The Semantics of Manner Questions

1. The Semantics of Manner Questions Hongyuan Dong Cornell University January 4, 2008 LSA Annual Meeting, Chicago

2. Overview

3. Manner Questions: How did John dance? John danced beautifully. Instruction-seeking questions: How can I make a perfect apple pie? How did you come to Chicago?

4. My Proposals • Manners are sets of properties of events. • There is a single presupposed event in such questions. • Manners belong to a dimension of descriptions from a personal perspective, and thus manner questions do not have a partition semantics.

5. Theoretical Background

6. Two Major Semantic Theories of Questions Partition Semantics vs. Set of Propositions

7. Partition Semantics Intuitively, a person who asks a question wants to be relieved from a state of ignorance with respect to a certain piece of fact of the world, and they want to differentiate between all the possibilities and try to figure out which one is real.

8. Who went to the party? Set of individuals: {Adam, Bill, Chris, Dan} partition of the set of possible worlds 16 cells, each of which corresponds to one possibility w2, w18, … w27, w7,… w56,… w92,… w101, … w73,… w20, w42, w58, … 16 cells altogether, I only drew 7 for simplicity

9. Set of sets of possible worlds

10. Proposition-set Semantics The denotation of a question is the set of propositions that are possible answers.

11. Who went to the party? • { that Adam went to the party; that Bill went to the party; that Chris went to the party; that Dan went to the party. } c. λp∃x [person’(w)(x) ∧ p = λw’. party’(w’)(x)]

12. Karttunen(1977) modifies Hamblin’s proposal, and argues that denotations of questions contain only true answers. λp∃x [ p(w) ∧ person’(w)(x) ∧ p = λw’party’(w’)(x) ]

13. So now in the Hamblin-style semantics of questions, we can two versions of answers, i.e. the possible answers, and the true answers. True answers are derived from possible answers. These two versions are chosen by the environment in which they occur.

14. Denotation of Manner Questions

15. a. How did Jones butter the toast? b. He buttered the toast slowly. c. He buttered the toast slowly with a knife in the kitchen. d. *He buttered the toast slowly, and he buttered the toast with a knife, and he buttered the toast in the kitchen.

16. Hamblin set {that Jones buttered the toast slowly, that Jones buttered the toast quickly, that Jones buttered the toast clumsily, that Jones buttered the toast gracefully, …… } The problem is: how should we characterize the manner adverbs, which do not seem to be the same as individuals, as in the case of “what” and “who”

17. Event SemanticsDavidson (1967) & Parsons (1990) Brutus stabbed Caesar violently. ∃e [ Stabbing(e) ∧Agent(e, Brutus) ∧Patient(e, Caesar) ∧Violent(e)] To include events in the ontology. Manner adverbs are treated as predicated of events.

18. Therefore, a first attempt: {that Jones buttered the toast slowly, that Jones buttered the toast quickly, that Jones buttered the toast clumsily, that Jones buttered the toast gracefully, …… } can be represented as: {p|∃P [p = ^∃e. [Buttering(e) ∧Agent(e, Jones) ∧Patient(e, toast) ∧P(e)]]} Note here “how” quantifies over predicates of events, while in argument questions, the existential quantification is over individuals.

19. But is it right? Suppose that in the actual world Jones buttered the toast slowly and absentmindedly. {that Jones buttered the toast slowly, that Jones buttered the toast absentmindedly.} {^∃e. [Buttering(e) ∧Agent(e, Jones) ∧Patient(e, toast) ∧Slow(e)], ^∃e. [Buttering(e) ∧Agent(e, Jones) ∧Patient(e, toast) ∧Absentminded(e)]} There is a problem here!

