one or two is found under negation, the negation is either metalinguistic, as in (8), or else occurs with another scale-reversing construction, like the comparatives in (9), so that its overall effect remains one of weak assertion (i.e. not more than one or two = relatively few).
(8)
Does she agree also that we are talking of not one or two people but tens of people?
(9) a. In Universities it was never more than one or two. b. The conductor does not show them how to play, he probably cant play more than one or two instruments... The important point here is that for many constructions at least, attenuation is an inherent and indefeasible feature of their conventional semantic content one with significant consequences for their grammatical distributions. And in this light, polarity sensitivity may be understood as the grammatical consequence of a fundamentally pragmatic phenomenon. From here, however, things get more complicated.
4. The dialectics of negative understatement

Not all attenuators are created equal. Some do little more than attenuate; they say a little and they mean no more. But attenuators in general always have the potential to do more. Ironically, because attenuators only appear where they minimize what is said, they often give rise to an implicature that a speaker did in fact mean more. Attenuators do not automatically trigger R-implicatures, but it is in their nature to do so. Consider the attenuating NPI exactly + NP, which may weaken a denial by limiting it to the extreme case. The uses in (10) from the BNC are ordinary cases of attenuation: (10) a. This dog is given a passing significance as less than a symbol, not exactly a metaphor; call it a figure. b. Yet for most people their MP is not exactly a conspicuous person. In (10b), for example, the denial of true conspicuousness is consistent with most MPs being at least moderately prominent. The uses in (11), however, hint strongly at understatement; that is, the superficially contradictory negations here are prone to interpretation as strong contraries. (11) a. With the new Conservative Government in 1979, Ken Stowe moved from Downing Street to become Permanent Secretary in the Northern Ireland Office not exactly a rest cure and in 1981 came back to the DHSS. b. Patrolling the Ku-damm in the heart of West Berlin isnt exactly a hardship. The move described in (11a) clearly seems to have been not just unrestful, but positively stressful, while the patrolling in (11b) sounds like not just a non-hardship, but actually something of a pleasure. But these implicatures are defeasible, and as (10) suggests they sometimes do not even arise.
This sort of negative understatement involves a sort of R-implicature in which a superficially weak contradictory expression is used to express a stronger contrary meaning what Horn (1989) calls contraries in contradictory clothing. In certain contexts implicatures like this have a tendency to become a default inference, so perhaps it is not surprising that a sizable class of superficially attenuating constructions appear to be used only or overwhelmingly in the expression of negative understatements. Consider the constructions in (12), which literally denote an extreme scalar attribute, and which are used in denials to implicate an attribute at the opposite end of the scale. (12) Conventionally Understating NPI Predicates VP Construction be (any) great shakes set the Thames on fire be all X is cracked up to be be the sharpest tool in the shed be playing with a full deck bear comment grow on trees take kindly to be skin off ones nose be the end of the world be born yesterday be something to sneeze at think small beer of Denies be very good be very good be very good be very competent be very competent be significant be very common esteem be a big problem be a big problem be very nave be trivial disdain Implicates be quite bad be quite bad be quite bad be incompetent be incompetent be trivial be quite rare disdain be no problem be no problem be quite savvy be significant esteem
The understating implicatures associated with these constructions appear to be conventional enough that they are not really defeasible. I personally find it difficult to imagine contexts where I could use any of these predicates and felicitously suspend or deny their associated implicatures. And for many of these constructions it is almost impossible to find uses in which the implicature is absent. The effect is that while these constructions are superficially attenuating, in actual usage they are invariably, if indirectly, emphatic.1 All of these constructions are strong NPIs: They are licensed in various negative constructions, but not usually in questions, conditional apodoses, or in comparative
1. Ward (1983) discusses a related sort of negative construction he dubs epitomization, which features OSV word order, an emphatic rise-fall-rise intonation, and an O (actually, a predicate NP) denoting the epitome of an attribute that is denied of some referentially given topic e.g. Einstein hes not or the worlds greatest singer hes not. Use of this construction typically comes with an (understating) conversational implicature that the entity under discussion is close to the opposite end of a scale from the epitome, and as Ward notes, it appears that for some speakers this implicature may be fully conventional.
constructions. These constraints seem to reflect the fact that their associated implicatures only arise in the context a denial of some sort. It is worth noting that one finds among these constructions both evaluatively positive (e-pos) and evaluatively negative (e-neg) predicates (cf. Horn 1989:353-355). That is, while it would be a good thing to be great shakes or to set the Thames on fire, it clearly is not so desirable to have been born yesterday, to think small beer of oneself or to have lost any skin off ones nose at least not within the commonsense logic of these idioms. On the other hand, while both e-pos and e-neg predicates can be conventionalized as NPI understaters, they may not be equally likely to do so. And it appears that the e-positive NPIs here are the ones in which the understating implicature is most strongly felt and most likely to be conventionalized. Thus, while the inference from not the brightest bulb to really quite stupid seems really quite strong, the inference from not born yesterday to really quite savvy seems a bit more tenuous. While the former is reliably insulting, the latter seems merely less than complimentary. Consider the expression an X to be trifled with. The American Heritage Dictionary defines the verb to trifle as to deal with something as if it were of little significance or value. But normally, someone who is not to be trifled with is the sort of person one should in fact take very seriously. This construction is relatively uncommon, but highly consistent in its usage. The word trifled occurs nine times in the BNC, all nine times in this construction that is, as a negated passive infinitive followed by with. There are no instances of trifled as a past tense verb, or of trifles as present tense. The examples in (13) are typical. (13) a. Well, Croydon and Cooper, you shall see me face to face soon enough and then you will know that Emily Grenfell is not a woman to be trifled with. b. Perhaps the most effective shock tactic is to create the impression that you are a lethal killer yourself, and not to be trifled with. c. Reality is not to be trifled with and sliced up in this way. In all these uses the construction as a whole seems to emphasize the extent to which something should in fact be taken very seriously: An apparent denial of insignificance effectively conveys an emphatic expression of significance. It seems, in fact, that the form is consistently, and perhaps exclusively, used to express threats or warnings. This is apparent even where, as in (14), the construction is used light-heartedly. (14) The synthesised female voice that responds to your commands and verifies that it has heard them correctly is amiable enough, though clearly not to be trifled with. While a disembodied female voice might not pose much of a threat, the suggestion here is clearly that it commands respect nonetheless.
The nature of R-based inferencing makes the conventionalization of understatement inherently self-defeating: As soon as everyone knows that a given expression regularly means more than it says, it will already be saying more than it used to. Understating constructions are thus subject to the somewhat paradoxical constraint that they can only count as understating so long as their (conventional!) emphatic content is construed as indirect and their original, attenuating meanings remain intact. For example, if the expression great shakes did not suggest a desirable quality, its disparaging use under negation would not be felt as an understatement. What seems to be going on in these cases is a variety of short-circuited implicature, in which the use of particular forms comes to be associated with specific sorts of implicature (cf. Morgan 1978; Horn and Bayer 1984). The process is depicted in Figure 4.
Figure 4. Short-Circuited Understatement Here attention flows past what is said, S, directly to what is implicated, I. The focused content, u, remains implicature-like in that it is calculable from some literal meaning, but that meaning itself, t, is reduced to a background proposition. The meaning of a construction which triggers such short-circuiting, however, cannot be reduced to either proposition t or u; equally important is the way these propositions are accessed in a complex configuration of mental spaces. The meaning is the configuration. The association of such complex configurations with individual constructions may set the stage for still further levels of complexity. Consider, for example, the predicative use of big deal as an understating NPI. Of the 146 instances of this phrase in the BNC, about 70 percent occur under negation, as in (15). (15) a. Hed been thieving again, of course, but it was no big deal really. b. My parents or family had never made a big deal about my body or development. c. Naively he regarded it as no big deal and at times he became quite testy at the attention it commanded.
Like many NPIs (Linebarger 1980), big deal can be licensed indirectly, by implicature.2 Thus in (16) the expression is used ironically to mean the contrary of what it literally says. Such uses are common in colloquial exclamations, and are well-represented within the BNC. (16) a. Big deal! cried Pickerage, regaining something of his usual Senate pageboy look. b. Shanti smiled pleasantly at her and seemed happy with this comment, but after the speaker had gone she said to me, Big deal! c. Big deal: My Career. In Figure 5, the expressed proposition, t (that something is a serious matter), triggers a complex implicature, ~t & u (that it is not serious and is trivial). The NPI big deal is thus licensed by a negative implicature which is itself a sort of understatement, since the implicit contradictory proposition (~t) is evoked to convey the stronger contrary proposition (u).
Figure 5. Ironic Implicature In fact, not even irony is required to license an NPI like big deal; a bit of epistemic distance or indirectness can sometimes suffice. The examples below feature big deal embedded under the intentional verbs think and feel, with the evidential qualifier seem, and in (17d), with just a hint of a viewpoint other than the speakers. In all these examples the implicature seems to be that while some may consider it a big deal, the speaker does not necessarily share this view. (17) a. Thats because parents in Sylhet seem to think it is a big deal, a real status symbol to get a Biliti Bor (a bridegroom from England).
2. Note that what ultimately licenses the construction is its construal as part of an attenuated proposition one which is unilaterally entailed by a salient background proposition. The implicature licenses the NPI only in that it generates the relevant attenuated proposition in a mental space configuration.
b. The extent to which they are felt to be a big deal for the pupils will mirror the extent to which they are felt to be a big deal by their teachers. c. It always seemed like a pretty big deal to me, he said. d. Its a generational thing, a big deal. Figure 6 illustrates the basic schema for this sort of indirect licensing, in which an expressed proposition in an embedded mental space, T, triggers an appropriate negative implicature in the parent space, S. S here represents, roughly, the speakers viewpoint, while T represents some other viewpoint from which the speaker dissociates herself. The flow of attention thus goes from C to S to T and, finally, back to S again for the implicature.
Figure 6. Polarity Licensing by Negative Implicature All three of these uses in denial, in irony, and in indirect assertions involve similar configurations and support similar sorts of implicature. In all of them what is conveyed, whether or not it is said, is that something is both not a big deal (~t) and is really rather trivial (u). What seems to be essential here is thus a sort of built-in indirection. It is not just the implicature which has become conventional here; it is, more precisely, the path to the implicature through a particular mental space configuration.
5. R-implicature in childrens narratives

There has recently been a flurry of research on how young children understand (Qbased) scalar implicatures, and the basic finding is apparently not all that well. It seems that children are often insensitive to pragmatic infelicities which arise when a speaker says conspicuously less than she easily and truthfully could. The finding goes back to Smith (1980), who reported that children often treat some as being compatible with all, answering yes to questions like do some elephants have trunks? even when they clearly understand that all elephants have trunks. The phenomenon has now been replicated for a variety of constructions in English, French,
and Greek. Noveck (2001), for example, finds seven- to nine-year-old children are more likely than adults to accept a weak modal like might or a weak quantifier like some (actually, French certains) where their stronger counterparts must or all would have been equally truthful and more informative. Similarly, Gualmini et al. (2001) report that preschool children, unlike adults, will often accept sentences like every astronaut took a banana or an apple in contexts where it is evident that every astronaut in fact took both a banana and an apple. Finally, Papafragou and Musolino (2003) report that Greek-speaking five-year-olds, unlike adults, tend not to compute scalar implicatures from the use of words for some (meriki), start (arxizo) and begin (ksekino) (i.e. they accept sentences like Daisy started to paint the star in contexts where Daisy has in fact finished painting it). On the other hand, these researchers also found that children did usually (though not as frequently as adults) compute scalar implicatures for the quantifier half (miso), largely rejecting sentences like Daisy painted half the star in contexts where she has painted the whole thing. Children, it seems, tend not to mind, or simply not to notice, when speakers are less than fully informative. There are several reasons why this might be. Gualmini et al. (2001) report that when children are given an explicit choice between two sentences, one with and and one with or, they do choose the stronger version as the better way to describe the stronger situation. They conclude that children do understand the relative strength of statements with and and or, but have trouble constructing the relevant scales on-line, and so fail to calculate the upper-bounding implicature associated with exclusive or. On the other hand, Papafragou and Musolino (2003) show that children are also significantly more likely to recognize scalar implicatures when it is made clear to them (either by aspects of the context or by training) that their task is to detect pragmatic infelicity rather than simply to judge the truth of a statement. They conclude that childrens ability to derive scalar implicatures is affected by their awareness of the goal of the task (2003:254): Children might not notice scalar implicatures simply because, for whatever reason, they do not perceive them as relevant. While both of these conclusions are probably warranted, there is, I think, another reason why children might fail to calculate upper-bounding, Q-implicatures from the unmarked assertion of weak scalar expressions: because children generally may prefer to use such expressions to convey the opposite, lower-bounding R-implicatures. Not that children younger than 4 are really capable of understatement per se, but they are often happy to use language which is less than fully explicit, and to rely on their audience to figure out what they mean. Consider, for example, the ways Abe uses the weak scalar terms something and start in the following story. (18) Abes Story, age 2;11; 10 (from the CHILDES Database, MacWhinney 1995) *ABE: this is a daddy bear. *MOT: thats a daddy bear now? *ABE: yeah and [/] and the mother bear said lets get a baby bear []. *MOT: oh.
*ABE: *MOT: *ABE: *MOT: *ABE: *MOT: *ABE: *MOT: *ABE: *MOT: *ABE: *MOT: *ABE: *MOT: *ABE: *ABE: *MOT: *ABE: *MOT: *ABE: *MOT: *ABE:
and they started looking pretty soon they started [//] they saw something. what did they see? a river and pretty soon something crawled out # uh [//] pretty soon something started coming out the river. and what was that something? a whale. a whale came out of the river? and it was big it had a big tail and the whale said to the bears # Im a nice whale we didnt have xxx river []. oh was the bear real friendly too? yeah and # and they doed@n something # uh # they started cooking something. what were they cooking? a snake. a snake? yeah. did the whale like it too? yeah the whale said its pretty good, lets eat [] and then they cut it up it was a long snake. um # a mother bear # uh # pretty soon [//] and pretty soon another something started coming out the river. what was the other something? a walrus and he was friendly and then pretty soon something started coming out the river again. what was the other something? uh # uh # a bear goed@n in the river # then coming out. oh a bear went in and a bear came out. yeah and he was hungry.
Abe uses the weak indefinite something here to introduce new referents, without in any way suggesting that he doesnt know more specifically what the referent is. And he uses start to refer to processes both activities (looking for) and accomplishments (come out, cook), which are clearly understood as continuing to completion. As the examples below suggest, such uses appear to be the norm for Abe at this age. (19) Abes Use of start in Narrative 2;11.30 you know when I sleeped Rufus started to barked too loud and then I waked up . 3;0.16 when you and Mommy start to go to sleep # you come to my bedroom where Im sleeping and then go to sleep. 3;0.25 a long time ago I saw # I heard # I said Mom # look at # look at our cactus [] and her did and then it started to die yeah.
3;2.1 3;3.18
when we started to go to Ninny@f and Bumpas@f house in the car [#] we went someplace that had a lot of flags . and so the dinosaur got some meat [=! makes chewing sounds] thats how he chewed and [/] and he started chewing that and chewing and chewing and he got so hungry [#] he started jumping up and down up and down up and down up and down up and down .
There are, of course, good rhetorical reasons why Abe, or any storyteller, might want to introduce elements into a narrative a little at a time. The pleasure of a story is, after all, not so much in knowing what happens, as in the process of imaginatively experiencing its happening. The use of relatively uninformative expressions allows a narrative to build incrementally, and thereby to draw out the pleasure of its telling. And usefully enough, it also affords the storyteller time to make up specifics as he goes along. Whether or not Abe can be credited with any deliberate rhetorical motives for his usage, its effectiveness depends on an assumption that hearers will sometimes not draw an upper-bounding scalar inference from the use of a weak scalar term. This suggests that one reason children might have difficulty recognizing scalar implicatures, as the experimental literature suggests that they do, is that the lower-bounding principle that one should say as much as one can is not one that they use. For children, at least, saying less and meaning more is actually easier than just saying what one means.
6. One more word

There is more to meaning than informativity. There are also things like rhythm, flow, and intersubjective affect. It often works to the advantage of a speaker not to commit herself to saying too much. And at the very least it allows a way of punctuating our moments of emphasis and exhilaration. Emphasis and attenuation are figures of meaning, built on an elementary scalar logic yet ultimately serving a host of affective and interpersonal purposes. The logic here may be subservient to rhetoric, but the rhetoric is no less logical for all that. The real question is not whether (logical) semantics and (rhetorical) pragmatics should be distinguished, but how they actually fit together. The phenomenon of meaning construction is big enough to accommodate both.
References
Baker, C.L. 1970. Double negatives. Linguistic Inquiry 1:169186. Bolinger, D. 1972. Degree Words. The Hague: Mouton. Brown, P. and S. Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Saying less and meaning less 155 Caffi, C. 1999. On mitigation. Journal of Pragmatics 31:881909. Chierchia, G. 2004. Scalar implicatures, polarity phenomena, and the syntax/pragmatics interface. In A. Belleti, ed., Structures and Beyond. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 39103. Croft, W. 2000. Explaining Language Change: An Evolutionary Approach. Harlow, Essex: Longman. Fauconnier, G. 1975. Polarity and the scale principle. CLS 11. 188199. Fauconnier, G. 1997. Mappings in Language and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fillmore, C.J. 1982. Frame semantics. In Linguistics Society of Korea, ed., Linguistics in the Morning Calm. Seoul: Hanshin. 111138. Fillmore, C.J., P. Kay, and M.C. OConnor. 1988. Regularity and idiomaticity in grammatical constructions: The case of let alone. Language 64:501538. Grice, H.P. 1989. Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press. Gualmini, A., S. Crain, L. Meroni, G. Chierchia, and M.T. Guasti. 2001. At the semantics/pragmatics interface in child language. Semantics and Linguistic Theory 11. 231-247. Haiman, J. 1998. Talk is Cheap: Sarcasm, Alienation, and the Evolution of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Horn, L.R. 1972. On the Semantic Properties of Logical Operators in English. UCLA Ph.D. dissertation. Horn, L.R. 1984. Toward a new taxonomy for pragmatic inference: Q-based and R-based implicature. In D. Schiffrin, ed., Meaning, Form, and Use in Context: Linguistic Applications (GURT 84). Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. 11-42. Horn, L.R. 1989. A Natural History of Negation. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press. Horn, L.R. 2004. The border wars: a neo-Gricean perspective. Ms. Horn, L.R. and S. Bayer. 1984. Short-circuited implicature: A negative contribution. Linguistics and Philosophy 7:397414. Huebler, A. 1983. Understatements and Hedges in English. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Israel, M. 1996. Polarity sensitivity as lexical semantics. Linguistics and Philosophy 19:619666. Israel, M. 1998. The Rhetoric of Grammar: Scalar Reasoning and Polarity Sensitivity. University of California San Diego Ph.D. dissertation. Israel, M. 1999. Some and the pragmatics of indefinite construal. BLS 25. 169182. Israel, M. 2001. Minimizers, maximizers, and the rhetoric of scalar reasoning. Journal of Semantics 18:297331. Israel, M. To appear. Polarity and Scalar Reasoning: The Pragmatic Basis of Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jackson, E. 1994. Negative Polarity, Definites under Quantification and General Statements. Stanford University Ph.D. dissertation. Kadmon, N. and F. Landman. 1993. Any. Linguistics and Philosophy 16:353422. Kay, P. 1997. Words and the Grammar of Context. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications. Krifka, M. 1995. The semantics and pragmatics of polarity items. Linguistic Analysis 25:209 257. Lahiri, U. 1998. Focus and negative polarity in Hindi. Journal of Semantics 6:57125. Lakoff, R. 1973. The logic of politeness: Or, minding your ps and qs. CLS 9. 149162. Langacker, R.W. 1987. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, Volume I: Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
156 Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning Levinson, S.C. 1987. Minimization and conversational inference. In J. Verschueren and M. Bertuccelli-Papi, eds., The Pragmatic Perspective. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 60129. Levinson, S.C. 2000. Presumptive Meanings: The Theory of Generalized Conversational Implicature. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Linebarger, M. 1980. The Grammar of Negative Polarity. MIT Ph.D. dissertation. MacWhinney, B. 1995. The CHILDES Project: Tools for Analyzing Talk. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Morgan, J.L. 1978. Two types of convention in indirect speech acts. In P. Cole, ed., Syntax and Semantics, Volume 9: Pragmatics. New York: Academic Press. 261280. Noveck, I. 2001. When children are more logical than adults: Experimental investigations of scalar implicature. Cognition 78:165188. Papafragou, A. and J. Musolino. 2003. Scalar implicatures: Experiments at the semantics-pragmatics interface. Cognition 86:253282. Smith, C.L. 1980. Quantifiers and question answering in young children. Journal of Experimental Psychology 30:191205. Spitzbardt, H. 1963. Overstatement and understatement in British and American English. Philologica Pragensia 5:277286. Ward, G. 1983. A pragmatic analysis of epitomization: Topicalization its not. Papers in Linguistics 17:145161. van der Wouden, T. 1997. Negative Contexts: Collocation, polarity and multiple negation. London/New York: Routledge. van Rooy, R. 2003. Negative polarity items in questions: Strength as relevance. Journal of Semantics 20:239273. von Bergen, A. and K. von Bergen. 1993. Negative Polaritt im Englischen. Tbingen: Narr. Zepter, A. 2003. How to be universal when you are existential: Negative polarity items in the comparative: Entailment along a scale. Journal of Semantics 20:193237.
I cant seem to figure this out

Pauline Jacobson
Brown University
This paper is a study of the cant seem to construction (as in I (just) cant seem to figure this out). The challenge posed by this construction is that the semantic scope of can, not, and seem appears to be the opposite of their surface scope: The above can be paraphrased as I seem to be unable to figure this out (thus surface can-not-seem corresponds to semantic seem-not-can). The fact that not has semantic scope over can in this construction is a general (well-known) fact about cant, but the puzzle remains: Why is it that in this construction, can and seem appear to reverse scope? Langendoen (1970) argued for a syntactic scope reversal rule, allowing semantic seem > unable to surface as unable (cant) seem. Another solution treats can seem as a single idiom, and a Negative Polarity item. This paper argues against both the scope reversal analysis and the idiom analysis and proposes, instead, that the construction does have a purely compositional interpretation. The key to the compositional analysis is that can here is not the can meaning able, but rather a quantifier over occasions. Seem moreover is not the same as the homophonous verb in the seem to X construction, but is rather just an assertional hedge. Given this, it turns out that scope reversal is an illusion, and the construction yields to a compositional analysis.
Langendoen (1970) offers a detailed analysis of the construction exemplified in (1): (1) I cant seem to get any work done on the bus. The intrigue provided by this construction is that the syntactic and semantic scopes seem reversed: Where we have can (be able) not seem on the surface, the semantic scope appears to be seem not can (be able). Thus (1) is roughly paraphrasable as (2): (2) It seems that I am not able to get any work done on the bus. Note too that this phenomenon appears (at least at first glance) to be restricted to sentences with negation; (3a) not only has no scope reversal reading but seems just plain
bad, while (3b) is at best marginal (we will, in fact, return to this later, so a reader who finds (3b) acceptable should just pretend for now that it isnt): (3) a. *I can seem to figure this out. b. ?*I can seem to get work done on the bus. (Here and throughout I will use the * notation to mean simply that something sounds odd or unacceptable without any prior commitment as to whether or not these are technically ungrammatical or just unacceptable for other reasons; indeed the goal will be to determine why the oddness obtains.) Langendoens solution is to posit a rule raising unable (or, rather, some more abstract combination of items meaning not + able) from an infinitive complement of seem to the matrix. (Since this occurs with infinitives, it also goes hand-in-hand with the fact that this is also an ordinary Raising construction.) My goal in this paper is to explore exactly the opposite and perhaps seemingly perverse strategy: to see if we can pick apart the meanings here in such a way as to give the unlikely result that the surface syntax actually respects the semantic composition. This should be seen as a work in progress; the paper is more of a sketch of a direction to pursue than a complete analysis, but it is one that I hope has at least some initial plausibility. There are at least three conceivable ways to think of this phenomenon. The first is something along the lines of the strategy pursued in Langendoen: The meanings are put together compositionally, but there is a level of representation distinct from surface structure that inputs the compositional semantics. (For Langendoen (1970) this was, of course, deep structure, which was then transformationally mapped to the surface structure. The more current received wisdom concerning a level of LF where this is derived from surface structure would undoubtedly recast Langendoens solution and opt instead for a rule which raises seem over neg- able, but these details are irrelevant here.) The second strategy would be to treat the construction as an idiom: Cant seem is just listed as a unit, with a meaning given to the entire phrase. The third strategy is the one I will explore here: to try to assign meanings to the pieces in such a way that the surface scope is the semantic scope. The reader may well have noticed an obvious point: We are dealing with three items and not two, so it is perfectly possible that there is a mix and match of these approaches. For example, we might be tempted to treat can seem as a single idiom which is a Negative Polarity Item (hereafter, an NPI). If this is the case, our hope would be that it like other NPIs has a meaning which makes sense only under the scope of a downward entailing item. This then would give a compositional treatment to the combination of neg and can seem while treating the latter non-compositionally. Or, it could be that neg takes its obvious surface scope and that the apparent scope reversal leaves neg out of the picture but is instead accomplished by a rule which reverses the scopes of can (able) and seem where this rule is mysteriously restricted to apply only when these are under the scope of negation.
I cant seem to figure this out 159
Before continuing, let me point out that the relationship between (1) and (2) is not quite the same as the more general Neg Raising property of seem at least not under the assumption that can in (1) means be able. By the neg raising property of seem, I mean the fact that (4) appears to have one reading paraphrasable as (5): (4) John didnt seem to have finished his paper on time. (5) John seems to have not finished his paper on time. In (1) the problem is not simply that there seems to be one paraphrase in which can and nt scope below seem but also that if we assume that can here means be able, (1) seems not to have any meaning consistent with the surface scopes. This can be demonstrated in part by the oddity of the attempted paraphrase in (6): (6) ?*I am unable to seem to get any work done on the bus. Seem is not very happy embedded under able, presumably because the property of seeming to get work done on the bus is not something that falls within ones ability (although we will revisit (6) in sec. 4). Of course under the traditional movement account of (subject) raising and the traditional account of control this is a somewhat misleading way to put it, but the end result will be the same, as the reader can verify. As to the Neg Raising property of seem, I will assume that the suggestion discussed in detail in Horn 1978 (but ultimately rejected by him in that paper) is correct: Neg Raising is an illusion. Example (4) means just what the surface scopes say it means, but it implicates the stronger reading in (5) for reasons spelled out by Horn. But at first glance, the Neg Raising analogy does not apply (again, under the assumption that can here means be able) because the apparent literal surface scope meaning of (1) either isnt there at all, or its so nonsensical that it does not pop out. The reader may have guessed from my numerous caveats (e.g., under the assumption that can means be able) that I will actually be arguing that can does not mean be able and in the end the Neg Raising analogy is not so far off, but it will take some work to get to that point. The organization of this paper, then, is as follows. In sec. 1 I consider and discard the hypothesis that the entire construction is an idiom. The next logical possibility is to treat can seem as an idiom which is a Negative Polarity Item. Sec. 2 provides some evidence both against this, and for the claim that indeed that seem has (semantic) scope under can. To understand why we have the illusion of the scope reversal (under negation), we need to figure out the meaning of each part. Hence sec. 3 turns to the meaning of can and sec. 4 to the meaning of seem. I argue that the item can which occurs in this construction does not actually have an ability meaning, but always involves existential quantification over situations (in this world). And seem (as opposed to seem to X) does not introduce a set of belief worlds; it is essentially indexical (indexed to this world) and is just an assertional hedge. If this is all correct, there is simply no scope interaction between the two. The illusion of scope reversal turns out to be an artefact of what sorts of rough paraphrases are available. Again, though, I should warn the reader
at the outset that at this point I do not have a serious formalization of the proposal and its ultimate plausibility will have to await a full formalization.
1.
Neg
That the peculiar scope-reversal behavior does not attach solely to the surface string cant seem is shown already in Langendoen 1970: We find the can-seem (apparent) scope reversal under the scope of negation in general. Thus note first that the meaning of cant as discussed in detail in Horn 1972 is (informally) not can and this has nothing to do with its appearance in this construction. Let me state this a bit more precisely. If we assume that can here involves some sort of existential quantification over worlds, situations, or whatever, then cant has a meaning in which not scopes over whatever the meaning of can is. So already we see that the scope reversal property of neg and can is unsurprising. Moreover, as Langendoen shows in detail, the apparent scope reversal of can and seem shows up under a wide variety of negative operators: (7) John can never seem to speak in full sentences. (8) No one could seem to figure out what to do next. Indeed, a Google search for no one can seem revealed 4,050 hits.1 We find this in other downward entailing contexts as well: (9) Few can seem to fathom how he could be so popular. (10) Only John can seem to stomach watching reruns of the 6th game of the 1986 Series. (11) Every year, only a few students can really seem to understand the difference between a representation and a model-theoretic object. Interestingly, Langendoen notes that even if the negation is in object position we can get the apparent can-seem scope reversal: (12) The district attorney could seem to find no strong evidence on which to base a case.
1. Google enthusiasts might find it interesting that a search for cant seem revealed 781,000 hits. The first three for a search done on Oct. 14, 2004 were: Americans cant seem to get enough cheese. Palates moving beyond cheddar and other basics from www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/2814435, Why Kerry cant seem to get a bounce (many similar entries) from www.csmontior.com/2004/0513/p01s01-uspo.html, and Pentagon cant seem to kill idea of military draft from www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-06-01-military-draft_x.htm.
Note that the fact that neg can have wide scope (over can) here is independent of the presence of seem: (13) The DA could find no strong evidence on which to base a case. Of course there are interesting open questions about how to get wide scope objects here (especially since the objects are intensional), but these need not concern us here. We might, then, be tempted to think of can seem as a unit, and one which is an NPI (see, e.g., John Lawlers web posting at http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jlawler/aue/ npi.html). It does, to be sure, have some differences with run-of-the-mill NPIs such as ever. One is that it does not happily occur in the full set of downward entailing environments; the following seem questionable at best: (14) ?* Everyone who can/could seem to fix my closet is already busy with other jobs. (15) ?* If Joe can seem to fix my closet, Ill hire him. Second, other kinds of NPIs are generally not allowed within a VP even when the object takes wide scope: (16) *Larry could ever find no kind of eel that he didnt like. (17) *I could ever manage to cook no food hot enough for Larry. But this in itself should not lead us to entirely reject the notion that can seem is an NPI for it is well-known that the class of NPIs is not uniform in any case. But this very fact should make us leery of calling can seem an idiom which is an NPI and ending this paper here. Aside from the fact that this would not make a terribly interesting contribution to the festschrift, it is clear that NPI is not some sort of primitive category in grammatical theory; it is a notion that, presumably, the grammar itself knows nothing about. It is just a shorthand for an item whose meaning and/or form is such that it has a particular distribution and so we would still want to know what can seem means. In other words, the question of whether or not this is an NPI is really a non-question; but the question of whether or not can seem is an idiom (whose meaning thus is not compositionally determined) remains to be answered. In any case, though, the facts in (7)-(12) mean that we can take neg out of the picture in terms of scope reversals. We are on safe ground to assign its semantic scope above seem, where the fact that it appears to have scope under seem can be attributed to the more general Neg Raising phenomenon. So now the puzzle reduces to the following: There is an apparent scope reversal of can and seem which takes place only under negation. This leaves us with three possibilities. (1) The one discussed above: Can seem is an idiom which has a meaning (and/or form) that makes sense only under the scope of negation. (2) The meanings here are put together compositionally but (a modification of Langendoens proposal) there is a rule reversing the scopes of can and seem (and which applies only under the scope of negation). (3) Can and seem both
have meanings that interact with the meaning of negation in such a way that we have an illusion of a scope reversal. To pursue the third hypothesis as I will do here might seem like a desperate attempt on the part of a diehard surface compositionalist to torture the meanings into something that will work. Perhaps but I think that it is worth pointing out that the second strategy is, arguably, equally tortured. The phenomenon is not general; there is no evidence for this kind of scope reversal with other modals and seem. And whether conceived of as a rule raising can over seem on the way from deep structure to LF or as a rule raising seem over can in the derivation of surface structure to LF it is odd to find a rule like this applying only under the scope of negation.2
2. Interlude: Interaction with VP Ellipsis

We now turn to some evidence against both the idiom account and the scope reversal account. First, a digression about VP Ellipsis in general is in order. Consider a run-ofthe-mill VP Ellipsis case such as: (18) John can run. Bill can too. Most proposals regarding (18) fall into one of three categories. One claims that the missing complement of can is understood as being a property which is salient in the discourse context; arguably, this likes to be made salient by being the meaning of some other overt expression, but it doesnt absolutely have to be. (See, among many others, Dalrymple, Shieber and Perriera 1991, Hardt 1993.) A second view is that the missing complement is understood as being a property which must be the meaning of some other linguistically overt expression. This view can but need not be implemented under a deletion account (see, e.g., Merchant 2001). But the question of whether there is linguistically present material in the syntax is not relevant here. The essential point is that these accounts require identity of meaning, not form. The third account (see, e.g., Sag 1976, Williams 1977) requires formal identity. (Sag and Williams, for example, require formal identity of LF representations.) Space precludes a discussion of these issues here, so I will assume without argument (along with most current researchers) that the third account is incorrect. In other words, I am assuming that either: (a) what
2. Of course Langendoens analysis avoids this objection by simultaneously raising can and not. This necessitates a view (as taken in, for example, Klima 1964) according to which the neg in sentences like (7)-(12) is later incorporated into other items. This does make an intriguing prediction: The apparent scope reversal will not appear in the full set of downward entailing contexts but only in those which can plausibly be analyzed as involving neg-incorporation. At first glance this prediction looks surprisingly accurate: The lack of apparent scope reversal in (14)-(15) would follow from the fact that these have no plausible neg-incorporation analysis. However, neither does only (as in (10) and (11)), which somewhat lessens the seductiveness of this analysis.
is supplied as complement of can is a meaning a model-theoretic object with no actual linguistic representation, or that (b) something is deleted under some conditions about its meaning being present somewhere else. But either way, the understood or silent complement of can has to be a coherent model-theoretic object a meaning. Consider now the following: (19) Ben just cant seem to get to a nine oclock class on time, and neither can Lance. This is perfect and yet VP Ellipsis appears to split up can and seem. As long we assume that the missing complement of can in (19) must be a model-theoretic object (or a linguistic expression which has a model-theoretic interpretation), we are led to the conclusion that seem to get to a nine oclock class on time has a meaning (since it is this meaning which occurs as the complement of can). Note, then, that we cannot analyze can seem as a non-compositional idiom. Moreover, the compositional semantics cant be put together by reversing the scopes. I should forestall one obvious challenge to the reasoning given above. Are we really sure that the missing meaning is understood as seem to get to a nine oclock class on time and not just get to a nine oclock class on time? After all, since our whole task is to determine whether the former expression even has an isolable meaning and, if it does, what it is, isnt the reasoning circular here? Can we dismiss the possibility that the supplied meaning is just the meaning of get to a nine oclock class on time? While it is difficult to find completely decisive evidence against this, I think there is reason to doubt it. In the first place, this doesnt seem to give quite the right truth conditions for (19); here the natural understanding is that the second conjunct makes a weaker statement than a statement to the effect that Lance cant get to a nine oclock class on time. Second, if the meaning were get to a nine oclock class, then what would the neither be doing there? Neither S is appropriate only when there is some alternative to [[S]] which is also not true; here we would require that the alternative be Ben cant get to a nine oclock class on time. But this is neither said nor entailed by the first sentence. Notice that (20a) is therefore perhaps mildly acceptable, but it clearly requires some accommodation (unlike (20b)) : (20) a. ??Ben cant seem to get to a nine oclock class on time, and neither can Lance get to a nine oclock class on time. b. Ben cant seem to get to a nine oclock class on time, and neither can Lance seem to get to a nine oclock class on time. But (19) is seamless.
3. Can
Assume for now that can in ordinary (i.e., non-seem) sentences is ambiguous: that it means able in (21a) (and hence, can be seen as a control auxiliary) and something else in (21b) (and so is a raising auxiliary). While this might ultimately be incorrect, it will be a harmless assumption at this point as it will not affect the immediate discussion of can seem: (21) a. John can run a mile in three minutes. b. There can be snow on Columbus Day weekend (so pack accordingly). But, does can in (22) and (23) really mean be able? (22) I cant seem to get any work done on the bus. (23) I cant seem to figure this out. To address this, let us look a bit more closely at the full distribution of can seem. First we find that can seem does indeed appear without a negative and generally these cases clearly have nothing to do with ability. A few examples are given in (24)-(26); note that these are especially happy with an overt adverb of quantification (often, sometimes): (24) There can (often) seem to be quite a crowd at Fenway. (25) It can (sometimes) seem to be quite difficult to do the homework, but keep at it. (26) Math can (sometimes) seem to be quite daunting. I think it is fairly clear that in these cases can involves existential quantification over relevant situations (or, occasions) in some very broad sense; the occasion use of can is discussed in, e.g., Carlson (1977). I will use the term situation here very informally, and will not try to make this precise but in the cases of relevance to the seem construction these always seem to involve pieces of the actual world (including possible future events) rather than other possible worlds. Note that the situations in, e.g., (24) are individuated by actual events while in (26), for example, they are individuated by experiencers. (Thus we can very loosely paraphrase (26) as: There are situations/ occasions s containing an experiencer x such that it seems to x in s that math is daunting to x.) The key point is that the set of relevant situations in the domain of quantification is restricted by purely pragmatic principles (cf. Kratzer 1981). Once we notice these cases, we can revisit the earlier discussion surrounding the examples in (3). The claim that these are bad seems to be a bit premature. Example (3b), for example, improves with some work, and it is especially easy to get a similar case with an overt adverb of quantification: (27) I can often seem to get a lot of work done on the commuter rail. And even (3a) can be tweaked into goodness:
(28) ?John can often seem to figure out even the hardest of problems. If there is one such meaning for can, we would expect to see it emerge in sentences with negation as well as in cases like the above where there is no negation. And indeed it does; the following do not induce an ability reading for can, but rather the reading which I will rather loosely refer to as the situation quantification reading: (29) There can never be enough encouragement or prayer. [www.gloryandgrace.org/welcome.html] (30) Barbara can never seem to be at home when you call. Note that in (30) the subject is a possible agent but this sentence makes a claim not about Barbaras abilities but rather about occasions. This of course is because ability requires as its complement something (roughly) within the conscious control of the subject, and hence (31) is distinctly odd: (31) ?*Barbara is unable to ever be at home when you call The obvious temptation is to draw the conclusion that can is simply ambiguous. While this might be the case when it does not occur with seem, what is at issue here is whether in the seem sentences discussed so far we are simply dealing with two different items can. We could then dismiss as irrelevant those cases where can involves quantification over situations. We would then still conclude that the item can which means able undergoes a scope reversal with seem when it is under negation. But aside from the unpleasantness of restricting scope reversal to applying only under negation, the problem with this conclusion is that there are cases where an ambiguity should be present, but isnt. Suppose that there are two items can, both of which occur with seem as a complement. Of course there is no mystery as to why no ability reading emerges in cases like (29) and (30). But why is there no non-ability reading for, e.g., (1)? Or, take (32): (32) a. Huskies can seem to be obedient (but dont be deceived). b. Mitka can seem to be obedient. In (a) the most natural domain of quantification is situations which are individuated by huskies (hence we understand this as some huskies seem to be obedient). This is not necessary; we can also understand this as claiming that there are occasions on which your generic husky can fool you into believing s/he is obedient. The natural reading for (b) is the one akin to the latter. For either sentence, then, there is no logical reason why we cant get this understanding under negation. But we dont: (33) a. Huskies cant seem to be obedient. b. Mitka cant seem to be obedient. It is difficult to read this as just a negation of (32). It seems impossible to understand (32b), for example, as making a claim that there are no occasions in which one might
(perhaps mistakenly) conclude that Mitka is obedient. Rather the cant seem scope reversal reading seems to emerge: It seems that it is inconsistent with the abilities of Mitka for Mitka to be obedient. Notice that as long as the ability understanding is impossible for other reasons, we have no problem getting the occasion reading (as in (30)). But as long as the complement of seem expresses a property consistent with a statement about ability and as long as there is a negation, then we only get the ability and hence also apparent scope reversal reading. (The situation with never can seem is more complex, and I will return to this below.) This fact suggests that there is no real ambiguity. Assume that what we are calling here the ability reading is simply a result of a particular way to restrict the domain of quantification. As a first pass, say that these are restricted to situations whose outcomes are within the conscious control of the subject. This may not be precisely right, and since the quantification domain is restricted by pragmatic principles the exact restriction may well vary from case to case. The basic idea, though, is to derive the ability interpretation not from the actual meaning of can but from the way in which the domain of situations is restricted. If we assume that the situations in (33b) are restricted to those under Mitkas conscious control and if there are no such situations, then a reasonable inference to draw is that this is because Mitka is unable to be obedient. (I have skipped a crucial piece in this informal exposition what is seem doing here? If we do wish to put this all together compositionally, then (33b) does not claim that there are no situations compatible with Mitkas conscious control in which he is obedient, but rather no situations in which he seems to be obedient. And figuring out the contribution of seems here is of course exactly the rub. But we return to that in sec. 4.) There is also one further point to note before continuing. The analysis will fail if the meaning of can supplemented by an appropriate domain restriction over situations ends up being defined for the same set of properties (or propositions) as make sense for the complement of able. For we need to make sure that we havent gone back to square one: Example (1) (with cant seem) is good while (6) (with unable) is not. I return to this as well in sec. 4. What is especially striking is that these properties of can emerge independently of the can seem construction. Before showing this, though, I need to remove one potential confound. In a non-negative sentence, there can be both an apparent pure ability reading and an on occasion reading, as in: (34) Huskies/Mitka can be obedient. (Compare this to Huskies/Mitka can seem to be obedient, which lacks the ability reading.) Let us, then, continue with our assumption that can is truly ambiguous; we will refer to the ability reading as can2 and the situation reading as can1. My main goal is to show that all instances of can with seem as its surface complement are can1 and not can2. It may well be that the two should ultimately be reduced to a single item can, but this would not affect the main points of this paper.
The parallel with can seem is thus not perfect, since without a negative we have both possibilities. But with a negative the same facts emerge: There is no apparent straight negation of the occasion reading, and we are led when possible to an ability-like reading: (35) Huskies/Mitka cant be obedient. What does this all tell us? Suppose that we are always dealing with can1 which involves quantification over situations. A plausible story is that one way to restrict the domain of quantification is to those situations (which are actual in this world) whose outcomes are under the conscious control of the subject. And, when that property can plausibly be filled in this way, there is a very strong tendency to do so. Unfortunately, this cannot quite be the end of the story; we need to explain why this does not force an ability-like reading in the non-negative version in (34) while it does force it in the negative counterpart in (35). (Notice that our assumption that can is ambiguous doesnt help nor hinder the point: If there is such an ambiguity, then it just means that there are two different items can in (34). But the mystery remains as to why can1 in (34) does not force us to restrict the domain of quantification to those situations compatible with the subjects abilities, while in (35) it does.) I will leave this as an unsolved problem and will note that until this problem is solved there is a sense in which the analysis is no less stipulative than one which mysteriously restricts scope reversal to applying under negation. Here the (at this point) stipulation is that only under negation is it required that the domain restriction be filled in this way. But I think it is clear that this kind of strategy leaves us with more hope: If the rule is one converting representations to representations, the restriction to negative sentences has no hope of being anything but a stipulation. Here we can hope that a combination of the meaning and pragmatic principles will in the end help us out. This general kind of situation is well-known in other cases. Consider, for example, the pairs in (36) and (37) (these facts are discussed in Rogers 1974): (36) a. John looks like hes been at the brandy again, because hes very drunk/ ?*because the bottle is completely empty. b. It looks like Johns been at the brandy again, because hes drunk/because the bottle is completely empty. (37) a. There looks like theres been a wild party here. b. It looks like theres been a wild party here. However exactly we want to analyze (37), it is clear that looks like S allows for an interpretation which has as a rough paraphrase It looks like S and where the appearance of the truth of the complement has nothing to do with properties of the subject. But this completely neutral interpretation is very difficult to get for (36a) as evidenced by the oddness of the continuation because the bottle is completely empty. (See Dowty 1985 for relevant discussion.) Whenever the appearance of the truth of the complement can
possibly be attributed to some (basically visible) property of the subject, we interpret it that way. Positing two separate items looks like will do us no good; we would still need to explain why the neutral reading is absent or at best very difficult to get in (37a). In fact, barring the potential complication introduced by a straight ability interpretation of sentences like (34), we see that the domain restrictions on the quantification are essentially the same with or without seem. Consider sentences like the following: (38) Math can be daunting. (39) There can never be enough prayer. (40) Barbara can never be at home when you call. The situation restrictions here are the same as for the corresponding can seem sentences. Let us, moreover, look more closely at sentences with negation but with overt adverbs of quantification: (41) John can never (seem to) complete the race. (42) Mitka can never (seem to) be obedient. (43) John can never (seem to) speak in full sentences. Upon closer examination, we are less inclined to think of these as pure statements about ability, and more inclined to see them as statements about the nonexistence of occasions on which (for example) Mitka is obedient. Again the distinction between the two (the ability reading and the quantification-over-occasions reading) is fuzzy, but the claim here is that this is exactly because there is no real ambiguity; it is simply a matter of how we decide to fix the set of situations that are being quantified over. There are some other interesting and subtle facts about negation that emerge in both the seem and the non-seem cases. Compare (44) and (45): (44) It can sometimes be quite cold on Columbus Day weekend (so pack accordingly). (45) It can never be cold on Columbus Day weekend. Example (45) seems to induce a reading that expresses an attitude on the part of the speaker (that being cold on Columbus Day weekend is a good thing). It would be odd for me to utter (46) to a potential houseguest to our home in New Hampshire for Columbus Day weekend: (46) It can never be cold on Columbus Day weekend, so dont worry about bringing warm clothing. The same facts hold with seem: While (47) is a neutral statement about the weather, (48) induces the whining interpretation: (47) It can sometimes seem to be quite cold on Columbus Day weekend. (48) It can never seem to be cold on Columbus Day weekend.
Arguably, then, with the negation we restrict the domain of situations to those compatible with my desires; this restriction is absent in (47). Where do these observations leave us? This still does not tell us for sure that there is no scope reversal. Suppose that we are in all of these cases dealing with the same item can1. But could it then be that there is always scope reversal with can and seem? Perhaps, but once we look at sentences which do not have the ability-like understanding, there is little temptation to posit a scope reversal analysis. Before I elaborate on this point, it should be noted that without a fuller analysis of the meaning of can and especially of the meaning of seem it is difficult to show for sure that scope reversal does not occur here. One can write out logical forms for these, but until we have the meaning for seem nailed down we dont know how to interpret them. And relying on paraphrases can be misleading; indeed, my claim is that a reliance on paraphrase is what misled us in the first place. These caveats said, consider again our math sentence (Math can seem to be daunting). Example (49a) seems to be at least as good a paraphrase of this as (49b): (49) a. It can seem that math is daunting. b. It seems that math can be daunting. Or, to try to get some intuitions about this using logical forms with uninterpreted items in them, consider our Fenway sentence (There can often seem to be a crowd at Fenway). The surface scope reading would be roughly rendered as in (50a) and the scope reversal reading as in (50b): (50) a. There are many situations (occasions) s in which it seems to be true that there is a crowd in Fenway. b. It seems that there are many situations (occasions) s in which there is a crowd in Fenway. If there is any difference, it is difficult to tell what it is; hence there is no temptation to posit scope reversal in these cases. Let us then take stock. The hypothesis is that while there may be a true ability meaning for can (the item we have been calling can2), the can seem sentences all involve can1, whose meaning is just existential quantification over some kind of relevant situations, and where the domain restriction is supplied pragmatically. Since there is no temptation to posit scope reversal in those cases in which the domain restriction is helped by, for example, an overt adverb of quantification, we can hope that there is never scope reversal. It is an illusion, and the hope is that once we understand the meaning of seem we can see why. The tentative hypothesis is that there is no scopal interaction and so the two scope possibilities are equivalent. If this is all correct, the illusion of scope reversal when conscious control restricts the domain of quantification is simply an artefact of the fact that we also have the word able and that we therefore get a reasonably close paraphrase when we construct a sentence with able embedded under seem. But before we investigate what seem might mean, let me lay out the unsolved puzzles in the account above. First, it remains a mystery why not-can so strongly restricts
the domain of quantification (when possible) to the conscious control of the subject even when there is no logical necessity for this. In fact, (44)-(45) shows us that there is a broader generalization: The presence of negation in general leads us to restrict the domain of quantification in some way which is not required when no negative is present. I will not try to speculate on this here, but will only note again that this fact seems to be completely independent of the presence of seem. The second puzzle is more worrisome: We seem to be back to square one in giving an explanation for the apparent negative polarity effect on apparent scope reversal. That is, it remains to be explained why can seem (without a negative) cant be understood with scope reversal, even when it makes perfect sense to restrict the situations to those whose outcomes are under the conscious control of the subject. Put more simply, we are left with the puzzle of the oddness of: (51) *John can seem to figure this out. True, we have seen that we can tweak this into a good sentence if we introduce an overt sometimes (which allows easy access to the reading where the domain is restricted to some more general notion of occasions). But that is of little consolation in view of the basic observation that this doesnt have a reading paraphrasable as (52): (52) It seems that John can/is able to figure this out. Positing the existence of can2 here (an item which cannot embed seem by virtue of its meaning) is of no help, for nothing would keep (53) from having the ability-like reading in virtue of the occurrence of can1 combined with the appropriate domain restriction: (53) John can figure this out. I dont have a solution here but I will note that the actual problem is far more subtle. Indeed we can get apparent scope reversal (i.e., an apparent ability reading) with can seem provided that the complement is not telic. Thus note (54): (54) I can seem to work very well on the commuter rail. (I have given only two contrasting examples here, but the reader can construct others to convince themselves that telicity does seem to be the operative parameter.) The mystery, then, is why can + a telic complement cannot be understood with the domain being restricted to those situations whose outcomes are within the conscious control of the complement. But can + a non-telic complement can, and negcan in general also allows this.
4. Seem
Let us now consider the meaning of seem. It is common folklore that seem without an overt experiencer argument (seem to X) has the same basic meaning as seem with an
overt experiencer, and that the missing to X is understood either in the way that unspecified arguments are understood in general or as to me. I think that seem without an overt experiencer argument can indeed have an understood unspecified experiencer; this emerges in cases like (55): (55) Math sometimes seems to be daunting. But there is also a bare seem in which there is no clearly understood experiencer. In such cases, the common wisdom is that the missing argument is understood as to me, but I will dispute that here. Thus, note that there is a clear difference between (56) and (57): (56) Ite seems to be smart. (57) Ite seems to me to be smart. The difference is hard to pin down, but at the very least (56) is a stronger statement. Arguably (57) means something roughly like In all worlds consistent with my beliefs, Ite is smart. But (56) appears to be little more than a hedged assertion: For all I know and conclude on the basis of evidence from this world, Ite is smart. Example (57) allows for a greater possibility that I am wrong (just as belief sentences do). Or, we can take the pair in (58): (58) a. It seems to me to be cold outside. b. It seems to be cold outside. Example (58a) can be taken as a statement about my personal threshold for declaring something cold, whereas (58b) lacks this understanding. Note too that with stressed SEEM, the weaker reading emerges again (where seem means in the worlds consistent with my beliefs): (59) Ite SEEMS to be smart. The striking thing is that the apparent scope reversal reading of can seem is impossible when there is an overt experiencer argument even when this argument is to me:3
3. Langendoen also noted this, but speculated that this was a surface syntactic phenomenon. Thus he claimed that as long as the dative argument does not intervene between can(t) and seem it is allowed, and thus reports the following to be good: (i) To me, John cant seem to run very fast. I personally find this to be still bad; in any case I would expect all speakers to reject the following: (ii) *To Mary, John cant seem to run very fast. I suspect that the improvement in (i) is due to a different use of to me which we can get (in a certain style of speech) with any sentence (and which means something roughly like in my opinion). This use can be exemplified by the following (slightly adapted) remark once made to me by a student (the context was a homework assignment in which the students tree did not match the rules): (iii) Well, to me these rules allow for this tree.
(60) *John cant seem to me/to Mary to get to any work done on the train. (61) *No student can seem to me/to the professor to understand the difference between a meaning and a representation. This is equally true of the non-negative can-seem cases: (62) *John can seem to me to work very well on the train. Moreover, this reading also disappears when seem is stressed: (63) *John cant SEEM to get any work done on the train (though in fact he can). The suspicion, then, is that seem with no overt experiencer is in some sense transparent; it is a hedge or, perhaps a bit more precisely, it says that the complement is true for all that the speaker can determine based on evidence about this world. It does not introduce another world not even the world of the speakers beliefs; it is a statement about this world. Note that this is consistent with the fact that (64) and (65) are odd: (64) ??John thinks that Mary cant seem to get any work done on the bus. (65) ???John thinks that Mary can seem to work very well on the commuter rail. The judgments are admittedly subtle, and certainly these do not pop out as horrendously bad, but once we think about it it is unclear what the seem part is doing here. (I have checked this with only one informant besides myself and his reaction was that one sounds fishy.) On the other hand, seem to NP and appear (with or without an overt experiencer argument) are rather different. (As the reader can verify, appear also does not support the apparent scope reversal.) Arguably these invoke the belief worlds of the experiencer: NP seems to X to VP entails that in all worlds w consistent with what X believes, the individual denoted by the subject has in w the property denoted by the VP. (I ignore here whether these really involve Raising or whether as argued in Dowty 1985 this is a special case of control; the outcome of this debate will not affect the points here.) Appear is similar. Thus consider again (66): (66) ?*John can appear to Mary to work very well on the commuter rail. My claim is that this would have roughly the following truth conditions: (67) There are situations s (in this world or extending situations in this world) whose outcome is under the conscious control of John such that in s, Marys belief worlds include the proposition John gets work done on the commuter rail. (I have exposited this point with a non-negative case because a full exposition of the negative case would involve an additional digression about the fact that the complements being understood as within the control of the subject behaves like a presupposition.) This, then, fails for exactly the reason we would have thought in the first place:
The content of Marys belief worlds is simply not under Johns conscious control. Notice that sentences with seem to me are also statements about belief worlds (in this case, the speakers) but a statement about my belief worlds is different from a statement that I might make about the actual world. (Beliefs are different from knowledge. Put differently, saying a sentence S is different from saying I believe that S.) Of course, the full analysis requires formalizing the meaning of seem (without an overt experiencer), and here I will leave this for further research. But the intuition is that the complement is simply a hedged assertion about the actual world rather than a statement about my belief worlds. Note too that seem to NP and appear (to NP) are perfectly fine when embedded under the can whose domain is restricted to simple occasions: (68) a. Huskies can seem to many gullible owners to be obedient. b. Barbara can never seem to Bill to be at home when he calls. c. There can never seem to me to be enough prayer. This is not surprising: The truth conditions for (68b), for example, simply require there to be no situations s in the actual world such that in the belief world w of Bill in s, Barbara is at home in w. But these, of course, are just the cases which did not induce the apparent scope reversal property. Thus apparent scope reversal is a product of the fact that the situations quantified over by can are those (in the actual world) whose outcomes are under the conscious control of the subject combined with the fact that seem (without an experiencer) makes no claim about any alternative possible worlds. Thus there is really no scope interaction between these two items. Before leaving this section, let us revisit the contrast in (69): (69) a. Bill cant seem to get any work done on the bus. b. *Bill is unable to seem to get any work done on the bus. The claim made briefly earlier is that able (and unable) are claims about possible worlds, while cant is a statement about situations in the actual world (possibly future situations). So, for example, X is able to VP means very roughly that there is a possible world w consistent with Xs ability in this world such that [[VP]](X) is true in w. The hypothesis, then, is that seem is indexical to this world so would make no sense under unable (although again a precise account of this intuition requires formalizing the meaning of seem).
5. Conclusion
Let me, then, summarize the hypothesis. Can never means be able when it co-occurs with seem. Rather, it involves existential quantification over situations (in the actual world), and these can be restricted to those whose outcome is under the conscious control of the subject. And seem does not mean seem to me; it does not invoke other
possible worlds such as the speakers belief worlds. Given the meanings of can and seem, there is no scope interaction, and the compositional semantics can put the two together in just the order suggested by the surface syntax. There is, however, an illusion here of scope reversal. This, I believe, is due in part simply to the fact that we happen to have a reasonably close paraphrase in which the item able is embedded under seem and we have been misled by this paraphrase. I will leave this with one other puzzle in need of further research, which centers on the following: (70) I cant seem to be able to get much work done on the bus. This seems extremely natural and non-marginal. In fact, googling for cant seem to be able yielded 22,500 hits (e.g., I cant seem to be able to put down the book said of Harry Potter). This at first glance might look like additional evidence against the hypothesis that cant has an ability meaning, since there is no feeling of redundancy here.4 But the naturalness of (70) is equally problematic for my analysis. Note that the analysis here claims that seem is just a hedge and hence the basic range of readings remains the same with and without seem here. But cant be able is quite bad without the seem: (71) *I cant be able to get much work done on the bus. I have no solution to this, except to suggest that able is also rather slippery in its meaning. I have been using the word able to mean a reading about ability but able really does not always seem to mean just this. Note first that when we replace able in (70) with ability it deteriorates: (72) ?*I cant seem to have the ability to get much work done on the bus. Moreover, as noted in Horn 1972, was able (without stress on able) has an extremely strong implicature of success (in fact, it is an open question as to whether this is just an implicature or an actual entailment): (73) John was able to move the rock (#but he didnt).
4. Langendoens account of this was to posit that neg-able raising is actually a copying rule. Notice that it is not literally a copying-of-form rule we have able in the lower clause and can in the upper clause hence Langendoen proposed that an abstract item is raised, whose surface realization takes place after raising. This immediately raises the question of why there is no apparent scope reversal with able rather than can in the upper clause, as shown in, e.g., (6). Langendoen speculates that this is because the function of the rule is to reduce recursion (put differently, to simplify the structure): Can takes bare VPs while able requires full infinitive complements. Thus there would be no reason for it to apply unless the raised material were spelled out as an auxiliary rather than an adjective + to. Aside from any worries that one might have about how to incorporate functional explanations of this type into the formal mechanism of the grammar itself, this explanation would seem to be undermined by the very existence of the copy version in (70), which simply adds complexity to the surface structure.
The continuation but he didnt seems completely infelicitous here unless able is stressed (and even then one really wants to replace was able with would have been able.) The mysterious meaning of able also manifests itself in (74); if able is a pure statement about ability, then if you try would contribute nothing in (74) (thus contrast (74) to the very odd (75)): (74) If you try, youll be able to solve the problem. (75) ??If you try, youll have the ability to solve the problem. Thus, just as I have proposed that can doesnt mean be able (in the ability sense) and seem doesnt mean seem (in the seem to NP sense), it appears that able doesnt just mean able either (in the ability sense). But this like many of the other open questions raised here will have to await further research.
References
Carlson, G. 1977. Reference to Kinds in English. University of Massachussetts Ph.D. dissertation. Dalrymple, M., S. Shieber, and F. Pereira. 1991. Ellipsis and higher order unification. Linguistics and Philosophy 14:399452. Dowty, D. 1985. On recent analyses of the semantics of control. Linguistics and Philosophy 8:291331. Hardt, D. 1993. VP Ellipsis: Form, Meaning, and Processing. University of Pennsylvania Ph.D. dissertation. Horn, L.R. 1972. On the Semantic Properties of Logical Operators in English. UCLA Ph.D. dissertation. Horn, L.R. 1978. Remarks on neg-raising. In P. Cole, ed., Syntax and Semantics, Volume 9: Pragmatics. New York: Academic Press. 129220. Klima, E.S. 1964. Negation in English. In J. Fodor and J.J. Katz, eds., The Structure of Language. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. 246323. Kratzer, A. 1981. The notional category of modality. In H.-J. Eikmeyer and H. Rieser, eds., Words, Worlds, and Contexts: New Approaches to Word Semantics. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. 3874. Langendoen, D.T. 1970. The cant seem to construction. Linguistic Inquiry 1:2535. Merchant, J. 2001. The Syntax of Silence. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rogers, A. 1974. A transderivational constraint on Richard? CLS 10. 551558. Sag, I. 1976. Deletion and Logical Form. MIT Ph.D. dissertation. Williams, E. 1977. Discourse and logical form. Linguistic Inquiry 8:101139.
Referring expressions and conversational implicature*1

