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View the meeting handbook - Linguistic Society of America

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Elena Guerzoni (University <strong>of</strong> Sou<strong>the</strong>rn California)The scope <strong>of</strong> scalarity, additivity, & exclusivity in <strong>the</strong> composition <strong>of</strong> some NPIsI focus on <strong>the</strong> role that scalar (both additive and exclusive) particles (like even and only respectively) play in <strong>the</strong> semantic composition<strong>of</strong> some NPIs. Specifically, I argue that phenomena I explored in earlier work on Italian anche solo, German auch nur, and Dutchook/selfs maar, are instances <strong>of</strong> a more general cross-linguistic strategy <strong>of</strong> ‘NPI-formation’. The larger picture that emerges from<strong>the</strong>se observations can be understood, I argue, by taking into account <strong>the</strong> interaction <strong>of</strong> focus particles with each o<strong>the</strong>r and withnegation, DE-operators, and modals. More specifically, I present a detailed study <strong>of</strong> how <strong>the</strong> implicature <strong>of</strong> each relevant particle ispredicted to affect <strong>the</strong> implicature <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r from <strong>the</strong> perspective <strong>of</strong> an explicit model <strong>of</strong> presupposition projection. The resultingview extends nicely to a similar class <strong>of</strong> NPIs in languages such as Spanish (as argued in Lahiri 2006), Hungarian (as argued inAbrusan 2006), Japanese (as argued in Nakanishi 2006), and French.Laurence Horn (Yale University)(A)symmetric particles & NPI licensing: Entailment vs assertionI address <strong>the</strong> problem <strong>of</strong> (what Giannakidou 2006 calls) ‘renegade licensers’ like only and barely that trigger NPIs although <strong>the</strong>y don'tobviously create downward entailing or nonveridical contexts. Previous studies have ei<strong>the</strong>r denied that only really does license NPIsor insisted that only NP really is downward entailing after all. Invoking <strong>the</strong> distinction between semantic entailment and speakerassertion, I advocate a middle ground between <strong>the</strong> symmetricalists (e.g. Atlas 1996, 2005; Giannakidou 2006) who treat only NPstructures as expressing a simple conjunction and <strong>the</strong> radical pragmaticists (e.g. Ippolito 2005, van Rooij & Schulz 2005, followingMcCawley 1981) who treat Only love counts as merely conversationally implicating, and not entailing, that love counts.Bernhard Schwarz (McGill University)Licensing by implication: The case <strong>of</strong> PPI rescuingBaker 1970a and Linebarger 1987 proposed that negative polarity items can be licensed by implications carried by <strong>the</strong>ir hostsentences. Building on Baker 1970b, I discuss a clear case <strong>of</strong> such ‘licensing by implication’ in <strong>the</strong> grammar <strong>of</strong> positive polarity items(PPIs). I show that PPIs in <strong>the</strong> immediate scope <strong>of</strong> sentential negation can be rescued by counterfactual implications in ‘irrealis’clauses, that is, clauses headed by a verb carrying non-temporally-interpreted past tense morphology. I explore <strong>the</strong> nature <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>relevant implications by examining <strong>the</strong>ir projection behavior.88

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