A Reader's Guide to Classic Papers in Formal Semantics

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Frontmatter

2. Chapter 1. On Abusch’s “Sequence of Tense and Temporal de re”

   Ana Arregui

   Abstract

   This chapter provides an overview of Dorit Abusch’s 1997 paper “Sequence of tense and temporal de re”, reporting both on the ideas presented in the paper and its influence in the field. The paper has had a lasting impact, both in in terms of its interaction with literature at the time of publication, and in terms of how it continues to shape our debates today. The chapter aims to elucidate that by tracing how various aspects of Abusch’s paper resurface in later debates.

3. Chapter 2. On Bach’s “The Algebra of Events”

   Susan Rothstein

   Abstract

   Emmon Bach’s short 1986 paper was a milestone in the study of aspect, exploring the parallels between aspectual properties of verbs and verb phrases on the one hand, and the mass/count distinction on the other. As he himself points out, he was not the first to notice these parallels, but his paper played a crucial role in bringing the topic to the attention of semanticists and syntacticians. The paper identifies the issues which need to be explored, focusing attention on the nature of the relation between telicity and countability.

4. Chapter 3. On Barwise and Cooper’s “Generalized Quantifiers and Natural Language”

   Edward L. Keenan

   Abstract

   I review “Generalized Quantifiers and Natural Language”, 1981, by Jon Barwise and Robin Cooper. I focus on the flurry of activity triggered by their paper in the early 1980s and then focus on what I consider the two major innovations in their paper: direct interpretation of English, and hypothesized language universals. I document some of the related work done in the decades following their paper.

5. Chapter 4. On Carlson’s “A Unified Analysis of the English Bare Plural”

   Donka F. Farkas

   Abstract

   This chapter discusses Carlson’s classic paper on the English bare plural, which proposes a unitary account for the quasi-universal and the existential readings of bare plurals in English (Dogs are easily trained vs. Dogs are sitting in my back yard). The summary points out the empirical basis for this unitary analysis, the structure and force of the argumentation, and the novel semantic tools this the account employs. The last part of the article provides a synopsis of the reactions to this proposal, especially in terms of its limitations when the empirical horizon is widened to include languages other than English, where bare plurals only have the existential reading.

6. Chapter 5. On Chierchia’s “Reference to Kinds Across Languages”

   Veneeta Dayal

   Abstract

   This chapter introduces the core aspects of the theory of variation proposed in Chierchia (Nat Lang Semant 6(4):339–405, 1998). Focusing primarily on noun phrases without overt determiners, Chierchia gives a principled account of what is universal and what can vary in the mapping from form to meaning within and across languages. He takes a neo-Carlsonian approach where bare plurals canonically refer to kinds, regardless of whether or not they occur as arguments of kind-level predicates. He not only captures the core readings of bare plurals but also accounts for readings that are not standardly associated with them. Most significantly, he offers a fresh perspective on cross-linguistic variation in terms of a semantic parameter constraining the type of meaning available at the level of NP, the nominal structure below determiners or quantifiers, in a given language. Following a brief sketch of the challenge that bare arguments pose for syntax and semantics in section “Introduction”, the details of Chierchia’s theory are presented in section “A Neo-Carlsonian Theory of Variation”. Sections “On Covert Type-Shifting”, “The [-pred, +arg] Setting”, and “On Singular and Definite Kind Terms” deal with the very significant responses that different aspects of the theory have generated since Chierchia’s initial proposal.

7. Chapter 6. On Davidson’s “The Logical Form of Action Sentences”

   Paul Pietroski

   Abstract

   This brief essay reviews and elaborates what I take to be Davidson’s main arguments for his celebrated “event analyses” for action reports like (1–9), beginning with the interesting pattern of implications and non-implications exhibited by such sentences.

   (1)	Scarlet poked Mustard with a pencil in the library.
   (2)	Scarlet poked Mustard with a pencil.
   (3)	Scarlet poked Mustard in the library.
   (4)	Scarlet poked Mustard.
   (5)	Scarlet poked Mustard in the kitchen.
   (6)	Scarlet poked Mustard with a spoon.
   (7)	Scarlet poked Mustard in the kitchen with a spoon.
   (8)	Scarlet poked Mustard with a pencil in the kitchen.
   (9)	Scarlet poked Mustard in the library with a spoon.

   The second part of the essay addresses some potential sources of skepticism about Davidson’s proposal, along with some subsequent sources of support, including perceptual reports like ‘Plum saw Scarlet poke Mustard’ and ‘Plum heard Mustard shriek’. Given the spirit of this volume, the presentation of Davidson’s leading ideas is more formally explicit – and more focused on issues of interest to contemporary semanticists – than in his seminal and wide-ranging paper, which was intended primarily for audiences in philosophy in the 1960s.