Andrew Kehler
University of California San Diego
Gregory Ward
Northwestern University
Previous analyses of the pragmatics of referring expressions have argued for an account in terms of Gricean scalar implicature, whereby the use of a weaker referential form may Q-implicate that stronger forms would be infelicitous in the current context. Researchers have disagreed as to what constitutes the basis for the underlying scale, with Hawkins (1991) and Gundel, Hedberg, and Zacharski (1993) arguing for scales based on uniqueness and cognitive status, respectively. We argue that both of these analyses make predictions that are not borne out. Instead, the observed pattern reflects the existence of nonfamiliarity implicatures, by which a speakers failure to use a referring expression that indicates hearer-familiarity conversationally implicates that the referent is in fact nonfamiliar to the hearer.
1.
Introduction
English, like all natural languages, provides its speakers with an impressive array of referring expressions from which to choose. The question is, of the many forms that are available (e.g., indefinite description, definite description, proper name, bare NP, demonstrative, pronoun, null), which factors guide a speaker in selecting from among these alternatives to facilitate successful communication? As is well known, the choice is far from random but instead is heavily constrained by such properties as information status (including salience and givenness), uniqueness, individuability, and hearers (assumed) knowledge of the world, among a variety of others.
* We gratefully thank Barbara Abbott, Betty Birner, and Larry Horn for valuable comments on earlier drafts.
Starting with Grice (1975), it has been noted by several authors that a speakers choice of referring expression can lead to inferences that display the hallmarks of conversational implicature (Prince 1981b; Hawkins 1991; Gundel, Hedberg, and Zacharski 1993). In considering a sentence of the form X is meeting a woman this evening, for example, Grice suggests that anyone using such an expression: ...would normally implicate that the person to be met was someone other than Xs wife, mother, sister, or perhaps even close platonic friend. (p. 56) He adds: When someone, by using the form of expression an X, implicates that the X does not belong to or is not otherwise closely connected with some identifiable person, the implicature is present because the speaker has failed to be specific in a way in which he might have been expected to be specific, with the consequence that it is likely to be assumed that he is not in a position to be specific. (p. 57) There are, of course, many ways in which a speaker can fail to be specific in choosing what to say. A classic instance in Gricean pragmatics involves scalar relations based on Grices (1975) Maxim of Quantity: (1) Maxim of Quantity Q1: Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange). Q2: Do not make your contribution more informative than is required. As shown by Horn (1984), Hirschberg (1991), Levinson (2000), inter alia, the implicatures associated with linguistic scales are explainable in terms of the Maxim of Quantity, whereby a speakers use of a weaker expression positioned on a Quantity-based scale (e.g., some) conversationally implicates that the speaker was not in a position to use a stronger expression (e.g., all). Previous analyses have in fact posited that certain properties encoded by referring expressions are similarly governed by Quantity-based scales, and hence give rise to conversational implicatures. Evidence for such implicatures is provided by the hallmark diagnostics of cancellability and reinforceability (Grice 1975, Horn 1984, Sadock 1978, Hirschberg 1991). For instance, in example (2), from Hawkins 1991, an implicature associated with an indefinite noun phrase is felicitously cancelled without contradiction. Likewise in (3), a naturally-occurring example from Gundel et al. (1993, henceforth GHZ), an analogous implicature is felicitously reinforced without redundancy: (2) I met a student before class. A student came to see me after class as well in fact it was the same student I had seen before. [=Hawkins ex. 12 with follow-on introduced in the text] (3) But forged provenance papers still did not mean that the kouros was fake.... The Getty decided that the fake documents were not reason enough to ask
Referring expressions and conversational implicature 179
Mr. Becchina, the Basel dealer who had sold the kouros, to take back the sculpture. (Attempts by The Times to reach Mr. Becchina were unsuccessful.) Then last April, an independent scholar in London, Jeffrey Spier, was shown a photograph of a fake torso of a kouros, belonging to a Basel dealer (not Mr. Becchina) that looked similar to the Gettys sculpture. [= GHZs ex. 51, emphasis theirs] Hawkins (1991) and GHZ (1993) offer analyses of referring expressions that are governed by Quantity-based scales defined in terms of uniqueness and cognitive status, respectively. In this paper we review these analyses, and argue that the implicatures evident in examples such as (2) and (3) are based instead on the notion of familiarity. Such nonfamiliarity implicatures result from a speakers decision not to use a referring expression that would ordinarily suggest that the hearer is already familiar with the intended referent.
2. Three Proposals
We begin with a brief overview of the Hawkins and GHZ proposals, and then present our own analysis based on the notion of familiarity. In Section 3 we examine various data designed to test the predictions of each of the three analyses under consideration.
2.1 The Hawkins Analysis

Hawkins (1991) presents an implicature-based analysis of the contrast between the definite and indefinite articles in English (the and a/some, respectively). For Hawkins, the difference between these two forms hinges on whether the intended referent is unique within a contextually-determined association set called a P-set. The notion of a P-set is crucial for Hawkins because a definite NP such as the professor may be used felicitously e.g., if a single professor has been recently mentioned, or if a university-level class has been mentioned with which a unique professor can be inferentially associated even though there are obviously multiple professors in the universe. With the notion of a P-set in hand, Hawkins system is characterized by the following four implicatures (1991:429):1 I. THE: conventional implicature: P-membership The conventionally implicates that there is some subset of entities, {P}, in the universe of discourse which is mutually manifest to S & H on-line and within which definite referents exist and are unique.
1. The second and fourth of these implicatures make reference to Levinsons (1987) notion of I-implicature, which is a refinement of the second half of Grices Maxim of Quantity. As such, it represents a subcategory of Horns (1984) R-implicatures. These implicatures are not our primary concern here, however, and will not be considered further.
II. THE: I-implicature: P-membership If there is a given P-set of entities in the universe of discourse which is mutually manifest to S & H on-line and in which the definite referent or referents can exist and be unique, then the use of the (conversationally) I-implicates that these referents are indeed members of this P-set. III. A/SOME: Q-implicature: non-uniqueness If the speaker could use the and instead selects a or some, then he (conversationally) Q-implicates non-uniqueness, i.e. that there is at least one entity satisfying the description of the indefinite NP and non-identical to the individual or set of individuals whose existence is entailed by this indefinite NP. IV. A/SOME: I-implicature: P-membership If there is a given P-set of entities in the universe of discourse which is mutually manifest to S & H on-line and in which the indefinite referent or referents may exist, then the use of a or some (conversationally) I-implicates that these referents are indeed members of this P-set. Implicature III is the central one for our purposes. This formulation of the implicature situates the, a/some on a Horn scale (Atlas and Levinson 1981), that is, an entailment-based implicational hierarchy. The semantic basis for this Horn scale is the (binary) concept of uniqueness. As such, the use of a/some instead of the conversationally implicates, by the Maxim of Quantity, that the referent cannot be uniquely identified by the hearer within some mutually manifest P-set. For Hawkins, example (2), repeated below as (4), supports the existence of this scale: (4) I met a student before class. A student came to see me after class as well in fact it was the same student I had seen before. [=(2)] In his analysis, the use of the second occurrence of a student conversationally implicates that the student is not unique within any P-set that is mutually manifest to the speaker and hearer. This implicature is cancelled by the in fact clause, in light of its uniqueness in the P-set that includes those entities that have been previously mentioned in the discourse.
2.2 The GHZ Analysis

Whereas Hawkins posits a Horn scale for the articles the and a/some based on the concept of uniqueness, GHZ go considerably further by placing a range of different categories of referring expressions on such a scale based on a notion of cognitive status. Specifically, they propose a Givenness Hierarchy consisting of six possible cognitive statuses that a referent may have. Below each cognitive status are the (English) referential expressions that encode it.
in focus it
uniquely type > activated > familiar > identifiable > referential > identifiable that this this N that N the N indef this N aN (GHZ, p. 275)
The cognitive statuses are defined as follows, along with an example of each: Type Identifiable: The addressee is able to access a representation of the type of object described by the expression. (5) I couldnt sleep last night. A dog (next door) kept me awake. Referential: The speaker intends to refer to a particular object or objects. (6) I couldnt sleep last night. This dog (next door) kept me awake. Uniquely Identifiable: The addressee can identify the speakers intended referent on the basis of the nominal alone. (7) I couldnt sleep last night. The dog (next door) kept me awake. Familiar: The addressee is able to uniquely identify the intended referent because he already has a representation of it in memory (in long-term memory if it has not been recently mentioned or perceived, or in short-term memory if it has). (8) I couldnt sleep last night. That dog (next door) kept me awake. Activated: The referent is represented in current short-term memory. (9) My neighbor has a dog. This dog kept me awake last night. In focus: The referent is not only in short-term memory, but is also at the current center of attention. (10) A dog was in the front yard last night. It kept me awake. The weakest status is type identifiable, which requires only the hearers presumed familiarity with the kind denoted by the noun (or common noun phrase) in question. Stronger values to the left must satisfy that condition but also impose additional requirements; as such, each cognitive status logically implies the weaker values to its right in the hierarchy. For example, an in focus referent (at the current center of attention) is necessarily also activated (in short-term memory), familiar (in memory), and so forth. Thus, a form normally associated with a particular cognitive status could in principle be used to refer to an entity with a stronger one. However, in a survey of data across several languages, GHZ found that with some exceptions, each form was found almost exclusively to be associated with the status with which it is correlated. One of
these exceptions in English is the case of definite descriptions, which were found not only with uniquely identifiable referents, but with all stronger statuses. GHZ address this correlation and the exception for definite descriptions by appealing to both parts of Grices Maxim of Quantity, repeated below: (11) Maxim of Quantity Q1: Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange). Q2: Do not make your contribution more informative than is required. [=(1)] GHZ argue that the fact that certain types of referring expressions (e.g., demonstratives) are not typically used to refer to referents having a stronger cognitive status is the result of Q1-based implicatures; i.e., their use conversationally implicates that the stronger status does not hold (i.e., an instance of a Q-based implicature in Horns (1984) terms). In particular: Interaction of this maxim [=Q1] with the Givenness Hierarchy correctly predicts that (a) an indefinite article will normally not be used for referents that are uniquely identifiable, since this form explicitly signals only type identifiability, and (b) for referents that are in focus, an unstressed personal pronoun or zero, which explicitly delimits the set of possible referents to those that are in focus, will normally be chosen over a demonstrative pronoun, which gives less information about cognitive status because it only requires that the referent be activated. (GHZ, p. 299) The fact that definite descriptions are exceptionally found not only for uniquely identifiable referents but also for referents with all stronger statuses leads GHZ to appeal instead to Q2 for those cases. Unlike bare demonstratives and pronouns, definite descriptions typically contain the descriptive content necessary to uniquely identify the referent. According to GHZ, an explicit signal of a stronger status is therefore unnecessary, per the second half of the maxim (i.e., by an R-based implicature in Horns (1984) terms). This, they claim, follows from Atlas and Levinsons (1981) observation that Q2 induces stereotypical interpretations. Since most referents that are uniquely identifiable are also familiar, the use of a definite description that signals the former will generally conversationally implicate the latter.2
2. GHZ concede, however, that this story cannot explain why full NPs are found instead of bare demonstratives and pronominals for cases that are (at least) activated. They briefly address this issue in their footnote 32 (1993:300), citing ambiguity resolution and global focus shift as possible reasons why a fuller NP might be used instead of a pronoun. But the felicity of simple examples shows that there must be more to the story: (i) I was talking to a guy yesterday, and the guy said... Note that the NP a guy must give rise to an in focus referent, since a pronominal reference in the second clause would also be felicitous.
GHZ cite Hawkins example (4) as providing support for the Givenness Hierarchy. In their analysis, the use of the second occurrence of a student conversationally implicates that its referent is merely type identifiable. This implicature is subsequently cancelled in light of the fact that the referent also holds the stronger status of activated. GHZ also cite example (3), repeated below as (12), as a source of further support: (12) But forged provenance papers still did not mean that the kouros was fake.... The Getty decided that the fake documents were not reason enough to ask Mr. Becchina, the Basel dealer who had sold the kouros, to take back the sculpture. (Attempts by The Times to reach Mr. Becchina were unsuccessful.) Then last April, an independent scholar in London, Jeffrey Spier, was shown a photograph of a fake torso of a kouros, belonging to a Basel dealer (not Mr. Becchina) that looked similar to the Gettys sculpture. [=(3)] According to their account, the use of a Basel dealer in (12) implicates that the referent is merely type identifiable, which is then reinforced by a denial that an existing activated entity is the intended referent.
2.3 An Alternative Analysis

We have so far described two analyses that characterize implicatures that result from particular choices of referring expressions. For Hawkins, implicatures in examples such as (4) derive from the uniqueness restriction entailed by the use of the, such that the use of a/some implicates non-uniqueness within the relevant P-set. For GHZ, the implicatures in examples such as (4) and (12) result from the speakers decision to use an expression associated with a particular cognitive status, which licenses the inference that the referent does not satisfy the constraints associated with stronger statuses. There is, however, another possible explanation for the implicatures associated with examples such as (4) and (12), namely one which characterizes the relevant inferences as nonfamiliarity implicatures. To make the notion of familiarity concrete, we appeal to GHZs criterion, repeated here: Familiar: The addressee is able to uniquely identify the intended referent because he already has a representation of it in memory (in long-term memory if it has not been recently mentioned or perceived, or in short-term memory if it has). Importantly, familiarity is distinct from uniqueness. The definite description the book that John is reading this week may constrain reference to a single entity, but one that is nonetheless not familiar to the hearer. Our familiarity-based analysis (henceforth FA) simply states that in unexceptional contexts, the speakers failure to use a referring expression that would normally indicate hearer-familiarity conversationally implicates that the referent is nonfamiliar. Under this account, the implicatures associated with (4) and (12) are based on nonfamiliarity rather than uniqueness or cognitive status. Specifically, in (4) a nonfamiliarity impli-
cature associated with the second occurrence of the phrase a student is felicitously cancelled by the speakers subsequent use of the NP the same student I had seen before to identify it with the (now familiar) referent of the first occurrence. In example (12), a nonfamiliarity implicature associated with the NP a Basel dealer is felicitously (i.e. non-redundantly) reinforced by the phrase not Mr. Becchina, indicating that the referent is not one that was previously mentioned (and hence familiar). To sum up so far, both Hawkins and GHZ utilize entailment-based implicational hierarchies in their analyses of referential form, in which linguistic expressions are associated with different points on a scale. Hawkins limits his analysis to the distinction between a/some and the in English, whereas GHZ address a broader range of forms in several languages. Our familiarity-based analysis, on the other hand, assimilates the facts at hand to a subcase of Grices notion of specificity: When a speaker fails to select a referring expression that would be expected to indicate familarity, the referent is conversationally implicated to be nonfamiliar. In the next section we examine a variety of predictions each analysis makes with respect to the generation of conversational implicatures.
3. Referring Expressions and Quantity-Based Conversational Implicature

In the previous section, we saw that the three analyses under discussion offer different explanations for the implicatures that result from a particular choice of referential form, such as those evident in examples (4) and (12). To distinguish among the proposals, we will need to consider additional data. We begin by comparing the FA to Hawkins analysis. First, we agree with Hawkins that uniqueness can serve as a coherent semantic basis for implicature cancellation. Larry Horn (p.c.) in fact points out that numerous examples attest to the existence of a pragmatically robust the,a scale; examples (13a-c) are three of a great many that can be found on the internet: (13) a. Over the nineteenth century, Britain became a, if not the, world power. [eserver.org/cultronix/sigel/] b. Decision making is a, but not the, fundamental construct in design. [dbd.eng.buffalo.edu/papers/DR.position.htm] c. I find it humbling that the Torah, uniquely in the religious literature of mankind, begins by setting out these themes insisting that parenting is not only a, but the supreme religious act. [http://www.chiefrabbi.org/speeches/parent.htm] The felicitous cancellations in these examples provide evidence for the existence of a Horn scale defined in terms of uniqueness. Nonetheless, we disagree with Hawkins that example (4) in which, unlike (13a-c), the relevant noun phrases differ with respect to more than just their respective articles belongs to this class of examples. Instead, we argue that it naturally patterns with other
examples that are captured by the FA but which either require extensions to Hawkins analysis or receive a considerably less natural treatment within it. First, we find that a greater range of opposing linguistic forms than merely the and a/some participate in the types of implicatures found in (4) and (12). Consider (14) and (15): (14) A: Did any students bother you during office hours today? B: Yes, a student came by. In fact, it was that weird guy who sits in the back of the class. (15) A: Did any students bother you during office hours today? B: Yes, this student came by. In fact, it was HIM. [pointing to a salient guy standing nearby] In both of these exchanges, the status indicated by the first referring expression suffices to answer As question; an implicature associated with that form is then cancelled with a stronger form in a subsequent utterance. These cancellations do not seem qualitatively different from the one exhibited in (4), yet they are not covered by an analysis that opposes only the and a/some. On the other hand, as with (4), the felicitous cancellations in examples (14) and (15) are captured by the FA.3 Second, the FA provides a more natural explanation for the facts in cases in which the uniqueness and familiarity properties of the relevant noun phrases diverge. The first includes cases that involve two referring expressions which differ with respect to familiarity but not uniqueness. Example (16) is such a case: (16) A: Has John read any good books lately? B: Yes, the book that John is currently reading in fact the one I showed you yesterday when we were at the bookstore is reportedly a real page-turner. Example (16) is felicitous as long as (the speaker believes that) the hearer does not know which book John is currently reading (i.e., the definite merely signals uniqueness), but does know which book the speaker showed him yesterday. This case patterns with examples (4), (14), and (15) in exhibiting a cancellation of nonfamiliarity. Despite the fact that the two relevant noun phrases in Bs utterance in (16) do not differ with respect to uniqueness, Hawkins account may provide an analysis of this case, although we believe it is considerably less intuitive than the FA analysis and re3. Although Hawkins analysis is limited to the opposition between the and a/some, it is possible that it could be extended to cover these cases as well. Revising the position he took in earlier work (Hawkins 1978), Hawkins suggests that it would be desirable to view demonstratives and pronominals as sharing the same uniqueness requirements as definite descriptions. This would require that the differences between these forms be characterized solely in terms of how the parameters of uniqueness are set by different (though partially overlapping) conventions of use (1991:416, fn. 7). Although he does not offer such an analysis, examples (14) and (15) could be captured by uniqueness implicatures if such an analysis were to prove tenable. The same reasoning presumably applies to categorizing indefinite this with a as not encoding a uniqueness requirement.
quires appeal to two extensions beyond the four implicatures listed previously. First, although the noun phrase the book that John is currently reading in (16) is not mutually manifest to the speaker and hearer with respect to any P-set in the scenario considered here, Hawkins allows such manifestness to be freely accommodated by the hearer: As I see it, [such] definite descriptions are extending the members of otherwise mutually known P-sets to include a novel entity, whose existence within the set is none the less accepted by the hearer... The speaker is simply telling the hearer to extend the relevant P-sets on these occasions, and expects the hearer to accept these extensions, presuming that they are at least compatible with what he knows and that he has no reasons not to accept them. (p. 411) Such novel entities are precisely those that can be felicitously mentioned with a the-NP but that are excluded by our notion of familiarity. Second, Hawkins remarks that the selection of a given choice of P-set on a particular occasion of use is itself based on implicature, and can be cancelled in favor of another P-set. He offers the example I bought a book and talked to the author about it not the author of the book, I mean the author we were just talking about, in which the P-set containing entities that have an associative relationship with the previously mentioned book is cancelled in favor of, say, the universe of all entities mutually manifest to the speaker and hearer, within which there is presumably only one author that has just been talked about. The cancellation in example (16) could thus be characterized as one in which the P-set that is extended to accommodate the noun phrase the book that John is currently reading a P-set presumably consisting of all entities that are mutually manifest to the speaker and hearer is subsequently cancelled in favor of the same P-set without the just-accommodated entity. While an argument for such an analysis could conceivably be constructed, example (16) receives a more natural and intuitive explanation by the FA analysis, which provides a clear-cut basis for the cancellation in terms of familiarity. The second scenario that distinguishes the two proposals includes cases in which two referring expressions differ with respect to uniqueness but not familiarity. Consider (17), a variant of (4): (17) I met a student before class. #A student came to see me after class as well in fact it was the student I met with three days ago. The attempted cancellation of a nonuniqueness implicature in (17) is bizarre in a context in which the hearer has no knowledge of the speaker having met a student three days ago (let alone which student). (On the other hand, it is perfectly felicitous if the hearer does have such knowledge.) To account for this fact in Hawkins analysis, the principle that allows for the accommodation of unfamiliar entities into P-sets would have to be suppressed in cancellations of the sort attempted in (17). Yet any argument along these lines would at best only indirectly capture the fact that the felicity of (17) hinges precisely on whether the definite noun phrase the student I met with three days ago allows the hearer to identify the referent as one that is familiar to him. These facts
therefore suggest that familiarity, rather than uniqueness, is the basis for the cancellations in these examples. We now compare the predictions of the FA with those made by the GHZ analysis. The Givenness Hierarchy fares well with respect to examples (14) and (15), since each involves a strengthening from a form associated with a weaker cognitive status to one associated with a stronger status.4 (We will return to examples (16)(17) momentarily.) To differentiate between the two analyses, we therefore need to consider alternations between forms that differ with respect to GHZs cognitive statuses but not with respect to familiarity. Let us first consider the alternation between type identifiable a NP phrases (henceforth a-NPs) and referential indefinite this NP phrases (henceforth thisNPs). Despite being opposed on GHZs implicational hierarchy, their alternation does not appear to exhibit the hallmark of quantity implicature that we have seen in previous examples. Consider the attempted cancellation in (18): (18) A: Im sick of driving you around everywhere. You should buy a car. B: #Yeah, Im going to buy a car today, in fact, this car, and its in great condition. [on the referential interpretation of this car] The cancellation of type identifiable (which does not require there to be a specific car that is going to be bought) in favor of referential (which does) seems highly awkward, even though it would be perfectly reasonable for B to confirm As suggestion as stated and then strengthen it by indicating that a particular car has already been identified.5 GHZ address the lack of such implicatures in a footnote:
4. That is, from type identifiable to familiar in (14), and from referential to activated in (15). Note that GHZ associate accented pronominals such as HIM in example (15) with the status activated. 5. Barbara Abbott (p.c.) points out that such examples become more acceptable if new information is added to the cancelling NP: (i) B: Yeah, Im going to buy a car today, in fact, this blue sportscar that I saw at Johns car dealership, and its in great condition. There are at least two reasons to suspect that this is not a cancellation of a cognitive status implicature, however. First, the felicity of the putative cancellation is unaffected by the use of an a-NP instead of a (referential-signalling) this-NP, as in (5): (ii) B: Yeah, Im going to buy a car today, in fact, a blue sportscar that I saw at Johns car dealership, and its in great condition. Likewise, the example remains felicitous if going to buy is replaced with bought, in which case the referential status of the car has already been entailed at the time the apparent cancellation occurs: (iii) B: Yeah, I actually bought a car today, in fact, a/this blue sportscar that I saw at Johns car dealership, and its in great condition. We therefore conclude that the felicity of the putative cancellation in (i) derives from the additional descriptive content (not just any car, but a blue sportscar...), and not the distinction between the two cognitive statuses type identifiable and referential.
Note, however, that the indefinite article does not implicate nonreferentiality. This is so because, with the exception of indefinite this in colloquial English, the languages we examined have no separate form that signals referentiality. The indefinite article would thus be the strongest possible form for coding something which is referential but not uniquely identifiable. (1993:296, fn. 26) We understand this quotation to suggest that such implicatures should arise between a-NPs and this-NPs in colloquial English, since both forms are available.6 Yet corpora of naturally-occurring English colloquial speech contain many instances of a-NPs that are used to refer to entities that satisfy the criteria of the referential status. (GHZs data support this also; they found that only one of 42 references to entities with this status used a this-NP, although their corpus included other sources besides colloquial speech.) Consider the following passage from the Switchboard corpus: (19) Yeah, I have a [ (throat-clearing) I have a ] friend. [ Shes studying, + shes going into ] law, another friend going into law, and, [ shes [ [ [ I, + I, ] + Im really, ] + Im really ] concerned about, you know, shes just going to be, [ you know,] whats going to happen when she gets there. The referring expression a friend in the first sentence meets the criterion for the referential status, and in fact its referent is mentioned again several times using a pronoun. Although a this-NP would have been felicitous here, there is no hint of any uncooperativeness or Maxim-flouting on the part of the speaker in failing to use one. Nor would any form of cancellation or reinforcement be felicitous. A possible response would be to appeal to Q2, as Maclaran (1980, endnote 9) does. Specifically, if the identity of the referent is unimportant, then an explicit signal of referentiality is unnecessary; indeed the predicate that accompanies the referring expression (have) in (19) entails that the reference is to a particular person.7 But then we need an explanation for why the passage remains felicitous if we were to replace a friend with this friend, i.e., why this would not violate Q2. As far as we can tell, there are no cases in which a this-NP must be used instead of an a-NP for a reference to be pragmatically felicitous, that is to say, without coming across as uncooperative or generating conversational implicatures. This casts doubt on the notion that these refer-
6. Although it is worth noting that the very fact that English is the only language of those GHZ studied that has a form that corresponds specifically to referential, coupled with the fact that it is found only in colloquial speech, might be taken to cast doubt on whether referential actually constitutes a separate cognitive status. 7. Although note that replacing the predicate in (19) with one that does not entail referentiality e.g., I need to call a friend does not in turn require that the object be marked with a this-NP, even though it remains referential.
ring expressions are part of a Gricean Q-based scale that supports generalized quantity implicature.8 This pattern of missing implicatures extends to the relationship between other pairs on the right end of the Givenness Hierarchy, that is, between the type identifiable and uniquely identifiable categories (ex. 17, repeated below as ex. 20) and the referential and uniquely identifiable categories (ex. 21):9 (20) I met a student before class. #A student came to see me after class as well in fact it was the student I met with three days ago. [=(17)] (21) I met a student before class. #This student came to see me after class as well in fact it was the student I met with three days ago. [on the referential interpretation of this student] Thus, the evidence suggests that pairs of categories on the Givenness Hierarchy that are associated with nonfamiliarity do not participate in the type of conversational implicatures that GHZs system would predict. The same appears to be true of the three statuses on the left end of the hierarchy that are associated with familiarity. The following cases are markedly odd: (22) a. The neighbors to our right just got a Doberman like the one the neighbors behind us have. #That dog, in fact it, kept me awake last night. (activated in focus) b. I dont like our neighbors dog. #That dog that bit you once, in fact it, was barking last night. (familiar in focus) c. Contractors are putting up a fence around the yard of my neighbors with the Doberman Pinscher. #That dog that bit you last year, in fact, that/this dog/that dog, wont be able to get out of the yard anymore. (familiar activated) In (22a), for instance, that dog is semantically compatible with either of the two Dobermans mentioned; in GHZs account, the referent should be the dog denoted by the one the neighbors behind us have by implicature, since the one denoted by a Doberman is presumably in focus. While this is in fact the preferred referent, an implicature
8. While we offer no analysis of this-NPs here, a common claim is that they provide a means to establish a hearer-new referent as a discourse topic (Maclaran 1980, Prince 1981a, Wald 1981, Gernsbacher and Shroyer 1989). As such, a and this are not distinguished by the same kind of properties that differentiate other forms on the Givenness Hierarchy. We return to this point at the end of this section. 9. Crucially, we use uniquely identifiable here to mean uniquely identifiable but not familiar; in examples (20) and (21), we assume that the referent of the definite description is unknown to the hearer. As we previously noted for (20), these examples become impeccable if the referent is actually familiar.
analysis predicts that this reference assignment should be cancellable, but (22a) shows that this is not the case.10 Similar arguments apply for (22b-c). Finally, we return to example (16), repeated below as (23): (23) The book that John is currently reading in fact the one I showed you yesterday when we were at the bookstore is reportedly a real page-turner. Recall that example (23) is felicitous as long as (the speaker believes that) the hearer does not know which book John is currently reading (i.e., the definite merely signals uniqueness), but does know which book the speaker showed him yesterday at the bookstore. Interestingly, this cancellation occurs despite the fact that a form that signals only uniquely identifiable is used in both referring expressions. That is, under GHZs analysis one might expect, since it is precisely the implicature of nonfamiliarity that is being cancelled, that a form correlated with the stronger cognitive status would be chosen for the second referring expression (presumably a that-NP, thereby signaling familiar). However, as we see from (23), an NP that signals familiarity is not necessary. GHZs Q2-based explanation for why the-NPs are commonly used to refer to familiar referents i.e., that the stronger form is informationally otiose does not work well here, since the very purpose of the cancellation is to indicate the hearers familiarity with the referent. Thus, the facts concerning cancellation with respect to nonfamiliarity implicatures appear to be orthogonal to the choice of referring expression, although clearly there are examples that crosscut GHZs hierarchy. It therefore appears that of the cases we have discussed (excluding 13a-c), only those captured by the FA display evidence for conversational implicatures. All of those cases for which the classic cancellation test for conversational implicature succeeds involve a strengthening from a presumption of nonfamiliarity to one of familiarity.11
10. Note that while the entity denoted by the one the neighbors behind us have is (at least) activated, none of the referring expressions that are associated with that status in the Givenness Hierarchy i.e., that, this, or this dog would be preferentially interpreted as referring to that entity. For this reason we use that dog, as the form that-N is commonly used to refer to activated entities despite its being aligned with the weaker familiar status in the GHZ system. Generally speaking, there appear to be many activated entities in natural language corpora that cannot be felicitously referred to with a demonstrative pronoun, e.g. the referent of the table in (i): (i) The Dobermani is sitting next to the tablej. Iti / # Itj / # Thatj / The tablej is tall and brown. GHZs association of demonstrative pronouns with the activated category therefore seems to underspecify the constraints on their use. 11. To be clear, we do not deny the existence of other properties of referring expressions that might give rise to conversational implicatures (uniqueness likely being among these, as we have already indicated). Indeed, the example of Grices discussed in the introduction in which X is meeting a woman this evening implicates that the woman is not Xs wife, mother, sister, or close platonic friend does not appear to involve a nonfamiliarity implicature, at least under GHZs definition of familiar, which we are assuming here. GHZ (1993:296, fn. 26) claim that this example involves an implicature that the referent is not uniquely identifiable, but (20) and (21) cast doubt on this being the right analysis. Further discussion would require a detailed analysis of the properties of possessive NPs (which are not included in the Givenness Hierarchy), which would take us too far afield.
We have seen that Hawkins analysis predicts such implicatures only for a subset of this otherwise uniform set of cases, whereas GHZs analysis predicts that we would find implicatures in more situations than we actually do. We believe that the empirical limitations of these analyses derive from the nature of the semantic scales on which their respective hierarchies are based. To elaborate, the generation of Q-based scalar implicatures requires a single unidimensional scale along which various values on that scale are ordered with respect to each other, where these values, according to Levinson (2000), must be from the same semantic field, about the same semantic relations, and thus in conceptually salient opposition (p. 80). The classic Horn scales commonly discussed in the literature all, most, many, some, and, or, ..., 3, 2, 1, necessarily, possibly, and so forth all share this property. As we have shown, we find that Hawkins concept of uniqueness, while being a coherent semantic notion on which to base a scale, does not straightforwardly account for the full range of conversational implicatures that we have seen. GHZs analysis, on the other hand, is more complicated precisely because there appears to be no unifying semantic dimension underlying the Givenness Hierarchy. While GHZ briefly characterize the notion of cognitive status as information about location in memory and attention state (1993:274), on closer inspection it is difficult to identify a single, consistent semantic field on which the statuses can be aligned. On the left end of the hierarchy, the operative notion relates to the level of activation (Chafe 1976, Lambrecht 1994) of the referent in the cognitive state of the hearer, that is, the distinction between whether the referent is merely familiar to the hearer (i.e., in either long- or short-term memory), activated (in short-term memory) or in focus (i.e., at the current center of attention). All of these cognitive statuses are equivalent with respect to hearer-knowledge, i.e., all are hearer-old in the sense of Prince (1992). Moving to the right end of the hierarchy, however, degree of hearer activation cannot be what distinguishes entities that are type identifiable from those that are referential: Since both correspond to entities that the speaker assumes are new to the hearer (i.e., hearer-new in Princes (1992) terms), they cannot differ with respect to activation in the hearers cognitive state at the time that the referring expression is uttered. Likewise for those referents that are uniquely identifiable (but not familiar): As hearernew entities, these are distinguished from those that are only referential in that the addressee is expected to construct a (unique) representation of the referent on the basis of the referring expression alone. It is hard to imagine a single uniform dimension that can relate these different statuses such that they would be expected to generate Quantity-based implicatures in a systematic way. It is therefore not surprising that we do not find evidence in the data for the type of broad-based system of implicatures that the GHZ spectrum would predict.
4. Conclusion
To summarize, previous work by Hawkins and GHZ has appealed to examples such as (2) and (3) to support their respective implicature-based theories of referential form. A further examination of the data using the classic diagnostics for conversational Quantity-based scalar implicature, however, has revealed that these implicatures do not derive from a scale of uniqueness ( la Hawkins) nor cognitive status ( la GHZ). Instead, we have argued that the pattern reflects the existence of nonfamiliarity implicatures, in which a speakers failure to use a referring expression that would normally indicate hearer-familiarity conversationally implicates that the referent is in fact nonfamiliar to the hearer. Nonfamiliarity implicatures can thus be seen as a subclass of those implicatures that result when a speaker has failed to be specific in a way in which he might have been expected to be specific (Grice 1975:57). We therefore find the evidence for entailment scales in the English referential system to be limited in scope. Of course, this is not to say that familiarity is in any sense the dominant factor that determines choice of referential form. Indeed, we suspect that choice of referential form is governed by a system of heterogeneous factors across many dimensions. From this brief discussion of referring expressions and Quantity-based implicature, it should be clear that no single dimension whether it be uniqueness, givenness, or familiarity is adequate in and of itself, and that a complete account of the relationship that holds among the various referring expressions of a language will have to take additional factors into account.
References
Atlas, J.D. and S.C. Levinson. 1981. It-clefts, informativeness, and logical form: Radical pragmatics (revised standard version). In P. Cole, ed., Radical Pragmatics. New York: Academic Press. 161. Chafe, W.L. 1976. Givenness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics, and point of view. In C.N. Li, ed., Subject and Topic. New York: Academic Press. 2555. Gernsbacher, M.A. and S. Shroyer. 1989. The cataphoric use of the indefinite this in spoken narratives. Memory and Cognition 17:536540. Grice, H.P. 1975. Logic and conversation. In P. Cole and J. Morgan, eds., Syntax and Semantics, Volume 3: Speech Acts. New York: Academic Press. 4158. Gundel, J.K., N. Hedberg, and R. Zacharski. 1993. Cognitive status and the form of referring expressions in discourse. Language 69:274307. Hawkins, J.A. 1978. Definiteness and Indefiniteness. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press. Hawkins, J.A. 1991. On (in)definite articles: Implicatures and (un)grammaticality prediction. Journal of Linguistics 27:405442. Hirschberg, J. 1991. A Theory of Scalar Implicature. New York: Garland.
Referring expressions and conversational implicature 193 Horn, L.R. 1984. Toward a new taxonomy for pragmatic inference: Q-based and R-based implicatures. In D. Schiffrin, ed., Meaning, Form, and Use in Context. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. 1142. Lambrecht, K. 1994. Information Structure and Sentence Form. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Levinson, S.C. 1987. Pragmatics and the grammar of anaphora: A partial pragmatic reduction of binding and control phenomena. Journal of Linguistics 23:379434. Levinson, S.C. 2000. Presumptive Meanings. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Maclaran, R. 1980. On two asymmetrical uses of the demonstrative determiners in English. Linguistics 18:803820. Prince, E.F. 1981a. On the inferencing of indefinite-this NPs. In A.K. Joshi, B.L. Webber, and I.A. Sag, eds., Elements of Discourse Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 231250. Prince, E.F. 1981b. Toward a taxonomy of given-new information. In P. Cole, ed., Radical Pragmatics. New York: Academic Press. 223255. Prince, E.F. 1992. The ZPG letter: Subjects, definiteness, and information-status. In S. Thompson and W. Mann, eds., Discourse Description: Diverse Analyses of a Fundraising Text. Philadelphia/Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 295325. Sadock, J.M. 1978. On testing for conversational implicature. In P. Cole, ed., Syntax and Semantics, Volume 9: Pragmatics. New York: Academic Press. 281297. Wald, B. 1981. Referents and topic within and across discourse units: Observations from current vernacular English. In F. Klein-Andreu, ed., Discourse Perspectives on Syntax. New York: Academic Press. 91116.
Indexi-lexicography*1
Steven R. Kleinedler
American Heritage Dictionary
Randall Eggert
University of Utah
Although lexicography is primarily a semantic endeavor, recourse to pragmatics is necessary for some definitions. Over 2,200 definitions in the American Heritage Dictionary, Fourth Edition (2000) make context of use explicit; notable examples are I, you, and we. Here, we discuss the semantics and pragmatics of personal pronouns and their concomitant lexicographical challenges. Semantically, our analysis involves the marked and unmarked categories +/-sender, +/-addressee, and +/-plural. We distinguish between what these semantic categories entail about the pronouns reference and what they explicate per the Q/R principles in Horn 1984. Exploring the pragmatic properties of addressee, we conclude that addressee has a pragmatic role and is conceptually distinct from the seemingly broader category of recipient; thus, our semantic category of +/-addressee is a pragmatic (not semantic) primitive. We suggest this same argument could apply to +/-sender. We conclude with a discussion of how these arguments apply to practical lexicography.
1.
Introduction
A lot, in fact, much of Horns recent work (e.g., Horn 1993, 2005, inter alia) involves lexical pragmatics. Given that there is so much to be said about the way pragmatic principles interact with the lexicon, it stands to reason that there is a place for these principles to be manifested within the realm of practical lexicography. Indeed, for a significant subset of vocabulary most notably indexicals, such as you dictionaries supplement and sometimes replace semantic definitions with explicit pragmatic
* We would like to thank Joe Pickett and Erich Groat for their comments on earlier versions of this paper, Horst Simon for sharing his research with us, and Betty Birner for her eagle eye and insightful comments. They all improved this paper greatly. Of course, any errors or lapses in reason remain ours alone.
information, in order to be of use to the reader. That is, although most tasks facing the lexicographer in preparing dictionary entries are semantic, in order to accurately convey to the user the necessary nuances of the language, recourse to pragmatic principles is also required.
1.1 Lexicographers
Dictionaries consist of entry words, or lemmas, that are defined. Most, if not almost all, words entered into a dictionary are traditionally defined in ways that have been carefully detailed by Zgusta (1971) and Landau (2001:171-178). Nouns, for example, are typically defined by providing a genus term the hypernymic class of which the word is a member along with information that separates that word from other members of that genus. In the American Heritage Dictionary, Fourth Edition (2000) (hereafter AHD4) the first sense of hatch is An opening, as in the deck of a ship, in the roof or floor of a building, or in an aircraft. Another word with the same genus is socket: An opening or a cavity into which an inserted part is designed to fit: a light-bulb socket. The second parts of these definitions show the difference in these two kinds of openings. Whereas Zgusta presents a detailed list of principles that lexicographers use when defining terms, Landau (157-171) reorganizes and supplements Zgustas list by breaking them into two categories: Principles of Defining and Good Defining Practice. The former are straightforward (avoid circularity, define every word used in a definition, and define the entry word). What we find most interesting is the overlap of his Good Defining Practice and Grices (1975) maxims of conversation and Horns Q/R reanalysis (Horn 1984, 2004, inter alia) thereof. Four of the six principles have a direct match: Brevity (170). Landau literally says Be brief, corresponding to Grices Manner (iii) and Horns R-based Dont say too much. Avoidance of Ambiguity (170). This of course corresponds to Grices Manner (ii) and Horns Q-based Say enough. Priority of Essence (163). Landau explains the importance of starting the definition with the most important elements of meaning followed by more incidental elements. This recalls Manner (iv) Be orderly (part of Horns R). Additionally, he warns against starting definitions with (examples his) A term meaning or A term referring to, again recalling Brevity and Horns R. Simplicity (166-170). Landau cites what he states is a traditional rule: Avoid including difficult words in definitions of simpler words. This can be viewed as the intersection of the delicate dance between the two Quantity maxims, expressed by Horns Q (Say enough) and R (Dont say too much). Landau is cautioning lexicographers from defining simple objects, such as feather, with highly technical language that is not familiar to most users. The user would then need to look up several additional technical words in order to figure out
Indexi-lexicography 197
the meaning of the simple term. If instead there is a simple way of stating the definition, this is preferable. Were taking the concept of using overly technical language as the equivalent of providing too much information in the discourse. In short, the lexicographer needs to strike a delicate balance with providing enough information without overloading the user with extraneous or inappropriately complicated terminology. One of the remaining principles could also be seen within that framework, but less clearly: Substitutability (164-66) is the principle that the definition should be substitutable for the word in context, which Landau admits is something to be strived for, but, depending on the word, isnt always feasible. Arguments could be made that this corresponds to Relevance. (Rounding out the six principles, for the record, is Reflection of Grammatical Function (166), the principle that nouns should be defined as nouns, verbs as verbs, and so forth.) What does all of this mean? If the duty of lexicographers is to impart to the dictionary user information about the way in which words are used, one can view the relationship between the lexicographer and the reader as a one-sided conversation. If one considers that a good lexicographer will take into consideration what the user wants and needs, the construction of each definition could be viewed as the lexicographers dialog with a hypothetical user, by which the lexicographer anticipates what the user would ask about a word if he or she were present, and the lexicographer in turn presents that information in a way that, unsurprisingly, follows the tenets of conversational maxims. Interestingly, Grices and Horns framework applies beyond the realm of spoken conversation. If we view the lexicographers work as part of an ongoing dialog with the user, it seems natural that in many cases, the lexicographer must impart crucial information about a lexical item by going beyond the bare semantic definition of a word and providing additional information regarding the context in which a word is properly used. Landau (2178) lists eight kinds of usage information that most dictionaries impart: currency or temporality; regional or geographic variation; technical or specialized terminology; restricted or taboo sexual and scatological usage; insult; slang; style, functional variety, or register; and status or cultural level. There are at least three ways in which this extrasemantic information can be imparted: first, through a system of informative labels (Slang, Vulgar, Offensive, Archaic, Biology, Mathematics, etc.); second, by introducing the definition with a prose description (e.g., In psychoanalysis, . . . or In the Roman Catholic Church, . . .); and third, through a prose description of this information in an expander sentence that follows the definition. In this last case, the expander sentence usually involves the word used and begins Used..., Often used..., and so forth. The kinds of usage information that Landau lists can normally be dealt with using labels. However, there are certain items that must resort to the expander sentence, especially interjections and pronouns. Pro-
nouns, Landau (178) states, are sometimes defined in terms of their grammatical function, sometimes by a substitutable phrase. In AHD4, over 2,200 senses employ the Used... or Often used frames in addition to a defined sense. Additionally, several hundred items employ these frames solely, without a standard definition. Rather than saying what each term means, the use of the term is conveyed by discussing the context it is used in. Most of these words are interjections (er, golly, hubba-hubba); offensive slang these terms are couched within the phrase Used as a disparaging term for... (Chink, cunt, faggot); titles (Donna, Excellency); and pronouns (them, there, you). The first AHD4 definition of you is Used to refer to the one or ones being addressed. That of I is Used to refer to oneself as speaker or writer. That of we is Used by the speaker or writer to indicate the speaker or writer along with another or others as the subject. That of they is Used to refer to the ones previously mentioned or implied. He, she, and it are defined on analogy with they but as singulars and with gender information included.
1.2 Linguists
When linguists weigh in on lexicography, opinions range from avuncular advice1 to complex theories and frameworks of lexicography. Wierzbicka (1985) provides extremely complex, detailed definitions that include a vast amount of contextual information: The one for cup runs two pages (3334), which includes a great deal of contextual information; indeed, more than half of the definition falls under the header Imagining things of this kind people could also say these things about them. The context she provides is very specific to her worldview, one in which the existence of cups is always accompanied by the existence of saucers,2 yet, in a discussion of bicycle, she states (120) It seems to me that the idea of a chain is not a part of my concept of bicycle. In essence, for all of her lexicography, shes conveying to her readers not so much the context in which words are used, but rather the context in which she uses these words, which is arguably less helpful for the user. However, when it comes to lexical items that we argue actually need pragmatic description, Wierzbicka does not even define them. Wierzbicka & Goddard (1994) deem words like you (along with other indexicals like I and this, and basic verbs like think, say, know, and feel) as undecomposable semantic primitives. Although arguments can be made for developing a theory that uses such primitives, from a practical
1. McCawley (1986, 1993).
2. they [cups] are made and used together with some other things [saucers] / made of the same stuff / made for putting these things on / one thing for a person to drink from, and one thing for putting such things on so that people can raise the things to drink from to the mouth to drink a little / and then put them down on those other things / which can be put down on the table / those other things are similar to them in some ways so that they look nice together
lexicographical standpoint, it doesnt work: It would be difficult to sell a dictionary that lacked basic terminology like you. People expect all words (including indexicals and words like think and know) in their dictionaries. Other linguists who have developed frameworks involving the lexicon lack discussion of how indexicals interact with the theory, such as Pustejovsky (1996 [1995])3 [and its precursors, including Pustejovsky and Boguraev (1994)], whose work was at the core of Pustejovskys natural language processing company Lexeme (later LingoMotors). Fillmore & Atkins (1994), in their discussion of corpus lexicography, go to great lengths examining one word, risk. The works of Fillmore have culminated in FrameNet4 (http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~framenet/), but currently its database includes only nouns, verbs, and adjectives. McCawley (1978) tackles the indexicals from a lexicographic standpoint. After summing up the age-old discussion of how to define horse, he wades into the area of indexicals, which he calls, following Jespersens terminology, shifters. Included in the discussion are here and there, and he states, The lexicographer must thus not only be prepared to identify indices in the meanings of lexical items, but to determine the details of how those indices may be related to the linguistic or situational context, since that is a dimension on which lexical items can differ from one another. McCawley is recognizing the need for descriptive information that conveys the way in which a word is used, instead of (or in addition to) its meaning. It is then no surprise that dictionaries treat items such as you from the standpoint of context. In section 2, we discuss the semantics of pronouns, advocating a simplified feature analysis which invokes pragmatic principles to explicate their referential character. In section 3, we turn to the use of pronouns, concentrating primarily on you and how its reference is achieved.
3. The dust jacket of The Generative Lexicon sums up his theory perfectly: [T]he lexicon functions generatively, first by providing a rich and expressive vocabulary for characterizing lexical information; then, by developing a framework for manipulating fine-grained distinctions in word descriptions; and finally, by formalizing a set of mechanisms for specialized composition of aspects of word descriptions such that, as they occur in context, extended and novel senses are generated. 4. From its FAQ: The Berkeley FrameNet project is a lexicon-building effort for contemporary English in which we (1) select words with particular meanings; (2) describe the frames or conceptual structures which underlie these meanings; (3) examine sentences containing these words as found in a very large corpus of contemporary English; and (4) record the ways in which the components of the sentences containing these words express information about the frames they evoke.
2. The semantic representation of pronouns