20. Revision, a second attempt: If Jones buttered the toast slowly and absentmindedly, then there is ONLY ONE such event and there are multiple adverbial modifiers, which can be simply treated as equal conjuncts, for example: {that Jones buttered the toast slowly and absentmindedly} {^∃e. [Buttering(e) ∧Agent(e, Jones) ∧Patient(e, toast) ∧Slow(e) ∧ Absentminded(e)]

21. The correct version: {p | ∃P .[p=^∃e. [Buttering(e) ∧Agent(e, Jones) ∧Patient(e, toast) ∧[∀P∈P. P(e) ] ] } the curly P ranges over sets of predicates of events { that Jones buttered the toast slowly and beautifully, that Jones buttered the toast quickly, carelessly, and absentmindedly, that Jones buttered the toast slowly, happily, clumsily and amusedly.}

22. The Event-Singularity Presupposition (ESP)

23. ESP: there is a single presupposed event in manner how questions. An event is presupposed Only one is.

24. a. John said that she danced. (But in fact she didn’t.) b. John knows that she danced. (#But in fact she didn’t.) know: p(w) ∧ know (x, p) c. John told me that she danced at the party last night. (But in fact she didn’t dance.) d. John told me how she danced at the party last night. (#But in fact she didn’t dance.) how triggers a presupposition comparable to know. So it shows that manner questions have an event presupposition.

25. a. What did everyone buy? Quantifying into question acts (Krifka 2001) b. a={what did A buy, what did B buy, …} ={ {that A bought a1; that A bought a2; …} {that B bought b1; that B bought b2; …} … }

26. How did everyone dance? = {how did A dance; how did B dance; …} = {{that A danced a1-ly; that A danced a2-ly; …} {that B danced b1-ly; that B danced b2-ly; …} … } He danced at three parties last week. How did he dance at those parties? So this shows that in some cases where there seem be multiple events, they are in fact multiple questions about one single event.

27. More evidence from Mandarin Chinese: In Mandarin Chinese, there are two types of past tense strategy: use of the perfective aspect marker –le, and use of the cleft construction “shi…de…” (it is … that…) In most cases: -le only goes with “what” and “who” questions, i.e. argument questions; shi…de… only goes with “how” questions.

28. 1. Ni zuotian zuo shenme le? You yesterday do what ASP What did you do yesterday? 2. *Ni zuotian shi zuo de shenme? You yesterday be do DE what. 3. *Ni zuotian shi zuo shenme de? You yesterday be do DE what Intended reading for both 2 and 3: what did you do yesterday ASP: aspect marker; “-le” is a perfective ASP. “DE” is a structural morpheme which has a number of different uses.

29. 1. Ni shi zenme tiao de wu? You be how dance DE dance How did you dance? 2. *Ni zenme tiao-le wu? You how dance-ASP dance Intended reading for 2: how did you go to NYC?

30. These data from Mandarin Chinese show: • There is a distinction between the “how” questions and argument questions in terms of their event presuppositions. • The cleft construction shi…de… presupposes that there is a topic event. The manner how is the focus of the question, and the rest of the question is presupposed.

31. a. Yuehan zenme xie de na-ben-shu? John how write DE that-book How did John write that book. b. *Yuehan zenme xie de yi-ben-shu? John how write DE a-book. ? How did John write a book? The indefinite NP in (b) shows that the writing event is not presupposed, and the question is bad.

32. What have we achieved so far? • Manner questions quantify over sets of properties of events. • The propositions in the set cannot be freely conjoined to denote the same event, due to the existential quantification. • Manner questions have an event presupposition. • The event should a be a single one, i.e. we cannot ask a single question about multiple events.

33. Putting 1-4 together In the Karttunen-set, i.e. the set of true answers, there is only one proposition. {p | ∃ P .[p=^∃e. [Buttering(e) ∧Agent(e, Jones) ∧Patient(e, toast) ∧[∀P∈P. P(e) ] ] } {p | p(w) ∧∃ P.[p=^∃e. [Buttering(e) ∧Agent(e, Jones) ∧Patient(e, toast) ∧[∀P∈P. P(e) ] ] } + ESP

34. { that Jones buttered the toast slowly and beautifully, that Jones buttered the toast quickly, carelessly, and absentmindedly, that Jones buttered the toast slowly, happily, clumsily and amusedly.} {that Jones buttered the toast quickly, carelessly, and absentmindedly}

35. Applications of the semantics

36. Application 1: Asymmetry of the Use of “All” as an Exhaustivity Marker

37. McCloskey (2000): most varieties of English allow questions such as shown in (30). a. What all did you get for Christmas? b. Who all did you meet when you were in Derry? c. Where all did they go for their holidays? “All” is used as an exhaustive marker to indicate that an exhaustive answer is required.