8. Chapter 7. On Dowty’s “Thematic Proto-Roles and Argument Selection”

   Beth Levin

   Abstract

   David Dowty’s influential paper “Thematic Proto-roles and Argument Selection” (1991) delineates the problems inherent in the traditional notion of semantic role and then proposes that these challenges can be overcome by adopting a prototype conception of this notion. Dowty introduces two ‘proto-roles’, each associated with a set of lexical entailments chosen for their relevance to argument realization. He complements the proto-roles with an Argument Selection Principle, which determines how the arguments of a transitive verb map onto subject and object on the basis of their associated entailments. After summarizing the highlights of Dowty’s paper, this commentary critically reviews its contributions and limitations. First, the commentary addresses critiques and refinements of the sets of entailments that compose Dowty’s proto-roles. Then, it discusses the pluses and minuses of the Argument Selection Principle since Dowty claims that the proto-roles are valuable precisely because they allow a range of argument realization phenomena to be captured. Finally, the commentary considers the broader impact of Dowty’s paper and reviews work that develops its ideas further.

9. Chapter 8. On Groenendijk and Stokhof’s “Dynamic Predicate Logic”

   Anthony S. Gillies

   Abstract

   This paper can serve as a gentle introduction to (but not exhaustive overview of) Groenendijk and Stokhof’s classic paper “Dynamic predicate logic”. If you are not new to dpl and so not in need of an introduction to dpl, this paper can alternatively be read as an invitation to re-read it.

10. Chapter 9. On Heim’s “On the Projection Problem for Presuppositions”

    Mandy Simons

    Abstract

    Irene Heim’s 1983 paper, “On the Projection Problem for Presuppositions” is, first, a paper about presupposition projection. But perhaps its major significance lies in its role in launching the dynamic turn in formal semantics, whose central idea is that the conventional meaning of an expression is given by a description of how that expression updates a context. The fundamental ideas of context and context change that Heim presented in this brief paper are now part of the basic toolkit of semantics. At the same time, the paper established presupposition and presupposition projection as a topic of central concern for the emerging dynamic approach. In this commentary, I briefly describe the paper’s most direct antecedents, review its central theoretical innovations, and describe some alternative approaches to the formal characterization of contexts and to the analysis of presupposition and presupposition projection.

11. Chapter 10. On Jacobson’s “Towards a Variable-Free Semantics”

    Simon Charlow

    Abstract

    Jacobson (Linguist Philos 22(2):117–184, 1999) proposes an account of anaphora that eschews variables and variable assignments, instead treating pronouns as identity functions and extending functional application with operations that pass up and close off anaphoric dependencies. I review the central aspects of Jacobson’s variable-free semantics, counterpoising it with standard accounts of anaphora. I discuss conceptual and empirical virtues of Jacobson’s theory, and some shortcomings. I sketch an alternative compositional implementation of variable-free semantics that draws on certain design features of the standard account, connect this approach to the computer science concept of ‘applicative functors’ (and thereby to frameworks as varied as alternative semantics and continuations), and clarify which of the variable-free theory’s properties should be regarded as proprietary, and which can be easily repurposed into a theory with variables.

12. Chapter 11. On Kamp’s “A Theory of Truth and Semantic Representation”

    Bart Geurts

    Abstract

    First published in 1981, Hans Kamp’s paper, “A theory of truth and semantic representation”, introduced Discourse Representation Theory, or DRT for short, which soon became one of the main frameworks in semantics and pragmatics, and in the meantime has been applied to an exceptionally wide range of phenomena, including anaphora, definites and proper names, quantification, tense and aspect, presupposition, implicatures, and attitude reports. DRT’s key innovations were two. First, it introduced a level of representation which was new to semantics. Kamp defined a formal language, with a model-theoretic interpretation, which served to represent the contents not only of individual sentences, but of entire discourses as well. Secondly, this formal language featured a new species of variables, called discourse referents, which were the keystone of DRT’s unified treatment of anaphoric pronouns. Discourse representations and discourse referents are the main topics of this commentary.