In this section we discuss the semantic features necessary for creating a pronominal paradigm. We employ traditional markedness conventions, elaborating these with arguments of a neo-Gricean flavor. As indexicals, personal pronouns are taken to only be definable with respect to use. However, as Kaplan (1989) has made clear, indexicals also have a semantic character. Although we disagree with Kaplans strong view that indexical reference is fixed by the context (as we will discuss further in section 3), we agree that indexicals have a semantic component.5 Following Jakobson, we take the unmarked case not to represent the opposite of the marked case but the absence of mention. The general meaning of a marked category states the presence of a certain (whether positive or negative) property A; the general meaning of the corresponding unmarked category states nothing about the presence of A, and is used chiefly, but not exclusively, to indicate the absence of A. The unmarked term is always the negative of the marked term, but on the level of general meaning the opposition of the two contradictories may be interpreted as statements of A vs. no statement of A, whereas on the level of narrowed, nuclear meanings, we encounter the opposition statement of A vs. statement of non-A. (Jakobson 1971:136) Note that Jakobsons terminology distinguishes what the general meaning states and how it is used chiefly. Although (for obvious reasons) he does not state this in neo-Gricean terms, this analysis is compatible with such an account (see Horn 1989 chapter 3 for more on markedness and its applicability to Grices program). For example, the absence of the plural mark ([-pl]) could be said to implicate not plural, i.e., singular. But this implicature could only exist in the presence of a marked opposition. Thus [+sender, -pl]6 indicates a singular only insofar as it is opposed to the more marked [+sender, +pl]. But without such an opposition, it is compatible with either plural or not plural. For example, Standard English you we take to be [+addr, -pl].7 Without another term specified as [+addr, +pl], you is neither singular nor plural. We assume that you is not ambiguous, which would suggest polysemy; rather, we take it to be vague (though it can be clarified by context). To spell this out further, we assume that English has the following pronoun paradigm (we ignore gender differences, as they are tangential to our point).
5. To (mis)quote the lead singer from KISS: Neither you or I are anti-semantic (Gene Simmons in an interview with Terry Gross 2/4/02). 6. 7. We employ the channel-neutral +/-sender in lieu of the speech-centric +/-speaker. Following Jakobsons practice, we use the minus symbol to represent the unmarked case.
Table 1. The semantic features of English pronouns

we: [+sender, -addr, +pl] you: [-sender, +addr, -pl] he/she/it: [-sender, -addr, -pl] they: [-sender, -addr, +pl] I: [+sender, -addr, -pl]
We is unmarked for addressee, but in the absence of an opposition that is marked for addressee, it is compatible with the addressees inclusion or exclusion. In other words we is compatible with any of the following reference sets (where 1 represents a single sender, 2 represents a single addressee, 3 represents a single other, and represents 0 or more individuals of any of the three types): {1,1, }, {1, 2, }, {1, 3, }. All that we entails is that the reference be to a plural set with at least one sender as a member. We also assume a markedness hierarchy by which 1 > 2 > 3. In this way, we is more marked than you, which means that in opposition to we, you is pragmatically understood to rule out the use of we, and thus indicates that the sender is absent.8 Likewise, he/she/it indicates not I and not you, and they indicates not we and not you. This analysis appears compatible with a scalar implicature approach; given a Horn scale, +pl > -pl or 1 > 2 > 3, the presence of a term at the lower end of the scale implicates that the more marked or informative term could not be felicitously used. Horn (1984) calls such implicatures Q-implicatures. However, as Horn (and Grice before him) has made clear, an implicature cannot affect truth-conditions. To understand this, it is helpful to consider some clear examples of Q-implicatures. (1a) Q-implicates (1b) because of the Horn scale hot > warm, and (2a) Q-implicates (2b) because of the Horn scale all > some. (1) a. b. (2) a. b. The water is warm. the water is not hot Some semanticists are smart. it is not the case that all semanticists are smart
In such cases it is easy to cancel the implicature: (3) The water is warm in fact, you might even say its hot. (4) Some semanticists are smart in fact, they may all be.
8. Pace Zwicky (1977: 718719), this hierarchy is apparently language dependent. Simon (in press) and Bhat (2004:12425) demonstrate that in some languages 2 > 1 > 3. In such languages, what is often glossed as inclusive we is actually a second person plural. In other words, if 2 > 1, [+addr, -sender, +pl] may include the sender, while [-addr, +sender, +pl] is pragmatically understood to exclude the addressee from its reference set. (Simon and Bhat cast this in somewhat different terminology.)
However, with the process we have in mind, this seems decidedly awkward: (5) a. They are pragmaticists. b. you and I are not pragmaticists c. #They are pragmaticists in fact, we may be too. This is because the inference we are discussing is at the level of reference, not proposition.9 What we mean is that from they, it is understood that the sender and addressee are excluded from the reference, but we do not want to say that there is a generalized implicature (5b) associated with (5a).10 If exclusion from reference led to such generalized implicatures, then (6a) should generally implicate (6b). (6) a. Larry Horn is a neo-Gricean. b. nobody other than Larry Horn is a neo-Gricean When we speak of reference, implicature is not an appropriate term since reference is essential to truth values. Whether we in (7) includes reference to the addressee affects the truth value of the sentence. (7) We met Larry at CLS. The inclusion or exclusion of the addressee is in no way entailed in English we; thus we argue that it is not part of the semantic representation. Otherwise, we would have to say that we in English is polysemous, which seems untenable to us. Indeed, reference is always both semantically and pragmatically determined, even with descriptions. Thus (8) only has a truth value once the referent of its subject is established: (8) The neo-Gricean is a Yale professor. Who the neo-Gricean is must, in part, be determined pragmatically; however, that he or she is a neo-Gricean is presumably entailed. Likewise, we could say that I entails that the sender is a member of the reference set for a given token. However, we argue, I does not entail that the reference set has a cardinality of 1, but, rather, this results from pragmatic principles. We need to find a term for the result of these pragmatic principles. We choose the Relevance Theoretic term explicature. Horn (2005) and Bach (1994, 2001, this volume)
9. Betty Birner (pc) points out that (5c) is odd in large part because of the suggestion that were unsure about our status as pragmaticists; for example, we could felicitously follow (5a) with in fact, so are we. But, she goes on to note that this is consistent with our point, i.e., that the exclusion of the first and second person from the reference does not trigger the implicature in (5b). In other words, in fact, so are we simply adds information without canceling any potential implicature. 10. Of course, there is the potential for a particularized implicature along these lines, such that (i) may implicate (ii): (i) You should review Grice. (ii) it is not the case that I should review Grice
have argued that many of what have been labeled explicatures are misnamed because they are not explicit. Thus Horn (2005, citing Taylor 2001) points out that (9) carries with it an implicit today not carried by (10): (9) I havent had breakfast. (10) I havent had sex. Horn demonstrates that this is pragmatic in that it would change in a culture in which one normally has sex (but not breakfast) each morning. This implicit information is not an implicature because it affects truth conditions, but Horn and Bach are dissatisfied with the term explicature for what is clearly implicit. Thus they opt for the term impliciture. The pragmatic effects we are considering, however, do not seem implicit. Rather, we are arguing that they are explicit, yet are not part of the semantic representation of the terms. Returning to the paradigm in Table 1, we can say that the reference set of I includes the sender because of a semantic entailment, but its reference set has a cardinality of 1 because of what we could term a Q-explicature. A Q-explicature is based on the same principle that leads from (1a) to (1b) and (2a) to (2b), viz. given R (say no more than is necessary) follow Q (say as much as you can) (cf. Horn 1984). Given that the sender could have chosen the more informative form we, the recipient infers that the reference set of I is not plural.11 Such an inference is necessary for determining what is said. In arguing for such explicatures at the level of pronominal reference, our goal is to simplify their semantic representation and to eliminate the need for positing polysemy. Furthermore, such an account helps us to understand systematic, cross-linguistic gaps in pronominal paradigms. In many languages, a distinction is made between two first person plurals: the inclusive we and exclusive we. In fact, we argue, there is nothing exclusive about the exclusive we. It has exactly the same semantic representation as English we, [+sender, -addr, +pl].12 However, the paradigm is different in that there is another form, [+sender, +addr, +pl], which is more marked. In opposition to this form, the exclusive Qexplicates that the inclusive does not hold. Note that both the inclusive and exclusive we are compatible with a third person in the reference set (cf. Cysouw 2002, 2003). Thus inclusive we is compatible with the following reference set: {1, 2, } (where represents 0 or more individuals of any type); and exclusive we is compatible with the following reference set: {1, } (where represents 1 or more additional individuals
11. Silverstein (1987:137) follows similar logic; however, he does not cite Horn, and he uses the term implicature. 12. If we are correct, when speakers of such languages are unsure whether the addressee is included in the reference set, they will use the exclusive we. Further research is necessary to determine if this is true. (Thanks go to Betty Birner (pc) for suggesting this avenue of research.)
of type 1 or 3). We need to distinguish in these cases between what is entailed and what is explicated: inclusive we entails: i) at least one sender and at least one addressee are in the reference set; ii) the reference set has a cardinality >1 exclusive we entails: i) at least one sender is in the reference set; ii) the reference set has a cardinality >1 exclusive we Q-explicates that no addressee is in the reference set. Since, according to our analysis, the exclusive only excludes the addressee in opposition to an inclusive, we predict that a language cannot have a specialized exclusive without also having a specialized inclusive; however, this conditional cannot be reversed, i.e., there is no reason that a language couldnt have a specialized inclusive without a specialized exclusive. In fact, this prediction is supported by Cysouws (2003) research, where he states the following generalization: A specialized inclusive can exist without a specialized exclusive, but a specialized exclusive cannot exist without a specialized inclusive (96).13 Cysouw (2002; 2003) has uncovered a maximum of three first person plural distinctions: Minimal inclusive refers to {1, 2}; inclusive refers to {1, 2, } (where represents 1 or more individuals of any type); and exclusive refers to {1, } (where represents 1 or more individuals of type 1 or 3). Interestingly, only the minimal inclusive has a limit on the number of referents. The minimal inclusive appears to be a dual of sorts; however, Cysouw includes in his typology only languages which do not have a dual elsewhere. From a markedness point of view, it is odd that these languages would have a dual specified for first person, but not second or third person. Nevertheless, Cysouw tacitly assumes that the minimal inclusive includes the feature [+minimal], a feature used to define duals in languages that have them (cf. Harley and Ritter 2002 for further discussion). To us, it seems odd that this feature would only be used once in the paradigm. By Occams razor, an alternative explanation that does without it would be preferable. Disregarding gender and more fine-grained number distinctions, Cysouw found a maximum of eight person distinctions. We argue that the full semantic representations for Cysouws maximal paradigm are as follows: Table 2. The maximal paradigm for pronouns
minimal inclusive: [+sender, +addr, -pl] first singular: [+sender, -addr, -pl] second singular: [-sender, +addr, -pl] third singular: [-sender, -addr, -pl] inclusive: [+sender, +addr, +pl] exclusive: [+sender, -addr, +pl] second plural: [-sender, +addr, +pl] third plural: [-sender, -addr, +pl]
13. Cysouw cites Binandere as the only exception.
We have classified the minimal inclusive with the singulars, which is similar to Thomas (1955), Conklin (1962), and McKay (1978), each of whom made a similar division (cited in Cysouw 2003:88-89). Each of these scholars felt compelled to redefine the opposition as something other than singular vs. plural (McKays minimal vs. augmented seems the most popular). However, we will stick with the +/-pl feature since, as we have argued above, [-pl] does not mean singular.14 In fact, we assume that it could not mean singular because that would be incompatible with the two marked features [+sender, +addr].15 In opposition to the inclusive, which is [+pl], the minimal inclusive derives its minimal interpretation via explicature. The inclusive will be reserved for cases in which there are three members of the set, while the minimal inclusive is reserved for two member sets. At first this seems like an odd result, i.e., that the less marked form is more restrictive than the more marked. However, this is essentially analogous to the I/we dichotomy, in which the less marked form has a more restricted potential reference set. But that is simply a result of the Q-explicature which negates the more marked form when the less marked is used. Whats odd here is that the inclusive seems perfectly compatible with the minimal inclusive, yet it is presumably reserved for sets with a minimum of three members. To understand this, we need to consider the division of pragmatic labor (cf. Horn 1984). This division works as follows: The less marked form is associated through R-implicature with the stereotypical situation. In response, the more marked form is associated with the complement via Q-implicature. As Horn notes, such implicatures used in the pragmatic division of labor are likely to become conventionalized; however, we argue that such conventionalization, at least here, results in explicature, not entailment. Because there is already a term that entails a reference set with at least one sender and one addressee, the inclusive would be redundant unless it was more elaborated, that is, unless there were more members. The exact process is as follows. As the semantically less marked form, the minimal inclusive is associated via R-explicature with the stereotypical situation, i.e., one speaker and one hearer. In response, the more marked form is associated with the complement via Q-explicature, i.e., the reference set has at least three members (which by entailment includes at least one sender and one addressee). The above paradigm has no need for a +/-other feature. But without such a feature, there is no way to unambiguously represent a true plural first person, that is, a first person plural that includes multiple senders but excludes second and third persons (choral we). Likewise, it has no way to distinguish between multiple addressees (exclusive you) and one or more addressees plus one or more third persons (inclusive you).
14. Cysouw (2003:297) recasts the opposition as singular/non-singular, placing minimal inclusive on the non-singular side. This move necessitates a fourth feature to distinguish minimal inclusive from augmented inclusive (+/-minimal). 15. We assume that no language has a pronoun reserved for addressing oneself.
To do so, we would need +/-other. In principle, these four features should give us 16 possible pronouns: Table 3. A pronominal paradigm including +/-other
[+sender, +addr, +other, -pl] [+sender, +addr, -other, -pl] [+sender, -addr, +other, -pl] [+sender, -addr, -other, -pl] [-sender, +addr, +other, -pl] [-sender, +addr, -other, -pl] [-sender, -addr, +other, -pl] [-sender, -addr, -other, -pl] [+sender, +addr, +other, +pl] [+sender, +addr, -other, +pl] [+sender, -addr, +other, +pl] [+sender, -addr, -other, +pl] [-sender, +addr, +other, +pl] [-sender, +addr, -other, +pl] [-sender, -addr, -other, +pl] [-sender, -addr, -other, +pl]
Of these sixteen, only the bolded nine are attested in the literature (though Cysouw, as we noted above, only found eight). Of these nine, only one marks other as positive. This form, [-sender, +addr, +other, +pl], is what scholars have termed the inclusive you. While scholars have speculated that there could be an inclusive you ([-sender, +addr, +other, +pl]) distinct from an exclusive you ([-sender, +addr, -other, +pl]), and some have even cited specific languages which purportedly show this distinction, Simon (in press) has shown through careful investigation that these are not real examples of the distinction. In some cases he shows that the data was misanalyzed; in other cases, he shows that there was an equivocation such that the terms inclusive you and exclusive you were used for a different distinction than the one discussed here; in the final cases, he shows that the inclusive you results from a derivational suffix which is not restricted to pronouns but also found on common nouns, suggesting that the semantic distinction is not the same as inclusive/exclusive, though it may pragmatically result in this distinction. Simons research has led him to just one language whose data supports such a distinction, Bavarian, and he notes that its use is severely limited contextually. Based on Simons analysis, we posit the following paradigm for Bavarian second person. Table 4. Pronominal paradigm for Bavarian second person
Sie / =S [-sender, +addr, -pl, +formal] du / =d [-sender, +addr, -pl, -formal] e/ =s(/ ihr) [-sender, +addr, +pl, -formal]
In this paradigm, there are two second person singular forms: one formal and the other informal. As usual, we invoke a Q-explicature to account for dus singularity and absence of formality. In the plural, this formal/informal distinction is neutralized; that is, it is unmarked for formality. This is not, however, the full story according to Simons analysis. Simon demonstrates that a sender will choose e when formally addressing two or more persons;
however, when the sender formally addresses just one person, Sie will be chosen even when the reference set is plural. Thus we see two neutralizations in the pronominal system: The formal distinction is neutralized in the plural, and the plural distinction is neutralized in the formal. Of the three Bavarian second person forms, du is the least marked. Thus it Q-explicates not e (i.e., not plural), and not Sie (i.e., not formal). With respect to plurality, Sie is less marked than e. However, with respect to formality, e is less marked than Sie. Unlike the previous oppositions that weve considered, this is not an unmarked vs. marked form opposition. Sie and e cannot be ranked on a Horn scale. Thus, the Q-explicatures are not possible. Still, we expect to see a pragmatic division of labor between them. Being marked +pl, e is used stereotypically when there is a plurality of addressees irrespective of formality. However, the plurality of addressees is not necessary because, in opposition to du, e will be chosen when the situation is informal, there is only one addressee, and the reference set is plural. On the other hand, when the situation is formal, there is only one addressee, and the reference set is singular, Sie will be chosen over du. Finally, when the situation is formal, there is only one addressee, and the reference set is plural, Sie will be chosen because e is stereotypically associated with a plurality of addressees. Unlike the explicatures that we considered earlier, these should not be considered generalized explicatures. Rather, they seem to be dictated by particularized aspects of the context. For example, Simon is at pains to demonstrate that this plural use of Sie must be interpreted as a plural by carefully choosing a predicate that requires a plural subject (e.g., se treffa to meet each other). Similarly, in Standard English, the predicate can help to explicate that the reference set for you is plural, as in (11). (11) Where did you meet? At any rate, we believe that the Bavarian data does not warrant a +/-other feature. The Bavarian distinction, while interesting, is not truly an opposition of inclusive vs. exclusive you. Assuming that no language has choral we and no language semantically divides its second person plural into inclusive and exclusive you, there is no need for the feature +/-other. Some might argue that this is dictated by UG principles; however, we suggest that it would be more prudent to look to pragmatics. By Occams razor, if we can explain this without resorting to an extra UG rule, such an analysis is preferable. First, lets consider choral we. If choral we ([+sender, -addr, -other, +pl]) existed, it would lead to a true plural first person by Q-explicating the exclusion of second and third person and thereby result in a plurality of first persons. However, this result is largely redundant insofar as recipients generally know when there is a plurality of senders; certainly they know, either textually or contextually, whenever such information is relevant as it is with a joint academic paper, such as this one. So the primary purpose of the choral we could not be to index a plurality of senders. This means that the primary purpose of such a term would be exclusionary. As weve argued, exclu-
sion cannot be entailed by an unmarked feature; it only results through an opposition with a marked form, which leads to an explicature of exclusion. Thus, the choral we could only exist with an opposition of [+sender, -addr, -other, +pl] to [+sender, +addr, -other, +pl] and [+sender, -addr, +other, +pl]. However, the referential payoff would be minimal for such an expansion of the lexicon. The reason is that just as we seldom need to make overt reference to the fact that there are more than one senders of an utterance, we seldom need to overtly exclude a third person from the potential reference set of a referring expression. We will elaborate on this latter point below. Just as we can envision how a choral we would function, it is clear what the exclusive you would indicate: Third person is excluded from the reference as a result of explicature. Yet when would such a form be used? How often is it useful to overtly exclude a third person from the reference set of you(pl)? For example, when professors instruct their classes, I want you to bring your textbooks to class, they are clearly addressing a plurality of addressees, yet they would hardly wish to exclude any absent students. In other contexts with a plurality of addressees, it is often understood that the referent of you(pl) excludes third persons. For example, imagine (12a) addressed to a group of people which includes Abigail but not her husband. In that context, (12b) would be an infelicitous response for her to make, while (12c) would be normal. (12) a. Have any of you read Studies in the Ways of Words? b. #Yes, my husband has. c. No, but my husband has. This exclusion of the third person is particularized, not generalized. Hence, we do not take this to be an explicature, but rather part of the determination of referential intention. For example, the you in an e-mailed invitation to a party is usually limited to those individuals who received the e-mail directly. Indeed, the appended line spouses and children welcome seems to make overt that they were not intended as part of the reference of you(pl). However, this inference is context dependent. It is more likely when the addressees form a unified group of some sort (say, colleagues or members of a team) than when they are more heterogeneous (say, friends). When only one member of an established couple is included in an invitation to addressees of the latter sort, it is generally understood that both members are invited. This is the point: A third person is only included in the reference of you(pl) if the context warrants such an inclusion. Indeed, sometimes the context may demand inclusion, as for example when an unambiguously plural you is addressed to only one person. For example, if (13) were addressed to only Grant, he would conclude that you referred to himself and another (salient) person. (13) What have you been doing with yourselves? Since the context rarely makes it necessary to specify whether a third person should be included or excluded from the referents of first or second person plurals, such a feature would not carry enough semantic weight to be justified. Clearly, this is not the case for
the two participant roles, which we assume, as most scholars have, are both semantically necessary features. Note, however, that the first person plural can, as in English, leave the addressee unmarked, or it can specify two forms, marked and unmarked addressee. Either way can lead to politeness problems. Leaving the addressees inclusion or exclusion unexplicated can lead to miscommunication and diminished face on both sides. An exclusive we can highlight the addressees exclusion, thereby threatening his or her face. (We are rarely so concerned about the face of third persons.) In conclusion, according to traditional markedness conventions, the unmarked case does not entail the absence of a particular feature, just the absence of statement with respect to that feature. When an unmarked form is opposed to a marked form, it Q-explicates the absence of the feature. This approach helps to explain systematic, crosslinguistic gaps in pronominal systems, and it proves essential in understanding the unusual dynamics seen in the Bavarian pronominal system. Finally, this approach leads to a maximally simple semantics without adding any novel principles or processes.
3. The pragmatics of participant roles

In the previous section, we examined the minimal features necessary to give the semantic meaning of personal pronouns. We argued that only +/-sender, +/-addr, and +/-pl are needed (along with some language dependent features, such as formality and gender).16 In essence we treated these three as semantic primitives. But the first two are unusual primitives in that they are metapragmatic in nature; that is, they denote aspects of the utterance event. In Reichenbachs (1947) terminology, they are tokenreflexive. Goffman (1976, 1981) notes that the sender participant role is complex, consisting of three independent roles: principal, author, and animator. However, subsequent scholars have argued that we can reduce these to just one role if we allow for the possibility of one language event indexing or embedding another (cf. Hanks 1996, Irvine 1996, McCawley ms). One of the more convoluted cases would be a ghost-written autobiography. The principal is the person who the autobiography is about, the author is the ghost-writer, and the animator is the publisher (or more accurately the printer). The context of reading such an autobiography necessitates several prior language events: the principal telling the ghost-writer his or her lifes story; the ghost-writer composing the words; the ghost-writer submitting the manuscript to the publisher; and the publisher printing it.17 Ultimately, the foremost language event is the most
16. This should not be taken to mean that all three of these features will be used in every languages pronominal paradigm, nor that every language has personal pronouns. 17. Undoubtedly each of these four involves multiple language events, and they probably overlap, but for our purposes we can treat each one as discrete.
salient for determining the sender referent (cf. Eggert 1998 on the role of salience in indexical reference). Kaplan (1989) argues that the referent of I is fixed by the context in which it is uttered.18 Under Kaplans theory, the same should hold for you. However, Bach (1987:188) argues: Of all the personal pronouns, only I has a meaning that determines reference as a function of context.19 According to Bach, the speakers intention is a necessary component in determining the referent of you, and, moreover, one that is separate from content and context. In practice, language users do not seem to have much difficulty resolving the referent of I. More accurately put, language users can resolve the referent of I as much as is necessary for the purposes of the language event. For example, in personals the recipients know only as much about I as is revealed in the ad. Still, we trust that I refers to the unique individual who submitted the ad. In other words, I refers to the person who sends the message. The same cannot be said for the addressee. The addressee is not merely the recipient. The two roles differ largely due to their different activity levels. Because sending is inherently active, the referent is usually easy to resolve. To use Hanks (1993) and Silversteins (1995) terminology, I and you are simultaneously presuppositional and creative. By uttering I, one presupposes and creates a sender. By uttering you, one presupposes and creates an addressee. However, these two are not equal. The existence of a token of I doesnt merely presuppose a sender, it entails one.20 But the existence of a token of you does not entail that an addressee exists. As an example, we can look at the ever-popular message-in-a-bottle: (14) If you find this message, please rescue me. Here, a recipient can safely assume that the message was sent; however, the sender cannot safely assume that the message will be received. For a more literary example we can look to Dostoevskys Notes from the Underground (cited in Eggert 2003): (15) Then it is still you who are saying this new economic relations will be established, relations all ready for use and calculated with mathematical exactitude Of course, it is quite impossible to guarantee (it is I who am speaking now) that even then people will not be bored to tears The narrator states (15) knowing that he shall never have any readers.
18. Technically, we mean the referent of a use of a token of I. For the sake of brevity, we will speak of terms having referents; we will even speak of terms referring, knowing full well that people refer, not words (Bach ms). Readers should understand these (ab)uses to be shorthand. 19. Eggert (1998) argues that such cannot be said even for I; that is, that there are uses of I where the intended referent is somebody other than the actual sender. Bach would presumably label such cases as non-literal uses and thus exempt from his analysis. 20. However, it does not entail that the token refers to the sender (cf. Eggert 1998).
We do not wish to imply that addressees are passive. Indeed, as Grice so persuasively argued, the addressees job in interpreting what is conveyed is quite cognitively active. However, at the level of the physics of the language event, the addressee is passive. Indeed, aside from some subtle (and optional) cues, little physically distinguishes an addressee from a non-addressed recipient. Much more than the sender, the role of addressee can only be understood by considering the linguistic pragmatics. For this reason, we will focus our attention in the rest of this section on the semantic feature of addressee. The uses of you in (14-15) are similar, but not identical, to Bakhtins superaddressee. Verschueren (1999) uses the term virtual addressee to refer to any non-specific addressee. For reasons to be made clear below, we will opt for the term hypothetical addressee. Before discussing hypothetical addressees, we should turn to the more archetypal situation, in which the sender intends to address a specific person or persons. Even here there may be miscommunication (are you talking to me?), but such cases are unusual. Aspects of the context (physical, social, and mental) help to clarify who the addressee is, but ultimately participants rely on the senders intentions (Bach 1987). The same cannot be said for recipients. As Goffman (1976; 1981) points out, there may be bystanders, overhearers, and eavesdroppers, all of whom may receive a message, but none of whom (by definition) is the addressee.21 Only a ratified recipient is a potential candidate for addressee. Thus we need to divide recipients into two groups: ratified and non-ratified. Within the former group, we distinguish between addressee and non-addressee. Levinson (2000) speaks of a pragmatic narrowing which can be used to navigate within the realm of ratified recipients. Within one utterance, one token of you can refer to the entire class of ratified recipients and a subsequent token to a subclass. (16) Some of you know the news; Im not talking to you; Im talking to the rest of you. [Levinson 2000:178] Kleinedler (2000) labels the inference in (16) a Q-based narrowing, analogous to, e.g., fingers being narrowed so as not to include thumbs. Note that this type of Q-based process is different from the Q-explicatures discussed above. The Q-explicatures help determine what Bach (1987) terms referential constraints on the pronouns, that is, they are part of the character of the indexicals. The narrowing involved in (16) is utterance dependent.
21. Any of them may be members of the reference set for a token of you, but only as a member of type 3, not type 2.
Levinson casts this type of narrowing as a generalized implicature,22 but Kleinedler (2000) demonstrates that such moves are not restricted to generalized instances, offering data with particularized instances of such narrowing. (17) Its time for owners of IBM-compatible PCs to do their spring cleaning. Otherwise you might get a nasty surprise next Wednesday, March 6. Thats when Michelangelo [a computer virus] makes its annual appearance. [Bray 1996, cited in Kleinedler 2000:224] Any Mac-using readers of (17) are excluded from the reference of you. Such a narrowing results from particularized aspects of the context; i.e., based on the purposes of the utterance, it is understood that you refers to some but not all of the readers. This type of narrowing is especially pervasive in written media, but it can be found in other language events as well (cf. Eggert 2003). Such narrowing depends on the senders intentions. In (16), the sender has a different referent set in mind for each of the three tokens of you. Furthermore, the sets for the second and third tokens are descriptive in nature (cf. Bach 1987:193-94). The sender does not know who specifically is included in the reference sets, but, rather, has defined the sets according to the attributes of the ratified recipients (whether or not they know the news). Likewise, in (17), you is used descriptively to refer to the set of PC-using readers. Although both (16) and (17) show descriptive uses of you, they are qualitatively different in that in (16) the sender is presumably acquainted first-hand with the ratified recipients (the audience), whereas in (17) the sender is not acquainted with the ratified recipients (the readership). Indeed, the latter sender must trust that there will be recipients. We call this latter sort of recipient hypothetical. Thus the referent for you in such cases will be the hypothetical addressee. Perhaps the best examples of such hypothetical uses are found in personal ads. (18) Youre over 510, in great shape, a DWM 45-55 who loves his job, the lake, music, movies, theatre, travel. [Chicago Reader. November 13, 1998. Section 2. p. 46, cited in Eggert 2003] The token of you in (18) could only refer to a select subset of the readership. Furthermore, note that the reference set must be singular, so presumably it could only refer to one reader. In fact, we argue that this use of the hypothetical you does not refer to any real individual.23 Thus we see that the addressee need not be a specific person.
22. Horn (2005) takes umbrage at Levinsons use of the term implicature where it is used to refer to a pragmatic inference that changes the truth conditions of what is said. In a curmudgeonly move, Larry waxes nostalgic to the Golden Age of Pure Pragmatics; however, we suspect that he does so in part so that he can make puns. We do not begrudge him his puns, and thus we do not mind the GAPP. 23. Eggert refers to this as a fictional addressee.
4. Conclusion
Where does this leave the theorists? According to Eggert (2003), the addressee should not be seen as a necessary part of the context, but as a presupposed role, a role that may be embodied by a physical person or a hypothetical one. Certainly, we should be careful to distinguish addressee from recipient. Unlike recipient, addressee is a pragmatic role. Thus our semantic feature +/-addressee is really metapragmatic. The same holds for +/-sender. An equally important question is, where does this leave the lexicographers? From a theoretical standpoint, philosophers can dance around the head of the pronoun pin, but a dictionary that dropped a chunk of basic vocabulary is one that would not be met well with the public. The user wants to see the new bling, the scientific roentgenium, and the run-of-the-mill book or sump pump, but equally important are the basic nuts and bolts of the language, words like you, the, and and. A good lexicographer must adequately balance the aspects of the dictionary that are semantically based with those that are pragmatically based. Lexicographers have developed the convention of describing interjections and various indexicals rather than defining them, because the goal of the lexicographer is to make a user understand how a word is used. Most of the time, that goal can be accomplished (and the user expects it to be accomplished) through rigorous semantic definitions; however, in these cases where thats not possible, the lexicographer resorts to a straightforward description of use. And the user accepts that. Dictionaries arent as tied to pure definition as one might think. Modern dictionaries jockey for market position, and one of the ways they do that is by offering to the public an array of ancillary material designed to make the users feel better about themselves by showing them how to use the information presented, whether it be through notes discussing the usage of terms or additional information, as in the form of labels, that guide the user toward appropriate use. In this paper and in others that we have written individually, we have examined and dissected you and I from many angles, but one thing we have not done is defined them entirely semantically. We are not alone; as mentioned above, many scholars as well as the American Heritage Dictionary resort to usage description. Wierzbicka had it partially right: You and I may indeed be considered primitives; however, in the spirit of lexical pragmatics, we posit that she was only half right. An avenue of thought worth pursuing is the idea that indexicals, including you and the trinity of Buhlers origo, are not semantic primitives, but pragmatic primitives.
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Why defining is seldom just semantics

Marriage and marriage
Sally McConnell-Ginet
Cornell University
Defining occurs in diverse discourse contexts. This paper focuses on instrumental definitions, which recommend particular understandings indicated by the proferred definiens on the grounds of their alleged superior utility for certain purposes. These purposes can range from facilitating scientific or broader intellectual inquiry to promoting particular social ends. Instrumental definitions are often contested: Describing such contests as simply linguistic or just semantics is one strategy for resisting ends that the proferred definiens might promote. Dismissive critics draw on a view of defining as just pasting a linguistic label on an antecedently understood concept, a view that neglects the important role defining plays in developing concepts and, ultimately, understanding and social life. Debates over the definition of marriage and family illustrate instrumental defining activity. They are not just about the words marriage and family but about the institutions of marriage and family. But the words themselves matter because of their place in larger ongoing discourses.
1.
Setting the stage
Should marriage be defined to exclude or include same-sex unions? Legislatively, the US Congress has answered to exclude. (1) Extract from Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), enacted 1996: [T]he word marriage means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word spouse refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife. Congress has, however, voted on but not endorsed the proposed amendment to the US Constitution restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples.
(2) Extract from proposed federal marriage amendment (FMA) (Senate vote, July 2004; House vote, September 2004): Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. On the other hand, the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has resoundingly answered to include, arguing in the majority opinion from which (3) is extracted that to do otherwise is inconsistent with that states provision of equal rights for all its citizenry. (3) Extract from decision of Supreme Judicial Court (4-3), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Goodridge, November 18, 2003: We construe civil marriage to mean the voluntary union of two persons as spouses, to the exclusion of all others. It is not only legislators, judges, and politicians offering opinions: many ordinary folk are also weighing in on the definition of marriage. Some say definitional debates are just semantics, therefore trivial. Others, on both sides, argue that it matters considerably whether the word marriage shall be construed as including or excluding same-sex unions. Linguist Geoffrey K. Pullum in a posting to Language Log on February 25, 2004 disapproves: (4) I twitch a little each time I hear someone talking about ... pass[ing] a law, or a constitutional amendment, that defines marriage as being a man and a woman, as if something lexicographical was at issue... This issue is being represented as linguistic, relating to a democratic right of the people to stipulate definitions, when its nothing of the kind. ... Dont let them tell me they are revising a definition. Its nothing to do with defining the word marriage. Websters has done that perfectly well. Its about a denial of rights. [boldface in original] In this paper, I will argue that the recent debates are, contra Pullum, about both definition and language (specifically, about regulating uses of the word marriage).1 I will agree with him, however, that they are also about rights and other substantive matters of public policy. Defining words is not just something lexicographers do; defining is a metalinguistic practice that plays an important role in intellectual inquiry as well as in social and political life. Why? Defining matters because words do not just label preexisting
1. In Pullums defense, I note that he was responding to President George W. Bushs claim (February 24, 2004) that a few judges and local authorities are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilization... the voice of the people must be heard ... If we are to prevent the meaning of marriage from being changed forever, our nation must enact a constitutional amendment to protect marriage in America. Decisive and democratic action is needed.
Why defining is seldom just semantics: Marriage and marriage 219
determinate concepts; they often play a role in shaping concepts and in channeling thoughts and actions. Philosophers have traditionally distinguished nominal from real definitions,2 the nominal being about language and the real about concepts and reality. The marriage controversy makes clear that nominal definitions often have import that goes far beyond language. Even what lexicographers do is less definitive than we might want to believe. As Pullum notes, citing Websters, current lexicographers seem to recognize both exclusive and inclusive construals as widespread and include each as a separate sense in their entries. (5) Entry from American Heritage Dictionary, 4th ed., 2000: Marriage 1a. The legal union of a man and woman as husband and wife. b. The state of being married; wedlock. c. A common-law marriage. d. A union between two persons having the customary but usually not the legal force of marriage: a same-sex marriage. 2. A wedding. 3. A close union: the most successful marriage of beauty and blood in mainstream comics (Lloyd Rose). 4. Games The combination of the king and queen of the same suit, as in pinochle. Italics pick out both the exclusionary meaning encoded in (1) (DOMA) and pushed by supporters of (2) (FMA) sense 1a and the inclusionary construal sense 1d endorsed by the Massachusetts court. The current conflict is over whether sense 1a or 1d is to be deployed in certain significant contexts. How will marriage and related words be interpreted at passport control points? On tax forms? In settling disputes over inheritance? By hospitals granting visitation rights or recognizing medical powers of attorney? By those trying to protect their children or themselves in the face of difficulties developing in a relationship with another person? And situations like these, where legal arrangements might have force, do not exhaust those where definitions of marriage matter. Which interpretations are in force when parents are talking about adult offsprings life choices? When family reunions or memorial services are being planned? When a parent of a young child dies? Finding that Websters and the American Heritage Dictionary recognize that some sizeable group of people do apply the word marriage to some same-sex relationships does not answer questions like these.
2. What definitions do
Defining canonically associates a linguistic expression to be defined the definiendum with something indicating a meaning for that expression, the definiens. The
2. The nominal/real distinction first introduced by Aristotle is explored in Robinson 1954 (along with many other issues raised by definitions); a more recent discussion appears in Cargile 1991. Abelson 1968 surveys philosophical accounts of definition.
definiens is often indicated linguistically, although nonlinguistic means pictures or pointing or other demonstrations can also direct attention to the concept the definer offers as the meaning of the definiendum. In this paper, methods for defining are not at issue. What is at issue are the purposes of definition and, related to these purposes, the grounds on which definitions are or should be appraised. On the basis of what definers hope to do, I distinguish two kinds of definitions, instructional and instrumental. The dictionary definitions of distinct senses of marriage in (5) are instructional; the definitions of marriage in (1)-(3) are instrumental. An instructional definition instructs the addressee on some established convention governing what (some group of) language users (sometimes) mean by the definiendum when they use it in utterances.3 Recipients of an instructional definition learn that there is some group of language users with a rule or convention that the definiendum shall mean the definiens in (some of) their utterances. Instructional definitions live in dictionaries, textbooks, and classroom lectures. An instrumental definition typically assumes antecedent familiarity with the definiendum and its uses in certain kinds of discourses. The definiens offered may be one of the already established conventional understandings of the definiendum as in (1)-(3) above; what is urged is elimination of alternative understandings also already common. But an instrumental definition often urges adoption of a definiens somewhat divergent from though closely related to those already established as conventionally associated with the definiendum. The latter case would traditionally be called a stipulative definition, but that terminology suggests an arbitrariness and possibly complete novelty that is inconsistent with the connections instrumental definers generally draw to prior uses of the definiendum. In either case, it is the alleged superior utility for certain purposes at hand of the definitions urged that supports definers exhortations. Instrumental definitions live in scientific debates, in discussions of morality or of aesthetics, in courtroom exchanges and legal briefs.4
2.1 Instructional definitions

In one of the few extended linguistic studies of definition, Annabel Cormack (1998:4) offers the following: (6) A definition can be regarded as an utterance (written or spoken) designed to facilitate the acquisition or refinement of a lexical entry [in the addressees mental lexicon].
3. Relativizing instructional definitions to language users and contexts of use is crucial, a point sometimes overlooked in talk of linguistic conventions. 4. The closest parallel I have found to the distinction I want to elaborate is the contrast between lexical and legislative definitions drawn in Robinson 1954, but Robinsons interests are somewhat different from mine.
Cormack focuses on instructional definitions, drawing examples from dictionaries and textbooks. Her formulation characterizes such definitions well, though we should note that an instructional definition may also function to remind or confirm that the particular definiens offered is indeed conventionally associated with the definiendum. Monolingual dictionaries are often consulted to see whether a particular sense or way of interpreting an expression has been authorized by respected lexicographers.5 This view of definition does not tell us how the definiens offered will be represented in a speakers mental lexicon. Like some lexicographers, speakers may not draw as sharp a distinction as the linguist would recommend between their knowledge of an expressions meaning and their beliefs about the phenomena which the expression denotes i.e., their internal dictionaries probably include what many linguists would characterize as encyclopedic as well as strictly semantic knowledge. But no matter what lexical entries are like, definitional discourse suggests that the meanings they include are open to change far more readily than other components of linguistic knowledge.6 Most readers of definition 5 will already have marriage entered in their mental lexicons with something like the proffered definiens for the main senses that the lexicographers have identified. (Actually, only card players are likely to recognize sense 4, and sense 3 reports on the apparent conventionalization of what began as a metaphorical extension, conveyed by pragmatic principles rather than by semantic conventions.) Even those who oppose the idea that same-sex marriage should be countenanced typically are familiar with and reliably interpret marriage as it occurs in same-sex marriage, roughly along the lines indicated in sense 1d in (5). Nonetheless some of these folks may hold that a relationships being a same-sex marriage would not entail that it is a marriage, just as somethings being an artificial flower does not entail that it is a flower. And there are many others, holding that a samesex marriage would indeed have to be a marriage, who on those grounds reject the very possibility of same-sex marriages. They claim that having spouses of different sexes is
5.
On the authorizing function of standard monolingual dictionaries, see Treichler 1989.
6. Quine 1951 has convinced most philosophers that the distinctinction between analytic truths, which depend solely on the meaning of the words expressing them, and synthetic truths, which depend on nonlinguistic facts, cannot be maintained. Not all are thereby led to the view that semantic inquiry is a doomed enterprise; see e.g. Lycan 1991. Nonetheless, Quines arguments do cast doubt on many of the notions that linguists working in formal semantics have assumed: e.g. what Chierchia and McConnell-Ginet 2000 call semantic entailment and lexically-based contradictions. The semantic analysis of basic contentful expressions is on a shakier foundation than combinatorial semantics and the analysis of such relatively abstract linguistic elements as quantifiers, tense markers, pronouns, negation (see Horn 1987), and argument structure.
an essential feature of real marriage. Rev. Vernon C. Lyons, pastor of the Ashburn Baptist Church in Orland Park, IL, represents the sentiments of a large group: (7) Same-sex marriage is an oxymoron. If we accept same-sex marriage, we may as well discard our rationality and accept square circles, dry rain, loud silence, low skyscrapers, pure adultery, honest lying, and good murder. [Chicago Tribune, May 18, 2004, sec. 1, p. 20.] Lyons is applying the contradiction test that introductory semantics texts offer students for identifying which parts of what is conveyed by the use of an expression are due to what it means, i.e. which are semantically significant.7 He is unlikely to be impressed by Pullums claim that the existence of an entry in Websters for one sense of marriage that is gender-neutral means that same-sex marriage is not a contradiction. The same Websters entry, just like (5) from AHD, also identifies a distinct (and first mentioned) sense of marriage that is restricted to man-woman unions. For that mixed-sex sense of marriage, then same-sex marriage is contradictory. Lyons and others on his side in the debate are clinging to sense 1a and refusing to join the community of users for whom 1d has become unexceptional. Both sides have ignored the fact that what is held to be essential to the concept associated with a word can (and does) change through time. For example, American courts during much of the 20th century specified that a rape victim had to be a woman other than the legal wife of the perpetrator, making both marital rape and rape with a male victim contradictory. Their refusal to see marital rape as semantically possible relied on the following doctrine formulated in mid-17th century England by Chief Justice Sir Matthew Hale: (8) The husband cannot be guilty of a rape committed by himself upon his lawful wife, for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract, the wife hath given up herself in this kind unto her husband, which she cannot retract. The contradiction test gives conflicting answers precisely where there is disagreement over which conventions members of the speech community should follow, where there are competing possibilities. Cormacks study, focusing on the syntax and semantics of definitional utterances, looks not only at the kinds of definitions dictionaries standardly offer but also at textbook definitions. Here is a definition from Levinson (1983:16): (9) A linguistic scale [now often called a Horn-scale] consists of a set of linguistic alternates, or contrastive expressions of the same grammatical category,
7. Chierchia and McConnell-Ginet 2000 appeal to the contradiction test in discussing such examples as whether kiss entails touch with the lips. As that discussion makes clear, it is difficult to assess when we are dealing with a contradiction as opposed to the unexpected or unusual.
which can be arranged in a linear order by degree of informativeness or semantic strength. Textbook definitions like that in (9) are standardly offered to introduce readers to the special terminology of a field of study. They sometimes involve terms or phrases that readers will not have encountered (at least not in anything like the sense identified by the definiens) but sometimes offer what Cormack calls refinements of what are probably already existing lexical entries, introducing more precise or limited understandings of a common term. For example, many introductory linguistic texts define language and dialect in ways that do not mesh completely with the understanding that students reading them will have on the basis of their familiarity with general English usage. But definitions now enshrined in standard textbooks and offered primarily for instructional purposes have usually been offered earlier as instrumental definitions, playing a role in shaping inquiry in the discipline in question. So, although Cormack does not explicitly consider instrumental definitions, many of the textbook definitions she examines began their lives with the instrumental aim of shaping investigation in some area of study, with implied exhortations to others to adopt this refinement of existing meanings. Even elementary textbook writers occasionally come up with new definitions to try to facilitate student learning, definitions sometimes more widely adopted for this end and perhaps also for research purposes. Textbooks often begin by defining their subject. Levinsons 1983 introductory pragmatics textbook spends 30 pages of chapter one on defining pragmatics, and Horn 1988, a survey article about pragmatic theory, also starts by discussing the boundaries of pragmatics. Wisely, neither Levinson nor Horn offers necessary and sufficient conditions to determine which phenomena or which investigations are pragmatic; both instruct their readers about previous practice in applying the labels pragmatic and pragmatics and offer some directions they think might usefully be pursued for deciding on future applications i.e. both orient themselves instrumentally to the definitional project. In Levinson and in Horn, the definitional discourse is neither purely instructional nor purely instrumental. In general, a definitional utterance may be instructing the interpreter that this is how a particular term will be used in some subsequent stretch of discourse (in this class, during this lecture, for the purposes of this chapter), precisely in order to enhance comprehension or to advance inquiry. Refinements (see Cormacks explication of definition in (6)) in textbook definitions are often introduced to improve comprehension or to advance inquiry and thus serve instrumental purposes just as dictionaries can authorize as well as describe meaning. A single definition then can be both instructional and instrumental, having multiple purposes. The important point to remember, however, is that simple reports on existing well-established (conventional) usages of their definienda are by no means what definitions always or even primarily offer. Many definitions have a hortative illocutionary force: They are genuinely instrumental.
2.2 Instrumental definitions

