Formal Approaches to Semantic Microvariation: Adverbial ...

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Following Doetjes (1997, 2007), I call this class of quantifiers degree quantifiers. They are also sometimes know as amount quantifiers in the literature. I use the term degree simply as a way of referring to the quantifiers in (9), and I do not assume that they necessarily quantify over degrees. I assume that these elements have a very simple semantics, and, as such, they have a very wide domain. For example, tellement, plus, moins, pas mal, énormément, trop and full can all quantify over events, objects, and degrees (or whatever the subdomain in which adjectives denote is). (10) a. J’ai tellement dormi que... I have so slept that... I slept so much that... b. J’ai lu tellement de livres que... I have read so of books that... ‘I read so many books that...’ c. Cette fille est tellement belle que... this girl is so beautiful that... This girl is so beautiful that... In Modern French, beaucoup and peu can only quantify over events and objects. (11) *Cette this fille est beaucoup belle girl is a lot beautiful Following Peters & Westerstahl (2006), I assume that what differentiates degree quantifiers like beaucoup from other intersective quantifiers 4 like trois is that degree quantifiers are extremely context dependent 5 : they require a contextual ‘standard’ parameter for the truth of sentences containing them to be evaluated. I therefore assume the 4 A determiner D is intersective iff D(A)(B) = D(X)(Y), whenever A ∩ B = X ∩Y , for all A,B,X,Y ⊆ E. 5 P&W argue this for English many, contra Keenan & Stavi (1986) and Fernando & Kamp (1996) who claim that many is actually intensional. Like Peters & Westerstahl, I do not see how intensions model the meaning of many and beaucoup any better than adding a contextual parameter. 12
following definitions for beaucoup and peu. (12) a. Let s 1 ∈ N, For all P,Q ∈ PE, BCP s 1 (P)(Q) = 1 iff | P ∩ Q |> s 1 b. Let s 2 ∈ N, For all P,Q ∈ P(E), PEU s 2 (P)(Q) = 1 iff | P ∩ Q |< s 2 where s 1 ,s 2 are contextually given standards for the cardinality of P ∩ Q. In this paper, I will only provide explicit semantic analyses of the behaviour of peu and beaucoup. However, my analysis of beaucoup is straightforwardly applicable to other quantifiers that mean ‘a lot’ like énormément, pas mal, and full. Likewise, the semantics of pas benben and pas ’yab could be assimilated to my proposal for peu without too much trouble. I will not, however, consider in detail the behaviour of degree quantifiers with consecutive clauses: comparatives (plus and moins) and gradation constructions (tellement, trop and assez). The primary reason for this is that there is not yet a clear consensus in the literature on the contribution of the consecutive clause in specifying the ‘standard’ to which the cardinality of the de phrase complement of these quantifiers is compared (cf. von Stechow (1984); Heim (2000); Meier (2003), and Hacquard (2006) for different analyses of the for/pour clause with too/trop). Additionally, the literature on comparatives is almost exclusively focused on their uses with adjectives: where they quantify over degrees. The use of more in the nominal domain is usually treated as a secondary use derived by type-shifting the denotation of the noun into a set of degrees. In this paper, we are interested in what happens when adverbs (event quantifiers) seem to be quantifying over objects; therefore, theories that focus only on the uses of these quantifiers in the ‘degree’ domain are not so relevant here. 13
Page 1 and 2: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angele
Page 3 and 4: 3.3.1 Split DPs in Old French . . .
Page 5 and 6: CHAPTER 1 Introduction This thesis
Page 7 and 8: concrete example of the contributio
Page 9 and 10: The thesis is organized as follows:
Page 11: As pointed out by Keenan & Westerst
Page 15 and 16: ‘I slept a lot’ b. Je suis beau
Page 17 and 18: (21) Let s 1 ∈ N such that 0 < s
Page 19 and 20: involves unreducible binary quantif
Page 21 and 22: dently, are islands for movement. A
Page 23 and 24: a. ...parce qu’une longue bibliog
Page 25 and 26: f. Elle a tellement applaudi que..
Page 27 and 28: 2.1.2.3 Multiplicity of Events Anot
Page 29 and 30: . Elle vient d’avoir beaucoup d
Page 31 and 32: ‘Jean has owned a lot of horses
Page 33 and 34: sis [i.e. movement analysis-H.B], s
Page 35 and 36: object. Other more complicated move
Page 37 and 38: Only the (internal) arguments of V
Page 39 and 40: Semantic incorporation has been pro
Page 41 and 42: Based on a study of the scope prope
Page 43 and 44: QAD sentences with multiple events
Page 45 and 46: . Quatre mille navires sont passés
Page 47 and 48: She proposes that nouns contain two
Page 49 and 50: (Doetjes (1997: 271, her (40)) Seco
Page 51 and 52: As shown below, like souvent, rarem
Page 53 and 54: (79) a. J’ai rarement apprécié
Page 55 and 56: 2.2.1 The Unreducibility of BCP SF
Page 57 and 58: (where s = 1 or t = 1, and s or t =
Page 59 and 60: phrases in object position are comb
Page 61 and 62: . *J’ai beaucoup écrit ma thèse
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As mentioned above, a major problem
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She attributes this exceptional vio
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(106) Different students answered d
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(2) a. Dans cette cassette, il a be
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(10) J’ai beaucoup appelé de mè
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(16) Theorem 2: For all s ∈ N, BC
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BCP 1 s ({x : ∃e(Reading(e,I,x) &
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c. *Marie beaucoup a lu de livres M
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. la perte doit moult desplaire the
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(28) Peu portent fruit et assez fue
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‘There are a lot of countries in
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The second argument that Split [+Te
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3.3.3 Summary In the study of the e
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(40) J’ai beaucoup mangé de pomm
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(45) a. il confessa qu’il avoit b
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(1) pas ‘not’, point ‘not’,
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in this way to account for another
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(10) is entirely true for Québec F
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avoid confusion, I therefore re-nam
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quantifiers Q ′ leads to the cons
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and cannot combine with a one-place
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As first noticed by Obenauer (1976)
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4) The frequency adverb souvent ‘
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Nevertheless, Rizzi and Obenauer’
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forward: The polyadic elements comb
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quantifiers in Québec French, I st
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(Doetjes (2007)). (52) L’été pa
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I proposed that the elements that l
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Adams, Marianne. 1987.
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Doetjes, Jenny. 1997. Quantifiers a
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Labelle, Marie and Daniel Valois. 2
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Rowlett, Paul. 1996. Negative Confi
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