38. But “how” questions do not allow such a marker: *How all did you answer the question. This seems to be an argument-adjunct asymmetry. But there has not been any syntactic explanation. The real reason might be semantic. This asymmetry is found in many languages, e.g. German, Dutch, and Mandarin Chinese

39. German invariant alles 1. Wen alles hat Hans besucht? Whom all has Hans visited Who all has Hans visited? 2. *Wie alles hat Hans seine Freunde besucht? How all has Hans his friends visited How all has Hans visited his friends?

40. Dutch allemaal Hij weet wie er allemaal op het feest waren. He knows who there all at the party were He knows who all were at the party. *Hoe heb je allemaal gedanst? How have you all danced? *How all have you danced?

41. Mandarin Chinese dou 1. Ni dou xihuan shei? You all like who Who all do you like? 2. ?? Ni dou zenme jiao-de zuotian-de ke? You all how teach-DE yesterday’s class How all did you teach yesterday’s class?

42. “all” quantifies over true answers answer1(w)(Q) = ∩{ p: Q(w)(p) ∧ p(w)} alles(w)(Q) = λp. [p=answer1(w)(Q)] ——From Beck and Rullmann 1999

43. Q: Who all went to the party?  All [who went to the party]? 〚who went to the party〛 = {that Adam went to the party, that Bill went to the party, that Chris went to the party.} Answer1 = {that Adam went to the party ∧ that Bill went to the party ∧ that Chris went to the party}  all〚who went to the party〛= {that Adam went to the party and that Bill went to the party and that Chris went to the party}

44. Recall Answer1: Answer1(w)(Q) = ∩{ p: Q(w)(p) ∧ p(w)} If there is only one true answer, then the conjunction operation will just be vacuous, but this does not lead to ungrammaticality. Q: How all did John dance? all [ how did John dance ]  all {^∃e. [dancing(e) ∧Agent(e, John) ∧Beautiful(e) ∧Fast(e)]} Then where does the problem of “how all” lies?  Presupposition conflict

45. Who all did you meet at the LSA annual meeting? • *Which all did you present from the three papers of yours? • c. *How all did you dance at the graduate student mixer? In a, argument wh + all is fine, as long as there is no presupposition conflict. In b, argument wh + all is bad, since “which” presupposes only one thing. In c, “all” conflicts with the ESP of manner question. (some Gricean principle?) One assumption is that “all” is directly associated with propositions in the answer set, but not the with the wh-pronoun directly.

46. Application 2: Quantificational Variability

47. Lahiri (2002: 64) a. Sue mostly remembers what she got for her birthday. b. Bill knows, for the most part, what they serve for breakfast at Tiffany’s. c. With few exceptions, John knows who likes Mary. Lahiri (2002: 144) a. ? John mostly knows how Bill fixed the car. b. ?John knows, for the most part, how Bill fixed the car. c. ?John partly knows how Bill fixed the car.

48. Manner how: ? John mostly knows how Bill danced. ? John knows, for the most part, how Bill danced. ? John partly knows how Bill danced.

49. John mostly remembers who he met at the LSA meeting. Most {that he met Maya Angelou; that he met Lucy Liu; that he met Nicolas Sarkozy; that he met Penélope Cruz.} John mostly remembers how she danced at the mixer. Most { that she danced beautifully and professionally }  There is no variability since there is only one proposition.

50. Manner questions and Partition Semantics