Instrumental definitions try to regiment linguistic practice (usually, only in particular contexts) along certain lines in order to facilitate pursuit of some non-linguistic social, cognitive or technological goal. They go beyond changing lexicons to mobilizing the words in them to serve various ends: enhancing understanding or deepening knowledge, reshaping attitudes and evaluations, or developing a workable and just system of laws. Under a number of rubrics, they have been offered in such varied domains as science and other areas of scholarly inquiry, the value-laden fields of ethics and aesthetics, and, as the marriage debate illustrates especially vividly, in legal contexts. 2.2.1 Scholarly inquiry: Developing methods and building theories The question of the meaning of scientific vocabulary and whether and how it changes as scientific knowledge and theories change is one of the most difficult in the philosophy of science. Rudolf Carnap, e.g., abandoned his early hope that theoretical vocabulary could be reduced to strictly observational terminology. Carl Hempel points out that operational definitions, introduced for purposes of quantifiable precision, do not exhaust the meanings of the terms they help give content to (we can change our means of measuring distance or time, e.g., without losing all the knowledge gained by use of earlier instruments), and offers the view that scientific concepts generally might be open-ended but nonetheless be adequately understood for the purposes of science (Hempel 1970, rpt. in Hempel, ed. Fetzer 2001:233). In other words, Hempel concluded that science can be done satisfactorily i.e., can be explanatory and can offer replicable and intersubjectively reliable results without what are traditionally thought of as complete definitions of theoretical expressions in terms of antecedently understood vocabulary. Open-endedness invites instrumental defining, sometimes restricted to particular inquiries and sometimes urged more generally. Carnap (1950:3) introduced the important notion of explication: the transformation of an inexact, prescientific [or, as he later makes clear, what amounts to an earlier scientific] concept, the explicandum, into a new [more] exact concept, the explicatum. Explication, he notes, is often accomplished through definition. Carnaps criteria for judging the success of explicative definitions include not only precision and simplicity but, important for understanding how conceptual refinement of terminology outside the exact sciences might be judged, the similarity of the new concepts to understandings currently in play along with what Carnap calls their fruitfulness. (10) A scientific concept is the more fruitful the more it can be brought into connection with other concepts on the basis of observed facts; in other words, the more it can be used for the formulation of laws. [Carnap 1950:5] Some notion of fruitfulness is typically at stake when instrumental definitions are advanced in the course of scientific inquiry, sometimes as part of a challenge to existing
explanatory frameworks. Linguistics provides many examples, some recent and others further back in the history of the discipline. For example, as a graduate student being introduced to the development of the field of phonology, I read Twaddell 1935, On defining the phoneme, a paper that examined the consequences for linguistic inquiry of alternative ways of understanding the notion of the basic sound units of a language. For semanticists, Tarskis definition of truth is a familiar example of an explicative definition, one that arguably has born significant fruit in semantic inquiry. Marriage is, of course, not a subject of inquiry in the exact sciences, but scholars in the behavioral and social sciences certainly have wrestled with how to define it most fruitfully for their purposes. I will illustrate by pointing to a debate begun in the mid1950s and persisting into the 1970s on how to define marriage, given institutionalized arrangements anthropologists were encountering in various parts of the world that seemed like marriage in many ways but did not fit the one woman-one man or many women-one man models most familiar to them. Eileen Jensen Krige (1974) reviews a number of these discussions and cites the following examples of earlier definitions of marriage: (11) a. Marriage and family may be defined as a culturally approved relationship of one man and one woman (monogamy), of one man and two or more women (polygyny) or one woman and two or more men (polyandry), in which there is cultural endorsement of sexual intercourse between the marital partners of opposite sex and, generally the expectation that children will be born of the relationship. [Robert F. Winch, 1968 ed. of Encylopedia of the Social Sciences] b. A union between a man and a woman such that children born to the woman are recognized, legitimate offspring of both partners. [Notes and Queries in Anthropology, 1951] c. The constituent units of marriage are men and women and this seems to be marriages single, universal feature. [P.G. Rivire 1971] During this same period, Sir Edmuch Leach, reviewing a number of different kinds of marital arrangements and paying special attention to a polyandric case among the Sinhalese, concluded that marriage cannot be defined in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions but is more like what Wittgenstein called a family-resemblance concept. Leach (1955:183) offered a list of rights, some subset of which he took to be present in all the different arrangements to which anthropologists had applied the term marriage. (12) [A] marriage may serve: A. to establish the legal father of a womans children, B. To establish the legal mother of a mans children, C. To give the husband a monopoly in the wifes sexuality, D. To give the wife a monopoly in the husbands sexuality, E. To give the husband partial or monopolistic rights
to the wifes domestic and other labour services, F. To give the wife partial or monopolistic rights to the husbands labour services, G. To give the husband partial or total rights over property belonging or potentially accruing to the wife, H. To give the wife partial or total rights over property belonging or potentially accruing to the husband, I. To establish a joint fund of property a partnership for the benefit of the children of the marriage, J. To establish a socially significant relationship of affinity between the husband and his wifes brother...[I]n no single society can marriage serve to establish all these types of rights simultaneously; nor is there any one of these rights which is invariably established by marriage in every known society. All of the definitions in (11) and most of the rights Leach lists in (12) assume sex-differentiated marital roles: man/husband/father and woman/wife/mother. But Edward E. Evans-Pritchard (1945, 1951) had earlier coined the term woman-marriage because he observed among the Nuer of Sudan an institutionalized relation of one woman to another that seemed otherwise exactly like the more conventional two-sex marriages he also observed. Rivire claims that woman-marriage, reported in a variety of forms from different parts of Africa, involves one womans assuming the conceptual role of male, and Evans-Pritchard sometimes implies such an analysis. Krige argues, however, that Rivires ploy of saying that there is always conceptually a different-sex pairing fails to acknowledge that practices she observed among the Loedu in southern Africa allow considerable scope for social roles to be filled by either sex, buying a bride being one such potentially gender-neutral role. Krige does not cite E. Kathleen Gough (1959) on the definition of marriage, which offers the following: (13) Marriage is a relationship established between a woman and one or more other persons, which provides that a child born to the woman under circumstances not prohibited by the rule of the relationship, is accorded full birthstatus rights common to normal members of his [or her] society or social stratum. [1959:39] Gough developed this definition especially to encompass the marriage of a woman to a collectivity of men, which is how she characterizes certain arrangements among the Nayar of Kerala (India). She draws attention to her choice of persons rather than men, however, as extending the definitions scope to cases of woman-marriage. Goughs definition singles out one of the women involved in a marriage; the status of any children she might bear is central to the purposes of the marriage, and it is she who defines marriage. For Krige, too, marriage revolves around a woman whose (potential) children are at issue. (14) The only constituent element that would appear to be indispensable in a marriage is the bride. Without a bride, there could be no marriage. [1974:32-33]
As Krige notes, the role of genitor is not only conceptually but practically distinct from that of husband even in different-sex marriages among the Loedu. More generally, she argues that the sexual relationship between the parties concerned in a marriage is not, as is commonly believed, central to the institution. Marriage may be entered upon by people of the same sex in capacities that have no sexual connotation (1974:34). Both Gough and Krige assume two distinct roles in marriage, which could be called husband and wife. They also both assume that a woman always fills the wife role but allow for the possibility that a woman may also assume the husband role. Their conceptions might allow for (some) contemporary marriages of two women though not for marriages of two men. They were writing before the recent movement for rights for sexual minorities had gotten widespread recognition, before advances in reproductive technologies, before adoption rights got extended beyond legally married heterosexual couples. Even so they may have overlooked some cases of their own era or earlier that would have challenged the assumption of sharply differentiated roles or their conviction that a marriage must involve a woman. Recent anthropologists and other scholars have, not surprisingly, taken a fresh look at marriage and the related concept of family. I focus instead on this snapshot of earlier anthropological debates over defining marriage because these discussions can be more easily separated from the contemporary social situation in the US than more recent feminist scholarship. These mid-century anthropologists were clearly grappling primarily with the question of which definition of marriage, if any, would prove most fruitful for scholars to use in exploring the wide range of social and cultural arrangements found around the world that regulate certain kinds of mutual dependence of adults and also rights and status of (potential) children born to or adopted by one or more of the adults. Their own cultural backgrounds certainly affected how they engaged in these definitional projects, but they were not participating in our current controversy over same-sex marriage. 2.2.2 Evaluation and values: persuasive definitions Philosopher Charles L. Stevenson (1960) introduced the notion of a persuasive definition: (15) [T]he term defined is a familiar one, whose meaning is both descriptive and strongly emotive...[T]he definition [aims] to alter the descriptive meaning of the term ... but ... does not make any substantial change in the terms emotive meaning... [T]he definition is used [to try] to secure, by this interplay between emotive and descriptive meaning, a redirection of peoples attitudes. [Stevenson 1960:210] In this passage he illustrates the notion by discussing a literary definitional debate: (16) Our language abounds with words which ... have both a vague [i.e., underspecified] descriptive meaning and a rich emotive meaning. The descriptive
meaning of them all is subject to constant redefinition . The words are prizes which each man seeks to bestow on the qualities of his own choice. Many literary critics, for instance, have debated whether Alexander Pope was or was not a poet. The foolish retort would be, Its a mere matter of definition. ... [I]mportant matters ... lie behind the acceptance or rejectance of the tacitly proposed, narrow [descriptive] definition of poet. It is not a matter of merely arbitrary definition, then, nor is any persuasive definition merely arbitrary, if that phrase is taken to imply suitably decided by a flip of a coin. [1960:213] What does not emerge as clearly as it might from (16) is that the important matters lying behind whether or not the word poet should be applied to particular creators of texts go far beyond whether we ought to view the creator so tagged in a positive light. Should this persons works be included on the syllabus for a poetry course? Is the person a potential candidate for a poetry prize? Should aspiring poets look to this person as a possible role model? And of course once certain kinds of texts are generally classified as poetic, people need not evaluate them all positively. Still, Stevensons insight that it is often value considerations that lead to a push to extend, contract, or shift the extensional boundaries of a particular expression is important. Much of the controversy over marriage arises from the social values associated with the institution and a host of moral and religious judgments about practices associated with it, perhaps especially sexuality and child-rearing but also such matters as long-term commitment, affectionate intimacy, and mutual dependence. Some critics of the historically inequitable institution of marriage have offered definitions that do not so much shift the informational content of the word, what it denotes, as try to encourage others to examine it critically by offering negatively charged descriptions of it. Although these definitions work somewhat differently from Stevensons canonical cases, I treat them as persuasive because what is at issue is transforming attitudes and evaluations. The samples in (17) come from A Feminist Dictionary, edited by Cheris Kramarae and Paula A. Treichler: (17) Marriage is an institution which robs a woman of her individuality and reduces her to the level of a prostitute. (Mrs. Flora Macdonald Denison, 1914) slavery (Nelly Ptaschkina 1918) a labor relationship [with parallels to indentured labor or slavery, but] the terms of the marriage contract are never spelled out (Diane Leonard 1982) a relation of economic dependence [of women upon men] (Charlotte Perkins Gilman 1899)
The same source also offers considerably more positive persuasive definitions: (18) Marriage is a total relationship of human closeness which begins with the head and involves a mutual drowning in each others depths. (Ghadah al-Samman 1970) a lasting relationship in which another person helps meet needs, including those for sex, love, companionship, shared experence, being comfortable with someone, being important to someone, trust, approval, moral support, help, emotional security, cooperation in attaining a common goal, closeness, affection, touching, feedback, understanding, feeling like a part of something, the need to do for others, the need for personal growth (Naomi Quinn 19848) Persuasive definitions are an important subspecies of instrumental definitions: They try to shift or influence attitudes and values, either by shifting or specially highlighting some portion of what the definiendum designates or by redescribing what is designated. 2.2.3 Legal definitions Legal theorist Michael Bayles argues that judges should offer instrumentalist definitions,9 to be evaluated by how well they serve to produce a justifiable legal system (263). Whether or not those definitions happen to be ones that square with established linguistic conventions or whether they would be optimal for non-legal purposes (for the ethicist or the scientist, for example) does not decide the question of whether or not they work well for the law. Practical, scientific, and ethical considerations can, of course, be relevant to establishing what definition might work best in a particular case. Certainly, some recent discussions of defining marriage have addressed implications for the overall justice and workability of the legal system. For example, the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts offered equal rights, social stability, and childrens welfare considerations to support its gender-neutral defi-
8. Quinn 1984 reports on interviews with a number of American couples on their views of marriage; interestingly, children did not figure prominently in most discussions, nor was there insistence on particular forms of sexuality (though the couples were almost certainly assuming partners of the other sex, given that the possibility of same-sex marriage was not then raised at all among the general public). 9. Before reading Bayles, I used the term instrumental definition in talks I gave on defining marriage. I was delighted to encounter his discussion of instrumentalist definitions. He focuses on norms regulating legal definitions, contrasting instrumentalists (who believe that definitions should further certain purposes) with realists (who see definitions as specifying what really exists), conventionalists (specifying extant or earlier conventions), and reductionists (who want to eliminate one kind of term in favor of some other). His endorsement of an instrumentalist stance does not mean he thinks that judges should be free to offer whatever definitions they personally favor: There are constraints embodied in the idea of a justifiable legal system.
nition of marriage in 3. This brief extract gives some of the flavor of that attention to general consequences. (19) [B]arring an individual from the protections, benefits, and obligations of civil marriage solely because that person would marry a person of the same sex violates the Massachusetts Constitution ... Marriage is a vital social institution ...The exclusive commitment of two individuals to each other nurtures love and mutual support; it brings stability to our society. For those who choose to marry, and for their children, marriage provides an abundance of legal, financial, and social benefits [and] imposes weighty legal, financial, and social obligations ... [The] marriage ban [prevents same-sex families] from enjoying the immeasurable advantages that flow from the assurance of a stable family structure in which children will be reared, educated, and socialized. ... It is the exclusive and permanent commitment of the marriage partners to one another, not the begetting of children, that is the sine qua non of marriage. [Extract from majority decision in Goodridge, written by Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall] As we will see, those favoring exclusive definitions of marriage generally agree that promoting social stability and childrens welfare are appropriate goals for the legal system: They reject the Massachusetts courts assessment of which definition might best promote such goals.10 But it is not just consequences for the legal system deriving from the content of definitions of marriage that matter. It also matters just how these definitions enter into the overall legal system. There are some who support an exclusive definition at state levels or even at the federal level as in (1) but argue against (2) on the grounds that the US constitution is not the place to define marriage. Legal scholar Joanna Grossman of Hofstra University provides some historical background on amending the constitution to regulate marriage: (20) [S]eventy-seven other constitutional amendments have been proposed that would have given Congress the power to regulate marriage and divorce at the national level. Three would have enshrined the once commonplace ban on interracial marriage in the constitution. But none ever made it to a vote ... The Constitution has always served to guarantee minimum rights and liberties. It has almost never been used to rein in individual rights.... There is [only] one limit on states power to regulate marriage and divorce...the federal constitutions minimum guarantees of equality...[On this basis], in Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court [in 1967] held Virginias ban on interracial marriage unconstitutional. [http://writ.findlaw.com/grossman/20040715.html]
10. Legal definitions of death have also been hotly contested, and here too there is considerable attention to consequences for the overall legal system of particular definitions; see, e.g., Youngner et al. 1999 and the first case study in Schiappa 2003.
The Supreme Court could, on a similar basis, strike down DOMA or the state laws now being adopted that impose exclusive definitions of those who can marry.11
3. Why the M-word matters

In Two Dogmas of Empiricism, philosopher Willard van Ormond Quine (1951) observed that (scientific) words are enmeshed in webs of hypotheses, empirical findings, and general principles. He argued that even what we might initially consider analytic truths propositions true by virtue of the meaning of the words that express them might be abandoned because of their ties to other parts of the web. We might choose to redefine terms in order to minimize disruptive effects on the larger body of beliefs. Although Quine was focused on scientific discourse, his point, now widely accepted among philosophers, has wider application. We have already seen examples of how what was thought an analytic truth at one time e.g., A husband cannot rape his own wife could lose that protected status. The view that it is trivial just semantic whether or not we include same-sex unions in the denotation of marriage, the M-word, ignores the source of definitional disputes: struggles over the future in scholarship or attitudes or public policy of the extralinguistic phenomena now associated with the definiendum. It ignores the discursive web of injunctions and beliefs in which the definiendum already figures and in which it will mostly remain embedded even if the definiens might shift somewhat.
3.1 The legal M-web

It would take volumes to spell out the ways in which the word marriage and related words like husband, wife, spouse, and family are woven into the legal fabric in the US. Among other matters, state laws address: Requirements for entering into marriage: age, medical examinations, waiting period after obtaining a license, no living spouse Problems arising in marriage: annulment, divorce, alimony, domestic abuse Interests of children or other dependents: adoption, child support, family leave, custody, child protection Health issues: hospital visitation rights, information and participation in medical decisions, health coverage benefits Economic issues: property ownership, tax filing, inheritance, pension benefits Federal laws and regulations address some of the same issues and also such matters as immigration status and citizenship, federal income and estate taxes, and Social Secu-
11. Eleven states passed such legislation on November 4, 2004.
rity benefits. There are thousands of different contexts in which state and federal laws talk about marriage.
3.2 The extralegal M-web

Outside legal contexts, the M-web extends not only to moral and religious discourse but to more mundane social talk; Ill consider examples of both. 3.2.1 Marriage is sacred The sacredness or sanctity of marriage is often cited by those who want to keep an exclusive (mixed-sex only) interpretation: (21) Why the contract cant be a marriage contract for heterosexuals and a contract of civil union for homosexuals is a mystery to me... Why gays cannot accept or respect the uniqueness and special meaning many heterosexual-marrieds appear to experience by being a part of this group might need to be answered. ...It appears from my point of view that homosexuals want to coopt or glom onto the sanctity or uniqueness of meaning already thought to be present in the hetero marriage. [Posting, 2/25/04, Joe Peden to www.danieldrezner.com, italics added] (22) I feel like it dilutes the sacredness of my marriage with my wife. It cheapens it and turns it into something of less value. ... I dont see why we have to change the rules to satisfy that tiny group of people. [Kevin Salts, quoted in the Honolulu Advertiser in opposition not only to same-sex marriage but to any legal recognition of same-sex unions, fearing that such recognition paves the way for same-sex marriage] Those expressing sentiments like those in (21) and (22) do not explain how the existence of same-sex marriage would diminish the sacredness they attach to different-sex marriage. Churches would still be free if same-sex marriage is legalized to refuse to marry same-sex couples, just as the Catholic Church refuses to marry those who have been divorced. But the real issue probably has little to do with the church. Perhaps its like a band that starts admitting folks to play without an audition so that oldtimers who competed to join the band now complain that band membership no longer means anything: Even gay men and lesbians, grumble these heterosexuals, now are admitted to what was once our club. Or perhaps it is because these folks find distasteful the very idea of a homosexual relationship, something they see as sinful, being not only compared to their sanctified heterosexual relationship but also legitimated by marriage. For some, marriage is considered sacred because it is considered a lifetime exclusive commitment to someone one loves deeply. It is on grounds like these that the sanctity of marriage is also cited by some supporting the inclusive interpretation (extending to same- as well as different-sex unions):
(23) Especially for religious people, marriage makes a statement that this is someone I love and will grow old with. When youre just partners or living together they think ... you know, every day a new lover. With marriage, the commitment is real, and they believe it. [Quote from Anne-Marie Thus of The Netherlands, who in 2001 married Helene Faasen, her long-time partner and co-parent; note that theirs is a civil and not a church-sanctioned marriage; www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/04/world/printable604084.shtml] But the sanctity area of the M-web is a messy one. Seeing marriage as a matter of long-term commitment and the only site for legitimate sexual activity is threatened by the high rates of divorce now current as well as by widespread extramarital, including premarital, sexual activity. And the status of marriage as a religious sacrament lacks the long pedigree that many assume. Historically, marriage in Europe is first primarily economic and only after many centuries sanctified officially by Christian churches: (24) The Church struggles throughout to induce people to solemnize their unions in church or in the presence of priests, in the face of the church, as they put it. But before the Council of Trent, c. 1570 in the full force of Counter-Reformation, they never managed to make it required by law. Prior to that date, you can say that marriages were independent contracts, often followed by church ceremonies and often taking place just outside (significantly) the church door. ...Property matters outside, souls (if desired) within. ... Of course, to lay people marriage was largely a business matter at all social levels. It can be analyzed in terms of the question: watch the money. See in what direction dowries, brideprices etc. moved, and then think marriage market. [personal communication, Paul Hyams, professor of history, Cornell University] 3.2.2 Marriage is about family and children Although there are many heterosexual marriages without children (often as a matter of choice) and many in which there are no connections to the natal families of either spouse, marriage is strongly associated with expectations of children. Those supporting heterosexual exclusivity often speak of childrens interests. (25) [If same-sex marriages are allowed, then m]arriage will no longer be a carrier of the message that children need mothers and fathers. Instead the law will legitimate the principles of family diversity: that adults get to form the families they choose and children will resiliently adjust. Or not, but who cares? [Maggie Gallagher, cited http://www.leaderu.com/focus/redefining_marriage.html, March 22, 2004]
(26) Ages of experience have taught humanity that the commitment of a husband and wife to love and to serve one another promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society. [President George W. Bush, February 24, 2004, statement supporting DOMA, (1), and FMA, (2)] But the other side is also concerned for childrens welfare. Perhaps most notably, the Goodridge decision, summarized in (19), argued that forbidding same-sex marriage (27) works a deep and scarring hardship [on same-sex families] for no rational reason. [It prevents children of same-sex couples] from enjoying the immeasurable advantages that flow from the assurance of a stable family structure in which children will be reared, educated, and socialized ... It cannot be rational under our laws to penalize children by depriving them of State benefits because of their parents sexual orientation. And conservative columnist Andrew Sullivan (2004) argues that children growing up in families with heterosexual parents may also benefit from the more inclusive concept: (28) [My Catholic family taught me that what] really mattered was family and the love you had for one another. ... The most important day of your life was when you got married. It was on that day that all your friends and all your family got together to celebrate the most important thing in life: your happiness your ability to make a new home, to form a new but connected family, to find love that put everything else into perspective. ... This isnt about gay marriage. Its about marriage. Its about family. Its about love ... Putting gay relationships in some other category civil unions, domestic partnerships, whatever may alleviate real human needs, but by their very euphemism, by their very separateness, they actually build a wall between gay people and their families (italic added). They put back the barrier many of us have spent a lifetime trying to erase ... I want [a kid like me] to know that his love has dignity, that he does indeed have a future as a full and equal part of the human race. Only marriage will do that. Only marriage can bring him home.
4. Where the M-word has been

Some oppose making marriage more inclusive on the grounds that it is an inherently unchanging institution, the same in different cultures and throughout history: (29) The union of a man and woman is the most enduring human institution, honoring honored and encouraged in all cultures and by every religious faith. [President George W. Bush, February 24, 2004]
We have already seen that marriage is diverse across cultures and that it has changed through time. But given the frequent references to the Bible in these debates, it is instructive to consider how the FMA in (2) might need to be reworded if historical precedents recorded biblically were followed: (30) A. Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women. (Gen 29:1728; II Sam 3:25.) B. Marriage shall not impede a mans right to take concubines in addition to his wife or wives. (II Sam 5:13; I Kings 11:3; II Chron 11:21) C. A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. (Deut 22:1321) D. Marriage between a believer and a nonbeliever shall be forbidden. (Gen 24:3; Num 25:19; Ezra 9:12; Neh 10:30) E. Since marriage is for life, neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any State, nor any state or federal law, shall be construed to permit divorce. (Deut 22:19; Mark 10:9) F. If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brothers widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe and be otherwise punished in a manner to be determined by law. (Gen 38:6-10; Deut 25:510) And it is probably useful to remind non-historians of the profoundly gender-asymmetric nature of marriage in many places until relatively recently. English legal scholar Sir William Blackstones doctrine of femme couverture enunciated in his commentaries said that the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated into that of the husband. Its persisting influence in 19th century America led Lucy Stone Blackwell and Henry Stone to read aloud the following statement when they married in 1855: (31) While we acknowledge our mutual affection by publicly assuming the relationship of husband and wife ... we deem it a duty to declare that this act on our part implies no sanction of, nor promise of, voluntary obedience to such of the present laws of mariage as refuse to recognize the wife as an independent, rational being, while they confer upon the husband an injurious and unnatural superiority... Finally, [we protest] the whole system by which the legal existence of the wife is suspended during marriage so that, in most States, she neither has a legal part in the choice of her residence, nor can she make a will, nor sue or be sued in her own name, nor inherit property. [Quoted under the marriage entry in Kramarae & Treichler 1985:254] Contemporary marriage in the US has only a few legal vestiges remaining of this profoundly patriarchal past,12 although the social and cultural traces of it have by no means vanished. It is also instructive to remember the racism operative in the history of mar12. Some states, e.g., still have marital rape exemption provisions that absolve a man from rape charges in certain cases when he is married to the woman assaulted.
riage in the US. Though unenforceable since the 1967 decision in Gooding v. Virginia, Alabama did not repeal its law against interracial marriage until November 2000. The bottom line is that conceptions of marriage have changed significantly over time, especially in the direction of increased gender equity. Although most people in Anglo-American culture have assumed historically that marriage unites one woman and one man, definitions of marriage and the institution itself keep changing: Most people under 30 see no problem with same-sex marriage and fewer people overall oppose it now than opposed interracial marriage in 1967. Although the M-word has been places that many do not want it to revisit, its future could potentially be open to less problematic understandings.13
5. A rose by any other name

If our forebears had adopted the wordform that we inherit as leek to designate the flower we call rose, roses would still smell sweet and leeks more pungent, though we would express such facts differently than we now do. Those who dismiss definitional debates as insubstantial because they concern linguistic conventions and not real matters often cite the Shakespearean question Whats in a name?, assuming that the answer is Nothing. They forget that the context of that query from Juliet makes clear that there may be much indeed in a name. (32) Whats in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet; So Romeo would, were he not Romeo calld, Retain that dear perfection which he owes Without that title. [W. Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene II.] The very next line is Romeo, doff thy name, and then the two young lovers engage in a fantasy of ridding themselves of the names that place them in the Montague-Capulet conflict destined to overwhelm their love for one another: Both Romeo and Juliet know that their family names do not just differ but symbolize their families enmity. Their own and others actions and attitudes have been shaped by the family alliances and rivalries their names evoke. The rose, in contrast, is unaware of and unaffected by its label. Juliets question is rhetorical: She wishes desperately that the answer were nothing but knows full well that it is not. Yet Shakespeares point has often been
13. Some feminists decline to marry because of the sexism still infecting the institution, others shun marriage because of its ties to heterosexual privilege, others think civil marriage (especially if children are not involved) an inappropriate intervention of the state in private matters of sexuality. For many reasons, not all who oppose discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation are pushing for same-sex marriage.
misunderstood and, not surprisingly, many have tried to enlist his help to dismiss definitional debates over marriage.
5.1 Shakespeare in Massachusetts: merely semantics

Shortly after the Massachusetts Supreme Court issued its historic Goodridge ruling, the Massachusetts legislature scurried to come up with something. They formulated a measure reserving the word marriage for unions of heterosexual couples but offering otherwise equivalent civil unions for same-sex couples. They then asked the Court whether this proposed legislation would comply with the requirements of the Constitution of the Commonwealth and of its Declaration of Rights. On February 3, 2004, the Court answered no, reviewing the opinion in the initial Goodridge decision and explaining why the proposed remedy would not work. At the same time Associate Justice Martha B. Sosman offered a dissenting opinion, calling on Shakespeare as her ally: (33) The insignificance of according a different name to the same thing has long been recognized. [cites (32)] There is, from the amici on one side, an implacable determination to retain some distinction, however trivial, between the institution created for same-sex couples and the institution that is available to opposite-sex couples. And, from the amici on the other side, there is an equally implacable determination that no distinction, no matter how meaningless, be tolerated. As a result, we have a pitched battle over who gets to use the m word. [Footnote 6, dissenting opinion] In the main text of her dissent, Sosman says: Under this proposed bill, there are no substantive differences left to dispute there is only, on both sides, a squabble over the name to be used. Sosman also, it should be noted, dissented from the original opinion extending civil marriage in Massachusetts to same-sex unions.
5.2 Shakespeare in Massachusetts: names do matter

Although not engaging directly with the question of whether the Shakespearean lines really should be read as showing that names do not matter, the majority opinion, written by Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall, does take on Associate Justice Sosmans recruitment of Shakespeare. (34) The bills absolute prohibition of the use of the word marriage by spouses who are the same sex is more than semantic. The dissimilitude between the terms civil marriage and civil union is not innocuous; it is a considered choice of language that reflects a demonstrable assigning of same-sex, largely homosexual, couples to second-class status. The denomination of this diffe-
rence by the separate opinion of Justice Sosman (separate opinion) as merely a squabble over the name to be used so clearly misses the point that further discussion appears to be useless. (Footnote 4: The separate opinion enlists Shakespeare in the cause of trying to convince us that words are unimportant. But whatever may pertain to two teenagers in love does not disguise the importance of the choice of words employed by the government to discriminate between two groups of persons regulated in their conduct by the government. The separate opinion fails to appreciate that it is not the word union that incorporates a pejorative value judgment, but the distinction between the words marriage and union. If, as the separate opinion suggests, the Legislature were to jettison the term marriage altogether, it might well be rational and permissible. What is not permissible is to retain the word for some and not for others, with all the distinctions thereby engendered.) If, as the separate opinion posits, the proponents of the bill believe that no message is conveyed by eschewing the word marriage and replacing it with civil union for samesex spouses, we doubt that the attempt to circumvent the courts decision in Goodridge would be so purposeful. For no rational reason the marriage laws of the Commonwealth discriminate against a defined class; no amount of tinkering with language will eradicate that stain. The bill would have the effect of maintaining and fostering a stigma of exclusion that the Constitution prohibits. It would deny to same-sex spouses only a status that is specially recognized in society and has significant social and other advantages. In other words, the court is saying that the laws of Massachusetts should be amended so that whatever civil marriage it regulates is one defined in gender-neutral terms, allowing that Massachusetts might eliminate marriage from its jurisdiction altogether and confine its regulations to civil unions that do not specify the sex of the participants. Those who see definitional debates as mere squabbles over words, as just semantics, are thinking of them as like discussions over which of several different labels (lily, rose, dahlia) ought to be attached to a particular plant, the rose: They assume that the definiens is unproblematically in place, just waiting for one definiendum or another to be attached to it. Back before any of these labels had a history, there would be no reason to care. But to continue the flower analogy: Suppose we have a large web of beliefs about and attitude towards roses. Roses should be planted in every garden, roses are the flowers to give on happy occasions, and so on. There might then be a substantive question whether horticultural, gift-giving, and other values might be better promoted if we expanded the rose category for such non-botanical purposes to include a couple of other species, say the lily and the dahlia. Of course, as Shakespeare so astutely saw, talk about roses or lilies or dahlias will never have the significance of talk about families or marriage. He also seems to have had an inclusive stance towards marriage:
(35) Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments ... [Sonnet 116]
References
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240 Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning Stevenson, C.L. 1960. Ethics and Language. New Haven: Yale University Press. Sullivan, A. 2004. Why the M-word matters to me. Time 2/6/04. [Retrieved from www.time. com/time] Treichler, P.A. 1989. From discourse to dictionary: How sexist meanings are authorized. In F.W. Frank and P.A. Treichler, eds., Language, Gender, and Professional Writing: Theoretical Approaches and Guidelines for Nonsexist Usage. New York: Modern Language Association. 5179. Twaddell, W.F. 1935. On Defining the Phoneme. Baltimore: LSA. Youngner, S.J., R.M. Arnold, and R. Schapiro, eds. 1999. The Definition of Death: Contemporary Controversies. Baltimore/London: The Johns Hopkins Press.
Negation and modularity*1

Frederick J. Newmeyer
University of Washington
This paper provides support for the idea that the correct account of negation in English requires purely formal (syntactic) constructs, thereby lending support to a modular account of grammatical phenomena. It documents the recent turn away from modularity in Principles-and-Parameters-oriented approaches and goes on to argue that not is an adverb and that the Negative Phrase projection and the Negative-Criterion, both of which conflate syntactic and semantic features, are unmotivated.
1.
Modular accounts of grammatical phenomena
The feature that has traditionally distinguished mainstream generative approaches to language from non-generative ones is the modular approach of the former to grammatical phenomena. In a nutshell, modularity entails that each domain of grammar syntax, semantics, pragmatics, lexicon, and so on is characterized by autonomous (and in the ideal case, simple) rules and principles distinctive to that domain. The observed complexity of language derives from the interaction of these domain-specific properties. The purpose of this paper is to argue that the syntax of negation in English supports a modular approach. In particular, the paper argues that the treatment of elements in English with negative semantic content demands an approach in which constructs specific to syntax play an important role, but not an exclusive one. In general terms, modularity receives its greatest support from the many-many relationship between grammatical form on the one hand and meaning and communicative function on the other hand. Consider a simple illustration involving sentences in which predicate adjectives occur with infinitival complements: (1) NP be [AP A to V]
* I would like to thank Betty Birner, Bob Borsley, Tom Ernst, Ben Shaer, Gregory Ward, and Laurence Horn himself for their helpful input on the subject matter of this paper.
In sentences manifesting the structure of (1), there are six logically possible ways that the NP subject can relate (in terms of understood grammatical relations ) to the A and the V. All six occur: (2) a. b. c. d. e. f. Mary is eager to please Mary is easy to please Mary is liable to dance Guns are cheap to buy It is useless to try It is too dark to see Reln to A subject none none subject none subject1 Reln to V subject object subject object none none
Clearly there is something real about structure (1) that demands an autonomous characterization, independent of the half-dozen interpretations that this structure is capable of conveying. It is easy to find examples of the converse situation as well, that is, where a particular semantic or discourse-based construct maps onto a multitude of syntactic structures. Consider the telic/atelic distinction, as discussed in Jackendoff 1997. The formal embodiment of this distinction can be signaled by the choice of verb (3a), the choice of preposition (3b), the choice of adverbial (3c), and the choice of determiner in the subject (3d), the object (3e), or the prepositional object (3f): (3) a. John destroyed the cart (in/*for an hour) John pushed the cart (for/*in an hour) b. John ran to the station (in/*for an hour) John ran toward the station (for/*in an hour) c. The light flashed once (in/*for an hour) The light flashed constantly (for/*in an hour) d. Four people died (in/*for two days) People died (for/*in two days) e. John ate lots of peanuts (in/*for an hour) John ate peanuts (for/*in an hour) f. John crashed into three walls (in/*for an hour) John crashed into walls (for/*in an hour) (telic) (atelic) (telic) (atelic) (telic) (atelic) (telic) (atelic) (telic) (atelic) (telic) (atelic)
Since all of these formal devices can be used to express other semantic distinctions having nothing to do with aspect, we are led to conclude that it is reasonable to distinguish generalizations about meaning from those about form. In the remainder of this paper, I will provide support for the idea that the correct account of negation in English requires purely formal (syntactic) constructs, thereby lending support to a modular account of grammatical phenomena. Section 2 docu1. I am assuming that it in (2f) in its ambient reading is the subject of dark, parallel to the subject-predicate relation between it and raining in It is raining.
Negation and modularity 243
ments the recent turn away from modularity in Principles-and-Parameters-oriented approaches. Section 3 argues that not is an adverb and 4 that the Negative Phrase projection, which conflates syntactic and semantic features, is unmotivated. Section 5 discusses further the form-meaning disparity in English negation, while 6 criticizes the non-modular Negative-Criterion. Section 7 is a brief conclusion.
2. The Principles-and-Parameters retreat from modularity

In opting for a modular approach, mainstream generative grammar stands in stark contrast to most functionalist and cognitive approaches to grammar. Typically, advocates of these approaches reject the idea of a separation between syntax and semantics on the one hand and of a distinction between semantics and pragmatics on the other (see, for example, Langacker 1987). In particular, the idea of syntactic rules per se, that is rules which specify formal patterning independently of the meanings assumed by those forms, is disallowed. This paper has nothing to say about such approaches, which I discuss in some detail elsewhere (see, for example, Newmeyer 1998). However, Principles-and-Parameters (P&P) syntax, in particular in its current Minimalist Program (MP) instantiation, has been moving slowly but surely in a non-modular direction. More and more, practitioners of the MP have proposed accounts of phenomena that expand the scope of the syntactic component of the grammar in such a way as to incorporate generalizations about meaning and discourse. The seeds were sown for such a move in the earlier Government-Binding version of P&P syntax (Chomsky 1981), with the idea that thematic roles are directly relevant to the statement of syntactic generalizations, and where thematic roles are defined as semantic properties assigned by heads (Chomsky 1986:93). Another step away from modularity was taken in Chomsky 1986, where it was proposed that c-selection (essentially, subcategorization) reduces to s-selection (essentially, the thematic properties of the items involved). A less than fully modular approach to grammar is part-and-parcel of many approaches within the general envelope of the MP. For example, an explicit statement that syntactic categories and features have fixed interpretations and with important implications for the analysis of negation can be found in an influential paper by Luigi Rizzi. Note that syntactic movement is taken to be dependent upon the semantic and discourse properties of specific projections and the elements that occupy them: Syntactic movement must be triggered by the satisfaction of certain quasimorphological requirements of heads. [S]uch features have an interpretive import (Wh, Neg, Top, Foc, ): They determine the interpretation of the category bearing them and of its immediate constituents , function as scope markers for phrases with the relevant quantificational force in a local configuration, etc. [Rizzi 1997:282; emphasis added]
Rizzis position is that syntactic movement is triggered by semantic features of heads (including the feature of negation) and that the moved element has scope (at LF) over the material in its c-command domain. Rizzi, however, does not go to the point of claiming that every instance of scope is represented structurally at LF. In this respect, his position seems consistent with that argued for in Hornstein 1984, in which LF resolves some quantifier scope ambiguities, but not all. For Hornstein, some aspects of scope are determined by extra-syntactic (semantic or pragmatic) principles. Guglielmo Cinque agrees with Rizzi that each projection has a specific semantic interpretation (Cinque 1999:132). However, he goes farther than Rizzi (and Hornstein), in arguing that in principle a restrictive theory should force a one-to-one relation between position and interpretation (Cinque 1999:20). In other words (again in principle) one would expect all scope relations to be represented in a uniform structural manner. And indeed, his expectation is at least partly fulfilled in that he concludes that the evidence points to the possibility of generating a NegP on top of every adverb-related functional projection up to a certain height (which is likely determined by semantic reasons) (Cinque 1999:126). In my view, three widely accepted theoretical proposals of the 1990s made the postulation of a tight relationship between syntactic position and semantic interpretation almost inevitable: (4) a. There is no optionality in grammar; hence elements move only when they are required to (Chomsky 1995). b. Movement must be triggered by a feature on a functional head (Chomsky 2000). c. Features of the peripheral system (force, topic, focus, polarity, etc.) trigger A movement (Chomsky 2000). Proposal (4a), in effect, requires that seemingly optional variants have different underlying structures. Since few if any structural variants have precisely the same meaning (broadly defined), it made sense to locate their structural differences in projections representing the semantic and pragmatic properties that might distinguish one structural variant from another (i.e., 4b). Such an idea was reinforced by the adoption of (4c). As we have seen, Rizzi names Neg as one of the head features having the property of triggering syntactic movement. The mainstream MP assumption is that, in English, not is the head of the category NegP. The NegP projection was first proposed, I believe, in Kitagawa 1986/1994, but came to the attention of a sizeable community of linguists with the publication of Pollock 1989. Pollock argued that given the assumptions that the order of embedding is TP-NegP-AgrP-VP and that NegP is a maximal projection
and an inherent barrier for antecedent government, the ungrammaticality of (5a) falls out as a straightforward ECP violation: (5) a. *John not leaves / left. b. John has not left. c. John never leaves / left. On the other hand, Pollock assumes that the Neg head is intrinsically inert for government, so it does not count as a potential intervening head governor for minimality. The consequence is that not does not block movement from Agr to Tns, and so therefore (5b) does not violate the Head Movement Constraint (HMC). Sentence (5c), on the other hand, is predicted to be grammatical, given that adverbs like never are not assumed to head their own maximal projections. Most P&P analyses have assumed head status for not, though others, such as Rizzi 1990, Kayne 1989/2000, Haegeman 1995, and Zanuttini 1996 have argued that not occupies the specifier position of NegP. This latter analysis typically goes along with the assumption that the contracted form nt is head of NegP, thereby explaining, according to Haegeman and Zanuttini, why nt moves with Aux in I-to-C movement (and at the same time capturing the analysis of Zwicky and Pullum 1983 that nt is an inflectional suffix): (6) a. Havent you finished the assignment? b. *Have not you finished the assignment? A central feature of the analysis of negation in the work of Rizzi and Haegeman is the Negative-Criterion (NC), formulated in Haegeman 1995:106 as follows: (7) The Negative Criterion: a. A NEG-operator must be in a Spec-head configuration with an X0 [NEG]; b. An X0 [NEG] must be in a Spec-head configuration with a NEG-operator. Haegeman defines a NEG-operator as a negative phrase in a scope position and scope position as a left-peripheral A-position, that is [Spec, XP] or [YP, XP]. The NC is part of a family of grammatical conditions on the distribution of scope-bearing elements. Analogous criteria have been proposed for wh (May 1985, Rizzi 1991/1996), focus (Brody 1990), and topic (Rizzi 1997). They have been subsumed under a more general well-formedness condition called the Affect Criterion (Rizzi 1991/1996). The question of to what degree the NC conflates syntactic and semantic constructs is a tricky one. Haegeman refers to the feature NEG as semantic-syntactic (Haegeman 1997:116), and she leaves notions central to the NC such as operator and scope as ambiguously syntactic and/or semantic. Suffice it to say that the NC has no place in a fully modular approach to grammar.
3. Not is an adverb
In this section, I will argue that the evidence points to the conclusion that the word not in English is an adverb in the same class as never, always, just, barely, and so on (an analysis first argued for in generative terms in Jackendoff 1972 and developed in Baker 1991, Ernst 1992, and Kim 2000). To begin with, not, along with other adverbs of its class, occurs in the auxiliary, but not in pre-subject position set off by comma intonation, in post-verbal position, or in post-object position:2 (8) a. b. c. d. Mary has not / never / barely begun the assignment. *Not, / *Never, / *Barely, Mary has begun the assignment. Mary left *not / *never /*barely. Mary has begun the assignment *not / *never / *barely.
Furthermore, as pointed out in Kim 2000, not, like other adverbs of its class, functions as a modifier of an adjective, adverbial element, and prepositional phrase3: (9) a. This is a not unattractive doll in some ways. b. Harvey was a rarely helpful service employee. (10) a. Not surprisingly, he is on a diet. b. She often behaved incompetently, but rarely helplessly. (11) a. It is hot. But not in your apartment. b. Ive looked in a lot of places for my keys. But never in your apartment. Not does have properties not shared with adverbs. The most noteworthy is that it triggers the obligatory appearance of do-supported tense in the absence of an auxiliary verb: (12) a. John never opened the book. b. *John not opened the book. c. John did not open the book.
2. The impossibility of *Not has Mary tackled such assignments beside grammatical Never has Mary tackled such assignments will be discussed below. 3. Bob Borsley has pointed out (p.c.) that there are many environments where not cannot modify a PP: (i) a. *Kim went [not to London]. b. *I gave the book [not to Lee]. c. *I made it [not to the stadium]. In such environments adverbs of the class containing not are generally prohibited as well: (ii) a. *Kim went [never to London]. b. *I gave the book [rarely to Lee]. c. *I made it [barely to the stadium].
Also, not cannot precede a finite verb: (13) a. Mary never left. b. *Mary not left. (12) and (13) are typically considered two separate distinctive properties of not. But in fact, if tensed forms of the auxiliary do are generated in English in non-negative and non-interrogative contexts, as I believe to be the correct analysis, then (12) and (13) reduce to one property. I see no reason to question the idea that sentences such as (14) are fully grammatical: (14) John did leave. The fact that (14) is typically perhaps, necessarily uttered with contrastive stress on did seems irrelevant to the syntax of English, which needs in any event to generate it.4 If (14) is grammatical, then the following filter accounts for the ungrammaticality of (12b) and (13b), while not blocking grammatical (12c):5 (15) *not before a finite verb Filter (15) has the virtue of accounting for the otherwise puzzling fact that not, unlike other negative adverbials, does not occur in fronted position with the inversion of the auxiliary: (16) a. Never has Mary tackled such assignments. b. *Not has Mary tackled such assignments. (16b) is a straightforward filter violation. Filter (15), like many constraints and principles proposed in generative syntax, needs to be relativized to particular constituent boundaries that occur internally to it. As pointed out to me by Laurence Horn (p.c.), the filter is insensitive to the presence of parentheticals: (17) *John not, it seems, eats meat.
4. Laurence Horn has asked (p.c.) whether assuming the full grammaticality of sentences like (14) has the undesirable side effect of failing to capture la Syntactic Structures (Chomsky 1957) the ungrammaticality of *Does John have eaten? and *Does John be a doctor? In my analysis, it is true that special assumptions would need to be made about have and be. However, it is worth pointing out that in order to derive the ungrammaticality of the above sentences, Syntactic Structures also needed to make special assumptions about these elements. 5. Horn 2000 notes the existence of sentences with not before a finite verb in texts from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, suggesting that the filter is a relatively recent innovation to English grammar.
In this respect, filter (15) resembles Subjacency, which also ignores internal parentheticals: (18) What did you tell Mary or at least ask her not to eat? On the other hand, the filter does not apply if not is the final word in a subject constituent and the predicate begins with a finite verb: (19) Whether we will win or not depends on a multitude of factors. I leave the precise nature of the constituent breaks relevant to the functioning of filter (15) as a matter for future research. Another property of not that has been argued to distinguish it from adverbs is its ability to license VP ellipsis. Kim 2000:89 writes that VPE after adverbs like always and never is not permitted and he points to the (alleged) ungrammaticality of sentences like (20b) to support this claim: (20) a. Tom has written a novel, but Peter has not. b. (*)Tom has written a novel, but Peter has never. In fact, (20b) seems like perfectly fine colloquial English to me, as do the following sentences in which ellipsis is licensed by rarely and just, two adverbs in the same class as never:6 (21) a. Ill cut corners wherever I can, but Mary will rarely. b. Tom arrived hours ago, but Mary has just. In summary, I see no impediment to the acceptance of the adverbial analysis of not. The fact that its semantic properties are quite different from those of other adverbs in particular the fact that it functions as an operator gives strong credence to a modular approach to the syntax-semantics interface.
4. Against NegP
There is very little evidence from English data supporting the existence of a NegP projection. In short, the projection creates more problems than it solves. As pointed out
6. A Google search yielded numerous instances of ellipsis-licensing never, rarely, and just, among which are the following: (i) a. I do not do drugs and have never. b. She has had sex dozens of times before and I have never. (ii) a. If this ever happens to me (and it has rarely) I blame myself. b. Have you ever experienced cunnilingus? Yes, Milord, but have rarely. (iii) a. Would that work?, she enquires hopefully? It might just, I sigh. b. The white dude with the jet pack was not going to make it to me in time, but the black dude on the sport bike might just.
in Ernst 1992, Pollocks assumption that not is not a head governor cannot stand, if we are to account for its stranding under VP-Fronting, as in (22): (22) I asked Dan to move the car, but [move the car]i he did not ti. Given Pollocks GB assumptions, not would govern and thereby license the trace in (22), thereby accounting for its grammaticality. But if not is a head governor, as the analysis of (22) seems to suggest, then we have lost Pollocks explanation for the grammaticality of (5b), which would incorrectly be ruled out as a HMC violation. Furthermore, as pointed out by Murakami 1995, any government-based explanation for the ungrammaticality of (5a) should generalize to predict (incorrectly) the ungrammaticality of (23), another context in which not precedes an inflectional element: (23) I desire that the thief not be arrested. Note that we do find adverbs in the position of not in (23), thereby giving added support for an adverbial analysis of not: (24) I desire that the thief just be warned, not arrested. And as Lasnik 2000 points out, any HMC-based explanation for the ungrammaticality of (25a) generalizes incorrectly to predict the ungrammaticality of (25b): (25) a. *John left not. b. Will John not leave? Again, the ungrammaticality of (25a) and the grammaticality of (25b) follow from the treatment of not as an adverb: (26) a. *John left never. b. Will John never leave? The strongest argument, however, for rejecting the idea of NegP is that the internal structure of such a phrase, if it existed, would be anything but phrasal. Motivated phrasal categories contain both specifiers and complements. NegP contains neither. The phrases that follow not are in general complements of the preceding verbal element, so in sentences (27a-d), VP, NP, AP, and PP are selected by the tensed verb that precedes not. Not, like other adverbs of its class, is a specifier of the phrasal category with which it is associated. (27) a. b. c. d. Mary has not eaten dinner. Mary is not a doctor. Mary is not unhappy. Mary is not in the garden.
The analysis of not as a specifier and contracted nt as a head, alluded to above, has the possible advantage of originality, but little more. I know of no other proposal in the literature in which a full form specifier has been analyzed as being in alternation with a
contracted head.7 In terms of the relative distribution of not and nt, the only instance I am aware of in which the latter occurs where the former is impossible is with fronted auxiliaries, as in (6a). If they occupied different structural positions, we would expect to find greater variation in their respective distributions. Concretely, the possibility of both (28a) and (28b) casts doubt on the idea that we have a negative specifier in (28a) and a negative head in (28b). Depending on ones particular formulation of the HMC and ones position with respect to the blocking effect of specifiers, one of the two sentences of (28a-b) should be ungrammatical: (28) a. John has not left. b. John hasnt left. The grammaticality of both provides (indirect) evidence that they occupy the same structural position.
5. The form-meaning disparity in English negation

In his landmark study of negation, Klima 1964 pointed to the many diverse elements of English that can convey a negative sense: the full word not (29a); its contracted form nt (29b); no, either as an independent word (29c) or as a bound element (29d); the prefixes in-, un-, and dis- (29e); the suffix -less (29f); the adverb seldom (29g); the verb doubt (29h); and the preposition without (29i). Note that all have (approximate) paraphrases utilizing the word not: (29) a. b. c. d. e. Mary has not returned to Seattle. Mary hasnt returned to Seattle. Mary has no plans to return to Seattle. (does not have) Mary knows nobody in Seattle. (not any people) Mary is incapable / unable / disinclined to return to Seattle. (not capable / not able / not inclined)
7. Another odd facet of the analysis under critique is that an overtly appearing specifier requires its head to be empty, and vice-versa. As Bob Borsley has pointed out to me (p.c.), we do find such a situation in English inside CP, which can have an overt specifier (ia) or an overt head (ib), but not both (ic): (i) a. the book [CP [Spec, CP which] [C e] I read b. the book [CP [Spec, CP e] [C that] I read c. * the book [CP [Spec, CP which] [C that] I read But many languages have sentences corresponding to (ic), while none, to my knowledge, have a NegP where both the specifier and the head are filled by overt elements. Pollock 1989 was the first to argue that in French negation, ne is the head of NegP and pas is its specifier. However, Abeill and Godard 1997 have argued, convincingly in my opinion, that pas does not behave like the specifier of ne and ne does not behave like the head of pas.
f. g. h. i.
It is useless for Mary to return to Seattle. (not useful) Mary seldom returns to Seattle. (not often) Mary doubts that she will return to Seattle. (does not believe) Mary traveled to Seattle without baggage. (did not have)
Klima, anticipating the generative semantic analyses of the following decade (e. g., Lakoff 1970), posited a single syntactic source for all instances of negation in the above sentences, namely, the category neg (which was reanalyzed as verbal by Lakoff ). Very few linguists today would suggest that it is the responsibility of the syntax to unify all of the negative senses in (29a-i). There is no syntactic evidence that points in that direction. As argued in the above section, not has the distribution of an adverb. Analogous points could be made for the other elements bearing negative content in (29): No patterns with prenominal quantifiers such as many and several; in-, un-, dis, and -less are subject to general constraints governing affixes; seldom behaves syntactically like an adverb; doubt like a verb; and without like a preposition. In other words, the many-to-one mapping between form and meaning that such examples illustrate provides strong support for distinct principles of syntactic and semantic patterning. In this light, the positing of the NegP loses even more of its plausibility. Unless one were to argue that NegP is manifest in all of the examples of (29) an utterly implausible analysis in my opinion the existence of a phrasal category capturing some (small) subset of the existing negative elements in English does little to simplify the syntaxsemantics interface. There is little reason to believe that there is a close relationship between syntactic structure even the covert syntactic structure of motivated LF representations and semantic scope. First of all, scope assignment is sensitive to lexical idiosyncrasies. As pointed out in Horn 1972, cant and couldnt are interpreted as involving wide-scope negation, while mustnt and shouldnt manifest narrow-scope negation. So (30a-b) are interpreted to mean NEG [I can/ could solve the problem] and (31a-b) I must / should NEG [make a pig of myself]: (30) a. b. (31) a. b. I cant solve the problem. I couldnt solve the problem. I mustnt make a pig of myself. I shouldnt make a pig of myself.
No syntactic principle underlies this distinction. A pragmatic account of the constraints on lexicalization responsible is proposed in Horn 1972, Horn 1989. Based on now-famous contrasts like (32a-b), Jackendoff 1972 proposed a simple relationship between the surface order of quantifiers (including negative elements) and their scope-bearing properties: (32) a. Many arrows did not hit the target. b. The target was not hit by many arrows.
According to Jackendoff, if quantifier A precedes quantifier B in surface structure, then A takes wide scope over B. While that principle accounts for the preferred readings of (32a-b), there is a vast range of readings that seem to violate it. For example, as observed by Horn 1989:490, example (33) is generally understood with the negative having wider scope than the quantifier: (33) All of the cookies werent / were not eaten. Along the same lines, Baker 1970 pointed out that when the sequence some not is embedded under certain psychological predicates, negation is understood as taking wide scope: (34) a. Im surprised that someone hasnt already said something. b. John is relieved that someone didnt sign up ahead of him. A classic example of a disparity between syntactic position and semantic scope is found with respect to the phenomenon known as neg-raising (for extensive discussion and a literature review, see Horn 1989:308-330). Example (35a), but not (35b), has an interpretation in which nt negates the lower predicate: (35) a. I dont think that I misplaced my laptop. b. I dont regret that I misplaced my laptop. As Horn notes, there is considerable disagreement as to what semantic or pragmatic principles (or pure lexical stipulations) allow for the double reading of (35a), but only a single reading for (35b). However, there can be no doubt that the explanation is extrasyntactic. Horn 1978 enumerates a number of arguments against a transformational analysis of the phenomena, almost all of which carry over to cast into doubt an LF-movement analysis as well. For example, the process is lexically idiosyncratic and a movement analysis would lead both to binding condition violations and, given that the sentences of (36) are understood with the incorporated negative (in italics) as being semantically within the scope of the neg-raising trigger (in boldface), to processes of derivational morphology applying to the output of a biclausal transformation:8 (36) a. b. c. d. Nobody supposes that nuclear war is unwinnable. Neither Mutt nor Jeff thinks that Chris has been here in weeks. Neither of them is likely to marry you. I doubt that he wants to resign just yet.
Turning to the licensing of negative polarity items (NPIs), we again find a disparity between form and meaning. For a long time it was believed that a simple syntactic
8. Horn notes that this point holds if (36a) is derived from something like (i), (36b) from something like (ii), etc.: (i) Everybody supposes that nuclear war is not winnable. (ii) Both Mutt and Jeff think that Chris has not been here in weeks.
condition c-command served to specify the relation between an NPI-trigger and the NPI (see Klima 1964, Ladusaw 1980, and a great deal of later work). So for example, the c-command condition explains the subject-object asymmetry with NPIs (37a-b) and the ban on topicalization in NPIs (38a-b): (37) a. b. (38) a. b. Jack did not meet any of us. *Any of us did not meet Jack. Nobody said so much as a word about it. *So much as a word, nobody said about it.
However, Hoeksema 2000 has demonstrated that things are not so simple. For example, it is possible to find NPIs inside of subjects licensed by a negative in the object (39) and one also finds NPIs inside topicalized clauses (40). Furthermore, clauses coordinated with or allow NPIs, whereas ones coordinated with but do not do so, even though they presumably have the same syntactic structure (41a-b): (39) A doctor who knows anything about acupuncture was not available. (40) A solution that is any better I have not been able to find. (41) a. I met no professors or anyone else. b. *I met no professors but anyone else. On the basis of these and many other examples, Hoeksema concludes that there is no evidence for a purely syntactic constraint on polarity licensing that requires a polarity item to be c-commanded by its trigger. He goes on to argue that there is no syntactically motivated means to save the c-command condition by positing that it holds at LF. Horn 1989 discusses many more failed attempts to provide a syntactic account of scope of negation and concludes: As Cooper 1975; Cooper 1983 and Ladusaw 1980 have argued, the [scope] ambiguities are intrinsically semantic, not syntactic in nature. If we assume that syntactic form underdetermines the projection of meanings from the constituents of a sentence, we can sort out the different readings we require without assuming distinct derivations for distinct meanings in a hierarchically structured representation, as in the disambiguated language of Montague 1974, the predicate-calculus-like conceptual structure of Lakoff 1969 and McCawley 1972, or the LF of May 1977. [Horn 1989:502] Horn ends up advocating a modular approach to the interaction of form and meaning with respect to negation, in which he draws a three-way distinction in the grammar of descriptive negation and a related but not isomorphic three-way distinction in the se-
mantics (Horn 1989:516). Focusing on English copular sentences, Horns conclusion is schematically represented in (42): (42) inflected negation (Kim isnt happy) PREDICATE DENIAL (sentence negation) semantics: CONTRADICTORY NEGATION ( existential commitment) particle negation (Kim is not happy, Kims not happy) VP (V) constituent (TERM) NEGATION semantics: IMMEDIATE CONTRARY (+ existential commitment) AP constituent (TERM) NEGATION semantics: MEDIATE CONTRARY (+ existential commitment)
incorporated negation (Kim is unhappy)
In summary, the extent of the form-meaning disparity in English negation provides ample support for the idea that the principles specifying the formal properties of negative sentences are distinct from those specifying their semantic properties.
6. Against the Negative-Criterion