13. Chapter 12. On Karttunen’s “The Syntax and Semantics of Questions”

    Elena Guerzoni

    Abstract

    Karttunen’s article on the syntax and semantics of questions is a milestone in the truth-conditional compositional semantics of interrogatives and of verbs that embed them. It is the first comprehensive study of the mapping between the syntax and the interpretation of the three different types of questions (polar, constituent and alternative questions) and presents the first semantic analysis of question-embedding verbs (QEVs henceforth) that assumes the same intensions for matrix and embedded interrogatives. This analysis continues to vastly inspire the ongoing research on the properties of questions and QEVs. This chapter illustrates Karttunen’s theory focusing on those formal details that have been the most influential in subsequent literature. In doing so, however, I will take the liberty to suggest a less than literal rendition of these details, in an attempt to make the discussion more accessible to today’s reader. The main departure that I make here from Karttunen’s 1977 is in the formal framework. Whereas Karttunen adopts Montague’s PTQ, here I will expose his ideas in Heim and Kratzer‘s type driven semantics.

14. Chapter 13. On Kratzer’s “The Notional Category of Modality”

    Cleo Condoravdi

    Abstract

    A. Kratzer’s “The Notional Category of Modality” (NCM) develops a unified analysis of modals and conditionals, which has come to be the classic approach to modality in linguistic semantics and beyond. This chapter presents an overview of NCM’s main contributions and clarifies the motivations behind particular analytical choices, concentrating on the role of conversational backgrounds in the theory. It also highlights new research that has enriched the framework or raised outstanding issues.

15. Chapter 14. On Krifka’s “Nominal Reference, TemporalConstitutionandQuantification in Event Semantics”

    Hana Filip

    Abstract

    Krifka, in his paper “Nominal reference, temporal constitution and quantification in event semantics”, provides the first formal mereological (algebraic) analysis of the relation between nominal reference and temporal constitution (also based on his 1986 PhD thesis). The focus is on two manifestations of this relation in the grammar of natural languages. First, as many observed, there are direct structural analogies between the following two sets of distinction: namely, mass/count and atelic/telic. They are clearly reflected in their parallel cooccurrence patterns with quantifiers, numerical and measure expressions. Second, nominal reference and temporal constitution interact and mutually constraint each other in the derivation of meaning of complex verbal predicates. One key example is aspectual composition(ality) e.g., eat soup (atelic) versus eat two apples (telic). In order to provide an adequate analysis of the relevant data Krifka’s principal innovation is to assume a single join semi-lattice structure, undetermined with respect to atomicity, relative to which he defines two higher-order, cross-categorial predicates for reference types of natural language predicates: namely, quantized and cumulative. Specifically in the case of aspectual composition, the interactions and mutual constraints between the structure of objects and eventualities stem from the systematic mappings (homomorphisms) whose source is the lexical semantics of verbs. Such mappings are also independently motivated by other phenomena exhibiting systematic interactions objects and eventualities.

16. Chapter 15. On Ladusaw’s “On the Notion Affective in the Analysis of Negative-Polarity Items”

    Jon Gajewski

    Abstract

    Ladusaw’s paper “On the notion affective in the analysis of negative polarity items” presents a theory about the class of expressions that license negative polarity items in English. The result was first presented in chapter 6 of Ladusaw’s 1979 PhD dissertation and would go on to have a profound influence on the field of linguistics. Ladusaw’s account of the distribution of negative polarity items helped to bring about the maturity of the field of formal semantics, built on Montague’s foundations, and its arrival as a core part of the study of the grammar of natural languages. Ladusaw shows that an insightful analysis of the distribution of negative polarity items can be given in simple, elegant model-theoretic terms within a denotational semantics.

17. Chapter 16. On Lewis’s “Adverbs of Quantification”

    Mats Rooth

    Abstract

    David Lewis’s “Adverbs of Quantification” provided an account of words such as always and usually in examples where they occur in construction with restrictive clauses and indefinite descriptions. According to Lewis, adverbs of quantification quantify “cases”, which are tuples of witnesses for indefinite descriptions. This paper is an elementary introduction to Lewis’s approach. In a formalization, clauses contribute properties of cases, and adverbs of quantificaton contribute relations between properties of cases.

18. Chapter 17. On Link’s “The Logical Analysis of Plurals and Mass Terms: A Lattice-theoretical Approach”

    Lucas Champollion, Adrian Brasoveanu

    Abstract

    Few works in formal semantics have been as influential as Godehard Link’s 1983 paper The logical analysis of plurals and mass terms: A lattice-theoretical approach. Here we give an overview of the paper and highlight various aspects of its legacy.