In a number of publications, Liliane Haegeman has argued for a condition on negative operators that she calls the Negative-Criterion (NC), stated above in (7) and repeated below (see Haegeman and Zanuttini 1991, Haegeman 1995, Haegeman 1997, Haegeman 2000): (43) The Negative Criterion: a. A NEG-operator must be in a Spec-head configuration with an X0 [NEG]; b. An X0 [NEG] must be in a Spec-head configuration with a NEG-operator. Haegeman derives much of her support for the NC from facts about West Flemish, where negative constituents move overtly from their base-generated position to a left-
peripheral position, where they are interpreted as having scope over the entire sentence. In English, however, unlike in West Flemish, the negative element is not typically preposed overtly, even where sentential negation is concerned, as the following examples illustrate: (44) a. Mary wants to do nothing. b. Mary has not made her decision yet. Haegeman proposes to handle such cases by means of null operators and representational chains, the analogue of LF movement in lexicalist versions of the MP (Brody 1995). Hence in (44a-b), the NC would be fulfilled in part by covert elements. I agree with Kato 1997, Kato 2000 that lack of independent motivation for the chains proposed by Haegeman in effect makes her theory unfalsifiable. However, in the remainder of this section I will turn my attention to instances of overt movement in English that are putatively accounted for by the NC. I will conclude that the facts surrounding the relevant constructions provide no support for the existence of the NC. Haegeman 2000 sets out to explain the following well-known contrast: (45) a. With no job would Mary be happy. b. With no job, Mary would be happy. Example (45a), with auxiliary inversion and no comma intonation, is interpreted to mean Mary would not be happy with any job. Example (45b), without inversion but with comma intonation, has the reading Mary would be happy without any job. Haegeman characterizes the fronted PP in (45a) as a focus, that in (45b) as a topic. In a nutshell, in her analysis the PP in (45a) moves to Spec, FocP, where meeting the NC demands inversion of the auxiliary, an X0 head, just as the Wh-Criterion triggers inversion in questions. The PP in (45b) moves to Spec, TopP, where the NC is not relevant. She conveniently summarizes the putative differences between those constructions where the negative triggers inversion (NEG1) and those where it does not (NEG2) as in Table 1. It is crucial for Haegemans analysis that, interrogatives aside, there be a one-to-one correspondence between fronted negatives with sentential scope and the triggering of inversion. But in fact, no such correspondence obtains. For example, we find inversion triggers in English with no negative (or interrogative) content:9 (46) a. b. c. d. Had I known the dangers, I would have kept my distance. So tall is Mary, she can see into second story windows. Melchers theory predicts a wider set of languages than does Normans. Much have I traveled in the realms of gold. (Archaic, but presumably the NC applied in Keatss time)
9.
For more examples, along with general discussion, see Green and Morgan 1996.
Table 1. Two types of fronted negative-containing constituents in English (Haegeman 2000:3839)

PREPOSING Example Inversion Scope Monotonicity NPI licensing Intonational break Focus/new Topic/given Compatible with root wh-inversion Compatible with embedded wh-preposing Compatible with topicalization Inner island WCO Category NEG1 on no account with no job (1) yes clause decreasing clause constituent no yes no no yes yes yes yes PP/DP NEG2 in no time with no job (2) no preposed constituent increasing *clause constituent yes no yes yes yes yes no ----PP/*DP
More seriously, most preposed negative DPs obligatorily trigger inversion:10 (47) a. Not a drop would I drink of his homemade wine. b. *Not a drop, I would drink of his homemade wine. (48) a. No dish containing bacon will a vegan willingly eat. b. *No dish containing bacon, a vegan will willingly eat. The problem here is that not and no in the above sentences are constituent-negators and do not take scope over the entire sentence. In other words, their properties refute the fundamental empirical claim of the NC, namely, that the operator in the SpecHead configuration acts as a scope marker for the material below it in the structure. Haegeman adopts the proposals put forward in Rizzi (1977) for the elements above IP, splitting CP into a number of semantically-relevant projections:
10. The editors point out, however, that such is not the case for certain idioms: (i) No way Id do that. (ii) Fat chance hed help us.
(49) ForceP
Rel pronouns are in Spec of ForceP Interrog pronouns are in Spec of FocP
(Rizzi 1997; see also Hatakeyama 1997 for a similar proposal) The highest projection, Force Phrase, encodes the illocutionary force of the sentence (whether it is declarative, interrogative, exclamatory, and so on). Below are Topic Phrases and a Focus Phrase. The lowest CP-type projection is FinP, which specifies whether the IP below it is finite or non-finite. In Haegemans view, the architecture provided by Rizzis approach provides natural landing sites for the two types of preposed negatives. Neg1 constituents, being (it is claimed) focuses, land in Spec, FocP, where they trigger inversion to allow the NC to be met. The landing site of Neg2 constituents is Spec, TopP. According to Table 1, negative inversion triggers are incompatible with wh-preposing in root clauses (50a), but compatible with wh-preposing in embedded clauses, in both questions (50b) and relatives (50c): (50) a. *Where on no account should I go? b. Lee wonders why in no way would Robin volunteer. [from Culicover 1991] c. Terry is the person for whom not even a postage stamp did I remember to buy. [from Culicover 1996] The ungrammaticality of (50a) is claimed to follow from the fact that fronted whphrases and fronted Neg1 phrases target the same projection, namely FocP. However, both (50b) and (50c) are grammatical because in embedded interrogatives and in relatives wh-movement targets the specifier of ForceP and negative inversion targets the lower FocP (Haegeman 2000:47). There are several problems here. First, Neg1 phrases seem impossible tout court in root contexts with fronted wh-phrases, whether or not the latter are focal. Note that
inversion-triggering PPs do not occur with free relatives, where the wh-phrase is presumably in Spec, ForceP, rather than in Spec,FocP: (51) *What under no circumstances would I go to is a very violent film. Second, it is not at all clear to me why the wh-word why in (50b) should be assumed to occupy Spec, ForceP, rather than Spec, FocP, since it seems just as focal as in (52): (52) Why would Robin volunteer? Third, the acceptability of (50c), which Haegeman does not question, seems no better and no worse to me than that of (53):11 (53) ?For whom not even a postage stamp did you remember to buy? But Haegemans account requires that (50c) be grammatical and (53) ungrammatical. Most seriously, I do not detect any robust correlation between being an inversiontrigger and being a focus on the one hand and being a non-trigger and being a topic on the other. Based on earlier work (Rochemont 1978; Rochemont 1986; Culicover 1991), Haegeman claims that Neg1 is a focus, since it can serve as the answer to a wh-question (54a-b), but not a topic, since (55b) is an inappropriate response to (55a) (! indicates inappropriateness, rather than ungrammaticality): (54) a. b. (55) a. b. Did you see anyone? No, not a single person did I see. Who visits Robin on very few occasions? !On very few occasions does Leslie visit Robin.
On the other hand, Neg2 is apparently a topic, but not a focus: (56) a. b. (57) a. b. When did you meet Mary? !Not long ago, I met Mary. Which of these papers did you read not long ago? Not long ago, I read the one on scrambling.
The examples chosen by Haegeman, however, reveal no more than incidental features of the semantics and pragmatics of the particular dialogues. It is easy to come up with examples of where Neg1 represents old (topical) information (58a-b) and Neg2 represents new (focal) information (59a-b): (58) a. b. (59) a. b. I hear that you plan to stay unemployed. Thats right. With no job could I ever be happy. How could you be happy? With no job, I could be happy.
11. The editors, on the other hand, agree with Haegeman that (53) is worse than (50c), but find (50b), which her theory predicts grammatical, to sound terrible.
Finally, consider another problematic feature of the NC-based account of the differences between fronted negative inversion-triggers and non-inversion-triggers. According to the NC, negative operators and negative heads need to be in a Spec-Head relation with each other. As we have seen, Haegeman assumes that in order for the NC to be met, a negative PP or DP moves into Spec, FocP and thereby triggers inversion of the auxiliary head below it. Haegeman assumes that this head bears the feature [NEG], thereby fulfilling the NC. But why should it bear this feature? There is nothing inherently negative about the auxiliary verb would in (45a). And why would a negative PP in Spec, TopP not trigger inversion of an auxiliary head with the feature [NEG] below it? As far as I can determine, this central feature of the NC requires pure stipulation in order to work. In summary, there is no motivation for the (non-modular) architectural underpinnings necessary to Haegemans account of the two types of fronted negative expressions. The Negative-Criterion, which itself combines in non-modular fashion both syntactic and semantic properties, is unmotivated. (For other criticisms of the NC that are largely complementary to those in the present paper, see Dprez 1997 and Sobin 2003).
7.
Conclusion
I have argued in this paper that the form-meaning disparity in English sentences with negative elements supports a modular approach to the organization of grammar, that is, one with distinct principles governing syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. In support of such a view, I have attempted to demonstrate that the node Negative Phrase and the Negative Criterion, each of which intermingles syntactic and semantic features, are unmotivated.
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A note on Mandarin possessives, demonstratives, and definiteness*1

Barbara H. Partee
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
This paper explores some puzzles about the meanings of Mandarin noun phrases including possessors, numerals, and demonstratives in various combinations, as described by Yang (2004), relating them to puzzles concerning definiteness and partitivity in English possessives. The comparisons bring to light some interesting properties of demonstratives in the two languages and of unmarked notionally definite noun phrases in Mandarin. The weak, unstressable, familiarity-signalling use of English that/those seems to have much in common with the understanding of definiteness in article-less definite expressions in Mandarin analogous to Johns three sweaters, with pragmatic familiarity or identifiability as central and no presupposition of exhaustiveness, furthering the conclusion expressed by Farkas (2002), Lyons (1999), and others that identifiability is the concept most central to definiteness. For Mandarin NPs containing demonstratives and possessors in different word orders, an account is proposed building on Wolters (2004) analysis of demonstrative determiners as taking a restrictor and a specificational argument, and on Chung and Ladusaws (2003) theory of saturation and restriction. Our suggestion is that the role of a pre-demonstrative predicate in Mandarin, whether a possessor or a relative clause or adjective, is to restrict but not saturate the specificational argument of the demonstrative determiner.
* This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants Nos. BCS-9905748 and BCS-0418311 to Barbara H. Partee and Vladimir Borschev. I am grateful to Henrietta Yang for bringing the topic discussed here to my attention and for much useful discussion, and to Jo-wang Lin, Ji-Yung Kim, and Gregory Ward for helpful comments on a draft of the paper. The paper is dedicated with affection and great respect to Larry Horn, who even when he was my student was way ahead of me in pragmatic sophistication and helped make me aware of the importance of considering semantic and pragmatic issues together.
1.
A translation puzzle
This paper begins with some difficulties in trying to capture in English a range of contrasting examples of possessive phrases in Mandarin.1 From there we will be led to a re-examination of the interpretation of certain English definite expressions and more generally to the interpretation of definiteness. Yang (2004) observes that in Mandarin, an initial possessor phrase (PossessorP) may be followed by a bare noun as in (1), or by a possessee phrase that can be headed by a numeral and classifier, [Numeral + CL + N], as in (2), or by a demonstrative, [Dem + (Numeral) + CL + N], as in (3). (In all the examples in this section, we begin with Yangs own initial glosses and translations.2 The interpretation of the examples will be probed after they have been presented.) (1) Bare Noun Zhangsan de [maoxianyi] Zhangsan DEPoss sweater Zhangsans sweater(s) (2) Possessor DE + [Numeral + CL + N] Zhangsan de [ san jian maoxianyi] Zhangsan DEPoss three CL sweater Zhangsans three sweaters (3) Possessor DE + [Dem + (Numeral) + CL + N] a. Zhangsan de [ na jian maoxianyi] Zhangsan DEPoss that CL sweater lit. Zhangsans that sweater b. Zhangsan de [na san jian maoxianyi] Zhangsan DEPoss that three CL sweater lit. Zhangsans those three sweaters
1. I am indebted to Henrietta Yang for the Mandarin examples, all of which are taken from a December 2004 draft of her University of Texas dissertation (in progress). The cited draft is not her final version; she already plans some revisions of some of the points under discussion here. I am grateful for her willingness to let me discuss this version. 2. Yang herself expresses uncertainty about her translations; she is not a native speaker of English, and has said (p.c.) that she is unsure about the differences among some of the candidate translations. Thus the initial translations given for all of these examples should be regarded as quite tentative.
A note on Mandarin possessives, demonstratives, and definiteness 265
In examples (47), she demonstrates the possibility of the PossessorP attaching low, immediately before the noun.3 (4) [CL + [Possessor DE] + N] you [ jian [Zhangsan de] maoxianyi] zai jiaoshi li have CL Zhangsan DEPoss sweater at classroom in There is one of Zhangsans sweaters in the classroom. (5) [Numeral + CL + [Possessor DE] + N] you [ san jian [ Zhangsan de] maoxianyi] zai zhuo shang at table top have three CL Zhangsan DEPoss sweater There are three sweaters of Zhangsans on the table. (6) [Dem + CL + [Possessor DE] + N] [na jian [ Zhangsan de ] maoxianyi] hen piaoliang that CL Zhangsan DEPoss sweater very pretty That sweater of Zhangsans is very pretty. (7) [Dem + Numeral + CL + [Possessor DE] + N] [na san jian [Zhangsan de ] maoxianyi] shi meiguo zhi de that three CL Zhangsan DEPoss sweater BE America make DE Those three sweaters of Zhangsans are made in the US. She notes that when a PossessorP intervenes between a CL and a noun as in (47), the reading that emerges is one she calls partitive, following (Huang 1982, Tang 1990). The following minimal pair of examples are from Huang with Yangs slight modification of the gloss (1982:6364): (8) a. [Zhangsan de] san ben shu Zhangsan DEPoss three CL book Zhangsans three books.
b. san ben [ Zhangsan de] shu three CL Zhangsan DEPoss book three of Zhangsans books. (8b) implies that Zhangsan has more than three books;4 (8a) does not. Yang notes that Huang pointed out that (8a) behaves like a referential or specific nominal phrase and
3. As Yang notes, adjectives and relative clauses can occur in the same positions as the possessors in both the high-attachment examples ((1)(3)) and the low-attachment examples ((4)(7)). 4. This was Yangs statement in her draft; but on reflection she has said (p.c.) that this statement is probably too strong, and that the interpretation could also be closer to the English three books of Zhangsans, which is neutral with respect to whether Zhangsan has more than three books.
that (8b) behaves like an indefinite noun phrase,5 supporting this observation by the fact that (8a) can occur at the sentential subject position and may not appear in the existential construction, as shown in (9), from Huang (p. 64), and that (8b) behaves in the opposite way, as shown in (10), also from Huang (p. 64). (9) a. [Zhangsan de san ben shu] zai zher Zhangsan DEPoss three CL book at here Zhangsans three books are here. b. *you [Zhangsan de san ben shu ] zai zher EXIST Zhangsan DEPoss three CL book at here (10) a. *[san ben [Zhangsan de] shu] zai zher three CL Zhangsan DEPoss book at here b. you [san ben [ Zhangsan de] shu ] zai zher EXIST three CL Zhangsan DEPoss book at here There are three books here belonging to Zhangsan. These examples with their glosses and translations as given by Yang raise some puzzles of interpretation. Let us begin with the last-mentioned examples, (810), where the discussion of definiteness and indefiniteness is most explicit. As illustrated in (910), the standard test for indefiniteness is the possibility of occurring in the existential youconstruction and impossibility of occurring as sentential subject in a you-less sentence; and the standard test for definiteness (possibly specificity or referentiality) is the opposite pair of properties. According to these tests, the example (8a) with initial possessor is definite (specific); the example (8b) with low-attached possessor preceded by Numeral + CL is indefinite (non-specific). In English, a noun phrase with a definite prenominal possessor is also always definite (leaving predicate noun phrases out of discussion). But on probing further, it turns out that the interpretation of the Mandarin definite or specific NPs in the examples above is not identical to their similar-looking and near-translation English definites. Lets return to example (2), which has the same structure as example (8a). In the case of the English phrase (11) given as its translation, there is a presupposition that Zhangsan has exactly three sweaters. (11) Zhangsans three sweaters
5. Jo-wang Lin (p.c.) notes that the same interpretive difference holds when it is a relative clause or an adjective that occupies these two different positions, rather than a possessor. For detailed discussion of the interpretive difference in the case of relative clauses, and arguments against considering it a matter of a restrictive vs. a non-restrictive use of the relative clause, see Lin (2003). Lin believes that the interpretation of the relative clause itself does not change in the two positions; Yang similarly argues that the possessor phrase is basically an e,t predicate in both cases.
What about Mandarin? It turns out that (2) does not carry that presupposition.6 But then if we should not translate (2) as (11), how should it be translated? Should it be translated as three sweaters of Zhangsans, which is neutral as to how many sweaters Zhangsan has in all? No, because unlike (2), three sweaters of Zhangsans is unambiguously indefinite, and can occur in existential sentences with locative codas, as in the good English translation given in example (5). We already saw from the examples in (9) that (8a) and (2) cannot occur in such existential sentences. This is the first translation puzzle: We have a definite NP in Mandarin and a definite NP in English with what appear to be the same parts in the same arrangement, but they turn out not to be semantically identical; probing their difference should be useful for probing the ingredients of definiteness. We take up this issue in Section 2, where we put these concerns into the broader perspective of the question of whether the implicit definiteness often invoked in the interpretation of possessive noun phrases like Zhangsans three sweaters in languages with and without definite articles is a single universal notion, or whether different languages may have grammaticized (or may use without grammaticizing) somewhat different notions of definiteness. The second translation puzzle concerns the contrast between different word orders in phrases containing both a demonstrative and a possessive. In these cases it is
6. Jo-wang Lin comments in an e-mail message (p.c.): I am not so sure that the Chinese counterpart does not have the presupposition. At least, in many cases, it sounds to me that it has such an implication. This is especially clear when the modifier is a relative clause. (i) a. Mama song gei ta de san jian maoxianyi bujian le Mother give to her Rel three Cl sweater missing Particle The three sweaters that mother gave to her are missing. b. Wo zhaodao-le mama song gei ta de san-jian maoxianyi le I find-Asp mother give to her Rel three-Cl sweater Particle I found the three sweaters that Mother gave to her. However, I can find some examples without such an implication. Here is one. (ii) Wo zai chuang-di xia zhaodao-le meimei de san shuang wazi I under bed under find-Asp sister Rel three pair sock I found three pairs of socks of my sister under the bed. Interestingly, if we add another sentence-final particle le to the end of the sentence, the presupposition seems to reappear. (iii) implies that all the contextually relevant three (and only three) socks have been found. (iii) Wo zai chuang-di xia zhaodao-le meimei de san shuang wazi le I under bed under find-Asp sister Rel three pair sock Particle I have found the three pairs of socks of my sister under the bed. (The le that is attached to the verb is usually understood as a perfective marker, whereas the sentence-final le is somewhat similar to the present perfect in English.) So the problem of the presupposition seems to be more complicated than what we thought. The tense/aspect also plays a role here. I record these interesting comments here but am not in a position to respond to them; I will continue to follow the judgments provided to me by Yang (p.c.).
not obvious that English has two different phrases to use in translating two different Mandarin possibilities; it is not even clear what the semantic difference is, if any, between the word order possessive-demonstrative-noun and the word order demonstrative-possessive-noun. Section 3 is devoted to this problem. The third puzzle is a related one concerning partitivity. The indefinite example (8b) is translated as three of Zhangsans books and called a partitive, but when the same example is used in the existential sentence (10), it is translated as three books belonging to Zhangsan, and probably could also have been translated as three books of Zhangsans, parallel to the translation given for the isomorphic example (5). Similar questions can be raised about all of the examples in which the possessor is attached low, i.e. is preceded by Numeral + CL or by Demonstrative + CL, as in all of (47). Which form of translation best captures the meaning of the Mandarin low-attached possessors, and what indeed is the difference among those English phrases? The issue here is a subtle one, and one that has been controversial for English; it appears to be at least partly a matter of whether a definite set of Zhangsans books is in some sense given. We will suggest that both the Mandarin indefinites in (45) and the demonstrative phrases with low-attached possessors in (67) are best translated with postposed of Zhangsans and not as true partitives. This issue will not receive a section of its own, but will be discussed in connection with the examples in which it arises. Section 4 is a brief conclusion, acknowledging the tentativeness of the conclusions reached and inviting further research on the issues that have been identified here.
2. Definites without uniqueness/maximality presupposition

The three examples of definite possessive phrases, with phrase-initial possessors, were introduced above as (13), repeated below as (1214). The first problem described above came to light with example (2) (= 13), where the English phrase carries a presupposition that Zhangsan has exactly 3 sweaters and the Mandarin one does not. Example (3) (=14) also presents a problem, but a different one, namely that we do not know from the literal translations what the phrases actually mean, and how they differ from the demonstrative phrases in (7) with low-attached possessors. (12) Bare Noun Zhangsan de [maoxianyi] Zhangsan DEPoss sweater Zhangsans sweater(s) (13) Possessor DE + [Numeral + CL + N] Zhangsan de [ san jian maoxianyi] Zhangsan DEPoss three CL sweater Zhangsans three sweaters
(14) Possessor DE + [Dem + (Numeral) + CL + N] a. Zhangsan de [ na jian maoxianyi] Zhangsan DEPoss that CL sweater lit. Zhangsans that sweater b. Zhangsan de [ na san jian maoxianyi] Zhangsan DEPoss that three CL sweater lit. Zhangsans those three sweaters As for (12), which should be the simplest case, any difference there may be between the Mandarin phrase and its English translation is not easily apparent and will require sophisticated methods of probing to ascertain. Is there a presupposition, in either the English or the Mandarin versions, that Zhangsan has just one sweater, or if plural, that the reference is to all of Zhangsans sweaters? Such a presupposition is very slippery. It is not as salient as the presupposition of threeness in the English version of (13),7 perhaps because no cardinal is explicitly included; compare the strong presupposition of uniqueness in Zhangsans one sweater.8 And even if there is such a presupposition in at least the English Zhangsans sweater, it is very easy to accommodate, for instance by assuming restriction to a relevant domain in which there is only one sweater of Zhangsans, even if he may have more outside of that domain. The presupposition seems so non-salient, if it exists at all, in English that it is sometimes denied. The arguments concerning (2) (= 13) will lead us to predict that (12) in Mandarin lacks a uniqueness/exhaustivity presupposition, whereas the English version carries such a presupposition (except when the whole NP is predicative). But I do not know how to find reliable tests to try to confirm or disconfirm this prediction. So let us initially focus on (13) (=2), where the contrast between Mandarin and English seems clearest. What does it mean to say that the Mandarin noun phrase is definite, but does not presuppose that Zhangsan has exactly three sweaters? Is there any English NP with similar properties? Yes, in fact there is a relevant use of (non-deictic) demonstrative that/those, especially those, which is unstressed and never accom7. An indication of the difference in strength of presuppositionality in English between Zs sweater and Zs three sweaters can be observed from the fact that I who have three sons can easily say things like My son helped me with that but never (I think) My two sons helped me with that. The latter would strongly presuppose that I have exactly two sons, but the former does not so strongly presuppose that I have exactly one. It is enough that there be one relevant one, although Im not really sure why. Gregory Ward, p.c., doubts that the difference is absolute, and believes that the strength of the presupposition in either case depends on the context. If hes right, then it may be just that its harder to find a context where you can relevantly mention the cardinality two without inviting an exhaustiveness implicature. 8. Henrietta Yang (p.c.) has warned me that nominal phrases including the numeral yi one are very tricky. If an explicit yi + Classifier is added to (1) (=12), the resulting phrase actually has a strong presupposition that Zhangsan has more than one sweater, according to Yang. I have no idea why this should be the case, and dont know if anyone does. I will simply note the problem and stay away from this example.
panied by any pointing gesture, and which is also not anaphoric, at least not anaphoric to any antecedent in the preceding context. The following examples are meant to be suggestive; they are particularly suited to contexts in which they are harking back to some earlier discussion, but the entities referred to have not been mentioned in the immediately preceding context, nor are they being pointed to. (15) a. Those three books of yours are still in my office. b. I really didnt like that one argument of his, and I told him so. These uses might well be called discourse-anaphoric: They could be paraphrased in ways that would produce an exhaustive/unique description by adding a metalinguistic phrase such as that I told you about, that we were talking about earlier. The style is somewhat colloquial, and there is some presumption of familiarity the speaker conveys confidence that the hearer will recognize the intended referent, although it hasnt been mentioned in the immediate context. This use is described in the literature as private shared knowledge.9,10 We can see the absence of a presupposition of exhaustivity by contrasting (15b) with (16) below; (16) does presuppose that he gave only one argument, but (15b) is compatible with his having given several arguments, although I dont think it requires
9. Thanks to Gregory Ward for alerting me to earlier work on this use, which I had not been familiar with. According to Ward, the term is probably due originally to A. Joshi, and the idea is that the distal demonstrative in English can mark a referent as something that is familiar to Speaker and Hearer as a conversational dyad, as opposed to something that is generally known or inferable. Ward: So, compare the classic: A: Why so sleepy? B: The neighbors had a loud party. with A: Why so sleepy? B: Those neighbors had a loud party. In the first case, the neighbors could be the inferable neighbors that any urban denizen can be presumed to have, while the latter requires that A & B have discussed those particular neighbors on a previous occasion. See Gundel, Hedberg, and Zacharski (1993). 10. Jo-wang Lin comments in an e-mail message (p.c.): The following sentence can be used in exactly the situation that you described. (i) Ni-de san-ben shu hai zai wo-de bangongshi your three-Cl book still in my office The three books of yours are still in my office. Sentence (i) means that the contextually relevant three books (that both you and I are familiar with) are in my office. It does not imply that you have only three books. It is interesting that this weak (obligatorily unstressed) use of English demonstrative those does indeed seem closer to the Mandarin implicit definite (without article or demonstrative) than the English definite article.
it. (Perhaps (15b) is a marked structure, and using it rather than (16) creates a weak implicature to the effect that the conditions for using (16) do not apply.) (16) I really didnt like his one argument, and I told him so. This private shared knowledge use of the demonstrative that/those is different from the indefinite this/these studied by Prince (1981) in at least two ways: (i) NPs built with this use of that/those pattern as definites rather than indefinites, occurring in existential there-sentences only on list readings and perhaps other kinds of tolerated uses of definites; and (ii) whereas NPs built with indefinite this are understood as speaker-known, hearer-unknown or hearer-irrelevant, those built with private shared knowledge that/those, as the chosen name suggests, are understood as familiar to both hearer and speaker. As far as I know, there has been relatively little study of this private shared knowledge use of that/those.11 Lyons (1999:284), citing his earlier work (Lyons 1995), points to something similar when he says: as Lyons (1995[c]) argues, generics of this kind [bare plurals] are not incompatible with Dets (as the description bare implies they should be), since they may contain a demonstrative, interpreted as non-restrictive and expressing emotional distance, and demonstratives only occur in the specifier in English: (17) Im all in favour of people cycling more, but those mountain bikes are a nuisance in the country. Im not sure whether this use of those expresses emotional distance; I am more inclined to suppose that it belongs together with what R. Lakoff (1974) called emotional deixis used to express emotional solidarity between speaker and addressee, which also involves a presupposition of shared familiarity with the referent. That is presumably what we have in the annoying use of presumptuous fake familiarity in advertisements that invite you to buy their product for that certain someone; and NPR hosts sometimes use a milder form of it during their fund drives and exhort the hearer, Dont put it off any longer make that phone call right now. These certainly do not express emotional distance, but something more like intimacy. The pseudo-intimacy in the annoying use seems to come from approximate paraphrasability by something like the person you and I know youre thinking of , or the phone call you and I know youve been thinking of making. But of course its not intrinsic to that use of the demonstrative to be annoying, since it can be perfectly appropriate in other contexts. My dentist can perfectly well greet me in his examining room with Well, hows that tooth been doing?, and as far as my teeth go, my dentist probably has a more intimate relation with them than even I do. As Wolter (2004) notes, the presumably-shared
11. But see Bowdle and Ward (1995); and Gregory Ward (p.c.) has told me that a possibly related use of this is to be discussed in Kehler and Ward (this volume).
emotional affect can be either positive or negative, but mutual familiarity is definitely presupposed. That is probably the source of the annoyance when its used by an impersonal advertiser. See also Bowdle and Ward (1995). I dont know how these various non-demonstrative, not-immediately-anaphoric uses of that/those relate to one another or how many senses/uses need to be distinguished; the private shared knowledge that/those in (15) seems, for instance, to lack the emotive force of Lakoff s emotional deixis, and I do not know whether her class should be broadened or whether these are two separate senses/uses. But what they all seem to have in common are definiteness, presupposed familiarity, and non-exhaustiveness. And these are the properties that seem to characterize the definiteness feature of the Mandarin example (2) (= 13). There is probably no exact translation of those examples into English. The hypothesis I would suggest is that what is alike about Mandarin (2) (= 13) and English Zhangsans three sweaters is that the possessor has raised into a D position12 and by virtue of the semantics of that position is interpreted as definite, whereas Mandarin and English differ in which semantic properties are crucial for basic definiteness. In English, the definite article usually signals both uniqueness/exhaustivity and familiarity (see Abbott in press), and it seems that perhaps a number of uses of the demonstratives share a cancellation of the uniqueness/exhaustivity presupposition. But the Mandarin definite that arises in the interpretation of the Mandarin NP-initial possessor does not share all the properties of the English definite article: It signals familiarity but does not carry a presupposition of uniqueness/exhaustivity. This hypothesis is compatible with the proposals made by Kim (2001, 2004) specifically for Mandarin and for Korean, using the term specific rather than definite: Kim proposes that specific noun phrases in these languages are DPs, while non-specific ones are NPs. The choice of the term specific, used by both Kim (2001, 2004) and Huang (1982), may result from their recognition that the semantics of these phrases is
12. Both Jo-wang Lin (p.c.) and Henrietta Yang (p.c.) have raised problems for the suggestion that the Mandarin possessor moves into a D position when it occurs noun-phrase-initially. Lin reminds me that relative clauses behave the same way, causing a definite interpretation when initial and an indefinite interpretation (if there is nothing else to trigger a definite one) when occurring following the Num + CL sequence. And it is not plausible that a relative clause would move into a D position. Yang reminds me that an initial possessor triggers a definite interpretation only when the possessor itself is definite, and it would be implausible to give definite and indefinite possessors very different syntactic treatments. While I consider the issue of the (in)definiteness of possessive phrases containing indefinite or quantified possessors to be actually quite a complex one (see for instance the discussion in Vikner and Jensen (2002)), and believe that there is the equivalent of a definite article embedded inside the interpretation of such possessive phrases, I concede that an explanation in terms of raising the possessor into the D position is implausible for Mandarin, most importantly because of the fact that other e,t-type modifiers (relative clauses, adjectives) show the same behavior as possessors. I still believe that definiteness is in some sense projected just when there is a highattached possessor, relative clause, or adjective, but I must retreat to an agnostic position about how this is accomplished, and in particular about how it relates to the syntax.
not identical to the semantics of prototypical English definite phrases, since the Chinese and Korean counterparts lack the uniqueness/exhaustivity presupposition.13 Lyons (1999) argues instead that the syntactic DP configuration is entirely absent from Mandarin and Korean. He believes that the notions of definiteness and indefiniteness are both present in Mandarin and are seen in the definiteness effects in Huangs examples (9-10); he reserves the term specific for indefinites whose referent is presumed known to the speaker. Lyonss analysis is partly similar to Kims in that Lyons proposes to consider the D position to be projected only for definite NPs, for English and all other languages that have grammaticized definiteness; he takes D to correspond to a grammaticization of the property Definite rather than a projection of the word class Determiner. Noun phrases without a DP projection may be just NPs, or may have a higher functional projection such as KP case phrase. But Lyons considers Mandarin and Korean to be languages without grammaticized definiteness and without DPs. He argues that the definiteness effects that are found in such languages, including those noted above in connection with examples (9-10), represent a semantico-pragmatic notion of definiteness as identifiability14 (close to what we have been calling familiarity), correlated with topichood, and that such non-grammaticized definiteness typically fails to involve any presupposition of uniqueness/exhaustivity (which he calls inclusiveness).15 Yang (2004) projects DP for both definite and indefinite Mandarin noun phrases, but with a variety of null Ds that have different syntactic and semantic properties. The differences between definites (specifics) and indefinites that Kim tries to account for with the presence vs. absence of DP projection, Yang tries to account for with a variety of null Ds, and Lyons tries to account for with no DP in either but with differences in information structure position and/or differences within other noun phrase projections triggered by the presence of overt demonstratives, number phrases or the like. But it is interesting that Lyonss analysis of English has much in common with Kims account of Mandarin and Korean. The degrees of success of these differing syntactic accounts go far beyond the scope of this brief discussion. But on the semantic side, Lyonss proposal that non-grammaticized definiteness normally lacks the presupposition of uniqueness/exhaustiveness is a very appealing one. If Lyons is right, then it makes sense to refer to the Mandarin definites/specifics as definites, and their difference from
13. And while Lyons (1999) argues that Mandarin Chinese lacks a grammaticized category of definiteness and has no DP for either definite or indefinite noun phrases, he does observe that definite articles in various languages may take on a range of possible interpretations, sometimes going so far as to include specificity, something normally associated with indefinites. I dont believe he would use this term for the definite interpretations of Chinese noun phrases, however. 14. Identifiability is also the term preferred by Farkas (2002), as the core of what definiteness generally requires cross-linguistically. 15. Russian on his account is similar, lacking a DP for full noun phrases, but differs in having a DP for pronouns.
the interpretation of English definites marked with the definite article the is not unexpected. As an informal test of Lyonss hypothesis, I have checked with one Russian informant16 and carried out some Google searches, and have discovered (to my surprise, since I speak Russian fairly well and have even done some work on possessives in Russian jointly with Russian colleagues; see (Borschev and Partee 1999, 2004, and Partee and Borschev 2003)) that Russian analogs of the Mandarin definite NPs (2) and (8a) are interpreted as in Mandarin, without the exhaustivity presupposition, and not like the English (11), as I had always assumed. This finding gives added support to Lyonss hypothesis.
3. Combinations of demonstrative and possessive

For Mandarin NPs in (3a-b) (=14a-b), containing a possessor preceding a demonstrative, we have a basic puzzle of interpretation. One possibility is that they can be understood as synonymous with English NPs with a demonstrative determiner and a post-nominal possessive, as in (18a-b). (18) a. Zhangsan de [ na jian maoxianyi] Zhangsan DEPoss that CL sweater that sweater of Zhangsans b. Zhangsan de [ na san jian maoxianyi] Zhangsan DEPoss that three CL sweater those three sweaters of Zhangsans But those translations were used for the Mandarin NPs with a demonstrative determiner preceding a low-attached possessor, (67). What is the difference in meaning between Mandarin (3a-b) (=14a-b), where the possessor precedes the demonstrative, and Mandarin (67), where the demonstrative precedes the possessor? In the case of numeral and possessor, the two different orders gave meanings that differed in definiteness. But in the case of demonstrative and possessor, the NP is definite with either order, so the difference must reside elsewhere. Let me take a minimal pair provided by Henrietta Yang (p.c.) and try out some hypotheses about them. (19) Zhangsan de [ na san ben shu ] Zhangsan DEPoss that three CL book lit.: Zhangsans that three books
16. Thanks to Vladimir Borschev for discussion of the interpretation of Russian examples analogous to the cited Mandarin examples.
(20) na san ben [Zhangsan de] shu that three CL Zhangsan DEPoss book lit.: that three books of Zhangsans Hypothesis 1: In (19) Zhangsan is not part of the restrictor (first argument) to which the demonstrative applies, so the speaker is not talking about Zhangsans books. Any other books of Zhangsans are irrelevant, hence there is no presupposition or implicature about whether he has other books. This hypothesis is evidently correct (Yang, p.c.). Hypothesis 2: Also in (19), perhaps the cardinal san three is part of the restrictor, suggesting that there are other sets of three books in the relevant context, so that without the speakers mentioning Zhangsan, or pointing, or providing some other contextual clues, the hearer might not know which three books are intended. This hypothesis, of which I was quite uncertain, also seems to be correct (Yang, p.c.). Hypothesis 3: Perhaps the possessor in (19) serves in lieu of pointing or other contextual cues that normally accompany a demonstrative; perhaps the possessor is then in complementary distribution with pointing or other contextual cues. No, this hypothesis is incorrect, according to Yang (p.c.); (19) needs an accompanying deictic gesture (or some other cues) just as much as the demonstrative phrase that would result if the possessor were not there. Hypothesis 4: In (20), the demonstrative needs, as usual, an accompanying gesture or other contextual cue. That is correct (Yang, p.c.). Hypothesis 5: In (20), the possessor is part of the restrictor, so the speaker is talking about Zhangsans books. This is correct, according to Yang (p.c.). But the three books are not necessarily a proper subset of Zhangsans books, are they? The proposition that he has additional books may be a naturally invited inference, but is not really presupposed or entailed, is it? Thats correct, according to Yang (p.c.). So the translation given in (20) is a better one than the more strictly partitive those three of Zhangsans books. Yang (p.c.) asserts that if the speaker knows that Zhangsan has exactly three books, she would be more likely to use (19), and if she knows that Zhangsan has more than three books, she would use (20). If the speaker doesnt know, or if the question is totally irrelevant, either could be used. Just what the difference is in that case where either form can be appropriately used is not completely clear. In the case where the speaker does know that Zhangsan has more than three books, the partitive translation three of Zhangsans books may be appropriate; but even in that case the less presuppositional translation three books of Zhangsans is presumably still appropriate, just as in English its normal to speak of some friends of mine without any suggestion that that set of friends exhausts my friends. The postposed possessor construction in English often invites an inference of non-exhaustivity, i.e. that I have more friends or Zhangsan has more books, but it is an easily cancelable invited inference. The Mandarin construction with low-attached possessor seems to have the same property.
Hypothesis 6: With the order as in (20), san three could be more closely associated semantically with the noun or with the demonstrative. In the latter case, the speaker is indicating which of Zhangsans books she is picking out: those three, i.e. some indicated three books out of a larger set of books of Zhangsans. In the former case, the situation includes various piles (or other groupings) each containing three books of Zhangsans, and the speaker is picking out one such pile. (Compare THAT red book, picking one from among several red books, with that RED book, picking out one from among several books, using red as an added cue to help indicate which one Im pointing at.) This hypothesis was confirmed by Yang (p.c.). This final observation, together with the failure of Hypothesis 3, suggests that phrases containing a demonstrative together with additional modifiers may have an internal focus structure which is constrained by word order. It appears that whether the demonstrative is leftmost or not does not change the status of the whole phrase as a demonstrative phrase; the differences in interpretation seem to involve differences in which parts of the phrase are part of the restrictor, the set from which a selection is being indicated, and which parts are helping the demonstration, adding properties to help the hearer identify the intended demonstratum. These thoughts are inspired in part by the analysis that Wolter (2004, in progress) provides for demonstratives, assigning each demonstrative determiner two propertytype arguments, one a restrictor and one providing a specification of the selected entity or set. In Wolters analysis, the specifying property in the case of deictic or anaphoric demonstratives is the property of being identical to a salient entity; she discusses a third type, the explicit demonstratives, in which the specifying property is provided by a postnominal phrase, as in (21) below. (21) That hero who kills the dragon will inherit half the kingdom. [Wolter 2004] Is there a way for expressed predicates to be interpreted as helping to provide the specifying argument, rather than fully providing it? If we can do that, then we can propose that in the Mandarin demonstratives, the real specifying argument is provided by a deictic gesture, as in the case of Wolters deictic demonstratives.17 Then, appealing to the distinction between restriction and saturation proposed by Chung and Ladusaw (2003), we can say that any predicates to the left of the demonstrative, and optionally a predicate or predicates immediately to the right of it, may restrict that argument without saturating it. The optionality in treating some of the predicates found within a demonstrative description as part of the restrictor argument or as serving to restrict the specifying argument, and the very similarity of those roles, if this account is on the right track, could help to explain the fuzziness of intuitions concerning the semantic or
17. Yangs application of Wolters idea suggested Hypothesis 3, that a possessor preceding a demonstrative might serve in lieu of a pointing, a hypothesis that proved to be too strong.
pragmatic differences connected with different choices of word order. Analogous distinctions within English demonstrative descriptions may be expressed with stress and intonation, and a neutral intonation may leave room for more than one interpretation with respect to which parts of the NP express the restrictor argument and which parts are intended as helping with the specification of the intended demonstratum. This is illustrated in (22) below, in which the neutral-intonation variant (22a) has an interpretation which is underspecified relative to the more specific interpretations in (22b-e). I am not sure whether other pronunciations with stress on words that are not initial substrings of the phrase are possible except as contrastively stressed. The ones given are the ones that seem to me most basic, and I am conjecturing that there is a similar range of possible interpretations in Mandarin, constrained by word order, and with any pre-demonstrative modifier necessarily interpreted as helping to interpret the deictic gesture rather than being part of the restrictor. (22) a. I want that big red ball. b. I want THAT big red ball. (big red ball is restrictor argument: picking out one among a set of big red balls.) c. I want that BIG red ball. (red ball is restrictor argument: picking out one among a set of red balls, and Im helping you interpret my deictic gesture by letting you know that the one I want is a big one.) d. I want that BIG RED ball. (ball is restrictor argument: picking out one among a set of balls, and Im helping you interpret my deictic gesture by letting you know that the one I want is a big red one.) e. I want that BIG RED BALL. (no explicit restrictor argument: picking out one among a set of entities, and Im helping you interpret my deictic gesture by letting you know that the entity I want is a big red ball.) This suggested partial account of the Mandarin noun phrases containing both possessors and demonstratives seems to be consistent with Yangs proposal to treat possessors in Mandarin as basically of type e,t, with syntactic and semantic behavior quite parallel to that of adjectives and relative clauses. And adjectives and relative clauses, as noted earlier, can also precede a demonstrative determiner in Mandarin, presumably with the same function of restricting the argument whose value is provided principally by the deictic gesture. In informal terms, such an argument seems to have the function of providing an aid to the hearer in pinning down the speakers deictic gesture.
4. Implications for the ingredients of definiteness

It has often been observed that definite articles are very frequently diachronically derived from demonstratives (C. Lyons 1999, J. Lyons 1975). C. Lyons (1999) argues that the pragmatic concept of identifiability may play a part in all languages, but the grammatical category of definiteness, which he links with the syntactic projection of DP,
does not. The comparisons drawn in this paper between some close but not identical constructions in Mandarin Chinese, which arguably lacks the grammatical D category, and English, which has it, have brought to light some interesting properties of demonstratives in the two languages and of unmarked notionally definite noun phrases in Mandarin. If Kaplan (1978) is correct, then contra Kripke (1977), the English definite article the sometimes has a use whose properties are closer to the properties of demonstratives than to the properties commonly ascribed to the classic definite determiner. And on the other hand, the weak, unstressable, familiarity-signalling use of English that/those discussed in Section 2 above seems to have much in common, if not with the English definite article, then with the understanding of definiteness in the article-less definite expressions in Mandarin Chinese, with pragmatic familiarity or identifiability as the central notion and no presupposition of uniqueness/exhaustiveness. Both the Kaplanian the and the weak that/those involve familiarity and identifiability, and lack presuppositions of uniqueness/exhaustiveness. The same appears to be true of Mandarin definite NPs (modulo the caveats expressed in footnote 7), which presuppose familiarity but only weakly if at all implicate uniqueness/exhaustiveness. These observations thus add further evidence in support of the conclusion expressed by Farkas (2002), Lyons (1999), and others that identifiability is the concept most central to definiteness, and to the observation of Lyons that once definiteness is grammaticized, it does not always stay tied directly to the pragmatic/semantic properties that most centrally motivated it. Our exploration in Section 3 of the Mandarin expressions containing demonstratives and possessors in different word orders, described by Yang (2004), while inconclusive, has led to the suggestion of an account building on two sources. One ingredient is Wolters analysis of demonstrative determiners (Wolter 2004) as taking two arguments, a restrictor argument (the set from which the demonstrative is selecting an element or elements) and a specificational argument, possibly filled by a deictic gesture or an anaphoric link to an antecedent, possibly filled by verbal material. The other ingredient is Chung and Ladusaws theory of saturation and restriction. Our suggestion is that the role of a pre-demonstrative predicate in Mandarin, whether a possessor or a relative clause or adjective, is to restrict but not saturate the specificational argument of the demonstrative determiner, and that the same may be true of a stressed leftmost adjective in demonstrative phrases in English like those in (22) above. It is to be hoped that more intensive work on a wider range of languages will be able to confirm or disconfirm the hypotheses tentatively advanced here, and to bring further related issues to light that will enrich our understanding of grammaticized and non-grammaticized definiteness, of the nature of demonstrative expressions, and of the degree of variation among languages in the structure and interpretation of definite and indefinite noun phrases.
References
Abbott, B. 2006. Definite and indefinite. In K. Brown, ed., Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed., Volume 3. Oxford: Elsevier. 392399. Borschev, V. and B.H. Partee. 1999. Semantika genitivnoj konstrukcii: Raznye podxody k formalizacii [Semantics of genitive construction: different approaches to formalization]. In E.V. Rakhilina and Y.G. Testelets, eds., Tipologija i teorija jazyka: Ot opisanija k objasneniju. K 60-letiju Aleksandra Evgenevia Kibrika [Typology and Linguistic Theory: From Description to Explanation. For the 60th birthday of Aleksandr E. Kibrik]. Moscow: Jazyki Russkoj Kultury. 159172. Borschev, V. and B.H. Partee. 2004. Genitives, types, and sorts. In J. Kim, Y. Lander, and B.H. Partee, eds., Possessives and Beyond: Semantics and Syntax. Amherst, MA: GLSA Publications. 2943. Bowdle, B. and G. Ward. 1995. Generic demonstratives. BLS 21. 3243. Chung, S. and W.A. Ladusaw. 2003. Restriction and Saturation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Farkas, D. 2002. Specificity distinctions. Journal of Semantics 19:131. Gundel, J., N. Hedberg, and R. Zacharski. 1993. Cognitive status and the form of referring expressions in discourse. Language 69:274307. Huang, C.-T.J. 1982. Logical Relations in Chinese and the Theory of Grammar. MIT Ph.D. dissertation. Kaplan, D. 1978. Dthat. In P. Cole, ed., Syntax And Semantics, Volume 9: Pragmatics. New York, Academic Press. 221243. Kim, J. 2001. Specificity and structure: How Chinese nominals are interpreted. In O. Matushansky, A. Costa, J. Martin-Gonzalez, L. Nathan, and A. Szczegielniaket, eds., Proceedings of HUMIT 2000 (MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 40). Cambridge, MA: MITWPL. 109122. Kim, J. 2004. Specific nominals in Chinese and Korean. Language and Linguistics 5:243270. Kripke, S. 1977. Speakers reference and semantic reference. In P.A. French, T.E. Uehling, and H.K. Wettstein, eds., Contemporary Perspectives in the Philosophy of Language. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 627. Lakoff, R. 1974. Remarks on this and that. CLS 10. 345356. Lin, J. 2003. On restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses in Mandarin Chinese. Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies, New Series 33:199240. Lyons, C. 1995. Proper nouns, generics, and the count-mass distinction. Paper delivered at the ESRI Research Seminar, University of Salford, Manchester, England. Lyons, C. 1999. Definiteness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lyons, J. 1975. Deixis as the source of reference. In E.L. Keenan, ed., Formal Semantics of Natural Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 6183. Partee, B.H. and V. Borschev. 2003. Genitives, relational nouns, and argument-modifier ambiguity. In E. Lang, C. Maienborn, and C. Fabricius-Hansen, eds., Modifying Adjuncts. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 67112. Prince, E.F. 1981. On the inferencing of indefinite-this NPs. In A.K. Joshi, B.L. Webber, and I.A. Sag, eds., Elements of Discourse Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 231250. Tang, C.-C.J. 1990. Chinese Phrase Structure and the Extended X-Theory. Cornell University Ph.D. dissertation.
280 Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning Vikner, C. and P.A. Jensen. 2002. A semantic analysis of the English genitive: Interaction of lexical and formal semantics. Studia Linguistica 56:191226. Wolter, L.K. 2004. Demonstratives, definiteness and determined reference. Proceedings of NELS 34. 603617. Wolter, L.K. In prep. The Semantics and Pragmatics of Demonstrative Noun Phrases. University of California Santa Cruz Ph.D. dissertation. Yang, H. In prep. The Structure of Possessive Constructions in Mandarin Chinese. University of Texas Ph.D. dissertation.
On a homework problem of Larry Horns

Francis Jeffry Pelletier, Andrew Hartline
Simon Fraser University
Larry Horn once proposed that when speakers employ or in a conversation, they semantically mean inclusive or, but the hearer is justified in concluding an exclusive or by means of some Grice-inspired implicatures. Thus, if a speaker says A or B, the hearer understands A xor B by these mechanisms. But this doesnt work with multiple disjuncts: If A or B or C is treated by this method, we get A xor B xor C, and the truth conditions for this do not amount to saying exactly one of A, B, or C is true. We discuss a partial solution to this problem.
1.
Introduction
Larry Horn is justifiably famous for his work on the semantics of the English conjunction or and both its relationship to the formal logic truth functions and @ (inclusive and exclusive disjunction respectively1 and its relationship to the ways people employ or in natural discourse. These interests have been present since his 1972 dissertation, where he argued for a scalar implicature-based account of many of these relationships as opposed to a presuppositional account. They have surfaced in his Greek Grice paper (Horn 1973), as well as in his Negation book (Horn 1989) and his recent Border Wars paper (Horn 2006), where he defends the position that there are two types of implicatures at work here: Q-implicatures based on Grices first maxim of Quantity (Say Enough) and R-implicatures based on Grices second maxim of Quantity (Dont Say Too Much). In a nutshell, the idea is that when a speaker employs a sentence with a disjunction, the meaning (that is, the semantic value) of the or is inclusive. With careful and judicious use of the Q- and R-implicatures, Larrys theory allows the hearer (often) to infer that the speaker wanted to convey an exclusive disjunction. Despite various claims in the literature that these implicatures are inadequate for the tasks for which they are devised (and there is more to the overall theory than
1. Larry prefers @ as a symbolization of exclusive or, because is sometimes claimed to come from Latin vel, and therefore the exclusive or should come from Latin autand thus be @. (It should be noted that Larry does not like either of these associations, but one is as good as the other. And @ is much easier to use in email than , which is another popular choice.)
merely the derivation of an intended-to-be-conveyed exclusive or from a semanticallyvalued inclusive or in context), certainly Larrys theory is a baseline to which any serious alternative must respond. Not surprisingly then, issues surrounding or also show up in semantics and pragmatics classes that Larry teaches. In this paper we will take up one set of questions Larry has assigned as homework in various iterations of these classes. These questions all concern or, and are related to the issues discussed in the works mentioned above. Now, some of Larrys questions are easy and some of them are hard (technical terms). Our intent here, after discussing why the hard ones are hard, is to focus entirely on the easy ones. The specific easy questions Larry asks are in fact very easyeven though some scholars might not know the answers immediately off the top of their head. But behind the easy part of the easy questions are some very interesting considerations that are not at all well-known by scholars interested in the logic of the connectives. They should be; and we will investigate these topics. But before we begin with Larrys homework, there is a little background that needs to be brought out. It is the sort of thing that Larry would have already discussed before the homework was assigned.
2. Background
One theme that informs many writers works on or is the issue of inclusive vs. exclusive senses/uses/meanings of or in natural English. A number of writers have weighed in on this issue, so that by now the consensus at least among the cognoscenti is that the semantic meaning (or semantic content) of the natural English or is an inclusive truth function (Grice 1967, Pelletier 1977, Gazdar 1979, McCawley 1993, Kamp and Reyle 1993, Jennings 1994, Simons 2000, as well as Horn in the places cited above and Larry is fond of pointing to earlier scholars from past centuries who have made the same point). Of course the understanding by an audience of or in natural English has to be accounted for in some other way, since the use of or often is exclusive. Some of the candidates for this use are peoples informal expectations (Pelletier), Gricean implicatures (Grice, Horn), relevance-theoretic explicatures (Sperber and Wilson 1986), or the historical development of a cluster of related concepts (Jennings). (An attempt to distinguish all the different cases where people, including children, somehow arrive at an exclusive understanding of a disjunction is given in the psycholinguistic study of Noveck et al. 2002.) A background assumption of all this literature is that the fundamental semantic content of a sentence employing or is a truth-function that is due to the semantic meaning of or (and not by other features of the sentence); that is, the truth value of a complex sentence formed with or can be computed effectively by applying some function to the truth values of its component parts. Given the background assumption that it is some truth function, there are only two plausible candidates for the semantics of or:
On a homework problem of Larry Horns 283
Table 1. Inclusive or ()
P T T F F Q T F T F (PQ) T T T F
Table 2. Exclusive or(@)

P T T F F Q T F T F (P@Q) F T T F
Given this background picture that or-sentences employ the truth-functional inclusive disjunction as its literal, semantic import, but that the sentences that are thus generated can somehow convey to an audience a truth-functional exclusive disjunction a crucial issue for such a theory becomes one of how the first row of Table 1 can somehow be ignored and replaced by the first row of Table 2 in ordinary discourse. Various of the mechanisms proposed in the literature have been mentioned above, and Larry is renowned for his account of this process.
3. Larrys hard questions (which we will ignore)

All of Larrys hard questions concern the mechanism for converting the truth-functional inclusive or to a truth-functional exclusive or, in context. As we remarked above, Larrys contribution is to combine a Gricean approach in terms of implicatures with a general theory of scalar values, and use this as a way for a hearer to predict when a given occurrence of or in a speakers mouth should be understood exclusively. Larrys theory has not always been given unreserved praise, for instance in this homework question from McCawley (1993:324): Horn (1989:225) argues that or usually conveys exclusive or as a result of conversational implicature: if a speaker utters a sentence A or B, he chose to say or rather than and, and he thus conveys that A and B are not both true, since if they were, cooperativity would have demanded that he say so. Show that this argument is fallacious: that if this reasoning is applied to the full range of or-conjoining, the implicature generated by the speakers choice of or rather than and will not in general agree with exclusive or. The sort of topics in the full range of or-conjoining are cases where or is given three or more arguments, cases where one disjunct implies or implicates another, and certain puzzling cases of the implicatures applicability given a negated or. Larrys hard homework problems concern issues such as these. In addition, they concern the details of how argumentation would work in cases that are more complex than the usual toy problems mentioned in the literatureespecially cases where there are multiple interacting implicatures. These are indeed very hard problems, and
so opaque are they on Larrys theory that they have given rise to alternatives such as Relevance Theoretic accounts (Sperber and Wilson 1986). In a fine piece of irony, these cases seem even harder to solve on these types of accounts than on Larrys, even though they gave rise to the new accounts in the first place. As we said, we are going to skip over these hard homework problems entirely, and turn our attention to more tractable issues, although in the end we will return to a brief discussion of just what this process should strive to accomplish.
4. Larrys easy problems

The first two of Larrys easy problems ask: (1) What does ((P@Q)@R) mean? (What does this formula say?) (2) Write a truth table for ((P@Q)@R). Most students will reflexively say that the formula means that exactly one of the three disjuncts is true. And they will write down a truth table with just three Ts in the final column, corresponding to the three rows where exactly one argument is T. However, if the student honestly writes the truth table, rather than just filling in the rows with what he or she thinks the answer is, the result will be: Table 3. Three-argument exclusive or
P T T T T F F F F Q T T F F T T F F R T F T F T F T F (P@Q) F F T T T T F F ((P@Q)@R) T F F T F T T F
As can be seen, the answer to the Larrys question of what this formula says is: The formula is true just in case either: exactly one of P, Q, and R is true, or else all three are true. Although it is not on Larrys homeworks, a natural question to ask is what makes students reflexively think that the sentence asserts that exactly one of the three disjuncts is true. Heres the answer. The following argument is used in very many textbooks when the inclusive or is discussed.
The inclusive or truth function is associative [i.e., ((PQ)R) (P(QR))] so the internal parentheses can be dropped the formula is equivalent in either disambiguation and so we can simply write (PQR). Furthermore, is symmetric [i.e., (PQ) (QP)] and thus the disjuncts could be written in any order. Putting associativity and symmetry together allows us to write disjunctions in prefix form (sometimes called quantificational form): (P,Q) and (P,Q,R) and (P,Q,R,S), etc., and the order of the arguments does not matter. The prenex form makes appear to be a variable-adicity operator (it can take an arbitrary number of sentence arguments in any order), and it always means that at least one of the arguments is true. But, the textbooks say, it should be realized that this variable-adicity with sameness of meaning is due ultimately to the associativity and symmetry of the binary operator; and it is this symmetry and associativity that allows one to generalize from at least one of these two is true to at least one of these n is true. It seems to us that our students are employing the same argument with respect to @. After all, @ is symmetric [(P@Q) (Q@P)] and as Table 4 shows, it is also associative. Table 4. Three disjunct exclusive or
P T T T T F F F F Q T T F F T T F F R T F T F T F T F (P@Q) F F T T T T F F ((P@Q)@R) T F F T F T T F (Q@R) F T T F F T T F (P@(Q@R)) T F F T F T T F
Applying the reasoning used in the inclusive or case we should be allowed to conclude that putting symmetry together with associativity allows us to write disjunctions in prefix form: @(P,Q) and @(P,Q,R) and @(P,Q,R,S), etc., where the order of the arguments does not matter. The prefix form makes @ appear to be a variable-adicity operator, taking an arbitrary number of sentence arguments in any order, and it always means that exactly one of the arguments is true. But what the case of @ really shows is that either the general argument form is wrong (one cannot make any generalizations about what properties complex sentences will have merely from the ability to use a prefix form) or else the specific generalization is wrong (one can make generalizations from the ability to use a prefix form, but the relevant generalization is not that at least one disjunct is true in the case and is not
that exactly one disjunct is true in the @ case). The correct answer is the second of these options, and we will come back to that issue below. This point has been noted by some few authors previously (Reichenbach 1947:45-47, Pelletier 1977:71, McCawley 1993:128-130, Jennings 1994:6-7); and although Reichenbach, McCawley, and Jennings have indicated what the correct generalization is in the present case, none of them has given a general account of why this is so. Before we get into this last issue, though, let us return to Larrys easy problems. (3) Given the above truth table for @(P,Q,R), what happens with four arguments to @, i.e., to @(P,Q,R,S)? (4) What is the relevant generalization for n, i.e., for @(P1,P2,Pn)? Some lazy students will try to generalize from their experience with the three-disjunct exclusive or. Of these lazy students, some will generalize that either exactly one disjunct is true or else they all are true, while others of them will generalize that either exactly one disjunct is true or three of them are true. The more cautious or diligent student will write out the truth table for @(P,Q,R,S). We do this in steps, by writing the tables for @(P,Q) and @(R,S), and then joining them by @. (As we remarked above, @ is associative and symmetric, so the order of operations does not matter). Table 5. Four-disjunct exclusive or
P Q R S (P@Q) (R@S) ((P@Q)@(R@S)) (=@(P,Q,R,S) )
T T T T T T T T F F F F F F F F
T T T T F F F F T T T T F F F F
T T F F T T F F T T F F T T F F
T F T F T F T F T F T F T F T F
F F F F T T T T T T T T F F F F
F T T F F T T F F T T F F T T F
F T T F T F F T T F F T F T T F
We see that @(P,Q,R,S) is true when exactly one of the four components is true and when exactly three of the four components are true, and false otherwise. The lazy students who generalized the wrong way have now learned that the answer to these sorts
of questions is that either one or three disjuncts are true, and the lazy students who generalized to this answer will be reinforced. Even the more cautious student might also jump to this generalization, now that there are two instances. These lazy students, who have this generalization before their minds based on @(P,Q,R) and @(P,Q,R,S), might now conclude in Larrys easy question (4) that @(P1,P2,Pn) is true when exactly one of P1, P2,Pn are true and when exactly three of P1, P2,Pn are true, and is false otherwise. But Table 6 shows otherwise. Table 6. Five-disjunct exclusive or
P T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F Q T T T T T T T T F F F F F F F F T T T T T T T T F F F F F F F F R T T T T F F F F T T T T F F F F T T T T F F F F T T T T F F F F S T T F F T T F F T T F F T T F F T T F F T T F F T T F F T T F F T T F T F T F T F T F T F T F T F T F T F T F T F T F T F T F T F (P@Q) F F F F F F F F T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T F F F F F F F F (R@S) F F T T T T F F F F T T T T F F F F T T T T F F F F T T T T F F ((P@Q)@(R@S)) F F T T T T F F T T F F F F T T T T F F F F T T F F T T T T F F @(P,Q,R,S,T) T F F T F T T F F T T F T F F T F T T F T F F T T F F T F T T F
(The last column is generated by @-ing the second-last column with the column for T. As mentioned, the symmetry and associativity of @-conjunction means that any order or grouping of evaluation generates the same answer.) The more diligent or cautious student now sees that @(P,Q,R,S,T) is true when exactly one of P,Q,R,S,T are true and when exactly three of P,Q,R,S,T are true and when exactly five of P,Q,R,S,T are true. Such a student might correctly generalize to the claim that @(P1,P2,Pn) is true if and only if an odd number of P1, P2,Pn are true, and is false otherwise. This is the answer to Larrys question (4), and brings us to the end of Larrys easy homework. But there are a number of loose ends remaining, and questions that this whole set of exercises has brought up.
5. Is there another way to get a generalized exclusive or? (Not so easy)

McCawley (1993) uses the prefix form of and (and) in his syntax, and he allows an arbitrary number of arguments to the functions, on the grounds that this syntax comports better with natural language syntax than the binary connectives that logicians have introduced. He interprets them as at least one of the following is true and all the following are true. But as we have seen, if we wanted a prefix connective for exclusive or, we could not use iterations of binary @, and instead would have to invent a whole new connective e that meant exactly one of the following is true. Using a rather convoluted argument, McCawley (1993:128130) claims that since e cannot be eliminated in favor of iterations of the binary @, and instead must be taken as a wholly new connective that must be a prefix operator, this forms another argument in favor of understanding and as prefix quantifiers. (Of course, we might just as easily take it as another argument against exclusive or, or at least against generalized exclusive or. But lets not pause over that.) So we cant use (iterations of) @ for this purpose2, and this is McCawleys underlying rationale for saying that Larrys mechanism wont work in the full range of or-conjoining, because the result of applying the mechanism converts into @, and @ is not the right connective to generate e. McCawley did not think to wonder whether a new ternary exclusive or connective 3 could be used to define e. The sentence 3(P,Q,R), using this new connective, says that exactly one of the three disjuncts is true. And
2. Of course, for any specific n there is some formula of classical logic which will express that exactly one of the following n disjuncts is true. For, given that we have a functionally complete set of connectives (such as negation and conjunction, or negation and inclusive or, etc.), then any specific semantic requirement can be written by some formula. And if one allows variables in the syntax, one can even give a formula that expresses the general claim: e(P1, P2,Pn) =df (P1, P2,Pn) ~(PiPj) for all i,jn and ij. But the question being asked is whether there is some sort of analogue of or @ that can do the trick by itself.
we might wonder whether there is some way to say that exactly four are true by judicious embedding of some 3-formula inside another 3-formula. For example, might 3(3(P,Q,R), 3(Q,R,S),S) do the trick? Or if not this one, then some other one? And, can we define the binary @ which we might as well call 2 using just 3? And having done this, is there a way to define all the other n formulas, for all ns? This would be to define McCawleys e.3 Some aspects of this question are easy; for example, binary exclusive or can be straightforwardly defined in terms of 3, and we will do that in the next section. We can also see easily that the formula suggested above will not do the trick of defining 4(P,Q,R,S); for, if all four sentence letters are true then 3(P,Q,R) and 3(Q,R,S) will be false, and hence 3(3(P,Q,R),3(Q,R,S),S) will be true because exactly one of the disjuncts, namely S, is true. What is not so easily seen is that no simple embedding of 3 inside 3 can do the trick all by itself, although it is a consequence of the remark made in the last footnote.
6. How to define generalized exlusive or using 3

Although no simple embedding will do the trick, there is in fact a natural way to construct the relevant formula. We will start with some preliminary definitions, and then move on to the 4 case. After describing how that formula works, we turn our attention to the more general case of defining n, for any n. This last is always done using n-1 in a certain fixed manner, and so the whole process is inductive or compositional. McCawleys (1993) conclusions seemed to be that since (binary) exclusive or, @, couldnt yield a real (i.e., generalized) exclusive or (e), we need to postulate this generalized connective as a primitive. In fact, he suggests, since we cant even define any of the 3, 4, etc., we dont have a chance of giving a general method to define n, with its variable n-adicity, which might serve as a surrogate for e. But what these investigations really showed is merely that the binary @ wont correctly generalize. In fact 3 does generalize; that is, there exists a natural way to construct ever more complex formulas that use only 3 and define the all the truth functions n, for all n where for any particular i, i(P1,P2,Pi) is an i-ary formula that is true if exactly one of P1,P2,Pi is true and is false otherwise. Of course, it is to
There will still be unexpected results of embedding such a connective inside itself. Consider e(e( P1, P2,Pn),e( Q1, Q2,Qk),R). If more than one of the Ps are true, and more than one of the Qs are true, then e( P1, P2,Pn) and e( Q1, Q2,Qk) are both false. So, if R is true then the entire formula is true. But it has become true even though at least five of the atomic arguments are true. So, the property of being true of exactly one of the disjuncts is not passed upwards to the wider-scope e (it is not upwards inherited, in the terminology of Pelletier and Martin 1990). 3.
be expected that the definition or generation of these connectives will be more complex than the similar generalization of binary inclusive to n which is achieved by merely defining n(P1,P2,Pn) =df (n-1(P1,P2,Pn-1) Pn) for n3 (relying on the associativity of ). The connective 3 is actually very interesting, and is able to define many different truth functions. As for its limitations: 3 is F-preserving, that is, when all of its input arguments are false, then it too yields the value false. This is a property that is upwards inherited, i.e., any complex formula made up only of F-preserving connectives will also be false in the row where all atomic inputs are false.4 Therefore, 3 cannot by itself be used to define a formula that has T in the last row of its truth table (last row in the standard ordering of rows, i.e. all the input subformulas are false). In particular, this means that none of the connectives ~, , (nor), (nand) can be defined using only 3. And thus unlike and , it does not by itself form a functionally complete set of connectives. Still, there are many connectives that can be defined by using 3 only, including n, for all n, as we will see. This being the case, 3 can quite plausibly be thought of as a basis for a real exclusive or in McCawleys sense. Heres how. We first define a few preliminary things. F =df (P@Q) =df (P~Q) =df 3(P,P,P) 3(P,Q,F) 3(P,Q,Q) [the constant False] [the binary exclusive or] [the binary and-not connective]
As for the first, if P is true then there are three true inputs; but if it is false then there are none. In either case the resulting formula is false. In the second formula, the third argument is always false, so the truth value of the whole depends just on whether P and Q are true or false. If exactly one is true then the whole formula is true; and it is false otherwise. But this is just exclusive disjunction. As for the third formula, note first that it could never be true if Q is true, since then there would be at least two true arguments. So Q must be false. Hence, if it is true, this must be on account of Ps being true. That is, P is true and Q is false: the binary and-not connective. Now consider 3((P~Q),R,R) [i.e., 3(3(P,Q,Q),R,R) ] This is identical to ((P~Q)~R), and generally we can easily define an extended n-ary and-not connective [~]n(P1,P2, Pn) which is true if P1 is true and all of P2,Pn are false, and is false otherwise. This general definition, for n3 is
4. The proof of this can be found in Pelletier and Martin (1990).
[~]n(P1,P2,Pn) =df ([~]n-1(P1,P2,Pn-1)~Pn) Now lets consider the four formulas [~]4(P,Q,R,S) [~]4(Q,P,R,S) [~]4(R,P,Q,S) [~]4(S,P,Q,R)
Each of these formulas is true just in case its first argument is true and all the rest are false. Lets take the first three of them and embed them under 3: (1) 3([~]4(P,Q,R,S), [~]4(Q,P,R,S), [~]4(R,P,Q,S)) By the truth table for 3, this formula is true just in case exactly one of the embedded formulas is true that is, just in case exactly one of (a) P is true and Q,R,S are false, or (b) Q is true and P,R,S are false, or (c) R is true and P,Q,S are false, occurs. Finally, consider (2) 2(3([~]4(P,Q,R,S), [~]4(Q,P,R,S), [~]4(R,P,Q,S)), [~]4(S,P,Q,R)), where we have used binary exclusive or (represented here as 2) to disjoin (1) with [~]4(S,P,Q,R). Formula (2) is true just in case one of (a), (b), (c) or (S is true and P,Q,R are false). But this means that formula (2) is true just in case exactly one of P,Q,R,S are true and all the others are false. And this is precisely 4, defined entirely in terms of 3. In unabbreviated form it is 4(P,Q,R,S) =df 3( 3( 3(3(3(P,Q,Q),R,R),S,S), 3(3(3(Q,P,P),R,R)S,S), 3(3(3(R,P,P),Q,Q),S,S)), 3 (3(3 (S,P,P),Q,Q),R,R), 3(P,P,P) ) It is pretty easy to see that this method can be generalized to yield n, for any n. The idea is to use n-1, 2, and [~]n to define n. We have already seen that 2 and [~]n can be defined for any n, using only 3. We need only describe the way to generate n given that we have n-1, 2, and [~]n. Since we have a way to say that exactly one of n subformulas are true while all the others are false, lets look at this list of formulas: [~]n(P1,P2,Pn) [~]n(P2,P1,P3Pn) [~]n(Pn-1,P1,,Pn-2,Pn) [~]n(Pn,P1,Pn-1) Each of these says that its first argument is true and all its others are false. Since we already have n-1 by hypothesis, we can use the first n-1 formulas on this list and say n-1([~]n(P1,P2,Pn), [~]n(P2,P1,P3Pn),, [~]n(Pn-1,P1,,Pn-2,Pn)), thereby asserting that exactly one of the embedded formulas is true, i.e., that exactly one of P1,P2,Pn-1 is true while at the same time all the others are false, including Pn.
We can now complete the definition by doing a binary exclusive or of this formula with the last formula on the list: 2( n-1([~]n(P1,P2,Pn),[~]n(P2,P1,P3Pn),,[~]n(Pn-1,P1,,Pn-2,Pn)), [~]n(Pn,P1,Pn-1)), which is true if and only if one or the other (but not both) of the two embedded formulas are true. That is, it is true iff either (i) exactly one of P1,P2,Pn-1 are true and all the others (including Pn) are false, or (ii) Pn is true and all of P1,P2,Pn-1 are false. But that is precisely n(P1,P2,Pn): the formula that says that exactly one of the n disjuncts is true. And this in turn is McCawleys e(P1,P2,Pn), the generalized exclusive or.
7.
Concluding remarks
Larrys hard problems had asked for some mechanism to go from a literal inclusive or meaning of a sentence with a binary disjunction to an implicated exclusive or meaning of that binary disjunction. In the binary case, it seems pretty clear that there are various different mechanisms that will work, including Larrys favored Gricean inferences. In particular it is clear what the starting point is (an inclusive binary or truth function , or 2 as we call it when put in prefix form), and what the end point is (an exclusive or truth function @, or 2 as we have called it when put in prefix form). Arguments concern only the issue of what the most plausible method is for the generation of that end point from that start point. However, in the full range of disjunctions (as McCawley puts it) the start and finish are much less clear. Larrys easy problems (1) and (2) seem to show that, in the case of a three-member disjunction, one should not assume the start point is a set of two inclusive s and that they each get converted to an exclusive @, so that we are left with a three member disjunction with each part being connected by @. For this has the truth table of Table 3, while what we want is a three-place truth function that is true just in case exactly one of the disjunct is true the truth function we have called 3. It looks like Larrys mechanism (as well as the other mechanisms that have been suggested) falls prey to McCawleys objection. But this was for the specific case of trying to generate 3 (and by implication, n for higher values of n) from the @s (which were in turn generated from s by the hard mechanism). The considerations we mentioned suggest that this cannot be done:5 There is no way to define 3 in terms of @ alone. Our suggestion was that we
5. The proof that it cannot be done is in Pelletier and Martin (1990). @ is the odd counting function of adicity 2, in the terminology of that paper, where it is proved that any embedding of counting functions is equivalent to a minimal counting function. But 3 is not a counting function at all, and therefore it cannot be defined by @.
should find some hard mechanism to convert 3 to 3, other than the faulty convert each to a @ and then go prenex. For, once one has 3, the generation of n is algorithmic and does not call for any of the hard mechanisms. Larry would of course be free to keep his current mechanism that converts the binary to the binary @, rather than use the method described above that generated @ from 3. (After all, the mechanism given above for this generation did not use the same algorithmic method that was used to generate the ns for n>3.) So, that is a new hard problem for Larrys future semantics and pragmatics classes: Is there any Gricean hard method that will convert 3 to 3?
References
Gazdar, G. 1979. Pragmatics: Implicature, Presupposition, and Logical Form. New York: Academic Press. Grice, H.P. 1967. Logic and conversation. (William James Lectures.) Reprinted in P. Cole and J. Morgan, eds., 1975. Syntax and Semantics, Volume 3: Speech Acts. New York: Academic Press. 4158. Horn, L.R. 1972. On the Semantic Properties of Logical Operators in English. UCLA Ph.D. dissertation. Horn, L.R. 1973. Greek Grice: A brief survey of proto-conversational rules in the history of logic. CLS 9. 205214. Horn, L.R. 1989. A Natural History of Negation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Horn, L.R. 2006. Border wars: A neo-Gricean perspective. In K. Turner and K. von Heusinger, eds., Where Semantics Meets Pragmatics. Amsterdam: Elsevier. 2148. Jennings, R. 1994. The Genealogy of Disjunction. New York: Oxford University Press. Kamp, H. and U. Reyle. 1993. From Discourse to Logic. Dordrecht: Kluwer. McCawley, J. 1993. Everything that Linguists Have Always Wanted to Know About Logic, 2nd Edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Noveck, I., G. Chierchia, F. Chevaux, R. Guelminger, and E. Sylvestre. 2002. Linguistic-pragmatic factors in interpreting disjunctions. Thinking and Reasoning 8:297326. Pelletier, F.J. 1977. Or. Theoretical Linguistics 4:6174. Pelletier, F.J. and N. Martin. 1990. Proving Posts functional completeness theorem. Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 31:462475. Reichenbach, H. 1947. Elements of Symbolic Logic. New York: Free Press. Simons, M. 2000. Issues in the Semantics and Pragmatics of Disjunction. New York: Garland Press. Sperber, D. and D. Wilson. 1986. Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.
Impersonal Pronouns in French and Yiddish

Semantic Reference vs. Discourse Reference*1
Ellen F. Prince
University of Pennsylvania
Are semantics and pragmatics independent components of an overall theory of linguistic competence, or should they be handled in a single module? Reference is particularly puzzling since it is perhaps the most basic semantic phenomenon but, at the same time, requires discourse-level factors for its explication. In this paper, I argue that reference must be handled in at least two components (or, equivalently, in an internally structured, multi-part component), one of which gives the truth-conditional meaning and another the discourse anaphora possibilities. In particular, I examine the impersonal subject pronoun one in Yiddish (men) and French (on). Truth-conditionally, they make the same contribution as a subject someone (emitser and quelquun, respectively): Each introduces a human referent into the model. However, no subsequent 3p personal pronoun may refer to this referent if introduced by the impersonal, whereas the referent introduced by someone may be so referred to. The separation of (sub)components proposed, involving Centering Theory, explains these facts naturally, obviating the need for ad hoc treatments (e.g. Koenig 1999, Chierchia 1995) where a single system is forced to account for both truthconditional meaning and discourse anaphora possibilities.
* Earlier versions of portions of this paper have been presented at a number of places, including the Chicago Linguistic Society, the Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, the Cognitive Science Lecture Series at Michigan State University, and the Linguistics Club at the University of Pennsylvania. My heartfelt thanks go to the members of those audiences who offered comments and criticisms and to the students in my discourse seminar over the past few years, including Na-Rae Han, Sophia Malamud, Zhiyi Song, Jinyoung Choi, and Yoon-kyoung Joh, who taught me as much as I taught them. In addition, I owe an enormous debt to my main linguistic informants, Miriam Isaacs (Yiddish) and Gerald Prince (French), for their generosity with their time and native intuitions. Finally, I dedicate this paper to my dear friend, Larry Horn, truly a scholar and a gentleman and a damn brilliant one to boot.
1.
The problem
Presumably, all linguists would agree that we need a semantic account of language that has the property of giving us the truth-conditional meaning of the proposition(s) associated with an utterance. Among other things, it must tell us what the predicates and their arguments are and what the nontrivial entailments of the propositions they form are. For example, among other things it must account for the fact that both (1a) and (1b) entail, inter alia, all the propositions represented in (2): (1) a. The child is running. b. A child is running. (2) a. b. c. d. Someone is running. A child is doing something. There is a child. Someone is doing something.
At the same time, we need an account of discourse, i.e. that part of the speakers language faculty that knows how to instruct the hearer to build/increment the intended discourse-model and that part of the hearers language faculty that knows how to recognize and implement such instructions. For example, among other things, it must account for the fact that a hearer predicably infers different things from the two versions of (1). In particular, all other things being equal, a person overhearing (1a) being said to someone would assume that there is some particular/unique child that the speaker believes the hearer has in mind, whereas a person overhearing (1b) would assume that there is some child that the speaker has in mind but believes the hearer doesnt yet know about. Assuming the minimal prior context for (1a) that would make it felicitous, e.g. There is a child, the intended hearer of (1a) would wind up with pretty much the same discourse-model as the intended hearer of (1b). However, the two hearers would have gone about creating them in a different way; the discourse entity represented by the child in (1a) would have already been available while the discourse entity represented by a child in (1b) would have had to be added to the hearers model. (See Christopherson 1939, Hawkins 1978, Heim 1983, and Abbott 2004, inter alia.) The broad question that I am raising here is whether a single model of reference can do both the necessary semantic work and the necessary discourse work or whether two separate accounts/components are needed. Current thinking in the form of Kamps Discourse Representation Theory or Heims File-change Semantics seems to assume that a single model will suffice. However, I shall present some findings here that suggest that the two tasks of accounting for the semantic and the discourse properties of reference are best served by two separate accounts. More specifically, taking for granted that the semantic properties of reference must be accounted for, I shall try to show that the discourse properties
Impersonal pronouns in French and Yiddish 297
of reference are not well accommodated by a semantic theory and have to be accommodated elsewhere. The phenomenon we will be considering is that of the impersonal subject pronoun, first in French and then in Yiddish.
2. French on one: unusual properties

Before presenting the discourse analysis of on one, we shall look at its unusual properties, properties that appear at first blush to be arbitrary accidents of history but that turn out to be motivated by or at least understandable in terms of its discourse functions. Compared to French personal pronouns, the French impersonal pronoun on one has some unusual formal, semantic, and discoursal properties. The first unusual formal property is that, with the exception of certain reflexive forms to be discussed below, on one has only a subject nominative form and distribution, as in (3). This is in contrast to the situation for all personal pronouns, exemplified in (4), and in contrast to the situation for its closest synonym, quelquun someone, as in (5):1 (3) a. On a tu le roi! One killed the king! b. *Le roi a t tu par on! The king was killed by one! c. Je vois quon part. I see that one is leaving. d. *Jon vois partir/*Je vois on partir. I see one leave. (4) a. Il a tu le roi! He killed the king! b. Le roi a t tu par lui! The king was killed by him! c. Je vois quil part. I see that he is leaving. d. Je le vois partir. I see him leaving. (5) a. Quelquun a tu le roi! Someone killed the king! b. Le roi a t tu par quelquun! The king was killed by someone! c. Je vois que quelquun part. I see that someone is leaving.
1. Of course, quelquun someone is unmarked for case but it has a full distribution.
d. Je vois quelquun partir. I see someone leaving. These facts could possibly be attributed to an accident of linguistic history, a defective paradigm akin to the lack in English of a future form for modal verbs: (6) a. You are able to leave/You will be able to leave. b. You can leave/*You will can leave. However, we shall see below that this defectiveness makes perfect sense when the discourse function of the pronoun is considered. A second unusual formal property is that on one cannot undergo Left-Dislocation. Left-Dislocation of subjects in French is a very frequently used form, being the functional equivalent not only of Left-Dislocation in English but also and more commonly of English tonically stressed subjects. Both full (definite and indefinite) NPs and personal pronouns are readily Left-Dislocated, as in (7) and (8), but Left-Dislocation of on one is totally impossible:2 (7) a. Mon pre/Ma mre aime a. My father/My mother likes that. b. Mon pre/Ma mre, il/elle aime a! MY FATHER/MY MOTHER likes that! c. Un type avec qui je travaille aime a. A guy I work with likes that. d. Un type avec qui je travaille, il aime a! A guy I WORK with likes that! (8) a. Il/Elle aime a! He/She likes that! b. Lui/Elle, il/elle aime a! HE/SHE likes that! (9) a. On aime a! One likes that! b. *Soi, on aime a! ONE likes that!
2. The inability of on one to be Left-Dislocated might well raise problems for accounts of (European and/or Canadian) French as a pro-drop language, whereby the subject pronoun is considered to be agreement morphology, the true subject being the Left-Dislocated item (e.g. Rohrbacher 1993, Auger 1994). Following such an analysis, on one sentences would be obligatorily pro-drop, a unique situation for sentences with referential subjects.
An unusual semantic property of on one is that it cannot refer to nonhuman entities, in contrast to French third-person personal pronouns, where no animacy distinction exists: (10) a. A: Quest-ce qui est arriv? What happened? B: Un voleur/Il/On a effray Anne. A thief/He/One frightened Anne. b. A: Quest-ce qui est arriv? What frightened James? B: Un bruit/Il/#On a effray Anne. A noise/It/One frightened Anne. [Adapted from Koenig 1999, ex. 13]
An unusual discourse property of on one, and no doubt the most interesting property, is that the entity it evokes/represents cannot be subsequently referred to with a (nonreflexive) third-person personal pronoun: (11) a. Quelquuni a tu le roij! Ili/j tait dans une voiture. Someonei killed the kingj! Hei/j was in a car. b. Oni a tu le roij! Il*i/j tait dans une voiture. Onei killed the kingj! He*i/j was in a car. That is, in discourses like (11a), either of two discourse entities, here quelquun someone and le roi the king, may in principle be referred to by a personal pronoun in the following utterance. However, if one of the discourse entities was introduced by on one, as in (11b), a following personal pronoun may be construed only as the discourse entity not introduced by on one, here le roi the king. Koenig (1999) proposes to account for this difference by positing two types of indefinites, one, the well-known kind, which introduces discourse entities into the discourse model, and another, which he calls ultra-indefinites (later a-definites, Koenig and Mauner 1999), which does not introduce an entity into the discourse model and which serves only to satisfy a predicates argument positions. The latter category, ultraindefinites, consists of a single member, the impersonal pronoun on one. Unfortunately, there is a serious problem with this approach. The first sentence of (11b), just like the first sentence of (11a), entails (12): (12) Une personne a tu le roi. A person killed the king. In contrast, pace Koenig, a predicates argument positions can be satisfied, as in (13ac), with no such entailment arising: (13) a. Personne na tu le roi. No one killed the king.
b. Est-ce que Marie a tu le roi? Did Mary kill the king? c. Quelle tue le roi! May she kill the king! What we have here is an attempt to account for the discourse facts, that is, that a subsequent personal pronoun cannot be construed as coreferential with on one, at the expense of the semantic facts, namely that on one does indeed evoke a discourse entity that figures in the entailments of the proposition its sentence conveys and therefore in the truth-conditional semantics of the sentence. Furthermore, this account, consisting of assigning the impersonal pronoun to an otherwise nonexistent and unneeded category, simply gives us back the facts, telling us nothing about the incrementation of a discourse-model or why a language should have an item that refers (in the sense of evokes an entity in the discourse model) but that cannot be referred to (in the sense of have a coreferential personal pronoun in a subsequent sentence).3 A final unusual property of on one, which no doubt follows from this last one, pertains to reflexives. First, while, as we have seen, no third-person personal pronoun may refer back to the referent of on one, a reflexive pronoun, necessarily in the same clause, may indeed refer to it, as in (14): (14) a. On soccupe de beaucoup de choses. One busies SELF with many things. b. On doit penser soi. One must think of SELF. What is interesting is such reflexivity-sensitive behavior with on one is also evident with possessive pronouns. That is, a possessive pronoun may be coreferential with the impersonal pronoun just in case it is in the same clause, i.e. in a reflexive environment. In a separate clause, it behaves like any other personal pronoun and may not be coreferential with the impersonal pronoun: (15) a. Oni doit penser soni/j travail. Onei must think of onesi/hisj work. b. Oni doit penser beaucoup de choses. La chose la plus importante, cest son*i/j travail. Onei must think of many things. The most important thing is *onesi/hisj work. It goes without saying that personal pronouns do not seem to show such distinctions among possessives: (16) a. Ellei doit penser soni/j travail. Shei must think about heri/j work.
3. See also Chierchia 1995 for a similar account of the impersonal pronoun in Italian.
b. Ellei doit penser beaucoup de choses. La chose la plus importante, cest soni/j travail. Shei must think about many things. The most important thing is heri/j work. Of course, it is quite possible in fact, highly likely that all possessives may be either reflexive or discourse-anaphoric, with the reflexive sense obtaining only when the possessive and its antecedent are clause-mates. Since all referring expressions other than on one can be referred to by both reflexive and discourse-anaphoric pronouns, the difference would not be noticeable.4 Put differently, it is likely that there is a reflexive relationship between a referring expression and a coreferential possessive just in case they are clause-mates, while the relationship between a referring expression and a coreferential extrasentential possessive could only be discourse-anaphoric. Since discourse anaphora does not obtain with on one, only reflexive possessives are possible. This issue deserves further study, which is beyond the scope of this paper. To sum up, we have seen that French on one has a number of unusual properties in its form, meaning, and discourse behavior: It has only a subject nominative form, it cannot be Left-Dislocated, it can refer only to humans, and it cannot be referred to in a subsequent clause by a personal pronoun, not even by a possessive pronoun. We shall return to these properties below when we analyze its discourse behavior.
3. Yiddish me(n) one: unusual properties

Let us now turn to the Yiddish impersonal pronoun, me(n) one, cognate of German man one. Like the French impersonal pronoun, the Yiddish impersonal pronoun manifests some unusual formal, semantic, and discoursal properties in comparison to Yiddish personal pronouns, and it is striking how similar these properties are in the two languages. The first unusual formal property of Yiddish me(n) one is that it has only a subject nominative form and distribution, as in (17): (17) a. Men hot geharget dem meylekh! One killed the king! b. *Der meylekh iz geharget gevorn fun men! The king was killed by one! c. Ikh vil az men zol avekgeyn. I want one to leave (that one should leave). d. *Ikh loz men avekgeyn. I let one leave.
4. There are of course languages that have distinct forms for reflexive possessives, e.g. Russian. However, neither French nor Yiddish is such a language.
This is in contrast to the situation for all personal pronouns in Yiddish, exemplified in (18), and to the situation for its closest synonyms, eyner one and emitser someone, as in (19):5 (18) a. Er hot geharget dem meylekh! He killed the king! b. Der meylekh iz geharget gevorn fun im! The king was killed by him! c. Ikh vil az er zol avekgeyn. I want him to leave (that he should leave). d. Ikh loz im avekgeyn. I let him leave. (19) a. Eyner/Emitser hot geharget dem meylekh! One/Someone killed the king! b. Der meylekh iz geharget gevorn fun eynem/emitsn! The king was killed by one/someone! c. Ikh vil az eyner/emitser zol avekgeyn. I want one/someone to leave (that one/someone should leave). d. Ikh loz eynem/emitsn avekgeyn. I let someone leave. As in the case of French, we shall see below that this defectiveness is totally understandable when the discourse function of the pronoun is considered. A second unusual formal property of Yiddish me(n) one is that it cannot cooccur with the particle ot, which serves the function of English marked tonic stress in certain contexts, as in (20): (20) *Ot men iz do! ONE is here!
5. Eyner is the masculine singular adjectival/promominal form of eyns, the cardinal number one. In addition to its use as a full-paradigm quasi-synonym of men one at issue in this paper, it can of course also be used to express a numerical sense, as in: (i) Er iz dokh ober an amorets, eyner in der velt! [RP13] Hes however an ignoramus, unique in the world! (ii) Tsvey yidn shnorers zenen a mol gegangen tsu Roytshildn. Zogt eyner tsum tsveytn:... [RP78] Two Jewish beggars once went to Rothschild. So one says to the second:... (iii) Plutsim hot zikh derhert a duner, nokh shtarker vi der ershter iz geven, un nokh eyner, un a driter... [RP248] Suddenly a thunderclap was heard, stronger than the first was, and one more, and a third... Note that, when used in its numerical sense, eyner one is not limited to humans, as seen in (iii).
This is in contrast to Yiddish personal pronouns and to the situation with its nearest synonyms, eyner one and emitser someone, as in 21: (21) a. Ot er iz do! HE is here! b. Ot eyner/Ot emitser iz do! SOMEONE is here! An unusual semantic property of Yiddish me(n) one is that, like French on one, it cannot refer to nonhumans. However, unlike French, Yiddish pronouns generally follow natural gender, not grammatical gender, so the fact that me(n) one can refer only to humans is not strange in and of itself; what is strange is that there is no nonhuman counterpart of me(n) one, no impersonal pronoun for animals or inanimate objects. An unusual discourse property of me(n) one, and again no doubt the most interesting of all, is that it cannot be subsequently referred to with a (nonreflexive) thirdperson personal pronoun, as in (22): (22) a. Eyneri/Emitseri hot geharget dem meylekhj! Eri/j iz geven in a mashin. Someonei killed the kingj! Hei/j was in a car. b. Meni hot geharget dem meylekhj! Er*i/j iz geven in a mashin. Onei killed the kingj ! He*i/j was in a car. That is, in discourses like (22a), either of two discourse entities, here eyner/emitser one/someone and der meylekh the king, may in principle be referred to by a personal pronoun in the following utterance. However, if one of the discourse entities was introduced by me(n) one, as in (22b), a following personal pronoun may be construed only as the discourse entity not introduced by me(n) one, here der meylekh the king. As in the case of French, Koenigs (1999) solution of stipulating that the impersonal pronoun does not introduce an entity into the discourse model will not work for Yiddish, since the existence of this entity is in fact entailed by the proposition the sentence conveys. That is, (22b), just like (22a), entails (23): (23) A mentsh hot geharget dem meylekh. A person killed the king. A final unusual property of me(n) one, which no doubt follows from its inability to have a coreferential third-person personal pronoun in a subsequent clause, pertains to reflexives. First, we note that, as in French, me(n) one may indeed cooccur with a coreferential reflexive pronoun in its clause, as in (24): (24) a. Men hot zikh gezetst baym tish. One has SELF sat by-the table. b. Men tor nit redn mit zikh. One shouldnt talk to SELF.
However, Yiddish differs from French in that it allows no possessives at all to be coreferential with me(n) one, not even in a reflexive environment: 25. a. *Meni tor nit blaybn in zayni shtetl. Onei mustnt stay in hisi village. b. *Meni hot gefregt a khaver zaynemi vos er tut. One asked a friend of hisi what he was doing. c. *Meni ken nit oyslernen zayni eygene kind leyenen. Onei cant teach hisi own child to read. To sum up, like French on one, Yiddish me(n) one has a number of unusual properties in its form, meaning, and discourse behavior: It has only a subject nominative form, it cannot cooccur with the emphatic particle ot, it can refer only to humans, and the discourse entity it evokes cannot be referred to in a subsequent clause by a thirdperson personal pronoun, not even by a possessive pronoun. We shall return to these properties below.
4. Referential possibilities of French on one and Yiddish me(n) one

Before going any further, we must point out that both the French and the Yiddish impersonal pronouns are not at all constrained to refer to a nonspecific (26a) or generic discourse entity (26b), though of course they both may: (26) a. Cest pour saluer quand on macclame. Malheureusement il ne passe jamais personne par ici. Mit dem bagris ikh ven men aklamirt mikh. Tsum badoyern geyt do keyn mol keyner nisht farbay. Its for greeting when one [= someone] honors me. Unfortunately no one ever passes by. [LPP/DKP:11] b. On ne voit bien quavec le coeur. Lessentiel est invisible pour les yeux. Men zet gut nor mitn hartsn. Dos vikhtikste iz farborgn fun di oygn. One [= everyone] sees well only with the heart. The most important [thing] is invisible to the eyes. [LPP/DKP:21] In addition, within the limits of humanness, the referential possibilities beyond the usual nonspecific indefinite and generic are enormous a specific Discourse-new entity (27) and a specific Discourse-old entity (28), both of many subtypes: (27) a. Comme oni grattait la porte, le commandant cria douvrir, et un hommei, un de leurs soldats automates, apparut dans louverture, disant par sa seule prsence que le djeuner tait prt. [GdM:MF]
As onei was knocking lightly at the door, the commandant yelled for it to be opened, and a mani, one of their automatic soldiers, appeared in the opening, saying by his simple presence that lunch was ready. Hot zi gevart, un az zi hot gezen, az meni heybt on geyn tsu zey, hot zi aroysgenumen dem kind fun vigele un hot ahin arayngeleygt a hintl. Eyne an alte yidenei iz arayn... [RP:6] So she waited, and when she saw that onei was walking toward them, she took out the child from the cradle and put in a puppy. An old womani came in... b. Le baron sapprocha: Je me charge de tout, mon commandant. Jenverrai Rouen Le Devoir qui nous ramnera des dames; je sais o les prendre. On prparera ici un souper; rien ne manque dailleurs, et, au moins, nous passerons une bonne soire. [GdM:MF] The baron came over: Im taking care of everything, my commandant. Ill send Le Devoir to Rouen, from where hell bring us back some ladies; I know where to get them. One [= the staff here] will prepare a supper; nothing will be lacking besides, and at least well spend a pleasant evening. Ba eynem a yidn hot men amol geganvet fun shtub zakhn. Hot er gerufn politsye, me iz gekumen un gezen, az der ganev hot aroysgenumen kleyne zakhn fun a tsimer... [RP:150] One [= thief/thieves] once stole things from some guys house. So he called the police, one came and saw that the thief had taken out small things from a room... (28) a. Quand on a termine sa toilette du matin, il faut faire soigneusement la toilette de la planete. [LPP:6] Ven men endikt zikh reyn makhn in der fri, muz men zorgevdik reynikn dem planet. [DKP:6] When one [= I] has finished getting washed in the morning, one [= I] must carefully clean the planet. b. [Five women have arrived at the house.] Et tout de suite on entra dans la salle manger. Illumine, elle semblait plus lugubre encore en son dlabrement piteux... [GdM:MF] And suddenly one [= the five women] entered the dining room. Illuminated, it seemed still more lugubrious in its pitiful seediness... Es hot amol gedarft forn a rov epes in a kleyn shtetl arayn. Meyle hot er genumen a balegole, un me iz geforn. (RP:152) Once a rabbi had to travel to some small village. Ok, so he hired a wagondriver and one (= they) went.
Note that neither gender nor person nor number is relevant for the inferred reference of French on and Yiddish me(n) one, which themselves are of course categorically third-person singular. Second, note that multiple occurrences of on and me(n) one in contiguous clauses can have the same referent or they can have disjoint referents; compare (29) and (30): (29) a. Donc, quand la moralit de lexplorateur parat bonne, oni fait une enqute sur sa dcouverte. So, when the morality of the explorer seems good, onei makes an inquiry about his discovery. - Oni va voir? Onei goes to see [it]? - Non. Cest trop compliqu. Mais oni exige quil en rapporte de grosses pierres. No. Its too complicated. But onei makes him bring back big rocks. [LPP:15] b. D: Bay ir badarf meni gor nisht fregn. Its not her that onei must ask. L: Mei badarf bay der muter fregn. Its the mother that onei must ask. [GF:III] (30) a. Oni arrivait au dessert; onj versait du champagne. [GdM:MF] Onei reached the dessert. Onej poured champagne. b. [A poor mani is invited to a very rich manjs house for the Sabbath dinner.] [0i] Gekumen tsum gvirj, hot menk avekgeshtelt oyfn tish fun di gute fish un take fun di fete fleysh, mit genz, mit katshkes, mit foyglishe milkh. Un nokhdem vi meni+j hot shoyn getrunken di tayere mashkes un gegesn di keysershe maykholim, hot menk derlangt a kukhn. [RP:71] [Himi] having arrived at the rich mansj house, onek laid out on the table good fish and indeed fat meat, with goose, with duck, with [the very best]. And afterwards, as onei+j had already drunk expensive whiskies and eaten imperial delicacies, onek served a cake. In (29), we find coreferring instances of on and me(n) one, what Donnellan 1978 calls an anaphoric chain. In contrast, in (30), each token refers to both the diners and the servers by the same impersonal pronoun. Of course the languages in question do not tell us whether the series of impersonal pronouns are coreferential or disjoint; it is only the readers knowledge of the (relevant) world that guides the understanding. We can now address the question of why a language and clearly not just one might have a pronoun to refer to humans, in addition to personal pronouns and items like a person, someone, etc., but which differs from these other items in that its referent may not be referred to subsequently by a third-person personal pronoun. Surely one never has to refer to anything so why have a pronoun that disallows such
referring? It turns out that an answer to this question becomes apparent when one considers the data in a Centering framework, to which we shall now turn.
5. Centering Theory: an overview

Centering Theory is a way of modeling attentional state in discourse, a component of a theory of local discourse coherence (Joshi and Weinstein 1981; Grosz, Joshi, and Weinstein 1995; Walker, Joshi, and Prince 1998). Parenthetically, note that the often invoked but difficult-to-define notion of topic can be seen as a phenomenon of attentional state. Within Centering Theory, each utterance Ui in a coherent local sequence of utterances (a discourse segment) U1...Um affects the structure of the discourse model as follows: (31) Centering Theory: A. Each utterance evokes, explicitly and implicitly, a set of discourse entities called Forward-looking Centers, or {Cf}. B. This set is ranked according to various formal (e.g. syntactic, morphological, theta role, prosodic) features, the rankings being determined language-specifically. C. The highest-ranked Cf in the {Cf} of some utterance Ui is called the Preferred Center, or Cp, of Ui. The Cp is a prediction about what the next utterance, Ui+1, will be about, although this prediction may of course prove wrong much of the time, with certain predicted results. D. The highest-ranked Cf in the {Cf} of the previous utterance Ui-1 that appears as well in the {Cf} of the current utterance Ui is the Backward-looking Center, or Cb, of Ui. Note that, if there is no Ui-1, as in the case of a discourse-initial Ui, or, if there is a Ui-1 but no Cf in Ui-1 occurs in Ui, then Ui lacks a Cb. Thus an utterance has no or exactly one Cb.6 This distinction between looking back to the previous discourse context with the Cb and projecting expectations about the following discourse context with the Cp is a key aspect of the Centering framework. In addition, Centering Theory contains one rule, the Pronoun Rule: (32) Pronoun Rule: If any Cf in the {Cf} of an utterance U is represented by a pronoun in U, then the Cb of U must be represented by a pronoun.
6. I believe that the Cb corresponds to what at least some have meant by topic or theme, that is, what the utterance is about (e.g. Reinhart 1981), but for the most part have not been able to provide an algorithm for the objective identification of topics. Interestingly, two researchers who have provided such an algorithm, Nilsson 1982 and Samek-Lodovici 1996, define topic as that item, if any, that is coreferential with the subject of the preceding sentence. Note that this definition describes the Cb in the vast majority of cases.
The Pronoun Rule gives the model empirical content, in that a given ranking can now be tested on naturally-occurring data. That is, one decides on a ranking for a given language and then collects tokens at least two utterances in length in a single discourse segment, where the second (or later) utterance contains a single pronoun and one or more full NPs and where the pronoun and the NPs are coreferential with items in the preceding utterance. If the unique pronoun is coreferential with something in the previous utterance other than the highest-ranked Cf in that utterance that also occurs in the current utterance, i.e. if the unique pronoun is not the Cb of the current utterance, then the ranking is proven wrong for the language. (See (34) below for an illustration.) Since Centering is meant to model attentional state, it must model changes or shifts in attentional state, which it does by defining four possible Transitions between adjacent utterances, corresponding to the four logical possibilities of two variables: whether the Cb of the current utterance is the same as the Cp of the current utterance and whether the Cb of the current utterance is the same as the Cb of the previous utterance. This is shown in the chart in (33): (33) Centering Transitions Cb(Ui) = Cb(Ui-1) Cb(Ui) = Cp(Ui): Cb(Ui) Cp(Ui): Continue Retain Cb(Ui) Cb(Ui-1) Smooth-shift Rough-shift
It is assumed that, all things being equal, Continues are easier to process and hence more coherent than the other three and that Rough-shifts are harder to process and hence less coherent than the other three. (The ordering, if any, of the ease of processing of Retains and Smooth-shifts is not obvious.) Let us look at a very simple example to see how Centering Theory works. In addition to the outline of Centering above, all we need to know is that it has been found that the Cf list in English is ranked according to grammatical function: subject, indirect object, direct object. (34) 1. 2. 3. 4.1. 4.2. This guyi was sitting in Rittenhouse Square. Hei took a book out of his pocket and began to read. Suddenly hei sees a young manj approach himi. Hei/#j asks the guy#i/j what time it is. The guy#i/j asks himi/#j what time it is.
(35) 1. Cf: personi, Rittenhouse Square Cp: personi Cb: Transition:
2. Cf: personi, book, pocket Cp: personi Cb: personi Transition: 3. Cf: personi, personj Cp: personi Cb: personi Transition: Continue 4.1. Cf: personi, personj Cp: personi Cb: personi Transition: Continue 4.2. Cf: personj, personi Cp: personj Cb: personi Transition: Retain In (34), we see two discourses, identical up to the last line, which illustrate how speakers use lexical choice to enable hearers to resolve anaphora. Each discourse involves two men, one introduced as this guy, the other as a young man. Subsequent references to these entities are the guy and he/him. Truth-conditionally, there is no reason to suspect that the two discourses would be interpreted differently, but in fact they are: The discourse ending with line 4.1 is unambiguously understood as the man on the bench asking the new arrival what time it is, while the discourse ending with line 4.2 is unambiguously understood as the new arrival asking the man on the bench what time it is. Note that these interpretations are precisely what the Pronoun Rule of Centering Theory predicts: In a situation where two entities are represented in an utterance, if just one is represented by a pronoun, it must be the Cb, i.e. the highest-ranked entity in the previous utterance that occurs in the current utterance. Since the man on the bench is, by virtue of being in subject position, the highest-ranked entity in line 3, he must be represented by a pronoun in the next line if anything is; since just one entity in each next line is represented by a pronoun, that must be the man on the bench, and the one represented by the full NP the guy is understood, by the process of elimination, as the newcomer.
6. Centering meets the impersonal pronouns