19. Chapter 18. On Montague’s “The Proper Treatment of Quantification in Ordinary English”

    Thomas Ede Zimmermann

    Abstract

    In a series of papers published between 1970 and 1973, the late Richard Montague developed a mathematical theory of semantics and its interface with syntax. The theory, later to be called Montague Grammar (or Montague Semantics), was not only intended as an alternative to generative grammar but also designed so broadly as to cover both natural language and systems of formal logic. An outline of the theory was contained in the short and somewhat hermetic essay ‘Universal Grammar’ (1970). However, it was the slightly more accessible descriptive application in Montague’s last publication that was to define the vantage ground of semantic research for at least the next decade: ‘The Proper Treatment of Quantification in Ordinary English’ (1973), aka ‘PTQ’. PTQ was presented both as an illustration of the power of Montague’s general theory and as a contribution to the semantic description of English, thereby extending the range of phenomena addressed in his earlier papers. Avoiding technicalities, this survey offers a glimpse of Montague’s general theoretical contributions and the more specific descriptive aspects of PTQ from a modern perspective. It also addresses some later developments in formal semantics that were arguably provoked by inadequacies in the theoretical apparatus and descriptive details of PTQ.

20. Chapter 19. On Partee’s “Noun Phrase Interpretation and Type-Shifting Principles”

    • Open Access

    Yoad Winter

    Abstract

    Montague’s classic article “The Proper Treatment of Quantification in Ordinary English” (PTQ, 1973) treated all NP occurrences as quantificational. Partee’s article “Noun Phrase Interpretation and Type-Shifting Principles” (1987) reconciles PTQ’s uniform quantificational strategy with the older distinction between three NP types: entities, predicates and quantifiers. On top of this distinction, Partee introduces operators that allow shifting the denotation of an NP to a different type than the one it is initially assigned. Using these type-shifters, one and the same NP may receive each of the three interpretations. In addition to this synthesis of previous approaches, Partee’s article contains a rather elaborate analysis of predicative NPs, as well as insightful hints about the treatment of definite NPs, nominalization phenomena, plural, mass and generic NPs, and the mathematical principles underlying type-shifting. At a more global level, Partee’s article marks a methodological transition in formal semantics, highlighting general principles that are relevant to different languages and to different linguistic frameworks, rather than technicalities of artificial language fragments. This general account and the new ways it opened for semantic theory, together with the paper’s lucid and friendly style, have made “Noun Phrase Interpretation and Type-Shifting Principles” one of the modern classics in formal semantics. After some necessary background on NPs in PTQ, this review covers the main innovations in Partee’s article, and comments on the work and its influence.

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21. Chapter 20. On Stalnaker’s “Indicative Conditionals”

    Fabrizio Cariani

    Abstract

    Stalnaker’s “Indicative conditionals” is not primarily about conditionals. Its main goal is to showcase the power of a general-purpose theoretical framework and not to solve isolated puzzles in conditional semantics. The aim of the present paper is to introduce the central cogs, the main innovations and the general significance of that framework. My focus throughout is on unpacking Stalnaker’s views and working through some of the unfinished agenda of “Indicative conditionals”. I start out by developing the paper’s central puzzle focusing on the direct argument (the inference from she ate apples or pears to if she didn’t eat apples, she ate pears). Stalnaker’s solution is to invalidate the direct argument, but recover its plausibility by classifying it as a reasonable inference. As part of my expansion on Stalnaker’s discussion, I explore Stalnaker’s definition of reasonable inference, the logical properties of the relation, and its relation to the related concept of Strawson entailment. Following this analogy, I highlight the little emphasized fact that reasonable inference is intransitive. I conclude by discussing Stalnaker’s application of the apparatus of this paper to a purported argument for fatalism.

22. Chapter 21. On von Stechow’s “Comparing Semantic Theories of Comparison”

    Cécile Meier

    Abstract

    The syntax and semantics of expressions used to represent comparison is a central topic in linguistic theory. Arnim von Stechow was interested in how these expressions interact with other linguistic expressions and what the entailment relations are between sentences that contain expressions of comparison. In “Comparing Semantic theories of Comparison”, Von Stechow evaluates several proposals for a formal analysis of comparison constructions still current in the early 1980s. The basis for his impressive evaluation is a precise translation of the most important existing accounts into a uniform formal language. Only this enables him to compare the descriptive adequacy of the proposals. Even if one of the reviewed approaches is not able to make the correct predictions, von Stechow discusses strategies to repair it. The proposals are tested against a fixed set of phenomena. In fact, von Stechow demonstrates in an exemplary way how puzzling phenomena may play the same role in linguistics as experiments do in physics. The phenomena help us to test linguistic hypotheses and theories. Von Stechow’s conclusion is that a Russellian, i.e. a scopal theory, is correct for comparison constructions. Comparative complements are in fact nominals: the than-phrase stands in for a definite description of a degree.

23. Backmatter