We may now finally turn to the behavior of the French and Yiddish impersonal pronouns in a Centering framework. First, like English (and most other languages considered to date), French and Yiddish rank their Cf list according to grammatical function,
Subject-Indirect Object-Direct Object.7 Furthermore, the English example in (34) works the same way in French and Yiddish: (36) 1. 2. 3. 4.1. 4.2. (37) 1. 2. 3. 4.1. 4.2. Un typei tait assis Rittenhouse Square. Ili a sorti un livre de sa poche et ili a commenc lire. Tout dun coup ili voit un jeune hommej qui sapproche de luii. Ili/#j demande au type#i/j quelle heure il est. Le type#i/j luii/#j demande quelle heure il est. Eyneri hot zikh avekgezetst oyf Rittenhouse Plats. Hot eri oysgenumen a bukh fun keshene un hot ongehoybn leyenen. Plutsling zet eri, vi a yungermanj kumt tsu tsu imi. Eri/#j fregt dem yidn#i/j, vifl iz der zeyger. Der yid#i/j fregt imi/#j, vifl iz der zeyger.
Now consider the following examples: (38) a. Un cyclistei, qui descendait la grand-rue toute vitesse, stale sur la place. Onj lei croit mort. Ili/#j se relve, ple. A cyclisti who was riding on the main street at full speed crashes on the square. Onej thinks heis dead. Hei/#j picks himself up, pale. [JJR] b. Meni hot eynemj amol gefregt: [Question] Hot er#i/j geentfert:... Onei once asked someonej [Question] So he#i/j answered... [RP:136] Notice that, although the impersonal pronoun is the subject of its sentence in each of the examples in (38), and therefore presumably the Cp, the only possible interpretation for personal pronouns in the following sentence is the previous direct object. This is the unusual discourse property mentioned above, i.e. that a subsequent personal pronoun cannot refer to the referent of the impersonal pronoun. One very simple way of dealing with this is to say that, while on and me(n) one are perfectly normal semantically (contra Koenig 1999), they have a lexical idiosyncrasy that prevents them from being in the Cf list when attention is being modeled. This has the effect of making (what would be) the next Cf in the Cf list the Cp, the entity that the next utterance is predicted to be about. From this it follows that this next Cf can be represented by a personal pronoun in the next utterance, given that the hearer is (predicted to be) expecting it to be the center of attention.
7. Among the languages that have been argued to rank the Cf list according to grammatical function are English (Cote 1998), Finnish (Kaiser 2002), Greek (Miltsakaki 2001), Hindi (Prasad 2000), Italian (Di Eugenio 1998), Japanese (Kameyama 1985, Walker, Iida, and Cote 1993), Korean (Han, In prep.), and Turkish (Turan 1995). The only languages I know of that have been argued to rank primarily according to something other than grammatical function are German (Rambow 1993) and Russian (Malamud 2002), both ranking according to left-to-right word order.
Notice that what we have here is a kind of asyntactic passive, a functional equivalent of the passive, a lexical means for demoting the subject and making it, in Relational Grammar terms, a chmeur, i.e. an inert argument that cannot be manipulated syntactically, at the same time as the object (indirect or direct) is promoted to the discourse equivalent of subject in that it is construed as the center of attention and what the next utterance will be about (Perlmutter 1983, inter alia). Consider one additional bit of evidence for this analysis from Yiddish. Yiddish has a pronominal form for switch-reference, yener that [one] which is used to refer to something other than the Cp of the previous utterance. Compare (39a) and (39b): (39) a. Eyner a yidi hot epes gedarft trefn oyfn ban eynem a Rubinshteynj. Iz eri/#j arumgegangen oyfn peron...un hot geshrign: Rubinshteyn! Rubinshteyn! A guyi had to meet a certain Rubinsteinj on the train. So hei/#j walked around on the platform and screamed Rubinstein! Rubenstein! [RP:200] b. Eyner a yidi hot amol gefregt zaynem a khaverj: [Question] Makht yener#i/j:... A guyi once asked a friendj of his: [Question] The other one#i/j goes:... [RP:50] In (39a), where all entities are initially evoked by full NPs, the Cp of the first sentence is referred to by a personal pronoun in the second and not by the switch-reference form; in (39b), likewise where all entities are initially evoked by full NPs, a non-Cp in the first sentence is referred to by the switch-reference form in the second and not by a personal pronoun. Now see what happens when the impersonal pronoun is involved: (40) a. Meni hot eynemj amol gefregt: [Question] Hot er#i/j geentfert:... Onei once asked someonej [Question] So he#i/j answered... [RP:136; = 38b] b. Meni hot eynemj amol gefregt: [Question] #Hot yeneri/j geentfert:... Onei once asked someonej [Question] #So the other onei/j answered... What we see in (40), where the subject is initially represented by the impersonal pronoun, is that the referent of the initial direct object can be realized only as a personal pronoun in the second sentence, not by the switch-reference pronoun. This is just what is to be expected if in fact the direct object in the first sentence is the Cp of that sentence, due to the subject of that sentence being the impersonal pronoun and absent from the Cf list.
7.
Conclusion: the unusual properties are no longer unusual
Let us now return to the unusual properties of the French and Yiddish impersonal pronouns discussed at the outset. First, they have only a subject nominative form. Well, if the default Cp in French and Yiddish is the subject and it is only the default Cp that one wishes to displace, then the lexical form whose function is to prevent the subject from being the Cp need occur only as a subject. Second, with respect to the non-Left-Dislocatability of French on one and the non-cooccurrence of Yiddish men one with the emphatic particle ot, if the subject is present in the truth-conditional semantic model but is marked as not being a center of attention, then it will not have occasion to undergo any of the processes that are subsumed under some notion of emphasis, usually related to instantiating a variable in a salient open proposition. Thus we would not expect the impersonal pronoun to be Left-Dislocated in French or to cooccur with the emphatic particle in Yiddish. Third, with respect to the humanness restriction on the French and Yiddish impersonal pronoun, the motivation is less obvious. Perhaps it is merely a grammaticalization (lexicalization, actually) based on the exceedingly high frequency of human subjects. However, it is worth noting here that both French on one and Yiddish men one are derived from words meaning man, Latin homo and Middle High German man, respectively, suggesting that the humanness restriction was present from the beginning and is not the result of a gradual grammaticalization. Interestingly, as shown in Han 2005, Korean displays the same humanness restriction on its impersonal pronoun but with no etymological basis. Consider first (41): (41) a. layngkhastekwun-ey sal-ko iss-nun amisicok salam-tul-un Lancaster-county-in live-VerbEnd is-RelEnd Amish-clan person-Plu-Top centhongcekin saynghwalpangsik-ul koswuha-nta. traditional lifestyle-Acc uphold-PresentDeclarative The Amish people living in Lancaster county are upholding a traditional way of life. 0 cenki-wa kasu kath-un hyuntaycek phyenuy-lul [SUBJ] electricity-and gas like-RelEnd modern convenience-Acc ilchey kepwuha-mye 0 18-seyki senco-tul-uy entirely reject-While (SBJ) 18-century ancestor-Plu-Gen mosup-taylo sal-ko iss-ta. appearance-as live-VerbEnd is-Declarative [They, i.e. the Amish people] are living exactly like their ancestors in the 18th century as [they] reject modern conveniences such as electricity and gas altogether. [Han 2005]
b. phillateylphia-ey-nun mikwuk cengchak choki-ey cieci-n Philadelphia-in-Top America settlement beginning-in built-RelEnd kenmwul-tul-i yeles iss-ta. building-Plu-Nom several exist-Declarative In Philadelphia, many buildings exist which were built in the early days of American settlement. 0 tangsi-uy kenchwuk-yangsik-ul tayphyoha-nun [SUBJ] that-time-Gen architecture-style-Acc represent-RelEnd kwicwungha-n mwunhwa-yusan-i-ta. valuable-RelEnd culture-legacy-Copula-Declarative [They, i.e. these buildings] are a valuable cultural legacy which represents the architectural style of the time. [Han 2005] In (41), we see that a zero subject used anaphorically is free to refer to humans (41a) or not (41b). In contrast, consider (42): (42) a. tongmwulwon-eyse-nun 0 halu-ey twu-kki meki-lul cwu-unta. zoo-at-TOP [SUBJ] day-in two-CLASS fodder-ACC give-PRES-DECL In zoos, [they, i.e. zookeepers] give fodder twice a day. [Han 2005] b. ?tongmwulwon-eyse-nun 0 halu-ey twu-kki meki-lul mek-nunta. zoo-at-TOP [SUBJ] day-in two-CLASS fodder-ACC eat-PRES-DECL ?In zoos, [they, i.e. animals] eat fodder twice a day. [Han 2005] Here we see that the null subject, when used not anaphorically but as an impersonal pronoun, can have only a human interpretation. Clearly, then, at least in Korean, the humanness restriction on impersonals cannot be an accident of etymology. Perhaps, as suggested above, the humanness restriction is simply somehow a result of the extreme preponderance of human subjects in the worlds conversations and there is nothing terribly interesting to add, or perhaps further research on the referential and anaphoric possibilities of human vs. nonhuman discourse entities will prove fruitful. The explanation for the distribution of possessive pronouns likewise awaits further research but one thing is clear now: Syntacticians are supported by the data here in their separating reflexives from discourse anaphora. Not only are the distribution and interpretation of reflexives accounted for within the confines of a sentence grammar, which the distribution and interpretation of discourse anaphora pronouns are certainly not, but we can see clear differences in how languages treat possessives: French appears to make a distinction between possessives in a reflexive environment, which it classifies as reflexives in allowing them to corefer with the impersonal pronoun on one, and possessives not in a reflexive environment, which may not corefer with the impersonal pronoun on one. In contrast, Yiddish appears to treat all possessives, re-
gardless of environment, as discourse anaphora in disallowing their coreference with the impersonal pronoun me(n) one. How other languages deal with possessives and impersonal pronouns awaits further research, but it appears that German, a close sister language of Yiddish, patterns like French and differently from Yiddish in this respect (Lucas Champollion, p.c.).8 Finally, the inability of a third-person personal pronoun in a subsequent utterance to refer to the entity represented by the impersonal pronoun is shown to be not an unusual property of the impersonal pronoun but rather its raison dtre: In a language where the default situation is that the subject screams Look at me Im what were going to be talking about, raising the expectation in the hearer that a subsequent (compatible) pronoun will refer to it, a subject form that is marked as saying Dont look at me Im not what were going to be talking about, raising the expectation in the hearer that a subsequent pronoun will refer to the next most salient (compatible) entity, is a useful device indeed. Thus there is no longer any need to wonder why the impersonal pronoun may not have a subsequent coreferring personal pronoun and by the same token there is no longer any need to account for this fact by stipulation, so long as, in addition to a model of truth-conditional meaning, a model of attention along the lines of Centering Theory is taken to be part of an account of linguistic competence.
References
Abbott, B. 2004. Definiteness and indefiniteness. In L.R. Horn and G. Ward, eds., The Handbook of Pragmatics. Malden, MA/Oxford: Blackwell. 122149. Auger, J. 1994. Pronominal clitics in Qubec Colloquial French: a morphological analysis. University of Pennsylvania Ph.D. dissertation. Chierchia, G. 1995. The variability of impersonal subjects. In E. Bach, E. Jelinek, A. Kratzer, and B.H. Partee, eds., Quantification in Natural Language. Dordrecht: Kluwer. 107143. Christophersen, P. 1939. The Articles: A Study of Their Theory and Use in English. Copenhagen: Munksgaard. Cote, S. 1998. Ranking forward-looking centers. In M. Walker, A.K. Joshi, and E.F. Prince, eds., Centering Theory in Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 5570. DiEugenio, B. 1998. Centering in Italian. In M. Walker, A.K. Joshi, and E.F. Prince, eds., Centering Theory in Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 115138. Donnellan, K. 1978. Speaker references, descriptions and anaphora. In P. Cole, ed., Syntax and Semantics, Volume 9: Pragmatics. New York: Academic Press. 4768. Grosz, B.J., Joshi, A.K., and Weinstein, S. 1995. Centering: a framework for modelling the local coherence of discourse. Computational Linguistics 21:203225. Han, N.-R. In prep. Korean zero pronouns: analysis and resolution. University of Pennsylvania Ph.D. dissertation. Hawkins, J.A. 1978. Definiteness and Indefiniteness. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press. 8. That is, the German correlates of the impossible Yiddish sentences in (25) are perfectly acceptable, just like the acceptable French correlate in (15a).
Impersonal pronouns in French and Yiddish 315 Heim, I. 1983. File change semantics and the theory of definiteness. In R. Bauerle, C. Schwarze, and A. von Stechow, eds., Meaning, Use, and the Interpretation of Language. Berlin: de Gruyter. 164189. Joshi, A.K. and S. Weinstein. 1981. Control of inference: role of some aspects of discourse structure: Centering. In P.J. Hayes, ed., Proceedings of the 7th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 81). Vancouver: William Kaufmann. 385387. Kaiser, E. 2002. On pro-drop, topics and expletives in Finnish. Paper delivered at the workshop Pragmatics in Optimality Theory, 14th European Summer School in Logic, Language, and Information (ESSLLI), Trento, Italy. Kameyama, M. 1985. Zero Anaphora: The Case of Japanese. Stanford University Ph.D. dissertation. Koenig, J.-P. 1999. On a tu le prsident! The nature of passives and ultra-indefinites. In B. Fox, D. Jurafsky, and L. Michaelis, eds., Cognition and Function in Language. Stanford: CSLI. 235251. Koenig, J.-P. and G. Mauner. 1999. A-definites and the semantics of implicit arguments. Journal of Semantics 16:207236. Malamud, S. 2002. Centering in Russian. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 7.2. 95108. Miltsakaki, E. 2001. Centering in Greek. In E.M. Athanasoplou, ed., Proceedings of the 15th International Symposium on Theoretical and Applied Linguistics. Thessaloniki, Greece: Aristotle University. 309327. Nilsson, B. 1982. Personal Pronouns in Russian and Polish: A Study of Their Communicative Function and Placement in the Sentence. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International. Perlmutter, D. 1983. Studies in Relational Grammar I. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Prasad, R. 2000. A corpus study of zero pronouns in Hindi: An account based on centering transition preferences. In P. Baker, A. Hardie, T. McEnery, and A. Siewierska, eds., Proceedings of the Discourse Anaphora and Reference Resolution Conference (DAARC 2000). Lancaster, UK: University of Lancaster. 6671. Rambow, O. 1993. Pragmatic aspects of scrambling and topicalization in German: A centering approach. Paper delivered at the workshop Centering, Institute for Research in Cognitive Science, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. Reinhart, T. 1981. Pragmatics and linguistics: an analysis of sentence topics. Philosophica 27:5394. Rohrbacher, B. 1993. The Germanic VO languages and the full paradigm: A theory of V to I raising. University of Massachusetts Amherst Ph.D. dissertation. Samek-Lodovici, V. 1996. Constraints on subjects: an Optimality Theoretic analysis. Rutgers University Ph.D. dissertation. Turan, U. 1995. Null vs. Overt Subjects in Turkish Discourse: A Centering Analysis. University of Pennsylvania Ph.D. dissertation. Walker, M.A., M. Iida, and S. Cote. 1993. Japanese discourse and the process of centering. Computational Linguistics 20:193232. Walker, M.A., A.K. Joshi, and E.F. Prince, eds. 1998. Centering Theory in Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Motors and switches

An exercise in syntax and pragmatics*1
Jerrold M. Sadock
University of Chicago
Challenges to the validity of the classical, truth-functional treatment of natural language connectives like English and, or, and ifthen are numerous. One particularly striking one is found in Cooper 1978, viz If you throw switch S and switch T, the motor will start. Therefore, either if you throw switch S, the motor will start, or, if you throw switch T the motor will start. According to classical logic, this is a valid syllogism, an affront to our ordinary intuitions. In this paper, originally written more than twenty years ago, I show that a Gricean approach of the kind championed by Larry Horn can easily account for the huge discrepancy between the truth-functional treatment and our sense of what is conveyed by the words. Classical logic can be preserved in this case as in others by copious applications of pragmatic reasoning.
* This paper was written more than twenty years ago during the heyday of radical Gricean pragmatics. I almost got it published, but didnt. I am publishing it now not just to add an easy publication to my CV, but mainly because it represents the sort of thinking that Larry Horns work (e.g., his dissertation (Horn 1976)) was crucial in putting on a firm basis. If I were to redo the paper, it would clearly reflect the great strides forward that Larry has made, particularly following his groundbreaking paper, Horn 1984. In addition, I have chosen to honor his achievements with this paper in almost exactly the same form it had in the WordStar document that I was, with some effort, able to locate and reformat because then I will be able to say, quite correctly, that I not only almost published this paper, in fact I have published it. The version found here is altered only insofar as some marginal corrections found on my copy of the original have been incorporated as well as some suggestions that my spell checker had with respect to the identity and order of letters in certain English words. I have also appended a few modern notes, such as this one. The new footnotes will be followed by the date 2006 in parentheses. (2006)
As a startling example of the discrepancy between the use of logical-like words in English and their description in terms of classical logic, Cooper (1978,vii) offers the following example, among others.1 (1) If you throw switch S and switch T, the motor will start. Therefore, either if you throw switch S, the motor will start, or, if you throw switch T the motor will start. This seemingly idiotic discourse is in fact justifiable if if...then, and, and or are given their classical interpretations as binary, truth-functional operators. To see this, let us decompose (1) into the two clauses: (2) If you throw switch S and switch T, the motor will start. (3) Either if you throw switch S, the motor will start, or, if you throw switch T the motor will start. Now if we identify if...then with material implication (which I shall symbolize ), and with logical conjunction (&), and or with logical (inclusive) disjunction (v), then (2) should be formalizable as (4), and (3) as (5), where S represents the proposition You throw switch S, T represents the proposition You throw switch T, and M represents the proposition The motor will start. (4) (S & T) M (5) (S M) v (T M) Truth tables for (4) and (5) are given in (6) and (7). (6)
S T T T T F F F F T T T F F T T F F M T F T F T F T F S&T T T F F F F F F (4) T F T T T T T T
1. Later on, Cooper (1978) repeats the example in a somewhat different form, which is borrowed by Gazdar (1979) to aid in his independent assault on the identification of the English expression if...then with the material implication of standard logics: (i) *If both the main switch and the auxiliary switch are on, then the motor is on. Therefore, if the main switch is on or if the auxiliary switch is on the motor is on. This syllogism, which is valid in classical logic, is invalid in ordinary English, as the asterisk is supposed to indicate.
Motors and switches: an exercise in syntax and pragmatics 319
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S T T T T F F F F T T T F F T T F F M T F T F T F T F SM T F T F T T T T TM T F T T T F T T (5) T F T T T T T T
As can be seen by inspecting these truth tables, both (4) and (5) are false only when the propositions S and T are both true and the proposition M is false. The two clauses are thus logically equivalent and so not only should the discourse in Coopers example be sensible, but so should the following one: (8) If you throw switch S and switch T, the motor will start. In other words, either if you throw switch S, the motor will start, or, if you throw switch T the motor will start. But this sounds to the ordinary speaker of English, me included, like the sheerest nonsense, and Id guess that even someone well versed in propositional calculus would feel pretty queasy about it. Nevertheless, I am not persuaded that the fault lies with the interpretation of the crucial English expressions in these examples as their classical logical counterparts, and in particular, not with the interpretation of if...then as material implication. It seems to me that this example, surprising though it might be, adds nothing to the generous store of examples that have been offered in order to show the inappropriateness of classical logic as a model of natural language semantics. This example is just a lot more complicated than most, containing numbers of clauses and nearly every connective in the book. The fact is that both (2) and (3) would ordinarily be taken, when used, as intended to convey something other than what we find in the formalizations given above. Furthermore, what (2) conveys is not at all the same thing as what (3) conveys, and this is what produces the bizarre sense of illogic that we find in Coopers example. But I shall argue that it is not the logical theory of the English connectives that is to blame, and that indeed, an elegant account of the way that the utterance of these sentences would ordinarily be taken can be given in terms of the classical logical theory. Part of the problem with (2), which I repeat here as (9), is well known. (9) If you throw switch S and switch T, the motor will start. Geis and Zwicky (1971) observed that there is often a connection between a conditional sentence If P then Q and the biconditional, If P then Q and if not P then not Q.
For example, when someone tells you that you will be given $5 if you mow the lawn, you will ordinarily conclude that you will not be given $5 if you dont mow the lawn. Subsequently, Lilje (1972) showed that the connection was not between the conditional sentence and the biconditional, but between certain uses of conditional sentences and the biconditional. Bor and Lycan (1973) then demonstrated that these facts were very reasonably treated as rather ordinary instances of what Grice (1975) called conversational implicatures, i.e. as suggestions carried by an utterance in virtue of its conventional meaning, the context of utterance, background knowledge, and the principle that speakers are cooperative in their conversational dealings. An important part of Liljes and Bor and Lycans argument is their observation that the biconditional interpretation is strongly context dependent. In the case of the present example, there is also a good measure of contextual influence on the interpretation of the intent lying behind an utterance of the sentences. Let us consider a simplified example first: (10) If you throw switch S, the motor will start. Considered out of context, this sentence strongly suggests that if you dont throw switch S, the motor will not start; in other words, it suggests the biconditional understanding. Why should this be so? As has been pointed out elsewhere (Bolinger 1972, Schmerling 1976), it is not really possible to judge linguistic examples out of context. When asked to do so, we unavoidably think, however subconsciously, of some neutral context in which the utterance of the sentence would make sense. For an example sentence such as (10), the most natural subconsciously assumed context would probably be one in which someone is instructing someone else in the operation of the motor. Under such circumstances it is quite obvious why the biconditional interpretation should be so strongly suggested: The utterer would be a truly rotten teacher if he/she did not intend the biconditional interpretation, for the antecedent clause would be irrelevant and misleading. I dont tell my students that nouns are inflected for number on alternate Thursdays, even though they are.2 But if we change the imagined circumstances, the biconditional sense can be made to disappear into thin context. Suppose the speaker of (10) is an industrial spy who has not yet gathered very substantial information on the operation of a competitors new motor. When pressed by his boss for information, he might utter (10), and then explain saying that for all he knows the motor might start even if you dont throw switch S, but at least he has observed that switch S has been thrown every time he saw the motor started.
2. Nowadays we would say that this is an R-based strengthening of the content of the utterance following the neo-Gricean, or better the Laurentian program of Horn 1984 and much subsequent work. (2006)
Notice also that it would be a logical catastrophe to assume that the meaning (in the strict sense) of an English conditional sentence were really closer to the biconditional than the conditional, for such a treatment would make the following fully sensible discussion contradictory: (12) A: If you throw switch S, the motor will start. B: Yes, thats true, but it will also start if dont throw switch S and you kick the thing in the armature. So for reasons apart from the meaning per se of the sentence, an ordinary utterance of (2) (=(9)) would be taken as implying (13), whose truth table is given in (14). (13) If you throw switch S and switch T then the motor will start, and if you dont throw (both) switch S and switch T, the motor will not start. (14)
S T T T T F F F F T T T F F T T F F M T F T F T F T F (13) T F F T F T F T
Now let us turn to the second sentence in Coopers example, (3), repeated here as (15). (15) Either if you throw switch S, the motor will start, or, if you throw switch T the motor will start. Rather remarkably, at least from the point of view of classical logic unabetted by grammar or pragmatic theory, an ordinary utterance of (3) (=(15)) would be taken as intended to convey that throwing either switch is sufficient to get the motor to start, in other words, that the logic of the sentence is something like (16) (S v T) M But from the point of view of form, the sentence would appear to mean something like (17), which is a whole different proposition: (17) (S M) v (T M)
A similar apparent inversion of the scope of or shows up with other operators as well, as in the following example adapted from LeGrand (1975): (18) You can have coffee, or you can have tea. Note that an utterance of this sentence would ordinarily be taken as conveying the same thing as an utterance of (19): (19) You can have coffee or tea. But regarding only the form of the sentence, (18) ought to mean something like Either it is the case that you can have coffee, or it is the case that you can have tea. (Guess which.) A final example of the same sort of thing is provided by sentences like (20). (20) Ill be there whether it rains or whether it snows. There seems to be an extra whether in this sentence, as can be seen by noticing that the following is ungrammatical: (21) *Ill be there whether it snows. Now what is the nature of the divergence of conveyed meaning from apparent conventional content in these cases? LeGrand (1975) proposes that there is a rule of grammar that spreads an operator expression from a form like (22) into each of several disjuncts, giving a form like (23). (22) OP(A v B) (23) OP(A) or OP(B) Such a rule would be very like the rule that spreads a negation onto indefinites in its scope, a rule that is found in many languages, including many varieties of English, as in the following example. (24) He wont do nothing for nobody. Negative spreading is a rule that results in a discrepancy between the apparent logic of a sentence and the contextual value of an utterance of the sentence, as grammar-school teachers are (or at least were) so fond of pointing out. But it is a rule that has its effect not because of a flaw in the logical circuitry of the language user (as the teacher implies) or because of an essential mismatch between the meaning of logical-like words of natural languages and classical logic (as Cohen 1964 claimed) but because the road from conventional content to linguistic form contains a few bends and forks.3 That negative spreading is a grammatical phenomenon in English, and not a matter of logic (or illogic), is demonstrated by the fact that the displacement of an indefi3. The same bends and forks will, of course, be encountered if one chooses to go in the other direction, from linguistic form to conventional content.
nite quantifier by a negative quantifier is not universal. In particular, it does not occur if the nominal is or contains a negative polarity item. Thus (25) is acceptable in most dialects that are characterized by negative spreading, and (26) is not. (25) I didnt see a damn thing. (26) *I didnt see no damn thing. Similarly for our putative rule of operator spreading, there are only certain cases where the phenomenon can be found, while others that display the same apparent meaning lack it. LeGrand (1975) points out that while may spreads over or, its near paraphrase be permitted does not. There is a reading of (27) that is equivalent to (28), while (29) and (30) are quite distinct. (27) (28) (29) (30) You may have coffee or you may have tea. You may have coffee or tea. You are permitted to have coffee or you are permitted to have tea. You are permitted to have coffee or tea.
Assuming that operator spreading is a fact of English grammar, then Coopers sentence (3) is structurally ambiguous between a reading that matches its apparent form and one like (16). Since the latter reading is the more contentful one, it will be the one that an ordinary context will suggest is the intended one. The same principle of cooperativity that adds contextual content to utterances whose literal meaning is too weak to pass as all that was intended also serves to select a stronger literal sense in a context where a weaker one is insufficiently responsive.4 One more thing needs to be said about the understanding of (3). The literal meaning of this sentence involves implication and, if the context is right, that should mean that an utterance of the sentence should be taken as a biconditional. We have already seen that the probable imagined context is right. (See the discussion following example (10).) Therefore we must add to the conveyed content of the sentence the proposition (31) and the communicated value of (3) becomes (32). (31) not(S v T) not(M) (32) ((S v T) M) & (not(S v T) not(M)) My intuitions tell me that we would ordinarily take an utterance of (3) as implicating this as well. Thus we get a truth table for the communicated value of (3) as what appears under the column headed (32) in the following table. This table also compares (32) with the truth table for the communicated value of (2), namely (13), and with the apparent classical values of (2) and (3), namely (4) and (5).
4. This is a principle related perhaps to the imputation of content to tautologies like War is war, as discussed in Grice 1975. It is related to R-strengthening (Horn 1984, 1989), but it is not the same thing, since what we have here is the selection of what has been said in the utterance of a single form, not the addition of content to what has been said. (2006)
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S T T T T F F F F T T T F F T T F F M T F T F T F T F (4) or (5) T F T T T T T T (13) T F F T F T F T (32) T F T F T F F T
What we see is that while the two tables agree when S and T are both true or both false, they disagree in every case where only one of S and T is true, and the other false, that is, in all of the interesting cases. It is this that accounts for the extreme sense of disquiet that one feels when it is pointed out that the logic of the senses alone should make the two equivalent.
Conclusions
What is important about my account of the understanding of Coopers motors and switches sentences is not just that it works and gives an excellent representation of their use and understanding, but more that this result was achieved without the ad hoquery that Cooper intimates would necessarily accompany an explanation of this sort. No new principles of grammar, logic, or conversation were introduced and no unmotivated assumptions were made. Unsullied classical logic, a grammatical rule that had been noted in the literature already, and principles of conversation that are by now well accepted were all that we required. I do have to confess, though, that there is one aspect of the discussion where the reader might have detected a faint woolly sensation about the eyes. This involves the question of why there is a rule of operator spreading in English. After all, it forces us to resort to a rather complex sentence that only indirectly says what we want when there is available in the language a simpler sentence that directly says the same thing. At present, I have no satisfying answer to this question.5
5.
I still dont. (2006)
References
Bor, S.A. and W.G. Lycan. 1973. Invited inferences and other unwelcome guests. Papers in Linguistics 6:483505. Bolinger, D. 1972. Accent is predictable (if youre a mind-reader). Language 48:633644. Cohen, L.J. 1971. Do illocutionary forces exist? In J.F. Rosenberg and C. Travis, eds., Readings in the Philosophy of Language. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. 580599. Cooper, W.S. 1978. Foundations of Logico-linguistics: A Unified Theory of Information, Language, and Logic. Dordrecht: D. Reidel. Gazdar, G. 1979. Pragmatics: Implicature, Presupposition, and Logical Form. New York: Academic Press. Horn, L.R. 1976. On the Semantic Properties of Logical Operators in English. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Linguistics Club. Horn, L.R. 1984. Toward a new taxonomy for pragmatic inference. In D. Schiff rin, ed., Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1984. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. 1142. Horn, L.R. 1989. A Natural History of Negation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Geis, M.L. and A.M. Zwicky. 1971. On invited inferences. Linguistic Inquiry 2:561566. Grice, H.P. 1975. Logic and conversation. In P. Cole and J. Morgan, eds., Syntax and Semantics, Volume 3: Speech Acts. New York: Academic Press. 4158. LeGrand, J.E. 1975. Or and Any: The Semantics and Syntax of Two Logical Operators. University of Chicago Ph.D. dissertation. Lilje, G.W. 1972. Uninvited inferences. Linguistic Inquiry 3:540542. Schmerling, S.F. 1976. Aspects of English Sentence Stress. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Fine-tuning Jespersens Cycle*1

Scott A. Schwenter
The Ohio State University
Jespersens Cycle is the cyclical process whereby preverbal markers of sentence negation are reinforced by postverbal forms, leading to complex negatives and sometimes even to the loss of the preverbal negative, leaving a strictly postverbal form as the canonical negator (as in French). In this paper evidence is presented from other Romance varieties to show that Jespersens Cycle as currently understood needs adjustment, insofar as it cannot account for the synchronic situation in these varieties. Specifically, there is a significant functional gap between the two middle stages of the Cycle, i.e. between the optional conveying of emphasis by a postverbal element and the incorporation of that element as an obligatory concomitant of sentence negation. It is demonstrated that the choice of noncanonical negative forms participating in Jespersens Cycle is clearly regulated by information-structural factors: The noncanonical form is licensed only when the proposition being negated constitutes salient discourse-old information.
1.
Jespersens Cycle and its parts
Jespersens Cycle, a term apparently first used by sten Dahl in a 1979 paper published in the journal Linguistics, refers to the cyclical process by which sentence negators increase and reduce their formal complexity in different historical steps or stages.
It is a pleasure and an honor to contribute to this volume in honor of Larry Horn. It is fair to say that Larry has been as supportive as anyone of my research hes really had no reason to be so supportive, but (#so) supportive he has been! For comments on issues in this paper, I am grateful to Larry, Elizabeth Traugott, Patrcia Matos Amaral, Chad Howe, Michael Israel, Craige Roberts, the audience at the 2004 LSA Annual Meeting in Boston, where it was originally presented, and to the editors of this volume. Any and all errors of fact or interpretation are solely the fault of the author.
In the original formulation of this process, Otto Jespersen described what would later become his Cycle as follows: The history of negative expressions in various languages makes us witness the following curious fluctuation: the original negative adverb is first weakened, then found insufficient and therefore strengthened, generally through some additional word, and this in its turn may be felt as the negative proper and may then in course of time be subject to the same development as the original word. (Jespersen 1917:4; see also Jespersen 1924:335) Jespersen exemplified the workings of the Cycle with data from French, English, and Danish, three languages in which the cyclical process of weakening, strengthening, and replacement could be found (albeit not exactly to the same degree). However, it is, I believe, fair to say that the paradigm case of Jespersens Cycle, and definitely the one that has been repeated most often in the literature, is that of French. Although the level of detail at which the French case is presented varies widely (cf. Hopper and Traugott 2003), the overall characterization of the change is typically quite uniform among researchers. In one frequent way of presenting the diachrony of the change, a general schema of four basic structural stages for the French negative cycle is offered, much as in (1) (cf. Schwegler 1988, 1990; Geurts 2000; Ladusaw 1993; Posner 1985): (1) Stage 1. NEG + VERB Stage 2. NEG + VERB + EMPHATIC NEG Stage 3. NEG + VERB + OBLIGATORY NEG Stage 4. VERB + NEG Je ne sais. I dont know Je ne sais (pas). Je ne sais pas. Je sais pas.
It should be noted that there is a well-known intermediate stage, which we might call Stage 3/4, wherein the preverbal negative (e.g. French ne) is variably realized. Indeed, in the colloquial spoken language of the present day, French negation is found at this intermediate Stage 3/4 (Armstrong 2002; Ashby 1981, 2001; Coveney 1996; Martineau and Mougeon 2003; Sankoff and Vincent 1980).1 Jespersens Cycle (usually as exemplified by French), along with the development of the be going to future in English, is without doubt one of the standard textbook examples of grammaticalization (inter alia: Dahl 2001a, 2001b, 2004:137; Detges and Waltereit 2002; Geurts 2000; Hopper 1991; Hopper and Traugott 2003). From a semantic/pragmatic point of view, the rise of obligatory post-verbal negatives depicted in Stage 3 above is widely considered to be due to a gradual loss of the emphatic value that the post-verbal element conveys in Stage 2: This element (e.g. pas), over
1.
There are, however, broad differences between different dialects of spoken French with respect to NEG2/3. Thus, for example, Canadian French negation is overwhelmingly (99%) NEG3 (Sankoff and Vincent 1980), while this percentage is much lower in European French, which conserves NEG2 to a much greater extent (approximately 20% to 40%) in the spoken language (Ashby 1981; Coveney 1996).
Fine-tuning Jespersens Cycle 329
time and through frequent use (leading to overuse), loses its emphatic value and is therefore reanalyzed as an obligatory element within the canonical sentential negation construction. The principal goal of this paper is to show that this position is problematic from the present-day perspective of other Romance languages which have post-verbal negatives that cannot be strictly considered either emphatic (Stage 2), unless this term is defined in an extremely restricted fashion, or obligatory (Stage 3). Instead, the argument to be advanced is that there is a clearly identifiable stage wherein the post-verbal negative element is heavily regulated by information-structural factors, and specifically by the discourse-old status of the denied proposition. Although the data and analysis to follow are strictly present-day synchronic in nature, an important assumption of this paper is the correctness of the uniformitarian principle (Labov 1975), which maintains that the linguistic forces that are evidenced today are in principle the same as those that operated in the past (Hopper and Traugott 2003:50). In basic terms, what I intend to show is that there is a good deal of commonality among the synchronic states of negation in several Romance varieties, and that what ties these states together is their reliance on information structure, not emphasis (or presupposition; see below). This kind of investigation comparing the present with the (presumed) past already has precedent in the realm of negation and Jespersens Cycle, but from a strictly syntactic perspective. Indeed, Zanuttini has already pointed out that, since the synchronic stages [of the Cycle] correspond so closely to the diachronic ones, an investigation of the former will help us better understand the latter (1997:14). To my mind, whats good for syntax is also good for pragmatics! The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. In Section 2 I discuss the notion of emphasis and argue that it is inadequate for a complete analysis of noncanonical negative constructions in Catalan and Italian. Instead, I demonstrate that these constructions are sensitive to information-structural properties of the proposition being denied. In Section 3 I examine a related, yet more complex, example of noncanonical negative constructions from Brazilian Portuguese, and show how these forms are likewise sensitive to information structure and specifically how they differ with respect to the discourse accessibility of the denied proposition. Section 4 provides concluding remarks about the analysis and its relation to Jespersens Cycle. Finally, Section 5 is a brief postscript in which I discuss a larger issue concerning form-function pairings in the realm of sentential negation. Throughout the discussion, I will use the labels NEG1, NEG2, and NEG3 as abbreviations for three types of sentential negative constructions: NEG 1 refers to strictly preverbal negation (i.e. canonical negation in the languages of interest here); NEG 2 refers to negation with co-occurring pre- and postverbal negative elements, such as ne V pas in French; and NEG3 refers to strictly postverbal negation, e.g. V pas in French. Although these formal options have traditionally been linked to distinct stages of Jespersens Cycle, in this paper I am primarily interested in noncanonical negatives at Stage 2 of the Cycle, i.e. the stage where the postverbal negative element is optional.
2. NEG2 in other Romance languages: beyond emphasis

The term most often associated with noncanonical negation in the early stages of Jespersens Cycle is emphasis: The post-verbal negative element adds emphasis to the canonical pre-verbal sentential negative. To the best of my knowledge, however, the notion of emphasis associated with post-verbal elements in the Cycle corresponding to Stage 2 in (1) above has never been defined in explicit terms. Indeed, although emphasis is a label that abounds in linguistic research, it is typically undefined no matter what its domain of application. As regards Jespersens Cycle specifically, Schwegler (1990:158) has noted that there seems to be a constant and universal psycholinguistic need for negative emphasizers. Schweglers footnote to this same statement, however, exemplifies the aura of mystery that surrounds these so-called emphasizers: Psycholinguistic proclivity is not an explanation. It is really an unknown for a causal factor whose existence must, however, be acknowledged for an understanding of the process involved (Schwegler 1990:239). It is not clear exactly what stage(s) of the Cycle Schwegler is referring to in the preceding quotes. What must be distinguished, however, are the possibilities for emphasis (in intuitive terms) that constitute the precursors or input to the Cycle proper, and the emphatic post-verbal elements that become incorporated as grammatical elements into the Cycle, such as in Stage 2 in (1). The first kind of emphasis and their corresponding emphasizers are a seemingly universal property of language(s): the possibility of using post-verbal elements, most typically nouns denoting minimal quantities, in emphatic negation contexts as negative polarity items (NPIs). As pointed out by Detges and Waltereit (2002), it is elements such as minimizing NPIs like a crumb or idiomatic minimizers like lift a finger that are widespread across languages. However, as noted by many authors (e.g. Hopper (1991) for French), typically only one of these minimizers becomes generalized for sentential negation, in the sense of extending its domain of application to all kinds of predicates and of bleaching its meaning so that the erstwhile nominal meaning is no longer tangible. Thus, French pas was semantically extended beyond its nominal meaning (step), ultimately to the point where it could combine with any verb, not just verbs of motion, which are the assumed starting point for this particular emphasizer. On the other hand, English a crumb is still heavily constrained by the meaning of its source noun, so that it is permissible to talk about not eating a crumb, but *not walking a crumb remains impossible. The French and English forms illustrate opposite ends of the semantic spectrum for post-verbal negative elements: While pas in the negative construction has lost its nominal meaning, a crumb retains its nominal meaning in the negative construction. In between these poles, however, lie many other possibilities. Thus, the English NPI jack(shit) (cf. Postal 2004) is fairly general with certain verbs, e.g. He doesnt know jack, My son wont eat jack anymore. However, it does not combine well with all verbs, e.g. ?I dont sleep jack, and likewise still seems to conserve the minimal quantity meaning. The upshot of all this is that
there is a fine-grained semantic/pragmatic continuum of post-verbal elements, and defining them as being emphatic at Stage 2 does not help resolve the issue. On the bright side, one of the few attempts, and perhaps the only attempt, to define emphasis in the realm of semantics and pragmatics more generally has been made by Michael Israel in his dissertation (1998) and a series of papers since then. Given the lack of alternative explanations for the concept in question, I assume, following Israel (1998, 2001), that emphasis describes the high informativity of a proposition relative to a scalar norm if a proposition entails the norm, its assertion is informative because it exceeds what one would normally expect to be asserted (1998:47). The normally expected assertion of Israels model is the canonical, unmarked sentential negative. Thus, the informative value of a marked negative (plus NPI) like I didnt move a step/at all entails that of the unmarked negative I didnt move, but not vice versa (cf. also Detges and Waltereit 2002). Therefore, the marked negative is emphatic relative to the unmarked form. Most crucial to the point of this paper, however, is the fact that emphatic negatives in Israels sense are not necessarily linked to information structure, or, to put it more colloquially, they do not necessarily respond to anything or anyone. While it may be true that emphatic NPI minimizers are most often employed in contexts where there is an assumption that the denied proposition is true (see Detges and Waltereit 2002),2 there is no restriction such that these NPIs must occur in such a context. Thus, an example with a minimizer NPI like I didnt sleep a wink last night could be uttered felicitously in English with no necessary prior assumptions on the part of any of the interlocutors about the quality of the speakers sleep the night before. Upon uttering this sentence, the speaker does create (or invoke) a context of counterexpectation, contrasting what she just asserted with shared norms (e.g. having slept well, having slept some, not sleeping well but more than a wink, etc.). The crucial part of Israels analysis is simply that this utterance has to be understood as expressing an informative proposition that entails other propositions in the relevant scalar model, and, crucially, as denying the smallest possible quantity of sleep. These aspects of interpretation are what justify the classification of sleep a wink as an emphatic NPI. However, there are present-day Romance languages whose NEG2s are neither emphatic in the sense defined by Israel nor obligatory elements. Well first consider two cases that are rather similar: Catalan and Italian (see Schwenter 2002). By grouping these two languages together, I am not being innovative: NEG2 in Catalan and Italian have already been considered similar by other authors, e.g. Bernini and Ramat (1996:17), who state, In Catalan post-verbal pas is used to give the negative construction adversative meaning on the pragmatic level; its use, comparable to that of mica in Italian, implies that the speaker presupposes that whatever he is denying is on the contrary considered true or understood as realizable by his interlocutor. While I agree
2. I know of no studies examining the use of NPIs in naturally-occurring discourse that could either support or refute this claim.
with Bernini and Ramat in their assessment of the comparability of NEG2 across the two languages, my analysis of what is implied by their use is distinct.
2.1 Catalan
The case of Catalan would appear to be of utmost importance for comparative Romance purposes, since both the NEG2 post-verbal element (pas < step) and its syntax (no V pas) are essentially identical to that of the more well-known French negative. However, to my knowledge, none of the authors who have analyzed negation and the negative cycle in French from either a diachronic or a synchronic perspective have drawn comparisons with the neighboring Catalan negatives. Catalan could be especially important for hypothesizing about the details of the path of change taken by French negation, assuming (as one would be inclined to do, given the linguistic and geographical closeness of the two languages) that Catalan is following or at least has followed a similar path of development to this point. The main difference between the French and Catalan NEG2 constructions is that the post-verbal negative pas is not obligatory in Catalan, or at least not in those Catalan varieties (i.e. the vast majority) spoken in Spain, which are very obviously not in a situation of bilingualism with French but rather with Spanish. Since Spanish is a language with no dominant NEG2 construction, one would assume that Spanish cannot be providing a model for transfer into the Catalan construction. Moreover, as far as I know no one to date has claimed that the Catalan negative system is actively changing, i.e. that it is on its way to an obligatory NEG2 stage (e.g. Stage 3 in (1) above), although such a stage is certainly a future possibility. In existing descriptions of the Catalan negative system, no V pas has been considered an emphatic construction by some authors (Hualde 1992, Yates 1993[1975]), but not by others (Espinal 1993; Wheeler, Yates, and Dols 1999). Clearly, as in the case of its French counterpart, the erstwhile direct-object noun pas in the NEG2 construction has completely lost its former meaning of physical movement (meaning still preserved outside this construction in the noun pas). As a result of this meaning change, the particle has been generalized to all classes of verbs, including intransitives and copulas (Jordi no s pas intel.ligent Jordi is not intelligent). At the same time, however, this semantic and syntactic generalization of pas is not unrestricted, and the NEG2 no V pas is clearly not acceptable everywhere the canonical NEG1 no V can be used. Rather, the distribution of no V pas is strictly controlled by information-structural factors, as the following examples illustrate: (2) a. [Stepping outside on a fairly warm day, after several days of unusually cold weather] Avui no fa (#pas) fred! today not makes cold Today its not cold!
b. [speaker B to A; B believes that A believes the cold weather will continue] Avui no fa (#pas) fred! Today its not cold! (3) a. [Same weather scenario as in (2a)] A: Avui fa fred tamb? today makes cold also Will be it cold today as well? B: No, avui no fa (pas) fred. no, today not makes (NEG) cold No, today its not cold. b. [speaker B sees interlocutor A putting on a heavy coat] Avui no fa (pas) fred. Today its not cold Notice first that post-verbal pas is infelicitous in both (2a) and (2b), while the canonical NEG1 is normal. By contrast, NEG2 is felicitous, but not required, in both (3a) and (3b). In general terms, the difference between the examples in (2) and those in (3) is that in (2) there is no trigger element in the discourse to license pas. The speakerinternal counterexpectation context in (2a) is not sufficient to license pas, and not even a strong expectation about an interlocutors belief-state, as in (2b), is sufficient. If the behavior of pas were in fact licensed by speaker emphasis (per, e.g., Israels definition), then it would be difficult to explain why the utterances in (2a, b), situated as they are in emphatic contexts that run counter to speaker or interlocutor expectations, are infelicitous. What the examples illustrate is that there must be a salient proposition, evoked either linguistically (3a) or situationally (3b), for pas to be felicitous (cf. Prince 1981). Following Princes (1992) model, we can say that NEG2 is sensitive to the discoursestatus (3), not the hearer-status (2) of the denied proposition. Also important is the salience of the denied proposition, i.e. not only must this proposition be discourseold, it must also be salient in the discourse at the time that the speaker utters NEG2. In spoken discourse, NEG2 is uttered as a denial of a proposition that can be derived from an immediately preceding utterance, usually that of another speaker, as in (3a), or as a response to a salient non-linguistic action from which a particular proposition can be inferred, as in (3b). The distinction drawn by Dryer (1996) between activated and believed propositions is also applicable to the Catalan data. According to Dryer, the activation of a proposition is independent of ones belief in the truth of that same proposition: There are many propositions in whose truth we believe that are not at all activated in the discourse, and others may be activated but not believed. Such is the case, for instance, in (3a) above, where speaker As question activates the proposition It will be cold today, but does not express As belief in that same proposition. As Bs reply to A in the same example illustrates, the Catalan NEG2 is felicitous in denials of propositions that are
activated but not necessarily believed. (See also Caton (1981) and Fretheim (1984) on illocuted vs. propounded propositions.) In some descriptions of NEG2 in Catalan (e.g. Yates 1993[1975]), the construction has also been described as a marker of counterexpectation. But an interesting property of no V pas is that it can actually be used to agree with a prior negative statement (Espinal 1993): (4) A: La Maria ja no vindr a aquestes hores. the Maria already not will.come at these hours Maria wont be coming at this hour. B: Efectivament, la Maria no vindr pas tan tard. indeed the Maria not will.come NEG so late True, Maria wont come so late. For Espinal (1993), this particular use of NEG2 for confirmation is separate from the denial use seen in the examples in (3) above. The present analysis suggests, however, that instead of considering this use a separate function of NEG2 (pace Espinal), it can be seen as another instance of the denial of an activated discourse-old proposition. Thus, in (4), the affirmative proposition denied by B (Maria will come at this late hour) is activated indirectly by As prior (negated) utterance. That is, from As utterance it is possible to infer a point of view that holds that Maria will be coming at the late hour in question. The function of no V pas in Bs reply is to index the negation as replying to this affirmative point of view, i.e. the same function it displays in (3). The confirmatory interpretation of no V pas in (4) is merely an indirect feature of the normal meaning/function of no V pas in this particular kind of discourse context.
2.2 Italian
Let us now turn to a very similar case that strengthens the claim that information structure is crucial for a correct characterization of the meaning/use of NEG2, at least when it corresponds to Stage 2 in (1) above. The form of NEG2 in (standard) Italian (I will not deal here with the wide variety of dialectal variants) is non V mica. The postverbal element derives from an erstwhile noun meaning crumb (cf. Fr. mie, Sp. miga). However, in present-day Italian it has generalized its domain of use so much that now functionally it resembles Catalan NEG2 to a great extent. Molinelli (1987:170) also notes that there is substantial NEG3 use of mica in popular spoken Northern Italian. In her groundbreaking monograph on the syntax of negation in Romance (mainly limited to Italian and other Romance varieties spoken in Italy), Zanuttini presents the following pair of examples, contrasting the standard NEG1 form (non V) with the noncanonical NEG2 form (non V mica): (5) a. Gianni non ha la macchina. Gianni not have the car
b. Gianni non ha mica la macchina. Gianni doesnt have the car. Zanuttini describes the pragmatic difference between these two examples in the following manner: As was first discussed in Cinque (1976), the occurrence of mica is pragmatically restricted to those contexts in which the non-negative counterpart of the proposition expressed by the sentence is assumed in the discourse. For example, in order for mica to be uttered felicitously in [(5a)], it is necessary that the proposition that Gianni has a car be entailed by the common ground. If such a proposition is not part of the common ground, the presence of mica renders the sentence infelicitous and its counterpart without mica must be used (1997:61; emphasis added) This explanation is obviously much more explicit than an intuitive one that states simply that non V mica is more emphatic than its NEG1 counterpart. However, it also hinges on the definition of common ground, and unfortunately Zanuttini does not clarify how she is using this term. To see why such a clear understanding of common ground is needed, compare (6a) and (6b), which provide greater (constructed) contextualization for the NEG2 example in (5b) above: (6) a. A: Chi viene a prenderti? who comes to grab-you Whos coming to pick you up? B: Non so. Ma Gianni non ha (#mica) la macchina. not I.know but Gianni not have the car I dont know. But Gianni doesnt have the car. b. A: Chi viene a prenderti, Gianni? Whos coming to pick you up, Gianni? B: Non so. Ma Gianni non ha (mica) la macchina. I dont know. But Gianni doesnt have the car. Most notable in this pair of examples is that mica is infelicitous in (6a) even if the interlocutors share the common ground which following Stalnaker (1978) we could standardly characterize as the set of propositions that the interlocutors hold in common to be true (see also Kadmon (2001:9)) that Gianni has a car, that he usually picks B up with that car, etc. Thus, Zanuttinis entailed by the common ground (again, on the Stalnakerian view of common ground) is actually too weak a characterization of the felicitous use of mica, insofar as the postverbal NEG is infelicitous in (6a) despite the fact that Zanuttinis constraint is met. By contrast, in (6b) mica is felicitous (though not obligatory) precisely because the proposition Gianni is coming to pick up B is activated and salient in the discourse context. Thus, mica can be employed felicitously when the negated proposition is accessible or entailed in the common ground of the
discourse, but the manner in which that proposition becomes part of the common ground is crucial to the felicity of mica; it is not the case that any proposition entailed by the common ground can be negated using mica. Rather, as was the case in Catalan, the proposition being denied by NEG2 must be discourse-old (whether introduced linguistically or not) and salient in the discourse context. In addition, as (6b) shows, prior belief in the corresponding affirmative proposition (Gianni has the car) is not a necessary requirement on the use of NEG2; rather, activation of that proposition (even via implicature) is sufficient. Finally, it is also notable that, like the Catalan NEG2 construction, Italian non V mica is possible in a confirmatory context like the one in (4) above. In summary, the NEG2 constructions in Catalan/Italian are licensed only when there is a denial of a salient discourse-old proposition. This discourse-old proposition does not have to be believed by anyone; all that is required is its activation (Dryer 1996) in the discourse context. While it may indeed be the case that these NEG2s are used primarily in emphatic discourse contexts (though this is an empirical question in need of an answer), the notion of emphasis itself whether on an intuitive level or explicitly defined la Israel cannot account for the information-structural constraints that regulate these constructions. Indeed, it is these constraints that actually make the negative constructions in question unavailable to many more types of intuitively emphatic contexts, such as those illustrated in (2) above. As regards Jespersens Cycle, the NEG2 constructions in both languages are clearly at Stage 2 with respect to their generality. The post-verbal negative elements have lost their nominal meaning and have generalized to all kinds of verbal predicates, but they are not yet an obligatory concomitant of the pre-verbal negative, as they would be at Stage 3. The important point to take away from the discussion and analysis is that the meaning/function of NEG2 (or, more narrowly, the post-verbal negative element) at Stage 2 of the Cycle is not done justice by labels such as emphasis. Instead, there is a crucial relationship between the NEG2 construction and information structure, such that NEG2 in these languages is felicitously employed only when the negated proposition is discourse-old and salient.
3. NEG2/3 in Brazilian Portuguese

Let us turn now to a similar, but considerably more complex, case that I have analyzed in much greater detail elsewhere (Schwenter 2005). In spoken Brazilian Portuguese (BP), all three negative patterns in the model of Jespersens Cycle given in (1) above are present, but the post-verbal negative occurs sentence-finally instead of immediately after the verb (cf. French, Catalan, Italian): (7) a. A Cludia no veio festa. b. A Cludia no veio festa no. (NEG1) (NEG2)
c. A Cludia veio festa no. (NEG3) All mean: Cludia didnt come to the party. Another important difference between BP and the other languages mentioned so far is that the post-verbal negative form is a repetition of the pre-verbal negative morpheme (no). That is, instead of the originally minimizing nominal element common to the aforementioned languages, NEG2 in BP constitutes what is commonly known as embracing negation. This pattern is found in other Romance varieties as well (Schwegler 1990, 1996), and arises via the incorporation of a post-sentential, afterthoughtlike resumptive negation (Jespersen 1917:72) into sentence-final position, with loss of the intonation break between the sentence and the negative morpheme (Alkmim 2001, Bernini and Ramat 1996, Schwegler 1990). These formal differences notwithstanding, the synchronic distribution and diachronic development of the noncanonical BP negatives in (7) have been widely considered an instance of Jespersens Cycle (Bernini and Ramat 1996, Schwegler 1990, inter alia). As I intend to show in the rest of this section, there are clear discourse-functional similarities shared with the Catalan and Italian NEG2 constructions which indeed justify situating both NEG2 and NEG3 in BP at Stage 2 of Jespersens Cycle. Although negation in BP has been considered a change in progress (NEG1 > NEG2/3) by some researchers (Schwegler 1991, Bernini and Ramat 1996), the overall use of NEG2/3 in conversational BP is actually quite low. Grouping the results of several different studies, we find that NEG2 never exceeds 20% of all sentential negatives across dialects, while NEG3 never exceeds 5% (Alkmim 2001; Furtado da Cunha 1996, 2001; Roncarati 1996). In addition, cross-generational patterns of NEG1 vs. NEG2/3 use do not clearly evince the kinds of patterns one would expect to find in a case of change in progress (Alkmim 2001). As a result, I do not make the assumption, contra the views of Schwegler (1991) and Bernini and Ramat (1996), that a change towards obligatory NEG2 (or NEG3, for that matter) is currently in progress in BP. Very much like the description of noncanonical negatives in other languages, the meaning or function of NEG2 in BP has been variously characterized as emphatic (Barme 2000), reinforcing (Uppendahl 1979), contrary to expectation (Furtado da Cunha, 2001), or presuppositional (Schwegler 1991, 1996; Roncarati 1996). However, upon surveying the data from BP one finds that none of these characterizations can account for the distribution of NEG2, which, again, turns out to look very similar to the function of the corresponding NEG2s in Catalan and Italian. Compare the following patterns of (in)felicity of BP NEG2: (8) a. [Speaker realizes that she missed a TV program she wanted to see] Eu no vi esse programa (#no)! I not saw that program I didnt watch that program! b. [Sister realizes that her brother missed a TV program he wanted to see] Voc no viu esse programa (#no)!
you not saw that program You didnt watch that program! (9) A: Voc viu esse programa? Did you watch that program? B: No vi no. not I.saw NEG I didnt watch it. Discourse-oldness of the negated proposition, as in (9), is again the relevant property for the use of NEG2. And, as already noted for the examples from Catalan and Italian, it is merely activation, not belief, of a proposition p that licenses the use of NEG2 for the subsequent denial of p. Thus, the question posed by A in (9) does not have to be interpreted as biased towards the truth of the corresponding proposition (i.e. towards B watched the program) in order for B to employ NEG2 in the reply. On the contrary, seemingly emphatic contexts like (8a) or hearer-old/counter-expectation contexts like (8b) do not license NEG2; indeed, only NEG1 is possible in these examples. Further evidence for the necessity of distinguishing between believed and activated propositions can be discerned in examples where NEG2 does not occur in a sentence providing an answer to a yes/no-question. In (10), from the PEUL corpus of spoken BP from Rio de Janeiro, speaker F offers up possible eventualities that could keep the soccer team under discussion from winning a particular game: (10) E- (est.) Quer dizer que tem possibilidade de ganhar? You mean that theres a chance of winning? F- Tem possibilidade. A no ser se acontecer, no campo mesmo, um desastre: algum quebrar uma perna, do outro ser expulso, da, pode at perder, mas isso a, se deus quiser, no acontece no. Its possible. Unless there were to occur, on the field itself, a disaster: someone breaking a leg, another one being ejected, in that case, they could even lose, but that there, if God wishes, wont happen. [E19] It is clear in (10) that F does not believe that someone will break a leg or be ejected from the game in question. Instead, it is understood that he is creating possible scenarios that could damage the teams chances of winning. His use of NEG2 in the apodosis of a conditional sentence is to deny the possible occurrence of these hypothetical disastrous events, events that exist only in the mental model of the speaker. The occurrence of these events is therefore activated within the speakers mental model, and in the common ground of the interlocutors, but not believed by any participants in the conversation. As is the case in Catalan and Italian, NEG2 in BP can also occur in agreement with a prior negative assertion. Again, this is completely in line with the present analysis,
insofar as NEG2 is sensitive to a salient, discourse-old proposition; here, that proposition is the affirmative counterpart underlying As negative utterance: (11) A: O Joo no foi festa. the Joo not went to.the party Joo didnt go to the party. B: No foi no. He didnt go. The necessity of taking information structure into account for the analysis of noncanonical negation becomes even clearer when comparing BP NEG2 and NEG3: The accessibility of the denied proposition also plays an important role in constraining which noncanonical negative construction can be selected in a given context (Schwenter 2005). The salience and discourse-oldness of the denied proposition are also requirements for NEG3, which would likewise be infelicitous in the examples in (8), but felicitous in (9). The main difference between NEG3 and NEG2 is that only NEG2 can be used to deny propositions which are inferrable on the basis of other propositions, while NEG3 must deny a proposition that is activated explicitly in the discourse context. Compare (12), where both NEG2 and NEG3 are felicitous, and (13), where only NEG2 is felicitous:3 (12) A: Voc gostou da palestra da Maria? you liked of.the talk of.the Maria Did you like Marias talk? B: Gostei no. (Or: No gostei no) I.liked NEG I didnt. (13) A: Voc gostou da palestra da Maria? Did you like Marias talk? (+> B went to Marias talk) B: Eu #(no) fui no. I not went NEG I didnt go. The question asked by A in (12) activates directly the proposition you (=B) like Marias talk, thereby permitting both NEG2 and NEG3 in Bs response. In (13), however, the same question does not directly activate the proposition you (=B) went to Marias talk, but rather invites the inference that A believes that B went to Marias talk. In this case, NEG3 is infelicitous since its domain of use is restricted to discourse-old propositions that are directly activated in the discourse. By contrast, NEG2 is not restricted in this way, and is therefore felicitous in Bs reply.
3. The judgments here reflect those of speakers from Rio de Janeiro. At least some speakers from the northeast region of Brazil (e.g. Bahia) appear to accept NEG3 in (13). I am grateful to Tjerk Hagemeijer for pointing this out to me.
The canonical NEG1 form (no VP) can be used in all the contexts where NEG2 and NEG3 are felicitous, and of course many more where the noncanonical forms are not possible. In short, negative statements that are discourse-new, and therefore primarily informative (i.e. not denials of an already accessible proposition), are encoded by NEG1 (Armin Schwegler, p.c.). The differences between the three BP negatives can be summarized as in Table 1, where only NEG1 is permitted with discourse-new propositions, NEG1 and NEG2 with inferrable propositions, and all three forms with directly-activated propositions:4 Table 1: BP negatives, by information status of the denied proposition
Form NEG1 NEG2 NEG3 Discourse-new # # Inferrable # Directly Activated
4. Conclusion
The data presented in this paper from three Romance varieties point to a clear functional gap between Stages 2 and 3 of Jespersens Cycle in its usual formulation (see (1) above). The varieties surveyed have NEG2 constructions that are neither unambiguously emphatic (in whatever sense of that term is taken) nor obligatory for the expression of sentential negation. The common denominator among these NEG2s is that they are restricted to denials of activated, salient discourse-old propositions. It is in this sense that fine-tuning of Jespersens Cycle is needed: Much of the diachronic action in the Cycle takes place between Stages 2 and 3, between the generalization of a post-verbal element as a grammatical (i.e. no longer lexical) exponent of negation, and its continued generalization to become an obligatory part of the canonical sentential negation construction (e.g. (ne) V pas in present-day French). The synchronic data provided in this paper should cause us to re-think the way in which emphatic post-verbal negative words lose their purported emphatic value and gradually become pragmatically unmarked elements. It now seems clear that this diachronic process must take information-structural considerations into account, and likewise that the
4.
Another issue of interest to Jespersens Cycle that I cannot deal with here due to space restrictions is the probable diachronic connection between NEG2 and NEG3. The data from present-day BP suggest that the NEG2 > NEG3 change, as purportedly reflected by the transition from Stage 3 to Stage 4 of the Cycle (e.g. from ne V pas to V pas in French), is considerably more complex than previously recognized.
NEG2 constructions in Catalan, Italian, and BP will need to loosen their restrictions on the negated proposition before ever moving into Stage 3 of the Cycle.5 Now, before I take too much credit for the linking of negation and information structure, I should point out that this link was prefigured by who else? Larry Horn in his 1978 CLS contribution, which was later updated in Appendix 2 of A Natural History of Negation (1989). Commenting on the distinction between verbs with incorporated negation as in a discouraged b from Xing and verbs lacking this negation as in a encouraged b not to X, Horn noted that the use of the incorporated form is limited to contexts where the contained affirmative proposition is already understood. Thus, a denied (doubts) that p is appropriate only when p is a proposition evoked in (i.e., appearing in or directly inferable from) the earlier discourse (1989:523). While I think Horns analysis might itself need a bit of fine-tuning it doesnt seem, for instance, that the proposition p necessarily has to be discourse-old, but simply presupposed by the interlocutors it nevertheless illustrates clearly the intricate connection between information structure and the choice of negative form, a result also issuing from the analysis Ive presented here.
5. Postscript: A form-function paradox?

To conclude this study, I would like to point out an apparent paradox between negative form and negative function, and then suggest that such a paradox does not, in fact, exist. As a starting point, note that it is a widespread assumption among linguists (specialists in negation or otherwise) that negative sentences are in some sense replies to the corresponding affirmatives. Consider, for instance, Horns position that, There should be a reason to utter a sentence, and for a negative sentence, that reason is generally the earlier consideration of its contained affirmative counterpart (1978:203). Likewise, in what is certainly one of the most quoted citations of all time on negation, Givn noted that negatives are uttered in a context where corresponding affirmatives have already been discussed, or else where the speaker assumes the hearers belief in and thus familiarity with the corresponding affirmatives (1978:109). The paradox arises upon confronting the positions of these (and other) esteemed scholars with the data offered in this paper. What my analysis has revealed is that the discourse function of the noncanonical forms of sentence negation (i.e. NEG2/3) in the three languages surveyed above is very similar nearly identical, actually to the function that Horn, Givn and many, many others (see the copious citations to this effect in Horn 1989, ch. 3) have argued to be the most canonical function for sentence negation in general!
5. In Schwenter 2005 I analyze two examples from BP that appear to indicate that the information-structural restrictions imposed by NEG2 are actually being loosened in this variety.
So, the question to be asked is this: Why are clearly marked forms for sentence negation being used to carry out the discourse function considered the most unmarked one by most researchers? But, more importantly, what is the evidence that the function of denying an earlier-considered affirmative counterpart is the unmarked or prototypical one for negation? This function may seem to be prototypical in isolation, where a negative sentence is most easily interpreted in this way. However, in stark contrast to the standard position, researchers studying negation in conversational discourse which I take to be the locus of language change have found that denials of explicit propositions are actually quite infrequent. Tottie (1991) found that only 14.7% of all sentence negations in a corpus of British English have the function of denying a prior affirmative. Even more strikingly, Thompson (1998) found that only 5% of the sentential negatives in a corpus of American English have this function. As Thompson states, the data show clearly that there is typically no sense in which a negative clause denies anything, either explicit or implicit, in the conversation (1998:323; emphasis in the original). Taking these findings on the use of negative sentences in conversation into account, the functional differentiation of paradigms of sentence negators is more readily comprehensible. Noncanonical forms like NEG2 and NEG3 in the three languages surveyed here serve to indicate in explicit fashion, via their distinct coding vis--vis NEG1, what is actually a highly infrequent/marked function in naturally-occurring discourse, that of denying a proposition that is already activated in the current discourse context (see Fretheim 1984 on denials). It is the pairing of noncanonical NEG2 forms with a noncanonical discourse function that can set the wheels of Jespersens Cycle in motion.
References
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Index
A Abbott, B., 1, 7, 18, 36, 50, 272, 279, 296, 314 Abeill, A., 259 Abelson, R., 239 Abusch, D., 2, 1015, 18, 93 accommodation, 19, 154, 163, 186, 269 activation, 191, 333, 336, 338, 339 addressee, 31, 33, 35, 38, 39, 41, 4649, 78, 110, 117, 121123, 125, 126, 130133, 181, 183, 191, 195, 201, 202, 204, 205, 207, 209213, 220, 271 Alkmim, M., 337 Allen, J.F., 34, 35, 121, 134 ambiguity, 19, 27, 48, 54, 70, 91, 9597, 111, 115, 165168, 279 Armstrong, N., 328 Arnold, J., 215, 240 Ashby, W., 328 Atkins, B., 199, 214, 215 Atlas, J., 6, 18, 180, 182, 192 attention, 4, 18, 26, 105, 125, 139, 149, 151, 181, 191, 211, 220, 225, 226, 230, 244, 255, 284, 289, 310312, 314 attenuation, 137139, 141, 142146, 154 attenuator, 143, 145, 146 Auger, J., 314 B Bach, K., 4, 7, 18, 21, 202, 203, 210214, 314 backward inference, 41, 42, 44 Baker, C.L., 143, 154, 246, 252, 259, 315 Barker, C., 69 Barme, S., 337 Barwise, J., 63, 69 Bayer, S., 149, 155 Bayles, M.D., 229, 239 Beaver, D., 2, 18 Bernini, G., 331, 332, 337 Bhat, D.N.S., 214 binding, 56, 63, 66, 67, 69, 82, 83, 193, 252 Birner, B.J., 3133, 3539, 46, 50, 51, 214 Blair, D., 60, 69 Bor, S., 6, 7, 18, 320, 325 Boguraev, B., 199, 215 Bolinger, D., 145, 154, 320, 325 Borschev, V., 70, 274, 279 Bowdle, B., 272, 279 Bray, H., 212, 214 Breheny, R., 61, 69 bridging inference, 32, 4042, 4446, 48, 49 Brody, M., 245, 255, 259 Brown, P., 34, 36, 121, 134, 138, 154, 157, 279 BurtonRoberts, N., 8, 18, 19 C Caffi, C., 138, 155 cancellability, 178 cancellation, 1, 8, 10, 13, 184188, 190, 272 Cappellen, H., 62, 69 Cargile, J., 239 Carlson, G., 53, 69, 164, 175 Carnap, R., 224, 239 Caton, C.E., 334 causality, 68 centering, 315 Chafe, W., 35, 50, 191, 192 Chevaux, F., 293 Chierchia, G., 3, 18, 143, 155, 239, 293, 295, 314 Chomsky, N., 103, 115, 243, 244, 260 Christophersen, P., 314 Chung, S., 263, 276, 278, 279 Cinque, G., 244, 260, 335 Clark, H.H., 35, 40, 41, 50, 125, 126, 134 Clark, L.F., 51 cleft, 12, 15 cognitive semantics, 138, 139 cognitive status, 177, 179183, 187, 190192 Cohen, P., 121, 134, 322, 325 coherence, 41, 42, 307, 314 common ground, 2, 6, 64, 140, 141, 335, 336, 338 compositionality, 70 computational linguistics, 132 conditional, 3, 9, 16, 26, 27, 73, 76, 86, 87, 89, 105, 147, 204, 295, 319321, 338 conjunction, 29, 99, 105, 281, 288, 318 connective, 288290, 319 conventional implicature, 1, 2, 47, 11, 12, 1518, 26, 29, 30, 179 conventionalization, 149, 205, 221 conversational implicature, 18, 19, 21, 22, 29, 111, 177, 178, 184, 188191, 193, 283, 320 conversational presumption, 24 Cooper, R., 148, 253, 260, 317319, 321, 323325 Cormack, A., 220223, 239 Cote, S., 314, 315 Coveney, A., 328 Crain, S., 155 Croft, W., 139, 155 Culicover, P., 257, 258, 260 Cysouw, M., 203206, 214 D Dahl, , 327, 328 Dalrymple, M., 162, 175 Davidson, D., 55, 69, 261 Dayal, V., 7981, 87, 88, 93 de Swart, H., 94 definiendum, 219221, 229, 231, 238 definiens, 217, 219221, 223, 231, 238

definiteness, 36, 43, 44, 51, 192, 193, 263, 264, 266, 267, 272274, 277, 278, 280, 315 definition, 7, 49, 60, 84, 118, 196198, 211, 213, 217, 218, 220230, 239, 290, 292, 333, 335 demonstrative, 177, 182, 193, 263, 264, 267269, 271, 272, 274278 Dprez, V., 259, 260 detachability, 1517, 29, 140 Detges, U., 328, 330, 331 dictionary, 54, 196, 197, 199, 213, 215, 220, 240 Diesing, M., 55, 69, 86, 94 DiEugenio, B., 314 diminisher, 145 discourse marker, 117, 118 discourse particle, 118122, 126, 129, 132, 135 discoursenew information, 3335, 46, 340 discourseold information, 31, 33, 34, 35, 3749, 327, 329, 333, 334, 336, 339341 discoursestatus, 32, 33, 35, 49, 333 disjunction, 14, 281283, 290, 292, 318 Dlinked UCI, 78, 83, 88 Dols, N., 332 Donnellan, K., 13, 18, 306, 314 downward entailing context, 73, 160 Dowty, D., 167, 172, 175 Dryer, M.S., 333, 336 Dunn, A., 119, 122, 134 E Eggert, R., 195, 210, 212214 elaborating inference, 31, 32, 41, 42, 4446, 49 elaborative inference, 41, 50 emotional deixis, 271, 272 emotional solidarity, 271 emphasis, 142145, 147149, 154, 179, 243, 304, 312, 327333, 335338, 340, 342 entailment, 3, 6, 14, 74, 88, 98, 107, 109, 174, 180, 184, 192, 203, 205, 299 episodic sentence, 64, 75, 79, 89 epitomization, 156 Ernst, T., 246, 249, 260 Espinal, M.T., 332, 334 Evans, D.A., 38, 50, 226, 239 EvansPritchard, E.E., 226, 239 evincive particle, 119 exhaustivity presupposition, 269, 272274 existential any, 73, 81 existential construction, 266 expansion, 28, 120, 208 explication, 223, 224, 295 explicature, 28, 202, 203, 205, 206, 208 explicit content, 28 F factive, 1, 3, 5, 10, 1618 familiarity, 31, 50, 133, 177, 179, 181, 183187, 189, 190, 192, 220, 223, 263, 270273, 278, 341 Farkas, D., 71, 73, 84, 9092, 94, 263, 278, 279 Fauconnier, G., 140, 144, 155 figurative statement, 27 Fillmore, C., 139, 155, 199, 214 filtering, 1, 8, 9, 10 Firbas, J., 32, 50 flexible scale, 97, 99, 105, 113115 focus, 10, 13, 32, 93, 96, 97, 105, 107109, 114, 116, 140, 141, 144, 181, 182, 189, 191, 211, 227, 233, 244, 245, 255, 258, 259, 269, 276, 282 focus particle, 96, 97, 105, 108, 109, 114, 116 focus space, 140, 141 forward inference, 41, 42, 45 Fox Tree, J.E., 125, 126, 134 Frege, G., 2, 4, 6, 19, 29 Fretheim, T., 334, 342 Furtado da Cunha, M.A., 337 G Gazdar, G., 282, 293, 325 Geis, M.L., 319, 325 gender, 47, 72, 198, 200, 204, 209, 222, 226, 229, 235, 236, 238, 303, 306 generalized conversational implicature, 23 generic sentence, 87 Gernsbacher, M.A., 192 Geurts, B., 11, 19, 328 Giannakidou, A., 71, 94, 95, 97, 98, 102106, 111, 115 givenness, 32, 177, 192 Givenness Hierarchy, 180, 182, 183, 187, 189, 191 Givn, T., 341 Godard, D., 259 Goddard, C., 198, 214 Goffman, E., 209, 211, 214 Golding, J.M., 50, 51 Gough, H.K., 226, 227, 239 Gould, S.J., 119, 120, 134 Graesser, A.C., 51 grammaticalization, 312, 328 Green, 117, 260 Grice, H.P., 47, 15, 18, 19, 21, 22, 24, 25, 2730, 50, 140, 155, 178, 182, 184, 192, 196, 197, 200, 201, 211, 214, 281, 282, 293, 320, 325 Gricean principles, 122 Grosz, B.J., 307, 314 Gualmini, A., 152, 155 Guasti, E., 155 Guelminger, R., 293 Guerzoni, E., 111, 112, 115 Gundel, J.K., 50, 177, 178, 192, 279 H habitual sentence, 64 Haegeman, L., 245, 254261 Haiman, J., 140, 155 Halliday, M.A.K., 32, 50 Hamilton, W., 82, 94 Han, N.R., 312314 Hankamer, J., 62, 69 Hanks, W., 209, 210, 214 Hardt, D., 162, 175 Harley, H., 204, 214 Hasan, H., 32, 50 Haspelmath, M., 72, 94 Hatakeyama, Y., 257, 260 Haviland, S.E., 35, 40, 50 Hawkins, J.A., 177180, 183186, 191, 192, 296, 314 hearernew, 31, 33, 34, 37, 39, 40, 4244, 46, 49, 191 hearerold, 31, 3335, 3843, 45, 46, 48, 49, 191, 338 hearerstatus, 31, 33, 35, 49, 333 Hedberg, N., 50, 177, 178, 192, 279 Heim, I., 57, 69, 93, 94, 97, 98, 106, 107, 111, 116, 296, 315
Index 347
Hempel, C., 224, 239 Herburger, E., 111, 116 Hirschberg, J., 178, 192 Hitzeman, J., 51 Hoeksema, J., 98, 116, 253, 260 Hopper, P.J., 328330 Horn, L.R., 6, 810, 12, 13, 15, 19, 50, 51, 7175, 78, 82, 84, 88, 93 96, 106, 109, 116, 137, 140, 141, 143, 144, 147149, 155, 159, 160, 174, 175, 178, 180, 182, 184, 191, 193, 195197, 200203, 205, 207, 214, 222, 223, 239, 247, 251254, 260, 261, 281283, 293, 314, 317, 325, 341 Horn scale, 180, 184, 191, 201, 207 Hornstein, N., 244, 260 Hualde, J.I., 332 Huang, C.T.J., 265, 266, 272, 273, 279 Huebler, A., 138, 155 I identifiability, 182, 263, 273, 277, 278 identity, 31, 32, 3749, 68, 82, 83, 85, 162, 188 Iida, M., 315 implicated space, 140 implication, 20, 22, 23, 106, 121, 123, 143, 211, 228, 292, 318, 319, 323 implicature, 1, 4, 6, 7, 12, 18, 19, 2130, 50, 88, 106, 107, 116, 120, 130, 137, 138, 140142, 146152, 155, 174, 177180, 182190, 192, 200203, 205, 212, 214, 271, 275, 278, 283, 336 implicit variable, 53, 5563, 6770 impliciture, 28, 29, 203, 213 indefiniteness, 50, 266, 273, 314 indexical, 159, 173, 200, 210, 214 indirect speech act, 28, 156 individuability, 177 inferable information, 26 inference, 19, 23, 3638, 4042, 44, 45, 4751, 88, 107, 108, 116, 121123, 125, 141, 147, 148, 154156, 166, 183, 193, 202, 203, 208, 211, 214, 275, 315, 325, 339 inferrable information, 31, 32, 3541, 4346, 49, 339, 340 information status, 31, 32, 4244, 177, 340 information structure, 16, 273, 329, 331, 334, 336, 339, 341 informationstructural, 32, 327, 329, 332, 336, 340 instructional definition, 220, 221 instrumental definition, 217, 220, 223, 224, 229 intonation, 127, 129132, 246, 255, 277, 337 inversion, 34, 35, 45, 46, 50, 247, 255261, 322 irony, 138, 150, 151, 284 Irvine, J., 209, 214 Israel, M., 94, 137, 143, 155, 331, 333, 336 J Jackendoff, R., 242, 246, 251, 252, 260 Jackson, E., 143, 155 Jakobson, R., 200, 214 Jennings, R., 282, 286, 293 Jennings, T.M., 50 Jensen, P.A., 70, 225, 280 Jespersen, O., 199, 327330, 336, 337, 340, 342 Joshi, A.K., 193, 279, 307, 314, 315 K Kadmon, N., 6, 11, 18, 19, 74, 94, 142, 155, 335 Kaiser, E., 315 Kalokerinos, A., 105, 116 Kameyama, M., 315 Kamp, H., 18, 93, 94, 282, 293, 296 Kaplan, D., 132, 200, 210, 215, 278, 279 Karttunen, L., 5, 8, 19, 96, 114, 116 Kato, Y., 94, 255, 260, 261 Kay, P., 95, 96, 116, 139, 144, 155 Kayne, R.S., 245, 261 Keenan, J.M., 41, 42, 50, 279 Kehler, A., 50, 51, 177 Kim, J., 246, 248, 254, 261, 272, 273, 279 Kiparsky, C., 3, 19 Kiparsky, P., 3, 19 Kitagawa, Y., 244, 261 Kleinedler, S., 195, 211, 212, 215 Klima, E.S., 175, 250, 251, 253, 261 Koenig, J.P., 295, 299, 303, 310, 315 Kose, Y.S., 122, 134 Kramarae, C., 228, 235, 239 Kratzer, A., 55, 61, 63, 69, 70, 71, 84, 94, 164, 175, 314 Krifka, M., 71, 94, 107, 109, 116, 143, 155 Krige, E.J., 225, 226, 227, 239 Kripke, S., 278, 279 Kuno, S., 121, 134 Krschner, W., 116 L Labov, W., 135, 329 Ladusaw, W., 2, 15, 76, 93, 94, 111, 253, 261, 263, 276, 278, 279, 328 Lahiri, U., 97, 98, 101, 112, 113, 115, 116, 143, 155 Lakoff, G., 251, 253, 261 Lakoff, R., 121, 122, 134, 135, 138, 155, 271, 272, 279 Lambrecht, K., 35, 51, 191, 193 Landau, S.I., 196, 197, 198, 215 Landman, F., 74, 94, 142, 155 Langacker, R.W., 139, 140, 155, 243, 261 Langendoen, D.T., 157, 158, 160, 161, 175 Lasnik, H., 51, 115, 249, 260, 261 Leach, R., 225, 226, 239 Lee, Y.S., 9, 71, 7375, 78, 84, 88, 93, 94, 257 LeGrand, J.E., 79, 94, 322, 323, 325 Lepore, E., 62, 69 Levinson, S.C., 9, 18, 19, 121, 134, 137, 138, 154, 156, 178, 180, 182, 191193, 211, 212, 215, 222, 223, 239 lexicalization, 14, 251, 312 lexicographer, 196, 197, 199, 213 lexicography, 70, 195, 198, 199, 214, 215 Lilje, G.W., 320, 325 Lin, J., 279 Linebarger, M., 111, 116, 143, 150, 156

link, 37, 44, 47, 78, 79, 83, 89, 278, 341 literal meaning, 131, 149, 323 locality, 59, 60, 66, 103 logic, 4, 8, 25, 134, 148, 154, 155, 261, 281, 282, 293, 317319, 321, 322, 324 Long, D.L., 42, 51 Lycan, W.G., 6, 7, 18, 239, 320, 325 Lyons, C., 263, 271, 273, 274, 277279 Lyons, J., 277, 279 Lyons, V.C., 222 M Maclaran, R., 188, 193 MacWhinney, B., 152, 156 Malamud, S., 315 marker, 256, 334 Maroudas, A., 51 Mart, L., 58, 59, 61, 62, 70 Martin, N., 115, 260, 279, 293 Martineau, F., 260, 328 Mauner, G., 299, 315 maxim, 29, 182, 281 May, R., 222, 245, 253, 261, 300 McCawley, J.D., 199, 209, 215, 253, 261, 282, 283, 286, 288290, 292, 293 McConnellGinet, S., 3, 18, 217, 239 McKoon, G., 51 Mehta, R., 51 MenndezBenito, P., 94 mental space theory, 138 Merchant, J., 162, 175 Meroni, L., 155 metalinguistic negation, 8 Milsark, G., 51 Miltsakaki, E., 315 minimization, 137 minimizer, 145, 331 Mitchell, J., 53, 55, 70 modularity, 241, 242, 243, 245, 248, 253, 259 Molinelli, P., 334 Montague, R., 236, 253, 260, 261 Morgan, J.L., 19, 30, 50, 121, 134, 149, 156, 192, 214, 260, 293, 325 Mougeon, R., 328 Murakami, M., 249, 261 Musolino, J., 152, 156 N narrowing, 85, 86, 211, 212 natural language processing, 117, 199 Neg, 76, 79, 83, 92, 159, 160, 161, 243, 244, 245 Neg raising, 159 negation, 3, 8, 16, 19, 72, 76, 79, 83, 84, 88, 94104, 107109, 111, 114, 115, 145, 149, 156162, 165170, 241245, 250255, 260, 261, 322, 327330, 332, 334, 337, 339342 negative concord indefinite, 76 Negative Criterion, 245, 254, 259 negative polarity item, 810, 18, 114, 142144, 252, 323, 330 negative spreading, 322, 323 NegativeCriterion, 241, 243, 245, 254, 259 NegP, 104, 244, 245, 248, 249, 251 neutralization, 1, 7, 10, 12, 13, 15, 17 Newmeyer, F.J., 239, 241, 243, 261 Nilsson, 315 noncanonical constructions, 3133, 39, 42, 47, 49, 327, 329, 330, 334, 337, 339, 340342 nonfamiliarity, 177, 179, 183185, 189, 190, 192 nonveridicality, 98, 106 Noveck, I., 152, 156, 282, 293 NPI, 19, 75, 9699, 101103, 109, 111, 112, 114, 115, 137, 145150, 158, 161, 253, 330, 331 Nunberg, G., 54, 70, 127, 129, 135 O OConnor, M.C., 139, 155 occurrence, 10, 75, 80, 89, 112, 115, 133, 170, 180, 183, 184, 283, 335, 338 ontological stability, 68 open proposition, 312 operator spreading, 323, 324 Osterhout, L., 42, 51 P Papafragou, A., 152, 156 Partee, B.H., 13, 19, 53, 55, 56, 5862, 70, 263, 274, 279, 314 particle, 98, 108, 117, 118, 120122, 126, 129134, 254, 302, 304, 312, 332 particularized implicature, 23 passive, 34, 35, 148, 211, 311 Pelletier, F.J., 69, 70, 281, 282, 286, 293 Percus, O., 60, 70 Pereira, F., 175 Perlmutter, D., 311, 315 Perrault, C.R., 121, 134 Perry, J., 63, 69, 215 persistence, 68 persuasive definition, 227229 Peters, S., 8, 19, 70, 96, 114, 116 Pickett, J.P., 215 Poesio, M., 51 polar question, 113 polarity, 73, 9498, 102, 105, 107, 111, 113116, 137, 138, 142146, 155, 156, 170, 244, 253, 260 polarity sensitivity, 137, 142, 143, 146 Pollack, M., 121, 134 Pollock, J.Y., 244, 245, 249, 261 polysemy, 54, 70, 200, 203 positive polarity, 97, 114, 143, 144 Posner, R., 328 possessive, 264, 267, 268, 274, 300, 301, 304, 313 Postal, P., 330 postposing, 3133, 35 Potts, C., 7, 19 Potts, G.R., 50 PPI, 97102, 109, 111, 113115, 145 pragmatic intrusion, 25 pragmatic presupposition, 18, 26, 93 Prasad, R., 315 preposing, 3135, 37, 44, 45, 4749, 101, 257, 260 presupposition, 119, 32, 60, 74, 80, 93, 96, 97, 99, 100, 102, 103, 106, 108110, 113, 114, 172, 210, 263, 266273, 275, 278, 329
Index 349
primitive, 161, 195, 289 Prince, E.F., 3133, 35, 3739, 43, 45, 49, 51, 178, 191, 193, 271, 279, 295, 307, 314, 315, 333 projection, 18, 241, 243, 244, 248, 253, 257, 273, 277 pronoun, 33, 35, 39, 42, 47, 5860, 72, 73, 83, 177, 182, 188, 195, 200, 213, 295, 297304, 306314 proper name, 177 proposition, 7, 10, 14, 28, 65, 66, 68, 96, 107, 137, 141145, 149151, 172, 202, 275, 296, 300, 303, 318, 319, 321, 323, 327, 329, 331, 333336, 338342 Pset, 179, 180, 183, 186 Pullum, G.K., 218, 219, 222, 245, 261 Pustejovsky, J., 199, 215 Q Qprinciple, 141 quality scale, 75, 79 quantification, 57, 63, 86, 87, 90, 91, 93, 159, 160, 164170, 173 quantifier domain restriction, 5658, 60, 61, 70 quantity scale, 7577, 79, 82 Quer, J., 89, 94, 338 Quine, W.V.O., 231, 239 quodlibetic, 72, 81, 82 raising, 115, 158, 159, 162, 164, 175, 252, 260, 296, 314, 315 R Ramat, P., 331, 332, 337 Rambow, O., 315 Ratcliff, R., 51 Recanati, F., 61, 70 recipient, 195, 203, 210213 reference, 19, 20, 36, 37, 42, 51, 55, 56, 80, 183, 188, 190, 195, 199205, 207, 208, 210, 212, 214, 239, 269, 279, 280, 295297, 306, 311 referring expression, 35, 50, 177180, 182186, 188, 190192, 208, 279, 301 reflexive, 209, 284, 297, 300, 301, 303, 304, 313 Reichenbach, H., 209, 215, 286, 293 reinforceability, 178 Reinhart, T., 315 relevance, 19, 156, 164, 261, 282 restriction, 57, 58, 60, 65, 69, 70, 83, 87, 166, 167, 169, 170, 183, 263, 269, 276, 278, 312, 313, 331 restrictor argument, 276278 Reuland, E., 51 Reyle, U., 18, 282, 293 Ritter, E., 204, 214 Rizzi, L., 243245, 256, 257, 261 Robinson, R., 239 Rochemont, M., 258, 261 Rogers, A., 167, 175 Rohrbacher, B., 315 Roncarati, C., 337 Rooth, M., 96, 103, 115, 116 Rprinciple, 141 Rullmann, H., 97, 98, 116 Russell, B., 8, 19 S Sadock, J.M., 178, 193, 317 Safir, K., 51 Sag, I.A., 62, 69, 162, 175, 193, 279 salience, 6, 36, 38, 47, 78, 80, 81, 83, 84, 92, 93, 96, 106, 108, 133, 141, 162, 177, 185, 191, 208, 210, 269, 276, 312, 314, 327, 333, 335, 336, 339, 340 SamekLodovici, V., 315 Sanford, A., 42, 51 Sankoff, G., 328 saturation, 263, 276, 278 Scal.Assert operator, 107 scalarity and scalar phenomena, 21, 28, 29, 71, 72, 7479, 81, 84, 88, 91, 95, 96, 98, 99, 101, 103, 104, 106, 107, 109, 110, 114, 116, 142, 144, 147, 151, 152, 154156, 177, 178, 191, 192, 201, 281, 283, 331 scalar implicature, 28, 29, 151, 152, 154, 156, 177, 191, 192, 201, 281 scalar indefinitist account, 74 scalar operator, 144 scalar presupposition, 96, 99, 101, 106, 114 scale, 72, 7479, 84, 88, 95, 96, 98100, 102112, 114, 115, 121, 145, 147, 155, 156, 177, 178, 180, 184, 189, 191, 192, 201, 222 Schapiro, R., 240 Schiappa, E., 239 Schmerling, S.F., 320, 325 Schourup, L., 119, 122, 126, 128, 135 Schwegler, A., 328, 330, 337, 340 Schwenter, S.A., 327, 331, 336, 339 scope, 8, 17, 47, 70, 73, 74, 76, 79, 8288, 91, 93, 96102, 109, 112116, 157162, 165167, 169174, 192, 226, 243245, 251253, 255, 256, 260, 273, 301, 322 semantic binding, 57, 61 sentence operator, 3, 5, 8, 17 Shieber, S., 162, 175 Shimoyama, Y., 71, 84, 94 shortcircuited implicature, 137, 149 Shroyer, S., 192 Shuy, R., 125, 126, 135 Siegel, M., 126, 135 Silverstein, M., 210, 214, 215 Simon, H., 206, 207, 214, 215, 281 Simons, M., 11, 15, 18, 19, 282, 293 situation, 22, 23, 27, 50, 6368, 8089, 91, 93, 123, 164168 situational parameterization, 67 situationally evoked information, 45, 46 skeletal proposition, 28 Smith, C.L., 12, 34, 134, 151, 156 Soames, S., 57, 70 Sobin, N., 259, 261 specificity, 107, 119, 127, 142, 178, 192, 211, 265, 266, 272, 273, 277 specifying argument, 276 Sperber, D., 282, 284, 293 Spitzbardt, H., 138, 156 Stalnaker, R., 6, 7, 19, 64, 70, 335 Stanley, J., 53, 56, 61, 70 Stevenson, P., 227, 228, 240 Strawson, P., 2, 4, 6, 19 stress, 130, 131, 174, 247, 277, 302 strong NPI, 111, 143, 147 structural discourse marker, 117, 119 subtrigging, 79, 88, 93

Sullivan, A., 234, 240 suspension, 1, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 140 Swinney, D.A., 42, 51 Sylvestre, E., 293 Szab, Z., 19, 56, 70 T Tang, C.C.J., 265, 279 Taylor, K., 203, 215 ter Meulen, A., 51, 70 theme, 19, 50, 282 Thompson, S.A., 51, 193, 342 topic, 13, 32, 86, 193, 244, 245, 255, 258, 273, 307 Tottie, G., 342 Traugott, E.C., 328, 329 Treichler, P.A., 228, 235, 239, 240 trigger, 1, 1013, 15, 16, 18, 31, 32, 4042, 45, 46, 58, 146, 244, 252, 253, 256259, 333 truth conditions, 4, 7, 21, 22, 2527, 85, 117119, 124, 126, 139, 163, 172, 173, 201, 203, 281, 295, 296, 300, 312, 314 truth function, 8, 281, 282, 283, 285, 289, 290, 292, 317, 318 truth value, 6, 7, 13, 19, 202, 282, 290 truthconditional pragmatics, 25 truthconditional semantics, 25, 300 Turan, U., 315 Twaddell, W.F., 225, 240 U UER, 90, 91 understatement, 137139, 141143, 146, 147, 149, 150, 152, 156 undifferentiated choice item (UCI), 75, 8291 uniqueness, 18, 177, 179, 180, 183187, 190192, 232, 268, 269, 272, 273, 278 universal any, 79 unmarked UCI, 77 Uppendahl, K., 337 utterance, 2, 4, 7, 8, 15, 16, 2428, 3032, 3942, 44, 46, 60, 118, 126, 127, 131, 139, 185, 208, 209, 211, 212, 220, 223, 296, 299, 303, 307311, 314, 319323, 331, 333, 334, 339 utterance interpretation, 27 V Vallduv, E., 111, 116 van den Broek, P., 42, 51 van der Wouden, T., 143, 156 van Fraassen, B., 20 van Rooy, R., 115, 143, 156 Vendler, Z., 82, 94 Verschueren, J., 156, 211, 215 Vikner, C., 70, 280 Vincent, D., 328 von Bergen, A., 143, 156 von Bergen, K., 143, 156 von Fintel, K., 57, 61, 70 von Stechow, A., 69, 98, 116, 315 VP ellipsis, 248 W Wald, B., 193 Walker, M.A., 307, 314, 315 Waltereit, R., 328, 330, 331 Ward, G., 3133, 3537, 46, 50, 51, 156, 177, 214, 272, 279, 314 Weak Crossover Principle (WCO), 5860 Weinstein, S., 307, 314, 315 Westersthl, D., 57, 70 Wheeler, M.W., 332 Wierzbicka, A., 198, 213215 Wilkinson, K., 97, 112, 116 Williams, E., 162, 175 Wilson, D., 18, 20, 282, 284, 293 Wolter, L.K., 263, 271, 276, 278, 280 Y Yang, H., 263266, 273278, 280 Yates, A., 332, 334 Yoshimura, K., 114, 116 Youngner, S.J., 240 Z Zacharski, R., 50, 177, 178, 192, 279 Zaenen, A., 54, 70 Zanuttini, R., 245, 254, 260, 261, 329, 334, 335 Zepter, A., 143, 156 Zgusta, L., 196, 215 Zwicky, A.M., 215, 245, 261, 319, 325
Studies in Language Companion Series

A complete list of titles in this series can be found on the publishers website, www.benjamins.com
84 Wanner, Leo (ed.): Selected Lexical and Grammatical Issues in the MeaningText Theory. In honour of Igor Mel'uk. xviii,377pp. Expected January 2007 83 Hannay, Mike and Gerard J. Steen (eds.): Structural-Functional Studies in English Grammar. In honor of Lachlan Mackenzie. vi,387pp.+index. Expected January 2007 82 Ziegeler, Debra: Interfaces with English Aspect. Diachronic and empirical studies. 2006. xvi,325pp. 81 Peeters, Bert (ed.): Semantic Primes and Universal Grammar. Empirical evidence from the Romance languages. 2006. xvi,374pp. 80 Birner, Betty J. and Gregory Ward (eds.): Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning. Neo-Gricean studies in pragmatics and semantics in honor of Laurence R. Horn. 2006. xi,350pp. 79 Laffut, An: Three-Participant Constructions in English. A functional-cognitive approach to caused relations. 2006. ix,268pp. 78 Yamamoto, Mutsumi: Agency and Impersonality. Their Linguistic and Cultural Manifestations. 2006. x,152pp. 77 Kulikov, Leonid, Andrej Malchukov and Peter de Swart (eds.): Case, Valency and Transitivity. 2006. xx,503pp. 76 Nevalainen, Terttu, Juhani Klemola and Mikko Laitinen (eds.): Types of Variation. Diachronic, dialectal and typological interfaces. 2006. viii,378pp. 75 Hole, Daniel, Andr Meinunger and Werner Abraham (eds.): Datives and Other Cases. Between argument structure and event structure. 2006. viii,385pp. 74 Pietrandrea, Paola: Epistemic Modality. Functional properties and the Italian system. 2005. xii,232pp. 73 Xiao, Richard and Tony McEnery: Aspect in Mandarin Chinese. A corpus-based study. 2004. x,305pp. 72 Frajzyngier, Zygmunt, Adam Hodges and David S. Rood (eds.): Linguistic Diversity and Language Theories. 2005. xii,432pp. 71 Dahl, sten: The Growth and Maintenance of Linguistic Complexity. 2004. x,336pp. 70 Lefebvre, Claire: Issues in the Study of Pidgin and Creole Languages. 2004. xvi,358pp. 69 Tanaka, Lidia: Gender, Language and Culture. A study of Japanese television interview discourse. 2004. xvii,233pp. 68 Moder, Carol Lynn and Aida Martinovic-Zic (eds.): Discourse Across Languages and Cultures. 2004. vi,366pp. 67 Luraghi, Silvia: On the Meaning of Prepositions and Cases. The expression of semantic roles in Ancient Greek. 2003. xii,366pp. 66 Nariyama, Shigeko: Ellipsis and Reference Tracking in Japanese. 2003. xvi,400pp. 65 Matsumoto, Kazuko: Intonation Units in Japanese Conversation. Syntactic, informational and functional structures. 2003. xviii,215pp. 64 Butler, Christopher S.: Structure and Function A Guide to Three Major Structural-Functional Theories. Part 2: From clause to discourse and beyond. 2003. xiv,579pp. 63 Butler, Christopher S.: Structure and Function A Guide to Three Major Structural-Functional Theories. Part 1: Approaches to the simplex clause. 2003. xx,573pp. 62 Field, Fredric W.: Linguistic Borrowing in Bilingual Contexts. With a foreword by Bernard Comrie. 2002. xviii,255pp. 61 Goddard, Cliff and Anna Wierzbicka (eds.): Meaning and Universal Grammar. Theory and empirical findings. Volume 2. 2002. xvi,337pp. 60 Goddard, Cliff and Anna Wierzbicka (eds.): Meaning and Universal Grammar. Theory and empirical findings. Volume 1. 2002. xvi,337pp. 59 Shi, Yuzhi: The Establishment of Modern Chinese Grammar. The formation of the resultative construction and its effects. 2002. xiv,262pp. 58 Maylor, B. Roger: Lexical Template Morphology. Change of state and the verbal prefixes in German. 2002. x,273pp. 57 Meluk, Igor A.: Communicative Organization in Natural Language. The semantic-communicative structure of sentences. 2001. xii,393pp.
56 Faarlund, Jan Terje (ed.): Grammatical Relations in Change. 2001. viii,326pp. 55 Dahl, sten and Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm (eds.): Circum-Baltic Languages. Volume 2: Grammar and Typology. 2001. xx,423pp. 54 Dahl, sten and Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm (eds.): Circum-Baltic Languages. Volume 1: Past and Present. 2001. xx,382pp. 53 Fischer, Olga, Anette Rosenbach and Dieter Stein (eds.): Pathways of Change. Grammaticalization in English. 2000. x,391pp. 52 Torres Cacoullos, Rena: Grammaticization, Synchronic Variation, and Language Contact. A study of Spanish progressive -ndo constructions. 2000. xvi,255pp. 51 Ziegeler, Debra: Hypothetical Modality. Grammaticalisation in an L2 dialect. 2000. xx,290pp. 50 Abraham, Werner and Leonid Kulikov (eds.): Tense-Aspect, Transitivity and Causativity. Essays in honour of Vladimir Nedjalkov. 1999. xxxiv,359pp. 49 Bhat, D.N.S.: The Prominence of Tense, Aspect and Mood. 1999. xii,198pp. 48 Manney, Linda Joyce: Middle Voice in Modern Greek. Meaning and function of an inflectional category. 2000. xiii,262pp. 47 Brinton, Laurel J. and Minoji Akimoto (eds.): Collocational and Idiomatic Aspects of Composite Predicates in the History of English. 1999. xiv,283pp. 46 Yamamoto, Mutsumi: Animacy and Reference. A cognitive approach to corpus linguistics. 1999. xviii,278pp. 45 Collins, Peter C. and David Lee (eds.): The Clause in English. In honour of Rodney Huddleston. 1999. xv,342pp. 44 Hannay, Mike and A. Machtelt Bolkestein (eds.): Functional Grammar and Verbal Interaction. 1998. xii,304pp. 43 Olbertz, Hella, Kees Hengeveld and Jess Snchez Garca (eds.): The Structure of the Lexicon in Functional Grammar. 1998. xii,312pp. 42 Darnell, Michael, Edith Moravcsik, Michael Noonan, Frederick J. Newmeyer and Kathleen M. Wheatley (eds.): Functionalism and Formalism in Linguistics. Volume II: Case studies. 1999. vi,407pp. 41 Darnell, Michael, Edith Moravcsik, Michael Noonan, Frederick J. Newmeyer and Kathleen M. Wheatley (eds.): Functionalism and Formalism in Linguistics. Volume I: General papers. 1999. vi,486pp. 40 Birner, Betty J. and Gregory Ward: Information Status and Noncanonical Word Order in English. 1998. xiv,314pp. 39 Wanner, Leo (ed.): Recent Trends in MeaningText Theory. 1997. xx,202pp. 38 Hacking, Jane F.: Coding the Hypothetical. A comparative typology of Russian and Macedonian conditionals. 1998. vi,156pp. 37 Harvey, Mark and Nicholas Reid (eds.): Nominal Classification in Aboriginal Australia. 1997. x,296pp. 36 Kamio, Akio (ed.): Directions in Functional Linguistics. 1997. xiii,259pp. 35 Matsumoto, Yoshiko: Noun-Modifying Constructions in Japanese. A frame semantic approach. 1997. viii,204pp. 34 Hatav, Galia: The Semantics of Aspect and Modality. Evidence from English and Biblical Hebrew. 1997. x,224pp. 33 Velzquez-Castillo, Maura: The Grammar of Possession. Inalienability, incorporation and possessor ascension in Guaran. 1996. xvi,274pp. 32 Frajzyngier, Zygmunt: Grammaticalization of the Complex Sentence. A case study in Chadic. 1996. xviii,501pp. 31 Wanner, Leo (ed.): Lexical Functions in Lexicography and Natural Language Processing. 1996. xx,355pp. 30 Huffman, Alan: The Categories of Grammar. French lui and le. 1997. xiv,379pp. 29 Engberg-Pedersen, Elisabeth, Michael Fortescue, Peter Harder, Lars Heltoft and Lisbeth Falster Jakobsen (eds.): Content, Expression and Structure. Studies in Danish functional grammar. 1996. xvi,510pp. 28 Herman, Jzsef (ed.): Linguistic Studies on Latin. Selected papers from the 6th International Colloquium on Latin Linguistics (Budapest, 2327 March 1991). 1994. ix,421pp.
27 Abraham, Werner, T. Givn and Sandra A. Thompson (eds.): Discourse, Grammar and Typology. Papers in honor of John W.M. Verhaar. 1995. xx,352pp. 26 Lima, Susan D., Roberta L. Corrigan and Gregory K. Iverson: The Reality of Linguistic Rules. 1994. xxiii,480pp. 25 Goddard, Cliff and Anna Wierzbicka (eds.): Semantic and Lexical Universals. Theory and empirical findings. 1994. viii,510pp. 24 Bhat, D.N.S.: The Adjectival Category. Criteria for differentiation and identification. 1994. xii,295pp. 23 Comrie, Bernard and Maria Polinsky (eds.): Causatives and Transitivity. 1993. x,399pp. 22 McGregor, William B.: A Functional Grammar of Gooniyandi. 1990. xx,618pp. 21 Coleman, Robert (ed.): New Studies in Latin Linguistics. Proceedings of the 4th International Colloquium on Latin Linguistics, Cambridge, April 1987. 1990. x,480pp. 20 Verhaar, John W.M. S.J. (ed.): Melanesian Pidgin and Tok Pisin. Proceedings of the First International Conference on Pidgins and Creoles in Melanesia. 1990. xiv,409pp. 19 Blust, Robert A.: Austronesian Root Theory. An essay on the limits of morphology. 1988. xi,190pp. 18 Wierzbicka, Anna: The Semantics of Grammar. 1988. vii,581pp. 17 Calboli, Gualtiero (ed.): Subordination and Other Topics in Latin. Proceedings of the Third Colloquium on Latin Linguistics, Bologna, 15 April 1985. 1989. xxix,691pp. 16 Conte, Maria-Elisabeth, Jnos Snder Petfi and Emel Szer (eds.): Text and Discourse Connectedness. Proceedings of the Conference on Connexity and Coherence, Urbino, July 1621, 1984. 1989. xxiv,584pp. 15 Justice, David: The Semantics of Form in Arabic. In the mirror of European languages. 1987. iv,417pp. 14 Benson, Morton, Evelyn Benson and Robert F. Ilson: Lexicographic Description of English. 1986. xiii,275pp. 13 Reesink, Ger P.: Structures and their Functions in Usan. 1987. xviii,369pp. 12 Pinkster, Harm (ed.): Latin Linguistics and Linguistic Theory. Proceedings of the 1st International Colloquium on Latin Linguistics, Amsterdam, April 1981. 1983. xviii,307pp. 11 Panhuis, Dirk G.J.: The Communicative Perspective in the Sentence. A study of Latin word order. 1982. viii,172pp. 10 Dressler, Wolfgang U., Willi Mayerthaler, Oswald Panagl and Wolfgang Ullrich Wurzel: Leitmotifs in Natural Morphology. 1988. ix,168pp. 9 Lang, Ewald and John Pheby: The Semantics of Coordination. (English transl. by John Pheby from the German orig. ed. 'Semantik der koordinativen Verknpfung', Berlin, 1977). 1984. 300pp. 8 Barth, E.M. and J.L. Martens (eds.): Argumentation: Approaches to Theory Formation. Containing the Contributions to the Groningen Conference on the Theory of Argumentation, October 1978. 1982. xviii,333pp. 7 Parret, Herman, Marina Sbis and Jef Verschueren (eds.): Possibilities and Limitations of Pragmatics. Proceedings of the Conference on Pragmatics, Urbino, July 814, 1979. 1981. x,854pp. 6 Vago, Robert M. (ed.): Issues in Vowel Harmony. Proceedings of the CUNY Linguistics Conference on Vowel Harmony, May 14, 1977. 1980. xx,340pp. 5 Haiman, John: Hua: A Papuan Language of the Eastern Highlands of New Guinea. 1980. iv,550pp. 4 Lloyd, Albert L.: Anatomy of the Verb. The Gothic Verb as a Model for a Unified Theory of Aspect, Actional Types, and Verbal Velocity. (Part I: Theory; Part II: Application). 1979. x,351pp. 3 Malkiel, Yakov: From Particular to General Linguistics. Selected Essays 19651978. With an introduction by the author, an index rerum and an index nominum. 1983. xxii,659pp. 2 Anwar, Mohamed Sami: BE and Equational Sentences in Egyptian Colloquial Arabic. 1979. vi,128pp. 1 Abraham, Werner (ed.): Valence, Semantic Case, and Grammatical Relations. Workshop studies prepared for the 12th International Congress of Linguists, Vienna, August 29th to September 3rd, 1977. xiv,729pp. Expected Out of print

Birner & Ward (2006) - Drawing The Boundaries

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Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning

Studies in Language Companion Series (SLCS)

Series Editors Werner Abraham

Editorial Board Joan Bybee

Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning

John Benjamins Publishing Company

Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning

Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning

Where have some of the presuppositions gone?*1

Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning

2. Presuppositions vs. conventional implicatures

Where have some of the presuppositions gone?

Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning

Where have some of the presuppositions gone?

Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning

Where have some of the presuppositions gone?

Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning

3.1 Four types of presupposition elimination

Where have some of the presuppositions gone?

Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning

3.2 Hard vs. soft triggers

Where have some of the presuppositions gone?

Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning

Where have some of the presuppositions gone?

Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning

Where have some of the presuppositions gone?

Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning

Where have some of the presuppositions gone?

Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning

The top 10 misconceptions about implicature

22 Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning

Sentences have implicatures

The top 10 misconceptions about implicature

2. Implicatures are inferences

24 Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning

3. Implicatures cant be entailments

4. Gricean maxims apply only to implicatures

The top 10 misconceptions about implicature

26 Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning

6. All pragmatic implications are implicatures

Implicatures are not part of the truth-conditional contents of utterances

The top 10 misconceptions about implicature

8. If something is meant but unsaid, it must be implicated

28 Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning

9. Scalar implicatures are implicatures

The top 10 misconceptions about implicature

10. Conventional implicatures are implicatures

30 Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning

The Obvious Conclusion

But see the papers in the Semantics-Pragmatics Series at http://online.sfsu.edu/~kbach.

Inferential relations and noncanonical word order*1

Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning

2. Noncanonical syntax and inferrable information

Inferential relations and noncanonical word order

34 Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning

Inferential relations and noncanonical word order

36 Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning

Inferential relations and noncanonical word order

Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning

Inferential relations and noncanonical word order

3. Three categories of discourse-based inferences

40 Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning